CLARA HOPGOOD

CHAPTER I

About ten miles north-east of Eastthorpe lies the town of Fenmarket, very like Eastthorpe generally; and as we are already familiar withEastthorpe, a particular description of Fenmarket is unnecessary. There is, however, one marked difference between them. Eastthorpe, it will be remembered, is on the border between the low uplands andthe Fens, and has one side open to soft, swelling hills. Fenmarketis entirely in the Fens, and all the roads that lead out of it arealike level, monotonous, straight, and flanked by deep and stagnantditches. The river, also, here is broader and slower; more reluctantthan it is even at Eastthorpe to hasten its journey to the inevitablesea. During the greater part of the year the visitor to Fenmarketwould perhaps find it dull and depressing, and at times, under agrey, wintry sky, almost unendurable; but nevertheless, for days andweeks it has a charm possessed by few other landscapes in England, provided only that behind the eye which looks there is something towhich a landscape of that peculiar character answers. There is, forexample, the wide, dome-like expanse of the sky, there is thedistance, there is the freedom and there are the stars on a clearnight. The orderly, geometrical march of the constellations from theextreme eastern horizon across the meridian and down to the west hasa solemn majesty, which is only partially discernible when theircourse is interrupted by broken country. 

On a dark afternoon in November 1844, two young women, Clara andMadge Hopgood, were playing chess in the back parlour of theirmother's house at Fenmarket, just before tea. Clara, the elder, wasabout five-and-twenty, fair, with rather light hair worn flat at theside of her face, after the fashion of that time. Her features weretolerably regular. It is true they were somewhat marred by an unevennasal outline, but this was redeemed by the curved lips of a mouthwhich was small and rather compressed, and by a definite, symmetricaland graceful figure. Her eyes were grey, with a curious peculiarityin them. Ordinarily they were steady, strong eyes, excellent andrenowned optical instruments. Over and over again she had detected, along the stretch of the Eastthorpe road, approaching visitors, andhad named them when her companions could see nothing but specks. Occasionally, however, these steady, strong, grey eyes utterlychanged. They were the same eyes, the same colour, but they ceasedto be mere optical instruments and became instruments of expression, transmissive of radiance to such a degree that the light which wasreflected from them seemed insufficient to account for it. It wasalso curious that this change, though it must have been accompaniedby some emotion, was just as often not attended by any other sign ofit. Clara was, in fact, little given to any display of feeling. 

Madge, four years younger than her sister, was of a different typealtogether, and one more easily comprehended. She had very heavydark hair, and she had blue eyes, a combination which fascinatedFenmarket. Fenmarket admired Madge more than it was admired by herin return, and she kept herself very much to herself, notwithstandingwhat it considered to be its temptations. If she went shopping shenearly always went with her sister; she stood aloof from all thesmall gaieties of the town; walked swiftly through its streets, andrepelled, frigidly and decisively, all offers, and they were not afew, which had been made to her by the sons of the Fenmarkettradesfolk. Fenmarket pronounced her 'stuck-up, ' and having thuslabelled her, considered it had exhausted her. The very importantquestion, Whether there was anything which naturally stuck up?Fenmarket never asked. It was a great relief to that provinciallittle town in 1844, in this and in other cases, to find a word whichreleased it from further mental effort and put out of sight anytroublesome, straggling, indefinable qualities which it wouldotherwise have been forced to examine and name. Madge was certainlystuck-up, but the projection above those around her was notartificial. Both she and her sister found the ways of Fenmarket werenot to their taste. The reason lay partly in their nature and partlyin their history. 

Mrs Hopgood was the widow of the late manager in the Fenmarket branchof the bank of Rumbold, Martin & Rumbold, and when her husband diedshe had of course to leave the Bank Buildings. As her income wassomewhat straitened, she was obliged to take a small house, and shewas now living next door to the 'Crown and Sceptre, ' the principalinn in the town. There was then no fringe of villas to Fenmarket forretired quality; the private houses and shops were all mixedtogether, and Mrs Hopgood's cottage was squeezed in between theironmonger's and the inn. It was very much lower than either of itsbig neighbours, but it had a brass knocker and a bell, and distinctlyasserted and maintained a kind of aristocratic superiority. 

Mr Hopgood was not a Fenmarket man. He came straight from London tobe manager. He was in the bank of the London agents of Rumbold, Martin & Rumbold, and had been strongly recommended by the city firmas just the person to take charge of a branch which needed thoroughreorganisation. He succeeded, and nobody in Fenmarket was morerespected. He lived, however, a life apart from his neighbours, excepting so far as business was concerned. He went to church onceon Sunday because the bank expected him to go, but only once, and hadnothing to do with any of its dependent institutions. He was a greatbotanist, very fond of walking, and in the evening, when Fenmarketgenerally gathered itself into groups for gossip, either in thestreet or in back parlours, or in the 'Crown and Sceptre, ' MrHopgood, tall, lean and stately, might be seen wandering along thesolitary roads searching for flowers, which, in that part of theworld, were rather scarce. He was also a great reader of the bestbooks, English, German and French, and held high doctrine, very highfor those days, on the training of girls, maintaining that they need, even more than boys, exact discipline and knowledge. Boys, hethought, find health in an occupation; but an uncultivated, unmarriedgirl dwells with her own untutored thoughts, which often breeddisease. His two daughters, therefore, received an education muchabove that which was usual amongst people in their position, and eachof them--an unheard of wonder in Fenmarket--had spent some time in aschool in Weimar. Mr Hopgood was also peculiar in his way of dealingwith his children. He talked to them and made them talk to him, andwhatever they read was translated into speech; thought, in his house, was vocal. 

Mrs Hopgood, too, had been the intimate friend of her husband, andwas the intimate friend of her daughters. She was now nearly sixty, but still erect and graceful, and everybody could see that thepicture of a beautiful girl of one-and-twenty, which hung oppositethe fireplace, had once been her portrait. She had been brought up, as thoroughly as a woman could be brought up, in those days, to be agoverness. The war prevented her education abroad, but her father, who was a clergyman, not too rich, engaged a French emigrant lady tolive in his house to teach her French and other accomplishments. Sheconsequently spoke French perfectly, and she could also read andspeak Spanish fairly well, for the French lady had spent some yearsin Spain. Mr Hopgood had never been particularly in earnest aboutreligion, but his wife was a believer, neither High Church nor LowChurch, but inclined towards a kind of quietism not uncommon in theChurch of England, even during its bad time, a reaction against theformalism which generally prevailed. When she married, Mrs Hopgooddid not altogether follow her husband. She never separated herselffrom her faith, and never would have confessed that she had separatedherself from her church. But although she knew that his creedexternally was not hers, her own was not sharply cut, and shepersuaded herself that, in substance, his and her belief wereidentical. As she grew older her relationship to the Unseen becamemore and more intimate, but she was less and less inclined tocriticise her husband's freedom, or to impose on the children a rulewhich they would certainly have observed, but only for her sake. Every now and then she felt a little lonely; when, for example, sheread one or two books which were particularly her own; when shethought of her dead father and mother, and when she prayed hersolitary prayer. Mr Hopgood took great pains never to disturb thatsacred moment. Indeed, he never for an instant permitted a finger tobe laid upon what she considered precious. He loved her because shehad the strength to be what she was when he first knew her and shehad so fascinated him. He would have been disappointed if themistress of his youth had become some other person, although thechange, in a sense, might have been development and progress. He didreally love her piety, too, for its own sake. It mixed somethingwith her behaviour to him and to the children which charmed him, andhe did not know from what other existing source anything comparableto it could be supplied. Mrs Hopgood seldom went to church. Thechurch, to be sure, was horribly dead, but she did not give that as areason. She had, she said, an infirmity, a strange restlessnesswhich prevented her from sitting still for an hour. She oftenpleaded this excuse, and her husband and daughters never, by word orsmile, gave her the least reason to suppose that they did not believeher. 

CHAPTER II

Both Clara and Madge went first to an English day-school, and Clarawent straight from this school to Germany, but Madge's course was alittle different. She was not very well, and it was decided that sheshould have at least a twelvemonth in a boarding-school at Brightonbefore going abroad. It had been very highly recommended, but thehead-mistress was Low Church and aggressive. Mr Hopgood, far awayfrom the High and Low Church controversy, came to the conclusionthat, in Madge's case, the theology would have no effect on her. Itwas quite impossible, moreover, to find a school which would be justwhat he could wish it to be. Madge, accordingly, was sent toBrighton, and was introduced into a new world. She was justbeginning to ask herself WHY certain things were right and otherthings were wrong, and the Brighton answer was that the former weredirected by revelation and the latter forbidden, and that the 'body'was an affliction to the soul, a means of 'probation, ' our principalduty being to 'war' against it. 

Madge's bedroom companion was a Miss Selina Fish, daughter ofBarnabas Fish, Esquire, of Clapham, and merchant of the City ofLondon. Miss Fish was not traitorous at heart, but when she foundout that Madge had not been christened, she was so overcome that shewas obliged to tell her mother. Miss Fish was really unhappy, andone cold night, when Madge crept into her neighbour's bed, contraryto law, but in accordance with custom when the weather was verybitter, poor Miss Fish shrank from her, half-believing that somethingdreadful might happen if she should by any chance touch unbaptised, naked flesh. Mrs Fish told her daughter that perhaps Miss Hopgoodmight be a Dissenter, and that although Dissenters were to be pitied, and even to be condemned, many of them were undoubtedly among theredeemed, as for example, that man of God, Dr Doddridge, whose FamilyExpositor was read systematically at home, as Selina knew. Thenthere were Matthew Henry, whose commentary her father preferred toany other, and the venerable saint, the Reverend William Jay of Bath, whom she was proud to call her friend. Miss Fish, therefore, madefurther inquiries gently and delicately, but she found to her horrorthat Madge had neither been sprinkled nor immersed! Perhaps she wasa Jewess or a heathen! This was a happy thought, for then she mightbe converted. Selina knew what interest her mother took in missionsto heathens and Jews; and if Madge, by the humble instrumentality ofa child, could be brought to the foot of the Cross, what would hermother and father say? What would they not say? Fancy taking Madgeto Clapham in a nice white dress--it should be white, thought Selina--and presenting her as a saved lamb!

The very next night she began, -

'I suppose your father is a foreigner?'

'No, he is an Englishman. '

'But if he is an Englishman you must have been baptised, orsprinkled, or immersed, and your father and mother must belong tochurch or chapel. I know there are thousands of wicked people whobelong to neither, but they are drunkards and liars and robbers, andeven they have their children christened. '

'Well, he is an Englishman, ' said Madge, smiling. 

'Perhaps, ' said Selina, timidly, 'he may be--he may be--Jewish. Mamma and papa pray for the Jews every morning. They are not likeother unbelievers. '

'No, he is certainly not a Jew. '

'What is he, then?'

'He is my papa and a very honest, good man. '

'Oh, my dear Madge! honesty is a broken reed. I have heard mamma saythat she is more hopeful of thieves than honest people who think theyare saved by works, for the thief who was crucified went to heaven, and if he had been only an honest man he never would have found theSaviour and would have gone to hell. Your father must be something. '

'I can only tell you again that he is honest and good. '

Selina was confounded. She had heard of those people who wereNOTHING, and had always considered them as so dreadful that she couldnot bear to think of them. The efforts of her father and mother didnot extend to them; they were beyond the reach of the preacher--merevessels of wrath. If Madge had confessed herself Roman Catholic, oridolator, Selina knew how to begin. She would have pointed out tothe Catholic how unscriptural it was to suppose that anybody couldforgive sins excepting God, and she would at once have been able tobring the idolator to his knees by exposing the absurdity ofworshipping bits of wood and stone; but with a person who was nothingshe could not tell what to do. She was puzzled to understand whatright Madge had to her name. Who had any authority to say she was tobe called Madge Hopgood? She determined at last to pray to God andagain ask her mother's help. 

She did pray earnestly that very night, and had not finished untillong after Madge had said her Lord's Prayer. This was always saidnight and morning, both by Madge and Clara. They had been taught itby their mother. It was, by the way, one of poor Selina's troublesthat Madge said nothing but the Lord's Prayer when she lay down andwhen she rose; of course, the Lord's Prayer was the best--how couldit be otherwise, seeing that our Lord used it?--but those whosupplemented it with no petitions of their own were set down asformalists, and it was always suspected that they had not receivedthe true enlightenment from above. Selina cried to God till thecounterpane was wet with her tears, but it was the answer from hermother which came first, telling her that however praiseworthy herintentions might be, argument with such a DANGEROUS infidel as Madgewould be most perilous, and she was to desist from it at once. MrsFish had by that post written to Miss Pratt, the schoolmistress, andSelina no doubt would not be exposed to further temptation. MrsFish's letter to Miss Pratt was very strong, and did not mincematters. She informed Miss Pratt that a wolf was in her fold, andthat if the creature were not promptly expelled, Selina must beremoved into safety. Miss Pratt was astonished, and instantly, asher custom was, sought the advice of her sister, Miss Hannah Pratt, who had charge of the wardrobes and household matters generally. Miss Hannah Pratt was never in the best of tempers, and just now wasa little worse than usual. It was one of the rules of the schoolthat no tradesmen's daughters should be admitted, but it was verydifficult to draw the line, and when drawn, the Misses Pratt wereobliged to admit it was rather ridiculous. There was much debateover an application by an auctioneer. He was clearly not atradesman, but he sold chairs, tables and pigs, and, as Miss Hannahsaid, used vulgar language in recommending them. However, his wifehad money; they lived in a pleasant house in Lewes, and the line wentoutside him. But when a druggist, with a shop in Bond Street, proposed his daughter, Miss Hannah took a firm stand. What is theuse of a principle, she inquired severely, if we do not adhere to it?On the other hand, the druggist's daughter was the eldest of six, whomight all come when they were old enough to leave home, and MissPratt thought there was a real difference between a druggist and, say, a bootmaker. 

'Bootmaker!' said Miss Hannah with great scorn. 'I am surprised thatyou venture to hint the remotest possibility of such a contingency. '

At last it was settled that the line should also be drawn outside thedruggist. Miss Hannah, however, had her revenge. A tanner inBermondsey with a house in Bedford Square, had sent two of hischildren to Miss Pratt's seminary. Their mother found out that theyhad struck up a friendship with a young person whose fathercompounded prescriptions for her, and when she next visited Brightonshe called on Miss Pratt, reminded her that it was understood thather pupils would 'all be taken from a superior class in society, ' andgently hinted that she could not allow Bedford Square to becontaminated by Bond Street. Miss Pratt was most apologetic, enlarged upon the druggist's respectability, and more particularlyupon his well-known piety and upon his generous contributions to thecause of religion. This, indeed, was what decided her to make anexception in his favour, and the piety also of his daughter was 'mostexemplary. ' However, the tanner's lady, although a shining light inthe church herself, was not satisfied that a retail saint couldproduce a proper companion for her own offspring, and went awayleaving Miss Pratt very uncomfortable. 

'I warned you, ' said Miss Hannah; 'I told you what would happen, andas to Mr Hopgood, I suspected him from the first. Besides, he isonly a banker's clerk. '

'Well, what is to be done?'

'Put your foot down at once. ' Miss Hannah suited the action to theword, and put down, with emphasis, on the hearthrug a very large, plate-shaped foot cased in a black felt shoe. 

'But I cannot dismiss them. Don't you think it will be better, firstof all, to talk to Miss Hopgood? Perhaps we could do her some good. '

'Good! Now, do you think we can do any good to an atheist? Besides, we have to consider our reputation. Whatever good we might do, itwould be believed that the infection remained. '

'We have no excuse for dismissing the other. '

'Excuse! none is needed, nor would any be justifiable. Excuses areimmoral. Say at once--of course politely and with regret--that theschool is established on a certain basis. It will be an advantage tous if it is known why these girls do not remain. I will dictate theletter, if you like. '

Miss Hannah Pratt had not received the education which had been givento her younger sister, and therefore, was nominally subordinate, butreally she was chief. She considered it especially her duty not onlyto look after the children's clothes, the servants and the accounts, but to maintain TONE everywhere in the establishment, and to stiffenher sister when necessary, and preserve in proper sharpness herorthodoxy, both in theology and morals. 

Accordingly, both the girls left, and both knew the reason forleaving. The druggist's faith was sorely tried. If Miss Pratt's hadbeen a worldly seminary he would have thought nothing of suchbehaviour, but he did not expect it from one of the faithful. Thenext Sunday morning after he received the news, he stayed at home outof his turn to make up any medicines which might be urgentlyrequired, and sent his assistant to church. 

As to Madge, she enjoyed her expulsion as a great joke, and herBrighton experiences were the cause of much laughter. She hadlearned a good deal while she was away from home, not precisely whatit was intended she should learn, and she came back with a strong, insurgent tendency, which was even more noticeable when she returnedfrom Germany. Neither of the sisters lived at the school in Weimar, but at the house of a lady who had been recommended to Mrs Hopgood, and by this lady they were introduced to the great German classics. She herself was an enthusiast for Goethe, whom she well remembered inhis old age, and Clara and Madge, each of them in turn, learned toknow the poet as they would never have known him in England. Eventhe town taught them much about him, for in many ways it wasexpressive of him and seemed as if it had shaped itself for him. Itwas a delightful time for them. They enjoyed the society andconstant mental stimulus; they loved the beautiful park; not aseparate enclosure walled round like an English park, but sufferingthe streets to end in it, and in summer time there were excursionsinto the Thuringer Wald, generally to some point memorable inhistory, or for some literary association. The drawback was thecontrast, when they went home, with Fenmarket, with its dulness andits complete isolation from the intellectual world. At Weimar, inthe evening, they could see Egmont or hear Fidelio, or talk withfriends about the last utterance upon the Leben Jesu; but theFenmarket Egmont was a travelling wax-work show, its Fidelio psalmtunes, or at best some of Bishop's glees, performed by a few of thetradesfolk, who had never had an hour's instruction in music; and fortheological criticism there were the parish church and Ram LaneChapel. They did their best; they read their old favourites andsubscribed for a German as well as an English literary weeklynewspaper, but at times they were almost beaten. Madge more thanClara was liable to depression. 

No Fenmarket maiden, other than the Hopgoods, was supposed to haveany connection whatever, or to have any capacity for any connectionwith anything outside the world in which 'young ladies' dwelt, and ifa Fenmarket girl read a book, a rare occurrence, for there were nocirculating libraries there in those days, she never permittedherself to say anything more than that it was 'nice, ' or it was 'notnice, ' or she 'liked it' or did 'not like it;' and if she hadventured to say more, Fenmarket would have thought her odd, not tosay a little improper. The Hopgood young women were almost entirelyisolated, for the tradesfolk felt themselves uncomfortable andinferior in every way in their presence, and they were ineligible forrectory and brewery society, not only because their father was merelya manager, but because of their strange ways. Mrs Tubbs, thebrewer's wife, thought they were due to Germany. From what she knewof Germany she considered it most injudicious, and even morallywrong, to send girls there. She once made the acquaintance of aGerman lady at an hotel at Tunbridge Wells, and was quite shocked. She could see quite plainly that the standard of female delicacy mustbe much lower in that country than in England. Mr Tubbs was sure MrsHopgood must have been French, and said to his daughters, mysteriously, 'you never can tell who Frenchwomen are. '

'But, papa, ' said Miss Tubbs, 'you know Mrs Hopgood's maiden name; wefound that out. It was Molyneux. '

'Of course, my dear, of course; but if she was a Frenchwoman residentin England she would prefer to assume an English name, that is to sayif she wished to be married. '

Occasionally the Miss Hopgoods were encountered, and they confoundedFenmarket sorely. On one memorable occasion there was a party at theRectory: it was the annual party into which were swept all theunclassifiable odds-and-ends which could not be put into the twogatherings which included the aristocracy and the democracy of theplace. Miss Clara Hopgood amazed everybody by 'beginning talk, ' byasking Mrs Greatorex, her hostess, who had been far away to Sidmouthfor a holiday, whether she had been to the place where Coleridge wasborn, and when the parson's wife said she had not, and that she couldnot be expected to make a pilgrimage to the birthplace of an infidel, Miss Hopgood expressed her surprise, and declared she would walktwenty miles any day to see Ottery St Mary. Still worse, whensomebody observed that an Anti-Corn-Law lecturer was coming toFenmarket, and the parson's daughter cried 'How horrid!' MissHopgood talked again, and actually told the parson that, so far asshe had read upon the subject--fancy her reading about the Corn-Laws!--the argument was all one way, and that after Colonel Thompsonnothing new could really be urged. 

'What is so--' she was about to say 'objectionable, ' but sherecollected her official position and that she was bound to bepolitic--'so odd and unusual, ' observed Mrs Greatorex to Mrs Tubbsafterwards, 'is not that Miss Hopgood should have radical views. MrsBarker, I know, is a radical like her husband, but then she neverputs herself forward, nor makes speeches. I never saw anything quitelike it, except once in London at a dinner-party. Lady Montgomerythen went on in much the same way, but she was a baronet's wife; thebaronet was in Parliament; she received a good deal and was obligedto entertain her guests. '

Poor Clara! she was really very unobtrusive and very modest, butthere had been constant sympathy between her and her father, not thedumb sympathy as between man and dog, but that which can manifestitself in human fashion. 

CHAPTER III

Clara and her father were both chess-players, and at the time atwhich our history begins, Clara had been teaching Madge the game forabout six months. 

'Check!' said Clara. 

'Check! after about a dozen moves. It is of no use to go on; youalways beat me. I should not mind that if I were any better now thanwhen I started. It is not in me. '

'The reason is that you do not look two moves ahead. You never sayto yourself, "Suppose I move there, what is she likely to do, andwhat can I do afterwards?"'

'That is just what is impossible to me. I cannot hold myself down;the moment I go beyond the next move my thoughts fly away, and I amin a muddle, and my head turns round. I was not born for it. I cando what is under my nose well enough, but nothing more. '

'The planning and the forecasting are the soul of the game. I shouldlike to be a general, and play against armies and calculate theconsequences of manoeuvres. '

'It would kill me. I should prefer the fighting. Besides, calculation is useless, for when I think that you will be sure tomove such and such a piece, you generally do not. '

'Then what makes the difference between the good and the bad player?'

'It is a gift, an instinct, I suppose. '

'Which is as much as to say that you give it up. You are very fondof that word instinct; I wish you would not use it. '

'I have heard you use it, and say you instinctively like this personor that. '

'Certainly; I do not deny that sometimes I am drawn to a person orrepelled from him before I can say why; but I always force myself todiscover afterwards the cause of my attraction or repulsion, and Ibelieve it is a duty to do so. If we neglect it we are little betterthan the brutes, and may grossly deceive ourselves. '

At this moment the sound of wheels was heard, and Madge jumped up, nearly over-setting the board, and rushed into the front room. Itwas the four-horse coach from London, which, once a day, passedthrough Fenmarket on its road to Lincoln. It was not the directroute from London to Lincoln, but the Defiance went this way toaccommodate Fenmarket and other small towns. It slackened speed inorder to change horses at the 'Crown and Sceptre, ' and as Madge stoodat the window, a gentleman on the box-seat looked at her intently ashe passed. In another minute he had descended, and was welcomed bythe landlord, who stood on the pavement. Clara meanwhile had takenup a book, but before she had read a page, her sister skipped intothe parlour again, humming a tune. 

'Let me see--check, you said, but it is not mate. '

She put her elbows on the table, rested her head between her hands, and appeared to contemplate the game profoundly. 

'Now, then, what do you say to that?'

It was really a very lucky move, and Clara, whose thoughts perhapswere elsewhere, was presently most unaccountably defeated. Madge wastriumphant. 

'Where are all your deep-laid schemes? Baffled by a poor creaturewho can hardly put two and two together. '

'Perhaps your schemes were better than mine. '

'You know they were not. I saw the queen ought to take that bishop, and never bothered myself as to what would follow. Have you not lostyour faith in schemes?'

'You are very much mistaken if you suppose that, because of onefailure, or of twenty failures, I would give up a principle. '

'Clara, you are a strange creature. Don't let us talk any more aboutchess. '

Madge swept all the pieces with her hand into the box, shut it, closed the board, and put her feet on the fender. 

'You never believe in impulses or in doing a thing just because hereand now it appears to be the proper thing to do. Suppose anybodywere to make love to you--oh! how I wish somebody would, you deargirl, for nobody deserves it more--' Madge put her head caressinglyon Clara's shoulder and then raised it again. 'Suppose, I say, anybody were to make love to you, would you hold off for six monthsand consider, and consider, and ask yourself whether he had such andsuch virtues, and whether he could make you happy? Would not thatstifle love altogether? Would you not rather obey your firstimpression and, if you felt you loved him, would you not say "Yes"?'

'Time is not everything. A man who is prompt and is thereforethought to be hasty by sluggish creatures who are never half awake, may in five minutes spend more time in consideration than his criticswill spend in as many weeks. I have never had the chance, and am notlikely to have it. I can only say that if it were to come to me, Ishould try to use the whole strength of my soul. Precisely becausethe question would be so important, would it be necessary to employevery faculty I have in order to decide it. I do not believe inoracles which are supposed to prove their divinity by giving noreasons for their commands. '

'Ah, well, _I_ believe in Shakespeare. His lovers fall in love atfirst sight. '

'No doubt they do, but to justify yourself you have to suppose thatyou are a Juliet and your friend a Romeo. They may, for aught Iknow, be examples in my favour. However, I have to lay down a rulefor my own poor, limited self, and, to speak the truth, I am afraidthat great men often do harm by imposing on us that which isserviceable to themselves only; or, to put it perhaps more correctly, we mistake the real nature of their processes, just as a person whois unskilled in arithmetic would mistake the processes of anybody whois very quick at it, and would be led away by them. Shakespeare ismuch to me, but the more he is to me, the more careful I ought to beto discover what is the true law of my own nature, more important tome after all than Shakespeare's. '

'Exactly. I know what the law of mine is. If a man were to presenthimself to me, I should rely on that instinct you so much despise, and I am certain that the balancing, see-saw method would be fatal. It would disclose a host of reasons against any conclusion, and Ishould never come to any. '

Clara smiled. Although this impetuosity was foreign to her, sheloved it for the good which accompanied it. 

'You do not mean to say you would accept or reject him at once?'

'No, certainly not. What I mean is that in a few days, perhaps in ashorter time, something within me would tell me whether we weresuited to one another, although we might not have talked upon half-a-dozen subjects. '

'I think the risk tremendous. '

'But there is just as much risk the other way. You would examineyour friend, catalogue him, sum up his beliefs, note his behaviourunder various experimental trials, and miserably fail, after all yourscientific investigation, to ascertain just the one important pointwhether you loved him and could live with him. Your reason was notmeant for that kind of work. If a woman trusts in such matters tothe faculty by which, when she wishes to settle whether she is totake this house or that, she puts the advantages of the larger backkitchen on one side and the bigger front kitchen on the other, I pityher. '

Mrs Hopgood at this moment came downstairs and asked when in the nameof fortune they meant to have the tea ready. 

CHAPTER IV

Frank Palmer, the gentleman whom we saw descend from the coach, wasthe eldest son of a wholesale and manufacturing chemist in London. He was now about five-and-twenty, and having just been admitted as apartner, he had begun, as the custom was in those days, to travel forhis firm. The elder Mr Palmer was a man of refinement, somethingmore than a Whig in politics, and an enthusiastic member of the BroadChurch party, which was then becoming a power in the country. He waswell-to-do, living in a fine old red-brick house at Stoke Newington, with half-a-dozen acres of ground round it, and, if Frank had beenborn thirty years later, he would probably have gone to Cambridge orOxford. In those days, however, it was not the custom to send boysto the Universities unless they were intended for the law, divinityor idleness, and Frank's training, which was begun at St Paul'sschool, was completed there. He lived at home, going to school inthe morning and returning in the evening. He was surrounded by everyinfluence which was pure and noble. Mr Maurice and Mr Sterling werehis father's guests, and hence it may be inferred that there was analtar in the house, and that the sacred flame burnt thereon. MrPalmer almost worshipped Mr Maurice, and his admiration was notblind, for Maurice connected the Bible with what was rational in hisfriend. 'What! still believable: no need then to pitch itoverboard: here after all is the Eternal Word!' It can be imaginedhow those who dared not close their eyes to the light, and yet clungto that book which had been so much to their forefathers andthemselves, rejoiced when they were able to declare that it belongedto them more than to those who misjudged them and could deny thatthey were heretics. The boy's education was entirely classical andathletic, and as he was quick at learning and loved his games, hetook a high position amongst his school-fellows. He was notparticularly reflective, but he was generous and courageous, perfectly straightforward, a fair specimen of thousands of Englishpublic-school boys. As he grew up, he somewhat disappointed hisfather by a lack of any real interest in the subjects in which hisfather was interested. He accepted willingly, and evenenthusiastically, the household conclusions on religion and politics, but they were not properly his, for he accepted them merely asconclusions and without the premisses, and it was often even a littleannoying to hear him express some free opinion on religious questionsin a way which showed that it was not a growth but something pickedup. Mr Palmer, senior, sometimes recoiled into intolerance andorthodoxy, and bewildered his son who, to use one of his own phrases, 'hardly knew where his father was. ' Partly the reaction was due tothe oscillation which accompanies serious and independent thought, but mainly it was caused by Mr Palmer's discontent with Frank'sappropriation of a sentiment or doctrine of which he was not thelawful owner. Frank, however, was so hearty, so affectionate, and socheerful, that it was impossible not to love him dearly. 

In his visits to Fenmarket, Frank had often noticed Madge, for the'Crown and Sceptre' was his headquarters, and Madge was well enoughaware that she had been noticed. He had inquired casually who it waswho lived next door, and when the waiter told him the name, and thatMr Hopgood was formerly the bank manager, Frank remembered that hehad often heard his father speak of a Mr Hopgood, a clerk in a bankin London, as one of his best friends. He did not fail to ask hisfather about this friend, and to obtain an introduction to the widow. He had now brought it to Fenmarket, and within half an hour after hehad alighted, he had presented it. 

Mrs Hopgood, of course, recollected Mr Palmer perfectly, and thewelcome to Frank was naturally very warm. It was delightful toconnect earlier and happier days with the present, and she was proudin the possession of a relationship which had lasted so long. Claraand Madge, too, were both excited and pleased. To say nothing ofFrank's appearance, of his unsnobbish, deferential behaviour whichshowed that he understood who they were and that the little housemade no difference to him, the girls and the mother could not resista side glance at Fenmarket and the indulgence of a secretsatisfaction that it would soon hear that the son of Mr Palmer, sowell known in every town round about, was on intimate terms withthem. 

Madge was particularly gay that evening. The presence of sympatheticpeople was always a powerful stimulus to her, and she was oftenastonished at the witty things and even the wise things she said insuch company, although, when she was alone, so few things wise orwitty occurred to her. Like all persons who, in conversation, do notso much express the results of previous conviction obtained insilence as the inspiration of the moment, Madge dazzled everybody bya brilliancy which would have been impossible if she had communicatedthat which had been slowly acquired, but what she left with those wholistened to her, did not always seem, on reflection, to be so much asit appeared to be while she was talking. Still she was verycharming, and it must be confessed that sometimes her spontaneity wastruer than the limitations of speech more carefully weighed. 

'What makes you stay in Fenmarket, Mrs Hopgood? How I wish you wouldcome to London!'

'I do not wish to leave it now; I have become attached to it; I havevery few friends in London, and lastly, perhaps the most convincingreason, I could not afford it. Rent and living are cheaper here thanin town. '

'Would you not like to live in London, Miss Hopgood?'

Clara hesitated for a few seconds. 

'I am not sure--certainly not by myself. I was in London once forsix months as a governess in a very pleasant family, where I saw muchsociety; but I was glad to return to Fenmarket. '

'To the scenery round Fenmarket, ' interrupted Madge; 'it is soromantic, so mountainous, so interesting in every way. '

'I was thinking of people, strange as it may appear. In Londonnobody really cares for anybody, at least, not in the sense in whichI should use the words. Men and women in London stand for certaintalents, and are valued often very highly for them, but they arevalued merely as representing these talents. Now, if I had a talent, I should not be satisfied with admiration or respect because of it. No matter what admiration, or respect, or even enthusiasm I mightevoke, even if I were told that my services had been immense and thatlife had been changed through my instrumentality, I should feel thelack of quiet, personal affection, and that, I believe, is not commonin London. If I were famous, I would sacrifice all the adoration ofthe world for the love of a brother--if I had one--or a sister, whoperhaps had never heard what it was which had made me renowned. '

'Certainly, ' said Madge, laughing, 'for the love of SUCH a sister. But, Mr Palmer, I like London. I like the people, just the people, although I do not know a soul, and not a soul cares a brass farthingabout me. I am not half so stupid in London as in the country. Inever have a thought of my own down here. How should I? But inLondon there is plenty of talk about all kinds of things, and I findI too have something in me. It is true, as Clara says, that nobodyis anything particular to anybody, but that to me is rather pleasant. I do not want too much of profound and eternal attachments. They arerather a burden. They involve profound and eternal attachment on mypart; and I have always to be at my best; such watchfulness and suchjealousy! I prefer a dressing-gown and slippers and bonds which arenot so tight. '

'Madge, Madge, I wish you would sometimes save me the trouble oflaboriously striving to discover what you really mean. '

Mrs Hopgood bethought herself that her daughters were talking toomuch to one another, as they often did, even when guests werepresent, and she therefore interrupted them. 

'Mr Palmer, you see both town and country--which do you prefer?'

'Oh! I hardly know; the country in summer-time, perhaps, and town inthe winter. '

This was a safe answer, and one which was not very original; that isto say, it expressed no very distinct belief; but there was one validreason why he liked being in London in the winter. 

'Your father, I remember, loves music. I suppose you inherit histaste, and it is impossible to hear good music in the country. '

'I am very fond of music. Have you heard "St Paul?" I was atBirmingham when it was first performed in this country. Oh! it ISlovely, ' and he began humming 'Be thou faithful unto death. '

Frank did really care for music. He went wherever good music was tobe had; he belonged to a choral society and was in great requestamongst his father's friends at evening entertainments. He couldalso play the piano, so far as to be able to accompany himselfthereon. He sang to himself when he was travelling, and oftenmurmured favourite airs when people around him were talking. He hadlessons from an old Italian, a little, withered, shabby creature, whowas not very proud of his pupil. 'He is a talent, ' said the Signor, 'and he will amuse himself; good for a ballad at a party, but amusician? no!' and like all mere 'talents' Frank failed in his songsto give them just what is of most value--just that which separates anartistic performance from the vast region of well-meaning, respectable, but uninteresting commonplace. There was a curious lackin him also of correspondence between his music and the rest ofhimself. As music is expression, it might be supposed that somethingwhich it serves to express would always lie behind it; but this wasnot the case with him, although he was so attractive and delightfulin many ways. There could be no doubt that his love for Beethovenwas genuine, but that which was in Frank Palmer was not that of whichthe sonatas and symphonies of the master are the voice. He went intoraptures over the slow movement in the C minor Symphony, but no Cminor slow movement was discernible in his character. 

'What on earth can be found in "St Paul" which can be put to music?'said Madge. 'Fancy a chapter in the Epistle to the Romans turnedinto a duet!'

'Madge! Madge! I am ashamed of you, ' said her mother. 

'Well, mother, ' said Clara, 'I am sure that some of the settings byyour divinity, Handel, are absurd. "For as in Adam all die" may betrue enough, and the harmonies are magnificent, but I am alwaystempted to laugh when I hear it. '

Frank hummed the familiar apostrophe 'Be not afraid. '

'Is that a bit of "St Paul"?' said Mrs Hopgood. 

'Yes, it goes like this, ' and Frank went up to the little piano andsang the song through. 

'There is no fault to be found with that, ' said Madge, 'so far as thecoincidence of sense and melody is concerned, but I do not care muchfor oratorios. Better subjects can be obtained outside the Bible, and the main reason for selecting the Bible is that what is calledreligious music may be provided for good people. An oratorio, to me, is never quite natural. Jewish history is not a musical subject, and, besides, you cannot have proper love songs in an oratorio, andin them music is at its best. '

Mrs Hopgood was accustomed to her daughter's extravagance, but shewas, nevertheless, a little uncomfortable. 

'Ah!' said Frank, who had not moved from the piano, and he struck thefirst two bars of 'Adelaide. '

'Oh, please, ' said Madge, 'go on, go on, ' but Frank could not quitefinish it. 

She was sitting on the little sofa, and she put her feet up, lay andlistened with her eyes shut. There was a vibration in Mr Palmer'svoice not perceptible during his vision of the crown of life and offidelity to death. 

'Are you going to stay over Sunday?' inquired Mrs Hopgood. 

'I am not quite sure; I ought to be back on Sunday evening. Myfather likes me to be at home on that day. '

'Is there not a Mr Maurice who is a friend of your father?'

'Oh, yes, a great friend. '

'He is not High Church nor Low Church?'

'No, not exactly. '

'What is he, then? What does he believe?'

'Well, I can hardly say; he does not believe that anybody will beburnt in a brimstone lake for ever. '

'That is what he does not believe, ' interposed Clara. 

'He believes that Socrates and the great Greeks and Romans who actedup to the light that was within them were not sent to hell. I thinkthat is glorious, don't you?'

'Yes, but that also is something he does not believe. What is therein him which is positive? What has he distinctly won from theunknown?'

'Ah, Miss Hopgood, you ought to hear him yourself; he is wonderful. I do admire him so much; I am sure you would like him. '

'If you do not go home on Saturday, ' said Mrs Hopgood, 'we shall bepleased if you will have dinner with us on Sunday; we generally gofor a walk in the afternoon. '

Frank hesitated, but at that moment Madge rose from the sofa. Herhair was disarranged, and she pushed its thick folds backward. Itgrew rather low down on her forehead and stood up a little on hertemples, a mystery of shadow and dark recess. If it had beenelectrical with the force of a strong battery and had touched him, hecould not have been more completely paralysed, and his half-erectresolution to go back on Saturday was instantly laid flat. 

'Thank you, Mrs Hopgood, ' looking at Madge and meeting her eyes, 'Ithink it very likely I shall stay, and if I do I will most certainlyaccept your kind invitation. '

CHAPTER V

Sunday morning came, and Frank, being in the country, consideredhimself absolved from the duty of going to church, and went for along stroll. At half-past one he presented himself at Mrs Hopgood'shouse. 

'I have had a letter from London, ' said Clara to Frank, 'telling me amost extraordinary story, and I should like to know what you think ofit. A man, who was left a widower, had an only child, a lovelydaughter of about fourteen years old, in whose existence his own wascompletely wrapped up. She was subject at times to curious fits ofself-absorption or absence of mind, and while she was under theirinfluence she resembled a somnambulist rather than a sane human beingawake. Her father would not take her to a physician, for he dreadedlest he should be advised to send her away from home, and he alsofeared the effect which any recognition of her disorder might haveupon her. He believed that in obscure and half-mental diseases likehers, it was prudent to suppress all notice of them, and that if hebehaved to her as if she were perfectly well, she would stand achance of recovery. Moreover, the child was visibly improving, andit was probable that the disturbance in her health would be speedilyoutgrown. One hot day he went out shopping with her, and he observedthat she was tired and strange in her manner, although she was notill, or, at least, not so ill as he had often before seen her. Thefew purchases they had to make at the draper's were completed, andthey went out into the street. He took her hand-bag, and, in doingso, it opened and he saw to his horror a white silk pocket-handkerchief crumpled up in it, which he instantly recognised as onewhich had been shown him five minutes before, but he had not bought. The next moment a hand was on his shoulder. It was that of anassistant, who requested that they would both return for a fewminutes. As they walked the half dozen steps back, the father'sresolution was taken. "I am sixty, " he thought to himself, "and sheis fourteen. " They went into the counting-house and he confessedthat he had taken the handkerchief, but that it was taken by mistakeand that he was about to restore it when he was arrested. The poorgirl was now herself again, but her mind was an entire blank as towhat she had done, and she could not doubt her father's statement, for it was a man's handkerchief and the bag was in his hands. Thedraper was inexorable, and as he had suffered much from petty theftsof late, had determined to make an example of the first offender whomhe could catch. The father was accordingly prosecuted, convicted andsentenced to imprisonment. When his term had expired, his daughter, who, I am glad to say, never for an instant lost her faith in him, went away with him to a distant part of the country, where they livedunder an assumed name. About ten years afterwards he died and kepthis secret to the last; but he had seen the complete recovery andhappy marriage of his child. It was remarkable that it neveroccurred to her that she might have been guilty, but her father'sconfession, as already stated, was apparently so sincere that shecould do nothing but believe him. You will wonder how the facts werediscovered. After his death a sealed paper disclosing them wasfound, with the inscription, "Not to be opened during my daughter'slife, and if she should have children or a husband who may surviveher, it is to be burnt. " She had no children, and when she died asan old woman, her husband also being dead, the seal was broken. '

'Probably, ' said Madge, 'nobody except his daughter believed he wasnot a thief. For her sake he endured the imputation of commonlarceny, and was content to leave the world with only a remote chancethat he would ever be justified. '

'I wonder, ' said Frank, 'that he did not admit that it was hisdaughter who had taken the handkerchief, and excuse her on the groundof her ailment. '

'He could not do that, ' replied Madge. 'The object of his life wasto make as little of the ailment as possible. What would have beenthe effect on her if she had been made aware of its fearfulconsequences? Furthermore, would he have been believed? And then--awful thought, the child might have suspected him of attempting toshield himself at her expense! Do you think you could be capable ofsuch sacrifice, Mr Palmer?'

Frank hesitated. 'It would--'

'The question is not fair, Madge, ' said Mrs Hopgood, interruptinghim. 'You are asking for a decision when all the materials to makeup a decision are not present. It is wrong to question ourselves incold blood as to what we should do in a great strait; for theemergency brings the insight and the power necessary to deal with it. I often fear lest, if such-and-such a trial were to befall me, Ishould miserably fail. So I should, furnished as I now am, but notas I should be under stress of the trial. '

'What is the use, ' said Clara, 'of speculating whether we can, orcannot, do this or that? It IS now an interesting subject fordiscussion whether the lie was a sin. '

'No, ' said Madge, 'a thousand times no. '

'Brief and decisive. Well, Mr Palmer, what do you say?'

'That is rather an awkward question. A lie is a lie. '

'But not, ' broke in Madge, vehemently, 'to save anybody whom youlove. Is a contemptible little two-foot measuring-tape to be appliedto such an action as that?'

'The consequences of such a philosophy, though, my dear, ' said MrsHopgood, 'are rather serious. The moment you dispense with a fixedstandard, you cannot refuse permission to other people to dispensewith it also. '

'Ah, yes, I know all about that, but I am not going to give up myinstinct for the sake of a rule. Do what you feel to be right, andlet the rule go hang. Somebody, cleverer in logic than we are, willcome along afterwards and find a higher rule which we have obeyed, and will formulate it concisely. '

'As for my poor self, ' said Clara, 'I do not profess to know, withoutthe rule, what is right and what is not. We are always trying totranscend the rule by some special pleading, and often in virtue ofsome fancied superiority. Generally speaking, the attempt is fatal. '

'Madge, ' said Mrs Hopgood, 'your dogmatic decision may have beeninteresting, but it prevented the expression of Mr Palmer's opinion. '

Madge bent forward and politely inclined her head to the embarrassedFrank. 

'I do not know what to say. I have never thought much about suchmatters. Is not what they call casuistry a science among RomanCatholics? If I were in a difficulty and could not tell right fromwrong, I should turn Catholic, and come to you as my priest, MrsHopgood. '

'Then you would do, not what you thought right yourself, but what Ithought right. The worth of the right to you is that it is yourright, and that you arrive at it in your own way. Besides, you mightnot have time to consult anybody. Were you never compelled to settlepromptly a case of this kind?'

'I remember once at school, when the mathematical master was out ofthe class-room, a boy named Carpenter ran up to the blackboard andwrote "Carrots" on it. That was the master's nickname, for he wasred-haired. Scarcely was the word finished, when Carpenter heard himcoming along the passage. There was just time partially to rub outsome of the big letters, but CAR remained, and Carpenter was standingat the board when "Carrots" came in. He was an excitable man, and heknew very well what the boys called him. 

'"What have you been writing on the board, sir?"

'"Carpenter, sir. "

'The master examined the board. The upper half of the second R wasplainly perceptible, but it might possibly have been a P. He turnedround, looked steadily at Carpenter for a moment, and then looked atus. Carpenter was no favourite, but not a soul spoke. 

'"Go to your place, sir. "

'Carpenter went to his place, the letters were erased and the lessonwas resumed. I was greatly perplexed; I had acquiesced in a cowardlyfalsehood. Carrots was a great friend of mine, and I could not bearto feel that he was humbugged, so when we were outside I went up toCarpenter and told him he was an infernal sneak, and we had adesperate fight, and I licked him, and blacked both his eyes. I didnot know what else to do. '

The company laughed. 

'We cannot, ' said Madge, 'all of us come to terms after this fashionwith our consciences, but we have had enough of these discussions onmorality. Let us go out. '

They went out, and, as some relief from the straight road, theyturned into a field as they came home, and walked along a footpathwhich crossed the broad, deep ditches by planks. They were withinabout fifty yards of the last and broadest ditch, more a dyke than aditch, when Frank, turning round, saw an ox which they had notnoticed, galloping after them. 

'Go on, go on, ' he cried, 'make for the plank. '

He discerned in an instant that unless the course of the animal couldbe checked it would overtake them before the bridge could be reached. The women fled, but Frank remained. He was in the habit of carryinga heavy walking-stick, the end of which he had hollowed out in hisschooldays and had filled up with lead. Just as the ox came uponhim, it laid its head to the ground, and Frank, springing aside, dealt it a tremendous, two-handed blow on the forehead with hisknobbed weapon. The creature was dazed, it stopped and staggered, and in another instant Frank was across the bridge in safety. Therewas a little hysterical sobbing, but it was soon over. 

'Oh, Mr Palmer, ' said Mrs Hopgood, 'what presence of mind and whatcourage! We should have been killed without you. '

'The feat is not original, Mrs Hopgood. I saw it done by a toughlittle farmer last summer on a bull that was really mad. There wasno ditch for him though, poor fellow, and he had to jump a hedge. '

'You did not find it difficult, ' said Madge, 'to settle your problemwhen it came to you in the shape of a wild ox. '

'Because there was nothing to settle, ' said Frank, laughing; 'therewas only one thing to be done. '

'So you believed, or rather, so you saw, ' said Clara. 'I should haveseen half-a-dozen things at once--that is to say, nothing. '

'And I, ' said Madge, 'should have settled it the wrong way: I amsure I should, even if I had been a man. I should have bolted. '

Frank stayed to tea, and the evening was musical. He left about ten, but just as the door had shut he remembered he had forgotten hisstick. He gave a gentle rap and Madge appeared. She gave him hisstick. 

'Good-bye again. Thanks for my life. '

Frank cursed himself that he could not find the proper word. He knewthere was something which might be said and ought to be said, but hecould not say it. Madge held out her hand to him, he raised it tohis lips and kissed it, and then, astonished at his boldness, heinstantly retreated. He went to the 'Crown and Sceptre' and was soonin bed, but not to sleep. Strange, that the moment we lie down inthe dark, images, which were half obscured, should become sointensely luminous! Madge hovered before Frank with almost tangibledistinctness, and he felt his fingers moving in her heavy, voluptuoustresses. Her picture at last became almost painful to him and shamedhim, so that he turned over from side to side to avoid it. He hadnever been thrown into the society of women of his own age, for hehad no sister, and a fire was kindled within him which burnt with aheat all the greater because his life had been so pure. At last hefell asleep and did not wake till late in the morning. He had justtime to eat his breakfast, pay one more business visit in the town, and catch the coach due at eleven o'clock from Lincoln to London. Asthe horses were being changed, he walked as near as he dared ventureto the windows of the cottage next door, but he could see nobody. When the coach, however, began to move, he turned round and lookedbehind him, and a hand was waved to him. He took off his hat, and infive minutes he was clear of the town. It was in sight a long way, but when, at last, it disappeared, a cloud of wretchedness swept overhim as the vapour sweeps up from the sea. What was she doing?talking to other people, existing for others, laughing with others!There were miles between himself and Fenmarket. Life! what was life?A few moments of living and long, dreary gaps between. All this, however, is a vain attempt to delineate what was shapeless. It wasan intolerable, unvanquishable oppression. This was Love; this wasthe blessing which the god with the ruddy wings had bestowed on him. It was a relief to him when the coach rattled through Islington, andin a few minutes had landed him at the 'Angel. '

CHAPTER VI

There was to be a grand entertainment in the assembly room of the'Crown and Sceptre' in aid of the County Hospital. Mrs Martin, widowof one of the late partners in the bank, lived in a large house nearFenmarket, and still had an interest in the business. She wasdistinctly above anybody who lived in the town, and she knew how toshow her superiority by venturing sometimes to do what her urbanneighbours could not possibly do. She had been known to carrythrough the street a quart bottle of horse physic although it waswrapped up in nothing but brown paper. On her way she met thebrewer's wife, who was more aggrieved than she was when Mrs Martin'scarriage swept past her in the dusty, narrow lane which led to theHall. Mrs Martin could also afford to recognise in a measure theclaims of education and talent. A gentleman came from London tolecture in the town, and showed astonished Fenmarket an orrery and amagic lantern with dissolving views of the Holy Land. The exhibitionhad been provided in order to extinguish a debt incurred in repairingthe church, but the rector's wife, and the brewer's wife, afterconsultation, decided that they must leave the lecturer to return tohis inn. Mrs Martin, however, invited him to supper. Of course sheknew Mr Hopgood well, and knew that he was no ordinary man. She knewalso something of Mrs Hopgood and the daughters, and that they wereno ordinary women. She had been heard to say that they were ladies, and that Mr Hopgood was a gentleman; and she kept up a distant kindof intimacy with them, always nodded to them whenever she met them, and every now and then sent them grapes and flowers. She hadobserved once or twice to Mrs Tubbs that Mr Hopgood was a remarkableperson, who was quite scientific and therefore did not associate withthe rest of the Fenmarket folk; and Mrs Tubbs was much annoyed, particularly by a slight emphasis which she thought she detected inthe 'therefore, ' for Mr Tubbs had told her that one of the smallerLondon brewers, who had only about fifty public-houses, had refusedto meet at dinner a learned French chemist who had written books. Mrs Martin could not make friends with the Hopgoods, nor enter thecottage. It would have been a transgression of that infinitely fineand tortuous line whose inexplicable convolutions mark off what isforbidden to a society lady. Clearly, however, the Hopgoods could berequested to co-operate at the 'Crown and Sceptre;' in fact, it wouldbe impolitic not to put some of the townsfolk on the list of patrons. So it came about that Mrs Hopgood was included, and that she was maderesponsible for the provision of one song and one recitation. Forthe song it was settled that Frank Palmer should be asked, as hewould be in Fenmarket. Usually he came but once every half year, buthe had not been able, so he said, to finish all his work the lasttime. The recitation Madge undertook. 

The evening arrived, the room was crowded and a dozen privatecarriages stood in the 'Crown and Sceptre' courtyard. Frank calledfor the Hopgoods. Mrs Hopgood and Clara sat with presentationtickets in the second row, amongst the fashionable folk; Frank andMadge were upon the platform. Frank was loudly applauded in 'Il MioTesoro, ' but the loudest applause of the evening was reserved forMadge, who declaimed Byron's 'Destruction of Sennacherib' with muchenergy. She certainly looked very charming in her red gown, harmonising with her black hair. The men in the audience werevociferous for something more, and would not be contented until sheagain came forward. The truth is, that the wily young woman hadprepared herself beforehand for possibilities, but she artfullyconcealed her preparation. Looking on the ground and hesitating, shesuddenly raised her head as if she had just remembered something, andthen repeated Sir Henry Wotton's 'Happy Life. ' She was again greetedwith cheers, subdued so as to be in accordance with the character ofthe poem, but none the less sincere, and in the midst of them shegracefully bowed and retired. Mrs Martin complimented her warmly atthe end of the performance, and inwardly debated whether Madge couldbe asked to enliven one of the parties at the Hall, and how it could, at the same time, be made clear to the guests that she and hermother, who must come with her, were not even acquaintances, properlyso called, but were patronised as persons of merit living in the townwhich the Hall protected. Mrs Martin was obliged to be very careful. She certainly was on the list at the Lord Lieutenant's, but she wasin the outer ring, and she was not asked to those small and selectlittle dinners which were given to Sir Egerton, the Dean ofPeterborough, Lord Francis, and his brother, the county member. Shedecided, however, that she could make perfectly plain the conditionsupon which the Hopgoods would be present, and the next day she sentMadge a little note asking her if she would 'assist in somefestivities' at the Hall in about two months' time, which were to begiven in celebration of the twenty-first birthday of Mrs Martin'sthird son. The scene from the 'Tempest, ' where Ferdinand and Mirandaare discovered playing chess, was suggested, and it was proposed thatMadge should be Miranda, and Mr Palmer Ferdinand. Mrs Martinconcluded with a hope that Mrs Hopgood and her eldest daughter would'witness the performance. '

Frank joyously consented, for amateur theatricals had alwaysattracted him, and in a few short weeks he was again at Fenmarket. He was obliged to be there for three or four days before theentertainment, in order to attend the rehearsals, which Mrs Martinhad put under the control of a professional gentleman from London, and Madge and he were consequently compelled to make frequentjourneys to the Hall. 

At last the eventful night arrived, and a carriage was hired nextdoor to take the party. They drove up to the grand entrance and weremet by a footman, who directed Madge and Frank to their dressing-rooms, and escorted Mrs Hopgood and Clara to their places in thetheatre. They had gone early in order to accommodate Frank andMadge, and they found themselves alone. They were surprised thatthere was nobody to welcome them, and a little more surprised whenthey found that the places allotted to them were rather in the rear. Presently two or three fiddlers were seen, who began to tune theirinstruments. Then some Fenmarket folk and some of the well-to-dotenants on the estate made their appearance, and took seats on eitherside of Mrs Hopgood and Clara. Quite at the back were the servants. At five minutes to eight the band struck up the overture to 'Zampa, 'and in the midst of it in sailed Mrs Martin and a score or two offashionably-dressed people, male and female. The curtain ascendedand Prospero's cell was seen. Alonso and his companions wereproperly grouped, and Prospero began, -

 'Behold, Sir King, The wronged Duke of Milan, Prospero. '

The audience applauded him vigorously when he came to the end of hisspeech, but there was an instantaneous cry of 'hush!' when Prosperodisclosed the lovers. It was really very pretty. Miranda wore aloose, simple, white robe, and her wonderful hair was partly twistedinto a knot, and partly strayed down to her waist. The dialoguebetween the two was spoken with much dramatic feeling, and whenFerdinand came to the lines -

 'Sir, she is mortal, But by immortal Providence she's mine, '

old Boston, a worthy and wealthy farmer, who sat next to Mrs Hopgood, cried out 'hear, hear!' but was instantly suppressed. 

He put his head down behind the people in front of him, rubbed hisknees, grinned, and then turned to Mrs Hopgood, whom he knew, andwhispered, with his hand to his mouth, -

'And a precious lucky chap he is. '

Mrs Hopgood watched intently, and when Gonzalo invoked the gods todrop a blessed crown on the couple, and the applause was renewed, andBoston again cried 'hear, hear!' without fear of check, she did notapplaud, for something told her that behind this stage show a dramawas being played of far more serious importance. 

The curtain fell, but there were loud calls for the performers. Itrose, and they presented themselves, Alonso still holding the handsof the happy pair. The cheering now was vociferous, moreparticularly when a wreath was flung at the feet of the youngprincess, and Ferdinand, stooping, placed it on her head. 

Again the curtain fell, the band struck up some dance music and theaudience were treated to 'something light, ' and roared with laughterat a pretty chambermaid at an inn who captivated and bamboozled ayoung booby who was staying there, pitched him overboard; 'wonderedwhat he meant;' sang an audacious song recounting her many exploits, and finished with a pas-seul. 

The performers and their friends were invited to a sumptuous supper, and the Fenmarket folk were not at home until half-past two in themorning. On their way back, Clara broke out against thejuxtaposition of Shakespeare and such vulgarity. 

'Much better, ' she said, 'to have left the Shakespeare outaltogether. The lesson of the sequence is that each is good in itsway, a perfectly hateful doctrine to me. 

Frank and Madge were, however, in the best of humours, especiallyFrank, who had taken a glass of wine beyond his customary verytemperate allowance. 

'But, Miss Hopgood, Mrs Martin had to suit all tastes; we must not betoo severe upon her. '

There was something in this remark most irritating to Clara; the word'tastes, ' for example, as if the difference between Miranda and thechambermaid were a matter of 'taste. ' She was annoyed too withFrank's easy, cheery tones for she felt deeply what she said, and hismitigation and smiling latitudinarianism were more exasperating thandirect opposition. 

'I am sure, ' continued Frank, 'that if we were to take the votes ofthe audience, Miranda would be the queen of the evening;' and he putthe crown which he had brought away with him on her head again. 

Clara was silent. In a few moments they were at the door of theirhouse. It had begun to rain, and Madge, stepping out of the carriagein a hurry, threw a shawl over her head, forgetting the wreath. Itfell into the gutter and was splashed with mud. Frank picked it up, wiped it as well as he could with his pocket-handkerchief, took itinto the parlour and laid it on a chair. 

CHAPTER VII

The next morning it still rained, a cold rain from the north-east, avery disagreeable type of weather on the Fenmarket flats. Madge wasnot awake until late, and when she caught sight of the grey sky andsaw her finery tumbled on the floor--no further use for it in anyshape save as rags--and the dirty crown, which she had broughtupstairs, lying on the heap, the leaves already fading, she feltdepressed and miserable. The breakfast was dull, and for the mostpart all three were silent. Mrs Hopgood and Clara went away to begintheir housework, leaving Madge alone. 

'Madge, ' cried Mrs Hopgood, 'what am I to do with this thing? It isof no use to preserve it; it is dead and covered with dirt. '

'Throw it down here. '

She took it and rammed it into the fire. At that moment she sawFrank pass. He was evidently about to knock, but she ran to the doorand opened it. 

'I did not wish to keep you waiting in the wet. '

'I am just off but I could not help calling to see how you are. What! burning your laurels, the testimony to your triumph?'

'Triumph! rather transitory; finishes in smoke, ' and she pushed twoor three of the unburnt leaves amongst the ashes and covered themover. He stooped down, picked up a leaf, smoothed it between hisfingers, and then raised his eyes. They met hers at that instant, asshe lifted them and looked in his face. They were near one another, and his hands strayed towards hers till they touched. She did notwithdraw; he clasped the hand, she not resisting; in another momenthis arms were round her, his face was on hers, and he was swept intoself-forgetfulness. Suddenly the horn of the coach about to startawoke him, and he murmured the line from one of his speeches of thenight before -

'But by immortal Providence she's mine. '

She released herself a trifle, held her head back as if she desiredto survey him apart from her, so that the ecstasy of union might berenewed, and then fell on his neck. 

The horn once more sounded, she let him out silently, and he was off. Mrs Hopgood and Clara presently came downstairs. 

'Mr Palmer came in to bid you good-bye, but he heard the coach andwas obliged to rush away. '

'What a pity, ' said Mrs Hopgood, 'that you did not call us. '

'I thought he would be able to stay longer. '

The lines which followed Frank's quotation came into her head, -

'Sweet lord, you play me false. ' 'No, my dearest love, I would not for the world. '

'An omen, ' she said to herself; '"he would not for the world. "'

She was in the best of spirits all day long. When the housework wasover and they were quiet together, she said, -

'Now, my dear mother and sister, I want to know how the performancepleased you. '

'It was as good as it could be, ' replied her mother, 'but I cannotthink why all plays should turn upon lovemaking. I wonder whetherthe time will ever come when we shall care for a play in which thereis no courtship. '

'What a horrible heresy, mother, ' said Madge. 

'It may be so; it may be that I am growing old, but it seemsastonishing to me sometimes that the world does not grow a littleweary of endless variations on the same theme. '

'Never, ' said Madge, 'as long as it does not weary of the thingitself, and it is not likely to do that. Fancy a young man and ayoung woman stopping short and exclaiming, "This is just what everyson of Adam and daughter of Eve has gone through before; why shouldwe proceed?" Besides, it is the one emotion common to the wholeworld; we can all comprehend it. Once more, it reveals character. In Hamlet and Othello, for example, what is interesting is not solelythe bare love. The natures of Hamlet and Othello are brought tolight through it as they would not have been through any otherstimulus. I am sure that no ordinary woman ever shows what shereally is, except when she is in love. Can you tell what she is fromwhat she calls her religion, or from her friends, or even from herhusband?'

'Would it not be equally just to say women are more alike in lovethan in anything else? Mind, I do not say alike, but more alike. Isit not the passion which levels us all?'

'Oh, mother, mother! did one ever hear such dreadful blasphemy? Thatthe loves, for example, of two such cultivated, exquisite creaturesas Clara and myself would be nothing different from those of thebarmaids next door?'

'Well, at anyrate, I do not want to see MY children in love tounderstand what they are--to me at least. '

'Then, if you comprehend us so completely--and let us have no morephilosophy--just tell me, should I make a good actress? Oh! to beable to sway a thousand human beings into tears or laughter! It mustbe divine. '

'No, I do not think you would, ' replied Clara. 

'Why not, miss? YOUR opinion, mind, was not asked. Did I not act toperfection last night?'

'Yes. '

'Then why are you so decisive?'

'Try a different part some day. I may be mistaken. '

'You are very oracular. '

She turned to the piano, played a few chords, closed the instrument, swung herself round on the music stool, and said she should go for awalk. 

CHAPTER VIII

It was Mr Palmer's design to send Frank abroad as soon as heunderstood the home trade. It was thought it would be an advantageto him to learn something of foreign manufacturing processes. Frankhad gladly agreed to go, but he was now rather in the mood for delay. Mr Palmer conjectured a reason for it, and the conjecture wasconfirmed when, after two or three more visits to Fenmarket, perfectly causeless, so far as business was concerned, Frank askedfor the paternal sanction to his engagement with Madge. Consent waswillingly given, for Mr Palmer knew the family well; letters passedbetween him and Mrs Hopgood, and it was arranged that Frank's visitto Germany should be postponed till the summer. He was nowfrequently at Fenmarket as Madge's accepted suitor, and, as thespring advanced, their evenings were mostly spent by themselves outof doors. One afternoon they went for a long walk, and on theirreturn they rested by a stile. Those were the days when Tennyson wasbeginning to stir the hearts of the young people in England, and thetwo little green volumes had just become a treasure in the Hopgoodhousehold. Mr Palmer, senior, knew them well, and Frank, hearing hisfather speak so enthusiastically about them, thought Madge would likethem, and had presented them to her. He had heard one or two readaloud at home, and had looked at one or two himself, but had gone nofurther. Madge, her mother, and her sister had read and re-readthem. 

'Oh, ' said Madge, 'for that Vale in Ida. Here in these fens how Ilong for something that is not level! Oh, for the roar of -

"The long brook falling thro' the clov'n ravineIn cataract after cataract to the sea. "

Go on with it, Frank. '

'I cannot. '

'But you know OEnone?'

'I cannot say I do. I began it--'

'Frank, how could you begin it and lay it down unfinished? Besides, those lines are some of the first; you MUST remember -

"Behind the valley topmost GargarusStands up and takes the morning. "'

'No, I do not recollect, but I will learn them; learn them for yoursake. '

'I do not want you to learn them for my sake. '

'But I shall. '

She had taken off her hat and his hand strayed to her neck. Her headfell on his shoulder and she had forgotten his ignorance of OEnone. Presently she awoke from her delicious trance and they movedhomewards in silence. Frank was a little uneasy. 

'I do greatly admire Tennyson, ' he said. 

'What do you admire? You have hardly looked at him. '

'I saw a very good review of him. I will look that review up, by theway, before I come down again. Mr Maurice was talking about it. '

Madge had a desire to say something, but she did not know what tosay, a burden lay upon her chest. It was that weight which pressesthere when we are alone with those with whom we are not strangers, but with whom we are not completely at home, and she actually foundherself impatient and half-desirous of solitude. This must becriminal or disease, she thought to herself, and she forciblyrecalled Frank's virtues. She was so far successful that when theyparted and he kissed her, she was more than usually caressing, andher ardent embrace, at least for the moment, relieved that unpleasantsensation in the region of the heart. When he had gone she reasonedwith herself. What a miserable counterfeit of love, she argued, ismere intellectual sympathy, a sympathy based on books! What didMiranda know about Ferdinand's 'views' on this or that subject? Loveis something independent of 'views. ' It is an attraction which hasalways been held to be inexplicable, but whatever it may be it is not'views. ' She was becoming a little weary, she thought, of what wascalled 'culture. ' These creatures whom we know through Shakespeareand Goethe are ghostly. What have we to do with them? It is idlework to read or even to talk fine things about them. It ends innothing. What we really have to go through and that which goesthrough it are interesting, but not circumstances and characterimpossible to us. When Frank spoke of his business, which heunderstood, he was wise, and some observations which he made theother day, on the management of his workpeople, would have beenthought original if they had been printed. The true artist knowsthat his hero must be a character shaping events and shaped by them, and not a babbler about literature. Frank, also, was so susceptible. He liked to hear her read to him, and her enthusiasm would soon behis. Moreover, how gifted he was, unconsciously, with all that makesa man admirable, with courage, with perfect unselfishness! Howhandsome he was, and then his passion for her! She had readsomething of passion, but she never knew till now what the whiteintensity of its flame in a man could be. She was committed, too, happily committed; it was an engagement. 

Thus, whenever doubt obtruded itself, she poured a self-raised tideover it and concealed it. Alas! it could not be washed away; it wasa little sharp rock based beneath the ocean's depths, and when thewater ran low its dark point reappeared. She was more successful, however, than many women would have been, for, although her interestin ideas was deep, there was fire in her blood, and Frank's armaround her made the world well nigh disappear; her surrender wasentire, and if Sinai had thundered in her ears she would not haveheard. She was destitute of that power, which her sister possessed, of surveying herself from a distance. On the contrary, her emotionenveloped her, and the safeguard of reflection on it was impossibleto her. 

As to Frank, no doubt ever approached him. He was intoxicated, andbeside himself. He had been brought up in a clean household, knowingnothing of the vice by which so many young men are overcome, andwoman hitherto had been a mystery to him. Suddenly he found himselfthe possessor of a beautiful creature, whose lips it was lawful totouch and whose heartbeats he could feel as he pressed her to hisbreast. It was permitted him to be alone with her, to sit on thefloor and rest his head on her knees, and he had ventured to captureone of her slippers and carry it off to London, where he kept itlocked up amongst his treasures. If he had been drawn over Fenmarketsluice in a winter flood he would not have been more incapable ofresistance. 

Every now and then Clara thought she discerned in Madge that she wasnot entirely content, but the cloud-shadows swept past so rapidly andwere followed by such dazzling sunshine that she was perplexed andhoped that her sister's occasional moodiness might be due to partingand absence, or the anticipation of them. She never ventured to sayanything about Frank to Madge, for there was something in her whichforbade all approach from that side. Once when he had shown hisignorance of what was so familiar to the Hopgoods, and Clara hadexpected some sign of dissatisfaction from her sister, she appearedostentatiously to champion him against anticipated criticism. Clarainterpreted the warning and was silent, but, after she had left theroom with her mother in order that the lovers might be alone, shewent upstairs and wept many tears. Ah! it is a sad experience whenthe nearest and dearest suspects that we are aware of secretdisapproval, knows that it is justifiable, throws up a rampart andbecomes defensively belligerent. From that moment all confidence isat an end. Without a word, perhaps, the love and friendship of yearsdisappear, and in the place of two human beings transparent to eachother, there are two who are opaque and indifferent. Bitter, bitter!If the cause of separation were definite disagreement upon conduct orbelief, we could pluck up courage, approach and come to anunderstanding, but it is impossible to bring to speech anything whichis so close to the heart, and there is, therefore, nothing left forus but to submit and be dumb. 

CHAPTER IX

It was now far into June, and Madge and Frank extended their walksand returned later. He had come down to spend his last Sunday withthe Hopgoods before starting with his father for Germany, and on theMonday they were to leave London. 

Wordsworth was one of the divinities at Stoke Newington, and justbefore Frank visited Fenmarket that week, he had heard theIntimations of Immortality read with great fervour. Thinking thatMadge would be pleased with him if she found that he knew somethingabout that famous Ode, and being really smitten with some of thepassages in it, he learnt it, and just as they were about to turnhomewards one sultry evening he suddenly began to repeat it, anddeclaimed it to the end with much rhetorical power. 

'Bravo!' said Madge, 'but, of all Wordsworth's poems, that is the onefor which I believe I care the least. '

Frank's countenance fell. 

'Oh, me! I thought it was just what would suit you. '

'No, not particularly. There are some noble lines in it; for example-

"And custom lie upon thee with a weight, Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life!"

But the very title--Intimations of Immortality from Recollections ofEarly Childhood--is unmeaning to me, and as for the verse which is ineverybody's mouth -

"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting;"

and still worse the vision of "that immortal sea, " and of thechildren who "sport upon the shore, " they convey nothing whatever tome. I find though they are much admired by the clergy of the bettersort, and by certain religiously-disposed people, to whom thinking isdistasteful or impossible. Because they cannot definitely believe, they fling themselves with all the more fervour upon these cloudyWordsworthian phrases, and imagine they see something solid in thecoloured fog. '

It was now growing dark and a few heavy drops of rain began to fall, but in a minute or two they ceased. Frank, contrary to his usualwont, was silent. There was something undiscovered in Madge, aregion which he had not visited and perhaps could not enter. Shediscerned in an instant what she had done, and in an instantrepented. He had taken so much pains with a long piece of poetry forher sake: was not that better than agreement in a set ofpropositions? Scores of persons might think as she thought about theode, who would not spend a moment in doing anything to gratify her. It was delightful also to reflect that Frank imagined she wouldsympathise with anything written in that temper. She recalled whatshe herself had said when somebody gave Clara a copy in 'Parian' of aGreek statue, a thing coarse in outline and vulgar. Clara was aboutto put it in a cupboard in the attic, but Madge had pleaded sopathetically that the donor had in a measure divined what her sisterloved, and had done her best, although she had made a mistake, thatfinally the statue was placed on the bedroom mantelpiece. Madge'sheart overflowed, and Frank had never attracted her so powerfully asat that moment. She took his hand softly in hers. 

'Frank, ' she murmured, as she bent her head towards him, 'it isreally a lovely poem. '

Suddenly there was a flash of forked lightning at some distance, followed in a few seconds by a roll of thunder increasing inintensity until the last reverberation seemed to shake the ground. They took refuge in a little barn and sat down. Madge, who was timidand excited in a thunderstorm, closed her eyes to shield herself fromthe glare. 

The tumult in the heavens lasted for nearly two hours and, when itwas over, Madge and Frank walked homewards without speaking a wordfor a good part of the way. 

'I cannot, cannot go to-morrow, ' he suddenly cried, as they nearedthe town. 

'You SHALL go, ' she replied calmly. 

'But, Madge, think of me in Germany, think what my dreams andthoughts will be--you here--hundreds of miles between us. '

She had never seen him so shaken with terror. 

'You SHALL go; not another word. '

'I must say something--what can I say? My God, my God, have mercy onme!'

'Mercy! mercy!' she repeated, half unconsciously, and then rousingherself, exclaimed, 'You shall not say it; I will not hear; now, good-bye. '

They had come to the door; he went inside; she took his face betweenher hands, left one kiss on his forehead, led him back to the doorwayand he heard the bolts drawn. When he recovered himself he went tothe 'Crown and Sceptre' and tried to write a letter to her, but thewords looked hateful, horrible on the paper, and they were not thewords he wanted. He dared not go near the house the next morning, but as he passed it on the coach he looked at the windows. Nobodywas to be seen, and that night he left England. 

'Did you hear, ' said Clara to her mother at breakfast, 'that thelightning struck one of the elms in the avenue at Mrs Martin'syesterday evening and splintered it to the ground?'

CHAPTER X

In a few days Madge received the following letter:-

'FRANKFORT, O. M. , HOTEL WAIDENBUSCH. 

'My dearest Madge, --I do not know how to write to you. I have beguna dozen letters but I cannot bring myself to speak of what liesbefore me, hiding the whole world from me. Forgiveness! how is anyforgiveness possible? But Madge, my dearest Madge, remember that mylove is intenser than ever. What has happened has bound you closerto me. I IMPLORE you to let me come back. I will find a thousandexcuses for returning, and we will marry. We had vowed marriage toeach other and why should not our vows be fulfilled? Marriage, marriage AT ONCE. You will not, you CANNOT, no, you CANNOT, you mustsee you cannot refuse. My father wishes to make this town hisheadquarters for ten days. Write by return for mercy's sake. --Yourever devoted

'FRANK. '

The reply came only a day late. 

'My dear Frank, --Forgiveness! Who is to be forgiven? Not you. Youbelieved you loved me, but I doubted my love, and I know now that notrue love for you exists. We must part, and part forever. Whateverwrong may have been done, marriage to avoid disgrace would be a wrongto both of us infinitely greater. I owe you an expiation; yourrelease is all I can offer, and it is insufficient. I can only pleadthat I was deaf and blind. By some miracle, I cannot tell how, myears and eyes are opened, and I hear and see. It is not the firsttime in my life that the truth has been revealed to me suddenly, supernaturally, I may say, as if in a vision, and I know therevelation is authentic. There must be no wavering, no half-measures, and I absolutely forbid another letter from you. If onearrives I must, for the sake of my own peace and resolution, refuseto read it. You have simply to announce to your father that theengagement is at an end, and give no reasons. --Your faithful friend

'MADGE HOPGOOD. '

Another letter did come, but Madge was true to her word, and it wasreturned unopened. 

For a long time Frank was almost incapable of reflection. He dwelton an event which might happen, but which he dared not name; and ifit should happen! Pictures of his father, his home his father'sfriends, Fenmarket, the Hopgood household, passed before him withsuch wild rapidity and intermingled complexity that it seemed as ifthe reins had dropped out of his hands and he was being hurried awayto madness. 

He resisted with all his might this dreadful sweep of theimagination, tried to bring himself back into sanity and to deviseschemes by which, although he was prohibited from writing to Madge, he might obtain news of her. Her injunction might not be final. There was but one hope for him, one possibility of extrication, onenecessity--their marriage. It MUST be. He dared not think of whatmight be the consequences if they did not marry. 

Hitherto Madge had given no explanation to her mother or sister ofthe rupture, but one morning--nearly two months had now passed--Claradid not appear at breakfast. 

'Clara is not here, ' said Mrs Hopgood; 'she was very tired lastnight, perhaps it is better not to disturb her. '

'Oh, no! please let her alone. I will see if she still sleeps. '

Madge went upstairs, opened her sister's door noiselessly, saw thatshe was not awake, and returned. When breakfast was over she rose, and after walking up and down the room once or twice, seated herselfin the armchair by her mother's side. Her mother drew herself alittle nearer, and took Madge's hand gently in her own. 

'Madge, my child, have you nothing to say to your mother?'

'Nothing. '

'Cannot you tell me why Frank and you have parted? Do you not thinkI ought to know something about such an event in the life of one soclose to me?'

'I broke off the engagement: we were not suited to one another. '

'I thought as much; I honour you; a thousand times better that youshould separate now than find out your mistake afterwards when it isirrevocable. Thank God, He has given you such courage! But you musthave suffered--I know you must;' and she tenderly kissed herdaughter. 

'Oh, mother! mother!' cried Madge, 'what is the worst--at least to--you--the worst that can happen to a woman?'

Mrs Hopgood did not speak; something presented itself which sherefused to recognise, but she shuddered. Before she could recoverherself Madge broke out again, -

'It has happened to me; mother, your daughter has wrecked your peacefor ever!'

'And he has abandoned you?'

'No, no; I told you it was I who left him. '

It was Mrs Hopgood's custom, when any evil news was suddenlycommunicated to her, to withdraw at once if possible to her own room. She detached herself from Madge, rose, and, without a word, wentupstairs and locked her door. The struggle was terrible. So muchthought, so much care, such an education, such noble qualities, andthey had not accomplished what ordinary ignorant Fenmarket mothersand daughters were able to achieve! This fine life, then, was afailure, and a perfect example of literary and artistic training hadgone the way of the common wenches whose affiliation cases figured inthe county newspaper. She was shaken and bewildered. She wasneither orthodox nor secular. She was too strong to be afraid thatwhat she disbelieved could be true, and yet a fatal weakness had beendisclosed in what had been set up as its substitute. She could nottreat her child as a sinner who was to be tortured into somethinglike madness by immitigable punishment, but, on the other hand, shefelt that this sorrow was unlike other sorrows and that it couldnever be healed. For some time she was powerless, blown this way andthat way by contradictory storms, and unable to determine herself toany point whatever. She was not, however, new to the tempest. Shehad lived and had survived when she thought she must have gone down. She had learned the wisdom which the passage through desperatestraits can bring. At last she prayed and in a few minutes a messagewas whispered to her. She went into the breakfast-room and seatedherself again by Madge. Neither uttered a word, but Madge fell downbefore her, and, with a great cry, buried her face in her mother'slap. She remained kneeling for some time waiting for a rebuke, butnone came. Presently she felt smoothing hands on her head and thesoft impress of lips. So was she judged. 

CHAPTER XI

It was settled that they should leave Fenmarket. Their departurecaused but little surprise. They had scarcely any friends, and itwas always conjectured that people so peculiar would ultimately findtheir way to London. They were particularly desirous to concealtheir movements, and therefore determined to warehouse theirfurniture in town, to take furnished apartments there for threemonths, and then to move elsewhere. Any letters which might arriveat Fenmarket for them during these three months would be sent to themat their new address; nothing probably would come afterwards, and asnobody in Fenmarket would care to take any trouble about them, theirtrace would become obliterated. They found some rooms near MyddeltonSquare, Pentonville, not a particularly cheerful place, but theywished to avoid a more distant suburb, and Pentonville was cheap. Fortunately for them they had no difficulty whatever in getting ridof the Fenmarket house for the remainder of their term. 

For a little while London diverted them after a fashion, but theabsence of household cares told upon them. They had nothing to dobut to read and to take dismal walks through Islington and Barnsbury, and the gloom of the outlook thickened as the days became shorter andthe smoke began to darken the air. Madge was naturally moreoppressed than the others, not only by reason of her temperament, butbecause she was the author of the trouble which had befallen them. Her mother and Clara did everything to sustain and to cheer her. They possessed the rare virtue of continuous tenderness. The love, which with many is an inspiration, was with them their own selves, from which they could not be separated; a harsh word could nottherefore escape from them. It was as impossible as that thereshould be any failure in the pressure with which the rocks presstowards the earth's centre. Madge at times was very far gone inmelancholy. How different this thing looked when it was close athand; when she personally was to be the victim! She had read aboutit in history, the surface of which it seemed scarcely to ripple; ithad been turned to music in some of her favourite poems and had lenta charm to innumerable mythologies, but the actual fact was nothinglike the poetry or mythology, and threatened to ruin her own historyaltogether. Nor would it be her own history solely, but more or lessthat of her mother and sister. 

Had she believed in the common creed, her attention would have beenconcentrated on the salvation of her own soul; she would have foundher Redeemer and would have been comparatively at peace; she wouldhave acknowledged herself convicted of infinite sin, and hell wouldhave been opened before her, but above the sin and the hell she wouldhave seen the distinct image of the Mediator abolishing both. Popular theology makes personal salvation of such immense importancethat, in comparison therewith, we lose sight of the consequences toothers of our misdeeds. The sense of cruel injustice to those wholoved her remained with Madge perpetually. 

To obtain relief she often went out of London for the day; sometimesher mother and sister went with her; sometimes she insisted on goingalone. One autumn morning, she found herself at Letherhead, thelongest trip she had undertaken, for there were scarcely any railwaysthen. She wandered about till she discovered a footpath which tookher to a mill-pond, which spread itself out into a little lake. Itwas fed by springs which burst up through the ground. She watched atone particular point, and saw the water boil up with such force thatit cleared a space of a dozen yards in diameter from every weed, andformed a transparent pool just tinted with that pale azure which ispeculiar to the living fountains which break out from the bottom ofthe chalk. She was fascinated for a moment by the spectacle, andreflected upon it, but she passed on. In about three-quarters of anhour she found herself near a church, larger than an ordinary villagechurch, and, as she was tired, and the gate of the church porch wasopen, she entered and sat down. The sun streamed in upon her, andsome sheep which had strayed into the churchyard from the adjoiningopen field came almost close to her, unalarmed, and looked in herface. The quiet was complete, and the air so still, that a yellowleaf dropping here and there from the churchyard elms--just beginningto turn--fell quiveringly in a straight path to the earth. Sick atheart and despairing, she could not help being touched, and shethought to herself how strange the world is--so transcendent both inglory and horror; a world capable of such scenes as those before her, and a world in which such suffering as hers could be; a worldinfinite both ways. The porch gate was open because the organist wasabout to practise, and in another instant she was listening to theKyrie from Beethoven's Mass in C. She knew it; Frank had tried togive her some notion of it on the piano, and since she had been inLondon she had heard it at St Mary's, Moorfields. She broke down andwept, but there was something new in her sorrow, and it seemed as ifa certain Pity overshadowed her. 

She had barely recovered herself when she saw a woman, apparentlyabout fifty, coming towards her with a wicker basket on her arm. Shesat down beside Madge, put her basket on the ground, and wiped herface with her apron. 

'Marnin' miss! its rayther hot walkin', isn't it? I've come all theway from Darkin, and I'm goin' to Great Oakhurst. That's a longishstep there and back again; not that this is the nearest way, but Idon't like climbing them hills, and then when I get to Letherhead Ishall have a lift in a cart. '

Madge felt bound to say something as the sunburnt face looked kindand motherly. 

'I suppose you live at Great Oakhurst?'

'Yes. I do: my husband, God bless him! he was a kind of foreman atThe Towers, and when he died I was left alone and didn't know what tobe at, as both my daughters were out and one married; so I took thegeneral shop at Great Oakhurst, as Longwood used to have, but itdon't pay for I ain't used to it, and the house is too big for me, and there isn't nobody proper to mind it when I goes over to Darkinfor anything. '

'Are you going to leave?'

'Well, I don't quite know yet, miss, but I thinks I shall live withmy daughter in London. She's married a cabinetmaker in Great OrmondStreet: they let lodgings, too. Maybe you know that part?'

'No, I do not. '

'You don't live in London, then?'

'Yes, I do. I came from London this morning. '

'The Lord have mercy on us, did you though! I suppose, then, you'rea-visitin' here. I know most of the folk hereabouts. '

'No: I am going back this afternoon. '

Her interrogator was puzzled and her curiosity stimulated. Presentlyshe looked in Madge's face. 

'Ah! my poor dear, you'll excuse me, I don't mean to be forward, butI see you've been a-cryin': there's somebody buried here. '

'No. '

That was all she could say. The walk from Letherhead, and theexcitement had been too much for her and she fainted. Mrs Caffyn, for that was her name, was used to fainting fits. She was often 'abit faint' herself, and she instantly loosened Madge's gown, broughtout some smelling-salts and also a little bottle of brandy and water. Something suddenly struck her. She took up Madge's hand: there wasno wedding ring on it. 

Presently her patient recovered herself. 

'Look you now, my dear; you aren't noways fit to go back to Londonto-day. If you was my child you shouldn't do it for all the gold inthe Indies, no, nor you sha'n't now. I shouldn't have a wink ofsleep this night if I let you go, and if anything were to happen toyou it would be me as 'ud have to answer for it. '

'But I must go; my mother and sister will not know what has become ofme. '

'You leave that to me; I tell you again as you can't go. I've been amother myself, and I haven't had children for nothing. I was just a-goin' to send a little parcel up to my daughter by the coach, and herhusband's a-goin' to meet it. She'd left something behind last weekwhen she was with me, and I thought I'd get a bit of fresh butterhere for her and put along with it. They make better butter in thefarm in the bottom there, than they do at Great Oakhurst. A noteinside now will get to your mother all right; you have a bit ofsomething to eat and drink here, and you'll be able to walk along ofme just into Letherhead, and then you can ride to Great Oakhurst;it's only about two miles, and you can stay there all night. '

Madge was greatly touched; she took Mrs Caffyn's hands in hers, pressed them both and consented. She was very weary, and the stampon Mrs Caffyn's countenance was indubitable; it was evidently noforgery, but of royal mintage. They walked slowly to Letherhead, andthere they found the carrier's cart, which took them to GreatOakhurst. 

CHAPTER XII

Mrs Caffyn's house was a roomy old cottage near the church, with abow-window in which were displayed bottles of 'suckers, ' and of Day &Martin's blacking, cotton stuffs, a bag of nuts and some mugs, cupsand saucers. Inside were salt butter, washing-blue, drapery, treacle, starch, tea, tobacco and snuff, cheese, matches, bacon, anda few drugs, such as black draught, magnesia, pills, sulphur, dill-water, Dalby's Carminative, and steel-drops. There was also a smallstock of writing-paper, string and tin ware. A boy was behind thecounter. When Mrs Caffyn was out he always asked the customers whodesired any article, the sale of which was in any degree an art, tocall again when she returned. He went as far as those things whichwere put up in packets, such as what were called 'grits' for makinggruel, and he was also authorised to venture on pennyworths ofliquorice and peppermints, but the sale of half-a-dozen yards ofcotton print was as much above him as the negotiation of a treaty ofpeace would be to a messenger in the Foreign Office. In fact, nobody, excepting children, went into the shop when Mrs Caffyn wasnot to be seen there, and, if she had to go to Dorking or Letherheadon business, she always chose the middle of the day, when the folkwere busy at their homes or in the fields. Poor woman! she was muchtried. Half the people who dealt with her were in her debt, but shecould not press them for her money. During winter-time they weredischarged by the score from their farms, but as they were notsufficiently philosophic, or sufficiently considerate for theirfellows to hang or drown themselves, they were obliged to consumefood, and to wear clothes, for which they tried to pay by instalmentsduring spring, summer and autumn. Mrs Caffyn managed to make bothends meet by the help of two or three pigs, by great economy, and byletting some of her superfluous rooms. Great Oakhurst was not a showplace nor a Spa, but the Letherhead doctor had once recommended herto a physician in London, who occasionally sent her a patient whowanted nothing but rest and fresh air. She also, during theshooting-season, was often asked to find a bedroom for visitors toThe Towers. 

She might have done better had she been on thoroughly good terms withthe parson. She attended church on Sunday morning with tolerableregularity. She never went inside a dissenting chapel, and was notheretical on any definite theological point, but the rector and shewere not friends. She had lived in Surrey ever since she was achild, but she was not Surrey born. Both her father and mother camefrom the north country, and migrated southwards when she was veryyoung. They were better educated than the southerners amongst whomthey came; and although their daughter had no schooling beyond whatwas obtainable in a Surrey village of that time, she wasdistinguished by a certain superiority which she had inherited oracquired from her parents. She was never subservient to the rectorafter the fashion of her neighbours; she never curtsied to him, andif he passed and nodded she said 'Marnin', sir, ' in just the sametone as that in which she said it to the smallest of the GreatOakhurst farmers. Her church-going was an official duty incumbentupon her as the proprietor of the only shop in the parish. She hadnothing to do with church matters except on Sunday, and she even wentso far as to neglect to send for the rector when one of her childrenlay dying. She was attacked for the omission, but she defendedherself. 

'What was the use when the poor dear was only seven year old? Whatcall was there for him to come to a blessed innocent like that? Idid tell him to look in when my husband was took, for I know asbefore we were married there was something atween him and that galSanders. He never would own up to me about it, and I thought as hemight to a clergyman, and, if he did, it would ease his mind and makeit a bit better for him afterwards; but, Lord! it warn't no use, forhe went off and we didn't so much as hear her name, not even when hewas a-wandering. I says to myself when the parson left, "What's thegood of having you?"'

Mrs Caffyn was a Christian, but she was a disciple of St James ratherthan of St Paul. She believed, of course, the doctrines of theCatechism, in the sense that she denied none, and would have assentedto all if she had been questioned thereon; but her belief that'faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone, ' was somethingvery vivid and very practical. 

Her estimate, too, of the relative values of the virtues and of therelative sinfulness of sins was original, and the rector thereforetold all his parishioners that she was little better than a heathen. The common failings in that part of the country amongst the poor wereSaturday-night drunkenness and looseness in the relations between theyoung men and young women. Mrs Caffyn's indignation never rose tothe correct boiling point against these crimes. The rector onceventured to say, as the case was next door to her, -

'It is very sad, is it not, Mrs Caffyn, that Polesden should be soaddicted to drink. I hope he did not disturb you last Saturdaynight. I have given the constable directions to look after thestreet more closely on Saturday evening, and if Polesden againoffends he must be taken up. '

Mrs Caffyn was behind her own counter. She had just served acustomer with two ounces of Dutch cheese, and she sat down on herstool. Being rather a heavy woman she always sat down when she wasnot busy, and she never rose merely to talk. 

'Yes, it is sad, sir, and Polesden isn't no particular friend ofmine, but I tell you what's sad too, sir, and that's the way thempeople are mucked up in that cottage. Why, their living room opensstraight on the road, and the wind comes in fit to blow your headoff, and when he goes home o' nights, there's them children a-squalling, and he can't bide there and do nothing. '

'I am afraid, though, Mrs Caffyn, there must be something radicallywrong with that family. I suppose you know all about the eldestdaughter?'

'Yes, sir, I HAVE heard it: it wouldn't be Great Oakhurst if Ihadn't, but p'r'aps, sir, you've never been upstairs in that house, and yet a house it isn't. There's just two sleeping-rooms, that'sall; it's shameful, it isn't decent. Well, that gal, she goes awayto service. Maybe, sir, them premises at the farm are also unbeknownto you. In the back kitchen there's a broadish sort of shelf as Jimclimbs into o' nights, and it has a rail round it to keep you from a-falling out, and there's a ladder as they draws up in the day as goesstraight up from that kitchen to the gal's bedroom door. It'sdownright disgraceful, and I don't believe the Lord A'mighty would bemarciful to neither of US if we was tried like that. '

Mrs Caffyn bethought herself of the 'us' and was afraid that even shehad gone a little too far; 'leastways, speaking for myself, sir, ' sheadded. 

The rector turned rather red, and repented his attempt to enlist MrsCaffyn. 

'If the temptations are so great, Mrs Caffyn, that is all the morereason why those who are liable to them should seek the means whichare provided in order that they may be overcome. I believe thePolesdens are very lax attendants at church, and I don't think theyever communicated. '

Mrs Polesden at that moment came in for an ounce of tea, and as MrsCaffyn rose to weigh it, the rector departed with a stiff 'good-morning, ' made to do duty for both women. 

CHAPTER XIII

Mrs Caffyn persuaded Madge to go to bed at once, after giving her'something to comfort her. ' In the morning her kind hostess came toher bedside. 

'You've got a mother, haven't you--leastways, I know you have, because you wrote to her. '

'Yes. '

'Well, and you lives with her and she looks after you?'

'Yes. '

'And she's fond of you, maybe?'

'Oh, yes. '

'That's a marcy; well then, my dear, you shall go back in the cart toLetherhead, and you'll catch the Darkin coach to London. '

'You have been very good to me; what have I to pay you?'

'Pay? Nothing! why, if I was to let you pay, it would just look asif I'd trapped you here to get something out of you. Pay! no, not apenny. '

'I can afford very well to pay, but if it vexes you I will not offeranything. I don't know how to thank you enough. '

Madge took Mrs Caffyn's hand in hers and pressed it firmly. 

'Besides, my dear, ' said Mrs Caffyn, smoothing the sheets a little, 'you won't mind my saying it, I expex you are in trouble. There'ssomething on your mind, and I believe as I knows pretty well what itis. '

Madge turned round in the bed so as no longer to face the light; MrsCaffyn sat between her and the window. 

'Look you here, my dear; don't you suppose I meant to say anything tohurt you. The moment I looked on you I was drawed to you like; Icouldn't help it. I see'd what was the matter, but I was all themore drawed, and I just wanted you to know as it makes no difference. That's like me; sometimes I'm drawed that way and sometimes t'otherway, and it's never no use for me to try to go against it. I ain'ta-going to say anything more to you; God-A'mighty, He's above us all;but p'r'aps you may be comm' this way again some day, and then you'lllook in. '

Madge turned again to the light, and again caught Mrs Caffyn's hand, but was silent. 

The next morning, after Madge's return, Mrs Cork, the landlady, presented herself at the sitting-room door and 'wished to speak withMrs Hopgood for a minute. '

'Come in, Mrs Cork. '

'Thank you, ma'am, but I prefer as you should come downstairs. '

Mrs Cork was about forty, a widow with no children. She had a faceof which it was impossible to recollect, when it had been seen even adozen times, any feature except the eyes, which were steel-blue, alittle bluer than the faceted head of the steel poker in her parlour, but just as hard. She lived in the basement with a maid, much likeherself but a little more human. Although the front underground roomwas furnished Mrs Cork never used it, except on the rarest occasions, and a kind of apron of coloured paper hung over the fireplace nearlyall the year. She was a woman of what she called regular habits. Nolodger was ever permitted to transgress her rules, or to have mealsten minutes before or ten minutes after the appointed time. She hadundoubtedly been married, but who Cork could have been was a marvel. Why he died, and why there were never any children were no marvels. At two o'clock her grate was screwed up to the narrowest possibledimensions, and the ashes, potato peelings, tea leaves and cabbagestalks were thrown on the poor, struggling coals. No meat, by theway, was ever roasted--it was considered wasteful--everything wasbaked or boiled. After half-past four not a bit of anything that wasnot cold was allowed till the next morning, and, indeed, from thefirst of April to the thirty-first of October the fire was raked outthe moment tea was over. Mrs Hopgood one night was not very well andClara wished to give her mother something warm. She rang the belland asked for hot water. Maria came up and disappeared without aword after receiving the message. Presently she returned. 

'Mrs Cork, miss, wishes me to tell you as it was never understood as'ot water would be required after tea, and she hasn't got any. '

Mrs Hopgood had a fire, although it was not yet the thirty-first ofOctober, for it was very damp and raw. She had with much difficultyinduced Mrs Cork to concede this favour (which probably would nothave been granted if the coals had not yielded a profit of threepencea scuttleful), and Clara, therefore, asked if she could not have thekettle upstairs. Again Maria disappeared and returned. 

'Mrs Cork says, miss, as it's very ill-convenient as the kettle iscleaned up agin to-morrow, and if you can do without it she will beobliged. '

It was of no use to continue the contest, and Clara bethought herselfof a little 'Etna' she had in her bedroom. She went to thedruggist's, bought some methylated spirit, and obtained what shewanted. 

Mrs Cork had one virtue and one weakness. Her virtue wascleanliness, but she persecuted the 'blacks, ' not because sheobjected to dirt as dirt, but because it was unauthorised, appearedwithout permission at irregular hours, and because the glitteringpolish on varnished paint and red mahogany was a pleasure to her. She liked the dirt, too, in a way, for she enjoyed the exercise ofher ill-temper on it and the pursuit of it to destruction. Herweakness was an enormous tom-cat which had a bell round its neck andslept in a basket in the kitchen, the best-behaved and most moral catin the parish. At half-past nine every evening it was let out intothe back-yard and vanished. At ten precisely it was heard to mew andwas immediately admitted. Not once in a twelvemonth did that catprolong its love making after five minutes to ten. 

Mrs Hopgood went upstairs to her room, Mrs Cork following and closingthe door. 

'If you please, ma'am, I wish to give you notice to leave this dayweek. '

'What is the matter, Mrs Cork?'

'Well, ma'am, for one thing, I didn't know as you'd bring a bird withyou. '

It was a pet bird belonging to Madge. 

'But what harm does the bird do? It gives no trouble; my daughterattends to it. '

'Yes, ma'am, but it worrits my Joseph--the cat, I mean. I found himthe other mornin' on the table eyin' it, and I can't a-bear to seehim urritated. '

'I should hardly have thought that a reason for parting with goodlodgers. '

Mrs Hopgood had intended to move, as before explained, but she didnot wish to go till the three months had expired. 

'I don't say as that is everything, but if you wish me to tell youthe truth, Miss Madge is not a person as I like to keep in the house. I wish you to know'--Mrs Cork suddenly became excited and venomous--'that I'm a respectable woman, and have always let my apartments torespectable people, and do you think I should ever let them torespectable people again if it got about as I had had anybody aswasn't respectable? Where was she last night? And do you suppose asme as has been a married woman can't see the condition she's in? Isay as you, Mrs Hopgood, ought to be ashamed of yourself for bringingof such a person into a house like mine, and you'll please vacatethese premises on the day named. ' She did not wait for an answer, but banged the door after her, and went down to her subterranean den. 

Mrs Hopgood did not tell her children the true reason for leaving. She merely said that Mrs Cork had been very impertinent, and thatthey must look out for other rooms. Madge instantly recollectedGreat Ormond Street, but she did not know the number, and oddlyenough she had completely forgotten Mrs Caffyn's name. It was apeculiar name, she had heard it only once, she had not noticed itover the door, and her exhaustion may have had something to do withher loss of memory. She could not therefore write, and Mrs Hopgooddetermined that she herself would go to Great Oakhurst. She hadanother reason for her journey. She wished her kind friend there tosee that Madge had really a mother who cared for her. She wasanxious to confirm Madge's story, and Mrs Caffyn's confidence. Claradesired to go also, but Mrs Hopgood would not leave Madge alone, andthe expense of a double fare was considered unnecessary. 

When Mrs Hopgood came to Letherhead on her return, the coach was fullinside, and she was obliged to ride outside, although the weather wascold and threatening. In about half an hour it began to rainheavily, and by the time she was in Pentonville she was wet through. The next morning she ought to have lain in bed, but she came down ather accustomed hour as Mrs Cork was more than usually disagreeable, and it was settled that they would leave at once if the rooms inGreat Ormond Street were available. Clara went there directly afterbreakfast, and saw Mrs Marshall, who had already received anintroductory letter from her mother. 

CHAPTER XIV

The Marshall family included Marshall and his wife. He was rather asmall man, with blackish hair, small lips, and with a nose just alittle turned up at the tip. As we have been informed, he was acabinet-maker. He worked for very good shops, and earned about twopounds a week. He read books, but he did not know their value, andoften fancied he had made a great discovery on a bookstall of anauthor long ago superseded and worthless. He belonged to amechanic's institute, and was fond of animal physiology; heardcourses of lectures on it at the institute, and had studied two orthree elementary handbooks. He found in a second-hand dealer's shopa model, which could be taken to pieces, of the inside of the humanbody. He had also bought a diagram of a man, showing thecirculation, and this he had hung in his bedroom, his mother-in-lawobjecting most strongly on the ground that its effect on his wife wasinjurious. He had a notion that the world might be regenerated ifmen and women were properly instructed in physiological science, andif before marriage they would study their own physical peculiarities, and those of their intended partners. The crossing of peculiaritiesnevertheless presented difficulties. A man with long legs surelyought to choose a woman with short legs, but if a man who wasmathematical married a woman who was mathematical, the result mightbe a mathematical prodigy. On the other hand the parents of theprodigy might each have corresponding qualities, which, mixed withthe mathematical tendency, would completely nullify it. The path ofduty therefore was by no means plain. However, Marshall was surethat great cities dwarfed their inhabitants, and as he himself wasnot so tall as his father, and, moreover, suffered from baddigestion, and had a tendency to 'run to head, ' he determined toselect as his wife a 'daughter of the soil, ' to use his own phrase, above the average height, with a vigorous constitution and plenty ofcommon sense. She need not be bookish, 'he could supply all thathimself. ' Accordingly, he married Sarah Caffyn. His mother and MrsCaffyn had been early friends. He was not mistaken in Sarah. Shewas certainly robust; she was a shrewd housekeeper, and she neverread anything, except now and then a paragraph or two in the weeklynewspaper, notwithstanding (for there were no children), time hungrather heavily on her hands. One child had been born, but toMarshall's surprise and disappointment it was a poor, rickety thing, and died before it was a twelvemonth old. 

Mrs Marshall was not a very happy woman. Marshall was a greatpolitician and spent many of his evenings away from home at politicalmeetings. He never informed her what he had been doing, and if hehad told her, she would neither have understood nor cared anythingabout it. At Great Oakhurst she heard everything and took aninterest in it, and she often wished with all her heart that thesubject which occupied Marshall's thoughts was not Chartism but thedraining of that heavy, rush-grown bit of rough pasture that lay atthe bottom of the village. He was very good and kind to her, and shenever imagined, before marriage, that he ought to be more. She wassure that at Great Oakhurst she would have been quite comfortablewith him but somehow, in London, it was different. 'I don't know howit is, ' she said one day, 'the sort of husband as does for thecountry doesn't do for London. '

At Great Oakhurst, where the doors were always open into the yard andthe garden, where every house was merely a covered bit of the openspace, where people were always in and out, and women never sat down, except to their meals, or to do a little stitching or sewing, it wasreally not necessary, as Mrs Caffyn observed, that husband and wifeshould 'hit it so fine. ' Mrs Marshall hated all the conveniences ofLondon. She abominated particularly the taps, and longed to beobliged in all weathers to go out to the well and wind up the bucket. She abominated also the dust-bin, for it was a pleasure to becompelled--so at least she thought it now--to walk down to the muck-heap and throw on it what the pig could not eat. Nay, she evenmissed that corner of the garden against the elder-tree, where thepig-stye was, for 'you could smell the elder-flowers there in thespring-time, and the pig-stye wasn't as bad as the stuffy back roomin Great Ormond Street when three or four men were in it. ' She didall she could to spend her energy on her cooking and cleaning, but'there was no satisfaction in it, ' and she became much depressed, especially after the child died. This was the main reason why MrsCaffyn determined to live with her. Marshall was glad she resolvedto come. His wife had her full share of the common sense he desired, but the experiment had not altogether succeeded. He knew she waslonely, and he was sorry for her, although he did not see how hecould mend matters. He reflected carefully, nothing had happenedwhich was a surprise to him, the relationship was what he hadsupposed it would be, excepting that the child did not live and itsmother was a little miserable. There was nothing he would not do forher, but he really had nothing more to offer her. 

Although Mrs Marshall had made up her mind that husbands and wivescould not be as contented with one another in the big city as theywould be in a village, a suspicion crossed her mind one day that, even in London, the relationship might be different from her own. She was returning from Great Oakhurst after a visit to her mother. She had stayed there for about a month after her child's death, andshe travelled back to town with a Letherhead woman, who had married ajourneyman tanner, who formerly worked in the Letherhead tan-yard, and had now moved to Bermondsey, a horrid hole, worse than GreatOrmond Street. Both Marshall and the tanner were at the 'Swan withTwo Necks' to meet the covered van, and the tanner's wife jumped outfirst. 

'Hullo, old gal, here you are, ' cried the tanner, and clasped her inhis brown, bark-stained arms, giving her, nothing loth, two or threehearty kisses. They were so much excited at meeting one another, that they forgot their friends, and marched off without bidding themgood-bye. Mrs Marshall was welcomed in quieter fashion. 

'Ah!' she thought to herself. 'Red Tom, ' as the tanner was called, 'is not used to London ways. They are, perhaps, correct for London, but Marshall might now and then remember that I have not been broughtup to them. '

To return, however, to the Hopgoods. Before the afternoon they werein their new quarters, happily for them, for Mrs Hopgood becameworse. On the morrow she was seriously ill, inflammation of thelungs appeared, and in a week she was dead. What Clara and Madgesuffered cannot be told here. Whenever anybody whom we love dies, wediscover that although death is commonplace it is terribly original. We may have thought about it all our lives, but if it comes close tous, it is quite a new, strange thing to us, for which we are entirelyunprepared. It may, perhaps, not be the bare loss so much as thestrength of the bond which is broken that is the surprise, and we aredebtors in a way to death for revealing something in us whichordinary life disguises. Long after the first madness of their griefhad passed, Clara and Madge were astonished to find how dependentthey had been on their mother. They were grown-up women accustomedto act for themselves, but they felt unsteady, and as if deprived ofcustomary support. The reference to her had been constant, althoughit was often silent, and they were not conscious of it. A defencefrom the outside waste desert had been broken down, their mother hadalways seemed to intervene between them and the world, and now theywere exposed and shelterless. 

Three parts of Mrs Hopgood's little income was mainly an annuity, andClara and Madge found that between them they had but seventy-fivepounds a year. 

CHAPTER XV

Frank could not rest. He wrote again to Clara at Fenmarket; theletter went to Mrs Cork's, and was returned to him. He saw that theHopgoods had left Fenmarket, and suspecting the reason, he determinedat any cost to go home. He accordingly alleged ill-health, a pretextnot altogether fictitious, and within a few days after the returnedletter reached him he was back at Stoke Newington. He wentimmediately to the address in Pentonville which he found on theenvelope, but was very shortly informed by Mrs Cork that 'she knewnothing whatever about them. ' He walked round Myddelton Square, hopeless, for he had no clue whatever. 

What had happened to him would scarcely, perhaps, have caused someyoung men much uneasiness, but with Frank the case was altogetherdifferent. There was a chance of discovery, and if his crime shouldcome to light his whole future life would be ruined. He pictured hisexcommunication, his father's agony, and it was only when it seemedpossible that the water might close over the ghastly thing thrown init, and no ripple reveal what lay underneath, that he was able tobreathe again. Immediately he asked himself, however, IF he couldlive with his father and wear a mask, and never betray his dreadfulsecret. So he wandered homeward in the most miserable of allconditions; he was paralysed by the intricacy of the coil whichenveloped and grasped him. 

That evening it happened that there was a musical party at hisfather's house; and, of course, he was expected to assist. It wouldhave suited his mood better if he could have been in his own room, orout in the streets, but absence would have been inconsistent with hisdisguise, and might have led to betrayal. Consequently he waspresent, and the gaiety of the company and the excitement of hisfavourite exercise, brought about for a time forgetfulness of histrouble. Amongst the performers was a distant cousin, CeciliaMorland, a young woman rather tall and fully developed; notstrikingly beautiful, but with a lovely reddish-brown tint on herface, indicative of healthy, warm, rich pulsations. She possessed acontralto voice, of a quality like that of a blackbird, and it fellto her and to Frank to sing. She was dressed in a fashion perhaps alittle more courtly than was usual in the gatherings at Mr Palmer'shouse, and Frank, as he stood beside her at the piano, could notrestrain his eyes from straying every now and then a way from hismusic to her shoulders, and once nearly lost himself, during a solowhich required a little unusual exertion, in watching the movement ofa locket and of what was for a moment revealed beneath it. Heescorted her amidst applause to a corner of the room, and the two satdown side by side. 

'What a long time it is, Frank, since you and I sang that duettogether. We have seen nothing of you lately. '

'Of course not; I was in Germany. '

'Yes, but I think you deserted us before then. Do you remember thatsummer when we were all together at Bonchurch, and the part songswhich astonished our neighbours just as it was growing dark? Irecollect you and I tried together that very duet for the first timewith the old lodging-house piano. '

Frank remembered that evening well. 

'You sang better than you did to-night. You did not keep time: whatwere you dreaming about?'

'How hot the room is! Do you not feel it oppressive? Let us go intothe conservatory for a minute. '

The door was behind them and they slipped in and sat down, justinside, and under the orange tree. 

'You must not be away so long again. Now mind, we have a musicalevening this day fortnight. You will come? Promise; and we mustsing that duet again, and sing it properly. '

He did not reply, but he stooped down, plucked a blood-red begonia, and gave it to her. 

'That is a pledge. It is very good of you. '

She tried to fasten it in her gown, underneath the locket, but shedropped a little black pin. He went down on his knees to find it;rose, and put the flower in its proper place himself, and his headnearly touched her neck, quite unnecessarily. 

'We had better go back now, ' she said, 'but mind, I shall keep thisflower for a fortnight and a day, and if you make any excuses I shallreturn it faded and withered. '

'Yes, I will come. '

'Good boy; no apologies like those you sent the last time. No badthroat. Play me false, and there will be a pretty rebuke for you--adead flower. '

PLAY ME FALSE! It was as if there were some stoppage in a mainartery to his brain. PLAY ME FALSE! It rang in his ears, and for amoment he saw nothing but the scene at the Hall with Miranda. Fortunately for him, somebody claimed Cecilia, and he slunk back intothe greenhouse. 

One of Mr Palmer's favourite ballads was The Three Ravens. Itspathos unfits it for an ordinary drawing-room, but as the music at MrPalmer's was not of the common kind, The Three Ravens was put on thelist for that night. 

'She was dead herself ere evensong time. With a down, hey down, heydown, God send every gentlemanSuch hawks, such hounds, and such a leman. With down, hey down, heydown. '

Frank knew well the prayer of that melody, and, as he listened, hepainted to himself, in the vividest colours, Madge in a mean room, ina mean lodging, and perhaps dying. The song ceased, and one for himstood next. He heard voices calling him, but he passed out into thegarden and went down to the further end, hiding himself behind theshrubs. Presently the inquiry for him ceased, and he was relieved byhearing an instrumental piece begin. 

Following on that presentation of Madge came self-torture for hisunfaithfulness. He scourged himself into what he considered to behis duty. He recalled with an effort all Madge's charms, mental andbodily, and he tried to break his heart for her. He was in anguishbecause he found that in order to feel as he ought to feel someeffort was necessary; that treason to her was possible, and becausehe had looked with such eyes upon his cousin that evening. He sawhimself as something separate from himself, and although he knew whathe saw to be flimsy and shallow, he could do nothing to deepen it, absolutely nothing! It was not the betrayal of that thunderstormwhich now tormented him. He could have represented that as a failureto be surmounted; he could have repented it. It was his own innerbeing from which he revolted, from limitations which are worse thancrimes, for who, by taking thought, can add one cubit to his stature?

CHAPTER XVI

The next morning found Frank once more in Myddelton Square. Helooked up at the house; the windows were all shut, and the blindswere drawn down. He had half a mind to call again, but Mrs Cork'smanner had been so offensive and repellent that he desisted. Presently the door opened, and Maria, the maid, came out to clean thedoorsteps. Maria, as we have already said, was a little more humanthan her mistress, and having overheard the conversation between herand Frank at the first interview, had come to the conclusion thatFrank was to be pitied, and she took a fancy to him. Accordingly, when he passed her, she looked up and said, --'Good-morning. ' Frankstopped, and returned her greeting. 

'You was here the other day, sir, asking where them Hopgoods hadgone. '

'Yes, ' said Frank, eagerly, 'do you know what has become of them?'

'I helped the cabman with the boxes, and I heard Mrs Hopgood say"Great Ormond Street, " but I have forgotten the number. '

'Thank you very much. '

Frank gave the astonished and grateful Maria half-a-crown, and wentoff to Great Ormond Street at once. He paced up and down the streethalf a dozen times, hoping he might recognise in a window someornament from Fenmarket, or perhaps that he might be able todistinguish a piece of Fenmarket furniture, but his search was invain, for the two girls had taken furnished rooms at the back of thehouse. His quest was not renewed that week. What was there to begained by going over the ground again? Perhaps they might have foundthe lodgings unsuitable and have moved elsewhere. At church onSunday he met his cousin Cecilia, who reminded him of his promise. 

'See, ' she said, 'here is the begonia. I put it in my prayer-book inorder to preserve it when I could keep it in water no longer, and ithas stained the leaf, and spoilt the Athanasian Creed. You will haveit sent to you if you are faithless. Reflect on your emotions, sir, when you receive a dead flower, and you have the bitter consciousnessalso that you have damaged my creed without any recompense. '

It was impossible not to protest that he had no thought of breakinghis engagement, although, to tell the truth, he had wished once ortwice he could find some way out of it. He walked with her down thechurchyard path to her carriage, assisted her into it, saluted herfather and mother, and then went home with his own people. 

The evening came, he sang with Cecilia, and it was observed, and hehimself observed it, how completely their voices harmonised. He wasnot without a competitor, a handsome young baritone, who was muchcommended. When he came to the end of his performance everybody saidwhat a pity it was that the following duet could not also be given, aduet which Cecilia knew perfectly well. She was very much pressed totake her part with him, but she steadily refused, on the ground thatshe had not practised it, that she had already sung once, and thatshe was engaged to sing once more with her cousin. Frank was sittingnext to her, and she added, so as to be heard by him alone, 'He is noparticular favourite of mine. '

There was no direct implication that Frank was a favourite, but aninference was possible, and at least it was clear that she preferredto reserve herself for him. Cecilia's gifts, her fortune, and hergay, happy face had made many a young fellow restless, and hadbrought several proposals, none of which had been accepted. All thisFrank knew, and how could he repress something more than satisfactionwhen he thought that perhaps he might have been the reason why nobodyas yet had been able to win her. She always called him Frank, foralthough they were not first cousins, they were cousins. Hegenerally called her Cecilia, but she was Cissy in her own house. Hewas hardly close enough to venture upon the more familiar nickname, but to-night, as they rose to go to the piano, he said, and thebaritone sat next to her, -

'Now, CISSY, once more. '

She looked at him with just a little start of surprise, and a smilespread itself over her face. After they had finished, and she neversang better, the baritone noticed that she seemed indisposed toreturn to her former place, and she retired with Frank to theopposite corner of the room. 

'I wonder, ' she said, 'if being happy in a thing is a sign of beingborn to do it. If it is, I am born to be a musician. '

'I should say it is; if two people are quite happy in one another'scompany, it is as a sign they were born for one another. '

'Yes, if they are sure they are happy. It is easier for me to besure that I am happier with a thing than with a person. '

'Do you think so? Why?'

'There is the uncertainty whether the person is happy with me. Icannot be altogether happy with anybody unless I know I make himhappy. '

'What kind of person is he with whom you COULD be without making himhappy?'

The baritone rose to the upper F with a clash of chords on the piano, and the company broke up. Frank went home with but one thought inhis head--the thought of Cecilia. 

His bedroom faced the south-west, its windows were open, and when heentered, the wind, which was gradually rising, struck him on the faceand nearly forced the door out of his hand; the fire in his blood wasquenched, and the image of Cecilia receded. He looked out, and sawreflected on the low clouds the dull glare of the distant city. Justover there was Great Ormond Street, and underneath that dim, redlight, like the light of a great house burning, was Madge Hopgood. He lay down, turning over from side to side in the vain hope that bychange of position he might sleep. After about an hour's feverishtossing, he just lost himself, but not in that oblivion which slumberusually brought him. He was so far awake that he saw what was aroundhim, and yet, he was so far released from the control of his reasonthat he did not recognise what he saw, and it became part of a newscene created by his delirium. The full moon, clearing away theclouds as she moved upwards, had now passed round to the south, andjust caught the white window-curtain farthest from him. He half-opened his eyes, his mad dream still clung to him, and there was thedead Madge before him, pale in death, and holding a child in herarms! He distinctly heard himself scream as he started up inaffright; he could not tell where he was; the spectre faded and thefurniture and hangings transformed themselves into their familiarreality. He could not lie down again, and rose and dressed himself. He was not the man to believe that the ghost could be a revelation ora prophecy, but, nevertheless, he was once more overcome with fear, avague dread partly justifiable by the fact of Madge, by the fact thathis father might soon know what had happened, that others also mightknow, Cecilia for example, but partly also a fear going beyond allthe facts, and not to be accounted for by them, a strange, horribletrembling such as men feel in earthquakes when the solid rock shakes, on which everything rests. 

CHAPTER XVII

When Frank came downstairs to breakfast the conversation turned uponhis return to Germany. He did not object to going, although it canhardly be said that he willed to go. He was in that perilouscondition in which the comparison of reasons is impossible, and thecourse taken depends upon some chance impulse of the moment, and is amere drift. He could not leave, however, in complete ignorance ofMadge, and with no certainty as to her future. He resolved thereforeto make one more effort to discover the house. That was all which hedetermined to do. What was to happen when he had found it, he didnot know. He was driven to do something, which could not be of anyimportance, save for what must follow, but he was unable to bringhimself even to consider what was to follow. He knew that atFenmarket one or other of the sisters went out soon after breakfastto make provision for the day, and perhaps, if they kept up thiscustom, he might be successful in his search. He accordinglystationed himself in Great Ormond Street at about half-past nine, andkept watch from the Lamb's Conduit Street end, shifting his positionas well as he could, in order to escape notice. He had not beenthere half an hour when he saw a door open, and Madge came out andwent westwards. She turned down Devonshire Street as if on her wayto Holborn. He instantly ran back to Theobalds Road, and when hecame to the corner of Devonshire Street she was about ten yards fromhim, and he faced her. She stopped irresolutely, as if she had amind to return, but as he approached her, and she found she wasrecognised, she came towards him. 

'Madge, Madge, ' he cried, 'I want to speak to you. I must speak withyou. '

'Better not; let me go. '

'I say I MUST speak to you. '

'We cannot talk here; let me go. '

'I must! I must! come with me. '

She pitied him, and although she did not consent she did not refuse. He called a cab, and in ten minutes, not a word having been spokenduring those ten minutes, they were at St Paul's. The morningservice had just begun, and they sat down in a corner far away fromthe worshippers. 

'Oh, Madge, ' he began, 'I implore you to take me back. I love you. I do love you, and--and--I cannot leave you. '

She was side by side with the father of her child about to be born. He was not and could not be as another man to her, and for the momentthere was the danger lest she should mistake this secret bond forlove. The thought of what had passed between them, and of the child, his and hers, almost overpowered her. 

'I cannot, ' he repeated. 'I OUGHT not. What will become of me?'

She felt herself stronger; he was excited, but his excitement was notcontagious. The string vibrated, and the note was resonant, but itwas not a note which was consonant with hers, and it did not stir herto respond. He might love her, he was sincere enough to sacrificehimself for her, and to remain faithful to her, but the voice was notaltogether that of his own true self. Partly, at least, it was thevoice of what he considered to be duty, of superstition and alarm. She was silent. 

'Madge, ' he continued, 'ought you to refuse? You have some love forme. Is it not greater than the love which thousands feel for oneanother. Will you blast your future and mine, and, perhaps, that ofsomeone besides, who may be very dear to you? OUGHT you not, I say, to listen?'

The service had come to an end, the organist was playing a voluntary, rather longer than usual, and the congregation was leaving, some ofthem passing near Madge and Frank, and casting idle glances on theyoung couple who had evidently come neither to pray nor to admire thearchitecture. Madge recognised the well-known St Ann's fugue, and, strange to say, even at such a moment it took entire possession ofher; the golden ladder was let down and celestial visitors descended. When the music ceased she spoke. 

'It would be a crime. '

'A crime, but I--' She stopped him. 

'I know what you are going to say. I know what is the crime to theworld; but it would have been a crime, perhaps a worse crime, if aceremony had been performed beforehand by a priest, and the worst ofcrimes would be that ceremony now. I must go. ' She rose and beganto move towards the door. 

He walked silently by her side till they were in St Paul'schurchyard, when she took him by the hand, pressed it affectionatelyand suddenly turned into one of the courts that lead towardsPaternoster Row. He did not follow her, something repelled him, andwhen he reached home it crossed his mind that marriage, after suchdelay, would be a poor recompense, as he could not thereby concealher disgrace. 

CHAPTER XVIII

It was clear that these two women could not live in London onseventy-five pounds a year, most certainly not with the prospectbefore them, and Clara cast about for something to do. Marshall hada brother-in-law, a certain Baruch Cohen, a mathematical instrumentmaker in Clerkenwell, and to him Marshall accidentally one day talkedabout Clara, and said that she desired an occupation. Cohen himselfcould not give Clara any work, but he knew a second-hand bookseller, an old man who kept a shop in Holborn, who wanted a clerk, and Clarathus found herself earning another pound a week. With this additionshe and her sister could manage to pay their way and provide whatMadge would want. The hours were long, the duties irksome andwearisome, and, worst of all, the conditions under which they wereperformed, were not only as bad as they could be, but their badnesswas of a kind to which Clara had never been accustomed, so that shefelt every particle of it in its full force. The windows of the shopwere, of course, full of books, and the walls were lined with them. In the middle of the shop also was a range of shelves, and books werestacked on the floor, so that the place looked like a huge cubicalblock of them through which passages had been bored. At the back theshop became contracted in width to about eight feet, and consequentlythe central shelves were not continued there, but just where theyended, and overshadowed by them were a little desk and a stool. Allround the desk more books were piled, and some manoeuvring wasnecessary in order to sit down. This was Clara's station. Occasionally, on a brilliant, a very brilliant day in summer, shecould write without gas, but, perhaps, there were not a dozen suchdays in the year. By twisting herself sideways she could just catcha glimpse of a narrow line of sky over some heavy theology which wasnot likely to be disturbed, and was therefore put at the top of thewindow, and once when somebody bought the Calvin Joann. Opera Omnia, 9 vol. Folio, Amst. 1671--it was very clear that afternoon--sheactually descried towards seven o'clock a blessed star exactly in themiddle of the gap the Calvin had left. 

The darkness was very depressing, and poor Clara often shut her eyesas she bent over her day-book and ledger, and thought of theFenmarket flats where the sun could be seen bisected by the horizonat sun-rising and sun-setting, and where even the southern Antaresshone with diamond glitter close to the ground during summer nights. She tried to reason with herself during the dreadful smoke fogs; shesaid to herself that they were only half-a-mile thick, and shecarried herself up in imagination and beheld the unclouded azure, thefilthy smother lying all beneath her, but her dream did not continue, and reality was too strong for her. Worse, perhaps, than the eternalgloom was the dirt. She was naturally fastidious, and as her skinwas thin and sensitive, dust was physically a discomfort. Even atFenmarket she was continually washing her hands and face, and, indeed, a wash was more necessary to her after a walk than food ordrink. It was impossible to remain clean in Holborn for fiveminutes; everything she touched was foul with grime; her collar andcuffs were black with it when she went home to her dinner, and it wasnot like the honest, blowing road-sand of Fenmarket highways, but aloathsome composition of everything disgusting which could beproduced by millions of human beings and animals packed together insoot. It was a real misery to her and made her almost ill. However, she managed to set up for herself a little lavatory in the basement, and whenever she had a minute at her command, she descended andenjoyed the luxury of a cool, dripping sponge and a piece of yellowsoap. The smuts began to gather again the moment she went upstairs, but she strove to arm herself with a little philosophy against them. 'What is there in life, ' she moralised, smiling at her sermonising, 'which once won is for ever won? It is always being won and alwaysbeing lost. ' Her master, fortunately, was one of the kindest of men, an old gentleman of about sixty-five, who wore a white necktie, cleanevery morning. He was really a GENTLEman in the true sense of thatmuch misused word, and not a mere TRADESman; that is to say, he lovedhis business, not altogether for the money it brought him, but as anart. He was known far and wide, and literary people were glad togossip with him. He never pushed his wares, and he hated to sellthem to anybody who did not know their value. He amused Clara oneafternoon when a carriage stopped at the door, and a lady inquired ifhe had a Manning and Bray's History of Surrey. Yes, he had a copy, and he pointed to the three handsome, tall folios. 

'What is the price?'

'Twelve pounds ten. '

'I think I will have them. '

'Madam, you will pardon me, but, if I were you, I would not. I thinksomething much cheaper will suit you better. If you will allow me, Iwill look out for you and will report in a few days. '

'Oh! very well, ' and she departed. 

'The wife of a brassfounder, ' he said to Clara; 'made a lot of money, and now he has bought a house at Dulwich and is setting up a library. Somebody has told him that he ought to have a county history, andthat Manning and Bray is the book. Manning and Bray! What he wantsis a Dulwich and Denmark Hill Directory. No, no, ' and he took downone of the big volumes, blew the dust off the top edges and looked atthe old book-plate inside, 'you won't go there if I can help it. ' Hetook a fancy to Clara when he found she loved literature, althoughwhat she read was out of his department altogether, and his perfectlyhuman behaviour to her prevented that sense of exile and lonelinesswhich is so horrible to many a poor creature who comes up to Londonto begin therein the struggle for existence. She read and meditateda good deal in the shop, but not to much profit, for she wascontinually interrupted, and the thought of her sister intrudeditself perpetually. 

Madge seldom or never spoke of her separation from Frank, but onenight, when she was somewhat less reserved than usual, Clara venturedto ask her if she had heard from him since they parted. 

'I met him once. '

'Madge, do you mean that he found out where we are living, and thathe came to see you?'

'No, it was just round the corner as I was going towards Holborn. '

'Nothing could have brought him here but yourself, ' said Clara, slowly. 

'Clara, you doubt?'

'No, no! I doubt you? Never!'

'But you hesitate; you reflect. Speak out. '

'God forbid I should utter a word which would induce you todisbelieve what you know to be right. It is much more important tobelieve earnestly that something is morally right than that it shouldbe really right, and he who attempts to displace a belief runs acertain risk, because he is not sure that what he substitutes can beheld with equal force. Besides, each person's belief, or proposedcourse of action, is a part of himself, and if he be diverted from itand takes up with that which is not himself, the unity of his natureis impaired, and he loses himself. '

'Which is as much as to say that the prophet is to break no idols. '

'You know I do not mean that, and you know, too, how incapable I amof defending myself in argument. I never can stand up for anything Isay. I can now and then say something, but, when I have said it, Irun away. '

'My dearest Clara, ' Madge put her arm over her sister's shoulder asthey sat side by side, 'do not run away now; tell me just what youthink of me. '

Clara was silent for a minute. 

'I have sometimes wondered whether you have not demanded a little toomuch of yourself and Frank. It is always a question of how much. There is no human truth which is altogether true, no love which isaltogether perfect. You may possibly have neglected virtue ordevotion such as you could not find elsewhere, overlooking it becausesome failing, or the lack of sympathy on some unimportant point, mayat the moment have been prominent. Frank loved you, Madge. '

Madge did not reply; she withdrew her arm from her sister's neck, threw herself back in her chair and closed her eyes. She saw againthe Fenmarket roads, that summer evening, and she felt once moreFrank's burning caresses. She thought of him as he left St Paul's, perhaps broken-hearted. Stronger than every other motive to returnto him, and stronger than ever, was the movement towards him of thatwhich belonged to him. 

At last she cried out, literally cried, with a vehemence whichstartled and terrified Clara, -

'Clara, Clara, you know not what you do! For God's sake forbear!'She was again silent, and then she turned round hurriedly, hid herface, and sobbed piteously. It lasted, however, but for a minute;she rose, wiped her eyes, went to the window, came back again, andsaid, -

'It is beginning to snow. '

The iron pillar bolted to the solid rock had quivered and resoundedunder the blow, but its vibrations were nothing more than those ofthe rigid metal; the base was unshaken and, except for an instant, the column had not been deflected a hair's-breadth. 

CHAPTER XIX

Mr Cohen, who had obtained the situation indirectly for Clara, thought nothing more about it until, one day, he went to the shop, and he then recollected his recommendation, which had been givensolely in faith, for he had never seen the young woman, and hadtrusted entirely to Marshall. He found her at her dark desk, and ashe approached her, she hastily put a mark in a book and closed it. 

'Have you sold a little volume called After Office Hours by a mannamed Robinson?'

'I did not know we had it. I have never seen it. '

'I do not wonder, but I saw it here about six months ago; it was upthere, ' pointing to a top shelf. Clara was about to mount theladder, but he stopped her, and found what he wanted. Some of theleaves were torn. 

'We can repair those for you; in about a couple of days it shall beready. '

He lingered a little, and at that moment another customer entered. Clara went forward to speak to him, and Cohen was able to see that itwas the Heroes and Hero Worship she had been studying, a course oflectures which had been given by a Mr Carlyle, of whom Cohen knewsomething. As the customer showed no signs of departing, Cohen left, saying he would call again. 

Before sending Robinson's After Office Hours to the binder, Claralooked at it. It was made up of short essays, about twentyaltogether, bound in dark-green cloth, lettered at the side, andpublished in 1841. They were upon the oddest subjects: such as, Ought Children to learn Rules before Reasons? The Higher Mathematicsand Materialism. Ought We to tell Those Whom We love what We thinkabout Them? Deductive Reasoning in Politics. What Troubles ought Weto Make Known and What ought We to Keep Secret: Courage as a Scienceand an Art. 

Clara did not read any one essay through, she had no time, but shewas somewhat struck with a few sentences which caught her eye; forexample--'A mere dream, a vague hope, ought in some cases to be morepotent than a certainty in regulating our action. The faintestvision of God should be more determinative than the grossest earthlyassurance. '

'I knew a case in which a man had to encounter three successivetrials of all the courage and inventive faculty in him. Failure inone would have been ruin. The odds against him in each trial weredesperate, and against ultimate victory were overwhelming. Nevertheless, he made the attempt, and was triumphant, by thenarrowest margin, in every struggle. That which is of most value tous is often obtained in defiance of the laws of probability. '

'What is precious in Quakerism is not so much the doctrine of theDivine voice as that of the preliminary stillness, the closureagainst other voices and the reduction of the mind to a condition inwhich it can LISTEN, in which it can discern the merest whisper, inaudible when the world, or interest, or passion, are permitted tospeak. '

'The acutest syllogiser can never develop the actual consequences ofany system of policy, or, indeed, of any change in humanrelationship, man being so infinitely complex, and the interaction ofhuman forces so incalculable. '

'Many of our speculative difficulties arise from the unauthorisedconception of an OMNIPOTENT God, a conception entirely of our owncreation, and one which, if we look at it closely, has no meaning. It is because God COULD have done otherwise, and did not, that we areconfounded. It may be distressing to think that God cannot do anybetter, but it is not so distressing as to believe that He might havedone better had He so willed. '

Although these passages were disconnected, each of them seemed toClara to be written in a measure for herself, and her curiosity wasexcited about the author. Perhaps the man who called would saysomething about him. 

Baruch Cohen was now a little over forty. He was half a Jew, for hisfather was a Jew and his mother a Gentile. The father had brokenwith Judaism, but had not been converted to any Christian church orsect. He was a diamond-cutter, originally from Holland, came over toEngland and married the daughter of a mathematical instrument maker, at whose house he lodged in Clerkenwell. The son was apprenticed tohis maternal grandfather's trade, became very skilful at it, workedat it himself, employed a man and a boy, and supplied London shops, which sold his instruments at about three times the price he obtainedfor them. Baruch, when he was very young, married Marshall's eldersister, but she died at the birth of her first child and he had beena widower now for nineteen years. He had often thought of takinganother wife, and had seen, during these nineteen years, two or threewomen with whom he had imagined himself to be really in love, and towhom he had been on the verge of making proposals, but in each casehe had hung back, and when he found that a second and a third hadawakened the same ardour for a time as the first, he distrusted itsgenuineness. He was now, too, at a time of life when a man has tomake the unpleasant discovery that he is beginning to lose the rightto expect what he still eagerly desires, and that he must beware ofbeing ridiculous. It is indeed a very unpleasant discovery. If hehas done anything well which was worth doing, or has made himself aname, he may be treated by women with respect or adulation, but anypassable boy of twenty is really more interesting to them, and, unhappily, there is perhaps so much of the man left in him that hewould rather see the eyes of a girl melt when she looked at him thanbe adored by all the drawing-rooms in London as the author of thegreatest poem since Paradise Lost, or as the conqueror of half acontinent. Baruch's life during the last nineteen years had beensuch that he was still young, and he desired more than ever, becausenot so blindly as he desired it when he was a youth, the tender, intimate sympathy of a woman's love. It was singular that, duringall those nineteen years, he should not once have been overcome. Itseemed to him as if he had been held back, not by himself, but bysome external power, which refused to give any reasons for so doing. There was now less chance of yielding than ever; he was reserved andself-respectful, and his manner towards women distinctly announced tothem that he knew what he was and that he had no claims whatever uponthem. He was something of a philosopher, too; he accepted, therefore, as well as he could, without complaint, the inevitableorder of nature, and he tried to acquire, although often he failed, that blessed art of taking up lightly and even with a smile whateverhe was compelled to handle. 'It is possible, ' he said once, 'toconsider death too seriously. ' He was naturally more than half aJew; his features were Jewish, his thinking was Jewish, and hebelieved after a fashion in the Jewish sacred books, or, at anyrate, read them continuously, although he had added to his armourydefensive weapons of another type. In nothing was he more Jewishthan in a tendency to dwell upon the One, or what he called God, clinging still to the expression of his forefathers althoughdeparting so widely from them. In his ethics and system of life, aswell as in his religion, there was the same intolerance of amultiplicity which was not reducible to unity. He seldom explainedhis theory, but everybody who knew him recognised the differencewhich it wrought between him and other men. There was a certainconcord in everything he said and did, as if it were directed by someenthroned but secret principle. 

He had encountered no particular trouble since his wife's death, buthis life had been unhappy. He had no friends, much as he longed forfriendship, and he could not give any reasons for his failure. Hesaw other persons more successful, but he remained solitary. Theirneeds were not so great as his, for it is not those who have theleast but those who have the most to give who most want sympathy. Hehad often made advances; people had called on him and had appearedinterested in him, but they had dropped away. The cause was chieflyto be found in his nationality. The ordinary Englishman disliked himsimply as a Jew, and the better sort were repelled by a lack ofgeniality and by his inability to manifest a healthy interest inpersonal details. Partly also the cause was that those who care tospeak about what is nearest to them are very rare, and most personsfind conversation easy in proportion to the remoteness of its topicsfrom them. Whatever the reasons may have been, Baruch now, no matterwhat the pressure from within might be, generally kept himself tohimself. It was a mistake and he ought not to have retreated so farupon repulse. A word will sometimes, when least expected, unlock aheart, a soul is gained for ever, and at once there is much more thana recompense for the indifference of years. 

After the death of his wife, Baruch's affection spent itself upon hisson Benjamin, whom he had apprenticed to a firm of optical instrumentmakers in York. The boy was not very much like his father. He wasindifferent to that religion by which his father lived, but heinherited an aptitude for mathematics, which was very necessary inhis trade. Benjamin also possessed his father's rectitude, trustedhim, and looked to him for advice to such a degree that even Baruch, at last, thought it would be better to send him away from home inorder that he might become a little more self-reliant andindependent. It was the sorest of trials to part with him, and, forsome time after he left, Baruch's loneliness was intolerable. Itwas, however, relieved by a visit to York perhaps once in four orfive months, for whenever business could be alleged as an excuse forgoing north, he managed, as he said, 'to take York on his way. '

The day after he met Clara he started for Birmingham, and althoughYork was certainly not 'on his way, ' he pushed forward to the cityand reached it on a Saturday evening. He was to spend Sunday there, and on Sunday morning he proposed that they should hear the cathedralservice, and go for a walk in the afternoon. To this suggestionBenjamin partially assented. He wished to go to the cathedral in themorning, but thought his father had better rest after dinner. Baruchsomewhat resented the insinuation of possible fatigue consequent onadvancing years. 

'What do you mean?' he said; 'you know well enough I enjoy a walk inthe afternoon; besides, I shall not see much of you, and do not wantto lose what little time I have. '

About three, therefore, they started, and presently a girl met them, who was introduced simply as 'Miss Masters. '

'We are going to your side of the water, ' said the son; 'you may aswell cross with us. '

They came to a point where a boat was moored, and a man was in it. There was no regular ferry, but on Sundays he earned a trifle bytaking people to the opposite meadow, and thus enabling them to varytheir return journey to the city. When they were about two-thirds ofthe way over, Benjamin observed that if they stood up they could seethe Minster. They all three rose, and without an instant's warning--they could not tell afterwards how it happened--the boat halfcapsized, and they were in eight or nine feet of water. Baruch couldnot swim and went down at once, but on coming up close to the gunwalehe caught at it and held fast. Looking round, he saw that Benjamin, who could swim well, had made for Miss Masters, and, having caughther by the back of the neck, was taking her ashore. The boatman, whocould also swim, called out to Baruch to hold on, gave the boat threeor four vigorous strokes from the stern, and Baruch felt the groundunder his feet. The boatman's little cottage was not far off, and, when the party reached it, Benjamin earnestly desired Miss Masters totake off her wet clothes and occupy the bed which was offered her. He himself would run home--it was not half-a-mile--and, after havingchanged, would go to her house and send her sister with what waswanted. He was just off when it suddenly struck him that his fathermight need some attention. 

'Oh, father--' he began, but the boatman's wife interposed. 

'He can't be left like that, and he can't go home; he'll catch hisdeath o' cold, and there isn't but one more bed in the house, andthat isn't quite fit to put a gentleman in. Howsomever, he must turnin there, and my husband, he can go into the back-kitchen and rubhimself down. You won't do yourself no good, Mr Cohen, ' addressingthe son, whom she knew, 'by going back; you'd better stay here andget into bed with your father. '

In a few minutes the boatman would have gone on the errand, butBenjamin could not lose the opportunity of sacrificing himself forMiss Masters. He rushed off, and in three-quarters of an hour hadreturned with the sister. Having learned, after anxious inquiry, that Miss Masters, so far as could be discovered, had not caught achill, he went to his father. 

'Well, father, I hope you are none the worse for the ducking, ' hesaid gaily. 'The next time you come to York you'd better bringanother suit of clothes with you. '

Baruch turned round uneasily and did not answer immediately. He hadhad a narrow escape from drowning. 

'Nothing of much consequence. Is your friend all right?'

'Oh, yes; I was anxious about her, for she is not very strong, but Ido not think she will come to much harm. I made them light a fire inher room. '

'Are they drying my clothes?'

'I'll go and see. '

He went away and encountered the elder Miss Masters, who told himthat her sister, feeling no ill effects from the plunge, haddetermined to go home at once, and in fact was nearly ready. Benjamin waited, and presently she came downstairs, smiling. 

'Nothing the matter. I owe it to you, however, that I am not now inanother world. '

Benjamin was in an ecstasy, and considered himself bound to accompanyher to her door. 

Meanwhile, Baruch lay upstairs alone in no very happy temper. Heheard the conversation below, and knew that his son had gone. In allgenuine love there is something of ferocious selfishness. Theperfectly divine nature knows how to keep it in check, and is evencapable--supposing it to be a woman's nature--of contentment if theloved one is happy, no matter with what or with whom; but the natureonly a little less than divine cannot, without pain, endure thethought that it no longer owns privately and exclusively that whichit loves, even when it loves a child, and Baruch was particularlyexcusable, considering his solitude. Nevertheless, he had learned alittle wisdom, and, what was of much greater importance, had learnedhow to use it when he needed it. It had been forced upon him; it wasan adjustment to circumstances, the wisest wisdom. It was notsomething without any particular connection with him; it was ratherthe external protection built up from within to shield him where hewas vulnerable; it was the answer to questions which had been put toHIM, and not to those which had been put to other people. So it cameto pass that, when he said bitterly to himself that, if he were atthat moment lying dead at the bottom of the river, Benjamin wouldhave found consolation very near at hand, he was able to reflect uponthe folly of self-laceration, and to rebuke himself for a complaintagainst what was simply the order of Nature, and not a personalfailure. 

His self-conquest, however, was not very permanent. When he leftYork the next morning, he fancied his son was not particularlygrieved, and he was passive under the thought that an epoch in hislife had come, that the milestones now began to show the distance tothe place to which he travelled, and, still worse, that the boy whohad been so close to him, and upon whom he had so much depended, hadgone from him. 

There is no remedy for our troubles which is uniformly andprogressively efficacious. All that we have a right to expect fromour religion is that gradually, very gradually, it will assist us toa real victory. After each apparent defeat, if we are bravely inearnest, we gain something on our former position. Baruch was twodays on his journey back to town, and as he came nearer home, herecovered himself a little. Suddenly he remembered the bookshop andthe book for which he had to call, and that he had intended to askMarshall something about the bookseller's new assistant. 

CHAPTER XX

Madge was a puzzle to Mrs Caffyn. Mrs Caffyn loved her, and when shewas ill had behaved like a mother to her. The newly-born child, ahealthy girl, was treated by Mrs Caffyn as if it were her owngranddaughter, and many little luxuries were bought which neverappeared in Mrs Marshall's weekly bill. Naturally, Mrs Caffyn'saffection moved a response from Madge, and Mrs Caffyn by degreesheard the greater part of her history; but why she had separatedherself from her lover without any apparent reason remained amystery, and all the greater was the mystery because Mrs Caffynbelieved that there were no other facts to be known than those sheknew. She longed to bring about a reconciliation. It was dreadfulto her that Madge should be condemned to poverty, and that her infantshould be fatherless, although there was a gentleman waiting to takethem both and make them happy. 

'The hair won't be dark like yours, my love, ' she said one afternoon, soon after Madge had come downstairs and was lying on the sofa. 'Thehair do darken a lot, but hers will never be black. It's my opinionas it'll be fair. '

Madge did not speak, and Mrs Caffyn, who was sitting at the head ofthe couch, put her work and her spectacles on the table. It wasgrowing dusk; she took Madge's hand, which hung down by her side, andgently lifted it up. Such a delicate hand, Mrs Caffyn thought. Shewas proud that she had for a friend the owner of such a hand, whobehaved to her as an equal. It was delightful to be kissed--no mereformal salutations--by a lady fit to go into the finest drawing-roomin London, but it was a greater delight that Madge's talk suited herbetter than any she had heard at Great Oakhurst. It was natural sheshould rejoice when she discovered, unconsciously that she had asoul, to which the speech of the stars, though somewhat strange, wasnot an utterly foreign tongue. 

She retained her hold on Madge's hand. 

'May be, ' she continued, 'it'll be like its father's. In our familyall the gals take after the father, and all the boys after themother. I suppose as HE has lightish hair?'

Still Madge said nothing. 

'It isn't easy to believe as the father of that blessed dear couldhave been a bad lot. I'm sure he isn't, and yet there's thatPolesden gal at the farm, she as went wrong with Jim, a great uglybrute, and she herself warnt up to much, well, as I say, her childwas the delicatest little angel as I ever saw. It's my belief asGod-a-mighty mixes Hisself up in it more nor we think. But there WASnothing amiss with him, was there, my sweet?'

Mrs Caffyn inclined her head towards Madge. 

'Oh, no! Nothing, nothing. '

'Don't you think, my dear, if there's nothing atwixt you, as it was aflyin' in the face of Providence to turn him off? You were reglarlyengaged to him, and I have heard you say he was very fond of you. Isuppose there were some high words about something, and a kind of aquarrel like, and so you parted, but that's nothing. It might all bemade up now, and it ought to be made up. What was it about?'

'There was no quarrel. '

'Well, of course, if you don't like to say anything more to me, Iwon't ask you. I don't want to hear any secrets as I shouldn't hear. I speak only because I can't abear to see you here when I believe aseverything might be put right, and you might have a house of yourown, and a good husband, and be happy for the rest of your days. Itisn't too late for that now. I know what I know, and as how he'dmarry you at once. '

'Oh, my dear Mrs Caffyn, I have no secret from you, who have been sogood to me: I can only say I could not love him--not as I ought. '

'If you can't love a man, that's to say if you can't ABEAR him, it'swrong to have him, but if there's a child that does make adifference, for one has to think of the child and of beingrespectable. There's something in being respectable; although, forthat matter, I've see'd respectable people at Great Oakhurst as wereten times worse than those as aren't. Still, a-speaking for myself, I'd put up with a goodish bit to marry the man whose child wor mine. '

'For myself I could, but it wouldn't be just to him. '

'I don't see what you mean. '

'I mean that I could sacrifice myself if I believed it to be my duty, but I should wrong him cruelly if I were to accept him and did notlove him with all my heart. '

'My dear, you take my word for it, he isn't so particklar as you are. A man isn't so particklar as a woman. He goes about his work, andhas all sorts of things in his head, and if a woman makes himcomfortable when he comes home, he's all right. I won't say as onewoman is much the same as another to a man--leastways to all men--butstill they are NOT particklar. Maybe, though, it isn't quite thesame with gentlefolk like yourself, --but there's that blessed baby a-cryin'. '

Mrs Caffyn hastened upstairs, leaving Madge to her reflections. Oncemore the old dialectic reappeared. 'After all, ' she thought, 'it is, as Clara said, a question of degree. There are not a thousandhusbands and wives in this great city whose relationship comes nearperfection. If I felt aversion my course would be clear, but thereis no aversion; on the contrary, our affection for one another issufficient for a decent household and decent existence undisturbed bycatastrophes. No brighter sunlight is obtained by others far betterthan myself. Ought I to expect a refinement of relationship to whichI have no right? Our claims are always beyond our deserts, and weare disappointed if our poor, mean, defective natures do not obtainthe homage which belongs to those of ethereal texture. It will be alife with no enthusiasms nor romance, perhaps, but it will betolerable, and what may be called happy, and my child will beprotected and educated. My child! what is there which I ought to putin the balance against her? If our sympathy is not complete, I havemy own little oratory: I can keep the candles alight, close thedoor, and worship there alone. '

So she mused, and her foes again ranged themselves over against her. There was nothing to support her but something veiled, which wouldnot altogether disclose or explain itself. Nevertheless, in a fewminutes, her enemies had vanished, like a mist before a sudden wind, and she was once more victorious. Precious and rare are those divinesouls, to whom that which is aerial is substantial, the only truesubstance; those for whom a pale vision possesses an authority theyare forced unconditionally to obey. 

CHAPTER XXI

Mrs Caffyn was unhappy, and made up her mind that she would talk toFrank herself. She had learned enough about him from the twosisters, especially from Clara, to make her believe that, with a verylittle management, she could bring him back to Madge. The difficultywas to see him without his father's knowledge. At last shedetermined to write to him, and she made her son-in-law address theenvelope and mark it private. This is what she said:-

'DEAR SIR, --Although unbeknown to you, I take the liberty of tellingyou as M. H. Is alivin' here with me, and somebody else as I thinkyou ought to see, but perhaps I'd better have a word or two with youmyself, if not quite ill-convenient to you, and maybe you'll be kindenough to say how that's to be done to your obedient, humble servant, 'MRS CAFFYN. '

She thought this very diplomatic, inasmuch as nobody but Frank couldpossibly suspect what the letter meant. It went to Stoke Newington, but, alas! he was in Germany, and poor Mrs Caffyn had to wait a weekbefore she received a reply. Frank of course understood it. Although he had thought about Madge continually, he had becomecalmer. He saw, it is true, that there was no stability in hisposition, and that he could not possibly remain where he was. HadMadge been the commonest of the common, and his relationship to herthe commonest of the common, he could not permit her to cast herselfloose from him for ever and take upon herself the whole burden of hismisdeed. But he did not know what to do, and, as successiveconsiderations and reconsiderations ended in nothing, and thedistractions of a foreign country were so numerous, Madge had for atime been put aside, like a huge bill which we cannot pay, and whichstaggers us. We therefore docket it, and hide it in the desk, and weimagine we have done something. Once again, however, the flame leaptup out of the ashes, vivid as ever. Once again the thought that hehad been so close to Madge, and that she had yielded to him, touchedhim with peculiar tenderness, and it seemed impossible to parthimself from her. To a man with any of the nobler qualities of manit is not only a sense of honour which binds him to a woman who hasgiven him all she has to give. Separation seems unnatural, monstrous, a divorce from himself; it is not she alone, but it ishimself whom he abandons. Frank's duty, too, pointed imperiously tothe path he ought to take, duty to the child as well as to themother. He determined to go home, secretly; Mrs Caffyn would nothave written if she had not seen good reason for believing that Madgestill belonged to him. He made up his mind to start the next day, but when the next day came, instructions to go immediately to Hamburgarrived from his father. There were rumours of the insolvency of ahouse with which Mr Palmer dealt; inquiries were necessary whichcould better be made personally, and if these rumours were correct, as Mr Palmer believed them to be, his agency must be transferred tosome other firm. There was now no possibility of a journey toEngland. For a moment he debated whether, when he was at Hamburg, hecould not slip over to London, but it would be dangerous. Furtherorders might come from his father, and the failure to acknowledgethem would lead to evasion, and perhaps to discovery. He must, therefore, content himself with a written explanation to Mrs Caffynwhy he could not meet her, and there should be one more effort tomake atonement to Madge. This was what went to Mrs Caffyn, and toher lodger:-

'DEAR MADAM, --Your note has reached me here. I am very sorry that myengagements are so pressing that I cannot leave Germany at present. I have written to Miss Hopgood. There is one subject which I cannotmention to her--I cannot speak to her about money. Will you pleasegive me full information? I enclose 20 pounds, and I must trust to yourdiscretion. I thank you heartily for all your kindness. --Trulyyours, 'FRANK PALMER. '

'MY DEAREST MADGE, --I cannot help saying one more word to you, although, when I last saw you, you told me that it was useless for meto hope. I know, however, that there is now another bond between us, the child is mine as well as yours, and if I am not all that youdeserve, ought you to prevent me from doing my duty to it as well asto you? It is true that if we were to marry I could never right you, and perhaps my father would have nothing to do with us, but in timehe might relent, and I will come over at once, or, at least, themoment I have settled some business here, and you shall be my wife. Do, my dearest Madge, consent. '

When he came to this point his pen stopped. What he had written wasvery smooth, but very tame and cold. However, nothing betterpresented itself; he changed his position, sat back in his chair, andsearched himself, but could find nothing. It was not always so. Some months ago there would have been no difficulty, and he would nothave known when to come to an end. The same thing would have beensaid a dozen times, perhaps, but it would not have seemed the same tohim, and each succeeding repetition would have been felt with theforce of novelty. He took a scrap of paper and tried to draft two orthree sentences, altered them several times and made them worse. Hethen re-read the letter; it was too short; but after all it containedwhat was necessary, and it must go as it stood. She knew how he felttowards her. So he signed it after giving his address at Hamburg, and it was posted. 

Three or four days afterwards Mrs Marshall, in accordance with herusual custom, went to see Madge before she was up. The child laypeacefully by its mother's side and Frank's letter was upon thecounterpane. The resolution that no letter from him should be openedhad been broken. The two women had become great friends and, withinthe last few weeks, Madge had compelled Mrs Marshall to call her byher Christian name. 

'You've had a letter from Mr Palmer; I was sure it was hishandwriting when it came late last night. '

'You can read it; there is nothing private in it. '

She turned round to the child and Mrs Marshall sat down and read. When she had finished she laid the letter on the bed again and wassilent. 

'Well?' said Madge. 'Would you say "No?"'

'Yes, I would. '

'For your own sake, as well as for his?'

Mrs Marshall took up the letter and read half of it again. 

'Yes, you had better say "No. " You will find it dull, especially ifyou have to live in London. '

'Did you find London dull when you came to live in it?'

'Rather; Marshall is away all day long. '

'But scarcely any woman in London expects to marry a man who is notaway all day. '

'They ought then to have heaps of work, or they ought to have a lotof children to look after; but, perhaps, being born and bred in thecountry, I do not know what people in London are. Recollect you werecountry born and bred yourself, or, at anyrate, you have lived in thecountry for the most of your life. '

'Dull! we must all expect to be dull. '

'There's nothing worse. I've had rheumatic fever, and I say, give methe fever rather than what comes over me at times here. If Marshallhad not been so good to me, I do not know what I should have donewith myself. '

Madge turned round and looked Mrs Marshall straight in the face, butshe did not flinch. 

'Marshall is very good to me, but I was glad when mother and you andyour sister came to keep me company when he is not at home. It tiredme to have my meals alone: it is bad for the digestion; at least, sohe says, and he believes that it was indigestion that was the matterwith me. I should be sorry for myself if you were to go away; notthat I want to put that forward. Maybe I should never see much moreof you: he is rich: you might come here sometimes, but he would notlike to have Marshall and mother and me at his house. '

Not a word was spoken for at least a minute. 

Suddenly Mrs Marshall took Madge's hand in her own hands, leaned overher, and in that kind of whisper with which we wake a sleeper who isto be aroused to escape from sudden peril, she said in her ear, -

'Madge, Madge: for God's sake leave him!'

'I have left him. '

'Are you sure?'

'Quite. '

'For ever?'

'For ever!'

Mrs Marshall let go Madge's hand, turned her eyes towards herintently for a moment, and again bent over her as if she were aboutto embrace her. A knock, however, came at the door, and Mrs Caffynentered with the cup of coffee which she always insisted on bringingbefore Madge rose. After she and her daughter had left, Madge readthe letter once more. There was nothing new in it, but formally itwas something, like the tolling of the bell when we know that ourfriend is dead. There was a little sobbing, and then she kissed herchild with such eagerness that it began to cry. 

'You'll answer that letter, I suppose?' said Mrs Caffyn, when theywere alone. 

'No. '

'I'm rather glad. It would worrit you, and there's nothing worse fora baby than worritin' when it's mother's a-feedin it. '

Mr Caffyn wrote as follows:-

'DEAR SIR, --I was sorry as you couldn't come; but I believe now as itwas better as you didn't. I am no scollard, and so no more from yourobedient, humble servant, 'MRS CAFFYN. 

'P. S. --I return the money, having no use for the same. 

CHAPTER XXII

Baruch did not obtain any very definite information from Marshallabout Clara. He was told that she had a sister; that they were bothof them gentlewomen; that their mother and father were dead; thatthey were great readers, and that they did not go to church norchapel, but that they both went sometimes to hear a certain Mr A. J. Scott lecture. He was once assistant minister to Irving, but was nowheretical, and had a congregation of his own creating at Woolwich. 

Baruch called at the shop and found Clara once more alone. The bookwas packed up and had being lying ready for him for two or threedays. He wanted to speak, but hardly knew how to begin. He lookedidly round the shelves, taking down one volume after another, and atlast he said, -

'I suppose nobody but myself has ever asked for a copy of Robinson?'

'Not since I have been here. '

'I do not wonder at it; he printed only two hundred and fifty; hegave away five-and-twenty, and I am sure nearly two hundred were soldas wastepaper. '

'He is a friend of yours?'

'He was a friend; he is dead; he was an usher in a private school, although you might have supposed, from the title selected, that hewas a clerk. I told him it was useless to publish, and hispublishers told him the same thing. '

'I should have thought that some notice would have been taken of him;he is so evidently worth it. '

'Yes, but although he was original and reflective, he had noparticular talent. His excellence lay in criticism and observation, often profound, on what came to him every day, and he was valuelessin the literary market. A talent of some kind is necessary to geniusif it is to be heard. So he died utterly unrecognised, save by oneor two personal friends who loved him dearly. He was peculiar in thedepth and intimacy of his friendships. Few men understand themeaning of the word friendship. They consort with certain companionsand perhaps very earnestly admire them, because they possessintellectual gifts, but of friendship, such as we two, Morris and I(for that was his real name) understood it, they know nothing. '

'Do you believe, that the good does not necessarily survive?'

'Yes and no; I believe that power every moment, so far as our eyescan follow it, is utterly lost. I have had one or two friends whomthe world has never known and never will know, who have more in themthan is to be found in many an English classic. I could take you toa little dissenting chapel not very far from Holborn where you wouldhear a young Welshman, with no education beyond that provided by aWelsh denominational college, who is a perfect orator and whose depthof insight is hardly to be matched, save by Thomas A Kempis, whom hemuch resembles. When he dies he will be forgotten in a dozen years. Besides, it is surely plain enough to everybody that there arethousands of men and women within a mile of us, apathetic andobscure, who, if, an object worthy of them had been presented tothem, would have shown themselves capable of enthusiasm and heroism. Huge volumes of human energy are apparently annihilated. '

'It is very shocking, worse to me than the thought of the earthquakeor the pestilence. '

'I said "yes and no" and there is another side. The universe is sowonderful, so intricate, that it is impossible to trace thetransformation of its forces, and when they seem to disappear thedisappearance may be an illusion. Moreover, "waste" is a word whichis applicable only to finite resources. If the resources areinfinite it has no meaning. '

Two customers came in and Baruch was obliged to leave. When he cameto reflect, he was surprised to find not only how much he had said, but what he had said. He was usually reserved, and with strangers headhered to the weather or to passing events. He had spoken, however, to this young woman as if they had been acquainted for years. Clara, too, was surprised. She always cut short attempts at conversation inthe shop. Frequently she answered questions and receipted andreturned bills without looking in the faces of the people who spoketo her or offered her the money. But to this foreigner, or Jew, shehad disclosed something she felt. She was rather abashed, butpresently her employer, Mr Barnes, returned and somewhat relievedher. 

'The gentleman who bought After Office Hours came for it while youwere out?'

'Oh! what, Cohen? Good fellow Cohen is; he it was who recommendedyou to me. He is brother-in-law to your landlord. ' Clara wascomforted; he was not a mere 'casual, ' as Mr Barnes called his chancecustomers. 

CHAPTER XXIII

About a fortnight afterwards, on a Sunday afternoon, Cohen went tothe Marshalls'. He had called there once or twice since his mother-in-law came to London, but had seen nothing of the lodgers. It wasjust about tea-time, but unfortunately Marshall and his wife had goneout. Mrs Caffyn insisted that Cohen should stay, but Madge could notbe persuaded to come downstairs, and Baruch, Mrs Caffyn and Clara hadtea by themselves. Baruch asked Mrs Caffyn if she could endureLondon after living for so long in the country. 

'Ah! my dear boy, I have to like it. '

'No, you haven't; what you mean is that, whether you like it, orwhether you do not, you have to put up with it. '

'No, I don't mean that. Miss Hopgood, Cohen and me, we are the bestof friends, but whenever he comes here, he allus begins to argue withme. Howsomever, arguing isn't everything, is it, my dear? There'ssome things, after all, as I can do and he can't, but he's just wronghere in his arguing that wasn't what I meant. I meant what I said, as I had to like it. '

'How can you like it if you don't?'

'How can I? That shows you're a man and not a woman. Jess like youmen. YOU'D do what you didn't like, I know, for you're a good sort--and everybody would know you didn't like it--but what would be theuse of me a-livin' in a house if I didn't like it?--with my daughterand these dear, young women? If it comes to livin', you'd tenthousand times better say at once as you hate bein' where you arethan go about all day long, as if you was a blessed saint and putupon. '

Mrs Caffyn twitched at her gown and pulled it down over her knees andbrushed the crumbs off with energy. She continued, 'I can't abidepeople who everlastin' make believe they are put upon. Suppose Iwere allus a-hankering every foggy day after Great Oakhurst, and yeta-tellin' my daughter as I knew my place was here; if I was she, Ishould wish my mother at Jericho. '

'Then you really prefer London to Great Oakhurst?' said Clara. 

'Why, my dear, of course I do. Don't you think it's pleasanter beinghere with you and your sister and that precious little creature, andmy daughter, than down in that dead-alive place? Not that I don'tmiss my walk sometimes into Darkin; you remember that way as I tookyou once, Baruch, across the hill, and we went over Ranmore Commonand I showed you Camilla Lacy, and you said as you knew a woman whowrote books who once lived there? You remember them beech-woods?Ah, it was one October! Weren't they a colour--weren't they lovely?'

Baruch remembered them well enough. Who that had ever seen themcould forget them?

'And it was I as took you! You wouldn't think it, my dear, thoughhe's always a-arguin', I do believe he'd love to go that walk again, even with an old woman, and see them heavenly beeches. But, Lord, how I do talk, and you've neither of you got any tea. '

'Have you lived long in London, Miss Hopgood?' inquired Baruch. 

'Not very long. '

'Do you feel the change?'

'I cannot say I do not. '

'I suppose, however, you have brought yourself to believe in MrsCaffyn's philosophy?'

'I cannot say that, but I may say that I am scarcely strong enoughfor mere endurance, and I therefore always endeavour to findsomething agreeable in circumstances from which there is no escape. '

The recognition of the One in the Many had as great a charm forBaruch as it had for Socrates, and Clara spoke with the ease of aperson whose habit it was to deal with principles andgeneralisations. 

'Yes, and mere toleration, to say nothing of opposition, at least sofar as persons are concerned, is seldom necessary. It is generallythought that what is called dramatic power is a poetic gift, but itis really an indispensable virtue to all of us if we are to behappy. '

Mrs Caffyn did not take much interest in abstract statements. 'Youremember, ' she said, turning to Baruch, 'that man Chorley as has thebig farm on the left-hand side just afore you come to the common? Hewasn't a Surrey man: he came out of the shires. '

'Very well. '

'He's married that Skelton girl; married her the week afore I left. There isn't no love lost there, but the girl's father said he'dmurder him if he didn't, and so it come off. How she ever broughtherself to it gets over me. She has that big farm-house, and he'smade a fine drawing-room out of the livin' room on the left-hand sideas you go in, and put a new grate in the kitchen and turned that intothe livin' room, and they does the cooking in the back kitchen, butfor all that, if I'd been her, I'd never have seen his face no more, and I'd have packed off to Australia. '

'Does anybody go near them?'

'Near them! of course they do, and, as true as I'm a-sittin' here, our parson, who married them, went to the breakfast. It isn'tChorley as I blame so much; he's a poor, snivellin' creature, and hewas frightened, but it's the girl. She doesn't care for him no morethan me, and then again, although, as I tell you, he's such a poorcreature, he's awful cruel and mean, and she knows it. But what wasI a-goin' to say? Never shall I forget that wedding. You know asit's a short cut to the church across the farmyard at the back of myhouse. The parson, he was rather late--I suppose he'd been givinghimself a finishin' touch--and, as it had been very dry weather, hewent across the straw and stuff just at the edge like of the yard. There was a pig under the straw--pigs, my dear, ' turning to Clara, 'nuzzle under the straw so as you can't see them. Just as he came tothis pig it started up and upset him, and he fell and straddledacross its back, and the Lord have mercy on me if it didn't carry himat an awful rate, as if he was a jockey at Epsom races, till it cometo a puddle of dung water, and then down he plumped in it. You neversee'd a man in such a pickle! I heer'd the pig a-squeakin' like mad, and I ran to the door, and I called out to him, and I says, "MrOrmiston, won't you come in here?" and though, as you know, he allushated me, he had to come. Mussy on us, how he did stink, and he sawme turn up my nose, and he was wild with rage, and he called the piga filthy beast. I says to him as that was the pig's way and the pigdidn't know who it was who was a-ridin' it, and I took his coat offand wiped his stockings, and sent to the rectory for another coat, and he crept up under the hedge to his garden, and went home, and thepeople at church had to wait for an hour. I was glad I was goin'away from Great Oakhurst, for he never would have forgiven me. '

There was a ring at the front door bell, and Clara went to see whowas there. It was a runaway ring, but she took the opportunity ofgoing upstairs to Madge. 

'She has a sister?' said Baruch. 

'Yes, and I may just as well tell you about her now--leastways what Iknow--and I believe as I know pretty near everything about her. You'll have to be told if they stay here. She was engaged to bemarried, and how it came about with a girl like that is a bit beyondme, anyhow, there's a child, and the father's a good sort by what Ican make out, but she won't have anything more to do with him. '

'What do you mean by "a girl like that. "'

'She isn't one of them as goes wrong; she can talk German and readsbooks. '

'Did he desert her?'

'No, that's just it. She loves me, although I say it, as if I washer mother, and yet I'm just as much in the dark as I was the firstday I saw her as to why she left that man. '

Mrs Caffyn wiped the corners of her eyes with her apron. 

'It's gospel truth as I never took to anybody as I've took to her. '

After Baruch had gone, Clara returned. 

'He's a curious creature, my dear, ' said Mrs Caffyn, 'as good asgold, but he's too solemn by half. It would do him a world of goodif he'd somebody with him who'd make him laugh more. He CAN laugh, for I've seen him forced to get up and hold his sides, but he nevermakes no noise. He's a Jew, and they say as them as crucified ourblessed Lord never laugh proper. 

CHAPTER XXIV

Baruch was now in love. He had fallen in love with Clara suddenlyand totally. His tendency to reflectiveness did not diminish hispassion: it rather augmented it. The men and women whose thoughtsare here and there continually are not the people to feel the fullforce of love. Those who do feel it are those who are accustomed tothink of one thing at a time, and to think upon it for a long time. 'No man, ' said Baruch once, 'can love a woman unless he loves God. ''I should say, ' smilingly replied the Gentile, 'that no man can loveGod unless he loves a woman. ' 'I am right, ' said Baruch, 'and so areyou. '

But Baruch looked in the glass: his hair, jet black when he was ayouth, was marked with grey, and once more the thought came to him--this time with peculiar force--that he could not now expect a womanto love him as she had a right to demand that he should love, andthat he must be silent. He was obliged to call upon Barnes in abouta fortnight's time. He still read Hebrew, and he had seen in theshop a copy of the Hebrew translation of the Moreh Nevochim ofMaimonides, which he greatly coveted, but could not afford to buy. Like every true book-lover, he could not make up his mind when hewished for a book which was beyond his means that he ought once forall to renounce it, and he was guilty of subterfuges quite unworthyof such a reasonable creature in order to delude himself into thebelief that he might yield. For example, he wanted a new overcoatbadly, but determined it was more prudent to wait, and a weekafterwards very nearly came to the conclusion that as he had notordered the coat he had actually accumulated a fund from which theMoreh Nevochim might be purchased. When he came to the shop he sawBarnes was there, and he persuaded himself he should have a quietermoment or two with the precious volume when Clara was alone. Barnes, of course, gossiped with everybody. 

He therefore called again in the evening, about half an hour beforeclosing time, and found that Barnes had gone home. Clara was busywith a catalogue, the proof of which she was particularly anxious tosend to the printer that night. He did not disturb her, but tookdown the Maimonides, and for a few moments was lost in revolving thedoctrine, afterwards repeated and proved by a greater thanMaimonides, that the will and power of God are co-extensive: thatthere is nothing which might be and is not. It was familiar toBaruch, but like all ideas of that quality and magnitude--and thereare not many of them--it was always new and affected him like astarry night, seen hundreds of times, yet for ever infinite andoriginal. 

But was it Maimonides which kept him till the porter began to put upthe shutters? Was he pondering exclusively upon God as the folio layopen before him? He did think about Him, but whether he would havethought about Him for nearly twenty minutes if Clara had not beenthere is another matter. 

'Do you walk home alone?' he said as she gave the proof to the boywho stood waiting. 

'Yes, always. '

'I am going to see Marshall to-night, but I must go to Newman Streetfirst. I shall be glad to walk with you, if you do not minddiverging a little. '

She consented and they went along Oxford Street without speaking, theroar of the carriages and waggons preventing a word. 

They turned, however, into Bloomsbury, and were able to hear oneanother. He had much to say and he could not begin to say it. Therewas a great mass of something to be communicated pent up within him, and he would have liked to pour it all out before her at once. It isjust at such times that we often take up as a means of expression andrelief that which is absurdly inexpressive and irrelevant. 

'I have not seen your sister yet; I hope I may see her this evening. '

'I hope you may, but she frequently suffers from headache and prefersto be alone. '

'How do you like Mr Barnes?'

The answer is not worth recording, nor is any question or answerwhich was asked or returned for the next quarter of an hour worthrecording, although they were so interesting then. When they werecrossing Bedford Square on their return Clara happened to say amongstother commonplaces, -

'What a relief a quiet space in London is. '

'I do not mind the crowd if I am by myself. '

'I do not like crowds; I dislike even the word, and dislike "themasses" still more. I do not want to think of human beings as ifthey were a cloud of dust, and as if each atom had no separateimportance. London is often horrible to me for that reason. In thecountry it was not quite so bad. '

'That is an illusion, ' said Baruch after a moment's pause. 

'I do not quite understand you, but if it be an illusion it is verypainful. In London human beings seem the commonest, cheapest thingsin the world, and I am one of them. I went with Mr Marshall not longago to a Free Trade Meeting, and more than two thousand people werepresent. Everybody told me it was magnificent, but it made me verysad. ' She was going on, but she stopped. How was it, she thoughtagain, that she could be so communicative? How was it? How is itthat sometimes a stranger crosses our path, with whom, before we haveknown him for more than an hour, we have no secrets? An hour? wehave actually known him for centuries. 

She could not understand it, and she felt as if she had beeninconsistent with her constant professions of wariness in self-revelation. 

'It is an illusion, nevertheless--an illusion of the senses. It isdifficult to make what I mean clear, because insight is not possiblebeyond a certain point, and clearness does not come until penetrationis complete and what we acquire is brought into a line with otheracquisitions. It constantly happens that we are arrested short ofthis point, but it would be wrong to suppose that our conclusions, ifwe may call them so, are of no value. '

She was silent, and he did not go on. At last he said, -

'The illusion lies in supposing that number, quantity and terms ofthat kind are applicable to any other than sensuous objects, but Icannot go further, at least not now. After all, it is possible herein London for one atom to be of eternal importance to another. '

They had gone quite round Bedford Square without entering GreatRussell Street, which was the way eastwards. A drunken man washolding on by the railings of the Square. He had apparently beenhesitating for some time whether he could reach the road, and, justas Baruch and Clara came up to him, he made a lurch towards it, andnearly fell over them. Clara instinctively seized Baruch's arm inorder to avoid the poor, staggering mortal; they went once more tothe right, and began to complete another circuit. Somehow her armhad been drawn into Baruch's, and there it remained. 

'Have you any friends in London?' said Baruch. 

'There are Mrs Caffyn, her son and daughter, and there is Mr A. J. Scott. He was a friend of my father. '

'You mean the Mr Scott who was Irving's assistant?'

'Yes. '

'An addition--' he was about to say, 'an additional bond' but hecorrected himself. 'A bond between us; I know Mr Scott. '

'Do you really? I suppose you know many interesting people inLondon, as you are in his circle. '

'Very few; weeks, months have passed since anybody has said as muchto me as you have. '

His voice quivered a little, for he was trembling with an emotionquite inexplicable by mere intellectual relationship. Something camethrough Clara's glove as her hand rested on his wrist which ranthrough every nerve and sent the blood into his head. 

Clara felt his excitement and dreaded lest he should say something towhich she could give no answer, and when they came opposite GreatRussell Street, she withdrew her arm from his, and began to cross tothe opposite pavement. She turned the conversation towards someindifferent subject, and in a few minutes they were at Great OrmondStreet. Baruch would not go in as he had intended; he thought it wasabout to rain, and he was late. As he went along he became calmer, and when he was fairly indoors he had passed into a despair entirelyinconsistent--superficially--with the philosopher Baruch, asinconsistent as the irrational behaviour in Bedford Square. He couldwell enough interpret, so he believed, Miss Hopgood's suppression ofhim. Ass that he was not to see what he ought to have known so well, that he was playing the fool to her; he, with a grown-up son, topretend to romance with a girl! At that moment she might be mockinghim, or, if she was too good for mockery, she might be contriving toavoid or to quench him. The next time he met her, he would be madeto understand that he was PITIED, and perhaps he would then learn thename of the youth who was his rival, and had won her. He would oftenmeet her, no doubt, but of what value would anything he could say beto her. She could not be expected to make fine distinctions, andthere was a class of elderly men, to which of course he would beassigned, but the thought was too horrible. 

Perhaps his love for Clara might be genuine; perhaps it was not. Hehad hoped that as he grew older he might be able really to SEE awoman, but he was once more like one of the possessed. It was notClara Hopgood who was before him, it was hair, lips, eyes, just as itwas twenty years ago, just as it was with the commonest shop-boy hemet, who had escaped from the counter, and was waiting at an areagate. It was terrible to him to find that he had so nearly lost hisself-control, but upon this point he was unjust to himself, for weare often more distinctly aware of the strength of the temptationthan of the authority within us, which falteringly, but decisively, enables us at last to resist it. 

Then he fell to meditating how little his studies had done for him. What was the use of them? They had not made him any stronger, and hewas no better able than other people to resist temptation. Aftertwenty years continuous labour he found himself capable of thevulgarest, coarsest faults and failings from which the remotest skieyinfluence in his begetting might have saved him. 

Clara was not as Baruch. No such storm as that which had darkenedand disheartened him could pass over her, but she could love, perhapsbetter than he, and she began to love him. It was very natural to awoman such as Clara, for she had met a man who had said to her thatwhat she believed was really of some worth. Her father and motherhad been very dear to her; her sister was very dear to her, but shehad never received any such recognition as that which had now beenoffered to her: her own self had never been returned to her withsuch honour. She thought, too--why should she not think it?--of thefuture, of the release from her dreary occupation, of a happy homewith independence, and she thought of the children that might be. She lay down without any misgiving. She was sure he was in love withher; she did not know much of him, certainly, in the usual meaning ofthe word, but she knew enough. She would like to find out more ofhis history; perhaps without exciting suspicion she might obtain itfrom Mrs Caffyn. 

CHAPTER XXV

Mr Frank Palmer was back again in England. He was much distressedwhen he received that last letter from Mrs Caffyn, and discoveredthat Madge's resolution not to write remained unshaken. He wasreally distressed, but he was not the man upon whom an event, howeverdeeply felt at the time, could score a furrow which could not beobliterated. If he had been a dramatic personage, what had happenedto him would have been the second act leading to a fifth, in whichthe Fates would have appeared, but life seldom arranges itself inproper poetic form. A man determines that he must marry; he makesthe shop-girl an allowance, never sees her or her child again, transforms himself into a model husband, is beloved by his wife andfamily; the woman whom he kissed as he will never kiss his lawfulpartner, withdraws completely, and nothing happens to him. 

Frank was sure he could never love anybody as he had loved Madge, norcould he cut indifferently that other cord which bound him to her. Nobody in society expects the same paternal love for the offspring ofa housemaid or a sempstress as for the child of the stockbroker's orbrewer's daughter, and nobody expects the same obligations, but Frankwas not a society youth, and Madge was his equal. A score of times, when his fancy roved, the rope checked him as suddenly as if it werethe lasso of a South American Gaucho. But what could he do? that wasthe point. There were one or two things which he could have done, perhaps, and one or two things which he could not have done if he hadbeen made of different stuff; but there was nothing more to be donewhich Frank Palmer could do. After all, it was better that Madgeshould be the child's mother than that it should belong to somepeasant. At least it would be properly educated. As to money, MrsCaffyn had told him expressly that she did not want it. That mightbe nothing but pride, and he resolved, without very clearly seeinghow, and without troubling himself for the moment as to details, thatMadge should be entirely and handsomely supported by him. Meanwhileit was of great importance that he should behave in such a manner asto raise no suspicion. He did not particularly care for some timeafter his return from Germany to go out to the musical parties towhich he was constantly invited, but he went as a duty, and whereverhe went he met his charming cousin. They always sang together; theyhad easy opportunities of practising together, and Frank, althoughnothing definite was said to him, soon found that his family and hersconsidered him destined for her. He could not retreat, and there wasno surprise manifested by anybody when it was rumoured that they wereengaged. His story may as well be finished at once. He and MissCecilia Morland were married. A few days before the wedding, whensome legal arrangements and settlements were necessary, Frank madeone last effort to secure an income for Madge, but it failed. MrsCaffyn met him by appointment, but he could not persuade her even tobe the bearer of a message to Madge. He then determined to confesshis fears. To his great relief Mrs Caffyn of her own accord assuredhim that he never need dread any disturbance or betrayal. 

'There are three of us, ' she said, 'as knows you--Miss Madge, MissClara and myself--and, as far as you are concerned, we are dead andburied. I can't say as I was altogether of Miss Madge's way oflooking at it at first, and I thought it ought to have beendifferent, though I believe now as she's right, but, ' and the oldwoman suddenly fired up as if some bolt from heaven had kindled her, 'I pity you, sir--you, sir, I say--more nor I do her. You littleknow what you've lost, the blessedest, sweetest, ah, and thecleverest creature, too, as ever I set eyes on. '

'But, Mrs Caffyn, ' said Frank, with much emotion, 'it was not I wholeft her, you know it was not, and, and even--'

The word 'now' was coming, but it did not come. 

'Ah, ' said Mrs Caffyn, with something like scorn, '_I_ know, yes, Ido know. It was she, you needn't tell me that, but, God-a-mighty inheaven, if I'd been you, I'd have laid myself on the ground aforeher, I'd have tore my heart out for her, and I'd have said, "No otherwoman in this world but you"--but there, what a fool I am! Goodbye, Mr Palmer. '

She marched away, leaving Frank very miserable, and, as he imagined, unsettled, but he was not so. The fit lasted all day, but when hewas walking home that evening, he met a poor friend whose wife wasdying. 

'I am so grieved, ' said Frank 'to hear of your trouble--no hope?'

'None, I am afraid. '

'It is very dreadful. '

'Yes, it is hard to bear, but to what is inevitable we must submit. '

This new phrase struck Frank very much, and it seemed veryphilosophic to him, a maxim, for guidance through life. It did notstrike him that it was generally either a platitude or an excuse forweakness, and that a nobler duty is to find out what is inevitableand what is not, to declare boldly that what the world oftentimesaffirms to be inevitable is really evitable, and heroically to setabout making it so. Even if revolt be perfectly useless, we are notparticularly drawn to a man who prostrates himself too soon and isincapable of a little cursing. 

As it was impossible to provide for Madge and the child now, Frankconsidered whether he could not do something for them in the willwhich he had to make before his marriage. He might help his daughterif he could not help the mother. 

But his wife would perhaps survive him, and the discovery would causeher and her children much misery; it would damage his character withthem and inflict positive moral mischief. The will, therefore, didnot mention Madge, and it was not necessary to tell his secret to hissolicitor. 

The wedding took place amidst much rejoicing; everybody thought thecouple were most delightfully matched; the presents were magnificent;the happy pair went to Switzerland, came back and settled in one ofthe smaller of the old, red brick houses in Stoke Newington, with alawn in front, always shaved and trimmed to the last degree ofsmoothness and accuracy, with paths on whose gravel not the smallestweed was ever seen, and with a hot-house that provided the mostluscious black grapes. There was a grand piano in the drawing-room, and Frank and Cecilia became more musical than ever, and WalthamLodge was the headquarters of a little amateur orchestra whichpractised Mozart and Haydn, and gave local concerts. A twelvemonthafter the marriage a son was born and Frank's father increasedFrank's share in the business. Mr Palmer had long ceased to take anyinterest in the Hopgoods. He considered that Madge had treated Frankshamefully in jilting him, but was convinced that he was fortunate inhis escape. It was clear that she was unstable; she probably threwhim overboard for somebody more attractive, and she was not the womanto be a wife to his son. 

One day Cecilia was turning out some drawers belonging to herhusband, and she found a dainty little slipper wrapped up in whitetissue paper. She looked at it for a long time, wondering to whom itcould have belonged, and had half a mind to announce her discovery toFrank, but she was a wise woman and forbore. It lay underneath someneckties which were not now worn, two or three silk pockethandkerchiefs also discarded, and some manuscript books containingschool themes. She placed them on the top of the drawers as if theyhad all been taken out in a lump and the slipper was at the bottom. 

'Frank my dear, ' she said after dinner, 'I emptied this morning oneof the drawers in the attic. I wish you would look over the thingsand decide what you wish to keep. I have not examined them, but theyseem to be mostly rubbish. '

He went upstairs after he had smoked his cigar and read his paper. There was the slipper! It all came back to him, that never-to-be-forgotten night, when she rebuked him for the folly of kissing herfoot, and he begged the slipper and determined to preserve it forever, and thought how delightful it would be to take it out and lookat it when he was an old man. Even now he did not like to destroyit, but Cecilia might have seen it and might ask him what he had donewith it, and what could he say? Finally he decided to burn it. There was no fire, however, in the room, and while he stoodmeditating, Cecilia called him. He replaced the slipper in thedrawer. He could not return that evening, but he intended to go backthe next morning, take the little parcel away in his pocket and burnit at his office. At breakfast some letters came which puteverything else out of mind. The first thing he did that evening wasto revisit the garret, but the slipper had gone. Cecilia had beenthere and had found it carefully folded up in the drawer. She pulledit out, snipped and tore it into fifty pieces, carried themdownstairs, threw them on the dining-room fire, sat down before it, poking them further and further into the flames, and watched themtill every vestige had vanished. Frank did not like to make anyinquiries; Cecilia made none, and thence-forward no trace existed atWaltham Lodge of Madge Hopgood. 

CHAPTER XXVI

Baruch went neither to Barnes's shop nor to the Marshalls for nearlya month. One Sunday morning he was poring over the Moreh Nevochim, for it had proved too powerful a temptation for him, and he fell uponthe theorem that without God the Universe could not continue toexist, for God is its Form. It was one of those sayings which may benothing or much to the reader. Whether it be nothing or much dependsupon the quality of his mind. 

There was certainly nothing in it particularly adapted to Baruch'scondition at that moment, but an antidote may be none the lessefficacious because it is not direct. It removed him to anotherregion. It was like the sight and sound of the sea to the man whohas been in trouble in an inland city. His self-confidence wasrestored, for he to whom an idea is revealed becomes the idea, and isno longer personal and consequently poor. 

His room seemed too small for him; he shut his book and went to GreatOrmond Street. He found there Marshall, Mrs Caffyn, Clara and afriend of Marshall's named Dennis. 

'Where is your wife?' said Baruch to Marshall. 

'Gone with Miss Madge to the Catholic chapel to hear a mass ofMozart's. '

'Yes, ' said Mrs Caffyn. 'I tell them they'll turn Papists if they donot mind. They are always going to that place, and there's noknowing, so I've hear'd, what them priests can do. They aren't likeour parsons. Catch that man at Great Oakhurst a-turnin' anybody. '

'I suppose, ' said Baruch to Clara, 'it is the music takes your sisterthere?'

'Mainly, I believe, but perhaps not entirely. '

'What other attraction can there be?'

'I am not in the least disposed to become a convert. Once for all, Catholicism is incredible and that is sufficient, but there is muchin its ritual which suits me. There is no such intrusion of theperson of the minister as there is in the Church of England, andstill worse amongst dissenters. In the Catholic service the priestis nothing; it is his office which is everything; he is a mere meansof communication. The mass, in so far as it proclaims that miracleis not dead, is also very impressive to me. '

'I do not quite understand you, ' said Marshall, 'but if you oncechuck your reason overboard, you may just as well be Catholic asProtestant. Nothing can be more ridiculous than the Protestantobjection, on the ground of absurdity, to the story of the saintwalking about with his head under his arm. '

The tea things had been cleared away, and Marshall was smoking. Bothhe and Dennis were Chartists, and Baruch had interrupted a debateupon a speech delivered at a Chartist meeting that morning by HenryVincent. 

Frederick Dennis was about thirty, tall and rather loose-limbed. Hewore loose clothes, his neck-cloth was tied in a big, loose knot, hisfeet were large and his boots were heavy. His face was quite smooth, and his hair, which was very thick and light brown, fell across hisforehead in a heavy wave with just two complete undulations in itfrom the parting at the side to the opposite ear. It had a trick oftumbling over his eyes, so that his fingers were continually passedthrough it to brush it away. He was a wood engraver, or, as hepreferred to call himself, an artist, but he also wrote for thenewspapers, and had been a contributor to the Northern Star. He waswell brought up and was intended for the University, but he did notstick to his Latin and Greek, and as he showed some talent fordrawing he was permitted to follow his bent. His work, however, wasnot of first-rate quality, and consequently orders were not abundant. This was the reason why he had turned to literature. When he had anybooks to illustrate he lived upon what they brought him, and whenthere were no books he renewed his acquaintance with politics. Ifbooks and newspapers both failed, he subsisted on a little moneywhich had been left him, stayed with friends as long as he could, andamused himself by writing verses which showed much command overrhyme. 

'I cannot stand Vincent, ' said Marshall, 'he is too flowery for me, and he does not belong to the people. He is middle-class to thebackbone. '

'He is deficient in ideas, ' said Dennis. 

'It is odd, ' continued Marshall, turning to Cohen, 'that your racenever takes any interest in politics. '

'My race is not a nation, or, if a nation, has no national home. Ittook an interest in politics when it was in its own country, andproduced some rather remarkable political writing. '

'But why do you care so little for what is going on now?'

'I do care, but all people are not born to be agitators, and, furthermore, I have doubts if the Charter will accomplish all youexpect. '

'I know what is coming'--Marshall took the pipe out of his mouth andspoke with perceptible sarcasm--'the inefficiency of merely externalremedies, the folly of any attempt at improvement which does notbegin with the improvement of individual character, and that those towhom we intend to give power are no better than those from whom weintend to take it away. All very well, Mr Cohen. My answer is thatat the present moment the stockingers in Leicester are earning fourshillings and sixpence a week. It is not a question whether they arebetter or worse than their rulers. They want something to eat, theyhave nothing, and their masters have more than they can eat. '

'Apart altogether from purely material reasons, ' said Dennis, 'wehave rights; we are born into this planet without our consent, and, therefore, we may make certain demands. '

'Do you not think, ' said Clara, 'that the repeal of the corn lawswill help you?'

Dennis smiled and was about to reply, but Marshall broke outsavagely, -

'Repeal of the corn laws is a contemptible device of manufacturingselfishness. It means low wages. Do you suppose the greatManchester cotton lords care one straw for their hands? Not they!They will face a revolution for repeal because it will enable them togrind an extra profit out of us. '

'I agree with you entirely, ' said Dennis, turning to Clara, 'that atax upon food is wrong; it is wrong in the abstract. The notion oftaxing bread, the fruit of the earth, is most repulsive; but thepoint is--what is our policy to be? If a certain end is to beachieved, we must neglect subordinate ends, and, at times, evencontradict what our own principles would appear to dictate. That isthe secret of successful leadership. '

He took up the poker and stirred the fire. 

'That will do, Dennis, ' said Marshall, who was evidently fidgety. 'The room is rather warm. There's nothing in Vincent which irritatesme more than those bits of poetry with which he winds up. 

"God made the man--man made the slave, "

and all that stuff. If God made the man, God made the slave. I knowwhat Vincent's little game is, and it is the same game with all hisset. They want to keep Chartism religious, but we shall see. Let usonce get the six points, and the Established Church will go, and weshall have secular education, and in a generation there will not beone superstition left. '

'Theological superstition, you mean?' said Clara. 

'Yes, of course, what others are there worth notice?'

'A few. The superstition of the ordinary newspaper reader is just asprofound, and the tyranny of the majority may be just as injurious asthe superstition of a Spanish peasant, or the tyranny of theInquisition. '

'Newspapers will not burn people as the priests did and would doagain if they had the power, and they do not insult us with fablesand a hell and a heaven. '

'I maintain, ' said Clara with emphasis, 'that if a man declines toexamine, and takes for granted what a party leader or a newspapertells him, he has no case against the man who declines to examine, ortakes for granted what the priest tells him. Besides, although, asyou know, I am not a convert myself, I do lose a little patience whenI hear it preached as a gospel to every poor conceited creature whogoes to your Sunday evening atheist lecture, that he is to believenothing on one particular subject which his own precious intellectcannot verify, and the next morning he finds it to be his duty toswallow wholesale anything you please to put into his mouth. As tothe tyranny, the day may come, and I believe is approaching, when themajority will be found to be more dangerous than any ecclesiasticalestablishment which ever existed. '

Baruch's lips moved, but he was silent. He was not strong inargument. He was thinking about Marshall's triumphant inquirywhether God is not responsible for slavery. He would have liked tosay something on that subject, but he had nothing ready. 

'Practical people, ' said Dennis, who had not quite recovered from therebuke as to the warmth of the room, 'are often most unpractical andinjudicious. Nothing can be more unwise than to mix up politics andreligion. If you DO, ' Dennis waved his hand, 'you will have all thereligious people against you. My friend Marshall, Miss Hopgood, isunder the illusion that the Church in this country is tottering toits fall. Now, although I myself belong to no sect, I do not sharehis illusion; nay, more, I am not sure'--Mr Dennis spoke slowly, rubbed his chin and looked up at the ceiling--'I am not sure thatthere is not something to be said in favour of State endowment--atleast, in a country like Ireland. '

'Come along, Dennis, we shall be late, ' said Marshall, and the twoforthwith took their departure in order to attend another meeting. 

'Much either of 'em knows about it, ' said Mrs Caffyn when they hadgone. 'There's Marshall getting two pounds a week reg'lar, and goeson talking about people at Leicester, and he has never been inLeicester in his life; and, as for that Dennis, he knows less thanMarshall, for he does nothing but write for newspapers and draw forpicture-books, never nothing what you may call work, and he doesworrit me so whenever he begins about poor people that I can't sitstill. _I_ do know what the poor is, having lived at Great Oakhurstall these years. '

'You are not a Chartist, then?' said Baruch. 

'Me--me a Chartist? No, I ain't, and yet, maybe, I'm somethingworse. What would be the use of giving them poor creatures votes?Why, there isn't one of them as wouldn't hold up his hand for anybodyas would give him a shilling. Quite right of 'em, too, for the onething they have to think about from morning to night is how to get abit of something to fill their bellies, and they won't fill them byvoting. '

'But what would you do for them?'

'Ah! that beats me! Hang somebody, but I don't know who it ought tobe. There's a family by the name of Longwood, they live just on theslope of the hill nigh the Dower Farm, and there's nine of them, andthe youngest when I left was a baby six months old, and their living-room faces the road so that the north wind blows in right under thedoor, and I've seen the snow lie in heaps inside. As reg'lar aswinter comes Longwood is knocked off--no work. I've knowed them nothave a bit of meat for weeks together, and him a-loungin' about atthe corner of the street. Wasn't that enough to make him feel as ifsomebody ought to be killed? And Marshall and Dennis say as theproper thing to do is to give him a vote, and prove to him there wasnever no Abraham nor Isaac, and that Jonah never was in a whale'sbelly, and that nobody had no business to have more children than hecould feed. And what goes on, and what must go on, inside such aplace as Longwood's, with him and his wife, and with them boys andgals all huddled together--But I'd better hold my tongue. We'll letthe smoke out of this room, I think, and air it a little. '

She opened the window, and Baruch rose and went home. 

Whenever Mrs Caffyn talked about the labourers at Great Oakhurst, whom she knew so well, Clara always felt as if all her reading hadbeen a farce, and, indeed, if we come into close contact with actuallife, art, poetry and philosophy seem little better than trifling. When the mist hangs over the heavy clay land in January, and men andwomen shiver in the bitter cold and eat raw turnips, to indulge infireside ecstasies over the divine Plato or Shakespeare is surely notsuch a virtue as we imagine it to be. 

CHAPTER XXVII

Baruch sat and mused before he went to bed. He had gone out stirredby an idea, but it was already dead. Then he began to think aboutClara. Who was this Dennis who visited the Marshalls and theHopgoods? Oh! for an hour of his youth! Fifteen years ago the wordwould have come unbidden if he had seen Clara, but now, in place ofthe word, there was hesitation, shame. He must make up his mind torenounce for ever. But, although this conclusion had forced itselfupon him overnight as inevitable, he could not resist the temptationwhen he rose the next morning of plotting to meet Clara, and hewalked up and down the street opposite the shop door that eveningnearly a quarter of an hour, just before closing time, hoping thatshe might come out and that he might have the opportunity ofovertaking her apparently by accident. At last, fearing he mightmiss her, he went in and found she had a companion whom he instantlyknew, before any induction, to be her sister. Madge was not now theMadge whom we knew at Fenmarket. She was thinner in the face andpaler. Nevertheless, she was not careless; she was even moreparticular in her costume, but it was simpler. If anything, perhaps, she was a little prouder. She was more attractive, certainly, thanshe had ever been, although her face could not be said to behandsomer. The slight prominence of the cheek-bone, the slighthollow underneath, the loss of colour, were perhaps defects, but theysaid something which had a meaning in it superior to that of the tintof the peach. She had been reading a book while Clara was balancingher cash, and she attempted to replace it. The shelf was a littletoo high, and the volume fell upon the ground. It containedShelley's Revolt of Islam. 

'Have you read Shelley?' said Baruch. 

'Every line--when I was much younger. '

'Do you read him now?'

'Not much. I was an enthusiast for him when I was nineteen, but Ifind that his subject matter is rather thin, and his themes are alittle worn. He was entirely enslaved by the ideals of the FrenchRevolution. Take away what the French Revolution contributed to hispoetry, and there is not much left. '

'As a man he is not very attractive to me. '

'Nor to me; I never shall forgive his treatment of Harriet. '

'I suppose he had ceased to love her, and he thought, therefore, hewas justified in leaving her. '

Madge turned and fixed her eyes, unobserved, on Baruch. He waslooking straight at the bookshelves. There was not, and, indeed, howcould there be, any reference to herself. 

'I should put it in this way, ' she said, 'that he thought he wasjustified in sacrificing a woman for the sake of an IMPULSE. Callthis a defect or a crime--whichever you like--it is repellent to me. It makes no difference to me to know that he believed the impulse tobe divine. '

'I wish, ' interrupted Clara, 'you two would choose less excitingsubjects of conversation; my totals will not come right. '

They were silent, and Baruch, affecting to study a Rollin's AncientHistory, wondered, especially when he called to mind Mrs Caffyn'sreport, what this girl's history could have been. He presentlyrecovered himself, and it occurred to him that he ought to give somereason why he had called. Before, however, he was able to offer anyexcuse, Clara closed her book. 

'Now, it is right, ' she said, 'and I am ready. '

Just at that moment Barnes appeared, hot with hurrying. 

'Very sorry, Miss Hopgood, to ask you to stay for a few minutes. Irecollected after I left that the doctor particularly wanted thosebooks sent off to-night. I should not like to disappoint him. Ihave been to the booking-office, and the van will be here in abouttwenty minutes. If you will make out the invoice and check me, Iwill pack them. '

'I will be off, ' said Madge. 'The shop will be shut if I do not makehaste. '

'You are not going alone, are you?' said Baruch. 'May I not go withyou, and cannot we both come back for your sister?'

'It is very kind of you. '

Clara looked up from her desk, watched them as they went out at thedoor and, for a moment, seemed lost. Barnes turned round. 

'Now, Miss Hopgood. ' She started. 

'Yes, sir. '

'Fabricius, J. A. Bibliotheca Ecclesiastica in qua continentur. '

'I need not put in the last three words. '

'Yes, yes. ' Barnes never liked to be corrected in a title. 'There'sanother Fabricius Bibliotheca or Bibliographia. Go on--Basili operaad MSS. Codices, 3 vols. '

Clara silently made the entries a little more scholarly. In aquarter of an hour the parcel was ready and Cohen returned. 

'Your sister would not allow me to wait. She met Mrs Marshall; theysaid they should have something to carry, and that it was not worthwhile to bring it here. I will walk with you, if you will allow me. We may as well avoid Holborn. '

They turned into Gray's Inn, and, when they were in comparativequietude, he said, -

'Any Chartist news?' and then without waiting for an answer, 'By theway, who is your friend Dennis?'

'He is no particular friend of mine. He is a wood-engraver, andwrites also, I believe, for the newspapers. '

'He can talk as well as write. '

'Yes, he can talk very well. '

'Do you not think there was something unreal about what he said?'

'I do not believe he is actually insincere. I have noticed that menwho write or read much often appear somewhat shadowy. '

'How do you account for it?'

'What they say is not experience. '

'I do not quite understand. A man may think much which can neverbecome an experience in your sense of the word, and be very much inearnest with what he thinks; the thinking is an experience. '

'Yes, I suppose so, but it is what a person has gone through which Ilike to hear. Poor Dennis has suffered much. You are perhapssurprised, but it is true, and when he leaves politics alone he is adifferent creature. '

'I am afraid I must be very uninteresting to you?'

'I did not mean that I care for nothing but my friend's aches andpains, but that I do not care for what he just takes up and takeson. '

'It is my misfortune that my subjects are not very--I was about tosay--human. Perhaps it is because I am a Jew. '

'I do not know quite what you mean by your "subjects, " but if youmean philosophy and religion, they are human. '

'If they are, very few people like to hear anything about them. Doyou know, Miss Hopgood, I can never talk to anybody as I can to you. '

Clara made no reply. A husband was to be had for a look, for atouch, a husband whom she could love, a husband who could give herall her intellect demanded. A little house rose before her eyes asif by Arabian enchantment; there was a bright fire on the hearth, andthere were children round it; without the look, the touch, therewould be solitude, silence and a childless old age, so much more tobe feared by a woman than by a man. Baruch paused, waiting for heranswer, and her tongue actually began to move with a reply, whichwould have sent his arm round her, and made them one for ever, but itdid not come. Something fell and flashed before her like lightningfrom a cloud overhead, divinely beautiful, but divinely terrible. 

'I remember, ' she said, 'that I have to call in Lamb's Conduit Streetto buy something for my sister. I shall just be in time. ' Baruchwent as far as Lamb's Conduit Street with her. He, too, would havedetermined his own destiny if she had uttered the word, but the powerto proceed without it was wanting and he fell back. He left her atthe door of the shop. She bid him good-bye, obviously intending thathe should go no further with her, and he shook hands with her, takingher hand again and shaking it again with a grasp which she knew wellenough was too fervent for mere friendship. He then wandered backonce more to his old room at Clerkenwell. The fire was dead, hestirred it, the cinders fell through the grate and it dropped out alltogether. He made no attempt to rekindle it, but sat staring at theblack ashes, not thinking, but dreaming. Thirty years more perhapswith no change! The last chance that he could begin a new life haddisappeared. He cursed himself that nothing drove him out of himselfwith Marshall and his fellowmen; that he was not Chartist norrevolutionary; but it was impossible to create in himself enthusiasmfor a cause. He had tried before to become a patriot and had failed, and was conscious, during the trial, that he was pretending to besomething he was not and could not be. There was nothing to be donebut to pace the straight road in front of him, which led nowhere, sofar as he could see. 

CHAPTER XXVIII

A month afterwards Marshall announced that he intended to pay avisit. 

'I am going, ' he said, 'to see Mazzini. Who will go with me?'

Clara and Madge were both eager to accompany him. Mrs Caffyn and MrsMarshall chose to stay at home. 

'I shall ask Cohen to come with us, ' said Marshall. 'He has neverseen Mazzini and would like to know him. ' Cohen accordingly calledone Sunday evening, and the party went together to a dull, dark, little house in a shabby street of small shops and furnishedapartments. When they knocked at Mazzini's door Marshall asked forMr --- for, even in England, Mazzini had an assumed name which wasalways used when inquiries were made for him. They were shownupstairs into a rather mean room, and found there a man, really aboutforty, but looking older. He had dark hair growing away from hisforehead, dark moustache, dark beard and a singularly serious face. It was not the face of a conspirator, but that of a saint, althoughwithout that just perceptible touch of silliness which spoils thefaces of most saints. It was the face of a saint of the Reason, of aman who could be ecstatic for rational ideals, rarest of allendowments. It was the face, too, of one who knew no fear, or, if heknew it, could crush it. He was once concealed by a poor woman whosehouse was surrounded by Austrian soldiers watching for him. He wasdetermined that she should not be sacrificed, and, having disguisedhimself a little, walked out into the street in broad daylight, wentup to the Austrian sentry, asked for a light for his cigar andescaped. He was cordial in his reception of his visitors, particularly of Clara, Madge and Cohen, whom he had not seen before. 

'The English, ' he said, after some preliminary conversation, 'are acurious people. As a nation they are what they call practical andhave a contempt for ideas, but I have known some Englishmen who havea religious belief in them, a nobler belief than I have found in anyother nation. There are English women, also, who have this faith, and one or two are amongst my dearest friends. '

'I never, ' said Marshall, 'quite comprehend you on this point. Ishould say that we know as clearly as most folk what we want, and wemean to have it. '

'That may be, but it is not Justice, as Justice which inspires you. Those of you who have not enough, desire to have more, that is all. '

'If we are to succeed, we must preach what the people understand. '

'Pardon me, that is just where you and I differ. Whenever any realgood is done it is by a crusade; that is to say, the cross must beraised and appeal be made to something ABOVE the people. No systembased on rights will stand. Never will society be permanent till itis founded on duty. If we consider our rights exclusively, we extendthem over the rights of our neighbours. If the oppressed classes hadthe power to obtain their rights to-morrow, and with the rights cameno deeper sense of duty, the new order, for the simple reason thatthe oppressed are no better than their oppressors, would be just asunstable as that which preceded it. '

'To put it in my own language, ' said Madge, 'you believe in God. '

Mazzini leaned forward and looked earnestly at her. 

'My dear young friend, without that belief I should have no other. '

'I should like, though, ' said Marshall, 'to see the church whichwould acknowledge you and Miss Madge, or would admit your God to betheirs. '

'What is essential, ' replied Madge, 'in a belief in God is absoluteloyalty to a principle we know to have authority. '

'It may, perhaps, ' said Mazzini, 'be more to me, but you are right, it is a belief in the supremacy and ultimate victory of theconscience. '

'The victory seems distant in Italy now, ' said Baruch. 'I do notmean the millennial victory of which you speak, but an approximationto it by the overthrow of tyranny there. '

'You are mistaken; it is far nearer than you imagine. '

'Do you obtain, ' said Clara, 'any real help from people here? Do younot find that they merely talk and express what they call theirsympathy?'

'I must not say what help I have received; more than words, though, from many. '

'You expect, then, ' said Baruch, 'that the Italians will answer yourappeal?'

'If I had no faith in the people, I do not see what faith couldsurvive. '

'The people are the persons you meet in the street. '

'A people is not a mere assemblage of uninteresting units, but it isnot a phantom. A spirit lives in each nation which is superior toany individual in it. It is this which is the true reality, thenation's purpose and destiny, it is this for which the patriot livesand dies. '

'I suppose, ' said Clara, 'you have no difficulty in obtainingvolunteers for any dangerous enterprise?'

'None. You would be amazed if I were to tell you how many men andwomen at this very moment would go to meet certain death if I were toask them. '

'Women?'

'Oh, yes; and women are of the greatest use, but it is ratherdifficult to find those who have the necessary qualifications. '

'I suppose you employ them in order to obtain secret information?'

'Yes; amongst the Austrians. '

The party broke up. Baruch manoeuvred to walk with Clara, butMarshall wanted to borrow a book from Mazzini, and she stayed behindfor him. Madge was outside in the street, and Baruch could donothing but go to her. She seemed unwilling to wait, and Baruch andshe went slowly homewards, thinking the others would overtake them. The conversation naturally turned upon Mazzini. 

'Although, ' said Madge, 'I have never seen him before, I have heardmuch about him and he makes me sad. '

'Why?'

'Because he has done something worth doing and will do more. '

'But why should that make you sad?'

'I do not think there is anything sadder than to know you are able todo a little good and would like to do it, and yet you are notpermitted to do it. Mazzini has a world open to him large enough forthe exercise of all his powers. '

'It is worse to have a desire which is intense but not definite, tobe continually anxious to do something, you know not what, and alwaysto feel, if any distinct task is offered, your incapability ofattempting it. '

'A man, if he has a real desire to be of any service, can generallygratify it to some extent; a woman as a rule cannot, although awoman's enthusiasm is deeper than a man's. You can join Mazzini to-morrow, I suppose, if you like. '

'It is a supposition not quite justifiable, and if I were free to goI could not. '

'Why?'

'I am not fitted for such work; I have not sufficient faith. When Isee a flag waving, a doubt always intrudes. Long ago I was forced tothe conclusion that I should have to be content with a life which didnot extend outside itself. '

'I am sure that many women blunder into the wrong path, not becausethey are bad, but simply because--if I may say so--they are toogood. '

'Maybe you are right. The inability to obtain mere pleasure has notproduced the misery which has been begotten of mistaken or baffledself-sacrifice. But do you mean to say that you would like to enlistunder Mazzini?'

'No!'

Baruch thought she referred to her child, and he was silent. 

'You are a philosopher, ' said Madge, after a pause. 'Have you neverdiscovered anything which will enable us to submit to be useless?'

'That is to say, have I discovered a religion? for the core ofreligion is the relationship of the individual to the whole, thefaith that the poorest and meanest of us is a person. That is thereal strength of all religions. '

'Well, go on; what do you believe?'

'I can only say it like a creed; I have no demonstration, at leastnone such as I would venture to put into words. Perhaps the highestof all truths is incapable of demonstration and can only be stated. Perhaps, also, the statement, at least to some of us, is a sufficientdemonstration. I believe that inability to imagine a thing is not areason for its non-existence. If the infinite is a conclusion whichis forced upon me, the fact that I cannot picture it does notdisprove it. I believe, also, in thought and the soul, and it isnothing to me that I cannot explain them by attributes belonging tobody. That being so, the difficulties which arise from the perpetualand unconscious confusion of the qualities of thought and soul withthose of body disappear. Our imagination represents to itself soulslike pebbles, and asks itself what count can be kept of a million, but number in such a case is inapplicable. I believe that allthought is a manifestation of the Being, who is One, whom you maycall God if you like, and that, as It never was created, It willnever be destroyed. '

'But, ' said Madge, interrupting him, 'although you began by warningme not to expect that you would prove anything, you can tell mewhether you have any kind of basis for what you say, or whether it isall a dream. '

'You will be surprised, perhaps, to hear that mathematics, which, ofcourse, I had to learn for my own business, have supplied somethingfor a foundation. They lead to ideas which are inconsistent with thenotion that the imagination is a measure of all things. Mind, I donot for a moment pretend that I have any theory which explains theuniverse. It is something, however, to know that the sky is as realas the earth. '

They had now reached Great Ormond Street, and parted. Clara andMarshall were about five minutes behind them. Madge was unusuallycheerful when they sat down to supper. 

'Clara, ' she said, 'what made you so silent to-night at Mazzini's?'Clara did not reply, but after a pause of a minute or two, she askedMrs Caffyn whether it would not be possible for them all to go intothe country on Whitmonday? Whitsuntide was late; it would be warm, and they could take their food with them and eat it out of doors. 

'Just the very thing, my dear, if we could get anything cheap to takeus; the baby, of course, must go with us. 

'I should like above everything to go to Great Oakhurst. '

'What, five of us--twenty miles there and twenty miles back!Besides, although I love the place, it isn't exactly what one wouldgo to see just for a day. No! Letherhead or Mickleham or Darkinwould be ever so much better. They are too far, though, and, then, that man Baruch must go with us. He'd be company for Marshall, andhe sticks up in Clerkenwell and never goes nowhere. You remember asMarshall said as he must ask him the next time we had an outing. '

Clara had not forgotten it. 

'Ah, ' continued Mrs Caffyn, 'I should just love to show youMickleham. '

Mrs Caffyn's heart yearned after her Surrey land. The man who isborn in a town does not know what it is to be haunted through life bylovely visions of the landscape which lay about him when he wasyoung. The village youth leaves the home of his childhood for thecity, but the river doubling on itself, the overhanging alders andwillows, the fringe of level meadow, the chalk hills bounding theriver valley and rising against the sky, with here and there on theirsummits solitary clusters of beech, the light and peace of thedifferent seasons, of morning, afternoon and evening, never forsakehim. To think of them is not a mere luxury; their presence modifiesthe whole of his life. 

'I don't see how it is to be managed, ' she mused; 'and yet there'snothing near London as I'd give two pins to see. There's Richmond aswe went to one Sunday; it was no better, to my way of thinking, thanlooking at a picture. I'd ever so much sooner be a-walking acrossthe turnips by the footpath from Darkin home. '

'Couldn't we, for once in a way, stay somewhere over-night?'

'It might as well be two, ' said Mrs Marshall; 'Saturday and Sunday. '

'Two, ' said Madge; 'I vote for two. '

'Wait a bit, my dears, we're a precious awkward lot to fit in--Marshall and his wife me and you and Miss Clara and the baby; andthen there's Baruch, who's odd man, so to speak; that's threebedrooms. We sha'n't do it--Otherwise, I was a-thinking--'

'What were you thinking?' said Marshall. 

'I've got it, ' said Mrs Caffyn, joyously. 'Miss Clara and me will goto Great Oakhurst on the Friday. We can easy enough stay at my oldshop. Marshall and Sarah, Miss Madge, the baby and Baruch can go toLetherhead on the Saturday morning. The two women and the baby canhave one of the rooms at Skelton's, and Marshall and Baruch can havethe other. Then, on Sunday morning, Miss Clara and me we'll comeover for you, and we'll all walk through Norbury Park. That'll beever so much better in many ways. Miss Clara and me, we'll go by thecoach. Six of us, not reckoning the baby, in that heavy ginger-beercart of Masterman's would be too much. '

'An expensive holiday, rather, ' said Marshall. 

'Leave that to me; that's my business. I ain't quite a beggar, andif we can't take our pleasure once a year, it's a pity. We aren'tlike some folk as messes about up to Hampstead every Sunday, andspends a fortune on shrimps and donkeys. No; when I go away, it ISaway, maybe it's only for a couple of days, where I can see a blessedploughed field; no shrimps nor donkeys for me. '

CHARTER XXIX

So it was settled, and on the Friday Clara and Mrs Caffyn journeyedto Great Oakhurst. They were both tired, and went to bed very early, in order that they might enjoy the next day. Clara, always a lightsleeper, woke between three and four, rose and went to the littlecasement window which had been open all night. Below her, on theleft, the church was just discernible, and on the right, the broadchalk uplands leaned to the south, and were waving with green barleyand wheat. Underneath her lay the cottage garden, with its row ofbeehives in the north-east corner, sheltered from the cold winds bythe thick hedge. It had evidently been raining a little, for thedrops hung on the currant bushes, but the clouds had been driven bythe south-westerly wind into the eastern sky, where they lay in along, low, grey band. Not a sound was to be heard, save every nowand then the crow of a cock or the short cry of a just-awakenedthrush. High up on the zenith, the approach of the sun to thehorizon was proclaimed by the most delicate tints of rose-colour, butthe cloud-bank above him was dark and untouched, although the bluewhich was over it, was every moment becoming paler. Clara watched;she was moved even to tears by the beauty of the scene, but she wasstirred by something more than beauty, just as he who was in theSpirit and beheld a throne and One sitting thereon, saw somethingmore than loveliness, although He was radiant with the colour ofjasper and there was a rainbow round about Him like an emerald tolook upon. In a few moments the highest top of the cloud-rampart waskindled, and the whole wavy outline became a fringe of flame. In afew moments more the fire just at one point became blinding, and inanother second the sun emerged, the first arrowy shaft passed intoher chamber, the first shadow was cast, and it was day. She put herhands to her face; the tears fell faster, but she wiped them away andher great purpose was fixed. She crept back into bed, her agitationceased, a strange and almost supernatural peace overshadowed her andshe fell asleep not to wake till the sound of the scythe had ceasedin the meadow just beyond the rick-yard that came up to one side ofthe cottage, and the mowers were at their breakfast. 

Neither Mrs Caffyn nor Clara thought of seeing the Letherhead partyon Saturday. They could not arrive before the afternoon, and it wasconsidered hardly worth while to walk from Great Oakhurst toLetherhead merely for the sake of an hour or two. In the morning MrsCaffyn was so busy with her old friends that she rather tiredherself, and in the evening Clara went for a stroll. She did notknow the country, but she wandered on until she came to a lane whichled down to the river. At the bottom of the lane she found herselfat a narrow, steep, stone bridge. She had not been there more thanthree or four minutes before she descried two persons coming down thelane from Letherhead. When they were about a couple of hundred yardsfrom her they turned into the meadow over the stile, and struck theriver-bank some distance below the point where she was. It wasimpossible to mistake them; they were Madge and Baruch. Theysauntered leisurely; presently Baruch knelt down over the water, apparently to gather something which he gave to Madge. They thencrossed another stile and were lost behind the tall hedge whichstopped further view of the footpath in that direction. 

'The message then was authentic, ' she said to herself. 'I thought Icould not have misunderstood it. '

On Sunday morning Clara wished to stay at home. She pleaded that shepreferred rest, but Mrs Caffyn vowed there should be no Norbury Parkif Clara did not go, and the kind creature managed to persuade a pig-dealer to drive them over to Letherhead for a small sum, notwithstanding it was Sunday. The whole party then set out; thebaby was drawn in a borrowed carriage which also took the provisions, and they were fairly out of the town before the Letherhead bells hadceased ringing for church. It was one of the sweetest of Sundays, sunny, but masses of white clouds now and then broke the heat. Thepark was reached early in the forenoon, and it was agreed that dinnershould be served under one of the huge beech trees at the lower end, as the hill was a little too steep for the baby-carriage in the hotsun. 

'This is very beautiful, ' said Marshall, when dinner was over, 'butit is not what we came to see. We ought to move upwards to theDruid's grove. '

'Yes, you be off, the whole lot of you, ' said Mrs Caffyn. 'I knowevery tree there, and I ain't going there this afternoon. Somebodymust stay here to look after the baby; you can't wheel her, you'llhave to carry her, and you won't enjoy yourselves much more formoiling along with her up that hill. '

'I will stay with you, ' said Clara. 

Everybody protested, but Clara was firm. She was tired, and the sunhad given her a headache. Madge pleaded that it was she who ought toremain behind, but at last gave way for her sister looked reallyfatigued. 

'There's a dear child, ' said Clara, when Madge consented to go. 'Ishall lie on the grass and perhaps go to sleep. '

'It is a pity, ' said Baruch to Madge as they went away, 'that we areseparated; we must come again. '

'Yes, I am sorry, but perhaps it is better she should be where sheis; she is not particularly strong, and is obliged to be verycareful. '

In due time they all came to the famous yews, and sat down on one ofthe seats overlooking that wonderful gate in the chalk downs throughwhich the Mole passes northwards. 

'We must go, ' said Marshall, 'a little bit further and see the oak. '

'Not another step, ' said his wife. 'You can go it you like. '

'Content; nothing could be pleasanter than to sit here, ' and hepulled out his pipe; 'but really, Miss Madge, to leave Norburywithout paying a visit to the oak is a pity. '

He did not offer, however, to accompany her. 

'It is the most extraordinary tree in these parts, ' said Baruch; 'ofincalculable age and with branches spreading into a tent big enoughto cover a regiment. Marshall is quite right. '

'Where is it?'

'Not above a couple of hundred yards further; just round the corner. '

Madge rose and looked. 

'No; it is not visible here; it stands a little way back. If youcome a little further you will catch a glimpse of it. '

She followed him and presently the oak came in view. They climbed upthe bank and went nearer to it. The whole vale was underneath themand part of the weald with the Sussex downs blue in the distance. Baruch was not much given to raptures over scenery, but theindifference of Nature to the world's turmoil always appealed to him. 

'You are not now discontented because you cannot serve underMazzini?'

'Not now. '

There was nothing in her reply on the face of it of any particularconsequence to Baruch. She might simply have intended that thebeauty of the fair landscape extinguished her restlessness, or thatshe saw her own unfitness, but neither of these interpretationspresented itself to him. 

'I have sometimes thought, ' continued Baruch, slowly, 'that the loveof any two persons in this world may fulfil an eternal purpose whichis as necessary to the Universe as a great revolution. '

Madge's eyes moved round from the hills and they met Baruch's. Nosyllable was uttered, but swiftest messages passed, question andanswer. There was no hesitation on his part now, no doubt, the womanand the moment had come. The last question was put, the final answerwas given; he took her hand in his and came closer to her. 

'Stop!' she whispered, 'do you know my history?'

He did not reply, but fell upon her neck. This was the goal to whichboth had been journeying all these years, although with much wearymistaking of roads; this was what from the beginning was designed forboth! Happy Madge! happy Baruch! There are some so closely akinthat the meaning of each may be said to lie in the other, who do notapproach till it is too late. They travel towards one another, butare waylaid and detained, and just as they are within greeting, oneof them drops and dies. 

They left the tree and went back to the Marshalls, and then down thehill to Mrs Caffyn and Clara. Clara was much better for her rest, and early in the evening the whole party returned to Letherhead, Clara and Mrs Caffyn going on to Great Oakhurst. Madge kept close toher sister till they separated, and the two men walked together. OnWhitmonday morning the Letherhead people came over to Great Oakhurst. They had to go back to London in the afternoon, but Mrs Caffyn andClara were to stay till Tuesday, as they stood a better chance ofsecuring places by the coach on that day. Mrs Caffyn had as much toshow them as if the village had been the Tower of London. The wonderof wonders, however, was a big house, where she was well known, andits hot-houses. Madge wanted to speak to Clara, but it was difficultto find a private opportunity. When they were in the garden, however, she managed to take Clara unobserved down one of the twistedpaths, under pretence of admiring an ancient mulberry tree. 

'Clara, ' she said, 'I want a word with you. Baruch Cohen loves me. '

'Do you love him?'

'Yes. '

'Without a shadow of a doubt?'

'Without a shadow of a doubt. '

Clara put her arm round her sister, kissed her tenderly and said, -

'Then I am perfectly happy. '

'Did you suspect it?'

'I knew it. '

Mrs Caffyn called them; it was time to be moving, and soon afterwardsthose who had to go to London that afternoon left for Letherhead. Clara stood at the gate for a long time watching them along thestraight, white road. They came to the top of the hill; she couldjust discern them against the sky; they passed over the ridge and shewent indoors. In the evening a friend called to see Mrs Caffyn, andClara went to the stone bridge which she had visited on Saturday. The water on the upper side of the bridge was dammed up and fell overthe little sluice gates under the arches into a clear and deep basinabout forty or fifty feet in diameter. The river, for some reason ofits own, had bitten into the western bank, and had scooped out agreat piece of it into an island. The main current went round theisland with a shallow, swift ripple, instead of going through thepool, as it might have done, for there was a clear channel for it. The centre and the region under the island were deep and still, butat the farther end, where the river in passing called to the pool, itbroke into waves as it answered the appeal, and added its owncontribution to the stream, which went away down to the mill andonwards to the big Thames. On the island were aspens and alders. The floods had loosened the roots of the largest tree, and it hungover heavily in the direction in which it had yielded to the rush ofthe torrent, but it still held its grip, and the sap had not forsakena single branch. Every one was as dense with foliage as if there hadbeen no struggle for life, and the leaves sang their sweet song, justperceptible for a moment every now and then in the variations of thelouder music below them. It is curious that the sound of a weir isnever uniform, but is perpetually changing in the ear even of aperson who stands close by it. One of the arches of the bridge wasdry, and Clara went down into it, stood at the edge and watched thatwonderful sight--the plunge of a smooth, pure stream into the greatcup which it has hollowed out for itself. Down it went, with adancing, foamy fringe playing round it just where it met the surface;a dozen yards away it rose again, bubbling and exultant. 

She came up from the arch and went home as the sun was setting. Shefound Mrs Caffyn alone. 

'I have news to tell you, ' she said. 'Baruch Cohen is in love withmy sister, and she is in love with him. '

'The Lord, Miss Clara! I thought sometimes that perhaps it might beyou; but there, it's better, maybe, as it is, for--'

'For what?'

'Why, my dear, because somebody's sure to turn up who'll make youhappy, but there aren't many men like Baruch. You see what I mean, don't you? He's always a-reading books, and, therefore, he don'tthink so much of what some people would make a fuss about. Not asanything of that kind would ever stop me, if I were a man and sawsuch a woman as Miss Madge. He's really as good a creature as everwas born, and with that child she might have found it hard to getalong, and now it will be cared for, and so will she be to the end oftheir lives. '

The evening after their return to Great Ormond Street, Mazzini wassurprised by a visit from Clara alone. 

'When I last saw you, ' she said, 'you told us that you had beenhelped by women. I offer myself. '

'But, my dear madam, you hardly know what the qualifications are. Tobegin with, there must be a knowledge of three foreign languages, French, German and Italian, and the capacity and will to endure greatprivation, suffering and, perhaps, death. '

'I was educated abroad, I can speak German and French. I do not knowmuch Italian, but when I reach Italy I will soon learn. '

'Pardon me for asking you what may appear a rude question. Is it apersonal disappointment which sends you to me, or love for the cause?It is not uncommon to find that young women, when earthly love isimpossible, attempt to satisfy their cravings with a love for thatwhich is impersonal. '

'Does it make any difference, so far as their constancy isconcerned?'

'I cannot say that it does. The devotion of many of the martyrs ofthe Catholic church was repulsion from the world as much asattraction to heaven. You must understand that I am not prompted bycuriosity. If you are to be my friend, it is necessary that I shouldknow you thoroughly. '

'My motive is perfectly pure. '

They had some further talk and parted. After a few more interviews, Clara and another English lady started for Italy. Madge had lettersfrom her sister at intervals for eighteen months, the last being fromVenice. Then they ceased, and shortly afterwards Mazzini told Baruchthat his sister-in-law was dead. 

All efforts to obtain more information from Mazzini were in vain, butone day when her name was mentioned, he said to Madge, -

'The theologians represent the Crucifixion as the most sublime factin the world's history. It was sublime, but let us reverence alsothe Eternal Christ who is for ever being crucified for oursalvation. '

'Father, ' said a younger Clara to Baruch some ten years later as shesat on his knee, 'I had an Aunt Clara once, hadn't I?'

'Yes, my child. '

'Didn't she go to Italy and die there?'

'Yes. '

'Why did she go?'

'Because she wanted to free the poor people of Italy who wereslaves. '