BOOK IV. 

CHAPTER I. 

 In the kindliest natures there is a certain sensitiveness, which, when wounded, occasions the same pain, and bequeaths the same resentment, as mortified vanity or galled self-love. 

It is exactly that day week, towards the hour of five in the evening, Mr. Hartopp, alone in the parlour behind his warehouse, is locking up hisbooks and ledgers preparatory to the return to his villa. There is acertain change in the expression of his countenance since we saw it last. If it be possible for Mr. Hartopp to look sullen, --sullen he looks; if itbe possible for the Mayor of Gatesboro' to be crestfallen, crestfallen heis. That smooth existence has surely received some fatal concussion, andhas not yet recovered the shock. But if you will glance beyond theparlour at Mr. Williams giving orders in the warehouse, at thewarehousemen themselves, at the rough faces in the tan-yard, -nay, at MikeCallaghan, who has just brought a parcel from the railway, all of themhave evidently shared in the effects of the concussion; all of them weara look more or less sullen; all seem crestfallen. Could you carryyour gaze farther on, could you peep into the shops in the High Street, or at the loungers in the city reading-room; could you extend the visionfarther still, --to Mr. Hartopp's villa, behold his wife, his little ones, his men-servants, and his maid-servants, more and more impressivelygeneral would become the tokens of disturbance occasioned by thatinfamous concussion. Everywhere a sullen look, --everywhere thatineffable aspect of crestfallenness! What can have happened? is thegood man bankrupt? No, rich as ever! What can it be? Reader! thatfatal event which they who love Josiah Hartopp are ever at watch toprevent, despite all their vigilance, has occurred! Josiah Hartopp hasbeen TAKEN IN! Other men may be occasionally taken in, and no onemourns; perhaps they deserve it! they are not especially benevolent, orthey set up to be specially wise. But to take in that lamb! And it wasnot only the Mayor's heart that was wounded, but his pride, his self-esteem, his sense of dignity, were terribly humiliated. For as we know, though all the world considered Mr. Hartopp the very man born to be takenin, and therefore combined to protect him, yet in his secret soul Mr. Hartopp considered that no man less needed such protection; that he wasnever taken in, unless he meant to be so. Thus the cruelty andingratitude of the base action under which his crest was so fallen jarredon his whole system. Nay, more, he could not but feel that the eventwould long affect his personal comfort and independence; he would be morethan ever under the affectionate tyranny of Mr. Williams, more than everbe an object of universal surveillance and espionage. There would be onethought paramount throughout Gatesboro'. "The Mayor, God bless him! hasbeen taken in: this must not occur again, or Gatesboro' is dishonoured, and Virtue indeed a name!" Mr. Hartopp felt not only mortified butsubjugated, --he who had hitherto been the soft subjugator of the hardest. He felt not only subjugated, but indignant at the consciousness of beingso. He was too meekly convinced of Heaven's unerring justice not to feelassured that the man who had taken him in would come to a tragic end. Hewould not have hung that man with his own hands: he was too mild forvengeance. But if he had seen that man hanging he would have saidpiously, "Fitting retribution, " and passed on his way soothed andcomforted. Taken in!--taken in at last!--he, Josiah Hartopp, takenin by a fellow with one eye!

CHAPTER II. 

 The Mayor is so protected that be cannot help himself. 

A commotion without, --a kind of howl, a kind of hoot. Mr. Williams, thewarehousemen, the tanners, Mike Callaghan, share between them the howland the hoot. The Mayor started: is it possible! His door is burstopen, and, scattering all who sought to hold him back, --scattering themto the right and left from his massive torso in rushed the man who hadtaken in the Mayor, --the fellow with one eye, and with that fellow, shaggy and travel-soiled, the other dog!

"What have you done with the charge I intrusted to you? My child! mychild! where is she?"

Waife's face was wild with the agony of his emotions, and his voice wasso sharply terrible that it went like a knife into the heart of the men, who, thrust aside for the moment, now followed him, fearful, into theroom. 

"Mr. --Mr. Chapman, sir, " faltered the Mayor, striving hard to recoverdignity and self-possession, "I am astonished at your--your--"

"Audacity!" interposed Mr. Williams. 

"My child! my Sophy! my child! answer me, man!" "Sir, " said the Mayor, drawing himself up, "have you not got the note which I left at mybailiff's cottage in case you called there?"

"Your note! this thing!" said Waife, striking a crumpled paper with hishand, and running his eye over its contents. "You have rendered up, yousay, the child to her lawful protector? Gracious heavens! did I trusther to you, or not?"

"Leave the room all of you, " said the Mayor, with a sudden return of hisusual calm vigour. 

"You go, --you, sirs; what the deuce do you do here?" growled Williams tothe meaner throng. "Out! I stay, never fear, men, I'll take care ofhim!"

The bystanders surlily slunk off: but none returned to their work; theystood within reach of call by the shut door. Williams tucked up hiscoat-sleeves, clenched his fists, hung his head doggedly on one side, andlooked altogether so pugnacious and minatory that Sir Isaac, who, thoughin a state of great excitement, had hitherto retained self-control, peered at him under his curls, stiffened his back, showed his teeth, andgrowled formidably. 

"My good Williams, leave us, " said the Mayor; "I would be alone with thisperson. "

"Alone, --you! out of the question. Now you have been once taken in, andyou own it, --it is my duty to protect you henceforth; and I will to theend of my days. "

The Mayor sighed heavily. "Well, Williams, well!--take a chair, and bequiet. Now, Mr. Chapman, so to call you still; you have deceived me. "

"I? how?"

The Mayor was puzzled. "Deceived me, " he said at last, "in my knowledgeof human nature. I thought you an honest man, sir. And you are--but nomatter. "

WAIFE (impatiently). --"My child! my child! you have given her up to--to--"

MAYOR. --"Her own father, sir. "

WAIFE (echoing the words as he staggers back). --"I thought so! I thoughtit!"

MAYOR. --"In so doing I obeyed the law: he had legal power to enforce hisdemand. " The Mayor's voice was almost apologetic in its tone; for he wasaffected by Waife's anguish, and not able to silence a pang of remorse. After all, he had been trusted; and he had, excusably perhaps, necessarily perhaps, but still he had failed to fulfil the trust. "But, "added the Mayor, as if reassuring himself, "but I refused at first togive her up even to her own father; at first insisted upon waiting tillyour return; and it was only when I was informed what you yourself werethat my scruples gave Way. "

Waife remained long silent, breathing very hard, passing his hand severaltimes over his forehead; at last he said more quietly than he had yetspoken, "Will you tell me where they have gone?"

"I do not know; and, if I did know, I would not tell you! Are they notright when they say that that innocent child should not be tempted awayby--by--a--in short by you, sir?"

"They said! Her father--said that!--he said that!--Did he--did he sayit? Had he the heart?"

MAYOR. --"No, I don't think he said it. Eh, Mr. Williams? He spokelittle to me!"

MR. WILLIAMS. --"Of course he would not expose that person. But thewoman, --the lady, I mean. "

WAIFE. --"Woman! Ah, yes. The bailiff's wife said there was a woman. What woman? What's her name?"

MAYOR. --"Really you must excuse me. I can say no more. I have consentedto see you thus, because whatever you might have been, or may be, stillit was due to myself to explain how I came to give up the child; and, besides, you left money with me, and that, at least, I can give to yourown hand. "

The Mayor turned to his desk, unlocked it, and drew forth the bag whichWaife had sent to him. 

As he extended it towards the Comedian, his hand trembled, and his cheekflushed. For Waife's one bright eye had in it such depth of reproach, that again the Mayor's conscience was sorely troubled; and he would havegiven ten times the contents of that bag to have been alone with thevagrant, and to have said the soothing things he did not dare to saybefore Williams, who sat there mute and grim, guarding him from beingonce more "taken in. " "If you had confided in me at first, Mr. Chapman, "he said, pathetically, "or even if now, I could aid you in an honest wayof life!"

"Aid him--now!" said Williams, with a snort. "At it again! you're nota man: you're an angel!"

"But if he is penitent, Williams. "

"So! so! so!" murmured Waife. "Thank Heaven it was not he who spokeagainst me: it was but a strange woman. Oh!" he suddenly broke off witha groan. "Oh--but that strange woman, --who, what can she be? and Sophywith her and him. Distraction! Yes, yes, I take the money. I shallwant it all. Sir Isaac, pick up that bag. Gentlemen, good day to you!"He bowed; such a failure that bow! Nothing ducal in it! bowed andturned towards the door; then, when he gained the threshold, as if somemeeker, holier thought restored to him dignity of bearing, his form rose, though his face softened, and stretching his right hand towards theMayor, he said, "You did but as all perhaps would have done on theevidence before you. You meant to be kind to her. "

"If you knew all, how you would repent! I do not blame, --I forgive you. "

He was gone: the Mayor stood transfixed. Even Williams felt a coldcomfortless thrill. "He does not look like it, " said the foreman. "Cheer up, sir, no wonder you were taken in: who would not have been?"

"Hark! that hoot again. Go, Williams, don't let the men insult him. Go, do, --I shall be grateful. "

But before Williams got to the door, the cripple and his dog hadvanished; vanished down a dark narrow alley on the opposite side of thestreet. The rude workmen had followed him to the mouth of the alley, mocking him. Of the exact charge against the Comedian's good name theywere not informed; that knowledge was confined to the Mayor and Mr. Williams. But the latter had dropped such harsh expressions, that bad asthe charge might really be, all in Mr. Hartopp's employment probablydeemed it worse, if possible, than it really was. And wretch indeed mustbe the man by whom the Mayor had been confessedly taken in, and whom theMayor had indignantly given up to the reproaches of his own conscience. But the cripple was now out of sight, lost amidst those labyrinths ofsqualid homes which, in great towns, are thrust beyond view, branchingoff abruptly behind High Streets and Market Places, so that strangerspassing only along the broad thoroughfares, with glittering shops andgaslit causeways, exclaim, "Ah here do the poor live?"

CHAPTER III. 

 Ecce iterum Crispinus!

It was by no calculation, but by involuntary impulse, that Waife, thusescaping from the harsh looks and taunting murmurs of the gossips roundthe Mayor's door, dived into those sordid devious lanes. Vaguely he feltthat a ban was upon him; that the covering he had thrown over his brandof outcast was lifted up; that a sentence of expulsion from the HighStreets and Market Places of decorous life was passed against him. Hehad been robbed of his child, and Society, speaking in the voice of theMayor of Gatesboro', said, "Rightly! thou art not fit companion for theinnocent!"

At length he found himself out of the town, beyond its stragglingsuburbs, and once more on the solitary road. He had already walked farthat day. He was thoroughly exhausted. He sat himself down in a dryditch by the hedgerow, and taking his head between his hands, strove torecollect his thoughts and rearrange his plans. 

Waife had returned that day to the bailiff's cottage joyous and elated. He had spent the week in travelling; partly, though not all the way, onfoot, to the distant village, in which he had learned in youth thebasketmaker's art! He had found the very cottage wherein he had thenlodged vacant and to be let. There seemed a ready opening for the humblebut pleasant craft to which he had diverted his ambition. 

The bailiff intrusted with the letting of the cottage and osier-groundhad, it is true, requested some reference; not, of course, as to all atenant's antecedents, but as to the reasonable probability that thetenant would be a quiet sober man, who would pay his rent and abstainfrom poaching. Waife thought he might safely presume that the Mayor ofGatesboro' would not, so far as that went, object to take his VOL. I. -ISpast upon trust, and give him a good word towards securing so harmlessand obscure a future. Waife had never before asked such a favour of anyman; he shrank from doing so now; but for his grandchild's sake, he wouldwaive his scruples or humble his pride. 

Thus, then, he had come back, full of Elysian dreams, to his Sophy, --his Enchanted Princess. Gone, taken away, and with the Mayor'sconsent, --the consent of the very man upon whom he had been relying tosecure a livelihood and a shelter! Little more had he learned at thecottage, for Mr. And Mrs. Gooch had been cautioned to be as brief aspossible, and give him no clew to regain his lost treasure, beyond thenote which informed him it was with a lawful possessor. And, indeed, theworthy pair were now prejudiced against the vagrant, and were rude tohim. But he had not tarried to cross-examine and inquire. He had rushedat once to the Mayor. Sophy was with one whose legal right to dispose ofher he could not question. But where that person would take her, wherehe resided, what he would do with her, he had no means to conjecture. Most probably (he thought and guessed) she would be carried abroad, wasalready out of the country. But the woman with Losely, he had not heardher described; his guesses did not turn towards Mrs. Crane: the woman wasevidently hostile to him; it was the woman who had spoken against him, --not Losely; the woman whose tongue had poisoned Hartopp's mind, andturned into scorn all that admiring respect which had before greeted thegreat Comedian. Why was that woman his enemy? Who could she be? Whathad she to do with Sophy? He was half beside himself with terror. Itwas to save her less even from Losely than from such direful women asLosely made his confidants and associates that Waife had taken Sophy tohimself. As for Mrs. Crane, she had never seemed a foe to him; she hadceded the child to him willingly: he had no reason to believe, from theway in which she had spoken of Losely when he last saw her, that shecould henceforth aid the interests or share the schemes of the man whoseperfidies she then denounced; and as to Rugge, he had not appeared atGatesboro'. Mrs. Crane had prudently suggested that his presence wouldnot be propitiatory or discreet, and that all reference to him, or to thecontract with him, should be suppressed. Thus Waife was wholly withoutone guiding evidence, one groundwork for conjecture, that might enablehim to track the lost; all he knew was, that she had been given up to aman whose whereabouts it was difficult to discover, --a vagrant, of lifedarker and more hidden than his own. 

But how had the hunters discovered the place where he had treasured uphis Sophy? how dogged that retreat? Perhaps from the village in which wefirst saw him. Ay, doubtless, learned from Mrs. Saunders of the dog hehad purchased, and the dog would have served to direct them on his path. At that thought he pushed away Sir Isaac, who had been resting his headon the old man's knee, --pushed him away angrily; the poor dog slunk offin sorrowful surprise, and whined. 

"Ungrateful wretch that I am!" cried Waife, and he opened his arms tothe brute, who bounded forgivingly to his breast. 

"Come, come, we will go back to the village in Surrey. Tramp, tramp!"said the cripple, rousing himself. And at that moment, just as he gainedhis feet, a friendly hand was laid on his shoulder, and a friendly voicesaid, "I have found you! the crystal said so! Marbellous!"

"Merle, " faltered out the vagrant, "Merle, you here! Oh, perhaps youcome to tell me good news: you have seen Sophy; you know where she is!"

The Cobbler shook his head. "Can't see her just at present. Crystalsays nout about her. But I know she was taken from you--and--and--youshake tremenjous! Lean on me, Mr. Waite, and call off that big animal. He's a suspicating my calves and circumtittyvating them. Thank ye, sir. You see I was born with sinister aspects in my Twelfth House, whichappertains to big animals and enemies; and dogs of that size about one'scalves are--malefics!"

As Merle now slowly led the cripple, and Sir Isaac, relinquishing hisfirst suspicions, walked droopingly beside them, the Cobbler began a longstory, much encumbered by astrological illustrations and moralizingcomments. The substance of his narrative is thus epitomized: Rugge, inpursuing Waife's track, had naturally called on Merle in company withLosely and Mrs. Crane. The Cobbler had no clew to give, and no mind togive it if clew he had possessed. But his curiosity being roused, he hadsmothered the inclination to dismiss the inquirers with more speed thangood breeding, and even refreshed his slight acquaintance with Mr. Ruggein so well simulated a courtesy that that gentleman, when left behind byLosely and Mrs. Crane in their journey to Gatesboro', condescended, forwant of other company, to drink tea with Mr. Merle; and tea beingsucceeded by stronger potations, he fairly unbosomed himself of his hopesof recovering Sophy and his ambition of hiring the York theatre. 

The day afterwards Rugge went away seemingly in high spirits, and theCobbler had no doubt, from some words he let fall in passing Merle'sstall towards the railway, that Sophy was recaptured, and that Rugge wassummoned to take possession of her. Ascertaining from the manager thatLosely and Mrs. Crane had gone to Gatesboro', the Cobbler called to mindthat he had a sister living there, married to a green-grocer in a verysmall way, whom he had not seen for many years; and finding his businessslack just then, he resolved to pay this relative a, visit, with thebenevolent intention of looking up Waife, whom he expected from Rugge'saccount to find there, and offering him any consolation or aid in hispower, should Sophy have been taken from him against his will. Aconsultation with his crystal, which showed him the face of Mr. Waifealone and much dejected, and a horary scheme which promised success tohis journey, decided his movements. He had arrived at Gatesboro' the daybefore, had heard a confused story about a Mr. Chapman, with his dog andhis child, whom the Mayor had first taken up, but who afterwards, in somemysterious manner, had taken in the Mayor. Happily, the darker gossip inthe High Street had not penetrated the back lane in which Merle's sisterresided. There, little more was known than the fact that this mysteriousstranger had imposed on the wisdom of Gatesboro's learned Institute andenlightened Mayor. Merle, at no loss to identify Waife with Chapman, could only suppose that he had been discovered to be a strolling playerin Rugge's exhibition, after pretending to be some much greater man. Such an offence the Cobbler was not disposed to consider heinous. ButMr. Chapman was gone from Gatesboro' none knew whither; and Merle had notyet ventured to call himself on the chief magistrate of the place, toinquire after a man by whom that august personage had been deceived. "Howsomever, " quoth Merle, in conclusion, "I was just standing at mysister's door, with her last babby in my arms, in Scrob Lane, when I sawyou pass by like a shot. You were gone while I ran in to give up thebabby, who is teething, with malefics in square, --gone, clean out ofsight. You took one turn; I took another: but you see we meet at last, as good men always do in this world or the other, which is the same thingin the long run. "

Waife, who had listened to his friend without other interruption than anoccasional nod of the head or interjectional expletive, was now restoredto much of his constitutional mood of sanguine cheerfulness. Herecognized Mrs. Crane in the woman described; and, if surprised, he wasrejoiced. For, much as he disliked that gentlewoman, he thought Sophymight be in worse female hands. Without much need of sagacity, hedivined the gist of the truth. Losely had somehow or other becomeacquainted with Rugge, and sold Sophy to the manager. Where Rugge was, there would Sophy be. It could not be very difficult to find out theplace in which Rugge was now exhibiting; and then--ah then! Waifewhistled to Sir Isaac, tapped his forehead, and smiled triumphantly. Meanwhile the Cobbler had led him back into the suburb, with the kindintention of offering him food and bed for the night at his sister'shouse. But Waife had already formed his plan; in London, and in Londonalone, could he be sure to learn where Rugge was now exhibiting; inLondon there were places at which that information could be gleaned atonce. The last train to the metropolis was not gone. He would slinkround the town to the station: he and Sir Isaac at that hour might secureplaces unnoticed. 

When Merle found it was in vain to press him to stay over the night, thegood-hearted Cobbler accompanied him to the train, and, while Waifeshrank into a dark corner, bought the tickets for dog and master. As hewas paying for these, he overheard two citizens talking of Mr. Chapman. It was indeed Mr. Williams explaining to a fellow-burgess just returnedto Gatesboro', after a week's absence, how and by what manner of man Mr. Hartopp had been taken in. At what Williams said, the Cobbler's cheekpaled. When he joined the Comedian his manner was greatly altered; hegave the tickets without speaking, but looked hard into Waife's face, asthe latter repaid him the fares. "No, " said the Cobbler, suddenly, "Idon't believe it. "

"Believe what?" asked Waife, startled. "That you are--"

The Cobbler paused, bent forward, whispered the rest of the sentenceclose in the vagrant's ear. Waife's head fell on his bosom, but he madeno answer. 

"Speak, " cried Merle; "say 't is a lie. " The poor cripple's lip writhed, but he still spoke not. 

Merle looked aghast at that obstinate silence. At length, but veryslowly, as the warning bell summoned him and Sir Isaac to their severalplaces in the train, Waife found voice. "So you too, you too desert anddespise me! God's will be done!" He moved away, --spiritless, limping, hiding his face as well as he could. The porter took the dog from him, to thrust it into one of the boxes reserved for such four-footedpassengers. 

Waife thus parted from his last friend--I mean the dog--looked after SirIsaac wistfully, and crept into a third-class carriage, in which luckilythere was no one else. Suddenly Merle jumped in, snatched his hand, andpressed it tightly. 

"I don't despise, I don't turn my back on you: whenever you and thelittle one want a home and a friend, come to Kit Merle as before, andI'll bite my tongue out if I ask any more questions of you; I'll ask thestars instead. "

The Cobbler had but just time to splutter out these comforting words andredescend the carriage, when the train put itself into movement, and thelifelike iron miracle, fuming, hissing, and screeching, bore off toLondon its motley convoy of human beings, each passenger's heart amystery to the other, all bound the same road, all wedged close withinthe same whirling mechanism; what a separate and distinct world in each!Such is Civilization! How like we are one to the other in the mass! howstrangely dissimilar in the abstract!

CHAPTER IV. 

 "If, " says a great thinker (Degerando, "/Du Perfectionment Moral/, " chapter ix. , "On the Difficulties we encounter in Self-Study")--"if one concentrates reflection too much on one's self, one ends by no longer seeing anything, or seeing only what one wishes. By the very act, as it were, of capturing one's self, the personage we believe we have seized escapes, disappears. Nor is it only the complexity of our inner being which obstructs our examination, but its exceeding variability. The investigator's regard should embrace all the sides of the subject, and perseveringly pursue all its phases. "

It is the race-week in Humberston, a county town far from Gatesboro', andin the north of England. The races last three days: the first day isover; it has been a brilliant spectacle; the course crowded with thecarriages of provincial magnates, with equestrian betters of note fromthe metropolis; blacklegs in great muster; there have been gaming-boothson the ground, and gypsies telling fortunes; much champagne imbibed bythe well-bred, much soda-water and brandy by the vulgar. Thousands andtens of thousands have been lost and won: some paupers have been for thetime enriched; some rich men made poor for life. Horses have won fame;some of their owners lost character. Din and uproar, and coarse oaths, and rude passions, --all have had their hour. The amateurs of the higherclasses have gone back to dignified country-houses, as courteous hostsor favoured guests. The professional speculators of a lower grade havepoured back into the county town, and inns and taverns are crowded. Drink is hotly called for at reeking bars; waiters and chambermaids passto and fro, with dishes and tankards and bottles in their hands. All isnoise and bustle, and eating and swilling, and disputation and slang, wild glee, and wilder despair, amongst those who come back from the race-course to the inns in the county town. At one of these taverns, neitherthe best nor the worst, and in a small narrow slice of a room that seemedrobbed from the landing-place, sat Mrs. Crane, in her iron-gray silkgown. She was seated close by the open window, as carriages, chaises, flies, carts, vans, and horsemen succeeded each other thick and fast, watching the scene with a soured, scornful look. For human joy, as forhuman grief, she had little sympathy. Life had no Saturnalian holidaysleft for her. Some memory in her past had poisoned the well-springs ofher social being. Hopes and objects she had still, but out of the wrecksof the natural and healthful existence of womanhood, those objects andhopes stood forth exaggerated, intense, as are the ruling passions inmonomania. A bad woman is popularly said to be worse than a wicked man. If so, partly because women, being more solitary, brood more unceasinglyover cherished ideas, whether good or evil; partly also, for the samereason that makes a wicked gentleman, who has lost caste and character, more irreclaimable than a wicked clown, low-born and lowbred, namely, that in proportion to the loss of shame is the gain in recklessness: butprincipally, perhaps, because in extreme wickedness there is necessarilya distortion of the reasoning faculty; and man, accustomed from thecradle rather to reason than to feel, has that faculty more firm againstabrupt twists and lesions than it is in woman; where virtue may have lefthim, logic may still linger; and he may decline to push evil to a pointat which it is clear to his understanding that profit vanishes andpunishment rests; while woman, once abandoned to ill, finds sufficientcharm in its mere excitement, and, regardless of consequences, where theman asks, "Can I?" raves out, "I will!" Thus man may be criminal throughcupidity, vanity, love, jealousy, fear, ambition; rarely in civilized, that is, reasoning life, through hate and revenge; for hate is aprofitless investment, and revenge a ruinous speculation. But when womenare thoroughly depraved and hardened, nine times out of ten it is hatredor revenge that makes them so. Arabella Crane had not, however, attainedto that last state of wickedness, which, consistent in evil, is callousto remorse; she was not yet unsexed. In her nature was still thatessence, "varying and mutable, " which distinguishes woman while womanhoodis left to her. And now, as she sat gazing on the throng below, herhaggard mind recoiled perhaps from the conscious shadow of the EvilPrinciple which, invoked as an ally, remains as a destroyer. Her darkfront relaxed; she moved in her seat uneasily. "Must it be always thus?"she muttered, --"always this hell here! Even now, if in one large pardonI could include the undoer, the earth, myself, and again be human, --human, even as those slight triflers or coarse brawlers that pass yonder!Oh, for something in common with common life!"

Her lips closed, and her eyes again fell upon the crowded street. Atthat moment three or four heavy vans or wagons filled with operatives orlabourers and their wives, coming back from the race-course, obstructedthe way; two outriders in satin jackets were expostulating, crackingtheir whips, and seeking to clear space for an open carriage with fourthoroughbred impatient horses. Towards that carriage every gazer fromthe windows was directing eager eyes; each foot-passenger on the pavementlifted his hat: evidently in that carriage some great person! Like allwho are at war with the world as it is, Arabella Crane abhorred thegreat, and despised the small for worshipping the great. But still herown fierce dark eyes mechanically followed those of the vulgar. Thecarriage bore a marquess's coronet on its panels, and was filled withladies; two other carriages bearing a similar coronet, and evidentlybelonging to the same party, were in the rear. Mrs. Crane started. Inthat first carriage, as it now slowly moved under her very window, andpaused a minute or more till the obstructing vehicles in front weremarshalled into order, there flashed upon her eyes a face radiant withfemale beauty in its most glorious prime. Amongst the crowd at thatmoment was a blind man, adding to the various discords of the street by amiserable hurdy-gurdy. In the movement of the throng to get nearer to asight of the ladies in the carriage, this poor creature was thrownforward; the dog that led him, an ugly brute, on his own account or hismaster's took fright, broke from the string, and ran under the horses'hoofs, snarling. The horses became restive; the blind man made a plungeafter his dog, and was all but run over. The lady in the first carriage, alarmed for his safety, rose up from her seat, and made her outridersdismount, lead away the poor blind man, and restore to him his dog. Thusengaged, her face shone full upon Arabella Crane; and with that facerushed a tide of earlier memories. Long, very long, since she had seenthat face, --seen it in those years when she herself, Arabella Crane, wasyoung and handsome. 

The poor man, --who seemed not to realize the idea of the danger he hadescaped, --once more safe, the lady resumed her seat; and now that themomentary animation of humane fear and womanly compassion passed from hercountenance, its expression altered; it took the calm, almost thecoldness, of a Greek statue. But with the calm there was a listlessmelancholy which Greek sculpture never gives to the Parian stone: stonecannot convey that melancholy; it is the shadow which needs for itssubstance a living, mortal heart. 

Crack went the whips: the horses bounded on; the equipage rolled fastdown the street, followed by its satellites. "Well!" said a voice inthe street below, "I never saw Lady Montfort in such beauty. Ah, herecomes my lord!"

Mrs. Crane heard and looked forth again. A dozen or more gentlemen onhorseback rode slowly up the street; which of these was Lord Montfort?--not difficult to distinguish. As the bystanders lifted their hats to thecavalcade, the horsemen generally returned their salutation by simplytouching their own: one horseman uncovered wholly. That one must be theMarquess, the greatest man in those parts, with lands stretching away oneither side that town for miles and miles, --a territory which in feudaltimes might have alarmed a king. He, the civilest, must be the greatest. A man still young, decidedly good-looking, wonderfully well-dressed, wonderfully well-mounted, the careless ease of high rank in his air andgesture. To the superficial gaze, just what the great Lord of Montfortshould be. Look again! In that fair face is there not something thatputs you in mind of a florid period which contains a feeble platitude?--something in its very prettiness that betrays a weak nature and a sterilemind?

The cavalcade passed away; the vans and the wagons again usurped thethoroughfare. Arabella Crane left the window, and approached the littlelooking-glass over the mantelpiece. She gazed upon her own facebitterly; she was comparing it with the features of the dazzlingmarchioness. 

The door was flung open, and Jasper Losely sauntered in, whistling aFrench air, and flapping the dust from his boots with his kid glove. 

"All right, " said he, gayly. "A famous day of it!"

"You have won, " said Mrs. Crane, in a tone rather of disappointment thancongratulation. 

"Yes. That L100 of Rugge's has been the making of me. "

"I only wanted a capital just to start with!" He flung himself into achair, opened his pocket-book, and scrutinized its contents. "Guess, "said he, suddenly, "on whose horse I won these two rouleaux? LordMontfort's! Ay, and I saw my lady!"

"So did I see her from this window. She did not look happy!"

"Not happy!--with such an equipage, --neatest turn-out I ever set eyes on;not happy, indeed! I had half a mind to ride up to her carriage andadvance a claim to her gratitude. "

"Gratitude? Oh, for your part in that miserable affair of which you toldme?"

"Not a miserable affair for her; but certainly I never got any good fromit. Trouble for nothing! /Basta!/ No use looking back. "

"No use; but who can help it?" said Arabella Crane, sighing heavily;then, as if eager to change the subject, she added abruptly, "Mr. Ruggehas been here twice this morning, highly excited the child will not act. He says you are bound to make her do so!"

"Nonsense. That is his look-out. I see after children, indeed!"

MRS. CRANE (with a visible effort). --"Listen to me, Jasper Losely. Ihave no reason to love that child, as you may suppose. But now that youso desert her, I think I feel compassion for her; and when this morning Iraised my hand to strike her for her stubborn spirit, and saw her eyesunflinching, and her pale, pale, but fearless face, my arm fell to myside powerless. She will not take to this life without the old man. She will waste away and die. "

LOSELY. --"How you bother me! Are you serious? What am I to do?"

MRS. CRANE. --"You have won money you say; revoke the contract; pay Ruggeback his L100. He is disappointed in his bargain; he will take themoney. "

LOSELY. --"I dare say he will indeed! No: I have won to-day, it is true, but I may lose to-morrow; and besides I am in want of so many things:when one gets a little money, one has an immediate necessity for more--ha! ha! Still I would not have the child die; and she may grow up to beof use. I tell you what I will do; if, when the races are over, I find Ihave gained enough to afford it, I will see about buying her off. ButL100 is too much! Rugge ought to take half the money, or a quarter, because, if she don't act, I suppose she does eat. "

Odious as the man's words were, he said them with a laugh that seemed torender them less revolting, --the laugh of a very handsome mouth, showingteeth still brilliantly white. More comely than usual that day, for hewas in great good-humour, it was difficult to conceive that a man with sohealthful and fair an exterior was really quite rotten at heart. 

"Your own young laugh, " said Arabella Crane, almost tenderly. "I knownot how it is, but this day I feel as if I were less old, --altered thoughI be in face and mind. I have allowed myself to pity that child; while Ispeak, I can pity you. Yes! pity, --when I think of what you were. Mustyou go on thus? To what! Jasper Losely, " she continued, sharply, eagerly, clasping her hands, "hear me: I have an income, not large, it istrue, but assured; you have nothing but what, as you say, you may loseto-morrow; share my income! Fulfil your solemn promises: marry me. Iwill forget whose daughter that girl is; I will be a mother to her. Andfor yourself, give me the right to feel for you again as I once did, andI may find a way to raise you yet, --higher than you can raise yourself. I have some wit, Jasper, as you know. At the worst you shall have thepastime, I the toil. In your illness I will nurse you: in your joys Iwill intrude no share. Whom else can you marry? to whom else could youconfide? who else could--"

She stopped short as if an adder had stung her, uttering a shriek ofrage, of pain; for Jasper Losely, who had hitherto listened to her, stupefied, astounded, here burst into a fit of merriment, in which therewas such undisguised contempt, such an enjoyment of the ludicrous, provoked by the idea of the marriage pressed upon him, that the insultpierced the woman to her very soul. 

Continuing his laugh, despite that cry of wrathful agony it had caused, Jasper rose, holding his sides, and surveying himself in the glass, withvery different feelings at the sight from those that had made hiscompanion's gaze there a few minutes before so mournful. 

"My dear good friend, " he said, composing himself at last, and wiping hiseyes, "excuse me, but really when you said whom else could I marry--ha!ha!--it did seem such a capital joke! Marry you, my fair Crane! No: putthat idea out of your head; we know each other too well for conjugalfelicity. You love me now: you always did, and always will; that is, while we are not tied to each other. Women who once love me, always loveme; can't help themselves. I am sure I don't know why, except that I amwhat they call a villain! Ha! the clock striking seven: I dine with aset of fellows I have picked up on the race-ground; they don't know me, nor I them; we shall be better acquainted after the third bottle. Cheerup, Crane: go and scold Sophy, and make her act if you can; if not, scoldRugge into letting her alone. Scold somebody; nothing like it, to keepother folks quiet, and one's self busy. Adieu! and pray, no morematrimonial solicitations: they frighten me! Gad, " added Losely, as hebanged the door, "such overtures would frighten Old Nick himself!"

Did Arabella Crane hear those last words, --or had she not heard enough?If Losely had turned and beheld her face, would it have startled back histrivial laugh? Possibly; but it would have caused only a momentaryuneasiness. If Alecto herself had reared over him her brow horrent withvipers, Jasper Losely would have thought he had only to look handsome andsay coaxingly, "Alecto, my dear, " and the Fury would have pawned herhead-dress to pay his washing-bill. 

After all, in the face of the grim woman he had thus so wantonlyincensed, there was not so much menace as resolve. And that resolve wasyet more shown in the movement of the hands than in the aspect of thecountenance; those hands--lean, firm, nervous hands--slowly expanded, then as slowly clenched, as if her own thought had taken substance, andshe was locking it in a clasp--tightly, tightly--never to be loosenedtill the pulse was still. 

CHAPTER V. 

 The most submissive where they love may be the most stubborn where they do not love. --Sophy is stubborn to Mr. Rugge. --That injured man summons to his side Mrs. Crane, imitating the policy of those potentates who would retrieve the failures of force by the successes of diplomacy. 

Mr. Rugge has obtained his object. But now comes the question, "Whatwill he do with it?" Question with as many heads as the Hydra; and nosooner does an author dispose of one head than up springs another. 

Sophy has been bought and paid for: she is now, legally, Mr. Rugge'sproperty. But there was a wise peer who once bought Punch: Punch becamehis property, and was brought in triumph to his lordship's house. To mylord's great dismay, Punch would not talk. To Rugge's great dismay, Sophy would not act. 

Rendered up to Jasper Losely and Mrs. Crane, they had lost not an hourin removing her from Gatesboro' and its neighbourhood. They did not, however, go back to the village in which they had left Rugge, butreturned straight to London, and wrote to the manager to join them there. 

Sophy, once captured, seemed stupefied: she evinced no noisy passion; shemade no violent resistance. When she was told to love and obey a fatherin Jasper Losely, she lifted her eyes to his face; then turned them away, and shook her head mute and credulous. That man her father! she, did notbelieve it. Indeed, Jasper took no pains to convince her of therelationship or win her attachment. He was not unkindly rough: he seemedwholly indifferent; probably he was so. For the ruling vice of the manwas in his egotism. It was not so much that he had bad principles andbad feelings, as that he had no principles and no feelings at all, exceptas they began, continued, and ended in that system of centralizationwhich not more paralyzes healthful action in a State than it does in theindividual man. Self-indulgence with him was absolute. He was notwithout power of keen calculation, not without much cunning. He couldconceive a project for some gain far off in the future, and concoct, forits realization, schemes subtly woven, astutely guarded. But he couldnot secure their success by any long-sustained sacrifices of the capriceof one hour or the indolence of the next. If it had been a great objectto him for life to win Sophy's filial affection, he would not have boredhimself for five minutes each day to gain that object. Besides, he hadjust enough of shame to render him uneasy at the sight of the child hehad deliberately sold. So after chucking her under the chin, and tellingher to be a good girl and be grateful for all that Mrs. Crane had donefor her and meant still to do, he consigned her almost solely to thatlady's care. 

When Rugge arrived, and Sophy was informed of her intended destination, she broke silence, --her colour went and came quickly, --she declared, folding her arms upon her breast, that she would never act if separatedfrom her grandfather. Mrs. Crane, struck by her manner, suggested toRugge that it might be as well, now that she was legally secured to themanager, to humour her wish and re-engage Waife. Whatever the tale withwhich, in order to obtain Sophy from the Mayor, she had turned thatworthy magistrate's mind against the Comedian, she had not gratifiedMr. Rugge by a similar confidence to him. To him she said nothing whichmight operate against renewing engagements with Waife, if he were sodisposed. But Rugge had no faith in a child's firmness, and he had astrong spite against Waife, so he obstinately refused. He insisted, however, as a peremptory condition of the bargain, that Mr. Losely andMrs. Crane should accompany him to the town to which he had transferredhis troupe, both in order by their presence to confirm his authority overSophy, and to sanction his claim to her, should Waife reappear anddispute it. For Rugge's profession being scarcely legitimate anddecidedly equivocal, his right to bring up a female child to the samecalling might be called into question before a magistrate, andnecessitate the production of her father in order to substantiate thespecial contract. In return, the manager handsomely offered to Mr. Losely and Mrs. Crane to pay their expenses in the excursion, --aliberality haughtily rejected by Mrs. Crane for herself, though sheagreed at her own charge to accompany Losely if he decided on complyingwith the manager's request. Losely at first raised objections, buthearing that there would be races in the neighbourhood, and having apeculiar passion for betting and all kinds of gambling, as well as anardent desire to enjoy his L100 in so fashionable a manner, he consentedto delay his return to the Continent, and attend Arabella Crane to theprovincial Elis. Rugge, carried off Sophy to her fellow "orphans. "

AND SOPHY WOULD NOT ACT!

In vain she was coaxed; in vain she was threatened; in vain she wasdeprived of food; in vain shut up in a dark hole; in vain was the lashheld over her. Rugge, tyrant though he was, did not suffer the lash tofall. His self-restraint there might be humanity, --might be fear of theconsequences; for the state of her health began to alarm him. She mightdie; there might be an inquest. He wished now that he had taken Mrs. Crane's suggestion, and re-engaged Waife. But where was Waife?Meanwhile he had advertised the young Phenomenon; placarded the wallswith the name of Juliet Araminta; got up the piece of the RemorselessBaron, with a new rock-scene. Waife had had nothing to say in thatdrama, so any one could act his part. 

The first performance was announced for that night: there would be suchan audience! the best seats even now pre-engaged; first night of therace-week. The clock had struck seven; the performance began at eight. 

AND SOPHY WOULD NOT ACT!

The child was seated in a space that served for the greenroom, behind thescenes. The whole company had been convened to persuade or shame her outof her obstinacy. The king's lieutenant, the seductive personage of thetroupe, was on one knee to her, like a lover. He was accustomed tolovers' parts, both on the stage and off it. Off it, he had one favouredphrase, hackneyed, but effective. "You are too pretty to be so cruel. "Thrice he now repeated that phrase, with a simper between each repetitionthat might have melted a heart of stone. Behind Sophy's chair, andsticking calico-flowers into the child's tresses, stood the senior matronof the establishment, --not a bad sort of woman, --who kept the dresses, nursed the sick, revered Rugge, told fortunes on a pack of cards whichshe always kept in her pocket, and acted occasionally in parts where agewas no drawback and ugliness desirable, --such as a witch, or duenna, orwhatever in the dialogue was poetically called "Hag. " Indeed, Hag wasthe name she usually took from Rugge; that which she bore from herdefunct husband was Gormerick. This lady, as she braided the garland, was also bent on the soothing system, saying, with great sweetness, considering that her mouth was full of pins, "Now, deary, now, dovey, look at ooself in the glass; we could beat oo, and pinch oo, and stickpins into oo, dovey, but we won't. Dovey will be good, I know;" and agreat patch of rouge came on the child's pale cheeks. The clowntherewith, squatting before her with his hands on his knees, grinnedlustily, and shrieked out, "My eyes, what a beauty!"

Rugge, meanwhile, one hand thrust in his bosom, contemplated thediplomatic efforts of his ministers, and saw, by Sophy's compressed lipsand unwinking eyes, that their cajoleries were unsuccessful. Heapproached and hissed into her ear, "Don't madden me! don't! you willact, eh?"

"No, " said Sophy, suddenly rising; and tearing the wreath from her hair, she set her small foot on it with force. "No, not if you kill me!"

"Gods!" faltered Rugge. "And the sum I have paid! I am diddled! Whohas gone for Mrs. Crane?"

"Tom, " said the clown. 

The word was scarcely out of the clown's mouth ere Mrs. Crane herselfemerged from a side scene, and, putting off her bonnet, laid both handson the child's shoulders, and looked her in the face without speaking. The child as firmly returned the gaze. Give that child a martyr's cause, and in that frail body there would have been a martyr's soul. ArabellaCrane, not inexperienced in children, recognized a power of will strongerthan the power of brute force, in that tranquillity of eye, the spark ofcalm light in its tender blue, blue, pure as the sky; light, steadfast asthe star. 

"Leave her to me, all of you, " said Mrs. Crane. "I will take her to yourprivate room, Mr. Rugge;" and she led the child away to a sort of recess, room it could not be rightly called, fenced round with boxes and crates, and containing the manager's desk and two stools. 

"Sophy, " then said Mrs. Crane, "you say you will not act unless yourgrandfather be with you. Now, hear me. You know that I have been alwaysstern and hard with you. I never professed to love you, --nor do I. Butyou have not found me untruthful. When I say a thing seriously, as I amspeaking now, you may believe me. Act to-night, and I will promise youfaithfully that I will either bring your grandfather here, or I willorder it so that you shall be restored to him. If you refuse, I make nothreat, but I shall leave this place; and my belief is that you will beyour grandfather's death. "

"His death! his death! I!"

"By first dying yourself. Oh, you smile; you think it would be happinessto die. What matter that the old man you profess to care for is broken-hearted! Brat, leave selfishness to boys: you are a girl! suffer!"

"Selfish!" murmured Sophy, "selfish! that was said of me before. Selfish! ah, I understand. No, I ought not to wish to die: what wouldbecome of him?" She fell on her knees, and raising both her claspedhands, prayed inly, silently, an instant, not more. She rose. "If I doact, then, --it is a promise: you will keep it. I shall see him: he shallknow where I am; we shall meet!"

"A promise, --sacred. I will keep it. Oh, girl, how much you will lovesome day! how your heart will ache! and when you are my age, look at thatheart, then at your glass; perhaps you may be, within and without, likeme. "

Sophy, innocent Sophy, stared, awe-stricken, but uncomprehending; Mrs. Crane led her back passive. 

"There, she will act. Put on the wreath. Trick her out. Hark ye, Mr. Rugge. This is for one night. I have made conditions with her: eitheryou must take back her grandfather, or--she must return to him. "

"And my L100?"

"In the latter case ought to be repaid to you. "

"Am I never to have the Royal York Theatre? Ambition of my life, ma'am. Dreamed of it thrice! Ha! but she will act; and succeed. But to takeback the old vagabond, --a bitter pill. He shall halve it with me!Ma'am, I'm your grateful--"

CHAPTER VI. 

Threadbare is the simile which compares the world to a stage. Schiller, less complimentary than Shakspeare, lowers the illustration from a stageto a puppet-show. But ever between realities and shows there is a secretcommunication, an undetected interchange, --sometimes a stern reality inthe heart of the ostensible actor, a fantastic stage-play in the brain ofthe unnoticed spectator. The bandit's child on the proscenium is stillpoor little Sophy, in spite of garlands and rouge. But that honestrough-looking fellow to whom, in respect for services to sovereign andcountry, the apprentice yields way, may he not be--the crafty Comedian?

TARAN-TARANTARA! rub-a-dub-dub! play up horn! roll drum! a quarter toeight; and the crowd already thick before Rugge's Grand Exhibition, --"Remorseless Baron and Bandit's Child! Young Phenomenon, --JulietAraminta, --Patronized by the Nobility in general, and expecting daily tobe summoned to perform before the Queen, --/Vivat Regina!/"--Ruba-dub-dub! The company issue from the curtain, range in front of theproscenuim. Splendid dresses. The Phenomenon!--'t is she!

"My eyes, there's a beauty!" cries the clown. 

The days have already grown somewhat shorter; but it is not yet dusk. How charmingly pretty she still is, despite that horrid paint; but howwasted those poor bare snowy arms!

A most doleful lugubrious dirge mingles with the drum and horn. A manhas forced his way close by the stage, --a man with a confounded crackedhurdy-gurdy. Whine! whine! creaks the hurdy-gurdy. "Stop that! stopthat mu-zeek!" cries a delicate apprentice, clapping his hands to hisears. "Pity a poor blind--" answers the man with the hurdygurdy. 

"Oh, you are blind, are you? but we are not deaf. There's a penny notto play. What black thing have you got there by a string?"

"My dog, sir!"

"Deuced ugly one; not like a dog; more like a bear with horns!"

"I say, master, " cries the clown, "here's a blind man come to see thePhenomenon!"

The crowd laugh; they make way for the blind man's black dog. Theysuspect, from the clown's address, that the blind man has something to dowith the company. 

You never saw two uglier specimens of their several species than theblind man and his black dog. He had rough red hair and a red beard, hisface had a sort of twist that made every feature seem crooked. His eyeswere not bandaged, but the lids were closed, and he lifted them uppiteously as if seeking for light. He did not seem, however, like acommon beggar: had rather the appearance of a reduced sailor. Yes, youwould have bet ten to one he had been a sailor; not that his dressbelonged to that noble calling, but his build, the roll of his walk, thetie of his cravat, a blue anchor tattooed on that great brown hand:certainly a sailor; a British tar! poor man. 

The dog was hideous enough to have been exhibited as a /lusus naturae/;evidently very aged, --for its face and ears were gray, the rest of it arusty reddish black; it had immensely long ears, pricked up like horns;it was a dog that must have been brought from foreign parts; it mighthave come from Acheron, sire by Cerberus, so portentous, and (if notirreverent the epithet) so infernal was its aspect, with that gray face, those antlered ears, and its ineffably weird demeanour altogether. A bigdog, too, and evidently a strong one. All prudent folks would have madeway for a man led by that dog. Whine creaked the hurdy-gurdy, and bow-wow all of a sudden barked the dog. Sophy stifled a cry, pressed herhand to her breast, and such a ray of joy flashed over her face that itwould have warmed your heart for a month to have seen it. 

But do you mean to say, Mr. Author, that that British tar (gallant, nodoubt, but hideous) is Gentleman Waife, or that Stygian animal the snowy-curled Sir Isaac?

Upon my word, when I look at them myself, I, the Historian, am puzzled. If it had not been for that bow-bow, I am sure Sophy would not havesuspected. Taratarantara! Walk in, ladies and gentlemen, walk in; theperformance is about to commence! Sophy lingers last. 

"Yes, sir, " said the blind man, who had been talking to the apprentice, "yes, sir, " said he, loud and emphatically, as if his word had beenquestioned. "The child was snowed up, but luckily the window of the hutwas left open: exactly at two o'clock in the morning, that dog came tothe window, set up a howl, and--"

Soppy could hear no more--led away behind the curtain by the King'sLieutenant. But she had heard enough to stir her heart with an emotionthat set all the dimples round her lip into undulating play. 

CHAPTER VII. 

 A sham carries off a reality. 

And she did act, and how charmingly! with what glee and what gusto!Rugge was beside himself with pride and rapture. He could hardly performhis own Baronial part for admiration. The audience, a far choicer andmore fastidious one than that in the Surrey village, was amazed, enthusiastic. "I shall live to see my dream come true! I shall have thegreat York theatre!" said Rugge, as he took off his wig and laid his headon his pillow. "Restore her for the L100! not for thousands!"

Alas, my sweet Sophy, alas! Has not the joy that made thee perform sowell undone thee? Ah, hadst thou but had the wit to act horribly, and behissed!

"Uprose the sun and uprose Baron Rugge. "

Not that ordinarily he was a very early man; but his excitement broke hisslumbers. He had taken up his quarters on the ground-floor of a smalllodging-house close to his exhibition; in the same house lodged hissenior matron, and Sophy herself. Mrs. Gormerick, being ordered to watchthe child and never lose sight of her, slept in the same room with Sophy, in the upper story of the house. The old woman served Rugge forhousekeeper, made his tea, grilled his chop, and for company's sakeshared his meals. Excitement as often sharpens the appetite as takesit away. Rugge had supped on hope, and he felt a craving for a moresubstantial breakfast. Accordingly, when he had dressed, he thrust hishead into the passage, and seeing there the maid-of-all-work unbarringthe street-door, bade her go upstairs and wake the Hag, that is, Mrs. Gormerick. Saying this he extended a key; for he ever took theprecaution, before retiring to rest, to lock the door of the room towhich Sophy was consigned on the outside, and guard the key till the nextmorning. 

The maid nodded, and ascended the stairs. Less time than he expectedpassed away before Mrs. Gormerick made her appearance, her gray hairstreaming under her nightcap, her form indued in a loose wrapper, --hervery face a tragedy. 

"Powers above! What has happened?" exclaimed Rugge, prophetically. 

"She is gone, " sobbed Mrs. Gormerick; and, seeing the lifted arm andclenched fist of the manager, prudently fainted away. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

 Corollaries from the problems suggested in chapters VI. And VII. 

Broad daylight, nearly nine o'clock indeed, and Jasper Losely is walkingback to his inn from the place at which he had dined the evening before. He has spent the night drinking, gambling, and though he looks heated, there is no sign of fatigue. Nature, in wasting on this man many of hermost glorious elements of happiness, had not forgotten an herculeanconstitution, --always restless and never tired, always drinking and neverdrunk. Certainly it is some consolation to delicate invalids that itseldom happens that the sickly are very wicked. Criminals are generallyathletic; constitution and conscience equally tough; large backs to theirheads; strong suspensorial muscles; digestions that save them from theover-fine nerves of the virtuous. The native animal must be vigorous inthe human being, when the moral safeguards are daringly overleapt. Jasper was not alone, but with an acquaintance he had made at the dinner, and whom he invited to his inn to breakfast; they were walking familiarlyarm-in-arm. Very unlike the brilliant Losely, --a young man under thirty, who seemed to have washed out all the colours of youth in dirty water. His eyes dull, their whites yellow; his complexion sodden. His form wasthickset and heavy; his features pug, with a cross of the bull-dog. Indress, a specimen of the flash style of sporting man, as exhibited on theTurf, or more often perhaps in the Ring; Belcher neckcloth, with animmense pin representing a jockey at full gallop; cut-away coat, corduroybreeches, and boots with tops of a chalky white. Yet, withal, not theair and walk of a genuine born and bred sporting man, even of the vulgarorder. Something about him which reveals the pretender. A would-be hawkwith a pigeon's liver, --a would-be sportsman with a Cockney's nurture. 

Samuel Adolphus Poole is an orphan of respectable connections. Hisfuture expectations chiefly rest on an uncle from whom, as godfather, hetakes the loathed name of Samuel. He prefers to sign himself Adolphus;he is popularly styled Dolly. For his present existence he reliesostensibly on his salary as an assistant in the house of a Londontradesman in a fashionable way of business. Mr. Latham, his employer, has made a considerable fortune, less by his shop than by discounting thebills of his customers, or of other borrowers whom the loan draws intothe net of the custom. Mr. Latham connives at the sporting tastes ofDolly Poole. Dolly has often thus been enabled to pick up useful piecesof information as to the names and repute of such denizens of thesporting world as might apply to Mr. Latham for temporary accommodation. Dolly Poole has many sporting friends; he has also many debts. He hasbeen a dupe, he is now a rogue; but he wants decision of character to putinto practice many valuable ideas that his experience of dupe and hisdevelopment into rogue suggest to his ambition. Still, however, now andthen, wherever a shabby trick can be safely done, he is what he calls"lucky. " He has conceived a prodigious admiration for Jasper Losely, onecause for which will be explained in the dialogue about to be recorded;another cause for which is analogous to that loving submission with whichsome ill-conditioned brute acknowledges a master in the hand that hasthrashed it. For at Losely's first appearance at the convivial meetingjust concluded, being nettled at the imperious airs of superiority whichthat roysterer assumed, mistaking for effeminacy Jasper's elaboratedandyism, and not recognizing in the bravo's elegant proportions thetiger-like strength of which, in truth, that tiger-like suppleness shouldhave warned him, Dolly Poole provoked a quarrel, and being himself astout fellow, nor unaccustomed to athletic exercises, began to spar; thenext moment he was at the other end of the room full sprawl on the floor;and two minutes afterwards, the quarrel made up by conciliatingbanqueters, with every bone in his skin seeming still to rattle, he wasgenerously blubbering out that he never bore malice, and shaking handswith Jasper Losely as if he had found a benefactor. But now to thedialogue. 

JASPER. --"Yes, Poole, my hearty, as you say, that fellow trumping my bestclub lost me the last rubber. There's no certainty in whist, if one hasa spoon for a partner. "

POOLE. --"No certainty in every rubber, but next to certainty in the longrun, when a man plays as well as you do, Mr. Losely. Your winnings to-night must have been pretty large, though you had a bad partner almostevery hand; pretty large, eh?"

JASPER (carelessly). --"Nothing to talk of, --a few ponies!"

POOLE. --"More than a few; I should know. "

JASPER. --"Why? You did not play after the first rubber. "

POOLE. --"No, when I saw your play on that first rubber, I cut out, andbet on you; and very grateful to you I am. Still you would win more witha partner who understood your game. "

The shrewd Dolly paused a moment, and leaning significantly on Jasper'sarm, added, in a half whisper, "I do; it is a French one. "

Jasper did not change colour, but a quick rise of the eyebrow, and aslight jerk of the neck, betrayed some little surprise or uneasiness:however, he rejoined without hesitation, "French, ay! In France there ismore dash in playing out trumps than there is with English players. "

"And with a player like you, " said Poole, still in a half whisper, "moretrumps to play out. "

Jasper turned round sharp and short; the hard, cruel expression of hismouth, little seen of late, came back to it. Poole recoiled, and hisbones began again to ache. "I did not mean to offend you, Mr. Losely, but to caution. "

"Caution!"

"There were two knowing coves, who, if they had not been so drunk, wouldnot have lost their money without a row, and they would have seen howthey lost it; they are sharpers: you served them right; don't be angrywith me. You want a partner; so do I: you play better than I do, but Iplay well; you shall have two-thirds of our winnings, and when you cometo town I'll introduce you to a pleasant set of young fellows--green. "

Jasper mused a moment. "You know a thing or two, I see, Master Poole, and we'll discuss the whole subject after breakfast. Ar'n't you hungry?No! I am! Hillo! who 's that?"

His arm was seized by Mr. Rugge. "She's gone, --fled, " gasped themanager, breathless. "Out of the lattice; fifteen feet high; not dashedto pieces; vanished. "

"Go on and order breakfast, " said Losely to Mr. Poole, who was listeningtoo inquisitively. He drew the manager away. "Can't you keep yourtongue in your head before strangers? The girl is gone?"

"Out of the lattice, and fifteen feet high!"

"Any sheets left hanging out of the lattice?"

"Sheets! No. "

"'Then she did not go without help: somebody must have thrown up to her arope-ladder; nothing so easy; done it myself scores of times for thedescent of 'maids who love the moon, ' Mr. Rugge. But at her age there isnot a moon; at least there is not a man in the moon: one must dismiss, then, the idea of a rope-ladder, --too precocious. But are you quitesure she is gone? not hiding in some cupboard? Sacre! very odd. Haveyou seen Mrs. Crane about it?"

"Yes, just come from her; she thinks that villain Waife must have stolenher. But I want you, sir, to come with me to a magistrate. "

"Magistrate! I! why? nonsense; set the police to work. "

"Your deposition that she is your lawful child, lawfully made over to me, is necessary for the inquisition; I mean police. "

"Hang it, what a bother! I hate magistrates, and all belonging to them. Well, I must breakfast! I'll see to it afterwards. Oblige me by notcalling Mr. Waife a villain; good old fellow in his way. "

"Good! Powers above!"

"But if he took her off, how did he get at her? It must have beenpreconcerted. "

"Ha! true. But she has not been suffered to speak to a soul not in thecompany, Mrs. Crane excepted. "

"Perhaps at the performance last night some signal was given?"

"But if Waife had been there I should have seen him; my troupe would haveknown him: such a remarkable face; one eye too. "

"Well, well, do what you think best. I'll call on you after breakfast;let me go now. Basta! Basta!"

Losely wrenched himself from the manager, and strode off to the inn;then, ere joining Poole, he sought Mrs. Crane. "This going before amagistrate, " said Losely, "to depose that I have made over my child tothat blackguard showman--in this town too, after such luck as I have hadand where bright prospects are opening on me--is most disagreeable. Andsupposing, when we have traced Sophy, she should be really with the oldman; awkward! In short, my dear friend, my dear Bella, " (Losely could bevery coaxing when it was worth his while) "you just manage this for me. I have a fellow in the next room waiting to breakfast: as soon asbreakfast is over I shall be off to the race-ground, and so shirk thatranting old bore; you'll call on him instead, and settle it somehow. "He was out of the room before she could answer. 

Mrs. Crane found it no easy matter to soothe the infuriate manager whenhe heard Losely was gone to amuse himself at the race-course. Nor didshe give herself much trouble to pacify Mr. Rugge's anger or assist hisinvestigations. Her interest in the whole affair seemed over. Left thusto his own devices, Rugge, however, began to institute a sharp, and whatpromised to be an effective, investigation. He ascertained that thefugitive certainly had not left by the railway or by any of the publicconveyances; he sent scoots over all the neighbourhood: he enlisted thesympathy of the police, who confidently assured him that they had "anetwork over the three kingdoms. " Rugge's suspicions were directed toWaife: he could collect, however, no evidence to confirm them. No personanswering to Waife's description had been seen in the town. Once, indeed, Rugge was close on the right scent; for, insisting upon Waife'sone eye, and his possession of a white dog, he was told by severalwitnesses that a man blind of two eyes, and led by a black dog, had beenclose before the stage, just previous to the performance. But then theclown had spoken to that very man; all the Thespian company had observedhim; all of them had known Waife familiarly for years; and all deposedthat any creature more unlike to Waife than the blind man could not beturned out of Nature's workshop. But where was that blind man? Theyfound out the wayside inn in which he had taken a lodging for the night;and there it was ascertained that he had paid for his room beforehand, stating that he should start for the race-course early in the morning. Rugge himself set out to the racecourse to kill two birds with onestone, --catch Mr. Losely, examine the blind man himself. 

He did catch Mr. Losely, and very nearly caught something else; for thatgentleman was in a ring of noisy horsemen, mounted on a hired hack, andloud as the noisiest. When Rugge came up to his stirrup, and began hisharangue, Losely turned his hack round with so sudden an appliance of bitand spur, that the animal lashed out, and its heel went within an inch ofthe manager's cheek-bone. Before Rugge could recover, Losely was in ahand-gallop. But the blind man! Of course Rugge did not find him? Youare mistaken: he did. The blind man was there, dog and all. The managerspoke to him, and did not know him from Adam. 

Nor have you or I, my venerated readers, any right whatsoever to doubtwhether Mr. Rugge could be so stolidly obtuse. Granting that blindsailor to be the veritable William Waife, William Waife was a man ofgenius, taking pains to appear an ordinary mortal. And the anecdotes ofMunden, or of Bamfylde Moore Carew, suffice to tell us how Protean is thepower of transformation in a man whose genius is mimetic. But how oftendoes it happen to us, venerated readers, not to recognize a man ofgenius, even when he takes no particular pains to escape detection! Aman of genius may be for ten years our next-door neighbour; he may dinein company with us twice a week; his face may be as familiar to our eyesas our armchair; his voice to our ears as the click of our parlour-clock:yet we are never more astonished than when all of a sudden, some brightday, it is discovered that our next-door neighbour is--a man of genius. Did you ever hear tell of the life of a man of genius but what there werenumerous witnesses who deposed to the fact, that until, perfidiousdissembler! he flared up and set the Thames on fire they had never seenanything in him; an odd creature, perhaps a good creature, --probably apoor creature, --but a MAN of GENIUS! They would as soon have suspectedhim of being the Khann of Tartary! Nay, candid readers, are there notsome of you who refuse to the last to recognize the maa of genius, tillhe has paid his penny to Charon, and his passport to immortality has beenduly examined by the customhouse officers of Styx! When one half theworld drag forth that same next-door neighbour, place him on a pedestal, and have him cried, "Oyez! Oyez! Found a man of genius! Publicproperty! open to inspection!" does not the other half the world put onits spectacles, turn up its nose, and cry, "That a man of genius, indeed!Pelt him!--pelt him!" Then of course there is a clatter, what the vulgarcall "a shindy, " round the pedestal. Squeezed by his believers, shied atby his scoffers, the poor man gets horribly mauled about, and drops fromthe perch in the midst of the row. Then they shovel him over, clap agreat stone on his relics, wipe their foreheads, shake hands, compromisethe dispute, the one half the world admitting that though he was a geniushe was still an ordinary man; the other half allowing that though he wasan ordinary man he was still a genius. And so on to the next pedestalwith its "Hic stet, " and the next great stone with its "Hic jacet. "

The manager of the Grand Theatrical Exhibition gazed on the blind sailor, and did not know him from Adam!

CHAPTER IX. 

 The aboriginal man-eater, or pocket-cannibal, is susceptible of the refining influences of Civilization. He decorates his lair with the skins of his victims; he adorns his person with the spoils of those whom he devours. Mr. Losely, introduced to Mr. Poole's friends, dresses for dinner; and, combining elegance with appetite, eats them up. 

Elated with the success which had rewarded his talents for pecuniaryspeculation, and dismissing from his mind all thoughts of the fugitiveSophy and the spoliated Rugge, Jasper Losely returned to London incompany with his new friend, Mr. Poole. He left Arabella Crane toperform the same journey unattended; but that grim lady, carefullyconcealing any resentment at such want of gallantry, felt assured thatshe should not be long in London without being honoured by his visits. 

In renewing their old acquaintance, Mrs. Crane had contrived to establishover Jasper that kind of influence which a vain man, full of schemes thatare not to be told to all the world, but which it is convenient todiscuss with some confidential friend who admires himself too highly notto respect his secrets, mechanically yields to a woman whose wits aresuperior to his own. 

It is true that Jasper, on his return to the metropolis, was notmagnetically attracted towards Podden Place; nay, days and even weekselapsed, and Mrs. Crane was not gladdened by his presence. But she knewthat her influence was only suspended, --not extinct. The body attractedwas for the moment kept from the body attracting by the abnormal weightsthat had dropped into its pockets. Restore the body thus temporarilycounterpoised to its former lightness, and it would turn to Podden Placeas the needle to the Pole. Meanwhile, oblivious of all such naturallaws, the disloyal Jasper had fixed himself as far from the reach of themagnet as from Bloomsbury's remotest verge in St. James's animatedcentre. The apartment he engaged was showy and commodious. He addedlargely to his wardrobe, his dressing-case, his trinket box. Nor, be ithere observed, was Mr. Losely one of those beauish brigands who weartawdry scarves over soiled linen, and paste rings upon unwashed digitals. To do him justice, the man, so stony-hearted to others, loved andcherished his own person with exquisite tenderness, lavished upon itdelicate attentions, and gave to it the very best he could afford. Hewas no coarse debauchee, smelling of bad cigars and ardent spirits. Cigars, indeed, were not among his vices (at worst the rare peccadillo ofa cigarette): spirit-drinking was; but the monster's digestion was stillso strong that he could have drunk out a gin-palace, and you would onlyhave sniffed the jasmine or heliotrope on the dainty cambric that wipedthe last drop from his lips. Had his soul been a tenth part as clean asthe form that belied it, Jasper Losely had been a saint! His apartmentssecured, his appearance thus revised and embellished, Jasper's next carewas an equipage in keeping; he hired a smart cabriolet with a high-stepping horse, and, to go behind it, a groom whose size had been stuntedin infancy by provident parents designing him to earn his bread in thestables as a light-weight, and therefore mingling his mother's milk withheavy liquors. In short, Jasper Losely set up to be a buck about town:in that capacity Dolly Poole introduced him to several young gentlemenwho combined commercial vocations with sporting tastes; they could notbut participate in Poole's admiring and somewhat envious respect forJasper Losely. There was indeed about the vigorous miscreant a greatdeal of false brilliancy. Deteriorated from earlier youth though thebeauty of his countenance might be, it was still undeniably handsome; andas force of muscle is beauty in itself in the eyes of young sporting men, so Jasper dazzled many a /gracilis puer/, who had the ambition to becomean athlete, with the rare personal strength which, as if in theexuberance of animal spirits, he would sometimes condescend to display, by feats that astonished the curious and frightened the timid, --such asbending a poker or horseshoe between hands elegantly white, nor unadornedwith rings, --or lifting the weight of Samuel Dolly by the waistband, andholding him at arm's length, with a playful bet of ten to one that hecould stand by the fireplace and pitch the said Samuel Dolly out of theopen window. To know so strong a man, so fine an animal, was somethingto boast of. Then, too, if Jasper had a false brilliancy, he had also afalse bonhommie: it was true that he was somewhat imperious, swaggering, bullying; but he was also off-hand and jocund; and as you knew him, thatsidelong look, that defying gait (look and gait of the man whom the worldcuts), wore away. In fact, he had got into a world which did not cuthim, and his exterior was improved by the atmosphere. 

Mr. Losely professed to dislike general society. Drawing rooms wereinsipid; clubs full of old fogies. "I am for life, my boys, " said Mr. Losely, "'Can sorrow from the goblet flow, Or pain from Beauty's eye?'"

Mr. Losely, therefore, his hat on one side, lounged into the saloons oftheatres, accompanied by a cohort of juvenile admirers, their hats on oneside also, and returned to the pleasantest little suppers in his ownapartment. There "the goblet" flowed; and after the goblet, cigars forsome, and a rubber for all. 

So puissant Losely's vitality, and so blest by the stars his luck, thathis form seemed to wax stronger and his purse fuller by this "life. " Nowonder he was all for a life of that kind; but the slight beings whotried to keep up with him grew thinner and thinner, and poorer andpoorer; a few weeks made their cheeks spectral and their pockets a dismalvoid. Then as some dropped off from sheer inanition, others whom theyhad decoyed by their praises of "Life" and its hero came into the magiccircle to fade and vanish in their turn. 

In a space of time incredibly brief, not a whist-player was left upon thefield: the victorious Losely had trumped out the last; some few whomNature had endowed more liberally than Fortune still retained strengthenough to sup--if asked;

"But none who came to sup remained to play. "

"Plague on it, " said Losely to Poole, as one afternoon they were dividingthe final spoils, "your friends are mightily soon cleaned out: could noteven get up double dummy last night; and we must hit on some new plan forreplenishing the coffers. You have rich relations; can't I help you tomake them more useful?"

Said Dolly Poole, who was looking exceedingly bilious, and had become amartyr to chronic headache, "My relations are prigs! Some of them give me the cold shoulder, others--a great deal of jaw. But as for tin, I might as well scrape a flintfor it. My uncle Sam is more anxious about my sins than the othercodgers, because he is my godfather, and responsible for my sins, Isuppose; and he says he will put me in the way of being respectable. My head's splitting--"

"Wood does split till it is seasoned, " answered Losely. "Good fellow, uncle Sam! He'll put you in the way of tin; nothing else makes a manrespectable. "

"Yes, --so he says; a girl with money--"

"A wife, --tin canister! Introduce me to her, and she shall be tied toyou. "

Samuel Dolly did not appear to relish the idea of such an introduction. "I have not been introduced to her myself, " said he. "But if you adviseme to be spliced, why don't you get spliced yourself? a handsome fellowlike you can be at no loss for an heiress. "

"Heiresses are the most horrid cheats in the world, " said Losely: "thereis always some father, or uncle, or fusty Lord Chancellor whose consentis essential, and not to be had. Heiresses in scores have been over headand ears in love with me. Before I left Paris, I sold their locks ofhair to a wig maker, --three great trunksful. Honour bright. But therewere only two whom I could have safely allowed to run away with me; andthey were so closely watched, poor things, that I was forced to leavethem to their fate, --early graves! Don't talk to me of heiresses, Dolly;I have been the victim of heiresses. But a rich widow is an estimablecreature. Against widows, if rich, I have not a word to say; and to tellyou the truth, there is a widow whom I suspect I have fascinated, andwhose connection I have a particular private reason for deemingdesirable! She has a whelp of a son, who is a spoke in my wheel: were Ihis father-in-law, would not I be a spoke in his? I'd teach the boy'life, ' Dolly. " Here all trace of beauty vanished from Jasper's face, and Poole, staring at him, pushed away his chair. "But, " continuedLosely, regaining his more usual expression of levity and boldness, "butI am not yet quite sure what the widow has, besides her son, in her ownpossession; we shall see. Meanwhile, is there--no chance of a rubberto-night?"

"None; unless you will let Brown and Smith play upon tick. "

"Pooh! but there's Robinson, he has an aunt he can borrow from?"

"Robinson! spitting blood, with an attack of delirium tremens! You havedone for him. "

"'Can sorrow from the goblet flow?"' said Losely. "Well, I suppose itcan--when a man has no coats to his stomach; but you and I, Dolly Poole, have stomachs thick as peajackets, and proof as gutta-percha. "

Poole forced a ghastly smile, while Losely, gayly springing up, swept hisshare of booty into his pockets, slapped his comrade on the back, andsaid, "Then, if the mountain will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet must go tothe mountain! Hang whist, and up with rouge-et-noir! I have aninfallible method of winning; only it requires capital. You will clubyour cash with mine, and I 'll play for both. Sup here to night, andwe'll go to the Hell afterwards. "

Samuel Dolly had the most perfect confidence in his friend's science inthe art of gambling, and he did not, therefore, dissent from the proposalmade. Jasper gave a fresh touch to his toilet, and stepped into hiscabriolet. Poole cast on him a look of envy, and crawled to hislodging, --too ill for his desk, and with a strong desire to take to hisbed. 

CHAPTER X. 

 "Is there a heart that never loved, Nor felt soft woman's sigh?"

 If there be such a heart, it is not in the breast of a pocket- cannibal. Your true man-eater is usually of an amorous temperament: he can be indeed sufficiently fond of a lady to eat her up. Mr. Losely makes the acquaintance of a widow. For further particulars inquire within. 

The dignified serenity of Gloucester Place, Portman Square, is agitatedby the intrusion of a new inhabitant. A house in that favoured locality, which had for several months maintained "the solemn stillness and thedread repose" which appertain to dwellings that are to be let upon lease, unfurnished, suddenly started into that exuberant and aggressive lifewhich irritates the nerves of its peaceful neighbours. The bills havebeen removed from the windows; the walls have been cleaned down andpointed; the street-door repainted a lively green; workmen have gone inand out. The observant ladies (single ones) in the house opposite, discover, by the help of a telescope, that the drawing-rooms have beennew papered, canary-coloured ground, festoon borders; and that themouldings of the shutters have been gilded. Gilt shutters! that looksominous of an ostentatious and party-giving tenant. Then carts full offurniture have stopped at the door; carpets, tables, chairs, beds, wardrobes, --all seemingly new, and in no inelegant taste, --have beendisgorged into the hall. It has been noticed, too, that every day a ladyof slight figure and genteel habiliments has come, seemingly to inspectprogress; evidently the new tenant. Sometimes she comes alone; sometimeswith a dark-eyed, handsome lad, probably her son. Who can she be? whatis she? what is her name? her history? has she a right to settle inGloucester Place, Portman Square? The detective police of London is notpeculiarly vigilant; but its defects are supplied by the voluntaryefforts of unmarried ladies. The new comer was a widow; her husband hadbeen in the army; of good family; but a /mauvais sujet/; she had beenleft in straitened circumstances with an only son. It was supposed thatshe had unexpectedly come into a fortune, on the strength of which shehad removed from Pimlico into Gloucester Place. At length, thepreparations completed, one Monday afternoon the widow, accompanied byher son, came to settle. The next day a footman, in genteel livery(brown and orange), appeared at the door. Then, for the rest of theweek, the baker and butcher called regularly. On the following Sunday, the lady and her son appeared at church. 

No reader will be at a loss to discover in the new tenant of No. --Gloucester Place the widowed mother of Lionel Haughton. The letter forthat lady which Darrell had entrusted to his young cousin had, incomplimentary and cordial language, claimed the right to provide for hercomfortable and honourable subsistence; and announced that henceforthL800 a year would be placed quarterly to her account at Mr. Darrell'sbanker, and that an additional sum of L1200 was already there depositedin her name, in order to enable her to furnish any residence to which shemight be inclined to remove. Mrs. Haughton therewith had removed toGloucester Place. 

She is seated by the window in her front drawing-room, surveying withproud though grateful heart the elegances by which she is surrounded. A very winning countenance: lively eyes, that in themselves may be over-quick and petulant; but their expression is chastened by a gentle kindlymouth. And over the whole face, the attitude, the air, even the dressitself, is diffused the unmistakable simplicity of a sincere naturalcharacter. No doubt Mrs. Haughton has her tempers and her vanities, andher little harmless feminine weaknesses; but you could not help feelingin her presence that you were with an affectionate, warm-hearted, honest, good woman. She might not have the refinements of tone and manner whichstamp the high-bred gentlewoman of convention; she might evince thedeficiencies of an imperfect third-rate education: but she was saved fromvulgarity by a certain undefinable grace or person and music of voice, --even when she said or did things that well-bred people do not say or do;and there was an engaging intelligence in those quick hazel eyes thatmade you sure that she was sensible, even when she uttered what wassilly. 

Mrs. Haughton turned from the interior of the room to the open window. She is on the look-out for her son, who has gone to call on ColonelMorley, and who ought to be returned by this time. She begins to get alittle fidgety, somewhat cross. While thus standing and thus watchful, there comes thundering down the street a high-stepping horse, bay, withwhite legs; it whirls on a cabriolet, --blue, with vermilion wheels; twohands, in yellow kid gloves, are just seen under the hood. Mrs. Haughtonsuddenly blushes and draws in her head. Too late! the cabriolet hasstopped; a gentleman leans forward, takes off his hat, bows respectfully. "Dear, dear!" murmurs Mrs. Haughton, "I do think he is going to call:some people are born to be tempted; my temptations have been immense! Heis getting out; he knocks; I can't say, now, that I am not at home, --veryawkward! I wish Lionel were here! What does he mean, neglecting his ownmother, and leaving her a prey to tempters?"

While the footman is responding to the smart knock of the visitor, we will explain how Mrs. Haughton had incurred that gentleman'sacquaintance. In one of her walks to her new house while it was inthe hands of the decorators, her mind being much absorbed in theconsideration whether her drawing-room curtains should be chintz ortabouret, --just as she was crossing the street, she was all but run overby a gentleman's cabriolet. The horse was hard-mouthed, going at fullspeed. The driver pulled up just in time; but the wheel grazed herdress, and though she ran back instinctively, yet when she was safe onthe pavement, the fright overpowered her nerves, and she clung to thestreet-post almost fainting. Two or three passers-by humanely gatheredround her; and the driver, looking back, and muttering to himself, "Notbad-looking; neatly dressed; lady-like; French shawl; may have tin; worthwhile perhaps!" gallantly descended and hastened to offer apologies, witha respectful hope that she was not injured. 

Mrs. Haughton answered somewhat tartly, but being one of those good-hearted women who, apt to be rude, are extremely sorry for it the momentafterwards, she wished to repair any hurt to his feelings occasioned byher first impulse; and when, renewing his excuses, he offered his armover the crossing, she did not like to refuse. On gaining the side ofthe way on which her house was situated, she had recovered sufficientlyto blush for having accepted such familiar assistance from a perfectstranger, and somewhat to falter in returning thanks for his politeness. 

Our gentleman, whose estimate of his attractions was not humble, ascribedthe blushing cheek and faltering voice to the natural effect produced byhis appearance; and he himself admiring very much a handsome bracelet onher wrist, which he deemed a favourable prognostic of "tin, " watched herto her door, and sent his groom in the course of the evening to makediscreet inquiries in the neighbourhood. The result of the inquiriesinduced him to resolve upon prosecuting the acquaintance thus begun. Hecontrived to learn the hours at which Mrs. Haughton usually visited thehouse, and to pass by Gloucester Place at the very nick of time. His bowwas recognizing, respectful, interrogative, --a bow that asked "How muchfarther?" But Mrs. Haughton's bow respondent seemed to declare, "Not atall!" The stranger did not venture more that day; but a day or twoafterwards he came again into Gloucester Place on foot. On that occasionMrs. Haughton was with her son, and the gentleman would not seem toperceive her. The next day he returned; she was then alone, and just asshe gained her door, he advanced. "I beg you ten thousand pardons, madam; but if I am rightly informed, I have the honour to address Mrs. Charles Haughton!"

The lady bowed in surprise. 

"Ah, madam, your lamented husband was one of my most particular friends. "

"You don't say so!" cried Mrs. Haughton. And looking more attentivelyat the stranger, there was in his dress and appearance something that shethought very stylish; a particular friend of Charles Haughton's was sureto be stylish, to be a man of the first water. And she loved the poorCaptain's memory; her heart warmed to any "particular friend of his. "

"Yes, " resumed the gentleman, noting the advantage he had gained, "thoughI was considerably his junior, we were great cronies; excuse thatfamiliar expression; in the Hussars together--"

"The Captain was not in the Hussars, sir; he was in the Guards. "

"Of course he was; but I was saying--in the Hussars, together with theGuards, there were some very fine fellows; very fine; he was one of them. I could not resist paying my respects to the widowed lady of so fine afellow. I know it is a liberty, ma'am, but 't is my way. People whoknow me well--and I have a large acquaintance--are kind enough to excusemy way. And to think that villanous horse, which I had just bought outof Lord Bolton's stud (200 guineas, ma'am, and cheap), should have nearlytaken the life of Charles Haughton's lovely relict! If anybody else hadbeen driving that brute, I shudder to think what might have been theconsequences; but I have a wrist of iron. Strength is a vulgarqualification, --very vulgar; but when it saves a lady from perishing, howcan one be ashamed of it? But I am detaining you. Your own house, Mrs. Haughton?"

"Yes, sir, I have just taken it, but the workmen have not finished. I amnot yet settled here. "

"Charming situation! My friend left a son, I believe? In the armyalready?"

"No, sir, but he wishes it very much. "

"Mr. Darrell, I think, could gratify that wish. "

"What! you know Mr. Darrell, that most excellent generous man. All wehave we owe to him. "

The gentleman abruptly turned aside, --wisely; for his expression of faceat that praise might have startled Mrs. 

Haughton. "Yes, I knew him once. He has had many a fee out of myfamily. Goodish lawyer; cleverish man; and rich as a Jew. I should liketo see my old friend's son, ma'am. He must be monstrous handsome withsuch parents!"

"Oh, sir, very like his father. I shall be proud to present him to you. "

"Ma'am, I thank you. I will have the honour to call--"

And thus is explained how Jasper Losely has knocked at Mrs. Haughton'sdoor; has walked up her stairs; has seated himself in her drawing-room, and is now edging his chair somewhat nearer to her, and throwing into hisvoice and looks a degree of admiration which has been sincerely kindledby the aspect of her elegant apartments. 

Jessica Haughton was not one of those women, if such there be, who do notknow when a gentleman is making up to them. She knew perfectly well thatwith a very little encouragement her visitor would declare himself asuitor. Nor, to speak truth, was she quite insensible to his handsomeperson, nor quite unmoved by his flatteries. She had her weak points, and vanity was one of them. Nor conceived she, poor lady, the slightestsuspicion that Jasper Losely was not a personage whose attentions mightflatter any woman. Though lie had not even announced a name, but, pushing aside the footman, had sauntered in with as familiar an ease asif he had been a first cousin; though he had not uttered a syllable thatcould define his station, or attest his boasted friendship with the deardefunct, still Mrs. Haughton implicitly believed that she was with one ofthose gay chiefs of ton who had glittered round her Charlie in thatearlier morning of his life, ere he had sold out of the Guards, andbought himself out of jail; a lord, or an honourable at least; and shewas even (I shudder to say) revolving in her mind whether it might not bean excellent thing for her dear Lionel if she could prevail on herself toprocure for him the prop and guidance of a distinguished and brilliantfather-in-law, --rich, noble, evidently good-natured, sensible, attractive. Oh! but the temptation was growing more and more IMMENSE!when suddenly the door opened, and in sprang Lionel crying out, "Motherdear, the Colonel has come with me on purpose to--"

He stopped short, staring hard at Jasper Losely. That gentleman advanceda few steps, extending his hand, but came to an abrupt halt on seeingColonel Morley's figure now filling up the doorway. Not that he fearedrecognition: the Colonel did not know him by sight, but he knew by sightthe Colonel. In his own younger day, when lolling over the rails ofRotten Row, he had enviously noted the leaders of fashion pass by, andColonel Morley had not escaped his observation. Colonel Morley, indeed, was one of those men who by name and repute are sure to be known to allwho, like Jasper Losely in his youth, would fain learn something aboutthat gaudy, babbling, and remorseless world which, like the sun, eithervivifies or corrupts, according to the properties of the object on whichit shines. Strange to say, it was the mere sight of the real finegentleman that made the mock fine gentleman shrink and collapse. ThoughJasper Losely knew himself to be still called a magnificent man, --one ofroyal Nature's Lifeguardsmen; though confident that from top to toe hishabiliments could defy the criticism of the strictest martinet in politecostume, no sooner did that figure, by no means handsome and clad ingarments innocent of buckram but guilty of wrinkles, appear on thethreshold than Jasper Losely felt small and shabby, as if he had beensuddenly reduced to five feet two, and had bought his coat out of an oldclothesman's bag. 

Without appearing even to see Mr. Losely, the Colonel, in his turn, as heglided past him towards Mrs. Haughton, had, with what is proverbiallycalled the corner of the eye, taken the whole of that impostor's superbpersonnel into calm survey, had read him through and through, and decidedon these two points without the slightest hesitation, --"a lady-killer anda sharper. "

Quick as breathing had been the effect thus severally produced on Mrs. Haughton's visitors, which it has cost so many words to describe, --soquick that the Colonel, without any apparent pause of dialogue, hasalready taken up the sentence Lionel left uncompleted, and says, as hebows over Mrs. Haughton's hand, "Come on purpose to claim acquaintancewith an old friend's widow, a young friend's mother. "

MRS. HAUGHTON. --"I am sure, Colonel Morley, I am very much flattered. And you, too, knew the poor dear Captain; 't is so pleasant to think thathis old friends come round us now. This gentleman, also, was aparticular friend of dear Charles's. "

The Colonel had somewhat small eyes, which moved with habitual slowness. He lifted those eyes, let them drop upon Jasper (who still stood in themiddle of the room, with one hand still half-extended towards Lionel), and letting the eyes rest there while he spoke, repeated, "Particular friend of Charles Haughton, --the only one of his particularfriends whom I never had the honour to see before. "

Jasper, who, whatever his deficiency in other virtues, certainly did notlack courage, made a strong effort at self-possession, and withoutreplying to the Colonel, whose remark had not been directly addressed tohimself, said in his most rollicking tone, "Yes, Mrs. Haughton, Charleswas my particular friend, but, " lifting his eyeglass, "but this gentlemanwas, " dropping the eyeglass negligently, "not in our set, I suppose. "Then advancing to Lionel, and seizing his hand, "I must introducemyself, --the image of your father, I declare! I was saying to Mrs. Haughton how much I should like to see you; proposing to her, just as youcame in, that we should go to the play together. Oh, ma'am, you maytrust him to me safely. Young men should see Life!" Here Jasper tippedLionel one of those knowing winks with which he was accustomed to delightand ensnare the young friends of Mr. Poole, and hurried on: "But in aninnocent way, ma'am, such as mothers would approve. We'll fix an eveningfor it when I have the honour to call again. Good morning, Mrs. Haughton. Your hand again, sir (to Lionel). Ah, we shall be greatfriends, I guess! You must let me take you out in my cab; teach you tohandle the ribbons, eh? 'Gad, my old friend Charles was a whip. Ha!Ha! Goodday, good-day!"

Not a muscle had moved in the Colonel's face during Mr. Losely's jovialmonologue. But when Jasper had bowed himself out, Mrs. Haughton, courtesying, and ringing the bell for the footman to open the street-door, the man of the world (and, as a man of the world, Colonel Morleywas consummate) again raised those small slow eyes, --this time towardsher face, --and dropped the words, "My old friend's particular friend is--not bad looking, Mrs. Haughton!"

"And so lively and pleasant, " returned Mrs. Haughton, with a slight riseof colour, but no other sign of embarrassment. "It may be a niceacquaintance for Lionel. "

"Mother!" cried that ungrateful boy, "you are not speaking seriously?I think the man is odious. If he were not my father's friend, I shouldsay he was--"

"What, Lionel?" asked the Colonel, blandly, "was what?"

"Snobbish, sir. "

"Lionel, how dare you?" exclaimed Mrs. Haughton. "What vulgar wordsboys do pick up at school, Colonel Morley. "

"We must be careful that they do not pick up worse than words when theyleave school, my dear madam. You will forgive me, but Mr. Darrell has soexpressly--of course, with your permission--commended this younggentleman to my responsible care and guidance; so openly confided to mehis views and intentions, --that perhaps you would do me the very greatfavour not to force upon him, against his own wishes, the acquaintance of--that very good-looking person. "

Mrs. Haughton pouted, and kept down her rising temper. The Colonel beganto awe her. 

"By the by, " continued the man of the world, "may I inquire the name ofmy old friend's particular friend?"

"His name? upon my word I really don't know it. Perhaps he left hiscard; ring the bell, Lionel. "

"You don't know his name, yet you know him, ma'am, and would allow yourson to see LIFE under his auspices! I beg you ten thousand pardons; buteven ladies the most cautious, mothers the most watchful, are exposedto--"

"Immense temptations, --that is--to--to--"

"I understand perfectly, my dear Mrs. Haughton. "

The footman appeared. "Did that gentleman leave a card?"

"No, ma'am. "

"Did not you ask his name when he entered?"

"Yes, ma'am, but he said he would announce himself. " When the footmanhad withdrawn, Mrs. Haughton exclaimed piteously, "I have been to blame, Colonel; I see it. But Lionel will tell you how I came to know thegentleman, --the gentleman who nearly ran over me, Lionel, and then spokeso kindly about your dear father. "

"Oh, that is the person!--I supposed so, " cried Lionel, kissing hismother, who was inclined to burst into tears. "I can explain it all now, Colonel Morley. Any one who says a kind word about my father warms mymother's heart to him at once; is it not so, Mother dear?"

"And long be it so, " said Colonel Morley, with grateful earnestness; "andmay such be my passport to your confidence, Mrs. Haughton. Charles wasmy old schoolfellow, --a little boy when I and Darrell were in the sixthform; and, pardon me, when I add, that if that gentleman were everCharles Haughton's particular friend, he could scarcely have been a verywise one. For unless his appearance greatly belies his years he musthave been little more than a boy when Charles Haughton left Lionelfatherless. "

Here, in the delicacy of tact, seeing that Mrs. Haughton looked ashamedof the subject, and seemed aware of her imprudence, the Colonel rose, with a request--cheerfully granted--that Lionel might be allowed to cometo breakfast with him the next morning. 

CHAPTER XI. 

 A man of the world, having accepted a troublesome charge, considers "what he will do with it;" and, having promptly decided, is sure, first, that he could not have done better; and, secondly, that much may be said to prove that he could not have done worse. 

Reserving to a later occasion anymore detailed description of ColonelMorley, it suffices for the present to say that he was a man of a veryfine understanding as applied to the special world in which he lived. Though no one had a more numerous circle of friends, and though with manyof those friends he was on that footing of familiar intimacy whichDarrell's active career once, and his rigid seclusion of late, could nothave established with any idle denizen of that brilliant society in whichColonel Morley moved and had his being, yet to Alban Morley's heart (aheart not easily reached) no friend was so dear as Guy Darrell. They hadentered Eton on the same day, left it the same day, lodged while there inthe same house; and though of very different characters, formed one ofthose strong, imperishable, brotherly affections which the Fates weaveinto the very woof of existence. 

Darrell's recommendation would have secured to any young protege ColonelMorley's gracious welcome and invaluable advice. But, both as Darrell'sacknowledged kinsman and as Charles Haughton's son, Lionel called forthhis kindliest sentiments and obtained his most sagacious deliberations. He had already seen the boy several times before waiting on Mrs. Haughton, deeming it would please her to defer his visit until she couldreceive him in all the glories of Gloucester Place; and he had takenLionel into high favour and deemed him worthy of a conspicuous place inthe world. Though Darrell in his letter to Colonel Morley hademphatically distinguished the position of Lionel, as a favoured kinsman, from that of a presumptive or even a probable heir, yet the rich man hadalso added: "But I wish him to take rank as the representative to theHaughtons; and, whatever I may do with the bulk of my fortune, I shallinsure to him a liberal independence. The completion of his education, the adequate allowance to him, the choice of a profession, are matters inwhich I entreat you to act for yourself, as if you were his guardian. Iam leaving England: I may be abroad for years. " Colonel Morley, inaccepting the responsibilities thus pressed on him, brought to bear uponhis charge subtle discrimination, as well as conscientious anxiety. 

He saw that Lionel's heart was set upon the military profession, and thathis power of application seemed lukewarm and desultory when not cheeredand concentred by enthusiasm, and would, therefore, fail him if directedto studies which had no immediate reference to the objects of hisambition. The Colonel, accordingly, dismissed the idea of sending himfor three years to a university. Alban Morley summed up his theories onthe collegiate ordeal in these succinct aphorisms: "Nothing so good as auniversity education, nor worse than a university without its education. Better throw a youth at once into the wider sphere of a capital--providedyou there secure to his social life the ordinary checks of good company, the restraints imposed by the presence of decorous women, and men ofgrave years and dignified repute--than confine him to the exclusivesociety of youths of his own age, the age of wild spirits andunreflecting imitation, unless he cling to the safeguard which is foundin hard reading, less by the book-knowledge it bestows than by theserious and preoccupied mind which it abstracts from the coarsertemptations. "

But Lionel, younger in character than in years, was too boyish as yet tobe safely consigned to those trials of tact and temper which await theneophyte who enters on life through the doors of a mess-room. His pridewas too morbid, too much on the alert for offence; his frankness toocrude, his spirit too untamed by the insensible discipline of socialcommerce. 

Quoth the observant man of the world: "Place his honour in his ownkeeping, and he will carry it about with him on full cock, to blow offa friend's head or his own before the end of the first month. Huffy!decidedly huffy! and of all causes that disturb regiments, and inducecourts-martial, the commonest cause is a huffy lad! Pity! for thatyoungster has in him the right metal, --spirit and talent that should makehim a first-rate soldier. It would be time well spent that should joinprofessional studies with that degree of polite culture which givesdignity and cures hulness. I must get him out of London, out of England;cut him off from his mother's apron-strings, and the particular friendsof his poor father who prowl unannounced into the widow's drawing-room. He shall go to Paris; no better place to learn military theories, and becivilized out of huffy dispositions. No doubt my old friend, thechevalier, who has the art strategic at his fingerends, might be inducedto take him en pension, direct his studies, and keep him out of harm'sway. I can secure to him the entree into the circles of the rigid oldFaubourg St. Germain, where manners are best bred, and household tiesmost respected. Besides, as I am so often at Paris myself, I shall havehim under my eye, and a few years there, spent in completing him as man, may bring him nearer to that marshal's baton which every recruit shouldhave in his eye, than if I started him at once a raw boy, unable to takecare of himself as an ensign, and unfitted, save by mechanical routine, to take care of others, should he live to buy the grade of a colonel. "

The plans thus promptly formed Alban Morley briefly explained to Lionelwhen the boy came to breakfast in Curzon Street; requesting him to obtainMrs. Haughton's acquiesence in that exercise of the discretionary powerswith which he had been invested by Mr. Darrell. To Lionel theproposition that commended the very studies to which his tastes directedhis ambition, and placed his initiation into responsible manhood amongscenes bright to his fancy, because new to his experience, seemed ofcourse the perfection of wisdom. Less readily pleased was poor Mrs. Haughton, when her son returned to communicate the arrangement, backing apolite and well-worded letter from the Colonel with his own more artlesseloquence. Instantly she flew off on the wing of her "little tempers. ""What! her only son taken from her; sent to that horrid Continent, justwhen she was so respectably settled! What was the good of money if shewas to be parted from her boy! Mr. Darrell might take the money backif he pleased; she would write and tell him so. Colonel Morley had nofeeling; and she was shocked to think Lionel was in such unnatural hands. She saw very plainly that he no longer cared for her, --a serpent'stooth, " etc. But as soon as the burst was over, the sky cleared and Mrs. Haughton became penitent and sensible. Then her grief for Lionel's losswas diverted by preparations for his departure. There was his wardrobeto see to; a patent portmanteau to purchase and to fill. And, all done, the last evening mother and son spent together, though painful at themoment, it would be happiness for both hereafter to recall! Their handsclasped in each other, her head leaning on his young shoulder, her tearskissed so soothingly away, and soft words of kindly motherly counsel, sweet promises of filial performances. Happy, thrice happy, as an afterremembrance, be the final parting between hopeful son and fearful parentat the foot of that mystic bridge, which starts from the threshold ofhome, --lost in the dimness of the far-opposing shore!--bridge over whichgoes the boy who will never return but as the man. 

CHAPTER XII. 

 The pocket-cannibal baits his woman's trap with love-letters, and a widow allured steals timidly towards it from under the weeds. 

Jasper Losely is beginning to be hard up! The infallible calculation atrouge-et-noir has carried off all that capital which had accumulated fromthe savings of the young gentlemen whom Dolly Poole had contributed tohis exchequer. Poole himself is beset by duns, and pathetically observes"that he has lost three stone in weight, and that he believes the calvesto his legs are gone to enlarge his liver. "

Jasper is compelled to put down his cabriolet, to discharge his groom, to retire from his fashionable lodgings; and just when the prospect evenof a dinner becomes dim, he bethinks himself of Arabella Crane, andremembers that she promised him L5, nay L10, which are still due fromher. He calls; he is received like the prodigal son. Nay, to his ownsurprise, he finds Mrs. Crane has made her house much more inviting: thedrawing-rooms are cleaned up; the addition of a few easy articles offurniture gives them quite a comfortable air. She herself has improvedin costume, though her favourite colour still remains iron gray. Sheinforms Jasper that she fully expected him; that these preparations arein his honour; that she has engaged a very good cook; that she hopes hewill dine with her when not better engaged; in short, lets him feelhimself at home in Podden Place. 

Jasper at first suspected a sinister design, under civilities that hisconscience told him were unmerited, --a design to entrap him into thatmatrimonial alliance which he had so ungallantly scouted, and from whichhe still recoiled with an abhorrence which man is not justified infeeling for any connubial partner less preternaturally terrific than theWitch of Endor or the Bleeding Nun!

But Mrs. Crane quickly and candidly hastened to dispel his ungenerousapprehensions. She had given up, she said, all ideas so preposterous;love and wedlock were equally out of her mind. But ill as he had behavedto her, she could not but feel a sincere regard for him, --a deep interestin his fate. He ought still to make a brilliant marriage: did that ideanot occur to him? She might help him there with her woman's wit. "Inshort, " said Mrs. Crane, pinching her lips, "In short, Jasper, I feel foryou as a mother. Look on me as such!"

The pure and affectionate notion wonderfully tickled and egregiouslydelighted Jasper Losely. "Look on you as a mother! I will, " said he, with emphasis. "Best of creatures!" And though in his own mind he hadnot a doubt that she still adored him (not as a mother), he believed itwas a disinterested, devoted adoration, such as the beautiful brutereally had inspired more than once in his abominable life. Accordingly, he moved into the neighbourhood of Podden Place, contenting himself witha second-floor bedroom in a house recommended to him by Mrs. Crane, andtaking his meals at his adopted mother's with filial familiarity. Sheexpressed a desire to make Mr. Poole's acquaintance; Jasper hastened topresent that worthy. Mrs. Crane invited Samuel Dolly to dine one day, tosup the next; she lent him L3 to redeem his dress-coat from pawn, and shegave him medicaments for the relief of his headache. 

Samuel Dolly venerated her as a most superior woman; envied Jaspersuch a "mother. " Thus easily did Arabella Crane possess herself of theexistence of Jasper Losely. Lightly her fingers closed over it, --lightlyas the fisherman's over the captivated trout. And whatever hergenerosity, it was not carried to imprudence. She just gave to Jasperenough to bring him within her power; she had no idea of ruining herselfby larger supplies: she concealed from him the extent of her income(which was in chief part derived from house-rents), the amount of hersavings, even the name of her banker. And if he carried off to therouge-et-noir table the coins he obtained from her, and came for more, Mrs. Crane put on the look of a mother incensed, --mild but awful, --andscolded as mothers sometimes can scold. Jasper Losely began to befrightened at Mrs. Crane's scoldings. And he had not that power overher which, though arrogated by a lover, is denied to an adopted son. His mind, relieved from the habitual distraction of the gaming-table forwhich the resource was wanting, settled with redoubled ardour on theimage of Mrs. Haughton. He had called at her house several times sincethe fatal day on which he had met there Colonel Morley, but Mrs. Haughtonwas never at home. And as when the answer was given to him by thefootman, he had more than once, on crossing the street, seen herselfthrough the window, it was clear that his acquaintance was not courted. Jasper Losely, by habit, was the reverse of a pertinacious andtroublesome suitor; not, Heaven knows, from want of audacity, but fromexcess of self-love. Where a Lovelace so superb condescended to makeovertures, a Clarissa so tasteless as to decline them deserved andexperienced his contempt. Besides, steadfast and prolonged pursuit ofany object, however important and attractive, was alien to the levity andfickleness of his temper. But in this instance he had other motives thanthose on the surface for unusual perseverance. 

A man like Jasper Losely never reposes implicit confidence in any one. He is garrulous, indiscreet; lets out much that Machiavel would haveadvised him not to disclose: but he invariably has nooks and corners inhis mind which he keeps to himself. Jasper did not confide to hisadopted mother his designs upon his intended bride. But she knew themthrough Poole, to whom he was more frank; and when she saw him lookingover her select and severe library, taking therefrom the "Polite Letter-Writer" and the "Elegant Extracts, " Mrs. Crane divined at once thatJasper Losely was meditating the effect of epistolary seduction upon thewidow of Gloucester Place. 

Jasper did not write a bad love-letter in the florid style. He had athis command, in especial, certain poetical quotations, the effect ofwhich repeated experience had assured him to be as potent upon the femalebreast as the incantations or carmina of the ancient sorcery. Thefollowing in particular, "Had I a heart for falsehood framed, I neer could injure you. "

Another, generally to be applied when confessing that his career had beeninterestingly wild, and would, if pity were denied him, be patheticallyshort, "When he who adores thee has left but the name Of his faults and his follies behind. "

Armed with these quotations, many a sentence from the "Polite Letter-Writer" or the "Elegant Extracts, " and a quire of rose-edged paper, Losely sat down to Ovidian composition. 

But as he approached the close of epistle the first, it occurred to himthat a signature and address were necessary. The address was notdifficult. He could give Poole's (hence his confidence to thatgentleman): Poole had a lodging in Bury Street, St. James's, afashionable locality for single men. But the name required moreconsideration. There were insuperable objections against signing his ownto any person who might be in communication with Mr. Darrell; a pity, forthere was a good old family of the name of Losely. A name ofaristocratic sound might indeed be readily borrowed from any lordlyproprietor thereof without asking a formal consent. But this loan wasexposed to danger. Mrs. Haughton might very naturally mention such name, as borne by her husband's friend, to Colonel Morley; and Colonel Morleywould most probably know enough of the connections and relations of anypeer so honoured to say, "There is no such Greville, Cavendish, orTalbot. " But Jasper Losely was not without fertility of invention andreadiness of resource. A grand idea, worthy of a master, and provingthat, if the man had not been a rogue in grain, he could have been rearedinto a very clever politician, flashed across him. He would sign himself"SMITH. " Nobody could say there is no such Smith; nobody could say thata Smith might not be a most respectable, fashionable, highly-connectedman. There are Smiths who are millionaires; Smiths who are large-acredsquires; substantial baronets; peers of England, and pillars of theState. You can no more question a man's right to be a Smith than hisright to be a Briton; and wide as the diversity of rank, lineage, virtue, and genius in Britons is the diversity in Smiths. But still a name sogeneric often affects a definitive precursor. Jasper signed himself "J. COURTENAY SMITH. " He called, and left epistle the first with his ownkid-gloved hand, inquiring first if Mrs. Haughton were at home, and, responded to in the negative this time, he asked for her son. "Her sonwas gone abroad with Colonel Morley. " Jasper, though sorry to losepresent hold over the boy, was consoled at learning that the Colonel wasoff the ground. Afore sanguine of success, he glanced up at the window, and, sure that Mrs. Haughton was there, though he saw her not, lifted hishat with as melancholy an expression of reproach as he could throw intohis face. 

The villain could not have found a moment in Mrs. Haughton's widowed lifeso propitious to his chance of success. In her lodging-house at Pimlico, the good lady had been too incessantly occupied for that idle train ofrevery, in which the poets assure us that Cupid finds leisure to whet hisarrows and take his aim. Had Lionel still been by her side, had evenColonel Morley been in town, her affection for the one, her awe of theother, would have been her safeguards. But alone in that fine new house, no friends, no acquaintances as yet, no dear visiting circle on which toexpend the desire of talk and the zest for innocent excitement that arenatural to ladies of an active mind and a nervous temperament, the suddenobtrusion of a suitor so respectfully ardent, --oh, it is not to be deniedthat the temptation was IMMENSE. 

And when that note, so neatly folded, so elegantly sealed, lay in herirresolute hand, the widow could not but feel that she was still young, still pretty; and her heart flew back to the day when the linendraper'sfair daughter had been the cynosure of the provincial High Street; whenyoung officers had lounged to and fro the pavement, looking in at herwindow; when ogles and notes had alike beset her, and the dark eyes ofthe irresistible Charlie Haughton had first taught her pulse to tremble. And in her hand lies the letter of Charlie Haughton's particular friend. She breaks the seal. She reads--a declaration!

Five letters in five days did Jasper write. In the course of thoseletters, he explains away the causes for suspicion which Colonel Morleyhad so ungenerously suggested. He is no longer anonymous; he is J. Courtenay Smith. He alludes incidentally to the precocious age in whichhe had become "lord of himself, that heritage of woe. " This accounts forhis friendship with a man so much his senior as the late Charlie. Heconfesses that in the vortex of dissipation his hereditary estates havedisappeared; but he has still a genteel independence; and with the womanof his heart, etc. He had never before known what real love was, etc. "Pleasure had fired his maddening soul;" "but the heart, --the heart beenlonely still. " He entreated only a personal interview, even though to berejected, --scorned. Still, when "he who adored her had left but thename, " etc. Alas! alas! as Mrs. Haughton put down epistle the fifth, shehesitated; and the woman who hesitates in such a case, is sure, at least-to write a civil answer. 

Mrs. Haughton wrote but three lines, --still they were civil; and concededan interview for the next day, though implying that it was but for thepurpose of assuring Mr. J. Courtenay Smith, in person, of her unalterablefidelity to the shade of his lamented friend. 

In high glee Jasper showed Mrs. Haughton's answer to Dolly Poole, andbegan seriously to speculate on the probable amount of the widow'sincome, and the value of her movables in Gloucester Place. Thence herepaired to Mrs. Crane; and, emboldened by the hope forever to escapefrom her maternal tutelage, braved her scoldings and asked for a coupleof sovereigns. He was sure that he should be in luck that night. Shegave to him the sum, and spared the scoldings. But, as soon as he wasgone, conjecturing from the bravado of his manner what had reallyoccurred, Mrs. Crane put on her bonnet and went out. 

CHAPTER XIII. 

 Unhappy is the man who puts his trust in a woman. 

Late that evening a lady, in a black veil, knocked at No. -- GloucesterPlace, and asked to see Mrs. Haughton on urgent business. She wasadmitted. She remained but five minutes. 

The next day when, "gay as a bridegroom prancing to his bride, " JasperLosely presented himself at the widow's door, the servant placed in hishand a packet, and informed him blufly that Mrs. Haughton had gone out oftown. Jasper with difficulty suppressed his rage, opened the packet, --his own letters returned, with these words, "Sir, your name is notCourtenay Smith. If you trouble me again, I shall apply to the police. "Never from female hand had Jasper Losely's pride received such a slap onits face. He was literally stunned. Mechanically he hastened toArabella Crane; and having no longer any object in concealment, but, onthe contrary, a most urgent craving for sympathy, he poured forth hisindignation and wrongs. No mother could be more consolatory than Mrs. Crane. She soothed, she flattered, she gave him an excellent dinner;after which, she made him so comfortable, what with an easy-chair andcomplimentary converse, that, when Jasper rose late to return to hislodging, he said, "After all, if I had been ugly and stupid, and of aweakly constitution, I should have been of a very domestic turn of mind. "

CHAPTER XIV. 

 No author ever drew a character consistent to human nature, but what he was forced to ascribe to it many inconsistencies. 

Whether moved by that pathetic speech of Jasper's, or by some otherimpulse not less feminine, Arabella Crane seemed suddenly to conceive thelaudable and arduous design of reforming that portentous sinner. She hadsome distant relations in London, whom she very rarely troubled with avisit, and who, had she wanted anything from them, would have shut theirdoors in her face; but as, on the contrary, she was well off, single, andmight leave her money to whom she pleased, the distant relations werealways warm in manner, and prodigal in their offers of service. The nextday she repaired to one of these kinsfolk, --a person in a large way ofbusiness, --and returned home with two great books in white sheepskin. And when Losely looked in to dine, she said, in the suavest tones atender mother can address to an amiable truant, "Jasper, you have greatabilities; at the gaming-table abilities are evidently useless: yourforte is calculation; you were always very quick at that. I have beenfortunate enough to procure you an easy piece of task-work, for which youwill be liberally remunerated. A friend of mine wishes to submit thesebooks to a regular accountant: he suspects that a clerk has cheated him;but he cannot tell how or where. You know accounts thoroughly, --no onebetter, --and the pay will be ten guineas. "

Jasper, though his early life had rendered familiar and facile to him thescience of book-keeping and double-entry, made a grimace at the revoltingidea of any honest labour, however light and well paid. But ten guineaswere an immense temptation, and in the evening Mrs. Crane coaxed him intothe task. 

Neglecting no feminine art to make the lawless nomad feel at home underher roof, she had provided for his ease and comfort morocco slippers anda superb dressing-robe, in material rich, in colour becoming. Men, single or marital, are accustomed to connect the idea of home withdressing-gown and slippers, especially if, after dinner, they apply (asJasper Losely now applied) to occupations in which the brain is active, the form in repose. What achievement, literary or scientific, was everaccomplished by a student strapped to unyielding boots, and "cabined, cribbed, confined, " in a, coat that fits him like wax? As robed in thecozy garment which is consecrated to the sacred familiar Lares, therelaxing, handsome ruffian sat in the quiet room, bending his stillregular profile over the sheepskin books, the harmless pen in that strongwell-shaped hand, Mrs. Crane watched him with a softening countenance. To bear him company, she had actively taken, herself, to work, --the goldthimble dragged from its long repose, --marking and hemming, with nimbleartistic fingers, new cravats for the adopted son! Strange creature iswoman! Ungrateful and perfidious as that sleek tiger before her hadoften proved himself, though no man could less deserve one kindlysentiment in a female heart, though she knew that he cared nothing forher, still it was pleasing to know that he cared for nobody else, that hewas sitting in the same room; and Arabella Crane felt that, if thatexistence could continue, she could forget the past and look contentedtowards the future. Again I say, strange creature is woman; and in thisinstance, creature more strange, because so grim! But as her eyessoften, and her fingers work, and her mind revolves schemes for makingthat lawless wild beast an innocuous tame animal, who can help feelingfor and with grim Arabella Crane?

Poor woman! And will not the experiment succeed? Three evenings doesJasper Losely devote to this sinless life and its peaceful occupation. He completes his task; he receives the ten guineas. (How much of thatfee came out of Mrs. Crane's privy purse?) He detects three mistakes, which justify suspicion of the book-keeper's integrity. Set a thief tocatch a thief! He is praised for acuteness, and promised a still lighteremployment, to be still better paid. He departs, declaring that he willcome the next day, earlier than usual; he volunteers an eulogium uponwork in general; he vows that evenings so happy he has not spent foryears; he leaves Mrs. Crane so much impressed by the hope of hisimprovement that, if a good clergyman had found her just at that moment, she might almost have been induced to pray. But

 "Heu quoties fidem Mutatosque deos flebit!"

Jasper Losely returns not, neither to Podden place or his lodging in theneighborhood. Days elapse and still he comes not; even Poole does notknow where he has gone; even Poole has not seen him! But that worthy isnow laid up with a serious rheumatic fever--confined to his room and awater gruel. And Jasper Losely is not the man to intrude himself on theprivacy of a sick chamber. Mrs. Crane, more benevolent, visitsPoole cheers him up--gets him a nurse--writes to Uncle Sam. Pooleblesses her. He hopes that Uncle Sam, moved by the spectacle of thesick-bed will say, "Don't let your debts fret you: I will pay them!"Whatever her disappointment or resentment at Jasper's thankless andmysterious evasion, Arabella Crane is calmly confident of his return. Toher servant, Bridget Greggs, who was perhaps the sole person in the worldwho entertained affection for the lone gaunt woman, and who held JasperLosely in profound detestation, she said, with tranquil sternness, "Thatman has crossed my life, and darkened it. He passed away, and left Nightbehind him. He has dared to return. He shall never escape me again tillthe grave yawn for one of us. "

"But, Lor' love you, miss, you would not put yourself in the power ofsuch a black-hearted villing?"

"In his power! No, Bridget; fear not, he must be in mine, sooner orlater in mine, hand and foot. Patience!" As she was thus speaking, --a knock at the door! "It is he; I told you so; quick!"

But it was not Jasper Losely. It was Mr. Rugge. 

CHAPTER XV. 

 "When God wills, all winds bring rain. "--Ancient Proverb. 

The manager had not submitted to the loss of his property in Sophy andL100 without taking much vain trouble to recover the one or the other. He had visited Jasper while that gentleman lodged in St. James's; but themoment he hinted at the return of the L100, Mr. Losely opened both doorand window, and requested the manager to make his immediate choice of thetwo. Taking the more usual mode of exit, Mr. Rugge vented his justindignation in a lawyer's letter, threatening Mr. Losely with an actionfor conspiracy and fraud. He had also more than once visited Mrs. Crane, who somewhat soothed him by allowing that he had been very badly used, that he ought at least to be repaid his money, and promising to do herbest to persuade Mr. Losely "to behave like a gentleman. " With regard toSophy herself, Mrs. Crane appeared to feel a profound indifference. Infact, the hatred which Mrs. Crane had unquestionably conceived for Sophywhile under her charge was much diminished by Losely's unnatural conducttowards the child. To her it was probably a matter of no interestwhether Sophy was in Rugge's hands or Waife's; enough for her that thedaughter of a woman against whose memory her fiercest passions wereenlisted was, in either case, so far below herself in the grades of thesocial ladder. 

Perhaps of the two protectors for Sophy, Rugge and Waife, her spite alonewould have given the preference to Waife. He was on a still lower stepof the ladder than the itinerant manager. Nor, though she had somortally injured the forlorn cripple in the eyes of Mr. Hartopp, hadshe any deliberate purpose of revenge to gratify against him! On thecontrary, if she viewed him with contempt, it was a contempt not unmixedwith pity. It was necessary to make to the Mayor the communications shehad made, or that worthy magistrate would not have surrendered the childintrusted to him, at least until Waife's return. And really it was akindness to the old man to save him both from an agonizing scene withJasper, and from the more public opprobrium which any resistance on hispart to Jasper's authority or any altercation between the two wouldoccasion. And as her main object then was to secure Losely's allegianceto her, by proving her power to be useful to him, so Waifes and Sophysand Mayors and Managers were to her but as pawns to be moved andsacrificed, according to the leading strategy of her game. 

Rugge came now, agitated and breathless, to inform Mrs. Crane that Waifehad been seen in London. Mr. Rugge's clown had seen him, not far fromthe Tower; but the cripple had disappeared before the clown, who was onthe top of an omnibus, had time to descend. "And even if he had actuallycaught hold of Mr. Waife, " observed Mrs. Crane, "what then? You have noclaim on Mr. Waife. "

"But the Phenomenon must be with that ravishing marauder, " said Rugge. "However, I have set a minister of justice--that is, ma'am, a detectivepolice--at work; and what I now ask of you is simply this: should it benecessary for Mr. Losely to appear with me before the senate--that is tosay, ma'am, a metropolitan police-court--in order to prove my legalproperty in my own bought and paid for Phenomenon, will you induce thatbold bad man not again to return the poisoned chalice to my lips?"

"I do not even know where Mr. Losely is; perhaps not in London. "

"Ma'am, I saw him last night at the theatre, --Princess's. I was in theshilling gallery. He who owes me L100, ma'am, --he in a private box!"

"Ah! you are sure; by himself?"

"With a lady, ma'am, --a lady in a shawl from Ingee. I know them shawls. My father taught me to know them in early childhood, for he was anornament to British commerce, --a broker, ma'am, --pawn! And, " continuedRugge, with a withering smile, "that man in a private box, which at thePrincess's costs two pounds two, and with the spoils of Ingee by hisside, lifted his eyeglass and beheld me, --me in the shilling gallery!and his conscience did not say, 'Should we not change places if I paidthat gentleman L100?' Can such things be, and overcome us, ma'am, like asummer cloud, without our special--I put it to you, ma'am--wonder?"

"Oh, with a lady, was he?" exclaimed Arabella Crane, her wrath, which, while the manager spoke, gathered fast and full, bursting now into words. "His ladies shall know the man who sells his own child for a show; onlyfind out where the girl is, then come here again before you stir further. Oh, with a lady! Go to your detective policeman, or rather send him tome; we will first discover Mr. Losely's address. I will pay all theexpenses. Rely on my zeal, Mr. Rugge. "

Much comforted, the manager went his way. He had not been long gonebefore Jasper himself appeared. The traitor entered with a more thancustomary bravado of manner, as if he apprehended a scolding, and wasprepared to face it; but Mrs. Crane neither reproached him for hisprolonged absence, nor expressed surprise at his return. With truefeminine duplicity, she received him as if nothing had happened. Jasper, thus relieved, became of his own accord apologetic and explanatory;evidently he wanted something of Mrs. Crane. "The fact is, my dearfriend, " said he, sinking into a chair, "that the day after I last sawyou I happened to go to the General Post Office to see if there were anyletters for me. You smile: you don't believe me. Honour bright, herethey are;" and Jasper took from the side pocket of his coat a pocket-book, a new pocket-book, a brilliant pocket-book, fragrant Russianleather, delicately embossed, golden clasps, silken linings, jewelledpencil-case, malachite pen-knife, --an arsenal of knickknacks stored inneat recesses; such a pocket-book as no man ever gives to himself. Sardanapalus would not have given that pocket-book to himself! Such apocket-book never comes to you, O enviable Lotharios, save as tributarykeepsakes from the charmers who adore you! Grimly the Adopted Mothereyed that pocket-book. Never had she seen it before. Grimly she pinchedher lips. Out of this dainty volume--which would have been of cumbroussize to a slim thread-paper exquisite, but scarcely bulged into ripplethe Atlantic expanse of Jasper Losely's magnificent chest--the monsterdrew forth two letters on French paper, --foreign post-marks. He replacedthem quickly, only suffering her eye to glance at the address, andcontinued, "Fancy! that purse-proud Grand Turk of an infidel, though hewould not believe me, has been to France, --yes, actually to ----- makinginquiries evidently with reference to Sophy. The woman who ought to havethoroughly converted him took flight, however, and missed seeing him. Confound her!"

"I ought to have been there. So I have no doubt for the present the Paganremains stubborn. Gone on into Italy I hear; doing me, violating thelaws of Nature, and roving about the world, with his own solitary handsin his bottomless pockets, --like the wandering Jew! But, as some slightset-off in my run of ill-luck, I find at the post-office a pleasanterletter than the one which brings me this news. A rich elderly lady, whohas no family, wants to adopt a nice child; will take Sophy, --make itworth my while to let her have Sophy. 'T is convenient in a thousandways to settle one's child comfortably in a rich house; establishesrights, subject, of course, to cheques which would not affront me, --afather! But the first thing requisite is to catch Sophy: 't is in that Iask your help; you are so clever. Best of creatures! what could I dowithout you? As you say, whenever I want a friend I come to you, --Bella!"

Mrs. Crane surveyed Jasper's face deliberately. It is strange how muchmore readily women read the thoughts of men than men detect those ofwomen. "You know where the child is, " said she, slowly. 

"Well, I take it for granted she is with the old man; and I have seenhim, --seen him yesterday. "

"Go on; you saw him, --where?"

"Near London Bridge. "

"What business could you possibly have in that direction? Ah! I guess, the railway station to Dover: you are going abroad?"

"No such thing; you are so horribly suspicious. But it is true I hadbeen to the station inquiring after some luggage or parcels which afriend of mine had ordered to be left there; now, don't interrupt me. At the foot of the bridge I caught a sudden glimpse of the old man, --changed, altered, aged, one eye lost. You had said I should not know himagain, but I did; I should never have recognized his face. I knew him bythe build of the shoulder, a certain turn of the arms, I don't know what;one knows a man familiar to one from birth without seeing his face. Oh, Bella; I declare that I felt as soft, --as soft as the silliest muff whoever--" Jasper did not complete his comparison, but paused a moment, breathing hard, and then broke into another sentence. "He was sellingsomething in a basket, --matches, boot-straps, deuce knows what. He! aclever man too! I should have liked to drop into that d----d basket allthe money I had about me. "

"Why did not you?"

"Why? How could I? He would have recognized me. There would have beena scene, --a row, a flare up, a mob round us, I dare say. I had no ideait would so upset me; to see him selling matches too; glad we did notmeet at Gatesboro'. Not even for that L100 do I think I could have facedhim. No; as he said when we last parted, 'The world is wide enough forboth. ' Give me some brandy; thank you. "

"You did not speak to the old man; he did not see you: but you wanted toget back the child; you felt sure she must be with him; you followed himhome?"

"I? No; I should have had to wait for hours. A man like me, loiteringabout London Bridge! I should have been too conspicuous; he would havesoon caught sight of me, though I kept on his blind side. I employed aragged boy to watch and follow him, and here is the address. Now, willyou get Sophy back for me without any trouble to me, without myappearing? I would rather charge a regiment of horse-guards than bullythat old man. "

"Yet you would rob him of the child, --his sole comfort?"

"Bother!" cried Losely, impatiently; "the child can be only a burden tohim; well out of his way; 't is for the sake of that child he is sellingmatches! It would be the greatest charity we could do him to set himfree from that child sponging on him, dragging him down; without her he'dfind a way to shift for himself. Why, he's even cleverer than I am! Andthere--there; give him this money, but don't say it came from me. "

He thrust, without counting, several sovereigns--at least twelve orfourteen--into Mrs. Crane's palm; and so powerful a charm has goodnessthe very least, even in natures the most evil, that that unusual, eccentric, inconsistent gleam of human pity in Jasper Losely's benightedsoul shed its relenting influence over the angry, wrathful, andvindictive feelings with which Mrs. Crane the moment before regarded theperfidious miscreant; and she gazed at him with a sort of melancholywonder. What! though so little sympathizing with affection that he couldnot comprehend that he was about to rob the old man of a comfort which nogold could repay; what though so contemptuously callous to his ownchild, --yet there in her hand lay the unmistakable token that a somethingof humanity, compunction, compassion, still lingered in the breast of thegreedy cynic; and at that thought all that was softest in her own humannature moved towards him, indulgent, gentle. But in the rapid changes ofthe heart feminine, the very sentiment that touched upon love broughtback the jealousy that bordered upon hate. How came he by so much money?more than days ago he, the insatiate spendthrift, had received for histask-work? And that POCKETBOOK!

"You have suddenly grown rich, Jasper. "

For a moment he looked confused, but replied as he rehelped himself tothe brandy, "Yes, rouge-et-noir, --luck. Now, do go and see after thisaffair, that's a dear good woman. Get the child to-day if you can; Iwill call here in the evening. "

"Should you take her, then, abroad at once to this worthy lady who willadopt her? If so, we shall meet, I suppose, no, more; and I am assistingyou to forget that I live still. "

"Abroad, --that crotchet of yours again! You are quite mistaken; in fact, the lady is in London. It was for her effects that I went to thestation. Oh, don't be jealous; quite elderly. "

"Jealous, my dear Jasper! you forget. I am as your mother. One of yourletters, then, announced this lady's intended arrival; you were incorrespondence with this--elderly lady. "

"Why, not exactly in correspondence. But when I left Paris I gave theGeneral Post Office as my address to a few friends in France. And thislady, who took an interest in my affairs (ladies, whether old or young, who have once known me, always do), was aware that I had expectationswith respect to the child. So some days ago, when I was so badly off, I wrote a line to tell her that Sophy had been no go, and that, but for adear friend (that is you), I might be on the pave. In her answer, shesaid she should be in London as soon as I received her letter; and gaveme an address here at which to learn where to find her when arrived, --a good old soul, but strange to London. I have been very busy, helpingher to find a house, recommending tradesmen, and so forth. She likesstyle, and can afford it. A pleasant house enough, but our quietevenings here spoil me for anything else. Now get on your bonnet, andlet me see you off. "

"On one condition, my dear Jasper, --that you stay here till I return. "

Jasper made a wry face. But, as it was near dinner-time and he neverwanted for appetite, he at length agreed to employ the interval of herabsence in discussing a meal, which experience had told him Mrs. Crane'snew cook would, not unskilfully, though hastily, prepare. Mrs. Craneleft him to order the dinner, and put on her shawl and bonnet. But, gaining her own room, she rang for Bridget Greggs, and when thatconfidential servant appeared, she said, "In the side pocket of Mr. Losely's coat there is a POCKET-BOOK; in it there are some letters whichI must see. I shall appear to go out; leave the street-door ajar, that Imay slip in again unobserved. You will serve dinner as soon as possible. And when Mr. Losely, as usual, exchanges his coat for the dressing-gown, contrive to take out that pocket-book unobserved by him. Bring it to mehere, in this room: you can as easily replace it afterwards. A momentwill suffice to my purpose. "

Bridget nodded, and understood. Jasper, standing by the window, saw Mrs. Crane leave the house, walking briskly. He then threw himself on thesofa, and began to doze: the doze deepened, and became sleep. Bridget, entering to lay the cloth, so found him. She approached on tiptoe, sniffed the perfume of the pocket-book, saw its gilded corners peepforth from its lair. She hesitated; she trembled; she was in mortal fearof that truculent slumberer; but sleep lessens the awe thieves feel orheroes inspire. She has taken the pocketbook; she has fled with thebooty; she is in Mrs. Crane's apartment not five minutes after Mrs. Cranehas regained its threshold. 

Rapidly the jealous woman ransacked the pocket-book; started to see, elegantly worked with gold threads, in the lining, the words, "SOUVIENSTOI DE TA GABRIELLE;" no other letters, save the two, of which Jasper hadvouchsafed to her but the glimpse. Over these she hurried her glitteringeyes; and when she restored them to their place, and gave back the bookto Bridget, who stood by breathless and listening, lest Jasper shouldawake, her face was colourless, and a kind of shudder seemed to come overher. Left alone, she rested her face on, her hand, her lips moving as ifin self-commune. Then noiselessly she glided down the stairs, regainedthe street, and hurried fast upon her way. 

Bridget was not in time to restore the book to Jasper's pocket, for whenshe re-entered he was turning round and stretching himself between sleepand waking. But she dropped the book skilfully on the floor, closebeside the sofa: it would seem to him, on waking, to have fallen out ofthe pocket in the natural movements of sleep. 

And, in fact, when he rose, dinner now on the table, he picked up thepocket-book without suspicion. But it was lucky that Bridget had notwaited for the opportunity suggested by her mistress. For when Jasperput on the dressing-gown, he observed that his coat wanted brushing; and, in giving it to the servant for that purpose, he used the precaution oftaking out the pocket-book, and placing it in some other receptacle ofhis dress. 

Mrs. Crane returned in less than two hours, --returned with a disappointedlook, which at once prepared Jasper for the intelligence that the birdsto be entrapped had flown. 

"They went away this afternoon, " said Mrs. Crane, tossing Jasper'ssovereigns on the table as if they burned her fingers. "But leave thefugitives to me. I will find them. "

Jasper relieved his angry mind by a series of guilty but meaninglessexpletives; and then, seeing no further use to which Mrs. Crane's wishcould be applied at present, finished the remainder of her brandy, andwished her good-night, with a promise to call again, but without anyintimation of his own address. As soon as he was gone, Mrs. Crane oncemore summoned Bridget. 

"You told me last week that your brother-in-law, Simpson, wished to go toAmerica, that he had the offer of employment there, but that he could notafford the fare of the voyage. I promised I would help him if it was aservice to you. "

"You are a hangel, miss!" exclaimed Bridget, dropping a low courtesy, --so low that it seemed as if she was going on her knees. "And may youhave your deserts in the next blessed world, where there are no black-hearted villings. "

"Enough, enough, " said Mrs. Crane, recoiling perhaps from that gratefulbenediction. "You have been faithful to me, as none else have ever been;but this time I do not serve you in return so much as I meant to do. Theservice is reciprocal, if your brother-in-law will do me a favour. Hetakes with him his daughter, a mere child. Bridget, let them enter theirnames on the steam-vessel as William and Sophy Waife; they can, ofcourse, resume their own name when the voyage is over. There is the farefor them, and something more. Pooh, no thanks. I can spare the money. See your brother-in-law the first thing in the morning; and remember thatthey go by the next vessel, which sails from Liverpool on Thursday. "

CHAPTER XVI. 

 Those poor pocket-cannibals, how society does persecute them! Even a menial servant would give warning if disturbed at his meals. But your man-eater is the meekest of creatures; he will never give warning, and--not often take it. 

Whatever the source that had supplied Jasper Losely with the money fromwhich he had so generously extracted the sovereigns intended to consoleWaife for the loss of Sophy, that source either dried up or became whollyinadequate to his wants; for elasticity was the felicitous peculiarity ofMr. Losely's wants. They accommodated themselves to the state of hisfinances with mathematical precision, always requiring exactly five timesthe amount of the means placed at his disposal. From a shilling to amillion, multiply his wants by five times the total of his means, and youarrived at a just conclusion. Jasper called upon Poole, who was slowlyrecovering, but unable to leave his room; and finding that gentleman in amore melancholy state of mind than usual, occasioned by Uncle Sam'sbrutal declaration that "if responsible for his godson's sins he was notresponsible for his debts, " and that he really thought "the best thingSamuel Dolly could do, was to go to prison for a short time and getwhitewashed, " Jasper began to lament his own hard fate: "And just whenone of the finest women in Paris has come here on purpose to see me, "said the lady-killer, --"a lady who keeps her carriage, Dolly! Would haveintroduced you, if you had been well enough to go out. One can't bealways borrowing of her. I wish one could. There's mother Crane wouldsell her gown off her back for me; but 'Gad, sir, she snubs, andpositively frightens me. Besides, she lays traps to demean me; set me towork like a clerk!--not that I would hurt your feelings, Dolly: if youare a clerk, or something of that sort, you are a gentleman at heart. Well, then, we are both done up and cleaned out; and my decided opinionis, that nothing is left but a bold stroke. "

"I have no objection to bold strokes, but I don't see any; and UncleSam's bold stroke of the Fleet prison is not at all to my taste. "

"Fleet prison! Fleet fiddlestick! No. You have never been in Russia. Why should we not go there both? My Paris friend, Madame Caumartin, wasgoing to Italy, but her plans are changed, and she is now all for St. Petersburg. She will wait a few days for you to get well. We will allgo together and enjoy ourselves. The Russians dote upon whist. We shallget into their swell sets and live like princes. " Therewith Jasperlaunched forth on the text of Russian existence in such glowing termsthat Dolly Poole shut his aching eyes and fancied himself sledging downthe Neva, covered with furs; a countess waiting for him at dinner, andcounts in dozens ready to offer bets to a fabulous amount that JasperLosely lost the rubber. 

Having lifted his friend into this region of aerial castles, Jasper then, descending into the practical world, wound up with the mournful fact thatone could not get to St. Petersburg, nor when there into swell sets, without having some little capital on hand. 

"I tell you what we will do. Madame Caumartin lives in prime style. Getold Latham, your employer, to discount her bill at three months' date forL500, and we will be all off in a crack. " Poole shook his head. "OldLatham is too knowing a file for that. A foreigner! He'd wantsecurity. "

"I'll be security. "

Dolly shook his head a second time, still more emphatically than thefirst. 

"But you say he does discount paper, --gets rich on it?"

"Yes, gets rich on 'it, which he might not do if he discounted the paperyou propose. No offence. "

"Oh, no offence among friends! You have taken him bills which he hasdiscounted?"

"Yes, --good paper. "

"Any paper signed by good names is good paper. We can sign good names ifwe know their handwritings. "

Dolly started, and turned white. Knave he was, --cheat at cards, blacklegon the turf, --but forgery! that crime was new to him. The very notion ofit brought on a return of fever; and while Jasper was increasing hismalady by arguing with his apprehensions, luckily for Poole, Uncle Samcame in. Uncle Sam, a sagacious old tradesman, no sooner clapped eyes onthe brilliant Losely than he conceived for him a distrustful repugnance, similar to that with which an experienced gander may regard a fox incolloquy with its gosling. He had already learned enough of his godson'sways and chosen society to be assured that Samuel Dolly had indulged invery anti-commercial tastes, and been sadly contaminated by very anti-commercial friends. He felt persuaded that Dolly's sole chance ofredemption was in working on his mind while his body was still suffering, so that Poole might, on recovery, break with all former associations. On seeing Jasper in the dress of an exquisite, with the thrws of a prize-fighter, Uncle Sam saw the stalwart incarnation of all the sins which agodfather had vowed that a godson should renounce. Accordingly, he madehimself so disagreeable that Losely, in great disgust, took a hastydeparture. And Uncle Sam, as he helped the nurse to plunge Dolly intohis bed, had the brutality to tell his nephew, in very plain terms, thatif ever he found that Brummagem gent in Poole's rooms again, Poole wouldnever again see the colour of Uncle Sam's money. Dolly beginning toblubber, the good man relenting patted him on the back, and said, "But assoon as you are well, I'll carry you with me to my country-box, and keepyou out of harm's way till I find you a wife, who will comb your head foryou;" at which cheering prospect Poole blubbered more dolefully thanbefore. On retiring to his own lodging in the Gloucester Coffee-house, Uncle Sam, to make all sure, gave positive orders to Poole's landlady, who respected in Uncle Sam the man who might pay what Poole owed to her, on no account to let in any of Dolly's profligate friends, but especiallythe chap he had found there; adding, "'T is as much as my nephew's lifeis worth; and, what is more to the purpose, as much as your bill is. "Accordingly, when Jasper presented himself at Poole's door again thatvery evening, the landlady apprised him of her orders; and, proof to hisinsinuating remonstrances, closed the door in his face. But a Frenchchronicler has recorded that when Henry IV. Was besieging Paris, thoughnot a loaf of bread could enter the walls, love-letters passed betweencity and camp as easily as if there had been no siege at all. And doesnot Mercury preside over money as well as Love? Jasper, spurred on byMadame Caumartin, who was exceedingly anxious to exchange London for St. Petersburg as soon as possible, maintained a close and frequentcorrespondence with Poole by the agency of the nurse, who luckily was notabove being bribed by shillings. Poole continued to reject the villanyproposed by Jasper; but, in course of the correspondence, he threw outrather incoherently--for his mind began somewhat to wander--a schemeequally flagitious, which Jasper, aided perhaps by Madame Caumartin's yetkeener wit, caught up, and quickly reduced to deliberate method. Old Mr. Latham, amongst the bills he discounted, kept those of such more bashfulcustomers as stipulated that their resort to temporary accommodationshould be maintained a profound secret in his own safe. Amongst thesebills Poole knew that there was one for L1, 000 given by a young noblemanof immense estates, but so entailed that he could neither sell normortgage, and, therefore, often in need of a few hundreds for pocketmoney. The nobleman's name stood high. His fortune was universallyknown; his honour unimpeachable. A bill of his any one would cash atsight. Could Poole but obtain that bill! It had, he believed, only afew weeks yet to run. Jasper or Madame Caumartin might get it discountedeven by Lord -------'s own banker; and if that were too bold, by anyprofessional bill-broker, and all three be off before a suspicion couldarise. But to get at that safe, a false key might be necessary. Poolesuggested a waxen impression of the lock. Jasper sent him a readiercontrivance, --a queer-looking tool, that looked an instrument of torture. All now necessary was for Poole to recover sufficiently to return tobusiness, and to get rid of Uncle Sam by a promise to run down to thecountry the moment Poole had conscientiously cleared some necessaryarrears of work. While this correspondence went on, Jasper Loselyshunned Mrs. Crane, and took his meals and spent his leisure hours withMadame Caumartin. He needed no dressing-gown and slippers to feelhimself at home there. Madame Canmartin had really taken a showy housein a genteel street. Her own appearance was eminently what the Frenchcall /distingue/; dressed to perfection from head to foot; neat andfinished as an epigram; her face in shape like a thoroughbred cobra-capella, --low smooth frontal widening at the summit, chin tapering butjaw strong, teeth marvellously white, small, and with points sharp asthose in the maw of the fish called the "Sea Devil;" eyes like darkemeralds, of which the pupils, when she was angry or when she wasscheming, retreated upward towards the temples, emitting a luminous greenray that shot through space like the gleam that escapes from a dark-lantern; complexion superlatively feminine (call it not pale but white, as if she lived on blanched almonds, peach-stones, and arsenic); hands sofine and so bloodless, with fingers so pointedly taper there seemedstings at their tips; manners of one who had ranged all ranks of societyfrom highest to lowest, and duped the most wary in each of them. Did sheplease it, a crown prince might have thought her youth must have passedin the chambers of porphyry! Did she please it, an old soldier wouldhave sworn the creature had been a vivandiere, --in age, perhaps, bordering on forty. She looked younger, but had she been a hundred andtwenty, she could not have been more wicked. Ah, happy indeed for Sophy, if it were to save her youth from ever being fostered in elegant boudoirsby those bloodless hands, that the crippled vagabond had borne her awayfrom Arabella's less cruel unkindness; better far even Rugge's villagestage; better far stealthy by-lanes, feigned names, and the eruditetricks of Sir Isaac!

But still it is due even to Jasper to state here that, in Losely's recentdesign to transfer Sophy from Mr. Waife's care to that of MadameCaumartin, the Sharper harboured no idea of a villany so execrable as thecharacter of the Parisienne led the jealous Arabella to suspect. Hisreal object in getting the child at that time once more into his powerwas (whatever its nature) harmless compared with the mildest ofArabella's dark doubts. But still if Sophy had been regained, and theobject, on regaining her, foiled (as it probably would have been), whatthen might have become of her, --lost, perhaps, forever, to Waife, --in aforeign land and under such guardianship? Grave question, which JasperLosely, who exercised so little foresight in the paramount question, namely, what some day or other would become of himself? was not likely torack his brains by conjecturing!

Meanwhile Mrs. Crane was vigilant. The detective police-officer sent toher by Mr. Rugge could not give her the information which Rugge desired, and which she did not longer need. She gave the detective someinformation respecting Madame Caumartin. One day towards the evening shewas surprised by a visit from Uncle Sam. He called ostensibly to thankher for her kindness to his godson and nephew; and to beg her not to beoffended if he had been rude to Mr. Losely, who, he understood fromDolly, was a particular friend of hers. "You see, ma'am, Samuel Dolly isa weak young man, and easily led astray; but, luckily for himself, he hasno money and no stomach. So he may repent in time; and if I could find awife to manage him, he has not a bad head for the main chance, and maybecome a practical man. Repeatedly I have told him he should go toprison, but that was only to frighten him; fact is, I want to get himsafe down into the country, and he don't take to that. So I am forced tosay, 'My box, home-brewed and South-down, Samuel Dolly, or a Lunnon jailand debtors' allowance. ' Must give a young man his choice, my dearlady. "

Mrs. Crane observing that what he said was extremely sensible, Uncle Samwarmed in his confidence. 

"And I thought I had him, till I found Mr. Losely in his sick-room; butever since that day, I don't know how it is, the lad has had something onhis mind, which I don't half like, --cracky, I think, my dear lady, --cracky. I suspect that old nurse passes letters. I taxed her with it, and she immediately wanted to take her Bible-oath, and smelt of gin, two things which, taken together, look guilty. "

"But, " said Mrs. Crane, growing much interested, "if Mr. Losely and Mr. Poole do correspond, what then?"

"That's what I want to know, ma'am. Excuse me; I don't wish to disparageMr. Losely, --a dashing gent, and nothing worse, I dare say. But certainsure I am that he has put into Samuel Dolly's head something which hascracked it! There is the lad now up and dressed, when he ought to be inbed, and swearing he'll go to old Latham's to-morrow, and that longarrears of work are on his conscience! Never heard him talk ofconscience before: that looks guilty! And it does not frighten him anylonger when I say he shall go to prison for his debts; and he's veryanxious to get me out of Lunnon; and when I threw in a word about Mr. Losely (slyly, my good lady, --just to see its effect), he grew as whiteas that paper; and then he began strutting and swelling, and saying thatMr. Losely would be a great man, and he should be a great man, and thathe did not care for my money; he could get as much money as he liked. That looks guilty, my dear lady. And oh, " cried Uncle Sam, clasping hishands, "I do fear that he's thinking of something worse than he has everdone before, and his brain can't stand it. And, ma'am, he has a greatrespect for you; and you've a friendship for Mr. Losely. Now, justsuppose that Mr. Losely should have been thinking of what your flashsporting gents call a harmless spree, and my sister's son should, beingcracky, construe into something criminal. Oh, Mrs. Crane, do go and seeMr. Losely, and tell him that Samuel Dolly is not safe, --is not safe!"

"Much better that I should go to your nephew, " said Mrs. Crane; "and withyour leave I will do so at once. Let me see him alone. Where shall Ifind you afterwards?"

"At the Gloucester Coffee-house. Oh, my dear lady, how can I thank youenough? The boy can be nothing to you; but to me, he's my sister's son, --the blackguard!"

CHAPTER XVII. 

 "Dices laborantes in uno Penelopen vitreamque Circen. "--HORAT. 

Mrs. Crane found Poole in his little sitting-room, hung round with printsof opera-dancers, prize-fighters, race-horses, and the dog Billy. SamuelDolly was in full dress. His cheeks, usually so pale, seemed muchflushed. He was evidently in a state of high excitement, bowed extremelylow to Mrs. Crane, called her Countess, asked if she had been lately onthe Continent and if she knew Madame Caumartin, and whether the nobilityat St. Petersburg were jolly, or stuck-up fellows, who gave themselvesairs, --not waiting for her answer. In fact his mind was unquestionablydisordered. 

Arabella Crane abruptly laid her hand on his shoulder. "You are going tothe gallows, " she said suddenly. "Down on your knees, and tell me all, and I will keep your secret, and save you; lie, and you are lost!"

Poole burst into tears, and dropped on his knees as he was told. 

In ten minutes Mrs. Crane knew all that she cared to know, possessedherself of Losely's letters, and, leaving Poole less light-headed andmore light-hearted, she hastened to Uncle Sam at the Gloucester Coffee-house. "Take your nephew, out of town this evening, and do not let himfrom your sight for the next six months. Hark you, he will never be agood man; but you may save him from the hulks. Do so. Take my advice. "She was gone before Uncle Sam could answer. She next proceeded to theprivate house of the detective with whom she had before conferred; thistime less to give than to receive information. Not half an hour afterher interview with him, Arabella Crane stood in the street wherein wasplaced the showy house of Madame Caumartin. The lamps in the street werenow lighted; the street, even at day a quiet one, was comparativelydeserted. All the windows in the Frenchwoman's house were closed withshutters and curtains, except on the drawing-room floor. From those thelights within streamed over a balcony filled with gay plants; one of thecasements was partially open. And now and then, where the watcher stood, she could just catch the glimpse of a passing form behind the muslindraperies, or hear the sound of some louder laugh. In her dark-graydress and still darker mantle, Arabella Crane stood motionless, her eyesfixed on those windows. The rare foot-passenger who brushed by herturned involuntarily to glance at the countenance of one so still, andthen as involuntarily to survey the house to which that countenance waslifted. No such observer so incurious as not to hazard conjecture whatevil to that house was boded by the dark lurid eyes that watched it withso fixed a menace. Thus she remained, sometimes, indeed, moving from herpost, as a sentry moves from his, slowly pacing a few steps to and fro, returning to the same place, and again motionless; thus she remained forhours. Evening deepened into night; night grew near to dawn: she wasstill there in that street, and still her eyes were on that house. Atlength the door opened noiselessly; a tall man tripped forth with a gaylight step, and humming the tune of a gay French chanson. As he camestraight towards the spot where Arabella Crane was at watch, from herdark mantle stretched forth her long arm and lean hand and seized him. He started and recognized her. 

"You here!" he exclaimed, "you!--at such an hour, --you!"

"Ay, Jasper Losely, here to warn you. To-morrow the officers of justicewill be in that accursed house. To-morrow that woman--not for her worstcrimes, they elude the law, but for her least by which the law hunts herdown--will be a prisoner, --no, you shall not return to warn her as I warnyou" (for Jasper here broke away, and retreated some steps towards thehouse); "or, if you do, share her fate. I cast you off. "

"What do you mean?" said Jasper, halting, till with slow steps sheregained his side. "Speak more plainly: if poor Madame Caumartin has gotinto a scrape, which I don't think likely, what have I to do with it?"

"The woman you call Caumartin fled from Paris to escape its tribunals. She has been tracked; the French government have claimed her--ho!--yousmile. This does not touch you?"

"Certainly not. "

"But there are charges against her from English tradesmen; and if it beproved that you knew her in her proper name, --the infamous GabrielleDesmarets; if it be proved that you have passed off the French billets debanque that she stole; if you were her accomplice in obtaining goodsunder her false name; if you, enriched by her robberies, were aiding andabetting her as a swindler here, --though you may be safe from the Frenchlaw, will you be safe from the English? You may be innocent, JasperLosely; if so, fear nothing. You may be guilty: if so, hide, or followme!"

Jasper paused. His first impulse was to trust implicitly to Mrs. Crane, and lose not a moment in profiting by such counsels of concealment orflight as an intelligence so superior to his own could suggest. Butsuddenly remembering that Poole had undertaken to get the bill for L1, 000by the next day, --that if flight were necessary, there was yet a chanceof flight with booty, --his constitutional hardihood, and the graspingcupidity by which it was accompanied, made him resolve at least to hazardthe delay of a few hours. And, after all, might not Mrs. Craneexaggerate? Was not this the counsel of a jealous woman? "Pray, " saidhe, moving on, and fixing quick keen eyes on her as she walked by hisside, "pray, how did you learn all these particulars?"

"From a detective policeman employed to discover Sophy. In conferringwith him, the name of Jasper Losely as her legal protector was of coursestated; that name was already coupled with the name of the falseCaumartin. Thus, indirectly, the child you would have consigned to thatwoman saves you from sharing that woman's ignominy and doom. "

"Stuff!" said Jasper, stubbornly, though he winced at her words:"I don't, on reflection, see that anything can be proved against me. I am not bound to know why a lady changes her name, nor how she comes byher money. And as to her credit with tradesmen, --nothing to speak of:most of what she has got is paid for; what is not paid for is less thanthe worth of her goods. Pooh! I am not so easily frightened; muchobliged to you all the same. Go home now; 't is horridly late. Good-night, or rather good-morning. "

"Jasper, mark me, if you see that woman again; if you attempt to save orscreen her, --I shall know, and you lose in me your last friend, lasthope, last plank in a devouring sea!"

These words were so solemnly uttered that they thrilled the heart of thereckless man. "I have no wish to screen or save her, " he said, withselfish sincerity. "And after what you have said I would as soon entera fireship as that house. But let me have some hours to consider whatis best to be done. "

"Yes, consider--I shall expect you to-morrow. "

He went his way up the twilight streets towards a new lodging he hadhired not far from the showy house. She drew her mantle close round hergaunt figure, and, taking the opposite direction, threaded thoroughfaresyet lonelier, till she gained the door, and was welcomed back by thefaithful Bridget. 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

 Hope, tells a flattering tale to Mr. Rugge. He is undeceived by a solicitor; and left to mourn; but in turn, though unconsciously, Mr. Rugge deceives the solicitor, and the solicitor deceives his client, --which is 6s. 8d. In the solicitor's pocket. 

The next morning Arabella Crane was scarcely dressed before Mr. Ruggeknocked at her door. On the previous day the detective had informed himthat William and Sophy Waife were discovered to have sailed for America. Frantic, the unhappy manager hurried away to the steam-packet office, andwas favoured by an inspection of the books, which confirmed the hatefultidings. As if in mockery of his bereaved and defrauded state, onreturning home he found a polite note from Mr. Gotobed, requesting him tocall at the office of that eminent solicitor, with reference to a youngactress, named Sophy Waife, and hinting "that the visit might prove tohis advantage!" Dreaming for a wild moment that Mr. Losely, conscience-stricken, might through his solicitor pay back his L100, he rushedincontinent to Mr. Gotobed's office, and was at once admitted into thepresence of that stately practitioner. 

"I beg your pardon, sir, " said Mr. Gotobed, with formal politeness, "butI heard a day or two ago accidentally from my head clerk, who had learnedit also accidentally from a sporting friend, that you were exhibiting atHumberston, during the race-week, a young actress, named on the play-bills (here is one) 'Juliet Araminta, ' and whom, as I am informed, youhad previously exhibited in Surrey and elsewhere; but she was supposed tohave relinquished that earlier engagement, and left your stage with hergrandfather, William Waife. I am instructed by a distinguished client, who is wealthy, and who from motives of mere benevolence interestshimself in the said William and Sophy Waife, to discover their residence. Please, therefore, to render up the child to my charge, apprising me alsoof the address of her grandfather, if he be not with you; and withoutwaiting for further instructions from my client, who is abroad, I willventure to say that any sacrifice in the loss of your juvenile actresswill be most liberally compensated. "

"Sir, " cried the miserable and imprudent Rugge, "I paid L100 for thatfiendish child, --a three years' engagement, --and I have been robbed. Restore me the L100, and I will tell you where she is, and her vilegrandfather also. "

At hearing so bad a character lavished upon objects recommended to hisclient's disinterested charity, the wary solicitor drew in his pecuniaryhorns. 

"Mr. Rugge, " said he, "I understand from your words that you cannot placethe child Sophy, alias Juliet Araminta, in my hands. You ask L100 toinform me where she is. Have you a lawful claim on her?"

"Certainly, sir: she is my property. "

"Then it is quite clear that though you may know where she is, you cannotget at her yourself, and cannot, therefore, place her in my hands. Perhaps she 's--in Heaven!"

"Confound her, sir! no--in America! or on the seas to it. "

"Are you sure?"

"I have just come from the steam-packet office, and seen the names intheir book. William and Sophy Waife sailed from Liverpool last Thursdayweek. "

"And they formed an engagement with you, received your money; broke theone, absconded with the other. Bad characters indeed!"

"Bad! you may well say that, --a set of swindling scoundrels, the wholekit and kin. And the ingratitude!" continued Rugge; "I was more than afather to that child" (he began to whimper); "I had a babe of my ownonce; died of convulsions in teething. I thought that child would havesupplied its place, and I dreamed of the York Theatre; but"--here hisvoice was lost in the folds of a marvellously dirty red pocket-handkerchief. 

Mr. Gotobed having now, however, learned all that he cared to learn, andnot being a soft-hearted man (first-rate solicitors rarely are), herepulled out his watch, and said, "Sir, you have been very ill-treated, I perceive. I must wish you good-day; I have an engagement in the City. I cannot help you back to yourL100, but accept this trifle (a L5 note) for your loss of time incalling" (ringing the bell violently). "Door, --show out this gentleman. "

That evening Mr. Gotobed wrote at length to Guy Darrell, informing himthat, after great pains and prolonged research, he had been so fortunateas to ascertain that the strolling player and the little girl whom Mr. Darrell had so benevolently requested him to look up were very badcharacters, and had left the country for the United States, as happilyfor England bad characters were wont to do. 

That letter reached Guy Darrell when he was far away, amidst the forlornpomp of some old Italian city, and Lionel's tale of the little girl notvery fresh in his gloomy thoughts. Naturally, he supposed that the boyhad been duped by a pretty face and his own inexperienced kindly heart. And so, and so, --why, so end all the efforts of men who entrust to othersthe troublesome execution of humane intentions! The scales of earthlyjustice are poised in their quivering equilibrium, not by huge hundred-weights, but by infinitesimal grains, needing the most wary caution, themost considerate patience, the most delicate touch, to arrange orreadjust. Few of our errors, national or individual, come from thedesign to be unjust; most of them from sloth, or incapacity to grapplewith the difficulties of being just. Sins of commission may not, perhaps, shock the retrospect of conscience. Large and obtrusive to viewwe have confessed, mourned, repented, possibly atoned them. Sins ofomission so veiled amidst our hourly emotions, blent, confused, unseen, in the conventional routine of existence, --alas! could these suddenlyemerge from their shadow, group together in serried mass and accusingorder, --alas, alas! would not the best of us then start in dismay, andwould not the proudest humble himself at the Throne of Mercy?

CHAPTER XIX. 

 Joy, nevertheless, does return to Mr. Rugge: and hope now inflicts herself on Mrs. Crane; a very fine-looking hope too, --six feet one, --strong as Achilles, and as fleet of foot!

Buy we have left Mr. Rugge at Mrs. Crane's door; admit him. He burstsinto her drawing-room wiping his brows. "Ma'am, they're off to America!"

"So I have heard. You are fairly entitled to the return of your money--"

"Entitled, of course, but--"

"There it is; restore to me the contract for the child's services. "

Rugge gazed on a roll of bank-notes, and could scarcely believe his eyes. He darted forth his hand, --the notes receded like the dagger in Macbeth. "First the contract, " said Mrs. Crane. Rugge drew out his greasy pocket-book, and extracted the worthless engagement. 

"Henceforth, then, " said Mrs. Crane, "you have no right to complain; andwhether or not the girl ever again fall in your way, your claim over herceases. "

"The gods be praised! it does, ma'am, I have had quite enough of her. But you are every inch a lady, and allow me to add that I put you on myfree list for life. "

Rugge gone, Arabella Crane summoned Bridget to her presence. 

"Lor', miss, " cried Bridget, impulsively, "who'd think you'd been up allnight raking! I have not seen you look so well this many a year. "

"Ah, " said Arabella Crane, "I will tell you why. I have done what formany a year I never thought I should do again, --a good action. Thatchild, --that Sophy, --do you remember how cruelly I used her?"

"Oh, miss, don't go for to blame yourself; you fed her, you clothed her, when her own father, the villing, sent her away from hisself to you, --youof all people, you. How could you be caressing and fawning on hischild, --their child?"

Mrs. Crane hung her head gloomily. "What is past is past. I have livedto save that child, and a curse seems lifted from my soul. Now listen. I shall leave London--England--probably this evening. You will keep thishouse; it will be ready for me any moment I return. The agent whocollects my house-rents will give you money as you want it. Stint notyourself, Bridget. I have been saving and saving and saving for drearyyears, --nothing else to interest me, and I am richer than I seem. "

"But where are you going, miss?" said Bridget, slowly recovering fromthe stupefaction occasioned by her mistress's announcement. 

"I don't know; I don't care. "

"Oh, gracious stars! is it with that dreadful Jasper Losely?--it is, itis. You are crazed, you are bewitched, miss!"

"Possibly I am crazed, --possibly bewitched; but I take that man's life tomine as a penance for all the evil mine has ever known; and a day or twosince I should have said, with rage and shame, 'I cannot help it; Iloathe myself that I can care what becomes of him. ' Now, without rage, without shame, I say, 'The man whom I once so loved shall not die on agibbet if I can help it' and, please Heaven, help it I will. "

The grim woman folded her arms on her breast, and raising her head to itsfull height, there was in her face and air a stern gloomy grandeur, whichcould not have been seen without a mixed sensation of compassion and awe. 

"Go now, Bridget; I have said all. He will be here soon: he will come;he must come; he has no choice; and then--and then--" she closed hereyes, bowed her head, and shivered. 

Arabella Crane was, as usual, right in her predictions. Before noonJasper came, --came, not with his jocund swagger, but with that sidelongsinister look--of the man whom the world cuts--triumphantly restored toits former place in his visage. Madame Caumartin had been arrested;Poole had gone into the country with Uncle Sam; Jasper had seen a police-officer at the door of his own lodgings. He slunk away from thefashionable thoroughfares, slunk to the recesses of Podden Place, slunkinto Arabella Crane's prim drawing-room, and said sullenly, "All is up;here I am!"

Three days afterwards, in a quiet street in a quiet town of Belgium, --wherein a sharper, striving to live by his profession, would soon becomea skeleton, --in a commodious airy apartment, looking upon a magnificentstreet, the reverse of noisy, Jasper Losely sat secure, innocuous, andprofoundly miserable. In another house, the windows of which--facingthose of Jasper's sitting-room, from an upper story-commanded so good aview therein that it placed him under a surveillance akin to thatdesigned by Mr. Bentham's reformatory Panopticon, sat Arabella Crane. Whatever her real feelings towards Jasper Losely (and what those feelingswere no virile pen can presume authoritatively to define; for lived thereever a man who thoroughly understood a woman?), or whatever in earlierlife might have been their reciprocated vows of eternal love, --not onlyfrom the day that Jasper, on his return to his native shores, presentedhimself in Podden Place, had their intimacy been restricted to theausterest bonds of friendship, but after Jasper had so rudely declinedthe hand which now fed him, Arabella Crane had probably perceived thather sole chance of retaining intellectual power over his lawless beingnecessitated the utter relinquishment of every hope or project that couldexpose her again to his contempt. Suiting appearances to reality, thedecorum of a separate house was essential to the maintenance of thatauthority with which the rigid nature of their intercourse invested her. The additional cost strained her pecuniary resources, but she saved inher own accommodation in order to leave Jasper no cause to complain ofany stinting in his. There, then, she sat by her window, herself unseen, eying him in his opposite solitude, accepting for her own life a barrensacrifice, but a jealous sentinel on his. Meditating as she sat and asshe eyed him, --meditating what employment she could invent, with thebribe of emoluments to be paid furtively by her, for those strong handsthat could have felled an ox, but were nerveless in turning an honestpenny, and for that restless mind hungering for occupation, and with thedigestion of an ostrich for dice and debauch, riot and fraud, but queasyas an exhausted dyspeptic at the reception of one innocent amusement, onehonourable toil. But while that woman still schemes how to rescue fromhulks or halter that execrable man, who shall say that he is without achance? A chance he has: WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?