that this illness has had nothing alarming in it. In the second place,
that I may hear all you mean to say to me; I know about what,"--her
eyes drooped and her colour rose--"Mrs. Bloxam has told me; she has
fully explained all your kindness, all your goodness and generosity to
me. Will you tell me all you intended to say to me, and let me say
what I meant to say to you, just as if Mrs. Bush had never called me
by that strange name in your hearing, and then I will explain all."
The lustrous earnestness of her face rendered it far more beautiful
than Lord Sandilands had ever before seen it. Her mother had never
looked at him with that purposeful expression, with that look which
told of sorrow and knowledge, and the will and resolution to live them
down.

"I will do anything you wish, my dear," said the old nobleman; and it
was remarkable that he discarded in that moment all the measured
courtesy a manner which he had hitherto sedulously preserved, and
adopted in its stead the deep and warm interest, the partial judgment,
the protecting tone of his true relationship to her. "Sit here beside
me, and listen. I have some painful things to say, but they will soon
be said; and I hope--I hope happy days are in store for you;" but his
face was clouded, and doubt, even dread, expressed itself in his
voice. Gertrude did not exactly obey him. Instead of taking a seat,
she placed herself on her knees beside his chair; and in this attitude
she listened to his words.

"I know how it is with you and Miles Challoner, my dear, and Miles is
dearer to me than any person in the world except one,--and that one
is you."

"I!" said Gertrude, amazed. "I dearer to you than Miles Challoner,
your old friend's child!"

"Yes," he said, with a faint smile, "for you are my own child,
Gertrude; that is what I sent for you to tell you, and I want to make
you happy if I can." So saying, the old man took her bent head between
his hands, and kissed her. Gertrude did not evince any violent
emotion--she turned extremely pale, and her eyes filled with tears;
but she did not say anything for a little while, and she afterwards
wondered at the quietness with which the revelation was made and
received. She was not even certain that she had been very much
surprised. Mrs. Bloxam rose, opened the window, stepped out upon the
balcony, and carefully closed the window behind her. During a
considerable time she might have been observed by the numerous
promenaders on the Esplanade, leaning over the railing, which was more
ornamental than solid, in an attitude of profound abstraction. By
those within the room her very existence was forgotten until, in the
course of their mutual interrogation, her name came to be mentioned.
Still kneeling beside him, but now with her head resting against his
breast, and one long thin white hand laid tenderly upon the bright
masses of her chestnut hair, Gertrude heard from her father the story
of her mother's brief happy life and early death;--and the sternest
might have forgiven the old man the unintentional, deception which was
self-delusion, which made him tell his daughter how only that early
death had prevented his making Gertrude Gautier his wife. For the
first time he realised now in the keenness of his longing, in the
misery of his dreaded powerlessness to secure the happiness of his
child, the full extent of the injury inflicted upon her by her
illegitimate birth.

"I know," he said, "that Miles loves you, and I think you love him,
and I know you would be happy. I have lived long enough in the world,
and seen enough of it, to know how rarely one can say that with common
sense and justice of any two human beings. Tell me, Gertrude, why it
is that you have refused Miles,--why it is that you seem determined
not to let me smooth away all obstacles to your marrying him?"

The conversation had lasted long, and had embraced many subjects,
before it reached this point. Gertrude had undergone much and varying
emotion, but she had not lost her calmness, partly because of her
exceptional strength of mind and body, and partly because she never
suffered herself to forget the danger of over-excitement to Lord
Sandilands. She had listened quietly to the story of her mother (the
idea of actually learning about her own parentage, and being able to
realise it, was quite new to her--and abstract sentiment was not in
Gertrude's way), and had rendered to it the tribute of silent tears.
She had heard her father tell how he had first recognised her at Lady
Carabas' concert, and how he had felt the strong instinctive interest
in which he had never believed, and which he had never practically
experimented in, arise at the sight of her; how he had found, first
with misgiving, and afterwards with increasing pleasure, ratified and
approved by his conscience because of his knowledge of Miles
Challoner's tastes and character, that his young friend and companion
was attached to her. She had heard him tell how he had watched the
ill-success of Lord Ticehurst's suit with pleasure, and how he had won
Miles to confide to him his hopes and plans, and encouraged him to
hope for success, and then had been induced by her refusal of Miles
and his belief that that refusal was dictated by disinterested
regard for Challoner's worldly interests, and in no degree by her own
feelings, to take the resolution of telling her all the truth--upon
which resolution he was now acting.

So far Gertrude had been wonderfully composed. Her father had said to
her all he had urged with himself, when he had been first assailed by
misgivings that his old friend would have resented his endeavouring to
bring about a marriage between Miles and a woman to whom the
disadvantage of illegitimate birth attached; and she had assented,
adding that while she only knew herself utterly obscure, she had felt
and acted upon the sense of her own inferiority. The conversation had
strayed away from Gertrude's early life--the father met his
acknowledged daughter for the first time as a woman, and they made
haste to speak of present great interests. Mrs. Bloxam might have been
quite easy in her mind about the amount of notice her share in any of
the transactions of the past would be likely to excite. But now, when
Lord Sandilands pleaded earnestly the cause of Miles Challoner, and in
arguing it argued in favour of the weakness of Gertrude's own heart,
her fortitude gave way, and a full and overwhelming knowledge of the
bitterness of her fate rushed in upon her soul. The veil fell from her
eyes; she knew herself for the living lie she was; she realised that
the unjustifiable compact she had made with her husband was a
criminal, an accursed convention, bearing more and more fruit of
bitterness and shame and punishment, as her father unfolded the scheme
of a bright and happy future which he had formed for her.

"If he had been any other than Miles Challoner," she had said to Mrs.
Bloxam, she would have married him, would have incurred the risk for
rank and money--or she had thought so, had really believed it of
herself. What had possessed her with such an idea? What had made her
contemplate in herself a creature so lost, so utterly, coldly wicked?
It was so long since she had permitted herself to think of her real
position; she had deliberately blinded, voluntarily stultified her
mind for so long, that she had ceased to feel that she was playing a
part as fictitious off, as any she performed on the stage. But now, as
her father's voice went on, speaking lovingly, hopefully, telling her
how conventionalities should be disregarded and wealth supplied in her
interests; telling her she need have no fear in the case of such a man
as Miles--had he not known him all his life?--of any late regret or
after reproach; now the tide of anguish rushed over her, and with
choking sobs she implored him to desist.

"Don't, don't!" she said. "You don't know--O my God!--you don't
know--and how shall I ever tell you? There is another reason, ten
thousand times stronger; all the others I gave were only pretences,
anything to keep him from suspecting, from finding out the truth;
there is a reason which makes it altogether impossible."

"Another reason! What is it? Tell me at once--tell me," said Lord
Sandilands; and he raised himself in his chair, and held her by the
shoulders at arms' length from him. Dread, suspicion, pain were in his
face; and under the influence of strong emotion, which reflected
itself in her features, the father and daughter, with all the
difference of colouring and of form, were wonderfully like each other.

"I will tell you," she said; but she shut her eyes, and then hid them
with her hand while she spoke, shrinking from his gaze. "I will tell
you. I am not free to be Miles Challoner's wife. I am married to
another man."

"Married! You married?"

"Yes," she said, "I am married. Your housekeeper knows me as a married
woman. The name she called me by is my real name. You know the man who
is my husband, unhappy wretch that I am!"

"Who is he?" said Lord Sandilands hoarsely, his nerveless hands
falling from her shoulders as he spoke. She looked at him, was alarmed
at the paleness of his face, and rose hurriedly from her knees.

"You are ill," she said. "I will go--" But he caught her dress, and
held it.

"Tell me who he is."

"Gilbert Lloyd!"

Gertrude was horrified at the effect which the communication she had
made to her father had upon him. He had set his heart strongly indeed
upon her marriage with Miles Challoner, she thought, when the
frustration of the project had the power to plunge him into a state of
prostration and misery. As for herself, the alarm she experienced, and
the great excitement she had undergone in the revelation made to her
by her father, the agony of mind she had suffered in the desperate
necessity for avowing the truth, were quickly succeeded by such
physical exhaustion as she had never before felt. This effect of
mental excitement was largely assisted by the weakness still remaining
after her illness, and was so complete and irresistible, that when she
had seen the doctor hurriedly summoned to Lord Sandilands by Mrs.
Bloxam's orders--that lady's meditations on the balcony had been
terminated by Gertrude's cry for help--and learned that the patient
was not in danger, but must be kept absolutely quiet, she yielded to
it at once.

Not a word was said by Mrs. Bloxam to Gertrude concerning the
disclosure made by Lord Sandilands. In the confusion and distress
which ensued on the sudden attack of violent pain with which her
father was seized, Gertrude lost sight of time and place, and thought
of nothing but him so long as she was able to think of anything.
Little more than an hour had elapsed since Lord Sandilands had told
her the secret of his life, and she was speaking of him freely to Mrs.
Bloxam as her father, and the word hardly sounded strange. She could
not return to Hardriggs; she was not able, even if she would have left
Lord Sandilands. There was no danger of her seeing Miles if she
remained at St. Leonards. Lord Sandilands had told her early in their
interview that he had sent Miles up to town, and procured his absence
until he should summon him back by promising to plead his cause in his
absence. She and Mrs. Bloxam must remain--not in the house, indeed,
but at the nearest hotel. She would send a message to that effect to
Lady Belwether, and inform Mrs. Bush of her intention.

Mrs. Bush had not relaxed her suspicious reserve during all the bustle
and confusion which had ensued on the sudden illness of Lord
Sandilands. She had been brought into contact with Gertrude frequently
as they went from room to room in search of remedies, and ultimately
met by the old nobleman's bedside after the doctor's visit. Mrs. Bush
did not indeed call Gertrude "Mrs. Lloyd" again, but she scrupulously
addressed her as "Madam;" and there was an unpleasant, though not
distinctly offensive, significance about her manner which convinced
Gertrude that not an incident of the terrible time at Brighton had
been forgotten by the _ci-devant_ lodging-house keeper, whose changed
position had set her free from the necessity of obsequiousness.

Gertrude had taken a resolution on the subject of Mrs. Bush, on which
she acted with characteristic decision, when at length her father was
sleeping under the influence of opiates, and she and Mrs. Bloxam had
agreed that their remaining at St. Leonards was inevitable. She asked
Mrs. Bush to accompany her to the drawing-room, and then said to her
at once:

"You are surprised to see me here, Mrs. Bush, no doubt; and as I
understand from Lord Sandilands that he has great confidence in you,
and values your services highly, I think it right to explain to you
what may seem strange in the matter."

Mrs. Bush looked at the young lady a little more kindly than before,
and muttered something about being much obliged, and hoping she should
merit his lordship's good opinion. Gertrude continued:

"It will displease Lord Sandilands, to whom I am closely related, if
the fact of my being married is talked about. I am separated from Mr.
Lloyd, and it is customary for singers to retain their own names. Mine
is Grace Lambert. If you desire to please his lordship, you may do so
by keeping silence on this subject, by not telling anyone that you
ever saw me at Brighton under another name."

With the shrewdness which most women of her class and calling possess
by nature, and which the necessities of her struggling career as a
lodging-housekeeper had developed, Mrs. Bush instantly perceived her
own interest in this affair, and replied very civilly that she was
sure she should never mention anything his lordship would wish
concealed; and that she was not given to gossip, thank goodness! never
had been when she had a house herself, and which her opinion had
always been as lodgers' business was their own and not hers.
Consequent, she had never said a word about the poor dear gentleman
what had died so sudden,--at this point of her discourse Gertrude's
jaded nerves thrilled again with pain,--although it had injured her
house serious. With a last effort of self-command, Gertrude listened
to her apparently unmoved, and dismissed her, with an intimation that
she should return in the morning to take her place by Lord Sandilands.
Mrs. Bush had both a talent and a taste for nursing invalids, and she
established herself in the darkened room, there to watch the troubled
sleeper, with cheerful alacrity. Her thoughts were busy with Gertrude,
however, and with what she had said to her. "So she's his near
relation, is she?" thus ran Mrs. Bush's cogitations. "_What_ relation
now, I wonder? Lambert is not a family name on any side, and he called
her Miss Keith too--and I'll be hanged if he knew she was married! I'm
sure he didn't. There's something queer in all this; but it's not my
affair. However, if his lordship asks me any questions, I'm not going
to hold my tongue to him. Separated from Mr. Lloyd! I wonder was she
ever really married to him? She looked like it, and spoke like it,
though; a more respectable young woman in her ways never came to my
place, for the little time she was in it. I wonder what she has left
him for?--though in my belief it's a good job for her, and he's a bad
lot."

The hours of the night passed over the heads of the father and the
daughter unconsciously. With the morning came the renewed sense of
something important and painful having taken place. On the preceding
evening, Gertrude had entreated Mrs. Bloxam to refrain from
questioning her. "I am too tired," she had said. "I cannot talk about
it; let me rest now, and I will tell you everything in the morning."
To this Mrs. Bloxam had gladly assented; she was naturally very
anxious, and not a little curious; but anxiety and curiosity were both
held in abeyance by the satisfaction she experienced in perceiving
that the revelations which had been made had not seriously injured her
position with Lord Sandilands or with Gertrude. The mutual recognition
between Gertrude and Mrs. Bush had been unintelligible to her. That it
had produced important results she could not doubt; but on the whole,
she did not regret them. The acknowledgment of Gertrude's marriage
might prevent future mischief, in which she (Mrs. Bloxam) might
possibly be unpleasantly involved, and at present it was evident that,
in the overwhelming agitation and surprise of the discovery, her
conduct had been entirely forgotten or overlooked. That she might
continue to occupy a position of such safe obscurity was, for herself,
Mrs. Bloxam's dearest wish; and Mrs. Bloxam's wishes seldom extended,
at all events with any animation, beyond herself.

Lord Sandilands awoke free from pain, but so weak and confused that it
was some time before he could bring up the occurrences of yesterday,
in their due order and weight of import, before his mind. He had
received a shock from which his physical system could hardly be
expected to recover; but the extent of the mental effect--the fear,
the horror, the awakening of remorse, not yet to be softened into
abiding and availing repentance--none but he could ever estimate. The
past, the present, and the future alike menaced, alike tortured him:
the dead friend, the sole sharer of whose confidence he was; the dead
man's son, whom he loved almost as well as if he were of his own flesh
and blood; the dead woman, whom he had deceived and betrayed (in the
wholesome bitterness of his awakened feelings Lord Sandilands was hard
upon himself, and ready to ignore the ignorance which had made her a
facile victim); the dreadful combination of fate which had made the
daughter whom he had neglected and disowned the wife of a man whose
tremendous guilt her father alone of living creatures knew, and had
thrown her in the path of that same guilty man's brother, to love him
and be beloved by him. In so dire a distress was he; and this girl
whom he loved with an anxious intensity which surprised himself,
imprisoned in the hopeless meshes of the net in which his feet were
involved. No wonder he found it hard, with all his natural courage,
and all the acquired calmness of his caste, to marshal these facts in
their proper order, and make head against the dismay they caused him.
But this was no time for dismay. He had to act in a terrible emergency
of his daughter's life, and to act, if indeed it were possible for any
ingenuity or prudence to enable him to do so, so that the real truth
of the emergency, the full extent of its terrible nature, should be
known to himself alone, never suspected by her. The housekeeper came
softly to the old nobleman's bedside while his mind was working busily
at this problem, the most difficult which life had ever set him for
solution; and seeing his eyes closed and his face quiet, believed him
to be still sleeping, and withdrew gently.

By degrees, the facts and the necessities of the case arranged
themselves somewhat in this order. Gertrude had told her father of her
marriage, of the misery which had speedily resulted from it, and of
the strange bargain made between her husband and herself. She knew
Lloyd's worthlessness then, though she had spoken but vaguely of him
as a gambler and a reckless, unprincipled man, not giving Lord
Sandilands any reason to think she could regard him as capable of
actual crime. The shock of the disclosure Gertrude had imputed simply
to his horror of the clandestine nature of her marriage, and the moral
blindness and deadness which had made the bargain between her and
Lloyd present itself as possible to their minds (the light of a true
and pure love had shone on Gertrude now, and shown her the full
turpitude of the transaction); his sudden seizure had prevented his
hearing more than a brief, bare outline of the dreadful episode of his
daughter's marriage. She knew nothing of the real, appalling truth;
she was ignorant that the man she had married was a criminal of the
deepest dye, the secret of his crime in her father's hands, his own
brother the object of her affections, and the only possible issue out
of all this complication and misery one involving utter and eternal
separation between her and Miles Challoner. If he and Gertrude ever
met again, she must learn the truth; she must learn that Gilbert Lloyd
was Geoffrey Challoner, and an additional weight of horror and anguish
be added to the load of sorrow her unfortunate marriage--in which Lord
Sandilands humbly and remorsefully recognised the consequence, the
direct result, of his own sin--had laid upon her. If she could be
prevented from ever knowing the worst? If he, invested with the
authority and with the affection of a parent, could induce her to
consent to an immediate separation from Miles Challoner, to a prompt
removal from the possibility of seeing him, by strengthening her own
views of the insuperable nature of the barrier between them? She would
not, however, yield to Miles's prayer for their marriage; but that
would not be sufficient for her safety: she must never see him more;
she must be kept from the misery of learning the truth. How was this
to be done? For some time Lord Sandilands found no answer to that
question; but at last it suggested itself. Miles--yes, he would make
an appeal to him; he would tell him all the truth--to him who knew
that Lord Sandilands also possessed that other secret, which, to judge
by its consequences, must be indeed a terrible one; and Miles would be
merciful to this woman, who, though she had sinned by the false
pretence under which she lived, was so much more sinned against; and,
appearing to accept her decision, Miles would not ask to see her
again. Yes, that would do; he was sure that would succeed. And then he
would acknowledge Gertrude as his daughter to all who had any claim to
an explanation of any proceedings of his--the number was
satisfactorily small--and he would leave England for ever, with
Gertrude. It was wonderful with how strong and irresistible a voice
Nature was now speaking to the old man's heart; how all the habits and
conventionalities of his life seemed to be dropping suddenly away from
him, and something new, but far more powerful, establishing itself in
their stead as a law of his being. The tremendous truth and extent of
his responsibility as regarded Gertrude presented themselves to him
now in vivid reality, and the strongest desire of his heart was for
strength, skill, and patience, to carry out the plan which presented
itself for her benefit. He felt no anger towards her for what she had
done. Poor motherless, fatherless, unprotected girl, how was she to
understand the moral aspect of such a deed? He pitied the folly, but
he did not seriously regard the guilt, while he deplored the
consequences. Gertrude's professional career, he saw at once, must
come to an immediate and abrupt close. There was no safety for her in
the terrible unexplained attitude of the brothers Challoner, and her
total unconsciousness of it and its bearing upon her own fate, but
absence from the scene of the secret drama. With the grief of her
hopeless, impossible love at her heart, and with the help and safety
of her new-discovered relationship to him, security for her future and
escape from the present, Gertrude would not hesitate about abandoning
her career as a singer. It had never had for her the intoxicating
delight and excitement with which such a success is invested for the
fortunate few who attain it; and as for the world, the lapse of the
brilliant star from the operatic firmament would be a nine-days'
wonder, and no more, like such other of the episodes of her story and
his as the world might come to learn. That part of the business hardly
deserved, and certainly did not receive, more than the most passing
consideration from Lord Sandilands. It was all dreadfully painful, and
full of complications which involved infinite distress; but Lord
Sandilands began to see light in his difficult way. It was not until
he had thought long and anxiously of Gertrude and of Miles that his
mind turned in the direction of Gilbert Lloyd; and then it was with
inexpressible pain that he contemplated the fact that this man, whom
of all men he most abhorred, was the husband of his daughter; had had
the power to make her girlhood miserable, to blight her life in its
bloom, and to continue to blight it to the end. How great a villain
Gilbert Lloyd was, he alone knew; but no doubt Gertrude had had
considerable experience of his character. On this point he would find
out all the truth by degrees. His thoughts glanced for a moment at the
probable effect it would have on Lloyd when he should discover that
the one man in the world in whose power he was, was the father of his
wife, and had constituted himself her protector. At least there was
one bright spot in all this mass of misery: knowing this, Lloyd would
never dare to molest Gertrude, would never venture to seek her or
trouble her, in any straits, however severe, to which his unprincipled
life might drive him. In this perfectly reasonable calculation there
was but one item astray: Lord Sandilands had no suspicion of the state
of feeling in which Gilbert Lloyd now was with respect to his wife. If
he had known the fierce revival of passion for her, and the rage which
filled his baffled and desperate heart, Lord Sandilands would not have
looked with so much confidence upon the prospect of suffering no
molestation from Lloyd. Whether his tigerish nature could ever be
wholly controlled by fear, was a question to which no answer could yet
be given. But Lord Sandilands did not ask it, and his thoughts had
again reverted to Miles, and were dwelling sadly on the caprice of
fate which had brought his brother once more so fatally across his
track, and had erected so strange a link between the calamity which
had overshadowed his dead friend's life and that which must now be the
abiding sorrow of his own, when the arrival of the doctor interrupted
his musings, and obliged him to confess to being awake.

When the visit was concluded, with a favourable report but many
cautions on the part of the medical attendant, Lord Sandilands
inquired of Mrs. Bush when the arrival of the two ladies might be
looked for. They had already sent to ask how his lordship was, and
would be there at eleven. Lord Sandilands then bethought him that the
recognition of the preceding day, which had no doubt led to his
receiving his daughter's confidence, and being preserved from blindly
pursuing a course of persuasion and advocacy of Miles Challoner's
suit, which might have led to most disastrous consequences, could now
be made still more useful, as affording him an opportunity of learning
more about his daughter's married life than she had had time or
probably inclination to tell him.

The old man looked very weak and curiously older all of a sudden, and
Mrs. Bush, a kind-hearted woman in her narrow little way, was sorry to
see the change. The sympathy in her manner and voice inspired Lord
Sandilands with a resolution somewhat similar to that one which
Gertrude had noted on the previous day. He asked Mrs. Bush to take a
seat, requested her best attention to what he was going to say, and
then told her without any circumlocution that the lady called Grace
Lambert, whom she had known as Mrs. Lloyd, was his daughter, whom he
intended to acknowledge and to take abroad with him. The housekeeper
showed very plainly the astonishment which this communication
occasioned her, and her embarrassment was extreme when Lord Sandilands
continued: "And now, Mrs. Bush, I wish you to tell me all you know
about my daughter, and all that occurred while Mr. Lloyd, from whom
she separated immediately afterwards, lodged at your house at
Brighton."

"Of course, my lord," replied Mrs. Bush, in a nervous and hesitating
manner, "I cannot refuse to do as your lordship wishes, nor do I wish
so to do; but Mrs. Lloyd did not lodge at my house at all in a manner;
she only came there unexpected, and went away at night, after the poor
gentleman died, as were took so sudden--dear, dear, how sudden he were
took, to be sure!"

"What gentleman? I don't understand you. Pray tell me the whole story,
Mrs. Bush; don't omit any particulars you can remember; it is of great
importance to me."

Mrs. Bush possessed no ordinary share of that very common gift of
persons of her class--circumlocution, and she told her story with a
delightful sense of revelling in the fullest details. Her hearer, not
under ordinary circumstances distinguished for patience, neither
hurried nor interrupted her, but, on the contrary, when he asked her
any questions at all, put to her such as induced her to lengthen and
amplify the narrative. When the housekeeper took her seat beside his
bed, Lord Sandilands had been lying with his face towards her. As she
progressed in her account of the sojourn of Gilbert Lloyd and Harvey
Gore at her house, he turned away, and lay towards the wall against
which his bed was placed, so that at the conclusion of the story she
did not see his face. Ashy pale that face was, and it bore a fixed
look of horror; for, bringing his own secret knowledge of Gilbert
Lloyd to bear upon the story told by the housekeeper, Lord Sandilands
readily divined what was that swift, unaccountable illness of which
Lloyd's friend had died, what the irresistible power his wife had
wielded in insisting upon the separation which had taken place. "The
wretched girl! What must she not have suffered!" the father thought.
"Alone, in the power of such a man, in possession of such a secret,
whether by positive knowledge or only strong suspicion, no matter.
Good God, what must she not have suffered! What has she not yet before
her to suffer!"

Here, as he afterwards thought, in reflecting upon the unconscious
disclosure which Mrs. Bush had made to him--here was another barrier
against any possible molestation of Gertrude by her husband, a
horrible truth to grasp at with something like ghastly satisfaction.
But horrible truths were all around them in this miserable
complication, on every side.

"Thank you," said Lord Sandilands, when Mrs. Bush had concluded her
narrative. "I am much indebted to you for telling me all these
particulars. You will oblige me very materially by not mentioning the
subject in any way to anyone."

Mrs. Bush was aware that Lord Sandilands not only possessed the means
but the inclination to make it very well worth anyone's while to
oblige him, so she immediately resolved upon maintaining undeviating
fidelity to the obligation he imposed upon her; and she afterwards
kept her resolution, which she found profitable.

When Gertrude arrived, Mrs. Bush met her with a request that she would
go to his lordship at once, which implied that Mrs. Bloxam was to
remain in the drawing-room. This she did, composedly occupying herself
with needlework, and feeling her hopes that she should be entirely
overlooked in the crisis of affairs growing stronger and stronger. It
may as well be said here, once for all, that these hopes were
justified. Mrs. Bloxam was never called to account by Lord Sandilands
for his money, or her own conduct.

"I take it upon myself, my dear," said Lord Sandilands to his
daughter, when many hours passed in close and mournful consultation
between them had gone by; "as soon as I am able to move--and, you see,
I am greatly better already--the arrangements shall all be made."

From the bed where he lay, the old man's eyes were turned anxiously,
sadly, towards the figure of his daughter. Gertrude was seated in a
deep chintz-covered chair, in the bay of the window, which overlooked
a small garden of the sterile and sandy order, familiar to the memory
of occasional dwellers in seaside lodging-houses. She was leaning
forward, her head resting on her hands, her arms supported by a little
three-legged table, her attitude full of grace and dejection. The
afternoon sun tinged her pale cheek and her clustering hair, but for
the moment the brilliance that was so characteristic of her appearance
was gone. But she touched the old man's heart all the more keenly for
the lack of brilliancy, for she was more like her mother without
it,--the dead mother whom she had never seen, and whose name had as
yet been barely mentioned between them.

"Yes," she said absently, drearily, "I must leave it all to you. How
strange it is to me to know that I have you to help me, to leave it
all to!"

"You will not pine for the excitement and applause to which you are so
accustomed, Gertrude?"

"No; they have been very wearisome to me of late, since I have known
how much might have been mine that never can be now."

"No indeed, my dear," said her father earnestly, "it never, never can
be now; and your true courage, your true good sense is in
acknowledging this at once, and consenting to turn your back upon it
all promptly. You shall have none of the misery of severing these
ties; I will write to Munns, and tell him I am ready to indemnify his
real or imaginary losses."

"It will cost you a great deal of money," she said, still absently,
still drearily.

"It is almost time that I began to spend it on you," said her father,
with a very unsuccessful attempt at a smile.

The past, the present, and the future had been discussed during the
hours they had passed together, and emotion had worn itself out.
Steadily keeping in mind the concealment he desired to practise, and
the effect he designed to produce, the old nobleman had received the
confidences which his daughter--who more and more strongly felt
the tie between them hour by hour, and softened under its
influence--imparted to him with the utmost tenderness and indulgence,
but with as little effusion as possible. He had induced her to tell
him the whole truth concerning her separation from her husband; and
had received the terrible revelation with calmness which would have
perhaps shocked Gertrude had she not been too much absorbed in the
newer, sacred sorrow of her hopeless love to perceive as keenly as was
her wont, had she not also been much exhausted physically, and thus
mercifully less sensible to impressions. She had also told him of
Gilbert Lloyd's late pursuit of her; and at that portion of her
narrative Lord Sandilands ground his still strong white teeth with
furious anger, and a thrill of exultation mingled with the rage and
misery of the circumstances, as he thought how utterly this villain
was in his power, how soon he would set his foot upon his neck and see
him writhe in impotent anguish and humiliation. But this was one of
the feelings which he had to conceal from Gertrude, and he did
effectually conceal it.

The plan decided upon was that Gertrude and Mrs. Bloxam should return
on that evening to Hardriggs, and terminate their stay there as soon
as possible; and then go to London and occupy the interval which must
elapse before Lord Sandilands could travel, in making preparations for
departure. The pretty villa was to be given up; the household gods
which Gertrude had gathered around her were to be dispersed, and her
life was "to begin over again." Is there any drearier phrase than
that? can words represent any harder fact, any more painful idea? Then
Lord Sandilands and his daughter would go abroad, and leave the
English world behind them, to think and say just what it might please.
The place of their abode was not even discussed. All foreign countries
were alike new to Gertrude, and old to Lord Sandilands. One little
point of detail had been mentioned between them. If Gertrude wished
it, her father would take Mrs. Bloxam with them. He inclined to the
belief that it would be butter not; better to be away from everyone
connected with the past, from which it was their wish, their object to
escape. And his daughter agreed with him, as did Mrs. Bloxam, when the
matter was mentioned to her. She hated foreign countries--her trip to
Italy was a standing grievance--and she was very glad to retire from
her post of chaperone to Miss Lambert, with such a handsome present in
money from Lord Sandilands--an ill-deserved acknowledgment of her
services--as, added to the savings she had accumulated at the Vale
House, rendered her free from the presence or the apprehension of
poverty. When the time of parting came, this lady, on the whole a not
unfortunate member of society as human affairs are constituted, took
leave of Lord Sandilands and his daughter with the utmost propriety;
and it is more than probable that by this time she has ceased to
remember their existence.

Gertrude took leave of her father, when the appointed time came for
her return to Hardriggs, with little visible emotion. She was dazed
and exhausted; and it was not until the events of the last few days
were weeks old, and she passed them in review under a foreign sky, in
a distant land, far away from the man she loved and the man she bated,
that she began to realise them in detail, and to feel that she had,
indeed, "begun life over again."

When Lord Sandilands contemplated the prospect of the interview he was
about to have with Miles Challoner, he shrunk from it with dread. But
he had to go through with it; and perhaps the most painful moment of
the many painful hours he and his friend passed together was that in
which the young man advanced to him with beaming looks, with
outstretched hand, with agitated voice, and said, "You have sent for
me? you have good news for me?"

The task was done the task in which the old man felt the hand of
retribution striking him heavily through the suffering of those he
loved--the pain was borne, and the day after that which witnessed the
arrival of Gertrude and Mrs. Bloxam in London saw Miles Challoner
leaving the great city for Rowley Court, where he shut himself up in
such gloomy seclusion that the people about began to talk oddly of it.
Somehow the Court seemed an unlucky place, they said. First, the
mysterious disgrace and banishment of the younger son; then the
lonely, moping, moody life of the Squire; and now here was the young
Squire going the same gait. There was surely something in it which was
not lucky, that there was, and time would tell.

The world did talk, as they had anticipated, of the departure of Lord
Sandilands and Miss Lambert for foreign parts; and as it was some
little time before it got hold, of anything like a correct version of
the story, it started some very pretty and ingenious theories to
account for that "unaccountable" proceeding. Managers were savage,
_débutantes_ delighted, and Lady Carabas, who knew nothing whatever of
the matter, was charmingly mysterious, and assured everyone that her
dear Grace had been guided in everything by her advice, and that that
dear Lord Sandilands was the most perfect of creatures, and had
behaved like an angel. And then, in even a shorter time than Lord
Sandilands and Gertrude had calculated upon, the world, including Lady
Carabas, forgot them.

CHAPTER V.
An Explosion.

When Gilbert Lloyd awoke the next morning after an excellent night's
rest, his first impression was that something disagreeable had
happened on the previous evening, but it was some time before he could
exactly recollect all the circumstances and pass them calmly in review
before him. Even when he had done so he felt by no means certain how
far matters had gone. He had taken too much of that infernal brandy,
he remembered with disgust--taken it because he had been brooding over
that business at Brighton which happened years ago, it is true, but
which some confounded fate seemed to have set people talking about
lately. He had not thought about it, it had never troubled him, and
now he found his mind continually running on that one subject. It must
have been the constant reference made by those about him to--to his
wife that must have turned his thoughts in that direction. Curses on
that Sunday regulation of shutting the telegraph-offices! If he had
only been able to send that telegram as he had originally intended
early in the morning, it would have stopped her coming down, and
prevented her having that fatal hold over him, of which she is well
aware, and which she is determined to exercise if necessary. It was
thinking last night of all these things combined that had sent him to
the brandy-bottle, a dangerous habit, which seemed to be growing upon
him, he thought, and which he must at once break himself of, as
ruinous and destructive of all chances of keeping that clearness of
brain which was to him a vital necessity. He was muddled the previous
night; he felt it then; he only saw through a glass darkly what had
happened, and the retrospect was by no means agreeable. Etchingham had
annoyed him, he recollected that; and he had replied without measuring
his language, and the result had been that they had agreed to part. O
yes, now he remembered what Bobby Maitland had told Etchingham about
him. What an idiot he had been to make a row about such a thing as
that! He knew well enough that Bobby Maitland had been trying all he
knew for years to supplant him in Etchingham's confidence, that he was
awfully jealous of him, and would say or do anything to get a rise out
of him. He must have taken an amount of brandy to have made such an
ass of himself. It was a comfort to know that Etchingham was sure to
be all right in the morning, and to be in a great fright at what had
occurred. He knew his pupil well enough to be certain of that. No
doubt his lordship had also dined, and had taken quite enough of Mr.
Stackborough's wine. They were both of them excited, no doubt, but he
must take care and stand on his dignity, and then Etchingham would
come round at once.

So, thinking over these things, Gilbert Lloyd took his cold sea-water
bath, which got rid of most of the ill effects of the previous night,
and having leisurely dressed himself, descended to the room where
breakfast was laid. He was the first; Lord Ticehurst had not yet
appeared. So Gilbert took up the newspaper, and after glancing at the
state of the odds and the sporting-intelligence generally, remained
expectant. He had not to wait very long. In a few minutes Lord
Ticehurst, looking very white and seedy, and with his small eyes more
tightly screwed up and sunk more deeply into his head than usual,
entered the room. Gilbert bade him "good-morning," which his lordship,
walking round the table and flinging himself into an easy-chair, only
answered by a short nod. He then rang the bell, and, on the waiter's
appearing, ordered brandy and soda-water. This, Lloyd argued to
himself, was merely the effect of the "morning after," the result of
too much indulgence in Stackborough's wines. His lordship's digestion
was impaired and consequently his temper suffered: both would improve
simultaneously. But after his brandy and soda-water, Lord Ticehurst
pulled his chair to the table, and commenced and proceeded with a very
excellent breakfast, during the discussion of which he said never a
word to his anxiously-expectant confederate, while, at its finish, he
lit a big cigar, and, still mute, armed himself with a telescope,
flung open the window, and stepped into the balcony to inspect the
exhibition of the naiads bathing in the foreground.

For once in his life Gilbert Lloyd was nonplused. He had made
perfectly certain that Etchingham would have cried peccavi, would have
come to him begging to have their relations replaced on the old
footing; and here was the recalcitrant apparently quite at ease, not
taking the least notice of him, and obviously rather enjoying himself
than otherwise. Had he been blind, or had Etchingham's character
suddenly changed? One thing was quite certain, that all was going
wrong, and that he must take prompt measures to set himself right.
Gilbert Lloyd was not an adept at leek-swallowing. He had played his
cards so well during the latter portion at least of his life that he
had seldom been required to perform that humiliating feat, but he saw
that he must do it now. Lord Ticehurst was, like most good-natured
men, intensely obstinate and sulky when affronted, and though Lloyd
had had no experience of this state of his pupil's mood so far as he
was regarded, he had seen it evidenced against others. It was
perfectly plain that one of these fits, and a very strong one, was on
Lord Ticehurst at present, and Lloyd was compelled to acknowledge to
himself that if he wanted to retain his position in the future he must
knuckle under unreservedly and at once.

He laid down the newspaper which he had made a pretence of reading,
and looked towards the window. There, in the balcony, sat his
lordship, the light-blue smoke from his cigar curling round his head,
and his eye fixed at the telescope which he held in his hand Gilbert
rose and went behind him, but Lord Ticehurst, although he must have
heard the footstep, never moved. Then Gilbert laid his hand on his
pupil's shoulder, and said, "Etchingham!"

His lordship moved his eye from the telescope, and looked quietly at
Lloyd. "Well?" said he, in a sufficiently sulky manner.

"I have come to ask your pardon. I--"

"O, there, that's all right," said his lordship, preparing to
recommence his performance with the telescope.

"No, it is not all right. You and I have been intimate allies for a
very long time. Until last night there has never been a word of
difference between us. Nor would there have been then but for the
infernal meddling of people who--"

"O, just look here! I didn't name any names, remember. It was you who
said you knew Bobby Maitland had been making mischief."

"It was I; I acknowledge it. You are quite right. You are far too good
a fellow to say a word against even such a bad lot as that. I lost my
temper, and I spoke out. But why? Because I was in a tremendous rage
at the impudence of that fellow Maitland daring to put his own words
and his own sentiments into my mouth, and to pretend that I had said
them. His own words and sentiments, I say, and no one else's."

"What! Do you mean to say that you never said--all that confounded
stuff about the 'nurse,' and all that?"

"I pledge you my word of honour I never said anything of the kind."

Lord Ticehurst looked straight at him as he said these words, but
Gilbert Lloyd met the look firmly, without the smallest increase of
colour, without the movement of a muscle in his face.

"Well," said his lordship, after a momentary pause, "of course after
that I cannot say any more. I was most infernally riled when I heard
you'd been chaffing about me, I'll allow; because, after all, don't
you know, when you and a fellow have lived together, and been regular
pals, and that kind of thing--"

"And you thought I could have been such a scoundrel as to do that? No,
Etchingham, I don't pretend to be strait-laced, and I don't go in to
be demonstrative and gushing in my affection for you, like those
duffers who are always hanging about you in town, and whose game you
see through perfectly, I know. My regard for you I endeavour to show
in another way, in devoting myself heart and soul to the management of
your affairs; and if you look into them I think you'll find that I am
faithful and true to you."

Into his voice, as he uttered these last words, Gilbert Lloyd threw a
little tremulous touch of sentiment, which gave evidence of a hitherto
undeveloped histrionic ability, and which was really excellent of its
kind. It was so close an imitation of the genuine article that most
people would have been taken in by it, and Lloyd looked to see a
responsive twinkle in his pupil's eyes; but clever and telling as it
was it failed to touch Lord Ticehurst. He said, "All right, Gilbert,
old fellow; of course I know that. Here, there's an end of it!" and he
stretched out his hand; but there was no heartiness, no enthusiasm in
his tone, no warmth in the grasp he gave, and Gilbert Lloyd recognised
all this, and began to feel a dim prescience that his hold on his
lordship was beginning to wax faint, and that his position as chief
manager of Lord Ticehurst's affairs was manifestly insecure.

Was Gilbert Lloyd's luck really beginning to fail him? Had the devil,
who had stood his friend so long, and aided him in his advancement so
wonderfully, grown tired of and forsaken him? It seemed like it, he
was forced to confess to himself. By nature cool, crafty, and
clear-headed, and from long practice in matters in which the exercise
of those qualities is constantly required, Lloyd was by no means a man
to suffer himself to remain blind to any danger which might threaten
him. There are men amongst us passing for sane, nay, even reputed to
be clever, who obstinately shut their eyes against the sight of the
chasm towards which they are pressing forward, who are obstinately
deaf to the roar of the avalanche which in a few seconds must
overwhelm them, when by merely striking out into a new path--not so
pleasant indeed, and that is mostly what they look at--they might
avoid their fate. These are the men who, Micawber-like, are always
expecting something to turn up, who refuse to see the plainest
portents, to listen to the most obvious warnings, who think that bills
disregarded are payments indefinitely deferred, and who put away
unpleasant-looking letters unopened with the idea that the bad news
they bring will thereby be staved off, who go on _quo Fata ducunt_,
and who are astonished when they find themselves involved in misery
and ruin. Gilbert Lloyd was very different from this. Let a cloud,
even though it were "no bigger than a man's hand," appear above the
horizon, and he took note of it instantly. He was specially observant
of the slightest change in the character or demeanour of those with
whom he was brought in contact, even of persons of inferior grade. In
fact, although for a long time past his life had been one of
comparative ease and undoubted luxury, he had never forgotten the
habits acquired in the early days of poverty and shifting and
scheming, when his hand was against every man and every man's hand
against him, and he was prepared to go to the end of the world, or out
of it altogether for the matter of that, if he saw plainly the
necessity of absconding, or felt that his Fate had arrived.

Was his luck going? Was his game nearly played out? There had been a
great change lately, without a doubt; he must not shut his eyes to
that. Etchingham was certainly changed. Very civil and acquiescent in
all that was suggested to him, never referring to their dispute on
that unlucky night, but still without a particle of the heartiness
which formerly characterised him, and which was the salt of his
otherwise unpleasant disposition. There had been a turn of luck, too,
in turf-matters. Some of his own private speculations (for Gilbert had
a book of his own in addition to the "operations" in which he had a
joint interest with Lord Ticehurst, and was said also to do a great
deal by anonymous commission) had been very unfortunate during the
past season, and so far as he could see he was not likely to recoup
himself by any success at Doncaster, where one of Lord Ticehurst's
cracks had been disgracefully beaten for the Cup, while another, which
had been one of the leading favourites for the Leger, had run down the
scale in the most alarming manner, and was now, on the eve of the
race, scarcely mentioned in the betting.

Was his luck going? was his game nearly played out? _Venit summa dies
et ineluctabile fatum!_ Where had he heard that, Gilbert Lloyd
wondered as he sat on the edge of his bed at the Angel Inn at
Doncaster, turning all these things in his mind. _Ineluctabile fatum_.
He gave a half-shudder as he repeated the words, and he gulped down
half the tumbler of brandy standing on the table by his side. He felt
a _frisson_ run through him--that kind of creeping feeling which silly
old women ascribe to the fact of someone "walking over your grave"--on
which the brandy had no effect, and he stamped his foot in rage at his
weakness. He was all wrong somehow; out of health, perhaps? But his
clear sense refused to be deluded by that excuse. _Ineluctabile
fatum!_ that was it, the _summa dies_ for him was at hand; he felt it,
he knew it, and found it in vain to struggle, impossible to make head
against it. The roar of the crowd in the street came through the open
window of the room in which he sat, that hideous roar which fills the
streets of every country town at race-time, and which he knew so well,
with its component parts of ribaldry, blasphemy, bestiality, and
idiotcy. The day was bright and hot and clear--what did the noise
outside and the bright day remind him of? Something unpleasant, he
felt, but he could not exactly fix it in his memory. He rose, and his
eyes fell on the big, heavy, old-fashioned four-post bedstead on which
he had been seated, and on the table with the glass and bottles
standing by it. And then in an instant what had been dimly haunting
his memory flashed all bright across his brain: Brighton, the crowd of
racing-men on the cliff in the hot, bright weather, and the lodging,
with Harvey Gore dying on the bed! Gilbert Lloyd swallowed the
remainder of the brandy, and hurried downstairs into the street.
Immediately opposite the inn-door, and surrounded by a little crowd, a
preacher--as is often to be seen on such occasions--was holding forth.
The crowd mocked and jeered, but the preacher, secure in the
stentorian powers of his lungs, never stopped in his attacks on the
wickedness going on around him; and the first words which Lloyd heard
as he issued from the inn were, "Prepare to meet thy God!"

The gentlemen who had "operated" against Lord Ticehurst's horse in the
betting-ring were, on the succeeding day, proved to be perfectly
correct in their prognostications; that eminent animal being as far
behind the winner of the Leger as his stable-companion had been in the
race for the Cup. This result did not affect Lord Ticehurst much, so
far as his betting losses were concerned; he had so much money that it
mattered little to him whether he won or lost; but he did not like
losing the _prestige_ which had attached to his stable ever since
Lloyd had succeeded poor old Dobbs and taken the stud in hand And he
particularly disliked the half-pitying, half-chaffing way in which
several men condoled with him about it.

"What's come to you, dear old Etchingham?" said Bobby Maitland, who
had been unable to withstand the fascinations of the Doncaster
Meeting, and had accordingly persuaded Mr. Stackborough to leave the
yacht at anchor off Dover while they came north; "what's come to you,
old man? The white jacket and cherry spots seem now always to be where
the little boat was--all behind!"

"We have not been very lucky lately, have we?" replied his lordship,
with an attempt at a grin--he writhed under Bobby's compassionate
familiarity; "but we did very well early in the year; and you can't
have it always, don't you know."

"Ah yes, to be sure, you had some little things, I recollect," said
Bobby Maitland more furtively than ever.

"Don't know what you call 'little things,' Maitland," said Lord
Ticehurst, twitted out of his usual reticence; "the One Thousand, and
the Ascot Cup, with two of the best things at Stockbridge. That seems
pretty good to me; but I suppose it's nothing to you. You never even
won a donkey-race that I heard of."

"O yes, he did," said Gilbert Lloyd, who had come up to them unseen,
and overheard the last remark; "O yes; Bobby won a donkey-race once,
and he was so proud of it, he always takes the animal about with him.
He's somewhere in the neighbourhood now, I'll swear!"

There was a shout of laughter at this remark from all the men standing
round, which was increased to a roar as Mr. Stackborough, dressed most
elaborately, was seen approaching the group. It was always said that
Bobby Maitland had never been seen to lose his temper. At that instant
he was within an ace of it; but he controlled himself with an effort,
and said, "That's not bad, Lloyd; not at all bad, for you. When you
order Lloyd's man's new livery, Etchingham, you must have a cap and
bells added to it. 'Gad, you're like one of those great swells in the
olden time, who used to keep a fool to amuse their friends!"

"Haw, haw! Maitland had him there!" shouted "Barrel" Moss, a fat,
handsome Israelite, ex-gambling-house-keeper, now racehorse-proprietor
and betting-man, admitted into the society of the highest patrons of
the turf.

"What are you grinning at, Barrel?" retorted Gilbert. "You may thank
your stars you did not live in the days of those 'great swells of the
olden time.' Why, when Jews wouldn't pay, they used to pull their
teeth out; and what would have become of you when you were posted in
Teddington's year? Why you wouldn't have had a single grinder left!"

Once more the laugh was on Lloyd's side, and taking advantage of his
triumph he pushed through the knot gathered round him, and, taking
Lord Ticehurst by the arm, moved off towards the hotel. The colloquy
between the two, as they walked along, was brief. His lordship was
more than a little "out of sorts." His rejection by Miss Lambert yet
rankled in his mind; his recent want of success on the turf upset and
annoyed him. He was fidgety and fretful, and when Gilbert asked him
what they should do, and where they should go to next, he confessed as
much, and said that he did not care so long as he was "out of the
whole d--d thing!" Such a state of mind rather coinciding with Gilbert
Lloyd's own feelings at the time, that astute counsellor, instead of
opposing his patron's unmistakable though oddly expressed views, fell
in with them at once; declared that everything from British Dan to
British Beersheba was barren, and suggested that they should go abroad
for a month or two, lie fallow, and pick up health. Lord Ticehurst
fully agreed with the idea of going abroad, but "would not have any of
your touring;" he had had enough of Switzerland, thank you; and as for
any of those dead-alive old cribs where fellows poked about among
pictures and those kind of things, well, he would as soon cut his
throat offhand! He did not mind going to Hombourg or Baden, or one of
those places where there was something to be done, and plenty of
people to be seen.

It was Gilbert's policy just at that time to keep his pupil in
good-humour if possible, so that even if the notion of a visit to
Baden had not happened to be agreeable to him, he would doubtless have
suppressed his own feelings and assented with a good grace. But
situated as he was, wanting a thorough change, and yet so ill at ease
as to fear being left alone to his own resources in a dull place, the
gaiety of a foreign watering-place was exactly what he would have
chosen. So, two days after, the _Morning Post_ recorded that "the Earl
of Ticehurst and Mr. Gilbert Lloyd passed through town yesterday _en
route_ for Baden."

Men of middle age, who recollect Baden before the fatal facility of
travel, or the invention of Mr. Cook and his excursionists, must look
back with deep regret upon the pleasant days when comparatively few
English people found their way along the newly-opened railway that
crept along the bank of the Oos. The place was known, of course; but
the difference between the visitors then and nowadays was as great as
between the visitors to the gardens of Hampton Court on any ordinary
fine day in early spring or on Easter Monday. The style of the
company, despite the importing of many of the great British
aristocracy who in former years never visited the place, but now
find it much cheaper and more amusing than "entertaining" for
partridge-shooting at home, has gradually been decaying; but since the
establishment of the races it has received a large proportion of that
very worst ingredient, the sporting-cad. When Lord Ticehurst and Lloyd
arrived, the races were just about to take place, and there was a
strong muster of the "professionals" of high and middle grade, the
worst being kept away by the difficulty of obtaining means of
transport from England, which is a mercy of which the Germans are not
sufficiently aware to be properly thankful for. The lowest order of
sporting-man is the lowest order of anything. If anyone wishes to be
impressed with the depth of degradation to which the human species can
be successfully reduced, he has only to go into the Strand on a day
when some great "event" is coming off, and observe the persons
gathered round the office of the great sporting-newspaper about four
in the afternoon. He will see a crowd of men of all ages--wizened old
creatures, big burly roughs, shambling knock-kneed hobbledehoys,
in battered hats, in greasy, close-fitting caps, most of them
shirt-collarless, but with belcher handkerchiefs twisted round their
thick throats; many of them have the long, flat thieves' curl on the
side of the face; nearly all have the hair cut close round the nape of
the neck: costermongers, butchers, the scum and refuse of the
population; dirty, half-starved, in clothes whose looped and windowed
raggedness would be dear at half-a-crown for the whole lot. These be
the gallant sporting-men, without the slightest knowledge of or care
for sport, who, in order to enable them to bet their half-crowns on a
race, empty tradesmen's tills, burst into our houses, and "put the
hug" on us in the open street.

Of course this class was unrepresented in the great gathering at
Baden; but there was a large influx of people who had never been seen
there before. They filled the hotels and lodging-houses; they
swaggered over the promenades; they lounged about the Kursaal,
outraging the dignity of the officials by talking and laughing loudly;
and they played at the tables, slapping their coins down with a ring,
or motioning and calling to the grave croupiers "just to hook 'em that
louy they'd left behind." They were a cause of great offence to Tommy
Toshington, on whom Gilbert lighted on the morning after his arrival
at the springs, where the old gentleman was holding a tumbler of very
nasty water with a very shaky hand, and, in default of having anyone
to talk to, was vainly endeavouring for the five-hundredth time to
find out the meaning of some very tremendous frescoes in front of him.

"I've been in the habit of comin' to this place for an immense number
of years, and thought I could go on till I died. Devilish comfortable
quarters I've got at the Roossy, and nice amusin' place I've always
found it; but I must give it up, by George! I can't stand the set
of racin'-fellows that come here now, 'pon my soul I can't! God
knows who they are, my good fellow. You, who go about to all these
what-do-you-call-'em meetings, you may know some of 'em; but I, who
only toddle down to the Derby and Ascot on Sumphington's drag, and get
over to Goodwood when the Dook's good enough to ask me--I've never set
eyes on any of 'em before."

"Well, but how do they annoy you, Toshington?" asked Gilbert, who was
rather amused at this outbreak on the old gentleman's part.

"They don't actually annoy me, except by bein' such a dam low-bred
lot, yahooin' all over the place. And to think of 'em comin' just now,
when we were so pleasant. It's rather late in the season, to be sure;
but there's a very nice set of people here. My Lady Carabas is here,
but that _you_ knew, of course; and the Dook and Duchess of
Winchester, and the Dashwoods, and the Grevilles, and the Alsagers,
and Tom Gregory and half the First. It's monstrous pleasant, you can't
think!"

"It must be," said Gilbert quietly. "So new and fresh and charming.
Such a change, too, for you all, not to see anybody you are accustomed
to meet in London,--it must be delightful. Goodbye, Toshington; I'm
going in for rusticity, and intend to have a turn before breakfast."

Although Mr. Toshington's sense of humour was very slight, and
although he took most things _au pied de la letter_, he detected some
sarcasm in Gilbert's remarks, and looked after him from under scowling
brows. "That's another of 'em," he muttered; "another of your
horse-racin' customers, though he is in society, and all that. Damme
if I know how they let 'em in; I don't, by George! They'd as soon have
thought of lettin' a fiddler, or a painter, or a fellow of that sort
into society when I was a young man. But it's best to keep in with
this one; he has the orderin' of everything at Etchingham's, and might
leave me out of many a good thing if he chose to be disagreeable." So
saying, the old worldling finished his second glass of Brunnenwasser,
paid his kreutzers, audibly cursed the coinage of the country in a
select mixture of the English and German languages prepared expressly
by him for his own use, and departed.

Mr. Toshington was perfectly right in stating that the Marchioness of
Carabas was enthroned in great state at Baden, but wrong in imagining
that Gilbert Lloyd was aware of that fact. Truth to tell, there had
been a slight misunderstanding, what is vulgarly but intelligibly
called a "tiff," between her ladyship and Lloyd, and for a few weeks
past he had not been enlightened as to her movements. The fact was,
that when Lloyd had sufficiently used the _grand dame_ as a means to
various business ends, as a stepping-stone to certain objects which
without her aid he would have been unable to reach, he began to find
his position rather a wearying one. It was pleasant to be the
custodian and hierophant of the Soul while it served his purpose, but
it was dreary work when that purpose was achieved, and his interest in
the Soul's owner was consequently gone. He attended at the shrine as
regularly as ever for reasons of policy, but his policy was not
sufficiently strong to keep him from occasionally gaping and betraying
other signs of weariness. Lady Carabas was too observant a woman not
to mark this immediately on its first occurrence, but she thought it
might be accidental, and determined to wait a repetition of it before
speaking. The repetition very shortly afterwards took place, and even
then her ladyship did not speak. After a little reflection she
determined on adopting another plan. She resolved upon taking to
herself someone else who should be admitted into the mysteries of the
Soul. This, she thought, would capitally answer a double purpose; it
would tend to her amusement--and she was beginning to feel the want of
a little novelty, she confessed to herself--and would probably have
the effect of rendering Gilbert Lloyd jealous. A little time showed
the result. In the turf-idiom which she had learned of Lloyd, and
which she sometimes used in self-communion, she acknowledged that
"while the first event had come off all right, the second had gone to
grief;" which, being interpreted, meant that while she (Lady Carabas)
was thoroughly amused, and indeed at the height of one of her Platonic
flirtations with the new possessor of the Soul (a young man in the
Foreign Office, with lovely hair parted in the middle, charming
whiskers, and brilliant teeth), he (Gilbert Lloyd) had not shown the
smallest symptom of jealousy. On the contrary, Gilbert Lloyd was
unfeignedly glad to find that his place had been satisfactorily filled
up, and that he would no longer be constantly required to be on
escort-duty. And when Lady Carabas found that this was the case--and
she discovered it very quickly, being a woman of great worldly
penetration and tact--she made up her mind that the best thing for her
to do was to accept the position at once, and give Lloyd his liberty.
This accordingly she did; and when they met at Baden,

     "They seemed to those who saw them meet,
      Mere casual friends of every day;"

as Lord Houghton says in a very charming little poem, though there was
an echo of bygone tenderness, of the voice of the Soul, in fact,
pervading her ladyship's tones for many a day after. Meantime she was
the queen of a very pleasant little coterie. Half the frequenters of
Carabas House did a little passing homage at her ladyship's temporary
court at Baden on their way to and from the other watering-places. The
promenade contained types of all the people usually seen seated on the
Hyde-Park chairs, with a large sprinkling of others never seen in that
aristocratic locality. For though H.R.H. the Duke of Brentford, the
captains and commanders and mighty men of valour, the senators, the
clerks in the government offices, and the nothing-doers have plenty of
time to lounge about in London, the working-bees--the judges and
barristers, the doctors, the civil-engineers, the cunning workers
in ink and pigment, all of whom grind their brains to make their
bread--have no such opportunity when in town, and are only seen idling
in daylight during their brief autumn holiday. "Society"--except that
Carabas-House set, which knew them very well--stared very much at most
of these people, and called Jack Hawkes of the F. O. to its aid to
explain who they were; and Jack Hawkes, who was only too delighted to
act as cicerone to society when it had a handle to its name,
explained, "Tall man with the round high shoulders and the long gray
hair is great lady's doctor, don't you know? uses up three pair of
horses a-day whippin' about town; that's his wife and daughter with
him--think her pretty, the daughter? nice-lookin' they call her. The
man with the red face, not him in the white hat--that's Kollum the
portrait-painter; that one in the wideawake is Sir Blewson Bagge, one
of the judges--say he knows more law than any other three men in
England The fat man with the cigar is Protheroe, and the man
talkin' to him dressed all in black is Tuberville; they're great
engineers--one laid out the John o' Groat's and Land's End Extension
Line, and the other designed the Channel-Islands Submarine Railway.
Wonderful how they stick together, those railway fellows; if one knows
a good thing he tells the other of it, and they hunt in couples to
keep other fellows off the game. Tuberville's son has married
Protheroe's daughter; and the money that's there passes all count.
There are two writin' chaps comin' this way; they belong to the
_Kresse_, that blackguard paper that attacks everybody, don't you
know? Don't look bad fellows, do they? and they're always laughin' and
keepin' it up at the Badischer. Who's the little round fat fellow
they've stopped and are talkin' to?--that's Bellows of the Old-Bailey
Bar; first-rate in his business, and such good company; and the man
with him of course you know? No! Why that's Finchington, the light
comedian of the Minerva. Yes, he does look different in the daylight,
as you say. These? No, these are people who have come over for the
races, and I don't know anything about them. We must get Lloyd to give
us that information.--Here, Lloyd, come and tell her grace who are
these odd people who are coming this way; they're turf-people, I
suppose, so you'll know all about them."

But Gilbert Lloyd, objecting very much to be patronised either by Mr.
Hawkes or the great people to whom that social barnacle had
temporarily attached himself, declared his inability to perform the
duties assigned to him, and took himself off with a bow. It was the
night before the first race-day, and all the Baden world was enjoying
itself on the promenade in front of the Kursaal. There had been a
grand excursion-party that day to the Favourite, a party of which Lady
Carabas had been the reigning star, and after a delightful outing they
had returned, and were now formed into a large group, laughing and
talking loudly. Gilbert Lloyd carefully avoided these people, and
steered equally clear of another group in the midst of which the
Duchess of Winchester was enthroned. These two great ladies had never
much liked each other, and when they met at Baden their antagonism was
patent, and their rivalry openly declared. Each had her circle of
admirers, and whatever one did the other tried to outdo. The
Winchester faction having heard that the Carabas people were going
that day to the Favourite, had themselves had a picnic at Eberstein
Schloss, and both were now planning their next day's diversion at the
races.

Gilbert Lloyd was in no humour to join either of these parties at that
moment, though each would have been glad to have secured him as an
adherent. He was in a bad temper, having just had some sharp words
with Lord Ticehurst on a question on which that young nobleman a few
weeks since would not have dared to offer an opinion. Just before they
left town for Doncaster, Lloyd had dismissed a groom; the man appealed
to Lord Ticehurst in a letter. This letter Lloyd opened, read, and
contemptuously threw into the fire. The man heard of this, and made a
fresh appeal to his lordship, setting forth the treatment his former
letter had received, and defying Lloyd to deny it. This letter was
forwarded to Lord Ticehurst at Baden, and made him exceedingly angry.
He went at once to Lloyd, and spoke very plainly, said that he would
not be treated like a child, that all letters addressed to him--no
matter on what subject--should be brought to him, and even hinted that
on their return to England Lloyd's position and responsibility must be
more exactly defined.

"It was that infernal Maitland's hint that he can't swallow," said
Lloyd, as he seated himself at an empty table on the verge of the
crowd and ordered some brandy. "He referred to it just now when he
said he wouldn't be treated like a child. O he's never spoken to me
like that since we've been together.--Here!" to the waiter who brought
the brandy, "_encore_; another of these _carafons_. What's the good of
a drop like that to a man!--He's never been the same since that night
he dined with those fellows, after he had been over to that place to--
Lord! I forgot--to propose to _her!_ Of course _she_ must be mixed up
in everything that's unlucky for me! How I wish I'd never set eyes on
her! how I wish--What the devil does this fellow want!"

"This fellow" was a short, square-built man of about fifty years of
age, with sunken eyes, a sharp-pointed nose, and a close-cut beard,
the original red colour of which was fast fading into gray. His seedy
clothes were of a foreign and fantastic cut, and round his neck he
wore a long, dirty-white cravat, folded quite flat, and wonderfully
neatly tied, and fastened in front with a flashy mock pin. "This
fellow" had been hanging round the table for some time, dodging in and
out so as to get a better view of its occupant in the dim light. At
length, when Gilbert Lloyd raised his head and looked up at the
strange figure, "this fellow" seemed to be satisfied, and shambling up
to the table, placed his hands upon it, leaned over, and said in a
thick, husky voice,

"Gilbert Lloyd!"

Lloyd looked at him steadily, and then said, "That's my name; who are
you?"

"I thought you would not know me," said the stranger with a laugh,
"none of my old pals do; at least, most don't, and some won't, so it
don't make much--"

"Stay," interrupted Lloyd; "I know you now; knew you directly you
threw your head back and I saw your cravat. There's only one man in
the world can tie a neckerchief like that, or get its folds to lie as
flat. You're Foxey Walker."

"I am that same," said the stranger; "at least, I was when I
was alive, for I'm nothing but a blessed old ghost now, I verily
believe.--Here, you fellow, bring some brandy; Cognac, you know!--I
ain't of much 'count now, Lloyd, and that's a fact." He was shabby and
bloated and shaky, altogether very different from the tight, trim
little Foxey, who was found leaning over the rails on Brighton
Esplanade at the commencement of this story.

"Ah, I remember," said Lloyd; "you came to grief the Derby before
last, in the Prior's year?"

"I did so. Went a regular mucker. That was a bad business, sir; a
regular bad business. I could show you my book now. There were men
that I dropped my money to over that Epsom Meetin' that had owed me
hundreds--ay, hundreds on other events. I'd always given them time,
much as they wanted, I had; but when I asked 'em for it then--for I
had a rattlin' good book for Ascot, and some good things later on in
the season--O no, not a bit of it! 'Pay up,' they says, 'pay up!' All
devilish fine; I couldn't pay up--so I bolted."

"Ah, recollect perfectly your being proclaimed a defaulter," said
Lloyd pleasantly. "It made rather a talk at the time, you were so well
known. What have you been doing since?"

"Well, I've been cadgin' about on the Continent, doin' what I could to
keep body and soul together.--You're goin' to pay for this brandy, you
know? I suppose you don't mind standin' another go? all right.--But
there's little enough to be done. I ain't much good at cards; and,
besides, there's nothing to be done with them unless you get among the
swells in the clubs and that, and that's not likely; and there's not
much to be picked up off the foreigners at billiards, let alone their
not playing our game. I've won a little on the red and black here and
there, and I've come across an old friend now and again who's helped
me with a fiver or so."

"You don't speak in riddles, Foxey," said Lloyd with a half-laugh.
"You make your meaning tolerably clear. I must not be worse than the
others, I suppose; so here, catch hold;" and he took a couple of
bank-notes from his pocket-book and handed them to his companion.

"Thank'ee, Lloyd," said Foxey, pocketing the money. "I ain't proud,
and hadn't need to be. Besides, you've become a tremendous swell since
you got hold of young Ticehurst, eh? I see your name regular in _Bell_
amongst the nobs. Rather different from what we reck'lect in the old
days: 'Ten to one, bar one!'--don't you remember?" and Foxey put his
hand to the side of his mouth and shouted loudly in imitation of the
worthies of the outer ring.

"Ye-es," said Lloyd, who did not at all relish being told that he had
"got hold of" anybody, and who was much disgusted by Foxey's
recollections and performance. "Yes," said he, rising from his chair
as he spoke; "I think I must go now."

"Must you?" said Foxey, who had become very much flushed and
invigorated by the brandy; "must you? That's a bore, that is, for I
had somethin' very particular to say to you; somethin' that concerns
you much more than it does me; somethin'," added Foxey, looking hazily
at his companion, "that would be d--d awkward for you if it got blown.
Don't you fear for me! I'm as close as wax, I am; only--however, I'll
see you about it to-morrow or next day. Good-night, old fellow;
compliments to my lord."

"Something that concerns me more than it does him? That would be
awkward for me if it got blown? What the devil does he mean?" said
Lloyd to himself, as he walked down the _allée_. "Awkward for me?--the
old brute was drunk, and did not know what he said. Probably a plant
to get more money out of me. He _could_ know nothing that would have
the slightest bearing on me or my affairs. I daresay he'll try it on
again when I see him next; but he'll find it difficult to draw me of
any more money, more especially if he attempts to bounce me out of
it."

The next day was bright and cheerful, and the little racecourse,
though much sneered at by the "talent," served its purpose very well,
and was thronged with a merry, animated crowd. The natives, to be
sure, did not understand very much what it was all about. The women
cried, "Ach, Herr Je!" at the sight of the tight little English jocks
stripping off their outer coats and appearing in all the glory of
flashing silk; and the men took their pipes from their mouths and
swore "Donnerwetter!" as the horses went thundering by. The Winchester
and Carabas faction had each one side of the little stand, the leaders
exchanged sweet hand-kissings, the followers bowed and grinned and
nodded with all the warmth and sincerity which form the basis of our
social relations. Lady Carabas, as usual, wore pink; the Duchess of
Winchester, who was very fair and petite, wore blue; and the retainers
followed suit. Mr. Toshington was as much divided in his allegiance
and as much perplexed to know which colour to sport as a London cabman
on the morning of the University boat-race. He had enjoyed the
hospitality of both houses, and indeed had earned many a good dinner
by carrying tattle from one to the other; but up to this time he had
never been called upon to make his election, to say "under which
queen;" and those who were in the secret, in which category was
included everyone present, were greatly amused to see the difficulty
which the old gentleman had in trimming his sails and steering his
course in safety. There were some who, unlike Tommy Toshington, were
independent, who sided with neither party, but were friendly and
familiar with both. Among those were Lord Ticehurst--who, though bound
by family ties to Lady Carabas, never allowed his clanship to "mix him
up in any of her ladyship's rum starts," as he phrased it--and Gilbert
Lloyd, whose worn and haggard appearance was the cause of much
solicitude and anxious inquiry from Lady Carabas. Lloyd appeared
rather annoyed at the _prononcé_ manner which her ladyship adopted
towards him, and at which some of the most daring followers smiled,
more especially when the reigning favourite, the gentleman in the
Foreign Office, looked very much displeased. He seemed very much
happier when at a later period in the day he found himself seated by
the Duchess of Winchester, who rallied him with much piquancy on his
defection.

"I am astonished at you, Mr. Lloyd, quite astonished," she said
laughingly. "Do you know we used to call you the Undying One!"

"Well, you could not call Toshington that, could you, Duchess?" said
Gilbert; "look how very purple his whiskers are in the sunlight."

"No, no, of course I don't mean that; how can you be so absurd? You
know our dear friend opposite is like somebody in old time I read of
once, who used to kill her admirers regularly at the end of a certain
time. It's a notorious fact that--over there--no flirtation lasts
longer than twelve months, and we call you the Undying One because you
have held undisputed sway over that Soul for--O, it must be years! And
now, after all this, you have the baseness to shut your ears to the
voice of the charmer--we saw the spell tried on an hour ago--and to
come over here!"

"I don't think there's much harm done, Duchess, even if all were as
you say, which I am very far from admitting. Calypso is the only
instance on record of a woman who '_ne pouvait se consoler après le
depart_' of anyone she liked. I am certain that no lady of modern days
would be so weak."

"Ah, I know what you mean; you mean Mr. Pennington. Well, he's very
good-looking, certainly, in his own red-and-white way, but he's
insufferably stupid; and a stupid man, however handsome he may be,
always bores me to death. I-- Who is this dreadful man down here? Is
it to you or to me he's making those horrible grimaces?"

Lloyd looked over in the direction in which the Duchess pointed, and
to his horror saw Mr. Foxey Walker, who apparently had had a great
deal too much to drink, whose fantastic clothes looked infinitely
shabbier and seedier in the daylight than they had on the previous
evening, and who was throwing up his arms, endeavouring to attract the
attention of someone in the stand. Foxey no sooner saw that Gilbert
Lloyd had recognised him than he approached the stand, and called out,
"Hi, Lloyd! hollo there, Lloyd! Just come and pass me up there, will
you? I want to speak to you."

"It's to you he's calling, Mr. Lloyd!" said the Duchess, arching her
pretty eyebrows and making a little _moue_ of astonishment.

"What a strange-looking creature! who in the world is he?"

"He's a poor half-witted fellow, an old friend of mine, Duchess," said
Lloyd with the utmost calmness. "He is a man of family, and once had a
large fortune; but he lost every sixpence on the turf, and that quite
turned his brain. He's eccentric, as you see, but perfectly harmless;
a few of us make him a little allowance, on which he lives, and he
thinks this gives him a claim upon us, poor fellow! I--Yes, yes; I'm
coming!" he called to Mr. Foxey, for that gentleman had recommenced
bellowing, "Hi, Lloyd!" with redoubled vehemence; "I'm coming!--I
think I had better go down and calm him, Duchess, if you will excuse
me." And with a bow Gilbert Lloyd leisurely retreated from the stand.

He smiled so pleasantly--he knew he was still under observation--at
Mr. Foxey, who was waiting for him in front, that that worthy, who had
been somewhat doubtful of the wisdom of the course he had pursued,
felt perfectly reassured and said, "Hallo, Gil., my boy! sorry to call
you away from such stunnin' company; but I want a word with you." It
was not until they had walked a few paces and were well out of sight
of the people in the stand that Lloyd caught his companion tightly by
the arm, and said, "You infernal drunken old idiot, how dare you come
and annoy me when you saw me with my friends?"

"Come, I say, drop that," said Foxey, "you're pullin' my arm off;
don't you hear?"

"You scoundrel, I'll have your head off if you don't take care! What
fool's game is up now? What do you want with me? Have you anything
really to say, or is it only to repeat the rubbish of last night?"

"What rubbish? what did I say last night? I didn't--no, of course I
didn't; I recollect now. I know what I'm doin' fast enough, and what I
can do."

"And I know what I can do, and what I will do too, if you interrupt me
again when I'm talking with friends, and that is, have you moved off
the course by the gend'armes as a drunken nuisance."

"O, that's it, is it?" said Foxey, glowering at him, and speaking in a
dull thick voice. "Moved off the course! a drunken nuisance, eh?
You'll sing a very different toon to this, Master Lloyd, before I've
done with you. O, you can't come the high jeff over me," he continued,
raising his tone; "for all your standin' in with big swells now; we
know what you were once; we know--"

"Will you be quiet, you old fool, and say what you want?" said
Gilbert, turning fiercely upon him.

"What I want? Ah, that's more like it! What I want? Well, that's
easily told, and that's more than most people can say. What I want is
money."

"I gave you money last night--more than you can have spent, or ought
to have spent."

"Ah, that's more like it: what I _can_ spend--Well, no matter.
However, that's not the way I mean in which I want money. Look here,
Gilbert Lloyd; I'm tired of this cadging life; I'm sick of hikin' up
and down from one gamblin'-place to another; I'm disgusted with the
Continent, and the foreigners, all the lot of 'em."

"O, you are, eh?" said Lloyd with a sneer; "I should scarcely have
thought it."

"Yes," replied Foxey, in perfect good faith, "I am thoroughly. What I
long for is to get back to England, to see my old pals, to lead my old
life."

"Indeed," sneered Gilbert again; "but from what I understand from you
there would be some difficulty in carrying out that pleasant little
arrangement."

"None that you couldn't help me to settle at once. They all think
their money's clean gone; but if I'm to come on the turf again, it
would never do for me to come out as a welsher, so I must pay 'em
something; but ever so little would square it. Then, if I just had a
little trifle in hand to start with, and you gave me the office when
you knew of a good thing--and you must hear lots, havin' the
management of that young swell's stable--well, I should do as right as
ninepence."

There was a minute's pause, and then Lloyd said:

"You are a great creature, Mr. Walker, a very great creature, and your
power of sketching out a happy future is something wonderful. But to
my great astonishment I find that I play a part in this notable scheme
of your life, and that its being carried out successfully wholly
depends upon me. Now, we may as well understand each other clearly,
and at once. From me you'll never get another sixpence."

Foxey started, looked hard at his companion, and said, "You mean
that?"

"No," said Lloyd, "I don't mean it literally; I'll give you another
ten pounds on the day I leave this place."

It was Foxey's turn to sneer now. "That's generous of you," he said,
"regular generous; but you always were a free-handed fellow with your
money, Lloyd. I reck'lect we used to say in the old days how pleased
you always were to have to part. Now look here," he cried, changing
his tone; "I will have all I've asked from you: the money to square it
with those fellows, the sum to start fresh with the straight tips from
young Ticehurst's stable; I'll have this, or else--"

"Or what else?" asked Gilbert Lloyd, without any alteration in his
usual calm manner.

"Or else I'll ruin you, root and branch; horse and foot; stock, lock,
and barrel! You laugh and sneer; you think I can't do it? I tell you I
can."

"You tell me a pack of lies and blather. You begun last night, and
you've done nothing else for the last half-hour. How can you do it?"

"By blowing the gaff on you; by telling something I know which would
make all these swells cut you and hunt you out of society; which
would--"

"There, there's enough of this!" cried Lloyd, interrupting him; "my
time's too valuable to waste over such trash. It's the old game of
hush-money for a secret, after all. I should have thought you would
have known some better dodge than that, Master Foxey, after all the
life you've seen. If you were going in for the extortion-of-money
business in your old age, you might have learned something fresher
than that very stale device. Now, be off, and give me a wider berth
for the future, if you're wise. Your drunken stupidity--for I suppose
you would not have acted thus if you had not taken to drink--has lost
you ten pounds. Take care it does not get you a horsewhipping." As he
said these words he turned shortly on his heel and strode away.

Foxey looked after him, his face lit up with rage and disappointment.
"All right, my fine-fellow," he muttered, shaking his fist at the
fast-receding figure; "all right; you will have it, and you shall. It
will be quite enough to cook your goose as it is; but if I'd only had
time to learn a little more, I think I could have hanged you."

There was a little extra excitement in the rooms that night. Count
Nicolaeff, a Russian nobleman who had on two previous occasions broken
the bank, had returned to Baden, and was playing with a boldness and
success which augured the repetition of the feat. A crowd was gathered
round him as he sat, calm and composed, quietly gathering the
_rouleaux_ which the croupiers pushed across to him. In this crowd was
Lloyd; the qualities which the Russian was displaying were just those
to excite his admiration, and he was watching every movement and
trying to account for each calculation of the gambler, when he felt a
tap on his shoulder. He looked round and saw Dolly Clarke, the
sporting-lawyer, who beckoned him away.

Gilbert was annoyed at the interruption. "Not just now," he said
impatiently; "I'll come to you later."

"Come this instant," said Dolly Clarke; and there was something in
his tone that made Gilbert Lloyd leave the table and follow him into
the open space outside. By the lamp-light Lloyd saw that Clarke was
very pale; noticed also that he stood back as if avoiding contact with
him.

"What is it?" asked Lloyd. "It should be something special by your
tone and manner, Clarke?"

"It is something special," replied Clarke; "it is a matter of life or
death for you. Do you know a man called Foxey Walker?"

"Pshaw! is that all?" said Lloyd, whose heart had failed him at the
solemnity of his companion's manner, and whose courage now as suddenly
revived. "Is that all? Yes, I know him; a defaulting ring-man, a mere
common 'welsher.' I saw him on the course to-day, and he threatened me
that if I did not give him money he would expose something in my past
life--some trick or dodge I practised, I suppose, when I was in the
ring, and had to be a sharp practitioner to hold my own with my
fellows. That's all, eh?"

"No," said Clarke earnestly, "nothing of the sort; the man has made a
revelation, but not of the kind you imagine--a thousand times more
serious. There's never been much love lost between you and me, Lloyd,
and you may wonder why I'm here to counsel and help you; so understand
at once, it's for Ticehurst's sake; you're so mixed up with him that
any public _exposé_ would be the deuce and all for him."

"What do you mean by public _exposé_, Mr. Clarke? what do you--"

"Stop; don't bounce--it won't do. Do you remember when we dined at
Richmond six weeks ago, you answered me very sharply because I asked
why you never went to Brighton now? I've always had my own opinion on
that matter; but I don't chatter, and I kept it to myself. This man
Walker stopped Ticehurst and me as we were coming from the course, and
begged so earnestly for an interview that Ticehurst listened to him. I
need not go into all he said; it appears he had his suspicions too,
and determined to trade on them; went the next year to your old
lodgings, pumped the landlady; saw the doctor who attended Harvey
Gore; has been working it since he left England through friends; and
has made up a case which, if not positive, is at all events infernally
suspicious."

"What--what did Etchingham say about it?" asked Lloyd.

"I never saw a fellow so completely knocked over in all my life. You
know he is not strong-minded, and he--well, he funks death, and that
kind of thing, and--"

"Does he believe it? what does he say about me?"

"He does believe it fully, and he says he will never set eyes on you
again. I see--your eyes are blazing--you see there's nothing proved,
and your place is too good a one to give up on mere suspicion?
You'll say you'll have the matter sifted, and all that. Don't;
take my advice--given as a lawyer who sees queer things in his
practice--drop it, clear out of this at once, get over to England,
make up Ticehurst's accounts, and then get away to Australia,
America--anywhere!"

"Thank you; and leave my 'place,' as you call it, to you, eh?" It was
the last remaining touch of bravado in his voice, bravado belied by
the ashy paleness of his face, and the set rigidity of his mouth.

"To me! I'm a lawyer, not a turfite. Pshaw! don't try to humbug any
longer--you're too clever a man. You can post over to Carlsruhe
to-night, and get straight through to-morrow. I'll come with you to
the hotel; I promised Ticehurst I'd see you off. Come."

Gilbert Lloyd saw that there was no use in fighting the question any
longer. He felt as though his career was at its close, as though he
should drop as rapidly as he had risen. He turned on his heel and
walked towards the hotel, Dolly Clarke walking by his side. It was all
over, then? The position he had gained for himself amid the envy and
hatred of all his compeers was shattered at its base, and--

No! Before he reached the hotel-door, he had carefully searched his
hand, and found in it one last trump-card, which he determined on
playing directly he arrived in England.

CHAPTER VI.
The last Chance.

Mr. Lloyd gone! They could scarcely believe it at Baden. Lady Carabas
was in despair, and the Duchess of Winchester was vexed, for she was
fond of flirtation, and she had found Mr. Lloyd "very nice." The led
captains and the other male retainers of both factions looked on
Gilbert as a dangerous rival, and were rather glad than otherwise that
he was out of the way. Gone to England, eh? Yes. Summoned by a
telegram on most important business, so Dolly Clarke said; he happened
to be with him at the time the telegram arrived, and so of course knew
all about it. On Lord Ticehurst's business, of course? Well, Dolly
Clarke supposed so; in fact, he might go so far as to say "yes," and
rather unpleasant business too. Lord Ticehurst was rather annoyed
about it, and so perhaps you would be so good as not to mention it to
him? Needless to say there were some people who did not believe this
statement, even when vouched for on such excellent authority as Mr.
Dolly Clarke's. There are some people who will not believe anything.
Mr. Toshington is one of them. He thinks it a "deuced odd story," and
sets about to investigate it. He sees the landlord, porter, waiters,
_Hausknecht_ of the hotel, every individual separately, and puts them
through the strictest investigation in the most extraordinary
_mélange_ of languages; finally, he goes to the telegraph-office and
ascertains triumphantly that for the Herr Lloyd, Englander, no
telegraphic despatch received was. Tommy opines that Gilbert's absence
has reference to some infernal chicanery connected with the turf, and
sets that down as the reason why Ticehurst is so shy about speaking
about it. Queer business for peers of the rel-lum to be mixin' up in
such matters, Tommy thinks, and anythin' but a good sign in these
infernal levellin' times. Lady Carabas is really very sorry. She had a
sort of idea that Gilbert was "coming round;" but his having gone away
in this sudden manner, and gone away without a hint of his going, or
word of adieu to her, was a deathblow to that hope. And Mr.
Pennington, the gentlemanly creature creature in the F.O., though
charming to look at and pleasant so far as his conversation lasted,
was soon exhausted, and was not to be compared with Gilbert Lloyd as a
bright and amusing companion. "He might have thought of me before he
went away," Lady Carabas thought to herself. She had no idea that
Gilbert Lloyd had thought about her, and with considerable earnestness
too, as he was walking away from the Kursaal in company with Mr. Dolly
Clarke, immediately previous to his quitting Baden. He had carefully
weighed in his mind whether there was any use in getting her to appeal
to Lord Ticehurst in his behalf, founding his appeal on a tremendous
story of his innocence and of his being the victim of circumstances,
which story he could arrange during the night. But he finally rejected
the notion; there was something decisive and pitiless about Mr.
Clarke's manner, which told Lloyd it would be useless for him to
indulge himself with any hopeful view of the case. As he travelled
through the night, and turned all the events of the past days, of the
past years, over and over in his mind, during his weary journey, he
felt convinced that he had acted wisely in this matter. Only one thing
annoyed him; if the worst came to the worst, and he was obliged, as
Clarke had hinted, to go away to Australia or America, he should want
all the money he could lay his hands on, and he might have "bled" her
ladyship for a good round sum. He had letters of hers in his
possession, written in all innocence it is true, but quite
sufficiently compromising if read from the legal point of view, which
ought to have effected that.

When Lloyd arrived in London, he did not go to Lord Ticehurst's house
in Hill-street, where were all his goods and chattels; he would go
there later, he thought, and see what could be done after a careful
examination of the books and papers. He drove to a house in
Duke-street, St. James's, where he had lodged years before; and the
landlady of which, looking scarcely a day older, came out to the door,
told him his old rooms were vacant, and welcomed him heartily. Gilbert
Lloyd always was popular with his inferiors; it was part of his policy
in life to be so, and he took every opportunity of saying polite
things to them, and doing them cheap civilities. Even now, as he
jumped out of the cab, he told Mrs. Jobson how well she was looking,
and how he felt quite pleased at the notion of coming back to the old
rooms; and then he bade her take his luggage in, and ran upstairs.

The old rooms! He looked round them, and found them scarcely changed.
The furniture was a little shabbier, perhaps, and looking through the
window the opposite side of the street seemed, if possible, a little
closer than before. The same slippery chintz on the sofa, the same
regulation number of chairs, the same portrait of the Princess
Charlotte, at which Gertrude had screamed with laughter, and called it
a "hideous old thing," the first day he brought her there. Gertrude?
Yes; that was their first lodging after their marriage. He brought her
there, and at that instant he seemed to see her as she was when she
first entered the little room; how she looked round in surprise, and
then ran to the window and knelt and looked up for the sky. The chain
of his reflection was broken by the entrance of Mrs. Jobson, who
expressed her delight at seeing him again.

"But, do you know, I did not reckernise you at first, Mr. Lloyd--I did
not, indeed. Seeing you alone, I suppose it was. I hope you're not
alone in the world, Mr. Lloyd?--that you've not lost that dear sweet
lamb?"

"O no, Mrs. Jobson, thank you; Mrs. Lloyd is alive and very well."

"That's good hearing, I'm sure; and grown into a fine woman, I've no
doubt. Those slight slips of girls with plenty of bone, when they fill
out, improve wonderful;" and then Mrs. Jobson changed the subject, and
launched into questions of domestic economy into which it is not
necessary to follow her.

And the next day Gilbert Lloyd prepared to play the last trump-card
which he found in his hand when he so carefully examined it on the
night he left Baden. He had given deep consideration to his plan
since, had gone through every detail, had turned and twisted the
intended mode of working his scheme, and had definitely, resolved upon
the manner in which he would carry it out.

And this was his resolution--to claim his wife. He had calculated
exactly all the risk that was contained in that one sentence, and he
had determined to brave it, or at all events to pretend to be prepared
to brave it. From those few words which Gertrude had whispered to him,
when in his rashness he had braved her at Mrs. Stapleton Burge's
party, he knew that she was mistress of the secret of Harvey Gore's
death. But the question then arose, would she dare to avail herself of
the knowledge she possessed? Yes, he thought she would, sooner than be
forced to return to him. Except during the first few months of girlish
idolatry, she had never cared for him, and now she had many reasons
for positively hating him. The manner in which he had treated her
would have been quite enough to a girl of her spirit, without the
suspicion of his crime, the position which she had subsequently gained
for herself in the world, and--her love for another man. Even in the
strait in which he found himself, that last thought was sufficient to
tempt him to run almost any risk to prevent her being anything to any
other man, but to that man above all others in the world.

Another question then arose: how much did she know about what had
transpired in those accursed Brighton lodgings? Foxey Walker, with all
his knowingness, with all the means which he had employed, with all
the tremendous inducement he had to endeavour to find out everything,
to drag its deepest depths, and expose all he could rake therefrom in
the light of day, had only been able to patch up a case of suspicion.
So Dolly Clarke had said. To be sure he, Gilbert Lloyd, had taken
fright at the bogey thus raised, and had run away; but he was taken
aback, the charge was brought forward so suddenly, and it was
impossible to face the _charivari_ which would have risen round him,
or to silence the accusation offhand on the spur of the moment.
Impossible, and not particularly worth his while. He had always
thought that the connection between him and Lord Ticehurst must be
brought to an end some day, and had often imagined, more especially
during the last few weeks, that it would terminate in a row. Well,
that could not be helped. He had had wonderfully good pickings for a
very long time; and though he had lost all that he had put by in his
recent unfortunate speculations, the mine was not yet exhausted, the
milch-cow was not yet dry. In the message which Clarke had conveyed to
him from Lord Ticehurst, he was directed to go to Hill-street, and
make up the books and balance the accounts between them; and it was
odd if he could not show a considerable balance due in his favour; ay,
and claim it too, so long as a portion of his lordship's
banking-account was responsive to cheques bearing Gilbert Lloyd's
signature. The question remained then, how much did Gertrude know? He
could not guess from the few words she had whispered to him that
night, for on that occasion also he had taken fright, and rushed off
without probing the matter. But if Foxey Walker could bring forward
nothing positive, nothing actually damnatory, the odds were very
strongly against Gertrude's being able to do so. And it was a great
stake he was going in for now. She could always earn a huge income by
her voice; but this was not all. This old Lord Sandilands, who had
almost adopted Gertrude as his daughter--so, at least, Lady Carabas
had told him, and she ought to know--had the reputation of being
immensely rich. He lived so quietly and unostentatiously, that the
world insisted he had been putting by two-thirds of his income for
years; and he had no relatives to whom to bequeath it. It would
therefore probably all be Gertrude's, or of course, his identity once
established, Gertrude's husband's. Now, what course would they adopt?
Would they accept him; let him live with her during the old man's
lifetime, and inherit with her at the old man's death? Even if all the
capital were tied down, the interest would afford a splendid income.
Or would they offer to buy him off with a sum down and a yearly
income? Either would do, though the first would be best, for--yes, by
Jove! much best, for the second would leave Gertrude open to the
attentions of his brother Miles, However, he was in a strait, and
could not afford to be particular, unless they fought him, and
then--well, he would risk that, and play his last trump-card.

So Gilbert Lloyd, on the morning after his arrival in London from
Baden, sat down and wrote a long and elaborate letter to his wife. He
told her that from the first he had never ceased to grieve over that
unfortunate step which they had taken under the influence of temper
and youthful folly. He did not repine; indeed, he had no doubt that
the separation had had a properly chastening effect--had given them
time and opportunity to see the mistake of indulging in headstrong
passion, and had probably rendered them both--he certainly could speak
for himself--worthier members of society; but the time, he thought,
had arrived when it would be not merely advisable, but proper, to
place themselves right with each other and before the world. There
existed between them a tie which was far more solemnly obligatory on
them than any human-made law,--although he need scarcely point out to
his wife that their marriage had never been legally dissolved,--and
while both the spiritual and moral contracts were in force it was
impossible to shirk their influence. He owned that he had been
profoundly touched, on the several occasions on which he had met her
recently in society, by the fact that he, her legitimate protector,
who should have been at her side, whose proper position was at her
right hand, should have had to stand aloof and look on, while others
pressed round her, owing to the foolish step they had taken. She would
agree with him, he felt sure, that this was a fain position, and one
which should be at once set right; and the only way in which that
could be done would be by their at once coming together and assuming
their proper relations before the world. He, on his part, would not
object, if it was thought necessary or advisable, for an entirely
fresh marriage between them; that detail could be arranged afterwards.
He was writing this in his old lodgings in Duke-street, which she
would recollect, to which he had first taken her after their marriage.
She was a _grand dame_ now, but he did not think he wronged her, or
flattered himself, in stating his belief that she had never known more
real happiness than when inhabiting those little rooms. Might the omen
prove propitious!--Ever hers, G.L.

"And for a sort of thing that's not the least in my line I don't think
that's bad," said Gilbert Lloyd, as he read it over. "It seems to me
to combine the practical with the romantic, a very difficult thing to
hit off, and one likely to please both phases of Gertrude's
character." Then he sealed it, and addressed it to Miss Lambert, to
Sir Giles Belwether's care, despatched it, and waited the result.

There must be a clear day at least before he could receive a reply,
and that day he found it very difficult to get through. He could not
go to Hill-street, though there was plenty of work awaiting him there,
because on the tone of Gertrude's reply to his letter would greatly
depend the tone of his conduct towards Lord Ticehurst. If his wife, no
matter from whatever motives of policy, thought it better to yield to
his views, he would then be in a position to resent his sudden
dismissal, and to speak his plain and unadorned sentiments to his
lordship in equally plain and unadorned language. If, on the contrary,
Gertrude temporised or refused point-blank, and he saw there was no
chance of carrying out his wishes, then all he had left him was to go
to Hill-street to see the very best arrangement he could make for
himself, by which he meant to ascertain the largest amount he could
draw on the fund for which his signature was good at Lord Ticehurst's
banker's--other available funds he had none--and making the best of
his way to Australia or America under a feigned name, begin life again
_de novo_. So he mooned about during the dreary day--it was dreary
enough; none of his friends were in London, and the aspect of the town
was deserted and wretched in the extreme--and was not sorry when it
was time to go home and to bed. The next morning before he was yet up
Mrs. Jobson knocked at his door, and pushed in a letter which had just
arrived by the post. Lloyd sprang up, and seized it at once. It was a
large folded letter, addressed not in Gertrude's hand, but in writing
which had once been bold and was still large, but a little shaky and
tremulous, and was sealed with a coronet and a cipher. Gilbert broke
it open hurriedly, and read as follows:

"_Hastings, Sept. 26, 186--_.

"Geoffrey Challoner,--_for it would be absurd in me to address you by any
other name,--the lady who has the inexpressible misfortune of being
dressed to her, and has begged me to reply to it. The reply to such a
letter could not be confided to fitter hands than those of the lady's
father, in which position I stand. The young lady whose professional
name is Miss Grace Lambert is my natural daughter; the fact has been
duly acknowledged by me, and the first act after the avowal is to
champion my daughter's cause against a villain. For you are a villain,
Geoffrey Challoner; though God knows it is with the deepest pain that
I write such words of any man bearing your paternal name; for in
applying this term to you I am not actuated by a remembrance of the
wrongs you have done to Gertrude, I am not even thinking of the
fearful crime which you committed, and which was revealed to her by
your victim with his dying breath on the occasion of your final
separation. I am looking back across a gulf of years to the time when
the dearest friend I had in the world was your father. Now, Geoffrey
Challoner, do you begin to understand? To me your father confided the
narrative of the events which ended with your banishment from home,
and your erasure from the family annals for ever. That narrative I
have by me now. Your career has been hitherto so successful, you have
gone so long unpunished, that you will be sceptical on this point, but
I will prove it to you. That narrative, written in your father's own
hand, sets forth your boyish disobedience, your tendency to
dissipation, the impossibility to make you think or act rightly; and
finally, your awful crime. When you have read thus far you will still
cling to the hope that the knowledge of the nature of that crime may
have passed into the grave with him whose heart it broke, who never
held up his head after its discovery. If any such hope arises in you,
it is my duty to stamp it out. Geoffrey Challoner, in my possession,
complete in every detail from its commencement to its frustration, is
the story of your attempted fratricide. There can be read, couched in
your father's homely, serious, truth-begetting phrases, the record of
how you, finding it impossible to undermine your father's confidence
in your elder brother by lies and slanders of the most malignant
nature, at length determined to step into that brother's position by
taking away his life by poison. Do you admit the force of my position
now, or would you wish the details brought out one by one into the
light of day, before the public eye?_

"_This letter is written in self-defence, or, what is the same thing,
in defence of my child. The letter she has received from you, however
pleasantly and skilfully worded, was a threat, an order to her to
receive you as her husband, a threat as to what she might expect if
she refused. Now beware. Had you been content to leave Gertrude
unmolested, had you shown the slightest remorse for the horrible
crimes, one of which you contemplated, the other which, as I verily
believe, you committed, I would have tempered justice with mercy, and
left you to the never-failing retribution which your conscience would
sooner or later have claimed of you. That is now impossible. By your
own act you have prevented my using any such discretion in the matter.
You have thrown down the gauntlet, however covertly, and must take the
consequences. I have telegraphed to your brother and to my solicitor
to come to me at once. I shall place before them your father's
narrative, and shall tell them what Gertrude has told me. Do not
flatter yourself with the notion that a wife cannot be a witness
against her husband. There is plenty of other evidence, some of which
I find has been already worked up; and we shall take such steps as may
seem to us advisable_.

"SANDILANDS."

"I've knocked twice with Mr. Lloyd's breakfast, and I can't make him
hear," said Mrs. Jobson to her servant that morning; "and he such a
light sleeper too, in general. I'll try once more, and if he don't
answer, I'll peep in."

The landlady knocked again, but with no effect; and when she "peeped
in" she found Gilbert Lloyd fallen prone on his face on the floor,
with a letter grasped in his stiffened hand.

CHAPTER VII.
Ineluctabile Fatum.

It was fortunate that Mrs. Jobson was a practical woman of resources
and presence of mind, for the first thing she did was to fling the
contents of the water-jug over Lloyd's head (he was a favourite with
her, or she would scarcely have risked damaging the carpet by such a
proceeding); the second was to open the window; and the third was to
loosen his collar, and raise him into a half-sitting position. She
then called out to the servant to run for the doctor; but Lloyd, who
had by this time opened his eyes and come to his senses, vehemently
opposed this suggestion, declaring himself to be quite recovered, and
leading Mrs. Jobson to believe that these were attacks to which he was
by no means unaccustomed--which, though unpleasant to the lookers-on,
were not dangerous to the sufferer, and that he knew how to treat
himself, to prevent the recurrence of the seizure for some time to
come. Mrs. Jobson was much pleased to hear this, for, with all her
practicality, she had that vague fear of sudden death, and its
necessitated coroner's inquest, which is so often found among people
of her class. After her fashion, too, she really liked her lodger, for
Gilbert Lloyd had always been civil and agreeable--had given little
trouble, and paid his way with consistent punctuality; so she was glad
to find him looking something like himself, and lightly treating what
she had at first imagined would be a very serious matter.

But when he was left to himself, and the reaction after the cold
water, and the mental spurt which he had put on to talk to the
landlady, set in, Gilbert Lloyd felt that the blow which for the last
few days he had been certain was impending, had fallen at last. The
depression under which he had been recently labouring was then
accounted for; that attempted crime, which had brought upon him the
sentence of banishment from his father's house, the loss of his
ancestral name and family position, which had sent him forth into the
wilderness of the world, there to stand or fall entirely by his own
arts or luck,--this crime was to be visited on him again, just at the
very time when everything else was going wrong with him!

Lord Sandilands, then, was the friend to whom his father had confided
that horrible secret. He had often wondered to whom his father's
letter had alluded, but had never thought of identifying the bland,
pleasant old nobleman with the man who held the history of his
dishonour in his keeping. His father's letter had said, "This friend
is not acquainted with your personal appearance, and cannot therefore
recognise you, should your future conduct enable you to present
yourself in any place where he may be found." Even in the desperate
circumstances in which he was placed, Gilbert Lloyd almost laughed as
he recalled these words, and thought how frequently his conduct had
"enabled him to present himself" in places where old Sandilands was to
be found; how, indeed, he had been a leader and prime favourite in the
very society which the old nobleman most affected. "Not acquainted
with his personal appearance:" of course not, or Lord Sandilands would
never have consented to meet him on the terms on which they had met,
and which, though not intimate, were sufficiently familiar; would
never have suffered him to be the second-self of Lord Ticehurst--his
lordship could endure Gilbert Lloyd the turfite, but Geoffrey
Challoner--How had he learned about Geoffrey Challoner, then?--whence
had come this secret information? Not from Gertrude: that little fact
was yet to be broken to her, he thought with bitter delight. Who had
been Lord Sandilands' informant? Miles, of course!--he had forgotten
him, his dear, charming brother Miles! O, that boyish hatred had not
been misplaced; there was something in it beyond the mere desire to
get rid of one who stood between him and the estate. If Miles had been
nothing to him, he should have hated him. Miles, of course! His
father's letter had told him that this friend would be "always in
close and constant intercourse with my son." Close and constant
intercourse!--that was true enough; and now this precious pair had put
their heads together for the purpose of his humiliation. Why just at
that time? It could only have been recently that Miles had told the
old gentleman, though he had known it so long ago. Why had he only
just told Lord Sandilands, when he had known it ever since Gertrude's
first appearance at Carabas House? Gertrude--and Miles! was that the
clue? Miles was desperately in love with Gertrude--he had seen that
with his own eyes; and, besides, Toshington--everybody--had told him
so. In their confidence on this point, can Miles have revealed this
fact to his old friend? Gilbert did not see what end could have been
gained by that, more especially as the greatest secret of all--the
existence of the marriage between him and Gertrude--was evidently not
yet known to Miles.

And Gertrude was Lord Sandilands' daughter? That was a surprise to
Gilbert. That the old nobleman would have adopted her, and made her
his heiress, Lloyd had expected; but the thought that she was his
natural daughter had never suggested itself to him. Ah, what an
infernal fool he had been! All these years he had been congratulating
himself on his good fortune, and now he found he had been merely
running after the shadow and neglecting the substance. What a dolt he
had been to allow Gertrude to leave him at all! He might have lived on
her in a princely manner--first on the money which she made by her
profession, and secondly by properly working this secret of her
relationship to Lord Sandilands. And now he had lost all!

His time was come, he thought. _Venit summa dies et ineluctabile
fatum!_ That line remained haunting his brain. He felt that matters
were closing round him very rapidly. What was that he had read in Lord
Sandilands' letter about that cursed Brighton business with Harvey
Gore? He could not distinctly recollect; he would read the letter
again. He turned round to look for it; it was nowhere to be found.

He hunted for it high and low; searched every portion of the room
again and again; examined, as people will do in the desperation of
such circumstances, the most impossible places. He did not like to ask
Mrs. Jobson about it. If she had seen it her curiosity might have been
aroused; she might have read it, and then--At length he rang his bell,
and Mrs. Jobson appeared; and Gilbert saw in an instant by her face
that whatever might have happened she had not read the letter.

"When you were good enough to come to my assistance just now, Mrs.
Jobson, when I had that little attack, did you happen to see an open
letter lying about?" said Gilbert.

"A letter, sir?" said Mrs. Jobson dubiously; "there were no letter
that I saw, 'cept the one in your hand."

"In my hand?"

"Clinched tight up, as was both your fists, so that I could hardly
uncrook your fingers; and in one of 'em there _was_ a letter all
squeezed up."

"That must have been it. What did you do with it?"

"Put it on to the table by the window, just as it might be there,"
said Mrs. Jobson, taking an exact aim, and marking a particular spot
on the table with her finger.

"It's no good looking there," said Gilbert testily--for Mrs. Jobson
still kept peering on the table, as though she expected to see the
letter swim up to the surface through the wood--"it's not there. What
can have become of it?"

"Well, now I recollect," said Mrs. Jobson slowly, "that I thought you
would be all the better for a puff of fresh air, so I opened the
window, and the paper might have blowed out."

"Good God, woman, what have you done!" cried Gilbert, starting up and
rushing towards the street, pushing past Mrs. Jobson, who this time
began to be seriously alarmed, thinking her lodger was going out of
his mind.

The street was tolerably empty when Gilbert Lloyd reached it. There
is not much doing in Duke-street, St. James's, in the month of
September--a slack season, when even the livery-stable-keepers'
helpers are probably out of town, and there were but few people about
to express surprise at seeing a gentleman fly out of a house, and
begin searching the pavement and the kennel with intense anxiety and
perseverance. In the season, a dozen young gutter-bloods, street-boys,
would have been round him in a moment, all aiding in the search for an
unknown something, the probable finding of which, if seen, would bring
them a few coppers, the possible stealing of which, unseen, might fill
their pockets. But on this calm September morning a Jew clothesman
going his rounds, the servant of a lodging-house opposite, and an
elderly-gentleman lodger, who never went out of town, and who in the
winter never got out of bed, and who at the then moment was calmly
looking on at Lloyd's proceedings as at a show, were all the
spectators of the hunt for the missing paper, in which none of them
evinced anything but the most cursory interest.

Not so the seeker. He hunted up and down, poked in wind-swept corners,
peered down rusty gratings, seemed to have at one time a vague idea of
following the chase up the livery-stableman's yard, and glared at the
barrel swinging in mid-air from the crane outside the oilman's
warehouse-door, as though it might have sucked up the precious
document. He must have it, Gilbert Lloyd kept repeating to himself; he
must have it. But he could not find it, and at the end of an hour's
search he returned to the house, worn out with fatigue, and in a state
of feverish anxiety.

If it had blown out of the window, as the woman had suggested, into
the street--and the probabilities were that it had done so--somebody
must have picked it up. There was no wet or mud to discolour the paper
or efface the writing; it was a peculiar and striking-looking letter,
and anyone finding it would doubtless read it through. If such had
been the case it was lost--irretrievably, for ever. Great beads of
perspiration stood upon his pallid forehead as this notion flashed
across him. His name headed the letter, the name of his accuser was
signed at its foot, and its contents plainly set forth one attempted
crime and hinted at the knowledge of another, which had been more than
attempted, which had been carried into effect. Anyone reading this
would see the whole state of affairs at a glance, would feel it
incumbent on them to give information to the police, and--he was a
dead man! What was that Lord Sandilands had said about further
inquiries relative to Harvey Gore? Foxey had been doing his best to
find out something definite in that quarter, and had failed; but then
Lord Sandilands was a man of influence, with plenty of money, which he
would not scruple to spend freely in any matter such as this. That
made all the difference; they might succeed in tampering with that
wretched doctor fellow, who plainly had had his suspicions--Gilbert
had often recalled his expression about the _rigor mortis_--and there
would be an end of it. Pshaw! what a fool he was! He passed his hand
across his damp brow, sprang from the chair on which he had been
sitting, and commenced pacing the room. An end of it? No, not yet. He
had always had his own notion of how that end should be brought about,
if the pressure upon him became unbearable. Most men leading such
precarious shifty lives have thus thought occasionally, and made odd
resolves in regard to them. But there was hope yet. He was seedy,
weak, and unhinged; a glass of brandy would set him all right, and
then he would go off to Hill-street, look through the accounts, draw
on the bankers to the uttermost farthing, and start for America. It
was hard lines to leave town, where he had played the game so long and
so successfully. However, that was all over, he should never play it
any more, and so he might as well--better, much better--begin his new
life in a fresh place.

He dressed himself, got into a cab, and drove to Hill-street. The
house had been left in charge of some of those wonderful people who
occupy houses during the temporary absence of their legitimate owners;
but when Gilbert rang the bell the door was opened, to his intense
surprise, by Martin, Lord Ticehurst's valet, whom he had left behind
with his lordship at Baden.

"You here, Martin!" said Lloyd with an astonishment mingled with an
uncomfortable sensation which he could not conceal. "Why, when did you
arrive, and what has brought you?"

"Arrived last night, sir," said Martin with a jaunty air, very
different from his usual respectful bearing. "Came by his lordship's
orders."

"By his lordship's orders?" echoed Lloyd. "That was rather sudden,
wasn't it?"

"Yes, sir; very sudden, sir; done all in a hurry, sir; after a long
talk with Mr. Clarke the lawyer, sir."

"With Mr. Clarke, eh?" again echoed Lloyd, feeling more and more
uncomfortable. "Well, no matter; it's all right, I suppose. Just come
up to my room and tell me all about it;" and he was passing on into
the house.

"Beg pardon, sir," said Martin, placing himself before him and barring
the way; "beg pardon, sir, but you're not to come in; his lordship's
orders, sir."

"Not to come in!" cried Lloyd, white with passion; "what the devil do
you mean?"

"Just what I say, sir," replied Martin, with perfect coolness; "his
lordship's orders, sir; last words he said to me. Got a note here for
you, sir. Lordship said if you was here I was to give it you at once;