the world, even a young man of only twenty-one. The time would go on,
and the girl would be forgotten, except as a pleasant memory
associated with a delightful holiday. An artist is, perhaps, above his
fellows, liable to swift and sudden changes; his mind dwells
continually on beauty. All lovely girls have not black hair and black
eyes. Apollo, himself, the god of artists, loved not only all the nine
Muses and all the three Graces, but a good many nymphs and princesses
as well--such is the artistic temperament, so catholic is its
admiration of beauty.

CHAPTER XII

THE CHANGE

'A change,' said Roland, 'will surely come, and that before long. I
cannot believe'--Armorel remembered the words afterwards--'that you
will stay on this island for ever.' It needed no unusual gift of
prophecy to foretell impending change when the most important member
of the household was nearing her hundredth year.

The change foretold actually came in April, when the flower-fields had
lost their beauty and the harvest of Scilly was nearly over. Late
blossoms of daffodil still reared their heads among the thick leaves,
though their blooming companions had all been cut off to grace London
tables; there were broad patches of wallflower little regarded; the
leaves of the bulbs were drooping and already turning brown: these
were the signs of approaching summer to the Scillonian, who has
already had his spring. On the adjacent island of Great Britain the
primrose clustered on the banks; the hedges of the West Country were
splendid, putting forth tender leaves over a wealth of wild flowers;
the chestnut-buds were swollen and sticky, ready to burst. Do we not
know the signs and tokens of coming spring? On Scilly, the lengthening
day--there are no hedges and no trees to speak of--the completion of
the flower harvest, and the drooping of the daffodil-leaves in the
fields are the chief signs of spring. Yet there are other signs: if
there are no woods to show the tender leaf of spring, there are the
green shoots of the fern on the down: and there are the birds. The
puffin has already come back; he comes in his thousands: he arrives in
April, and he departs in September: whence he cometh and whither he
goeth no man hath ever learned nor can naturalist discover. At the
same time comes the guillemot, and sometimes the solan-goose: the tern
and the sheerwater come too, if they come at all, in spring: but the
wild ducks and the wild geese depart before the flower-harvest is
finished.

Armorel got up one morning in April a little earlier than usual. It
was five o'clock: the sun was rising over Telegraph Hill on St.
Mary's. She ran down the stairs, opened the door, and stood on the
porch drawing a deep breath. No one was as yet stirring on Samson,
though I think Peter was beginning to turn in his bed. Out at sea
Armorel saw a great steamer, homeward bound, perhaps an Australian
liner: the level rays of the early sun shone on her spars and made
them stand out clear and fine against the sky: behind her streamed her
long white cloud of smoke and steam, hanging over the water, light and
feathery. There were no other ships visible. The air was cold, but the
sun of April was already strong. Armorel shivered, caught her hat, and
ran over the hill, singing as she went, not knowing that in the night,
while she slept, the Angel of Death had visited the house.

About seven o'clock she came back, having completely circumnavigated
the island of Samson, and made, as usual, many curious observations
and discoveries in the manners and customs of puffins, terns, and
shags. She returned in the cheerful mood which belongs to youth,
health, and readiness for breakfast. She instantly perceived, however,
on arriving, that something had happened--something unusual. For Peter
stood in the porch: what was Peter doing in the porch at seven o'clock
in the morning, when he ought to have been ministering to the pigs?
Further, Peter was standing in the attitude of a boy who waits to be
sent on an errand. It is an attitude of expectant readiness--of zeal
according to duty--of activity bought and freely rendered. You will
observe this attitude in all office boys--except telegraph-boys: they
never assume it: they affect no zeal: they betray no eagerness to put
in a fair day's work. Such an attitude would lack the dignity due to a
Government officer. And at sight of Armorel Peter hung his head as one
who sorrows, or is ashamed or repentant. What did he do that for? What
had happened? Why should he hang his head?

She asked these questions of Peter, who only shook his head and
pointed within. She heard Justinian's voice giving some directions.
She also heard Dorcas and Chessun. They were all three speaking in low
voices. She hurried in. The door of the old lady's bedroom--that
sacred apartment into which no one, except the two handmaidens, had
ever ventured--stood wide open; not only that, but Justinian himself
was in the room--actually in the room--and beside the bed. Then
Armorel understood what had happened. On no other condition would
Justinian be admitted to his old mistress's room. On the other side of
the bed stood Dorcas and Chessun. Seeing Armorel at the door, these
two ladies instantly lifted up their voices and wailed aloud--nay,
they shrieked and screamed their lamentations, as if it was the first
time in the world's history that death had carried off an aged woman.
This they did by a kind of instinct: the thing, though they knew it
not, was a survival. In ancient times it was the custom in Lyonesse
that the women should all wail and weep and shriek, and beat their
breasts and tear their hair, and cut their cheeks with their nails,
while the body of the dead king or warrior was carried up the slope of
the hill to be laid in its kistvaen and covered with its barrow on
Samson island.

They wailed aloud, then, because it had always been the right thing
for the women of Samson to do. Otherwise, when one so ancient dies at
last, mind and memory gone before, what place is there for wailing and
weeping? One natural tear we drop, for all must die; but grief belongs
to the death-bed of the young. There needed no shriek of the women nor
anyone's speech to tell Armorel that the white face upturned on the
bed was not the face of a living woman. They had folded the dead hands
across her breast: the eyes were closed: the countless wrinkles of the
aged face were smoothed out: the lips were parted with a wan smile.
After many, many years, Ursula, the widow, was gone to rejoin her
husband. Pray Heaven her desire be granted, and that she rise again
young and beautiful--such a woman as that ill-starred sailor, dragged
to the bottom of the sea by the weight of Robert Fletcher's bag, had
loved in life!

Peter presently sailed across the Road, and returned with the doctor.
It is the part of the doctor not only to usher the new-born into life,
but to bar or open the gates of the tomb: without him very few of us
die, and without him no one can be buried. This man of science
graciously expressed his willingness to acknowledge, though he had not
been called in, that the deceased died of old age. Then he went back.

In the evening there was no music. The violin remained in its place;
the great chair was empty; no one brought out the spinning-wheel; the
table was not pushed back. How was the long evening to be got through
without the violin? How could those ancient tunes be played any more
in the presence of that empty chair? When the serving-folk came in as
usual and sat round the fire, and the women sighed and moaned, and
Justinian stimulated the coals to a flame, and the ruddy light played
upon their faces, Armorel began to think that a continuance of these
evenings would be tedious. Then they began to talk, the conversation
naturally turning on Death and Judgment, and the prospects of Heaven
and the departed.

'She was not one of them,' said Dorcas, 'as would never talk of such
things. I've often heard her say she wanted to rise again, young and
beautiful, same as she was when her husband was took, so that he
should love her again.'

'Nay,' said Justinian; 'that's foolish talk. There's neither marrying
nor giving in marriage there. You ought to know so much, Dorcas.
Husbands and wives will know each other, I doubt not, if it's only for
the man's forgiveness after the many crosses and rubs. 'Twould be a
pity, wife, if we didn't know each other, golden crown and all. I'd be
sorry to think you were not about somewhere.'

Armorel listened without much interest. She wondered vaguely how
Dorcas would look in a golden crown, and hoped that she might not
laugh when she should be permitted to gaze upon her thus wonderfully
adorned. Then she listened in silence while these thinkers followed up
their speculations on the next world and the decrees of Heaven, with
the freedom of their kind. A strangely brutal freedom! It consigns,
without a thought of pity, the majority of mankind to a doom which
they are too ignorant to realise and too stupid to understand. The
deceased lady, it was agreed, might, perhaps--though this was by no
means certain--have fallen under Conviction of Sin at some remote
period, before any of them knew her. Not since, that was certain. And
as for her husband, he was cut off in his sins--like all the
Roseveans, struck down in his sins, without a warning. So that if the
old lady expected to meet him, after their separation of nearly eighty
years, on the Shores of Everlasting Praise, she would certainly be
disappointed, because he was otherwise situated and disposed of.
Therefore she might just as well go up old and wrinkled. This kind of
talk was quite familiar to Armorel, and generally meant nothing to
her. The right of private judgment is claimed and freely exercised in
Scilly, where that branch of the Church Catholic called Bryanite
greatly flourishes. Formerly, she would have passed over this talk
without heeding. Now, she had begun to think of these as well as of
many other things. Roland's words on religious things startled her
into thinking. She listened, therefore, wondering what view people
like Roland Lee would take of her great-grandfather's present
condition, and of the poor old lady's prospects of meeting him again.
Then her thoughts wandered from these nebulous speculations, and she
heard no more, though the conversation became lurid with the flames of
Tartarus, and these old religioners gloated over the hopeless
sufferings of the condemned. A sweet and holy thing, indeed, has
mankind made of the Gospel of Great Joy!

Before they separated, Chessun rose and left the room noiselessly.
Armorel had no experience of the situation, but she knew that
something was going to be done, something connected with the impending
funeral--something solemn.

In fact, Chessun returned after ten minutes or a quarter of an hour,
the others making a pretence of expecting nothing. Doctrinal
meditation was written on Justinian's brow: resignation on that of
Dorcas. Chessun bore in her hands a tray with glasses and a silver
tankard filled with something that steamed. It was a posset, made with
biscuits, new milk and sherry, nutmeg and sugar--an emotional drink,
strong, sweet, comforting, very good for mournful occasions, but, of
late years, unfortunately, gone out of fashion.

They all had a glass, the two women moaning over their glasses, and
the old man shaking his head. Then they went to bed.

They had a posset every night until the funeral. They buried the
ancient dame on Bryher. A boat carried the coffin across the water to
the landing-place in New Grinsey Sound, behind which stands the little
old church with its churchyard. Armorel and her household followed in
one of the family boats, as in a mourning-carriage. All the people of
Tresco and Bryher were present at the funeral; and most of them came
across to Samson after the ceremony to drink a glass of wine and eat a
slice of cake, the women no longer wailing and the men no longer
shaking their heads.

All the Roseveans who have escaped the vengeance of Mr. Fletcher's
terrible bag lie in Bryher churchyard. They are mostly widows, poor
things! They sleep alone, because their husbands' bones lie about
among the tall weeds in the tranquil depths of the ocean.

And Armorel, looking forward, thought with terror of the long, silent
evenings, while the old serving-folk would sit round in the firelight,
silent, or saying things that might as well have been left unsaid.

CHAPTER XIII

ARMOREL'S INHERITANCE

'You are now the mistress, dearie,' said Dorcas. 'It is time that you
should learn what that means.'

It was the morning after the funeral--the Day of Accession--the
beginning of the new reign.

'Why, Dorcas, it makes no difference, does it? There are still the
flowers and the house and everything.'

'Yes--there's everything.' The old woman nodded her head meaningly.
'Oh! yes--there is everything. Oh! you don't know--you don't
suspect--nobody knows--what a surprise is in store for you!'

'What surprise, Dorcas?'

'You've never been into her room except to see her lying dead. It's
your room now. You can go in whenever you like. Always the master or
the mistress has slept in that room. When her father-in-law died she
took the room. And she's slept in it ever since. And no one, except me
and Chessun to clean up and sweep and dust, has ever been in that room
since. And now it's yours.'

'Well, Dorcas, it may be mine; but I shall go on sleeping in my own
room.'

'Then keep it locked--keep it locked up--day and night. There's nobody
in Samson to dread--but keep it locked! As for sleeping in it, time
enough, perhaps, when you come to marry. But keep it locked----'

'Why, Dorcas, what is in it?'

'I am seventy-five years old and past,' Dorcas went on. 'I was fifteen
when I came to the house, and here I've been ever since. Not one of
the grandchildren nor the great-grandchildren ever came in here. No
one ever knew what is kept here.'

'What is it, then?' Armorel asked again.

'She used to come here alone, by daylight, regularly once a month. She
locked the door when she came in. No one ever knew what she was doing,
and no one ever asked. One day she forgot to lock the door, and by
accident I opened it, and saw what she was doing.'

'What was she doing?'

'She'd opened all the cupboards and boxes, and she'd spread out all
the things, and was counting, and--no, no--you may guess, when you
have looked for yourself, what she was doing. I shut the door softly,
and she never knew that I'd looked in upon her. She might have been
overseen from the orchard, but no one ever went in there except to
gather the fruit. To make safe, however, I've put up a muslin blind
now, because Peter might take it into his head--boys go everywhere
peering and prying. Nobody knows what I saw. I never even told
Justinian. Men blab, you see: they get together, and they drink--then
they blab. You can never trust a man with a secret. How long would it
be before Peter would let it out if he knew? Once over at Hugh Town,
drinking at a bar, and all the world would know in half an hour. No,
no; the secret was hers: it was mine as well--but that was an
accident--she never knew that: now it will be yours and mine. And we
will tell nobody--nobody at all.'

'Where shall I find this wonderful secret, Dorcas?'

'Wherever you look, dearie. Oh! the room is full of things. There
can't be such another room in all the world. It's crammed with things.
Look everywhere. If they knew, all the young lords and princes would
be at your feet, Armorel, because you are so rich. Best keep it
secret, though, and get richer.'

'I so rich? Dorcas, you are joking!'

'No--you shall look and find out. Not that you will understand at
first--because, how should you know the value of things? Here's her
bunch of keys. She always carried them in her pocket, and at night she
kept them under her pillows--and there I found them, sure enough, when
she was cold and dead. Take them, child. I never told her
secret--no--not even to my own husband. Take the keys, child. They are
yours--your own. You can open everything: you can look at everything:
you can do what you like with everything. It's your inheritance. But
tell no one,' she repeated, earnestly. 'Oh! my dear, let it remain a
secret. Don't let anyone see you when you come in here. Lock the door,
as she did--and keep it locked.'

The old woman led Armorel by the hand to the door of the room where
there was to be found the Great Surprise. She opened it, placed a
bunch of keys in her hand, pushed her in and closed it behind her,
whispering, 'Lock it, and keep it locked.'

The girl turned the key obediently, wondering what would happen next.

The room was on the ground floor, looking out upon the orchard, with a
northern aspect, so that the sun could only shine in for a small
portion of the year, during the summer months. The apple-trees were
now in blossom, the white pink and flowers bright in the sunshine
contrasting with the grey lichen which wrapped every branch and hung
down like ribbons. The room was the oldest part of the house, the only
remaining portion of an earlier house: it was low and small: the
fireplace had never been modernised: it stood wide open, with its dogs
and its broad chimney: the window was of three narrow lights, one of
which could be opened: all were still provided with the old diamond
panes in their leaden setting. Armorel observed the muslin blind put
up by Dorcas to keep out prying eyes. In dull and cloudy days the room
would be gloomy. As it was, even with the bright sunshine out of
doors, the air seemed cold and oppressive--perhaps from the fresh
association of Death. Armorel shivered as she looked about her.

The greater part of the room was taken up by a large bed. In the old
lady's time it had curtains and a head, and things at the four corners
like the plumes of a hearse, but in faded crimson. Then it looked
splendid. Now, the bed had been stripped: curtains and plumes and all
were gone, and only the skeleton bed left, with its four great solid
posts and its upper beams, and its feather bed lying exposed, with the
bare pillow-cases upon the mattress. But the bedstead was magnificent
without its trappings, because it was made of mahogany black with age:
they no longer make such bedsteads. There was also a table--an old
black table--with massive legs; but there was nothing on it.

Between door and wall there was a row of pegs, with a chair beneath
them. Now, by some freak of chance, when Dorcas and Chessun hung up
the ancient dame's things for the last time--her great bonnet, and the
cap of many ribbons within it, and her silk dress--they arranged them
so as to present a most extraordinary presentment of the venerable
lady herself--much elongated and without any face: she seemed to be
sitting in the chair below the pegs, dressed as usual, and nodding her
great bonnet, but pulled out to eight or ten feet in length. Armorel
caught the ghostly similitude and started, trembling. It seemed as if
in a moment the wrinkled old face, with the hawk-like nose and the
keen eyes, would come back to the bonnet and the cap. She was so much
startled that she turned the bonnet round. And then the figure seemed
watching with the shoulders. This was uncanny, but it was not so
terrible as the faceless form.

Beside the fireplace was a cupboard--one of those huge cupboards which
one only finds in the old houses. Armorel tried the door, but it was
locked. Against the wall stood a chest of drawers, brass-bound,
massive. She tried the handles, but every lock was fast. Under the
window stood an old sea-chest. It was a very big sea-chest. One would
judge, from its rich carvings and its ornamental ironwork, that it was
probably the sea-chest of an admiral at least--perhaps that of Admiral
Hernando Mureno, Armorel's ancestor, if such was his rank in the navy
of his Catholic Majesty. The sight of this sea-chest caused the girl
to shiver with the fear of expectation. Nobody contemplates the
absolutely unknown without a certain fear. It contained, she was
certain, the things that Dorcas had seen, of which she would not
speak. The chest seemed to drag her: it cried, 'Open me. Look inside
me--see what I have got to show you.'

Then she remembered, as one in a dream, hearing people talk. Words
long forgotten came back to her. 'Twas in Hugh Town, whither she went
across to school when she was as yet a little girl. 'What have the
Roseveans'--thus and thus said the voice--'done with all their money?
They've never spent anything: they've gone on saving and saving. Some
day we shall find out what became of it.' Was she going to find out
what had become of it?

The old lady, in her most lucid moments, had never dropped the least
hint of any inheritance, except that disagreeable necessity of getting
drowned on account of the unfortunate Robert Fletcher. And that was
not an inheritance to gladden the heart. Yet there was an inheritance.
It was here, in this room. And she was locked in alone, in order that
she, herself unseen by any, might discover what it was.

Baron Bluebeard's last wife--she who afterwards, as a beautiful, rich,
and lively young widow, set so many hearts aflame--was not more
curious than Armorel. Nor was she, in the course of her
investigations, more afraid than Armorel. The girl looked nervously
about the room, so ghostly and so full of shadow. All old rooms have
their ghosts, but some of them have so many that one is not afraid of
them. There is a sense of companionship in a crowd of ghosts. This
room had only one--that of the woman who had grown old in it--who had
spent nearly eighty years in it. All the old ghosts had grown tired of
this monotonous room, gone away and left the place to her. Armorel not
only 'believed in ghosts'--many of us accord to these shadows a
shadowy, theoretical belief--she actually knew that ghosts do
sometimes appear. Dorcas had seen many--Chessun herself, while not
going actually that length, threw out hints. She herself had often,
too, gone to look for them. Now she glanced nervously where the
'things' were hanging, expecting to see the ancestral figure reappear,
shoulders move, the bonnet and cap turn round, the old, old face
within them, ready to warn, to admonish, and to guide. If this had
happened, it would have seemed to Armorel nothing but what was natural
and in the regular course of things looked for. But, outside, the sun
shone on the white apple-blossom. No one is very much afraid of ghosts
in the sunshine.

She encouraged herself with this reflection, and began with unlocking
the chest of drawers. The lower drawers, when they were opened,
contained nothing but the 'things' of her great-great-grandmother.
Among them was a box roughly made--a boy's box made with a jack-knife:
it contained a gold watch with a French name upon it--a very old
watch, with a representation of the Annunciation in low relief on the
gold face. There were also in the box two or three gold chains and
sundry rings and trinkets. Armorel took them out and laid them on the
table. They were, she said to herself, part of her inheritance. Was
this the Great Surprise spoken of by Dorcas? She tried the two upper
drawers. They were locked, but she easily found the right key, and
opened them. She found that they were filled with lace; they were
crammed with lace. There were packets of lace tied up tight, rolls of
lace, cardboards with lace wound round and round--an immense quantity
of lace was lying in these drawers. As for its value, Armorel knew
nothing. Nor did she even ask herself what the value might be. She
only unrolled one or two packets, and wondered vaguely what in the
world she should do with so much lace. And she wished it was not so
yellow. Yet the packets she unrolled contained Valenciennes--some of
it half a yard wide, precious almost beyond price. Armorel knew,
however, very well how it had got there, and what it meant. The
descendant of so many brave runners was not ignorant that lace,
velvet, silk and satin, brandy and claret, all came from the French
coast with which her gallant forefathers were so familiar before the
Preventive Service interfered. This, then, was left from the smuggling
times. They had not sold all. They had kept enough, in fact, to stock
half a dozen West-End shops, to adorn the trousseau of fifty
Princesses. And here the stuff had lain undisturbed since--well,
perhaps, since the unfortunate visit of Mr. Robert Fletcher.

'My inheritance, so far,' said Armorel, 'is a pile of yellow lace and
a gold watch and chain and some trinkets. Is this the Great Surprise?'
But she looked at the sea-chest. Something more must be there.

Next she turned to the cupboard. It was locked and double-locked. But
she found the key. The cupboard was one of those great receptacles
common in the oldest houses, almost rooms in themselves, but dark
rooms, where mediæval housekeepers kept their stores. In those days,
housekeeping on a respectable scale meant the continual maintenance of
immense stores. All the things which now we get from shops as we want
them were then laid in store long before they were wanted. Outside the
country town there were no shops; and, even in London itself, people
did not run to the shop every day. The men had great quantities of
shirts--three clean shirts a day was the allowance of a solid city man
under good Queen Anne--a city man who respected himself: the women had
a corresponding quantity of flowered petticoats. Wine was by no means
the only thing laid down for future years. All these accumulations
helped to give solidity to the appearance of life. When a woman
thought of her cupboards filled with fine linen and a man of his
cellars filled with wine, the uncertainty and brevity of life alleged
by the Preacher seemed not to concern them. It would be absurd to lay
down a great bin of good port if one was not going to live long enough
to drink it. The fashion, therefore, has its advantages.

Armorel threw open the door and looked in. The place was so dark that
she was obliged to light a candle in order to examine the shelves
running round the sides of the cupboard. There was a strange smell in
the place, which, perhaps, had not been opened for a long time. Bales
of some kind lay upon the upper shelves. Armorel took down two and
opened them. They contained silk--strong, rich silk. She rolled them
up and put them back. On a lower shelf was a most singular collection.
In the front row were one--two--no fewer than six punch-bowls, all of
silver except one, and that was of silver gilt. This must be the Great
Surprise. Armorel took them all out and placed them on the table. For
the most part they showed signs of having been used with freedom--one
has heard of an empty punch-bowl being kicked about the place as a
conclusion to the feast. But six punch-bowls! 'They came,' said
Armorel, 'from the wrecks.' Behind the punch-bowls were silver
candlesticks, silver snuffers, silver cups, silver tankards--some with
coats-of-arms, some with names engraven. There was also a great silver
ship, one of those galleons in silver which formerly adorned Royal
banquets. All these Armorel took out and arranged upon the table.
Among them was a tall hour-glass mounted in silver. Armorel set the
sand running again, after many years. On the floor there were packets
and bundles tied up and rolled together. Armorel opened one of them,
and, finding that it contained a packet of gold lace and a pair of
gold epaulettes, she left them undisturbed. And standing against the
wall, stacked behind the bundles of gold lace, were swords--dozens of
swords. What could she do with swords? Well, then, now, at last, she
had found the Great Surprise. But still the sea-chest seemed to drag
her and to call to her: 'Open me! Open me! See what I have got for
you!'

'So far, then,' she said, 'I have inherited a pile of lace; a gold
watch, rings, and chains; six punch-bowls, twenty-four silver
candlesticks, twelve silver cups, four great tankards, a silver ship,
I know not how many old swords, and a bundle of gold lace. I wonder if
these things make a person rich?'

If so, great wealth does not satisfy the soul. This was certain,
because Armorel really felt no richer than before. Yet the array of
punch-bowls was truly imposing, and the silver candlesticks, the
snuffers, the tankards, the cups, and the ship, though they sadly
wanted the brush and the chamois leather, with a pinch of 'whitenin','
were worthy of a College Plate-Room. One might surely feel a little
elation at the thought of owning all this silver, even if one did not
understand its intrinsic value. But, like the effect of champagne,
such elation would quickly wear off.

Next, Armorel remembered the secret cupboard at the head of the bed.
Her own bed had its secret recess at the head--every respectable
bedstead used formerly to have them. Where else could money be hidden
away safely? To be sure, everybody knew this hiding-place, but
everybody pretended not to know. It was an open secret, like the
concealed drawer in a schoolboy's desk. Our forefathers were full of
such secrets that everybody knew. The stocking in the teapot: the
receptacle under the hearthstone: the hidden compartment in the
cabinet: the secret room: the secret staircase: the recess in the head
of the bed--these were all secrets that everybody knew and everybody
respected. I think that even the burglar respected these conventions.
Armorel knew how to open the panel--she found the spring and it flew
open, rustily, as if it had not been opened for a great many years.
Behind the panel was a recess eighteen inches long and about nine
inches deep. And here stood a Black Jack--nothing less than a Black
Jack; a quart Jack, not a Leather Jack, but a tankard made of tin and
painted with hunting scenes something like an Etruscan vase, or
perhaps more like a Brown George. Why should anyone want to hide away
a Black Jack? This quart pot, however, held something better than
stingo--even stronger: it was half-filled with foreign money. Here
were moidores, doubloons, ducats, pieces-of-eight, Louis d'ors,
Spanish pillar dollars, sequins, gold coins from India--nothing at all
in the pot less than a hundred years old. Armorel took out a handful
and looked at them. Well, gold coins do look like money. She began to
feel really rich. She had a quart tankard half-full of gold coins. She
added the Black Jack to the other treasures on the table. All this
foreign money must have come out of the wrecks. And, since it was all
so old, out of wrecks that had happened before the memory even of the
Ancient Lady. This, then, was perhaps the Great Surprise.

But there remained the sea-chest under the window, and again, when
Armorel looked upon it, the chest continued to call to her, 'Open me!
Open me! See what I have for you!'

Armorel found the key which unlocked it, and threw open the lid.
Within, there was the deep tray which belongs to every sea-chest. This
was filled with a quantity of uninteresting brown canvas bags. She
wanted to see what was below, and tried to lift the tray, but it was
too heavy. Then, still regarding the bags as of no account, she took
one out. It was heavy, and when she lifted it there was a clink as of
coin. It was tied tightly at the mouth with a piece of string. She
opened it. Within there were gold coins. She took out a handful: they
were all sovereigns, some of them worn, some quite new and fresh from
the Mint. She poured out the whole contents of the bag on the table.
Why, it was actually full of golden sovereigns. Nothing else in the
bag. All golden sovereigns! And there were five hundred of them. She
counted them. Five hundred pounds! She had never, it is true, thought
much about money--but--five hundred pounds! It seemed an amazing sum.
Five hundred pounds! And all in a single bag. And such a little bag as
this. She put back the money and tied up the bag.

Then she took out another bag. This was as big as the first, and
heavier. It was full of guineas--Armorel counted them. There were also
five hundred of them. Some of them were so old that they bore the
impression of the elephant, and therefore belonged to the seventeenth
century. But most of them belonged to the eighteenth century, and bore
the heads of the three first Georges. Five hundred guineas--and never
before had Armorel seen a guinea! Well, she thought, that made a
thousand pounds. She took up another bag and opened it. That, too,
weighed as much and was full of gold. And another, and yet another.
They were all full of gold. And now she knew what Dorcas
meant--this--nothing but this--was the Great Surprise! Not the
punch-bowls, or the lace, or the bales of silk, but these bags full of
gold constituted her wealth. She understood money, you see: lace and
silk were beyond her. This was her inheritance!

Consider: the Roseveans, from father to son, had been from time
immemorial wreckers, smugglers, and pilots. They were also farmers. On
their little farm they grew nearly enough to support their simple
lives. They had pigs and poultry; they had milch cows; they had a few
sheep; they kept geese, pigeons, ducks; they made their own beer and
their own cordials and strong waters; they made their own linen; they
were unto themselves millers, tinkers, carpenters, cabinet-makers,
builders, and thatchers. They grew their own salads and vegetables,
and if they wanted any fruit they grew that as well. Oats and barley
they grew, clover and hay. I believe that on Samson wheat has never
been grown--indeed, there are only eighty acres in all. There was
left, therefore, little to buy. Coals, wood for fuel and for
carpentering, things in iron, crockery, tools, cloth clothes, flannel,
flour, and sometimes a little beef--what else did they want? As for
fish, they had only to catch as much as they wanted. Tea, coffee,
sugar, and so forth came in with later civilisation, when small ale,
possets, and hypsy died out.

In order to provide these small deficiencies they were pilots, to
begin with. This trade brought in a steady income. They also sent out
boats, filled with fresh vegetables, to meet the homeward-bound East
Indiamen. And they were also, like the rest of the artless islanders,
wreckers and smugglers. In the former capacity they occasionally
acquired an extraordinary quantity of odd and valuable things. In the
latter profession they made at times, and until the Peace and the
Preventive Service put an end to the business, a really fine income.

Then, on Samson, they continued to live after the patriarchal fashion
and in the old simplicity. Each Captain Rosevean in turn was the
chieftain or sheik. To him his family brought all that they earned or
found. The sea-chest took it all. For three hundred years, at least,
this sea-chest received everything and gave up nothing. Nobody ever
took anything out of it: nobody looked into it: nobody knew, until
Ursula counted the money and made bags for it, what there was in the
chest. Nobody ever asked if they were rich or how rich they were.

There was no bank on Samson: there is not even now a bank in the
Scilly archipelago at all: nobody understood any other way of saving
money than the good old fashion of putting it by in a bag. On Samson
there never were thieves, even when as many as fifty people lived on
the island. Therefore the Captain Rosevean of the time, though he knew
not how much was saved, nor did he ever inquire, laid the last
additions to the pile in the tray of the old sea-chest with the rest,
and, having locked it up, dropped the key in his pocket, and went
about his business in perfect confidence, never thinking either that
it might be stolen, or that he might count up his hoard, proceed to
enjoy it, and alter his simple way of life. Every Captain Rosevean in
succession added to that hoard every year; not one among them all
thought of spending it or taking anything from it. He added to it.
Nobody ever counted it until the reign of Ursula. It was she who made
the little brown bags of canvas: she, usurping the place of Family
Chief or Sheik, took from her sons and grandsons all the money that
they made. They gave it over to her keeping--she was the Family Bank.
And, like her predecessors in that room, she told no one of the hoard.

Most of the bags contained guineas of George I., George II., and
George III., down to the year 1816, when the Mint left off coining
guineas. A few contained sovereigns of later date; but the family
savings since that year had been small and uncertain. The really fat
time--the prosperous time--when the money poured in, was during the
long war which lasted for nearly five-and-twenty years.

There were actually forty of these bags. Armorel laid them out upon
the table and counted them. Forty! And each bag to all appearance, for
she only counted two, contained five hundred guineas or pounds. Forty
times five hundred--that makes twenty thousand pounds, if all were
sovereigns! There are, I am told, a few young ladies in this country
who have as much as twenty thousand pounds for their dot. There are
also a great many young ladies in France, and an amazing multitude,
whom no man may number, in the United States of America, who have as
much. But I am quite sure that not one of these heiresses, except
Armorel herself, has ever actually gazed upon her fortune in a
concrete form--tangible--to be counted--to be weighed--to be admired.
It is a pity that they cannot do this, if only because they would then
see for themselves what a very small pile of gold a fortune of twenty
thousand pounds actually makes. This would make them humble. Armorel
stood looking at the table thus laden with bewildered eyes.

'I have got,' she murmured, 'twenty thousand sovereigns and guineas at
least: I have got a painted pot full of old money. I have got six
punch-bowls, a great silver ship, a large number of silver
candlesticks and cups: I have got a silver-mounted hour-glass'--its
sand was now nearly run--'I have got a great quantity of lace and
silk. I suppose all this does make riches. Whatever shall I do with
it? Shall I give it to the poor? or shall I put it back into the box
and leave it there? But perhaps there is something else in the box.'

The chest, in fact, continued to call aloud to be examined. Even while
Armorel looked at her glittering treasures spread out upon the table
she felt herself drawn towards the chest. There was more in it. There
was another Surprise waiting for her--even a greater Surprise,
perhaps, than that of the bags of gold. 'Search me!' cried the chest.
'Search me! Look into the innermost recesses of me: explore my
contents to the very bottom: let nothing escape your eyes.'

Armorel knelt down before the chest and took out the tray. It was
empty now, and she could lift it easily.

Beneath the tray there was a most miscellaneous collection of things.

They lay in layers, separated and divided--Ursula's hand was here--by
silk handkerchiefs of the good old kind--the bandanna, now gone out of
fashion.

First Armorel took out and laid on the floor a layer of silver spoons,
silver ladles, even silver dishes, all of antique appearance and for
the most part stamped with a crest or a coat-of-arms: for in the old
days if a man was Armiger he loved to place his shield on everything;
to look at it and glory in it: to let others see it and envy it.

Then she found a layer of watches. There were gold watches and silver
watches; the latter of all kinds, down to the veritable turnip. The
glasses were broken of nearly all, and, if one had examined, the works
would have been found rusted with the sea-water which had got in. What
were they worth now? Perhaps the value of the cases and of the jewels
with which the works were set, and more with one or two, where
miniatures adorned the back and jewels were set in the face. Armorel
turned with impatience from the watches to the gold chains, which lay
beside them. There were yards of gold chain: gold chains of all kinds,
from the heavy English make to the dainty interlaced Venetian and
thread-like Trichinopoly; there were silver chains also--massive
silver chains, made for some extinct office-bearer, perhaps bo's'n on
the Admiral's ship of the Great Armada. Armorel drew up some of the
chains and played with them, tying them round her wrists and letting
them slip through her fingers--the pretty delicate things, which spoke
of wealth almost as loudly as the bags of guineas.

She laid them aside, and took up a silk handkerchief containing a
small collection of miniatures. They were almost all portraits of
women: young and pretty women: ladies on land whose faces warmed the
hearts and fired the memories of men at sea. The miniatures had hung
round the necks of some and had lain in the sea-chests of others,
whose bones had long since melted to nothing in the salt sea depths,
while those of their mistresses had turned to dust beneath the aisle
of some village church, their memory long since forgotten, and their
very name trampled out by the feet of the rustics.

Armorel laid aside these pictures--they were very pretty, but she
would look at them again another time.

The next parcel was a much larger one. It consisted of snuff-boxes.
There were dozens of snuff-boxes: one or two of gold: one or two
silver-gilt: some silver. In the lids of some were pictures, some most
beautifully and delicately executed; some of subjects which Armorel
did not understand--and why, she thought, should painters draw people
without proper clothes? Venus and the Graces and the Nymphs, in whom
our eighteenth-century ancestors took such huge delight, were to this
young person merely people. The snuff-boxes were very well in their
way, but Armorel had no inclination to look at them again.

Then she found in a handkerchief, the four corners of which were
loosely tied together, a great quantity of rings. There were rings of
every kind--the official ring or the ring of office, the signet-ring,
the ring with the shield, the ring with the name of a ship, the ring
with the name of a regiment, mourning-rings, wedding-rings,
betrothal-rings, rings with posies, cramp-rings with the names of the
Magi on them--but their power was gone--gimmal-rings, rings episcopal,
rings barbaric, mediæval, and modern, rings set with every kind of
precious stone--there were hundreds of rings. All drowned sailors used
to have rings on their fingers.

Armorel began to get tired of all these treasures. Beneath them,
however, at the bottom of the box, lay piled together a mass of
curios. They were stowed away for the most part in small boxes, of
foreign make and appearance: ivory boxes: carved wood boxes. They
consisted of all kinds of things, such as gold and silver buckles,
brooches, painted fans, jewel-hilted daggers, crystal tubes of attar
of roses, and knives of curious construction. The girl sighed: she
would look over them at another time. They would, perhaps, add
something to the inheritance, but for the moment she was satisfied.
She had seen enough. She was putting back a dagger whose jewelled
handle flashed in the unaccustomed light, when she saw, lying half
hidden among this pile of curious things, the corner of a chagreen
case. This attracted her curiosity, and she took it out. The chagreen
had been green in colour, but was now very much discoloured. It had
been fastened by a silver clasp, but this was broken: a small leather
strap was attached to two corners. Armorel expected to find another
bag of money. But this did not contain gold. It was lighter than the
canvas bags. As she took it into her hands she remembered the bag of
Robert Fletcher. Yes. The leathern strap of this case had been cut
through. She held in her hands--she was certain--the abominable Thing
that had brought so much trouble on the family. Again the room felt
ghostly: she heard voices whispering: the voices of all those who had
been drowned: the voices of the women who had mourned for them: the
voice of the old lady who was herself a witness of the crime. They all
whispered together in her ears: 'Armorel, you must find him. You must
give it back to him.'

What was in it? The clasp acted no longer. Armorel lifted the
overlapping leather and looked within. There was a thick roll of silk.
She took this out. Wrapped up in the silk, laid in folds, side by
side, were a quantity of stones--common-looking stones, such as one
may pick up, she thought, on the beach of Porth Bay. There were a
couple of hundred or more, mostly small stones, only one or two of
them bigger than the top of Armorel's little finger.

'Only stones!' she cried. 'All this trouble about a bag full of red
stones!'

Among the stones lay a small folded paper. Armorel opened it. The
paper was discoloured by age or by water, and most of the writing was
effaced. But she could read some of it.

'... from the King of Burmah himself. This ruby I estimate to be worth
... 000_l._ at the very least. The other ... Mines. The second largest
stone weighs ... about 2,000_l._ The smaller ... rt Fletcher.'

It was a note on the contents of the parcel, written by the owner.

The stones, therefore, were rubies, uncut rubies. Armorel knew little
about precious stones and jewels, but she had heard and read of them.
The price of a virtuous woman, she knew, was far above rubies. And
Solomon's fairest among women was made comely with rows of jewels.
Queen Sheba, moreover, brought precious stones among her presents to
the Wise King. The girl wondered why such common-looking objects as
these should be precious. But she was humbly ignorant, and put that
wonder by.

This, then, was nothing less than Robert Fletcher's fortune. He had
this round his neck, and he was bringing it home to enjoy. And it was
taken from him by her ancestor. A wicked thing indeed! A foul and
wicked thing! And the poor man had been sent empty away to begin his
life all over again. She shivered as she looked at them. All for the
sake of these dull, red bits of stone! How can man so easily fall into
temptation? In the empty room, so quiet, so ghostly, she heard again
the whispers, 'Armorel, find him--find the man--and give him back his
jewels.'

She replied aloud, not daring to look round her lest she should see
the pale and eager faces of those who had suffered death by drowning
in consequence of this sin, 'Yes--yes, I will find him! I will find
him!'

She pushed the chagreen case back into its corner and covered it up.
'I will find him,' she repeated. Then she rose to her feet and looked
about the room. Heavens! What a sight! The bags of gold, two of them
open, their contents lying piled upon the table--the chains of gold on
the floor--the handful of old gold coins lying on the table beside the
Black Jack, the snuff-boxes, the miniatures, the punch-bowls, the
rings, the silver cups--the low room, dark and quiet, filled with
ghosts and voices, the recent occupant wagging her shoulders and
shaking the back of her bonnet at her from the opposite wall, and,
through the open window, the sight of the sunlight on the
apple-blossoms mocking the gold and silver in this gloomy cave. She
comprehended, as yet, little of the extent of her good fortune. Lace
and silk, rings and miniatures, snuff-boxes: all these things had no
value to her--of buying and selling she had no kind of experience. All
she understood was that she was the possessor of a vast quantity of
things for which she could find no possible use--one jewelled dagger,
for instance, might be used for a dinner-knife, or for a paper-knife;
but what could she do with a dozen? In addition to this museum of
pretty and useless things she had forty bags with five hundred
guineas, or pounds, in each--twenty-one thousand pounds, say, in cash.
This museum was perfectly unique: no family in Great Britain had such
a collection. It had been growing for more than three hundred years:
it was begun in the time of the Tudor Kings, at least, perhaps even
earlier. Wrecks there were, and Roseveans, on Samson, before the
seventh Henry. I doubt if any other family, even the oldest and the
noblest, has been collecting so long. Certainly no other family, even
in this archipelago of wrecks, can have had such opportunities of
collecting with such difficulties in dissipating. For more than three
hundred years! And Armorel was sole heiress!

She understood that she had inherited something more than twenty
thousand pounds--how much more, she knew not. Now, unless one knows
something of the capacities of one single pound, one cannot arrive at
the possibilities of twenty thousand pounds. Armorel knew as much as
this. Tea at Hugh Town costs two shillings a pound--perhaps
two-and-four--sugar threepence a pound: nun's cloth so much a
yard--serge and flannel so much: coals, so much a ton: wood for fuel,
so much. This was nearly the extent of her knowledge: and it must be
confessed that it goes very little way towards a right comprehension
of twenty thousand pounds.

Once, again, she had heard Justinian talking of the flower-farm. 'It
has made,' he said, 'four hundred pounds this year, clear.' To which
Dorcas replied, 'And the housekeeping doesn't come to half that, nor
near it.' Whence, by the new light of this Great Surprise, she
concluded, first, that the other two hundred, thus made, must have
been added to those money-bags, and, next, that two hundred pounds a
year would be a liberal allowance for her whole yearly expenditure.
Then she made a little calculation. Two hundred pounds a year--two
hundred into twenty thousand--twenty thousand--two and four
noughts--she put five bags in a row for the number--subtract two--she
did so--there remained three--divide by two--she did so--one hundred
years was the result of that sum. Her twenty thousand pounds would
therefore last her exactly one hundred years. At the expiration of the
century all would be gone. For the first time in her life Armorel
comprehended the fleeting nature of riches. And, naturally, the
discovery, though she shivered at the thought of losing all, made her
feel a little proud. A strange result of wealth, to advance the
inheritor one more step in the knowledge of possible misery! She was
like unto the curious youth who opens a book of medicine, only to
learn of new diseases and terrible sufferings and alarming symptoms,
and to imagine these in his own body of corruption. In a hundred years
there would be no more. She would then be reduced to sell the lace and
the other things for what they would then be worth. There would still,
however, remain the flower-farm. She would, after all, be no worse off
than before the Great Surprise. And then there sprang up in her heart
the blossom of another thought, to be developed, later on, into a
lovely flower.

She had risen from her knees now, and was standing beside the table,
vaguely gazing upon her inheritance. It was all before her. So the
Ancient Lady had stood many and many a time counting the money:
looking to see if all was safe: content to count it and to know that
it was there. The old lady was gone, but from the opposite wall her
shoulders and the back of her bonnet were looking on.

Well: Armorel might go on doing exactly the same. She might live as
her forefathers had lived: there was the flower-farm to provide all
their necessities: if it brought in four hundred pounds a year, she
could add two hundred to the heap--in every two years and a half
another bag of five hundred sovereigns. All her people had done
this--why not she? It seemed expected of her; a plain duty laid upon
her shoulders. If she were to live on for eighty years longer--which
would bring her to her great-great-grandmother's age--she would save
eighty times two hundred--sixteen thousand pounds. The inheritance
would then be worth thirty-six thousand pounds--a prodigious sum of
money indeed. And, besides, the Black Jack, with its foreign gold, and
the rings and lace and things!

A strange room it was this morning. What voice was it that whispered
solemnly in her ear, 'Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth,
where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and
steal'?

Never before had this injunction possessed any other significance to
her than belongs to one manifestly addressed to other people. The
Bible is full of warnings addressed to other people. Armorel was like
the Royal Duke who used to murmur during the weekly utterance of the
Commandments, 'Never did that. Never did that.' Now, this precept was
clearly and from the very first intended to meet her own case. Oh! To
live for nothing than to add more bags to that tray in the great
sea-chest!

Roland had prophesied that there would be a change. It had come
already in part, and more was coming.

What next? As yet the girl did not understand that she was mistress of
her own fate. Hitherto things had been done for her. She was now about
to act for herself. But how? If Roland were only here! But he had only
written once, and he had never kept his promise to write back again to
Samson. If he were here he could advise.

She looked around, and saw the heaps of things that were all hers, and
she laughed. The girl whom Roland thought to be only an ignorant and
poor little country girl, a flower-farmer's girl of Samson Island,
living alone with her old grandmother and the serving-folk, was
ignorant still, no doubt. But she was not poor: she was rich--she
could have all that can be bought with money--she was rich. What would
Roland say and think? And she laughed aloud.

She was rich--the last girl in the world to hope, or expect, or desire
riches. Thus Fate mocks us, giving to one, who wants it not, wealth:
and to another, who knows not how to use it, youth: and to a third,
insensible of its power, beauty. The young lady of society, she whom
the good old hymns used to call the Worldling--fond and pretty title!
there are no Worldlings now--would have had no difficulty in knowing
how to use this wonderful windfall. She, indeed, is always longing,
perhaps praying, for money: she is always thinking how delightful it
would be to be rich, and how there is nothing in the whole world more
desirable than much fine gold. But to Lady Worldling, poor thing! such
a windfall never happens. Again, there are all the distressed
gentlewomen, the unappreciated artists, the authors whose books won't
sell, the lawyers who have no clients, the wives whose name is
Quiverful, the tradesman who 'scapes the Bankruptcy Court year after
year by the skin of his teeth, and the poor dear young man who pines
away because he cannot join the rabble rout of Comus--why, why does
not such a windfall ever come to any of these? It never does: yet they
spend all their spare time--all the time when they ought to be
planning and devising ways and means of advancement--in dreaming of
the golden days they would enjoy, if only such a windfall fell to
them. One such man I knew: he dreamed of wealth all his life: he tried
to become rich by taking every year a share in a foreign lottery. Of
course, he never won a prize. While he was yet young and even far down
the shady or outer slope of middle age he continually built castles in
the air, fashioning pleasant ways for himself when he should get that
prize. When he grew old, he dreamed of the will he would make and of
the envy with which other old men, when he was gone, should regard the
memory of one who had cut up so well. So he died poor; but I think he
had always, through his dreaming, been as happy as if he had been
rich.

Armorel told herself, standing in the midst of this great treasure,
that she was rich. Roland had once told her, she remembered, that an
artist ought to have money in order to be free: only in freedom, he
said, could a man make the best of himself. What was good for an
artist might be good for her. At the same time--it is not for nothing
that a girl reads and ponders over the Gospels--there were terrible
words of warning--there were instances. She shuddered, overwhelmed
with the prospects of new dangers.

She knew everything: the room had yielded all its secrets there were
no more cupboards, boxes, or drawers. The sight of the treasures
already began to pall upon her. She applied herself to putting
everything back. First the chagreen case. This she laid carefully in
its corner among the daggers and pistols, remembering that she had
promised to find the owner. How should she do that if she remained on
Samson? Then she put back the snuff-boxes, the miniatures, and the
watches in their silk handkerchiefs: then the box of rings and the
silver spoons and dishes. Then she put the tray in its place and laid
the bags in the tray, and locked the old sea-chest. This done, she
bore back to the shelves in the cupboard the punch-bowls,
candlesticks, tankards, and the big silver ship: she locked and
double-locked the cupboard-door: she crammed the lace into the
drawers, and put back the box of trinkets.

Then she dropped the keys in her pocket. Oh! what a lump to carry
about all day long! But the weight of the keys in her pocket was
nothing to the weight that was laid upon her shoulders by her great
possessions. This, however, she hardly felt at first.

Everything was her own.

When the new King comes to the throne he makes a great clearance of
all the personal belongings of the old King. He gives away his cloaks
and his uniforms, and all the things belonging to the daily life of
his predecessor. That is always done. Therefore, Queen Armorel--Vivat
Regina!--at this point gathered together all her predecessor's
belongings. She turned them out of the drawers and laid them on the
floor--with the great bonnet and the wonderful cap of ribbons. And
then she opened the door. She would give these things to Dorcas. Her
great-great-grandmother should have no more authority there. Even her
clothes must go. If her ghost should remain, it should be without the
bonnet and the cap.

She called Dorcas, who came, curious to know how her young mistress
took the Great Surprise. Armorel had taken it, apparently, as a matter
of course. So the new King stands upon the highest step of the Throne,
calm and collected, as if he had been prepared for this event, and was
expecting it day after day.

'You know all now, dearie?' she whispered, shutting the door
carefully. 'Did you find everything?'

'Yes--I believe I found everything.'

'The silver in the cupboard: the lace: the bags of gold?'

'I think I have found everything, Dorcas.'

'Then you are rich, my dear. No Rosevean before you was ever half so
rich. For none of it has been spent. They've all gone on saving and
adding--almost to the last she saved and added. Oh! the last thing she
lost was the love of saving, and the jealousy of her keys she never
lost. Oh! you are very rich--you are the richest girl in the whole of
Scilly--not even in St. Mary's is there anyone who can compare with
you. Even the Lord Proprietor himself--I hardly know.'

'Yes. I believe I must be very rich,' said Armorel. 'Dorcas, you kept
her secret. Keep mine as well. Let no one know.'

'No one shall know, dearie--no one. But lock the door. Keep the door
locked always.'

'I will. Now, Dorcas, here are all her dresses and things. You must
take them all away and keep them. They are for you.'

'Very well, dearie. Though how I'm to wear black silk---- Oh! Child,'
she cried, out of the religious terrors of her soul--'it is written
that it is harder for a rich man to enter into heaven than for a camel
to pass through the eye of a needle. My dear, if these great riches
are to drag your soul down into hell, it would be better if they were
all thrown into the sea, the silver punch-bowls and the bags of gold
and all. But there's one comfort. It doesn't say, impossible. It only
says, harder. So that now and then, perhaps, a rich man may wriggle
in--just one--and oh! I wish, seeing the number of rich people there
are in the world, that there'd been shown one camel--only a single
camel--going through the needle's eye. Think what a miracle! 'Twould
have brought conviction to all who saw it, and consolation ever
afterwards to all who considered it--oh! the many thousands of
afflicted souls who are born rich! You are not the only one, child,
who is rich through no fault of her own. Often have I told Justinian,
thinking of her, and he not knowing or suspecting, but believing I was
talking silly, that, considering the warnings and woes pronounced
against the rich, we cannot be too thankful. But don't despair, my
dear--it is nowhere said to be impossible. And there's the rich young
man, to be sure, who was told to sell all that he had and to give to
the poor. He went away sorrowful. You can't do that, Armorel, because
there are no poor on Samson. And it's said, "Woe unto you that are
rich, for you have had your consolation!" Well, but if your money
never is your consolation--and I'm sure I don't know what it is going
to console you for--that doesn't apply to you, does it? There's the
story of the Rich Man, again; and there's texts upon texts, when you
come to think of them. You will remember them, child, and they will be
your warnings. Besides, you are not going to waste and riot like a
Prodigal Son, and where your earthly treasure is there you will not
set your heart. You will go on like all the Roseveans before you: and
though the treasure is kept locked up, you will add to it every year
out of your savings, just as they did.'

'There is another parable, Dorcas. I think I ought to remember that as
well. It is that of the Talents. If the man who was rich with Five
Talents had locked them up, he would not have been called a good and
faithful servant.'

'Yes, dearie, yes. You will find some Scripture to comfort and assure
your soul, no doubt. There's a good deal in Scripture. Something for
all sorts, as they say. Though, after all, riches is a dangerous
thing. Child! if they knew it over at St. Mary's, not a young man in
the place but would be sailing over to Samson to try his luck. Our
secret, child, all to ourselves.'

'Yes; our secret, Dorcas. And now take away all these things,
everything that belonged to her: there are her shoes--take them too. I
want the room to be all my own. So.'

When all the things were gone, Armorel closed and locked the door.
Then she ran out of the house gasping, for she choked. Everything was
turned into gold. She gasped and choked and ran out over the hill and
down the steps and across the narrow plain, and up the northern hill,
hoping to drive some of the ghosts from her brain, and to shake off
some of the bewildering caused by the Great Surprise. But a good deal
remained, and especially the religious terrors suggested by that pious
Bryanite Christian and Divider of the Word, Dorcas Tryeth.

When she sat down in the old place upon the carn, the great gulf
between herself and Bryher island reminded her of that great gulf in
the parable. How if she should be the Rich Man sitting for ever and
for ever on the red-hot rock, tormented with pain and thirst--and how
if on Samson Hill beyond she should see Abraham himself, the
patriarch, with Lazarus lying at his feet--as yet she had developed no
Lazarus--but who knows the future? The Rich Man must have been a
thoughtless and selfish person. Until now the parable never interested
her at all: why should it? She had no money.

The other passages, those which Dorcas had kindly quoted in this her
first hour of wealth, came crowding into her mind, and told her they
were come to stay. All these texts she had previously classed with the
denunciations of sins the very meaning of which she knew not. She had
no concern with such wickedness. Nor could she possibly understand how
it was that people, when they actually knew that they must not do such
things, still went on doing them. Now, however, having become rich
herself, all the warnings of the New Testament seemed directed against
herself. Already, the load of wealth was beginning to weigh upon her
young shoulders.

She changed the current of her thoughts. Even the richest girl cannot
be always thinking about woes and warnings. Else she would do nothing,
good or bad. She began to think about the outer world. She had been
thinking of it constantly ever since Roland left her. Now, as she
looked across the broad Roadstead, and remembered that thirty miles
beyond Telegraph Hill rose the cliffs where the outer world
begins--they can be seen in a clear day--a longing, passionate and
irresistible, seized her. She could go away now, whenever she pleased.
She could visit the outer world and make the acquaintance of the
people who live in it.

She laughed, thinking how Justinian, who had never been beyond St.
Mary's, pictured, as he was fond of doing, the outer world. The Sea of
Tiberias was to him the Road: the Jordan was like Grinsey Sound: the
steep place down which the swine fell into the sea was like Shipman's
Head: the Sermon on the Mount took place on just such a spot as the
carn of the North Hill on Samson, with the sun shining on the Western
Islands: the New Jerusalem in his mind was a city like Hugh Town,
consisting of one long street with stone houses, roofed with slate;
each house two storeys high, a door in the middle, and one window on
each side. On the north side of the New Jerusalem was the harbour,
with the ships, the sea-shore, and the open sea beyond: on the south
side was a bay with beaches of white sand and black rocks at the
entrance, exactly like Porth Cressa. And it was a quiet town, with
seldom any noise of wheels, and always the sound of the sea lapping on
either hand, north or south.

Now, there was nothing to keep her: she could go to visit the outer
world whenever she pleased--if only she knew how. A girl of sixteen
can hardly go forth into the wide, wide world all alone, announcing to
the four corners her desire to make the acquaintance of everybody and
to understand anything.

And then she began to remember her teacher's last instructions. The
perfect girl was one who had trained her eye and her hand: she could
play one instrument well: she understood music: she understood art:
she was always gracious, sympathetic, and encouraging: she knew how to
get their best out of men: she was always beautifully dressed: she had
the sweetest and the most beautiful manners.

And here she blushed crimson, and then turned pale, and felt a pang as
if a knife had pierced her very heart. For a dreadful thought struck
her. She thought she understood at last the true reason why Roland
never came back, though he promised, and looked so serious when he
promised.

Why? why? Because she was so ill-mannered. Of course that was the
reason. Why did Roland speak so strongly about the perfect girl's
gracious and sympathetic manners, unless to make her understand, in
this kindly and thoughtful way, how much was wanting in herself? Of
course, he only looked upon her as a common country girl, who knew
nothing, and would never learn anything. He wanted her to understand
that--to feel that she would never rise to higher levels. He drew this
picture of the perfect girl to make and keep her humble. Nay, but now
she had this money--all this wealth--now--now---- She sprang to her
feet and threw out her arms, the gesture that she had learned I know
not where. 'Oh!' she cried, 'it is the gift of the Five Talents! I am
not the rich young man. I have not received these riches for my
consolation. They are my Five Talents. I will go away and learn--I
will learn. I will become the perfect girl. I will train eye and hand.
I will grow--grow--grow--to my full height. That will be true work in
the service of the Giver of those Talents. I shall become a good and
faithful servant when I have risen to the stature that is possible for
me!'

PART II

CHAPTER I

SWEET COZ

'I suppose,' said Philippa, 'that we were obliged to ask her.'

'Well, my dear,' her mother replied, 'Mr. Jagenal is an old friend,
and when----' Her voice dropped, and she did not finish the sentence.
It is absurd to finish a sentence which is understood.

'Perhaps she will not do anything very outrageous.'

'Well, my dear, Mr. Jagenal distinctly said that her manner----' Again
she left the sentence unfinished. Perhaps it was her habit.

'As she bears our name and comes from our place we can hardly deny the
cousinship. In a few minutes, however, we shall know the worst.'

Philippa, dressed for dinner, was standing before the fire, tapping
the fender impatiently with her foot, and playing with her fan. A
handsome girl of three- or four-and-twenty: handsome, not pretty, if
you please, nor lovely. By no means. Handsome, with a kind of beauty
which no painter or sculptor would assign to Lady Venus, because it
lacked softness; nor to Diana, because that huntress, chaste and fair,
was country-bred, and Philippa was of the town--urban. The young lady
was perfectly well satisfied with her own style of beauty. If she
exaggerated a little its power, that is a common feminine mistake. The
exaggeration brings to dress a moral responsibility. Philippa was
dressed this evening in a creamy white silk, which had the effect of
softening a face and manner somewhat cold and even hard. The young men
of the period complained that Philippa was stand-offish. Certainly she
did not commit the mistake, too common among girls, of plunging
straight off into sympathetic interest with every young man. Philippa
waited for the young men to interest her, if they could. Generally,
they could not. And, while many girls listen with affected deference
to the opinions of the young man, Philippa made the young man receive
hers with deference. These plain facts show, perhaps, why Philippa, at
twenty-four, was still free and unengaged.

In appearance she was tall--all young ladies who respect themselves
are tall in these days: her features were clearly cut, if a little
pronounced: her hazel eyes were intellectually bright, though cold:
her hair, the least-marked feature, was of a common brown colour, but
she treated it so as to produce a distinctive effect: her mouth was
fine, though her lips were rather thin: her figure was correct, though
Venus herself would have preferred more of it, and, perhaps, that more
flexible. But it is the commonplace girl, we know, who runs to
plumpness.

She was dressed with greater care than usual that evening, because
people were coming, but not to dinner. The only guests at dinner were
to be one Mr. Jagenal, the well known family solicitor, of Lincoln's
Inn, and a certain far-off cousin, named Armorel Rosevean, from the
Scilly Isles, and her companion and chaperon, one Mrs. Jerome
Elstree--unknown.

'My dear,' her mother began, 'you are too desponding. Mr. Jagenal
assured your father----' She dropped her voice again.

'Oh! He is an old bachelor. What does he know? Our cousin comes from
Scilly. So did we. It does very well to talk of coming from Scilly, as
if it was something grand, but I have been looking into a book about
it. Old families of Scilly, we say. Why, they have never been anything
but farmers and smugglers. And our cousin, I hear, is actually a small
tenant-farmer--a flower-farmer--a kind of market-gardener! She grows
daffodils and jonquils and anemones and snowdrops, and sells them.
Very likely the daffodils on our table have come from her farm.
Perhaps she will tell us about the price they fetch a dozen. And she
will inform us at dinner how she counts the stalks and makes out the
bills.'

'Absurd! She is an heiress. Mr. Jagenal says----'

'An heiress? How can she be an heiress?' Philippa repeated, with
scorn. 'She inherits the lease of a little flower-farm. The people of
Scilly are all quite, quite poor. My book says so. Some years ago the
Scilly folk were nearly starving.'

'Your book must be wrong, Philippa. Mr. Jagenal says that the girl has
a respectable fortune. When a man of his experience says that, he
means----' Here her voice dropped again.

'Well; the island heiress will go back, I dare say, to her
inheritance.'

At this point Mr. Jagenal himself was announced--elderly, precise,
exact in appearance and in language.

'You have not yet seen your cousin?' he asked.

'No. She will be here immediately, I suppose.'

'Your cousin came to our house five years ago. My late partner
received her. She brought a letter from a clergyman then at the Scilly
Islands. She was sixteen, quite ignorant of the world, and a really
interesting girl. She had inherited a very handsome fortune. My late
partner found her tutors and guardians, and she has been travelling
and learning. Now she has come to London again. She chooses to be her
own mistress, and has taken a flat. And I have found a companion for
her--widow of an artist--our young friend Alec Feilding knew about
her--name of Elstree. I think she will do very well.'

'Alec knew her? He has never told me of any lady of that name.'
Philippa looked a little astonished.

Then the girl of whom they were talking, with the companion in
question, appeared.

You know how one forms in the mind a whole image, or group of images,
preparatory; and how these shadows are all dispelled by the appearance
of the reality. At the very first sight of Armorel, Philippa's
prejudices and expectations--the vision of the dowdy rustic, the
half-bred island savage, the uncouth country maiden--all vanished into
thin air. New prejudices might arise--it is a mistake to suppose that
because old prejudices have been cleared away there can be no
more--but, in this case, the old ones vanished. For while Armorel
walked across the room, and while Mrs. Rosevean stepped forward to
welcome her, Philippa made the discovery that her cousin knew how to
carry herself, how to walk, and how to dress. Girls who have learned
these three essentials have generally learned how to talk as well. And
a young lady of London understands at the first glance whether a
strange young person, her sister in the bonds of humanity, is also a
lady. As for the dress, it showed genius either on the part of Armorel
herself or of her advisers. There was genius in the devising and
invention of it. But genius of this kind one can buy. There was the
genius of audacity in the wearing of it, because it was a dress of the
kind more generally worn by ladies of forty than of twenty-one. And it
required a fine face and a good figure to carry it off. Ladies will
quite understand when I explain that Armorel wore a train and bodice
of green brocaded velvet: the sleeves and the petticoat trimmed with
lace. You may see a good deal of lace--of a sort--on many dresses; but
Philippa recognised with astonishment that this was old lace, the
finest lace in the world, of greater breadth than it is now made--lace
that was priceless--lace that only a rich girl could wear. There were
also pearls on the sleeves: she wore mousquetaire gloves--which proved
many things: there were bracelets on her wrists, and round her neck
she had a circlet of plain red gold--it was the torque found in the
kistvaen on Samson, but this Philippa did not know. And she observed,
taking in all these details in one comprehensive and catholic glance
of mind and eye, that her cousin was a very beautiful girl indeed,
with something Castilian in her face and appearance--dark and
splendid. For a simple dinner she would have been overdressed; but
considering the reception to come afterwards, she was fittingly
arrayed. She was accompanied by her companion--Philippa might have
remembered that one must be an heiress in order to afford the luxury
of such a household official. Mrs. Jerome Elstree was almost young
enough to want a chaperon for herself, being certainly a good deal
under thirty. She was a graceful woman of fair complexion and blue
eyes: if Armorel had desired a contrast to herself she could not have
chosen better. She wore a dress in the style which is called, I
believe, second mourning. The dress suggested widowhood, but no longer
in the first passionate agony--widowhood subdued and resigned.

The hostess rose from her chair and advanced a step to meet her
guests. She touched the fingers of Mrs. Elstree. 'Very pleased,
indeed,' she murmured, and turned to Armorel. 'My dear cousin'--she
seized both her hands, and looked as well as spoke most motherly. 'My
dear child, this is, indeed, a pleasure! And to think that we have
known nothing about your very existence all the time! This is my
daughter--my only daughter, Philippa.' Then she subsided into her
chair, leaving Philippa to do the rest. 'We are cousins,' said
Philippa, kindly but with cold and curious eyes. 'I hope we shall be
friends.' Then she turned to the companion. 'Oh!' she cried, with a
start of surprise. 'It is Zoe!'

'Yes,' said Mrs. Elstree, a quick smile on her lips. 'Formerly it was
Zoe. How do you do, Philippa?' Her voice was naturally soft and sweet,
a caressing voice, a voice of velvet. She glanced at Philippa as she
spoke, and her eyes flashed with a light which hardly corresponded
with the voice. 'I was wondering, as we came here, whether you would
remember me. It is so long since we were at school together. How long,
dear? Seven years? Eight years? You remember that summer at the
seaside--where was it? One changes a good deal in seven years. Yet I
thought, somehow, that you would remember me. You are looking very
well, Philippa--still.'

A doubtful compliment, but conveyed in the softest manner, which
should have removed any possible doubt. Armorel looked on with some
astonishment. On Philippa's face there had risen a flaming spot.
Something was going on below the surface. But Philippa laughed.

'Of course, I remember you very well,' she said.

'But, dear Philippa,' Mrs. Elstree went on, softly smiling and gently
speaking, 'I am no longer Zoe. I am Mrs. Jerome Elstree--I am La Veuve
Elstree. I am Armorel's companion.'

'I am sorry,' Philippa replied coldly. Her eyes belied her words. She
was not sorry. She did not care whether good or evil had happened to
this woman. She was too good a Christian to desire the latter, and not
good enough to wish the former. What she had really hoped--whenever
she thought of Zoe--was that she might never, never meet her again.
And here she was, a guest in her own home, and companion to her own
cousin!

Then Mr. Rosevean appeared, and welcomed the new cousin cordially. He
seemed a cheerful, good-tempered kind of man, was sixty years of age,
bald on the forehead, and of aspect like the conventional Colonel of
_Punch_--in fact, he had been in the Army, and served through the
Crimean war, which was quite enough for honour. He passed his time
laboriously considering his investments--for he had great
possessions--and making small collections which never came to
anything. He also wrote letters to the papers, but these seldom
appeared.

Then they went in to dinner. The conversation naturally turned at
first upon Scilly, their common starting-point, and the illustrious
family of the Roseveans.

'As soon as I heard about you, my dear young lady, I set to work to
discover our exact relationship. My grandfather, Sir Jacob--you have
heard of Sir Jacob Rosevean, Knight of Hanover? Yes; naturally--he was
born in the year 1760. He was the younger brother of Captain Emanuel
Rosevean, your great-grandfather, I believe.'

'My grandfathers were all named either Emanuel or Methusalem. They
took turns.'

'Quite so,' Mr. Rosevean nodded his head in approbation. 'The
preservation of the same Christian names gives dignity to the family.
Anthony goes with Ashley: Emanuel or Methusalem with Rosevean. The
survival of the Scripture name shows how the Puritanic spirit lingers
yet in the good old stocks.' Philippa glanced at her mother, mindful of
her own remarks on the old families of Scilly. 'We come of a very fine
old family, cousin Armorel. I hope you have been brought up in becoming
pride of birth. It is a possession which the world cannot give and the
world cannot take away. We are a race of Vikings--conquering Vikings.
The last of them was, perhaps, my grandfather, Sir Jacob, unless any of
the later Roseveans----'

'I am afraid they can hardly be called Vikings,' said Armorel, simply.

'Sir Jacob--my grandfather--was cast, my dear young friend, in the
heroic mould--the heroic mould. Nothing short of that. For the
services which he rendered to the State at the moment of Britannia's
greatest peril, he should have been raised to the House of Lords. But
it was a time of giants--and he had to be contented with the simple
recognition of a knighthood.'

'Jacob Rosevean'--who was it had told Armorel this--long before? And
why did she now remember the words so clearly, 'ran away and went to
sea. He could read and write and cipher a little, and so they made him
clerk to the purser. Then he rose to be purser himself, and when he
had made some money he left the service and became Contractor to the
Fleet, and supplied stores of all kinds during the long war, and at
last he became so rich that they were obliged to make him a Knight.'

'The simple recognition of a Knighthood,' Mr. Rosevean went on. 'This
it is to live in an age of heroes.'

Armorel waited for further details. Later on, perhaps, some of the
heroic achievements of the great Sir Jacob would be related.
Meantime, every hero must make a beginning: why should not Jacob
Rosevean begin as purser's clerk? It was pleasing to the girl to
observe how large and generous a view her cousins took of the family
greatness--never before had she known to what an illustrious stock she
belonged. The smuggling, the wrecking, the piloting, the
farming--these were all forgotten. A whole race of heroic ancestors
had taken the place of the plain Roseveans whom Armorel knew. Well: if
by the third generation of wealth and position one cannot evolve so
simple a thing as an ancient family, what is the use of history,
genealogy, heraldry, and imagination? The Roseveans were Vikings: they
were the terror of the French coast: they went a-crusading with
short-legged Robert: they were rovers of the Spanish Main: the great
King of Spain trembled when he heard their name: they were buccaneers.
Portraits of some of these ancestors hung on the wall: Sir Jacob
himself, of course, was there; and Sir Jacob's great-grandfather, a
Cavalier; and his grandfather, an Elizabethan worthy. Presumably,
these portraits came from Samson Island. But Armorel had never heard
of any family portraits, and she had grown up in shameful ignorance of
these heroes. There was a coat-of-arms, too, with which she was not
acquainted. Yet there were circumstances connected with the grant of
that shield by the Sovereign--King Edward the First--which were highly
creditable to the family. Armorel listened and marvelled. But her host
evidently believed it all: and, indeed, it was his father, not
himself, who had imagined these historic splendours.

'It is pleasing,' he said, 'to revive these memories between members
of different branches. You, however, are fresh from the ancestral
scenes. You are the heiress of the ancient island home: yours is the
Hall of the Vikings: to you have been entrusted the relics of the
past. I look upon you and seem to see again the Rovers putting forth
to drag down the Spanish pride. There are noble memories, Armorel--I
must call you Armorel--associated with that isle of Samson, our
ancient family domain. Let us never forget them.'

The dinner came to an end at last, and the ladies went away.

Mrs. Elstree sat down in the most comfortable chair by the fire and
was silent, leaning her face upon her hands and looking into the
firelight. Mrs. Rosevean took a chair on the other side and fell
asleep. Philippa and Armorel talked.

'I cannot understand,' said Philippa, bluntly, 'how such a girl as you
could have come from Scilly. I have been reading a book about the
place, and it says that the people are all poor, and that Samson, your
island--our island--is quite a small place.'

'I will tell you if you like,' said Armorel, 'as much about myself as
you please to hear.' The chief advantage of an autobiography--as you
shall see, dear reader, if you will oblige me by reading mine, when it
comes out--is the right of preserving silence upon certain points.
Armorel, for example, said nothing at all about Roland Lee. Nor did
she tell of the chagreen case with the rubies. But she did tell how
she found the treasure of the sea-chest, and the cupboard, and how she
took everything, except the punch-bowls and the silver ship and cups,
to London, and how she gave them over to the lawyer to whom she had a
letter. And she told how she was resolved to repair the deficiencies
of her up-bringing, and how, for five long years, she had worked day
and night.

'I think you are a very brave girl,' said Philippa. 'Most girls in
your place would have been contented to sit down and enjoy their good
fortune.'

'I was so very ignorant when I began. And--and one or two things had
happened which made me ashamed of my ignorance.'

'Yet it was brave of you to work so hard.'

'At first,' said Armorel, 'when this good fortune came to me I was
afraid, thinking of the Parable of the Rich Man.' Philippa started and
looked astonished. In the circle of Dives this Parable is never
mentioned. No one regardeth that Parable, which is generally believed
to be a late interpolation. 'But when I came to think, I understood
that it might be the gift of the Five Talents--a sacred trust.'

Philippa's eyes showed no comprehension of this language. Armorel,
indeed, had learned long since that the Bryanite or Early Christian
language is no longer used in society. But Philippa was her cousin.
Perhaps, in the family, it would still pass current.

'I worked most at music. Shall I play to you?'

'Nothing, dear Philippa,' said Zoe, half-turning round, 'would please
you so much as to hear Armorel play. You used to play a little
yourself'--Philippa had been the pride and glory of the school for her
playing--'A little!' Had she lost her memory?

'Will you play this evening?'

'I brought her violin in the carriage,' said Zoe, softly. 'I wanted to
give you as many delightful surprises as possible, Philippa. To find
your cousin so beautiful: to hear her play: and to receive me again!
This will be, indeed, an evening to remember.'

'I will play if you like,' said Armorel, simply. 'But perhaps you have
made other arrangements.'

'No--no--you can play? But of course, you have had good masters. You
shall play instead of me.'

Zoe murmured her satisfaction, and turned again her face to the fire.

'Tell me, Armorel,' said Philippa, 'all this about the Vikings--the
Hall of the Vikings--the Rovers--and the rest of it. Was it familiar
to you?'

'No; I have never heard of any Vikings or Rovers. And there is no
Hall.'

'We are, I suppose, really an old family of Scilly?'

'We have lived in the same place for I know not how many years. One
of the outlying rocks of Scilly is called Rosevean. Oh! there is no
doubt about our antiquity. About the Crusaders, and all the rest of
it, I know nothing. Perhaps because there was nobody to tell me.'

'I see,' said Philippa, thoughtfully. 'Well, it does no harm to
believe these things. Perhaps some of them are true. Sir Jacob,
certainly, cannot be denied; nor the Roseveans of Samson Island. My
dear, I am very glad you came.'

CHAPTER II

THE SONATA

The room was full of people. It was the average sort of reception,
where one always expects to meet men and women who have done
something: men who write, paint, or compose; women who do the same,
but not so well; women who play and sing; women who are æsthetic, and
show their appreciation of art by wearing hideous dresses; women who
recite: men and women who advocate all kinds of things--mostly cranks
and cracks. There are, besides, the people who know the people who do
things: and these, who are a talkative and appreciative folk, carry on
the conversation. Thirdly, there are the people who do nothing, and
know nobody, who go away and talk casually of having met this or that
great man last night.

'Armorel,' said Philippa, 'let me introduce Dr. Bovey-Tracy. Perhaps
you already know his works.'

'Unfortunately--not yet,' Armorel replied.

The Doctor was quite a young man, not more than two- or
three-and-twenty. His degree was German, and his appearance, with long
light hair and spectacles, was studiously German. If he could have
Germanised his name as well as his appearance he would certainly have
done so. As a pianist, a teacher of music, and a composer, the young
Doctor is already beginning to be known. When Armorel confessed her
ignorance, he gently spread his hands and smiled pity. 'If you will
really play, Armorel, Dr. Bovey-Tracy will kindly accompany you.'

Armorel took her violin out of the case and began to tune it.

'What will you play?' asked the musician: 'Something serious? So?'

Armorel turned over a pile of music and selected a piece. It was the
Sonata by Schumann in D minor for violin and pianoforte. 'Shall we
play this?'

Philippa looked a little surprised. The choice was daring. The Herr
Doctor smiled graciously: 'This is, indeed, serious,' he said.

I suppose that to begin your musical training with the performance of
heys and hornpipes and country dances is not the modern scientific
method. But he who learns to fiddle for sailors to dance may acquire a
mastery over the instrument which the modern scientific method teaches
much more slowly. Armorel began her musical training with a fiddle as
obedient to her as the Slave of the Lamp to his master. And for five
years she had been under masters playing every day, until----

The pianist sat down, held his outstretched fingers professionally
over the keys, and struck a chord. Armorel raised her bow, and the
sonata began.

I am told that there is now quite a fair percentage of educated people
who really do understand music, can tell good playing from bad, and
fine playing from its counterfeit. In the same way, there is a
percentage--but not nearly so large--of people who know a good picture
when they see it, and can appreciate correct drawing if they cannot
understand fine colour. Out of the sixty or seventy people who filled
this room, there were certainly twenty--but then it was an
exceptionally good collection--who understood that a violinist born
and trained was playing to them, in a style not often found outside
St. James's Hall. And they marvelled while the music delivered its
message--which is different for every soul. They sat or stood in
silence, spellbound. Of the remaining fifty, thirty understood that a
piece of classical music was going on: it had no voice or message for
them: they did not comprehend one single phrase--the sonata might have
been a sermon in the Bulgarian tongue: but they knew how to behave in
the presence of Music, and they governed themselves accordingly. The
Remnant--twenty in number--containing all the young men and most of
the girls, understood that here was a really beautiful girl playing
the fiddle for them. The young men murmured their admiration, and the
girls whispered envious things--not necessarily spiteful, but
certainly envious. What girl could resist envy at sight of that dress,
with its lace, and that command of the violin, and--which every girl
concedes last of all, and grudgingly--that face and figure?

Philippa stood beside the piano, rather pale. She knew, now, why her
old schoolfellow had been so anxious that Armorel should play. Kind
and thoughtful Zoe!

The playing of the first movement surprised her. Here was one who had,
indeed, mastered her instrument. At the playing of the second, which
is a scherzo, bright and lively, she acknowledged her mistress--not
her rival. At the playing of the third, which contains a lovely,
simple, innocent, and happy tune, her heart melted--never, never,
could she so pour into her playing the soul of that melody: never
could she so rise to the spirit of the musician and put into the music
what even he himself had not imagined. But Zoe was wrong. Her soul was
not filled with envy. Philippa had a larger soul.

It was finished. The twenty who understood gasped. The thirty who
listened murmured thanks, and resumed their talk about something
else. The twenty who neither listened nor understood went on talking
without any comment at all.

'You have had excellent masters,' said the Doctor. 'You play very well
indeed--not like an amateur. It is a pity that you cannot play in
public.'

'You have made good use of your opportunities,' said Philippa. 'I have
never heard an amateur play better. I play a little myself; but----'

'I said you would be pleased,' Zoe murmured softly at her side. 'I
knew you would be pleased when you heard Armorel play.'

'You will play yourself, presently?' said the Herr Doctor.

'No; not this evening,' Philippa replied. 'Impossible--after Armorel.'

'Not this evening!' echoed Zoe, sweetly.

Then there came walking tall and erect through the crowd, which
respectfully parted right and left to let him pass, a young man of
striking and even distinguished appearance.

'Philippa,' he said, 'will you introduce me to your cousin?'

'Armorel, this is another cousin of mine--unfortunately not of
yours--Mr. Alec Feilding.'

'I am very unfortunate, Miss Rosevean. I came too late to hear more
than the end of the sonata. Normann-Néruda herself could not interpret
that music better.' Then he saw Zoe, and greeted her as an old friend.
'Mrs. Elstree and I,' he said, 'have known each other a long time.'

'Fifty years, at least,' Zoe murmured. 'Is it not so long, Philippa?'

'Will you play something else?' he asked. 'The people are dying to
hear you again.'

Armorel looked at Philippa. 'If you will,' she said kindly. 'If you
are not tired. Play us, this time, something lighter. We cannot all
appreciate Schumann.'

'Shall I give you a memory of Scilly?' she replied. 'That will be
light enough.'

She played, in fact, that old ditty--one of those which she had been
wont to play for the Ancient Lady--called 'Prince Rupert's March.' She
played this with variations which that gallant Cavalier had never
heard. It is a fine air, however, and lends itself to the phantasy of
a musician. Then those who had understood the sonata laughed with
condescension, as a philosopher laughs when he hears a simple story;
and those who had pretended to understand pricked up their ears,
thinking that this was another piece of classical music, and joyfully
perceiving that they would understand it; and those who had made no
pretence now listened with open mouths and ears as upright as those of
any wild-ass of the desert. Music worth hearing, this. Armorel played
for five or six minutes. Then she stopped and laid down her violin.

'I think I have played enough for one evening,' she said.

She left the piano and retired into the throng. A girl took her place.
The Herr Doctor placed another piece of music before him, lifted his
hands, held them suspended for a moment, and then struck a chord. This
girl began to sing.

Mr. Alec Feilding followed Armorel and led her to a seat at the end of
the room. Then he sat down beside her and, as soon as the song was
finished, began to talk.

He began by talking about music, and the Masters in music. His talk
was authoritative: he laid down opinions: he talked as if he was
writing a book of instruction: and he talked as if the whole wide
world was listening to him. But not quite so loudly as if that had
been really the case.

He was a man of thirty or so, his features were perfectly regular, but
his expression was rather wooden. His eyes were good, but rather too
close together. His mouth was hidden by a huge moustache, curled and
twisted and pointed forwards.

Armorel disliked his manner, and for some reason or other distrusted
his face.

He left off laying down the law on music, and began to talk about
things personal.

'I hope you like your new companion,' he said. 'She is an old friend
of mine. I was in hopes of being able to advance her husband in his
profession. But he died before I got the chance. Mr. Jagenal told me
what was wanted, and I was happy in recommending Zoe--Mrs. Elstree.'

'Thank you,' said Armorel, coldly. 'I dare say we shall get to like
each other in time.'

'If so, I shall rejoice in having been of some service to you as well
as to her. What is her day at home?'

'I believe we are to be at home on Wednesdays.'

'As for me,' he said lightly, 'I am always at home in my studio. I am
a triple slave--Miss Rosevean--as you may have heard. I am a slave of
the brush, the pen, and the wastepaper-basket. If you will come with
Mrs. Elstree to my studio I can show you one or two things that you
might like to see.'

'Thank you,' she replied, without apparent interest in his studio. The
young man was not accustomed to girls who showed no interest in him,
and retired, chilled. Presently she heard his voice again. This time
he was talking with Philippa. They were talking low in the doorway
beside her, but she could not choose but hear.

'You recommended her--you?' said Philippa.

'Why not?'

'Do you know how--where--she has been living for the last seven
years?'

'Certainly. She married an American. He died a year ago, leaving her
rather badly off. Is there any reason, Philippa, why I should not
recommend her? If there is I will speak to Mr. Jagenal.'

'No--no--no. There is no reason that I know of. Somebody told me she
had gone on the stage. Who was it?'

'Gone on the stage? No--no: she was married to this American.'

'You have never spoken to me about her.'

'Reason enough, fair cousin. You do not like her.'

'And--you--do,' she replied slowly.

'I like all pretty women, Philippa. I respect one only.'

Then other people came and were introduced to Armorel. One does not
leave in cold neglect a girl who is so beautiful and plays so
wonderfully. None of them interested Armorel very much. At the
beginning, when a girl first goes into society, she expects to be
interested and excited at a general gathering. This expectation
disappears, and the current coin of everybody's talk takes the place
of interest.

Suddenly she caught a face which she knew. When a girl has been
travelling about for five years she sees a great many faces. This was
a face which she remembered perfectly well, yet could not at first
place it in any scene or assign it to any date. Then she recollected.
And she walked boldly across the room and stood before the owner of
that face.

'You have forgotten me,' she said abruptly.

'I--I--can I ever have known you?' he asked.

'Will you shake hands, Mr. Stephenson? You were Dick Stephenson five
years ago. Have you forgotten Armorel, of Samson Island in Scilly?'

No. He had not forgotten that young lady. But he would never have
known her thus changed--thus dressed.

'Where is your friend Roland Lee?'

Dick Stephenson changed colour. 'I have not seen him for a long time.
We are no longer--exactly--friends.'

'Why not?' she asked, with severity. 'Have you done anything bad? How
have you offended him?'

'No, no; certainly not.' He coloured more deeply. 'I have done nothing
bad at all,' he added with much indignation.

'Have you deserted him, then? I thought men never gave up their
friends. Come to see me, Mr. Stephenson. You shall tell me where he is
and what he is doing.'

In the press of the crowd, as they were going away, she heard Mr.
Jagenal's voice.

'You are burning the candle at both ends, Alec,' he was saying. 'You
cannot possibly go on painting, writing, editing your paper, riding in
the Park, and going out every evening as you do now. No man's
constitution can stand it, young gentleman. Curb your activity. Be
wise in time.'

THE CLEVEREST MAN IN LONDON

Alec Feilding--everybody, even those who had never seen him, called
him Alec--stood before the fire in his own den. In his hand he held a
manuscript, which he was reading with great care, making dabs and
dashes on it with a thick red pencil.

Sometimes he called the place his studio, sometimes his study. No
other man in London, I believe, has so good a right to call his
workshop by either name. No other man in London, certainly, is so well
known both for pen and pencil. To be at once a poet, a novelist, an
essayist, and a painter, and to do all these things well, if not
splendidly, is given to few.

The room was large and lofty, as becomes a studio. A heavy curtain
hung across the door: the carpet was thick: there was a great
fireplace, as deep and broad as that of an old hall, the fire burning
on bricks in the ancient style. Above the fireplace there was no
modern overmantel, but dark panels of oak, carved in flowers and
grapes, with a coat of arms--his own: he claimed descent from the
noble House of Feilding: and in the centre panel his own portrait let
into the wall without a frame--the work was executed by the most
illustrious portrait-painter of the day--the face full of thought, the
eyes charged with feeling, the features clear, regular, and classical.
A beautiful portrait, with every point idealised. Three sides of the
room were fitted with bookshelves, as becomes a study, and these were
filled with books. The fourth side was partly hung with tapestry and
partly adorned with armour and weapons. Here were also two small
pictures, representing the illustrious Alec in childhood--the light of
future genius already in his eyes--and in early manhood.

A large library table, littered with books, manuscripts, and proofs,
belonged to the study. An easel before the north light, and another
table provided with palettes, brushes, paints, and all the tools of
the limning trade, belonged to the studio.

The house, which was in St. John's Wood, stood in an old garden at the
end of a cul-de-sac off the main road: it was, therefore, quiet: the
house itself was new, built in the style now familiar, and put up for
the convenience of those who believe that there is nothing in the
world to be considered except Art. Therefore there was a spacious
hall: stairs broad enough for an ancient mansion led to the first
floor and to the great studio. There were also three or four small
cupboards, called bedrooms, dining-room, and anything else you might
please. But the studio was the real thing. The house was built for the
studio.

The place was charged with an atmosphere of peace. Intellectual calm
reigned here. Art of all kinds abhors noise. One could feel here the
silence necessary for intellectual efforts of the highest order.
Apart from the books and the easel and this silence, the character of
the occupant was betrayed--or perhaps proclaimed--by other things. The
furniture was massive: the library table of the largest kind: the easy
chairs by the fire as solid and comfortable as if they had been
designed for a club smoking-room: a cabinet showed a collection of
china behind glass: the appointments, down to the inkstand and the
paper-knife, were large and solid: all together spoke not only of the
artist but of the successful artist: not only of the man who works,
but of one who works with success and honour: the man arrived. The
things also spoke of the splendid man, the man who knows that success
should be followed by the splendid life. Too often the successful man
is a poor-spirited creature, who continues in the humble middle-class
style to which he was born; is satisfied with his suburban villa,
never wants a better house or one more finely appointed, and has no
craving for society. What is success worth if one does not live up to
it? Success is not an end: it is the means: it brings the power of
getting the things that make life--wine--horses--the best cook at the
best club--sport--the society, every day, of beautiful and well-bred
women--all these things the man who has succeeded can enjoy. Those who
have not yet succeeded may envy the favourite of Fortune.

As for his work, this highly successful man owned that he could not
desert the Muse of Painting any more than her sister of
Belles-Lettres. Happy would he be with either, were t'other dear
charmer away! Happier still was he with both! And they were not
jealous. They allowed him--these tender creatures--to love them both.
He was by nature polygamous, perhaps.

Therefore those who were invited to see his latest picture--the lucky
few, because you must not think that his studio was open on Show
Sunday for all the world to see--stayed, when they had admired that
production, to talk of his latest poem or his latest story.

Over the mantelshelf was quite a stack of invitations. And really one
hardly knows whether Alec Feilding was most to be envied for his
success as a painter--though he painted little: or for his
stories--though these were all short--much too short: or for his
verses--certainly written in the most delightful vein of _vers de
société_: or for his essays, full of observation: or for his social
success, which was undoubted. And there is no doubt that there was not
any man in London more envied, or who occupied a more enviable
position, than Alec Feilding. To be sure, he deserved it: because,
without any exception, he was the cleverest man in town.

He owned and edited a paper of his own--a weekly journal devoted to
the higher interests of Art. It was called _The Muses Nine_. It was
illustrated especially by blocks from art books noticed in its
columns. In this paper his own things first appeared: his verses, his
stories, his essays. The columns signed _Editor_ were the leading
feature of the paper, for which alone many people bought it every
week. The contents of these columns were always fresh, epigrammatic,
and delightful: in the stories a certain feminine quality lent
piquancy--it seemed sometimes as if a man could not have written these
stories: the verses always tripped lightly, merrily, and gracefully
along. An Abbé de la Cour in the last century might have served up
such a weekly dish for the Parisians, had he been the cleverest man in
Paris.

Alec Feilding's enemies--every man who is rising or has risen has
enemies--consoled themselves for a success which could not be denied
by sneering at the ephemeral character of his work. It was for to-day:
to-morrow, they said, it would be flat. This was not quite true, but,
as it is equally true of nearly every piece of modern work, the
successful author could afford to disregard this criticism. Perhaps
there may be, here and there, a writer who expects more than a limited
immortality: I do not know any, but there may be some. And these will
probably be disappointed. The enemies said further that his social
success--also undoubted--was due to his unbounded cheek. This, too,
was partly true, because, if one would rise at all, one must possess
that useful quality: without it one will surely sink. It is not to be
denied that this young man walked into drawing-rooms as if his
presence was a favour: that he spoke as one who delivers a judgment:
and that he professed a profound belief in himself. With such gifts
and graces--the gift of painting, the gift of verse, the gift of
fiction, a handsome presence, good manners, and unbounded cheek--Alec
Feilding had already risen very high indeed for so young a man. His
enemies, again, said that he was looking out for an heiress.

His enemies, as sometimes but not often happens, spoke from imperfect
knowledge. Every man has his weak points, and should be careful to
keep them to himself--friends may become enemies--and to let no one
know them or suspect them. As for the weak points of Alec
Feilding--had his enemies known them---- But you shall see.

He sat down at his library-table and began to copy the manuscript that
he had been reading. It was a laborious task, first because copying work
is always tedious, and next because he was making alterations--changing
names and places--and leaving out bits. He worked on steadily for about
half an hour.

Then there was a gentle tap at the door, and his servant--who looked
as solemn and discreet as if he had been Charles the Second's
confidential clerk of the Back-stairs--came in noiselessly on tiptoe
and whispered a name. Alec placed the manuscript and his copy
carefully in a drawer, and nodded his head.

You have already seen the man who came in. Five years older, and a
good deal altered--changed, perhaps, for the worse--but then the
freshness of twenty-one cannot be expected to last. The man who
stayed three weeks in Samson, and promised a girl that he would
return. The man who broke that promise, and forgot the girl. He never
went back to Scilly. Perhaps he had grown handsomer: his Vandyke beard
and moustache were by this time thicker and longer: he was more
picturesque in appearance than of old: he still wore a brown velvet
coat: he looked still more what he was--an artist. But his cheek was
thin and pale, dark rings were round his eyes, his face was gloomy: he
wore the look of waste--the waste of energy and of purpose. It is not
good to see this look in the eyes of a young man.

'You sent for me,' he said, with no other greeting.

'I did. Come in. Is the door shut? I've got some good news for you.
Heavens! you look as if you wanted good news badly! What's the matter,
man? More debts and duns? And I want to consult you a little about
this picture of yours'--he pointed to the easel.

[Illustration: _'I want to consult you a little about this picture of
yours.'_]

'Mine? No: yours. You have bought me--pictures and all.'

'Just as you like. What does it matter--here--within these walls?'

'Hush! Even here you should not whisper it. The birds of the air, you
know---- Take great care'---- Roland laughed, but not mirthfully.
'Mine?' he repeated; 'mine? Suppose I were to call together the
fellows at the club, and suppose I were to tell the story of the last
three years?--eh? eh? How a man was fooled on until he sold himself
and became a slave--eh?'

'You can't tell that story, Roland, you know.'

'Some day I will--I must.'

Alec Feilding threw himself back in his chair, crossed his legs, and
joined his fingers. It is an attitude of judicial remonstrance.

'Come, Roland,' he said, smiling blandly. 'Let us have it out. It
galls sometimes, doesn't it? But remember you can't have
everything--come, now. If you were to tell the fellows at the club,
truthfully, the whole story, they would, I dare say, be glad to get
such a beautiful pile of stones to throw at me. One more reputation
built on pretence and humbug--eh? Yes: the little edifice which you
and I have reared together with so much care would be shattered at a
single stroke, wouldn't it? You could do that: you can always do that.
But at some little cost to yourself--some little cost, remember.'

Roland remarked that the cost or consequences of that little exploit
might be condemned.

'Truly. If you will. But not until you realise what they are. Now my
version of the story is this. There was once--three years ago--a
fellow who had failed. The Academy wouldn't accept his pictures; no
one would buy them. And yet he had some power and true feeling. But he
could not succeed: he could not get anybody to buy his pictures. And
then he was an extravagant kind of man: he was head over ears in
debt: he liked to lead the easy life--dinner and billiards at the
club--all the rest of it. Then there was another man--an old
schoolfellow of his--a man who wanted, for purposes of his own, a
reputation for genius in more than one branch of Art. He wanted to
seem a master of painting as well as poetry and fiction. This man
addressed the Failure. He said, "Unsuccessful Greatness, I will buy
your pictures of you, on the simple condition that I may call them
mine." The Failure hesitated at first. Naturally. He was loth to write
himself down a Failure. Everybody would be. Then he consented. He
promised to paint no more in the style in which he had failed except
for this other man. Then the other man, who knew his way about, called
his friends together, set up a picture painted by the Failure on an
easel, bought the tools, laid them out on the table--there they
are--and launched himself upon the world as an artist as well as a
poet and author. A Fraud, wasn't he? Yet it paid both men--the Fraud
and the Failure. For the Fraud knew how to puff the work and to get it
puffed and praised and noticed everywhere; he made people talk about
it: he had paragraphs about it: he got critics to treat his--or the
Failure's--pictures seriously: in fact, he advertised them as
successfully and as systematically as if he had been a soap-man. Is
this true, so far?'

'Quite true. Go on--Fraud.'

'I will--Failure. Then the price of the pictures went up. The Fraud
was able to sell them at a price continually rising. And the Failure
received a price in proportion. He shared in the proceeds. The Fraud
gave him two thirds. Is that true? Two thirds. He ran your price,
Failure, from nothing at all to four hundred and fifty pounds--your
last, and biggest price. And he gave you two thirds. All you had to do
was to produce the pictures. What he did was to persuade the world
that they were great and valuable pictures. Is that true?'

Roland grunted.

'Three years ago you were at your wits' end for the next day's dinner.
You had borrowed of all your friends: you had pawned your watch and
chain: you were face to face with poverty--no; starvation. Deny that,
if you can.' He turned fiercely on Roland. 'You can't deny it. What
are you now? You have a good income: you dine every day on the best of
everything: you do yourself well in every respect. Hang it, Roland,
you are an ungrateful dog!'

'You have ruined my life. You have robbed me of my name.'

'Let us stop heroics. If you are useful to me, I am ten times as
useful to you. Because, my dear boy, without me you cannot live.
Without you I can do very well. Indeed, I have only to find another
starving genius--there are plenty about--in order to keep up my
reputation as a painter. Go to the club. Call the men together. Tell
them if you like, and what you like. You have no proofs. I can deny
it, and I can give you the sack, and I can get that other starving
genius to carry on the work.'

Roland made no reply.

'Why, my dear fellow--why should we quarrel? What does it matter about
a little reputation? What is the good of your precious name to you
when you are dead? Here you are--painting better and better every
day--your price rising--your position more assured--what on earth can
any man want more? As for me, you are useful to me. If you were not, I
should put an end to the arrangement. That is understood. Very well,
then. Enough said. Now, if you please, we will look at the picture.'

He got up and walked across the room to the easel. Roland followed
submissively, with hanging head. He staggered as he went: not with
strong drink, but with the rage that tore his heart.

'It is really a very beautiful thing,' said the cleverest man in all
London, looking at it critically. 'I think that even you have never
done anything quite so good.'

The picture showed a great rock rising precipitous from the sea--at
its base was a reef or projecting shelf. The shags stood in a line on
the top of the rock: the sea-gulls flew around the rock and sailed
merrily before the breeze: there was a little sea on, but not much: a
boat with a young man in it lay off the rock, and a girl was on the
reef standing among the long yellow sea-weed: the spray flew up the
sides of the rock: the sun was sinking. What was it but one of
Roland's sketches made in the Outer Islands, with Armorel for his
companion?

'It is very good, Roland,' Alec repeated. 'If I am not so good a
painter myself, I am not envious. I can appreciate and acknowledge
good work.' Under the circumstances, rather an extraordinary speech.
But Roland's gloomy face softened a little. Even at such a moment the
artist feels the power of praise. The other, standing before the
picture, watched the softening of the face. 'Good work?' he repeated
by way of question. 'Man! it is splendid work! I can feel the breath
of the salt breeze: I can see the white spray flying over the rock:
the girl stands out real and living. It is a splendid piece of work,
Roland.'

'I think it is better than the last,' the unlucky painter replied
huskily.

'I should rather think it is. I expect to get a great name for this
picture'--the painter winced--'and you--you--the painter, will get a
much more solid thing--you will get a big cheque. I've sold it
already. No dealers this time. It has been bought by a rich American.
Three hundred is the figure I can offer you. And here's your cheque.'

He took it, ready drawn and signed, from his pocket-book. Roland Lee
received it, but he let it drop from his fingers: the paper fluttered
to the floor. He gazed upon the picture in silence.

'Well? What are you thinking of?'

'I was thinking of the day when I made the sketch for that picture. I
remember what the girl said to me.'

'What the devil does it matter what the girl said? All we care about
is the picture.'

'I remember her very words. You who have bought the picture can see
the girl; but I, who painted it, can hear her voice.'

'You are not going off into heroics again?'

'No, no. Don't be afraid. I am not going to tell you what she said.
Only I told her, being pleased with what she told me, that she was a
prophetess. Nobody ought ever to prophesy good things about a man, for
they never come to pass. Let them prophesy disappointment and ruin and
shame, and then they always come true. My God! what a prophecy was
hers! And what has come of it? I have sold my genius, which is my
soul. I have traded it away. It is the sin unforgiven in this world
and in the next.'

'When you give over tragedy and blank verse----'

'Oh! I have done.'

'I should like to ask you a question.'

'Ask it.'

'The foreground--the sea-weeds lying over the boulders. Does the light
fall quite naturally? I hardly understand--look here. If the
sunlight----'

'_You_ to pretend to be a painter!' Roland snorted impatiently. '_You_
to talk about lights and shadows! Man alive! I wonder you haven't been
found out ages ago! The light falls this way--this way--see!'--he
turned the painting about to show how it fell.

'Oh! I understand. Yes, yes; I see now.' Alec seemed not to resent
this language of contempt.

'Is there anything else you want to know before I go? Perhaps you wish
the sea painted black?'

'Cornish coast again, I suppose?'

'Somewhere that way. What does it matter where you put it? Call it a
view on Primrose Hill.'

He stooped and picked up the cheque. He looked at it savagely for a
moment as if he would like to tear it into a thousand fragments. Then
he crammed it into his pocket and turned to go.

'My American,' said Alec, 'who rolls in money, is ready to buy
another. I think I can make an advance of fifty. Shall we say three
hundred and fifty? And shall we expect the painting in three months or
so? Before the summer holidays--say. You will become rich, old man. As
for this fellow, he is going to the New Gallery. Go and gaze upon it,
and say to yourself, "This was worth, to me, three hundred--three
hundred." How many men at the club, Roland, can command three hundred
for a picture? Thirty is nearer their figure; and your own, dear boy,
would have continued to stand at double duck's egg if it had not been
for me. Trust me for running up your price. Our interests, my dear
Roland, are identical and indivisible. I think you are the only
painter in history whose name will remain unknown though his works
will live as long as the pigments keep their colour. Fortune is yours,
and fame is mine. You have got the best of the bargain.'

'Curse you and your bargain!'

'Pleasant words, Roland'--his face darkened. 'Pleasant words, if you
please, or perhaps ... I know, now, what is the reason of this
outbreak. I heard last night a rumour. You've been taking opium
again.'

'It isn't true. If it was, what does that matter to you?'

'This, my friend. The partnership exists only so long as the work
continues to improve. If bad habits spoil the quality of the work I
shall dissolve the partnership, and find that other starving
genius--plenty, plenty, plenty about. Nothing shakes the nerves more
quickly than opium. Nothing destroys the finer powers of head and hand
more surely. Don't let me hear any more about opium. Don't fall into
bad habits if you want to go on making an income. And don't let me
have to speak of this again. Now, there is no more to be said, I
think. Well, we part friends. Ta-ta, dear boy.'

Roland flung himself out of the room with an interjection of great
strength not found in the school grammars.

Alec Feilding returned to his table. 'Roland's a great fool,' he
murmured. 'Because there isn't a gallery in London that wouldn't jump
at his pictures, and he could sell as fast as he could paint. A great
fool he is. But it would be very difficult for me to find another man
so good and such a fool. On fools and their folly the wise man
flourishes.'

CHAPTER IV

MASTER OF ALL THE ARTS

This unreasonable person dispatched, and the illustrious artist's
doubts about his lights and shadows dispelled, Alec Feilding resumed
his interrupted task. That is to say, he took the manuscript out of
the drawer and went on laboriously copying it. So great a writer,
whose time was so precious, might surely give out his copying work.
Lesser men do this. For half an hour he worked on. Then the servant
tapped at the door and came in again, noiselessly as before, to
whisper a name.

Alec nodded, and once more put back the manuscript in the drawer.

The visitor was a young lady. She was of slight and slender figure,
dressed quite plainly, and even poorly, in a cloth jacket and a stuff
frock. Her gloves were shabby. Her features were fine but not
beautiful, the eyes bright, and the mouth mobile, but the forehead too
large for beauty. She carried a black leather roll such as those who
teach music generally carry about with them. She was quite young,
certainly not more than two-and-twenty.

'Effie?' He looked round, surprised.

'May I come in for two minutes? I will not stay longer. Indeed, I
should be so sorry to waste your time.'

'I am sure you would, Effie.' He gave her his hand, without rising.
'Precious time--my time--there is so little of it. Therefore,
child----'

'I have brought you,' she said, 'another little poem. I think it is
the kind of thing you like--in the _vers de société_ style. She
unrolled her leather case and took out a very neatly written paper.

He read it slowly. Then he nodded his head approvingly and read it
aloud.

'How long does it take you to knock off this kind of thing, Effie?'

'It took me the whole of yesterday. This morning I corrected it and
copied it out. Do you like it?'

'You are a clever little animal, Effie, and you shall make your
fortune. Yes; it is very good, very good indeed: Austin Dobson himself
is not better. It is very good: light, tripping, graceful--in good
taste. It is very good indeed. Leave it with me, Effie. If I like it
as well to-morrow as I do to-day, you may depend upon seeing it in the
next number.'

'Oh!' she blushed a rosy red with the pleasure of being praised.
Indeed, it is a pleasure which never palls. The old man who has been
praised all his life is just as eager for more as the young poet who
is only just beginning. 'Oh! you really think it is good?'

'I do indeed. The best proof is that I am going to buy it of you. It
shall go into the editor's column--my own column--in the place of
honour.'

'Yes,' she replied, but doubtfully--and she reddened again for a
different reason. 'Oh, Mr. Feilding,' she said with an effort, 'I am
so happy when I see my verses in print--in your paper--even without my
name. It makes me so proud that I hardly dare to say what I want.'

'Say it, Effie. Get it off your mind. You will feel better
afterwards.'

'Well, then, it cannot be anything to you--so great and high, with
your beautiful stories and your splendid pictures. What is a poor
little set of verses to you?'

'Go on--go on.' His face clouded and his eyes hardened.

'In the paper it doesn't matter a bit. It is--it is--later--when they
come out all together in a little volume--with--with----'

'Go on, I say.' He sat upright, his chair half turned, his hands on
the arms, his face severe and judicial.

'With your name on the title-page.'

'Oh! that is troubling your mind, is it?'

'When the critics praise the poems and praise the poet--oh! is it
right, Mr. Feilding? Is it right?'

'Upon my word!' He pushed back his chair and rose, a tall man of six
feet, frowning angrily--so that the girl trembled and tottered. 'Upon
my word! This--from you! This from the girl whom I have literally kept
from starvation! Miss Effie Wilmot, perhaps you will tell me what you
mean! Haven't I bought your verses? Haven't I polished and corrected
them, and made them fit to be seen? Am I not free to do what I please
with my own?'

'Yes--yes--you buy them. But I--oh!--I write them!'

'Look here, child; I can have no nonsense. Before I took these verses
of you, had you any opening or market for them?'

'No. None at all.'

'Nobody would buy them. They were not even returned by editors. They
were thrown into the basket. Very well. I buy them on the condition
that I do what I please with them. I give you three pounds--three
pounds--for a poem, if it is good enough for me to lick into shape.
Then it becomes my own. It is a bargain. When you leave off wanting
money you will leave off bringing me verses. Then I shall look for
another girl. There are thousands of girls about who can write verses
as good as these.'

The girl remained silent. What her employer said was perfectly true.
And yet--and yet--it was not right.

'What more do you want?' he asked brutally.

'I am the author of these poems,' she said. 'And you are not.'

'Within these walls I allow you to say so--this once. Take care never
to say so again. Outside these walls, if you say so, I will bring an
action against you for libel and slander and defamation of character.
Remember that. You had better, however, take these verses and go
away.' He flung them at her feet. 'We will put an end to the
arrangement.'

'No, no--I consent.' She humbly stooped and picked them up. 'Do what
you like with them. I am too poor to refuse. Do what you please.'

'It is your interest, certainly, to consent. Why, I paid you last year
a hundred pounds. A hundred pounds! There's an income for a girl of
twenty! Well, Effie, I forgive you. But no more nonsense. And give
over crying.' For now she was sobbing and crying. 'Look here,
Effie'--he laid his hand on hers--'some day, before long, I will put
your verses in another column, with your name at the end--"Effie
Wilmot." Come, will that do?'

'Oh! if you would! If you really would!'

'I really will, child. Don't think I care much about the thing. What
does it matter to me whether I am counted a writer of society verses?
It pleased me that the world should think me capable of these trifles
while I am elaborating a really ambitious poem. One more little volume
and I shall have done. Besides, all this time you are improving. When
you burst upon the world it will be with wings full-fledged and
flight-sustained that you will soar to the stars. Fair poetess, I will
make your fame assured. Be comforted.'

She looked up, tearful and happy. 'Oh, forgive me!' she said. 'Yes; I
will do everything--exactly--as you want!'

'The world wants another poetess. You shall be that sweet singer. Let
me be the first to acknowledge the gift divine.' He bowed and raised
her hand and kissed the fingers of her shabby glove.

'Now, child,' he said, 'your visit has gained you another three
pounds--here they are.'

She took the money, blushing again. The glowing prospect warmed her
heart. But the three golden sovereigns chilled her again. She had
parted with her child--her own. It was gone--and he would call it his
and pretend to be the father. And yet he was going to make such
splendid amends to her.

'How is your brother?'