Immediately after breakfast the next day, Leander went out and paid a
visit to Miss Twilling's, bringing away with him a hooded cloak of the
precise kind he remembered Matilda to have described as unlikely to
render its owner conspicuous. With this garment he succeeded in
disguising the statue to such a degree, that it was far less likely than
before that the goddess's appearance in public would excite any
particular curiosity--a result which somewhat relieved his anxiety as to
her future proceedings.

But all that day his thoughts were busy with Matilda. He must, he
feared, have deeply offended her by his abrupt change on the previous
night; and now he could not expect to meet her again for days, and would
not know how to explain his conduct if he did meet her.

If he could only dare to tell her everything; but from such a course he
shrank. Matilda would not only be extremely indignant (though, in very
truth, he had done nothing positively wrong as yet), but, with her
strict notions and well-regulated principles, she would assuredly
recoil from a lover who had brought himself into a predicament so
hideous. He would tell her all when, or if, he succeeded in extricating
himself.

But he was to learn the nature of Matilda's sentiments sooner than he
expected. It was growing dusk, and he was unpacking a parcel of goods in
his front shop--for his saloon happened to be empty just then--when the
outer door swung back, and a slight girlish figure entered, after a
pause of indecision on the threshold. It was Matilda.

Had she come to break it off--to reproach him? He was prepared for no
less; she had never paid him a visit like this alone before; and some
doubts of the propriety of the thing seemed to be troubling her now, for
she did not speak.

"Matilda," he faltered, "don't tell me you have come in a spirit of
unpleasantness, for I can't bear it."

"Don't you deserve that I should?" she said, but not angrily. "You know,
you were very strange in behaving as you did last night. I couldn't tell
what to make of it."

"I know," he said confusedly; "it was something come over me, all of a
sudden like. I can't understand what made me like that; but, oh, Tillie,
my dearest love, my 'art was busting with adoration all the time! The
circumstances was highly peculiar; but I don't know that I could explain
them."

"You needn't, Leander; I have found you out." She said this with a
strange significance.

"What!" he almost shrieked. "You don't mean it, Matilda! Tell me, quick!
has the discovery changed your feelings towards me? Has it?"

"Yes," she said softly. "I--I think it has; but you ought not to have
done it, Leander."

"I know," he groaned. "I was a fool, Tillie; a fool! But I may get out
of it yet," he added. "I can get her to let me off. I must--I will!"

Matilda opened her eyes. "But, Leander dear, listen; don't be so hasty.
I never said I _wanted_ her to let you off, did I?"

He looked at her in a dazed manner. "I rather thought," he said slowly,
"that it might have put you out a little. I see I was mistook."

"You might have known that I should be more pleased than angry, I should
think," said Matilda.

"More pleased than----I might have known!" exclaimed the bewildered man.
"Oh, you can't reely be taking it as cool as this! Will you kindly
inform me _what_ it is you're alludin' to in this way?"

"What is the use of pretending? You know I know. And it _is_ colder,
much colder, this morning. I felt it directly I got up."

"Quite a change in the weather, I'm sure," he said mechanically; "it
feels like a frost coming on." ("Has Matilda looked in to tell me the
weather's changed?" he was wondering within himself. "Either I'm mad, or
Matilda is.")

"You dear old goose!" said Matilda, with an unusual effusiveness; "you
shan't tease me like this! Do you think I've no eyes and no feelings?
Any girl, I don't care how proud or offended, would come round on such
proof of devotedness as I've had this evening. When I saw it gone, I
felt I must come straight in and thank you, and tell you I shouldn't
think any more of last night. I couldn't stop myself."

"When you saw _what_ gone?" cried the hairdresser, rubbing up his hair.

"The cloak," said Matilda; and then, as she saw his expression, her own
changed. "Leander Tweddle," she asked, in a dry hard voice, "have I been
making a wretched fool of myself? _Didn't_ you buy that cloak?"

He understood at last. He had gone to Miss Twilling's chiefly because he
was in a hurry and it was close by, and he knew nowhere else where he
could be sure of getting what he required. Now, by some supreme stroke
of the ill-luck which seemed to be pursuing him of late, he had
unwittingly purchased the identical garment on which Matilda had fixed
her affections! How was he to notice that they took it out of the window
for him?

All this flashed across him as he replied, "Yes, yes, Tillie, I did buy
a cloak there; but are you sure it was the same you told me about?"

"Do you think a woman doesn't know the look of a thing like that, when
it's taken her fancy?" said Matilda. "Why, I could tell you every clasp
and tassel on that cloak; it wasn't one you'd see every day, and I knew
it was gone the moment I passed the window. It quite upset me, for I'd
set my heart on it so; and I ran in to Miss Twilling, and asked her what
had become of it; and when she said she'd sold it that morning, I
thought I should have fainted. You see, it never struck me that it could
be you; for how could I dream that you'd be clever enough to go and
choose the very one? Leander, it _was_ clever of you!"

"Yes," he said, with a bitter rail against himself. "I'm a clever chap,
I am! But how did you find out?"

"Oh, I made Miss Twilling (I often get little things there), I made her
describe who she sold it to, and she said she thought it was to a
gentleman in the hair-cutting persuasion who lived near; and then, of
course, I guessed who bought it."

"Tillie," gasped Leander, "I--I didn't _mean_ you to guess; the purpose
for which I require that cloak is my secret."

"Oh, you silly man, when I've guessed it! And I take it just as kind of
you as if it was to be all a surprise. I was wishing as I came along I
could afford to buy it at once, it struck so cold coming out of our
place; and you had actually bought it for me all the time! Thank you
ever so much, Leander dear!"

He had only to accept the position; and he did. "I'm glad you're
pleased," he said; "I intended it as a surprise."

"And I am surprised," said Matilda; "because, do you know, last night,
when I went home, I was feeling very cross with you. I kept thinking
that perhaps you didn't care for me any more, and were trying to break
it off; and, oh, all sorts of horrid things I kept thinking! And aunt
gave me a message for you this morning, and I was so out of temper I
wouldn't leave it. And now to find you've been so kind!"

She stretched out her hand to him across the counter, and he took and
held it tight; he had never seen her looking sweeter, nor felt that she
was half so dear to him. After all, his blunder had brought them
together again, and he was grateful to it.

At last Matilda said, "You were quite right about this wrapper, Leander;
it's not half warm enough for a night like this. I'm really afraid to go
home in it."

He knew well enough what she intended him to do; but just then he dared
not appear to understand. "It isn't far, only to Millman Street," he
said; "and you must walk fast, Tillie. I wish I could leave the shop and
come too."

"You want me to ask you downright," she said pouting. "You men can't
even be kind prettily. Don't you want to see how I look in your cloak,
Leander?"

What could he say after that? He must run upstairs, deprive the goddess
of her mantle, and hand it over to Matilda. She had evidently made up
her mind to have that particular cloak, and he must buy the statue
another. It would be expensive; but there was no help for it.

"Certainly," he said, "you shall have it now, dearest, if you'd like to.
I'll run up and fetch it down, if you'll wait."

He rushed upstairs, two steps at a time, and, flinging open the door of
a cupboard, began desperately to uncloak his Aphrodite. She was lifeless
still, which he considered fortunate.

But the goddess seemed to have a natural propensity to retain any form
of portable property. One of her arms was so placed that, tug and
stretch as he would, Leander could not get the cloak from her shoulders,
and his efforts only broke one of the oxidized silver fastenings, and
tore part of the squirrel's-fur lining.

It was useless, and with a damp forehead he came down again to his
expectant _fiancée_.

"Why, you haven't got it, after all!" she cried, her face falling.

"Tillie, my own dear girl," he said, "I'm uncommon sorry, upon my soul I
am, but you can't have that cloak this evening."

"But why, Leander, why?"

"Because one of the clasps is broke. It must be sent back to be
repaired."

"I don't mind that. Let me have it just as it is."

"And the lining's torn. No, Matilda, I shan't make you a present of a
damaged article. I shall send it back. They must change it for me."
("Then," he thought, "I can buy my Matilda another.")

"I don't care for any other but that," she said; "and you can't match
it."

"Oh, lor!" he thought, "and she knows every inch of it. The goddess must
give it up; it'll be all the same to _her_. Very well then, dearest, you
_shall_ have that, but not till it's done up. I must have my way in
this; and as soon as ever I can, I'll bring it round."

"Leander, could you bring it me by Sunday," she said eagerly, "when you
come?"

"Why Sunday?" he asked.

"Because--oh, that was the message your aunt asked me to bring you; it
was in a note, but I've lost it. She told me what was inside though, and
it's this. Will you give her the pleasure of your company at her mid-day
dinner at two o'clock, to be introduced to mamma? And she said you were
to be sure and not forget her ring."

He tottered for a moment. The ring! Yes, there was that to be got off,
too, besides the cloak.

"Haven't you got the ring from Vidler's yet?" she said. "He's had it
such a time."

He had told her where he had left it for alterations. "Yes," he said,
"he has had it a time. It's disgraceful the way that old Vidler potters
and potters. I shall go round and 'urry him up. I won't stand it any
longer."

Here a customer came in, and Matilda slipped away with a hurried
good-bye.

"I've got till Sunday to get straight," the hairdresser thought, as he
attended on the new comer, "the best part of a week; surely I can talk
that Venus over by that time."

When he was alone he went up to see her, without losing a moment. He
must have left the door unlocked in his haste, for she was standing
before the low chimney-glass, regarding herself intently. As he came in
she turned.

[Illustration: SHE WAS STANDING BEFORE THE LOW CHIMNEY-GLASS, REGARDING
HERSELF INTENTLY.]

"Who has done all this?" she demanded. "Tell me, was it you?"

"I did take the liberty, mum," he faltered guiltily.

"You have done well," she said graciously. "With reverent and loving
care have you imparted hues as of life to these cheeks, and decked my
image in robes of costly skins."

"Don't name it, mum," he said.

"But what are these?" she continued, raising a hand to the light
ringlets on her brow. "I like them not--they are unseemly. The waving
lines, parted by the bold chisel of a Grecian sculptor, resemble my
ambrosial tresses more nearly than this abomination."

"You may go all over London," said Leander, "and you won't find a
coiffure, though I say it, to set closer and defy detection more
naturally than the one you've got on; selected from the best imported
foreign hair in the market, I do assure you."

"I accept the offering for the spirit in which it was presented, though
I approve it not otherwise."

"You'll find it wear very comfortable," said Leander; "but that cloak,
now I come to see it on, it reely is most unworthy of you, a very
inferior piece of goods, and, if you'll allow me, I'll change it," and
he gently extended his hand to draw it off.

"Touch it not," said the goddess; "for, having once been placed upon my
effigy, it is consecrated to my service."

"For mercy's sake, let me get another one--one with more style about
it," he entreated; "my credit hangs on it!"

"I am content," she said, "more than content. No more words--I retain
it. And you have pleased me by this conduct, my hairdresser. Unknown it
may be, even to yourself, your heart is warming in the sunshine of my
favour; you are coy and wayward, but you are yielding. Though pent in
this form, carved by a mortal hand, I shall prevail in the end. I shall
have you for my own."

He rumpled his hair wildly, "'Orrid obstinate these goddesses are," he
thought. "What am I to say to Matilda now? If I could only find a way of
getting this statue shut up somewhere where she couldn't come and bother
me, I'd take my chance of the rest. I can't go on with this sort of
thing every evening. I'm sick and tired of it."

Then something occurred to him. "Could I delude her into it?" he asked
himself. "She's soft enough in some things, and, for all she's a
goddess, she don't seem up to our London ways yet. I'll have a try,
anyway."

So he began: "Didn't I understand you to observe, mum, some time back,
that the pidgings and sparrers were your birds?"

"They are mine," she said--"or they were mine in days that are past."

"Well," he said, "there's a place close by, with railings in front of
it, and steps and pillars as you go in, and if you like to go and look
in the yard there you'll find pidgings enough to set you up again. I
shouldn't wonder if they've been keeping them for you all this time."

"They shall not lose by it," she said. "Go thither, and bring me my
birds."

"I think," he said, "it would be better if you'd go yourself; they don't
know me at the British Museum. But if you was to go to the beadle at the
lodge and demand them, I've no doubt you'd be attended to; and you'll
see some parties at the gates in long coats and black cloth 'elmets,
which if you ask them to ketch you a few sparrers, they'll probably be
most happy to oblige."

"My beloved birds!" she said. "I have been absent from them so long.
Yes, I will go. Tell me where."

He got his hat, and went with her to a corner of Bloomsbury Square, from
which they could see the railings fronting the Museum in the
steel-tinted haze of electric light.

"That's the place," he said. "Keeps its own moonshine, you see. Go
straight in, and tell 'em you're come to fetch your doves."

"I will do so," she said, and strode off in imperious majesty.

He looked after her with an irrepressible chuckle.

"If she ain't locked up soon, I don't know myself," he said, and went
back to his establishment.

He had only just dismissed his apprentice and secured the shop for the
night, when he heard the well-known tread up the staircase. "Back again!
I don't have any luck," he muttered; and with reason, for the statue,
wearing an expression of cold displeasure, advanced into his room. He
felt a certain sense of guilt as he saw her.

"Got the birds?" he inquired, with a nervous familiarity, "or couldn't
you bring yourself to ask for them?"

"You have misled me," she said. "My birds are not there. I came to gates
in front of a stately pile--doubtless erected to some god; at the
entrance stood a priest, burly and strong, with gold-embroidered
garments----"

("The beadle, I suppose," commented Leander.)

"I passed him unseen, and roamed unhindered over the courtyard. It was
bare, save for one or two worshippers who crossed it. Presently a winged
thing fluttered down to my feet. But though a dove indeed, it was no
bird of mine--it knew me not. And it was draggled, begrimed, uncleanly,
as never were the doves of Aphrodite. And the sparrows (for these, too,
did I see), they were worse. I motioned them from me with loathing. I
renounced them all. Thus, Leander, have I fared in following your
counsels!"

"Well, it ain't my fault," he said; "it's the London soot makes them
like that. There's some at the Guildhall: perhaps they're cleaner."

"No," she said, vehemently; "I will seek no further. This is a city of
darkness and mire. I am in a land, an age, which know me not: this much
have I learnt already. The world was fairer and brighter of old!"

"You see," said Leander, "if you only go about at night, you can't
expect sunshine! But I'm told there's cleaner and brighter places to be
seen abroad--if you cared to go there?" he insinuated.

"To one place only, to my Cyprian caves, will I go," she declared, "and
with you!"

"We'll talk about that some other time," he answered, soothingly. "Lady
Venus, look here, don't you think you've kept that ring long enough?
I've asked you civilly enough, goodness knows, to 'and it over, times
without number. I ask you once more to act fair. You know it came to you
quite accidental, and yet you want to take advantage of it like this. It
ain't right!"

She met this with her usual scornful smile. "Listen, Leander," she said.
"Once before--how long since I know not--a mortal, in sport or accident,
placed his ring as you have done upon the finger of a statue erected to
me. I claimed fulfilment of the pledge then, as now; but a force I
could not withstand was invoked against me, and I was made to give up
the ring, and with it the power and rights I strove to exert. But I will
not again be thwarted: no force, no being shall snatch you from me; so
be not deceived. Submit, ere you excite my fierce displeasure; submit
now, since in the end submit you must!"

There was a dreadful force in the sonorous tones which made him shiver;
a rigid inflexible will lurked in this form, with all its subtle curves
and feminine grace. If goddesses really retained any power in these
days, there could be no doubt that she would use hers to the full.

Yet he still struggled. "I can't make you give up the ring," he said;
"but no more you can't make me leave my--my establishment, and go away
underground with you. I'm an Englishman, I am, and Englishmen are free,
mum; p'r'aps you wasn't aware of that? I've got a will of my own, and so
you'll find it!"

"Poor worm!" she said pityingly (and the hairdresser hated to be
addressed as a poor worm), "why oppose thy weak will to mine? Why enlist
my pride against thyself; for what hast thou of thine own to render thy
conquest desirable? Thou art bent upon defiance, it seems. I leave thee
to reflect if such a combat can be equal. Farewell; and at my next
coming let me find a change!"

And the spirit of the goddess fled, as before, to the mysterious realms
from which she had been so incautiously evoked, leaving Leander almost
frantic with rage, superstitious terror, and baffled purposes.

"I must get the ring off," he muttered, "_and_ the cloak, somehow. Oh!
if I could only find out how----There was that other chap--_he_ got off;
she said as much. If I could get out how he managed it, why couldn't I
do the same? But who's to tell me? She won't--not if she knows it! I
wonder if it's in any history. Old Freemoult would know it if it
was--he's such a scholar. Why, he gave me a name for that 'airwash
without having to think twice over it! I'll try and pump old Freemoult.
I'll do it to-morrow, too. I'll see if I'm to be domineered over by a
image out of a tea-garden. Eh? I--I don't care if she _did_ hear me!"

So Leander went to his troubled pillow, full of this new resolution,
which seemed to promise a way of escape.

BETWEEN THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP SEA

VIII.

     "Some, when they take _Revenge_, are Desirous the party should know
     whence it cometh: This is the more Generous."--BACON.

In the Tottenham Court Road was a certain Commercial Dining-room, where
Leander occasionally took his evening meal, after the conclusion of his
day's work, and where Mr. Freemoult was accustomed to take his supper,
on leaving the British Museum Library.

To this eating-house Leander repaired the very next evening, urged by a
consuming desire to learn the full particulars of the adventure which
his prototype in misfortune had met with.

It was an unpretending little place, with the bill of fare wafered to
the door, and red curtains in the windows, setting off a display of
joints, cauliflowers, and red herrings. He passed through into a long,
low room, with dark-brown grained walls, partitioned off in the usual
manner; and taking a seat in a box facing the door, he ordered dinner
from one of the shirtsleeved attendants.

The first glance had told him that the man he wished to see was not
there, but he knew he must come in before long; and, in fact, before
Leander's food could be brought, the old scholar made his appearance.

He was hardly a man of attractive exterior, being of a yellow
complexion, with a stubbly chin, and lank iron-grey locks. He wore a
tall and superannuated hat with a staring nap, and the pockets of his
baggy coat bulged with documents. Altogether he did not seem exactly the
person to be an authority on the subject of Venus.

But, as the hairdresser was aware, he had the reputation of being a mine
of curious and out-of-the-way information, though few thought it worth
their while to work him. He gained a living, however, by hackwork of
various descriptions, and was in slightly better circumstances than he
allowed to appear.

As he passed slowly along the central passage, in his usual state of
abstraction, Leander touched him eagerly on the sleeve. "Come in 'ere,
Mr. Freemoult, sir," he said; "there's room in this box."

"It's the barber, is it?" said the old man. "What do you want me to eat
with you for, eh?"

"Why, for the pleasure of your company, sir, of course," said Leander,
politely.

"Well," said the old gentleman, sitting down, while documents bristled
out of him in all directions, "there are not many who would say
that--not many now."

"Don't you say so, Mr. Freemoult, sir. I'm sure it's a benefit, if only
for your conversation. I often say, 'I never meet Mr. Freemoult without
I learn somethink;' I do indeed."

"Then we must have met less often than I had imagined."

"Now, you're too modest, sir; you reelly are--a scholar like you, too!
Talking of scholarship, you'll be gratified to hear that that title you
were good enough to suggest for the 'Regenerator' is having a quite
surprising success. I disposed of five bottles over the counter only
yesterday." ("These old scholars," was his wily reflection, "like being
flattered up.")

"Does that mean you've another beastly bottle you want me to stand
godfather to?" growled the ungrateful old gentleman.

"Oh no, indeed, sir! It's only----But p'r'aps you'll allow me previously
the honour of sending out for whatever beverage you was thinking of
washing down your boiled beef with, sir."

"Do you know who I am?" Mr. Freemoult burst out. "I'm a scholar, and
gentleman enough still to drink at my own expense!"

"I intended no offence, I'm sure, sir; it was only meant in a friendly
way."

"That is the offence, sir; that _is_ the offence! But, there, we'll say
no more about it; you can't help your profession, and I can't help my
prejudices. What was it you wanted to ask me?"

"Well," said Leander, "I was desirous of getting some information
respecting--ahem--a party by the name of (if I've caught the foreign
pronounciation) Haphrodite, otherwise known as Venus. Do you happen to
have heard tell of her?"

"Have I had a classical education, sir, or haven't I? Heard of her? Of
course I have. But why, in the name of Mythology, any hairdresser living
should trouble his head about Aphrodite, passes my comprehension. Leave
her alone, sir!"

"It's her who won't leave _me_ alone!" thought Leander; but he did not
say so. "I've a very particular reason for wishing to know; and I'm sure
if you could tell me all you'd heard about her, I'd take it very kind of
you."

"Want to pick my brains; well, you wouldn't be the first. But I am
here, sir, to rest my brain and refresh my body, not to deliver
peripatetic lectures to hairdressers on Grecian mythology."

"Well," said Leander, "I never meant you to give your information
peripatetic; I'm willing to go as far as half a crown."

"Conf----But, there, what's the good of being angry with you? Is this
the sort of thing you want for your half-crown?--Aphrodite, a later form
of the Assyrian Astarte; the daughter, according to some theogonies, of
Zeus and Dione; others have it that she was the offspring of the foam of
the sea, which gathered round the fragments of the mutilated Uranos----"

"That don't seem so likely, do it, sir?" said Leander.

"If you are going to crop in with idiotic remarks, I shall confine
myself to my supper."

"Don't stop, Mr. Freemoult, sir; it's most instructive. I'm attending."

But the old gentleman, after a manner he had, was sunk in a dreamy
abstraction for the moment, in which he apparently lost the thread, as
he resumed, "Whereupon Zeus, to punish her, gave her in wedlock to his
deformed son, Hephæstus."

"She never mentioned him to _me_," thought Leander; "but I suppose she's
a widow goddess by this time; I'm sure I _hope_ so."

"Whom," Mr. Freemoult was saying, "she deceived upon several occasions,
notably in the case of ----" And here he launched into a scandalous
chronicle, which determined Leander more than ever that Matilda must
never know he had entertained a personage with such a past.

"Angered by her indiscretions, Zeus inspired her with love for a mortal
man."

"Poor devil!" said Leander, involuntarily. "And what became of _him_,
sir?"

"There were several thus distinguished; amongst others, Anchises,
Adonis, and Cinyras. Of these, the first was struck by lightning; the
second slain by a wild boar; and the third is reputed to have perished
in a contest with Apollo."

"They don't seem to have had no luck, any of them," was Leander's
depressed conclusion.

"Aphrodite, or Venus, as you choose to call her, took a prominent part
in the Trojan war, the origin of which ten years' struggle may be traced
to a certain golden apple."

"What an old rag-bag it is!" thought Leander. "I'm only wasting money on
him. He's like a bran-pie at a fancy fair: what you get out of him is
always the thing you didn't want."

"No, no, Mr. Freemoult," he said, with some impatience; "leave out about
the war and the apple. It--it isn't either of them as I wanted to hear
about."

"Then I have done," said the old man, curtly. "You've had considerably
more than half a crown's worth, as it is."

"Look here, Mr. Freemoult," said the reckless hairdresser, "if you can't
give me no better value, I don't mind laying out another sixpence in
questions."

"Put your questions, then, by all means; and I'll give you your fair
sixpenn'orth of answers. Now, then, I'm ready for you. What's your
difficulty? Out with it."

"Why," said Leander, in no small confusion, "isn't there a story
somewhere of a statue to Venus as some young man (a long time back it
was, of course) was said to have put his ring on? and do you know the
rights of it? I--I can't remember how it ended, myself."

"Wait a bit, sir; I think I do remember something of the legend you
refer to. You found it in the _Earthly Paradise_, I make no doubt?"

"I found it in Rosherwich Gardens," Leander very nearly blurted out; but
he stopped himself, and said instead, "I don't think I've ever been
there, sir; not to remember it."

"Well, well! you're no lover of poetry, that's very evident; but the
story is there. Yes, yes; and Burton has a version of it, too, in his
_Anatomy_. How does it go? Give my head a minute to clear, and I'll tell
you. Ha! I have it! It was something like this: There was a certain
young gentleman of Rome who, on his wedding-day, went out to play
tennis; and in the tennis-court was a brass statue of the goddess
Venus----"

("Mine _ought_ to be brass, from her goings on," thought Leander.)

"And while he played he took off his finger-ring and put it upon the
statue's hand; a mighty foolish act, as you will agree."

"Ah!" said Leander, shaking his head; "you may say that! What next,
sir?" He became excited to find that he really was on the right track at
last.

"Why, when the game was over, and he came to get his ring, he found he
couldn't get it off again. Ha! ha!" and the old man chuckled softly, and
then relapsed once more into silence.

"Yes, yes, Mr. Freemoult, sir! I'm a-listening; it's very funny; only do
go on!"

"Go on? Where was I? Hadn't I finished? Ah, to be sure! Well, so Paris
gave _her_ the apple, you see."

"I didn't understand you to allude to no apple," said his puzzled
hearer; "and it was at Rome, I thought, not Paris. Bring your mind more
to it, sir; we'd got to the ring not coming off the statue."

"I know, sir; I know. My mind's clear enough, let me tell you. That very
night (as I was about to say, if you'd had patience to hear me) Venus
stepped in and parted the unfortunate pair----"

"It was a apple just now, you aggravating old muddle 'ed!" said Leander,
internally.

"Venus informed the young man that he had betrothed himself to her by
that ring" ("Same game exactly," thought the pupil), "and--and, in
short, she led him such a life for some nights, that he could bear it no
longer. So at length he repaired to a certain mighty magician
called----Let me see, what was his name again? It wasn't Agrippa--was it
Albertus? Odd; it has escaped me for the moment."

"Never mind, sir; call him Jones."

"I will _not_ call him Jones, sir! I had it on my tongue--there,
_Palumbus_! Palumbus it was. Well, Palumbus told him the goddess would
never cease to trouble him, unless he could get back the ring--unless he
could get back the ring."

Leander's heart began to beat high; the solution of his difficulty was
at hand. It was something to know for certain that upon recovery of the
ring the goddess's power would be at an end. It only remained to find
out how the other young man managed it. "Yes, Mr. Freemoult?" he said
interrogatively; for the old gentleman had run down again.

"I was only thinking it out. To resume, then. No sooner had the magician
(whose name as I said was Apollonius) come to the wedding, than he
promptly conjectured the bride to be a serpent; whereupon she vanished
incontinently, after the manner of serpents, with the house and
furniture."

"Haven't you missed out a lot, sir?" inquired Leander, deferentially;
"because it don't seem to me to hook on quite. What became of Venus and
the ring?"

"How the dickens am I to tell you, if you will interrupt? Ring! _What_
ring? Why, yes; the magician gave the young man a certain letter, and
told him to go to a particular cross-road outside the city, at dead of
night, and wait for Saturn to pass by in procession, with his fallen
associates. This he did, and presented the magician's letter; which
Saturn, after having read, called Venus to him, who was riding in front,
and commanded her to deliver up the ring."

Here he stopped, as if he had nothing to add.

"And did she, sir?" asked Leander, breathlessly.

"Did she what? give up the ring? Of course she did. Haven't I been
saying so? Why not?"

"Well," observed Leander, "so that's how _he_ got out of it, was it?
Hah! he was a lucky chap. Those were the days when magicians did a good
trade, I suppose? Should you say there were any such parties now, on the
quiet like, eh, sir?"

"Bah! Magic is a lost art, degraded to dark séances and juvenile
parties--the last magician dead for more than two hundred years. Don't
expose your ignorance, sir, by any more such questions."

"No," said Leander; "I thought as much. And so, if any one was to get
into such a fix nowadays--of course, that's only my talk, but if they
did--there ain't a practising magician anywhere to help him out of it.
That's your opinion, ain't it, sir?"

"As the danger of such a contingency is not immediate," was the reply,
"the want of a remedy need not, in my humble opinion, cause you any
grave uneasiness."

"No," agreed Leander, dejectedly. "I don't care, of course. I was only
thinking that, in case--but there, it's no odds! Well, Mr. Freemoult,
you've told me what I was curious to know, and here's your little
honnyrarium, sir--two shillings and two sixpences, making three
shillings in all, pre-cisely."

"Keep your money, sir," said the old man, with contemptuous good humour.
"My working hours are done for the day, and you're welcome enough to any
instruction you're capable of receiving from my remarks. It's not saying
much, I dare say."

"Oh, you told it very clear, considering, sir, I'm sure! I don't grudge
it."

"Keep it, I tell you, and say no more about it."

So, expressing his thanks, Leander left the place; and, when he was
outside, felt more keenly than ever the blow his hopes had sustained.

He knew the whole story of his predecessor in misfortune now, and, as a
precedent, it was worse than useless.

True, for an instant a wild idea had crossed his mind, of seeking some
lonely suburban cross-road at dead of night, just to see if anything
came of it. "The last time was several hundred years ago, it seems," he
told himself; "but there's no saying that Satan mightn't come by, for
all that. Here's Venus persecuting as lively as ever, and I never heard
the devil was dead. I've a good mind to take the tram to the Archway,
and walk out till I find a likely-looking place."

But, on reflection, he gave this up. "If he did come by, I couldn't
bring him a line--not even from the conjuror in High 'Oborn--and Satan
might make me put my hand to something binding, and I shouldn't be no
better off. No; I don't see no way of getting back my ring and poor
Tillie's cloak, nor yet getting rid of that goddess, any more than
before. There's one comfort, I can't be any worse off than I am."

Oppressed by these gloomy reflections, he returned to his home,
expecting a renewal of his nightly persecution from the goddess; but
from some cause, into which he was too grateful to care to inquire, the
statue that evening showed no sign of life in his presence, and after
waiting with the cupboard open for some time in suspense, he ventured to
make himself some coffee.

He had scarcely tasted it, however, before he heard, from the passage
below, a low whistle, followed by the peculiar stave by which a modern
low-life Blondel endeavours to attract attention. The hairdresser paid
no attention, being used, as a Londoner, to hearing such signals, and
not imagining they could be intended for his ear.

But presently a handful of gravel rattled against his window, and the
whistle was repeated. He went to the window cautiously, and looked out.
Below were two individuals, rather carefully muffled; their faces, which
were only indistinctly seen, were upturned to him.

He retreated, trembling. He had had so much to think of lately, that the
legal danger he was running, by harbouring the detested statue, was
almost forgotten; but now he remembered the Inspector's words, and his
legs bent beneath him. Could these people be _detectives_?

"Is that Mr. Tweddle up there?" said a voice below--"because if it is,
he'd better come down, double quick, and let us in, that's all!"

"'Ere, don't you skulk up there!" added a coarser voice. "We know
y'er there; and if yer don't come down to us, why, we'll come up to
you!"

This brought Leander forward again. "Gentlemen," he said, leaning out,
and speaking in an agitated whisper, "for goodness' sake, what do you
want with me?"

"You let us in, and we'll tell you."

"Will it do if I come down and speak to you outside?" said Leander.

There was a consultation between the two at this, and at the end of it
the first man said: "It's all the same to us, where we have our little
confabulation. Come down, and look sharp about it!"

Leander came down, taking care to shut the street door behind him. "You
ain't the police?" he said, apprehensively.

They each took an arm, and walked him roughly off between them towards
Queen Square. "We'll show you who we are," they said.

"I--I demand your authority for this," gasped Leander. "What am I
charged with?"

They had brought him into the gloomiest part of the square, where the
houses, used as offices in the daytime, were now dark and deserted. Here
they jammed him up against the railings, and stood guard over him, while
he was alarmed to perceive a suppressed ferocity in the faces of both.

"What are you charged with? Grr----! For 'arf a pint I'd knock your
bloomin 'ed in!" said the coarser gentleman of the two--an evasive form
of answer which did not seem to promise a pleasant interview.

[Illustration: "FOR 'ARF A PINT I'D KNOCK YOUR BLOOMIN' 'ED IN!"]

Leander was not naturally courageous, and what he had gone through
lately had shaken his nerves. He thought that, for policemen, they
showed too strong a personal feeling; but who else could they be? He
could not remember having seen either of them before. One was a tall,
burly, heavy-jawed man; the other smaller and slighter, and apparently
the superior of the two in education and position.

"You don't remember me, I see," said the latter; and then suddenly
changing his tone to a foreign accent, he said: "Haf you been since to
drink a glass of beer at your open-air gardens at Rosherwich?"

Leander knew him then. It was his foreign customer of Monday evening.
His face was clean-shaven now, and his expression changed--not for the
better.

"I think," he said, faintly, "I had the privilege of cutting your 'air
the other evening."

"You did, my friend, and I admired your taste for the fine arts. This
gentleman and I have, on talking it over, been so struck by what I saw
that evening, that we ventured to call and inquire into it."

"Look 'ere, Count," said his companion, "there ain't time for all that
perliteness. You leave him to me; _I'll_ talk to him! Now then, you
white-livered little airy-sneak, do you know who we are?"

"No," said Leander; "and, excuse me calling of your attention to it, but
you're pinching my arm!"

"I'll pinch it off before I've done," said the burly man. "Well, we're
the men that have planned and strived, and run all the risk, that you
and your gang might cut in and carry off our honest earnings. You
infernal little hair-cutting shrimp, you! To think of being beaten by
the likes of you! It's sickening, that's what it is, sickening!"

"I don't understand you--as I live, gentlemen, I don't understand you!"
pleaded Leander.

"You understand us well enough," said the ex-foreigner, with an awful
imprecation on all Leander's salient features; "but you shall have it
all in black and white. We're the party that invented and carried out
that little job at Wricklesmarsh Court."

"Burglars! Do you mean you're burglars?" cried the terrified Leander.

"We started as burglars, but we've finished by being made cat's-paws
of--by you, curse you! You didn't think we should find you out, did you?
But if you wanted to keep us in the dark, you made two awkward little
slips: one was leaving your name and address at the gardens as the party
who was supposed to have last seen the statue, and the other was keeping
the said statue standing about in your hair-cutting room, to meet the
eye of any gentleman calling out of curiosity, and never expecting such
a find as that."

"What's the good of jawing at him, Count? That won't satisfy me, it
won't. 'Ere, I can't 'old myself off him any longer. I _must_ put a 'ed
on him."

But the other interposed. "Patience, my good Braddle. No violence. Leave
him to me; he's a devilish deep fellow, and deserves all respect." (Here
he shook Leander like a rat.) "You've stolen a march on us, you
condemned little hairdressing ape, you! How did you do it? Out with it!
How the devil did you do it?"

"For the love of heaven, gents," pleaded Leander, without reflecting
that he might have found a stronger inducement, "don't use violence! How
did I do _what_?"

"Count, I _can't_ answer for myself," said the man addressed as Braddle.
"I shall send a bullet into him if you don't let me work it off with
fists; I know I shall!"

"Keep quiet," said his superior, sternly. "Don't you see _I'm_ quiet?"
and he twisted his knuckles viciously into Leander's throat. "If you
call out you're a corpse!"

"I wasn't thinking of calling out, indeed I wasn't. I'm quite satisfied
with being where I am," said Leander, "if you'd only leave me a little
more room to choke in, and tell me what I've done to put you both in
such tremenjous tempers."

"Done? You cur, when yer know well enough you've taken the bread out of
our mouths--the bread we'd earned! D'ye suppose we left out that statue
in the gardens for the like of you? Who put you up to it? How many were
there in it? What do you mean to do now you've got it? Speak out, or I
swear I'll cut your heart out, and throw it over the railings for the
tom-cats; I will, you ----!"

The man called Braddle, as he uttered this threat, looked so very
anxious to execute it, that Leander gave himself up for lost.

"As true as I stand here, gentlemen, I didn't steal that statue."

"I doubt you're not the build for taking the lead in that sort of
thing," said the Count; "but you were in it. You went down that Saturday
as a blind. Deny it if you dare."

Leander did not dare. "I could not help myself, gentlemen," he faltered.

"Who said you could? And you can't help yourself now, either; so make a
clean breast of it. Who are you standing in with? Is it Potter's lot?"

If Leander had declared himself to be alone, things might have gone
harder with him, and they certainly would never have believed him; so he
said it _was_ Potter's lot.

"I told you Potter was after that marble, and you wouldn't have it,
Count," growled Braddle. "Now you're satisfied."

The Count comprised Potter and his lot in a new and original malediction
by way of answer, and then said to Leander, "Did Potter tell you to let
that Venus stand where all the world might see it?"

"I had no discretion," said the hairdresser. "I'm not responsible,
indeed, gents."

"No discretion! I should think you hadn't. Nor Potter either, acting the
dog in the manger like this. Where'll _he_ find his market for it, eh?
What orders have you got? When are you going to get it across?"

"I've no notions. I haven't received no directions," said Leander.

"A nice sort o' mug you are to be trusted with a job like this," said
Braddle. "I did think Potter was better up in his work, I did. A pretty
bungle he'll make of it!"

"It would serve him right, for interfering with fellow-professionals in
this infernal unprincipled manner. But he shan't have the chance,
Braddle, he shan't have the chance; we'll steal a march on him this
time."

"Is the coast clear yet?" said Braddle.

"We must risk it. We shall find a route for it, never fear," was the
reply. "Now, you cursed hairdresser, you listen to what I'm going to
tell you. That Venus is our lawful property, and, by ----, we mean to
get her into our hands again. D'ye hear that?"

Leander heard, and with delight. So long as he could once get free from
the presence of the statue, and out of the cross-fire of burglars and
police, he was willing by this time to abandon the cloak and ring.

"I can truly say, I hope you'll be successful, gents," he replied.

"We don't want your hopes, we want your help. You must round on
Potter."

"Must I, gents?" said Leander. "Well, to oblige you, whatever it costs
me, I _will_ round on Potter."

"Take care you stick to that," said Braddle. "The next pint, Count, is
'ow we're to get her."

"Come in and take her away now," said Leander, eagerly. "She'll be
quiet. I--I mean the _house_'ll be quiet now. You'll be very welcome, I
assure you. _I_ won't interfere."

"You're a bright chap to go in for a purfession like ours," said Mr.
Braddle, with intense disgust. "How do yer suppose we're to do it--take
her to pieces, eh, and bring her along in our pockets? Do you think
we're flats enough to run the chance of being seen in the streets by a
copper, lugging that 'ere statue along?"

"We must have the light cart again, and a sack," said the Count. "It's
too late to-night."

"And it ain't safe in the daytime," said Braddle. "We're wanted for that
job at Camberwell, that puts it on to-morrow evening. But suppose Potter
has fixed the same time."

"Here, _you_ know. Has Potter fixed the same time?" the Count demanded
from Leander.

"No," said Leander; "Potter ain't said nothing to me about moving her."

"Then are you man enough to undertake Potter, if he starts the idea?
_Are_ you? Come!"

"Yes, gents, I'll manage Potter. You break in any time after midnight,
and I engage you shall find the Venus on the premises."

"But we want more than that of you, you know. We mustn't lose any time
over this job. You must be ready at the door to let us in, and bear a
hand with her down to the cart."

But this did not suit Leander's views at all. He was determined to
avoid all personal risks; and to be caught helping the burglars to carry
off the Aphrodite would be fatal.

He was recovering his presence of mind. As his tormentors had sensibly
relaxed, he was able to take steps for his own security.

"I beg pardon, gents," he said, "but I don't want to appear in this
myself. There's Potter, you see; he's a hawful man to go against. You
know what Potter is, yourselves." (Potter was really coming in quite
usefully, he began to think.)

"Well, I don't suppose Potter would make more bones about slitting your
throat than we should, if he knew you'd played him false," said the
Count. "But we can't help that; in a place like this it's too risky to
break in, when we can be let in."

"If you'll only excuse me taking an active part," said Leander, "it's
all I ask. This is my plan, gentlemen. You see that little archway
there, where my finger points? Well, that leads by a small alley to a
yard, back of my saloon. You can leave your cart here, and come round as
safe as you please. I'll have the winder in my saloon unfastened, and
put the statue where you can get her easy; but I don't want to be mixed
up in it further than that."

"That seems fair enough," said the Count, "provided you keep to it."

"But suppose it's a plant?" growled Braddle. "Suppose he's planning to
lay a trap for us? Suppose we get in, to find Potter and his lot on the
look-out for us, or break into a house that's full of bloomin' coppers?"

"I did think of that; but I believe our friend knows that if he doesn't
act square with me, his life isn't worth a bent pin; and besides, he
can't warn the police without getting himself into more or less hot
water. So I think he'll see the wisdom of doing what he's told."

"I do," said Leander, "I do, gentlemen. I'd sooner die than deceive
you."

"Well," said the Count, "you'd find it come to the same thing."

"No," added Braddle. "If you blow the gaff on us, my bloomin', I'll saw
that pudden head of yours right off your shoulders, and swing for it,
cheerful!"

Leander shuddered. Amongst what desperate ruffians had his unlucky stars
led him! How would it all end, he wondered feebly--how?

"Well, gentlemen," he said, with his teeth chattering, "if you don't
want me any more, I'll go in; and I'm to expect you to-morrow evening, I
believe?"

"Expect us when you 'ear us," said Braddle; "and if you make fools of us
again----" And he described consequences which exceeded in
unpleasantness the worst that Leander could have imagined.

The poor man tottered back to his room again, in a most unenviable frame
of mind; not even the prospect of being delivered from the goddess could
reconcile him to the price he must pay for it. He was going to take a
plunge into downright crime now; and if his friend the inspector came to
hear of it, ruin must follow. And, in any case, the cloak and the ring
would be gone beyond recovery, while these cut-throat housebreakers
would henceforth have a hold over him; they might insist upon steeping
him in blacker crime still, and he knew he would never have the courage
to resist.

As he thought of the new difficulties and dangers that compassed him
round about, he was frequently on the verge of tears, and his couch
that night was visited by dreadful dreams, in which he sought audience
of the Evil One himself at cross-roads, was chased over half London by
police, and dragged over the other half by burglars, to be finally
flattened by the fall of Aphrodite.

AT LAST

IX.

    "Does not the stone rebuke me
  For being more stone than it?"

                        _Winter's Tale._

  "Yet did he loath to see the image fair,
  White and unchanged of face, unmoved of limb!"

                        _Earthly Paradise._

Leander's hand was very tremulous all the next day, as several indignant
clients discovered, and he closed as early as he could, feeling it
impossible to attend to business under the circumstances.

About seven o'clock he went up to his sitting-room. A difficult and
ungrateful task was before him. To facilitate her removal, he must
persuade the goddess to take up a position in the saloon for the night;
and, much as he had suffered from her, there was something traitorous in
delivering her over to these coarse burglars.

He waited until the statue showed signs of returning animation, and then
said, "Good evening, mum," more obsequiously than usual.

She never deigned to notice or return his salutations. "Hairdresser,"
she said abruptly, "I am weary of this sordid place."

He was pleased, for it furthered his views. "It isn't so sordid in the
saloon, where you stood the other evening, you know," he replied. "Will
you step down there?"

"Bah!" she said, "it is _all_ sordid. Leander, a restlessness has come
upon me. I come back night after night out of the vagueness in which I
have lain so long, and for what? To stand here in this mean chamber and
proffer my favour, only to find it repulsed, disdained. I am tired of
it--tired!"

"You can't be more tired of it than I am!" he said.

"I ask myself," she went on, "why, having, through your means, ascended
once more to the earth, which I left so fair, I seek not those things
which once delighted me. This city of yours--all that I have seen of
it--revolts me; but it is vast, vaster than those built by the mortals
of old. Surely somewhere there must be brightness in it and beauty, and
the colour and harmony by which men knew once to delight the gods
themselves. It cannot be that the gods of old are all forgotten; surely,
somewhere there yet lingers a little band of faithful ones, who have not
turned from Aphrodite."

"I can't say, I'm sure," said Leander; "I could inquire for you."

"I myself will seek for them," she said proudly. "I will go forth this
very night."

Leander choked. "To-night!" he cried. "You _can't_ go to-night."

"You forget yourself," she returned haughtily.

"If I let you go," he said hesitatingly, "will you promise faithfully to
be back in half an hour?"

"Do you not yet understand that you have to do with a goddess--with
Aphrodite herself?" she said. "Who are you, to presume to fetter me by
your restrictions? Truly, the indulgence I have shown has turned your
weak brain."

He put his back against the door. He was afraid of the goddess, but he
was still more afraid of the burglars' vengeance if they arrived to find
the prize missing.

"I'm sorry to disoblige a lady," he said; "but you don't go out of this
house to-night."

In another minute he was lying in the fender amongst the
fireirons--alone! How it was done he was too stunned to remember; but
the goddess was gone. If she did not return by midnight, what would
become of him? If he had only been civil to her, she might have stayed;
but now she had abandoned him to certain destruction!

A kind of fatalistic stupor seized him. He would not run away--he would
have to come home some time--nor would he call in the police, for he had
a very vivid recollection of Mr. Braddle's threat in such a contingency.

He went, instead, into the dark saloon, and sat down in a chair to wait.
He wondered how he could explain the statue's absence. If he told the
burglars it had gone for a stroll, they would tear him limb from limb.
"I was so confoundedly artful about Potter," he thought bitterly, "that
they'll never believe now I haven't warned him!"

At every sound outside he shook like a leaf; the quarters, as they
sounded from the church clock, sank like cold weights upon his heart.
"If only Venus would come back first!" he moaned; but the statue never
returned.

At last he heard steps--muffled ones--on the paved alley outside. He had
forgotten to leave the window unfastened, after all, and he was too
paralysed to do it now.

The steps were in the little yard, or rather a sort of back area,
underneath the window. "It may be only a constable," he tried to say to
himself; but there is no mistaking the constabulary tread, which is not
fairy-like, or even gentle, like that he heard.

A low whistle destroyed his last hope. In a quite unpremeditated manner
he put out the gas and rolled under a leather divan which stood at the
end of the room. He wished now, with all his heart, that he had run away
while he had the chance; but it was too late.

"I hope they'll do it with a revolver, and not a knife," he thought.
"Oh, my poor Matilda! you little know what I'm going through just now,
and what'll be going through _me_ in another minute!"

A hoarse voice under the window called out, "Tweddle!"

He lay still. "None o' that, yer skulker; I know yer there!" said the
voice again. "Do yer want to give me the job o' coming after yer?"

After all, Leander reflected, there was the window and a thick
half-shutter between them. It might be best not to provoke Mr. Braddle
at the outset. He came half out of his hiding-place. "Is that you, Mr.
Braddle?" he quavered.

"Ah!" said the voice, affirmatively. "Is this what you call being ready
for us? Why, the bloomin' winder ain't even undone!"

"That's what I'm here for," said poor Leander. "Is the--the other
gentleman out there too?"

"You mind your business! You'll find something the Count give me to
bring yer; I've put it on the winder-sill out 'ere. And you obey horders
next time, will yer?"

The footsteps were heard retreating. Mr. Braddle was apparently going
back to fetch his captain. Leander let down the shutter, and opened the
window. He could not see, but he could feel a thick, rough bundle lying
on the window-sill.

He drew this in, slammed down the window, and ran up the shutter in a
second, before the two could have had time to discover him.

"Now," he thought, "I _will_ run for it;" and he groped his way out of
the dark saloon to the front shop, where he paused, and, taking a match
from his pocket, struck a light. His parcel proved to be rough
sackcloth, on the outside of which a paper was pinned.

Why did the Count write, when he was coming in directly? Curiosity made
him linger even then to ascertain this. The paper contained a hasty
scrawl in blue chalk. "_Not to-night_," he read; "_arrangements still
uncomplete. Expect us to-morrow night without fail, and see that
everything is prepared. Cloth sent with this for packing goods. P----
laid up with professional accident, and safe for a week or two. You must
have known this--why not say so last night? No trifling, if you value
life!_"

It was a reprieve--at the last moment! He had a whole day before him for
flight, and he fully intended to flee this time; those hours of suspense
in the saloon were too terrible to be gone through twice.

But as he was turning out his cashbox, and about to go upstairs and
collect a few necessaries, he heard a well-known tread outside. He ran
to the door, which he unfastened with trembling hands, and the statue,
with the hood drawn closely round her strange painted face, passed in
without seeming to heed his presence.

She had come back to him. Why should he run away now, when, if he waited
one more night, he might be rescued from one of his terrors by means of
the other?

"Lady Venus!" he cried hysterically. "Oh, Lady Venus, mum, I thought you
was gone for ever!"

"And you have grieved?" she said almost tenderly. "You welcome my return
with joy! Know then, Leander, that I myself feel pleasure in returning,
even to such a roof as this; for little gladness have I had from my
wanderings. Upon no altar did I see my name shine, nor the perfumed
flame flicker; the Lydian measures were silent, and the praise of
Cytherea. And everywhere I went I found the same senseless troubled
haste, and pale mean faces of men, and squalor, and tumult. Grace and
joyousness have fled--even from your revelry! But I have seen your new
gods, and understand: for, all grimy and mis-shapen and uncouth are they
as they stand in your open places and at the corners of your streets.
Zeus, what a place must Olympus now be! And can any men worship such
monsters, and be gladsome?"

Leander did not perceive the very natural mistake into which the goddess
had fallen; but the fact was, that she had come upon some of our justly
renowned public statues.

"I'm sorry you haven't enjoyed yourself, mum," was all he could find to
say.

"Should I linger in such scenes were it not for you?" she cried
reproachfully. "How much longer will you repulse me?"

"That depends on you, mum," he ventured to observe.

"Ah! you are cold!" she said reproachfully; "yet surely I am worthy of
the adoration of the proudest mortal. Judge me not by this marble
exterior, cunningly wrought though it be. Charms are mine, more dazzling
than any your imagination can picture; and could you surrender your
being to my hands, I should be able to show myself as I really
am--supreme in loveliness and majesty!"

Unfortunately, the hairdresser's imagination was not his strongest
point. He could not dissociate the goddess from the marble shape she had
assumed, and that shape he was not sufficiently educated to admire; he
merely coughed now in a deferential manner.

"I perceive that I cannot move you," she said. "Men have grown strangely
stubborn and impervious. I leave you, then, to your obstinacy; only take
heed lest you provoke me at last to wrath, for my patience is well-nigh
at an end!"

And she was gone, and the bedizened statue stood there, staring hardly
at him with the eyes his own hand had given her.

"This has been the most trying evening I've had yet," he thought. "Thank
my stars, if all goes well, I shall get rid of her by this time
to-morrow!"

The next day passed uneventfully enough, though the unfortunate
Leander's apprehensions increased with every hour. As before, he closed
early, got his apprentice safely off the premises, and sat down to wait
in his saloon. He knew that the statue (which he had concealed during
the day behind a convenient curtain) would probably recover
consciousness for some part of the evening, as it had rarely failed to
do, and prudence urged him to keep an eye over the proceedings of his
tormentress.

To his horror, Aphrodite's first words, after awaking, expressed her
intention of repeating the search for homage and beauty, which had been
so unsuccessful the night before!

"Seek not to detain me, Leander," she said; "for, goddess as I am, I am
drooping under this persistent obduracy. Somewhere beyond this murky
labyrinth, it may be that I shall find a shrine where I am yet
honoured. I will go forth, and never rest till I have found it, and my
troubled spirits are revived by the incense for which I have languished
so long. I am weary of abasing myself to such a contemptuous mortal, nor
will I longer endure such indignity. Stand back, and open the gates for
me! Why do you not obey?"

He knew now that to attempt force would be useless; and yet if she left
him this time, he must either abandon all that life held for him, and
fly to distant parts from the burglars' vengeance--or remain to meet a
too probable doom!

He fell on his knees before her. "Oh, Lady Venus," he entreated, "don't
leave me! I beg and implore you not to! If you do, you will kill me! I
give you my honest word you will!"

The statue's face seemed irradiated by a sudden joy. She paused, and
glanced down with an approving smile upon the kneeling figure at her
feet.

"Why did you not kneel to me before?" she said.

[Illustration: "WHY DID YOU NOT KNEEL TO ME BEFORE?"]

"Because I never thought of it," said the hairdresser, honestly; "but
I'll stay on my knees for hours, if only you won't go!"

"But what has made you thus eager, thus humble?" she said, half in
wonder and half in suspicion. "Can it be, that the spark I have sought
to kindle in your breast is growing to a flame at last? Leander, can
this thing be?"

He saw that she was gratified, that she desired to be assured that this
was indeed so.

"I shouldn't be surprised if something like that was going on inside of
me," he said encouragingly.

"Answer me more frankly," she said. "Do you wish me to remain with
you because you have learnt to love my presence?"

It was a very embarrassing position for him. All depended upon his
convincing the goddess of his dawning love, and yet, for the life of
him, he could not force out the requisite tenderness; his imagination
was unequal to the task.

Another and a more creditable feeling helped to tie his tongue--a sense
of shame at employing such a subterfuge in order to betray the goddess
into the lawless hands of these housebreakers. However, she must be
induced to stay by some means.

"Well," he said sheepishly, "you don't give me a chance to love you, if
you go wandering out every evening, do you?"

She gave a low cry of triumph. "It has come!" she exclaimed. "What are
clouds of incense, flowers, and homage, to this? Be of good heart; I
will stay, Leander. Fear not, but speak the passion which consumes you!"

He became alarmed. He was anxious not to commit himself, and yet employ
the time until the burglars might be expected.

"The fact is," he confessed, "it hasn't gone so far as that yet--it's
beginning; all it wants is _time_, you know--time, and being let alone."

"All Time will be before us, when once your lips have pronounced the
words of surrender, and our spirits are transported together to the
enchanted isle."

"You talk about me going over to this isle--this Cyprus," he said; "but
it's a long journey, and I can't afford it. How _you_ come and go, I
don't know; but I've not been brought up to it myself. I can't flash
across like a telegram!"

"Trust all to me," she said. "Is not your love strong enough for that?"

"Not quite yet," he answered; "it's coming on. Only, you see, it's a
serious step to take, and I naturally wish to feel my way. I declare,
the more I gaze upon the--the elegant form and figger which I see before
me, the stronger and the more irresistible comes over me a burning
desire to think the whole thing carefully over. And if you only allowed
me a little longer to gaze (I've no time to myself except in the
evenings), I don't think it would be long before this affair reached a
'appy termination--I don't indeed!"

"Gaze, then," she said, smiling--"gaze to your soul's content."

"I mean no offence," he represented, having felt his way to a stroke of
supreme cunning, "but when I feel there's a goddess inside of this
statue, I don't know how it is exactly, but it puts me off. I can't fix
my thoughts; the--the passion don't ferment as it ought. If, supposing
now, you was to withdraw yourself and leave me the statue? I could gaze
on it, and think of thee, and Cyprus, and all the rest of it, more
comfortable, so to speak, than what I can when you're animating of it,
and making me that nervous, words can't describe it!"

He hardly dared to hope that so lame and transparent a device would
succeed with her; but, as he had previously found, there was a certain
spice of credulity and simplicity in her nature, which made it possible
to impose upon her occasionally.

"It may be so," she said. "I overawe thee, perchance?"

"Very much so," said he, promptly. "You don't intend it, I know; but
it's a fact."

"I will leave you to meditate upon the charms so faintly shadowed in
this image, remembering that whatever of loveliness you find herein will
be multiplied ten thousand-fold in the actual Aphrodite! Remain, then;
ponder and gaze--and love!"

He waited for a little while after the statue was silent, and then took
up the sacking left for him by Braddle; twice he attempted to throw it
over the marble, and twice he recoiled. "It's no use," he said, "I can't
do it; they must do it themselves!"

He carefully unfastened the window at the back of his saloon, and,
placing the statue in the centre of the floor, turned out the gas, and
with a beating heart stole upstairs to his bedroom, where (with his door
bolted) he waited anxiously for the arrival of his dreaded deliverers.

He scarcely knew how long he had been there, for a kind of waking dream
had come upon him, in which he was providing the statue with light
refreshment in the shape of fancy pebbles and liquid cement, when the
long, low whistle, faintly heard from the back of the house, brought him
back to his full senses.

The burglars had come! He unbolted the door and stole out to the top of
the crazy staircase, intending to rush back and bolt himself in if he
heard steps ascending; and for some minutes he strained his ears,
without being able to catch a sound.

At last he heard the muffled creak of the window, as it was thrown up.
They were coming in! Would they, or would they not, be inhuman enough to
force him to assist them in the removal?

They were still in the saloon; he heard them trampling about, moving the
furniture with unnecessary violence, and addressing one another in tones
that were not caressing. Now they were carrying the statue to the
window; he heard their labouring breath and groans of exertion under the
burden.

Another pause. He stole lower down the staircase, until he was outside
his sitting-room, and could hear better. There! that was the thud as
they leapt out on the flagged yard. A second and heavier thud--the
goddess! How would they get her over the wall? Had they brought steps,
ropes, or what? No matter; they knew their own business, and were not
likely to have forgotten anything. But how long they were about it!
Suppose a constable were to come by and see the cart!

There were sounds at last; they were scaling the wall--floundering,
apparently; and no wonder, with such a weight to hoist after them! More
thuds; and then the steps of men staggering slowly, painfully away. The
steps echoed louder from under the archway, and then died away in
silence.

Could they be really gone? He dared not hope so, and remained shivering
in his sitting-room for some minutes; until, gaining courage, he
determined to go down and shut the window, to avoid any suspicion.
Although now that the burglars were safely off with their prize, even
their capture could not implicate him. He rather hoped they _would_ be
caught!

He took a lighted candle, and descended. As he entered the saloon, a
gust from the open window blew out the light. He stood there in the dark
and an icy draught; and, beginning to grope about in the dark for the
matches, he brushed against something which was soft and had a
cloth-like texture. "It's Braddle!" he thought, and his blood ran cold;
"or else the Count!" And he called them both respectfully. There was no
reply; no sound of breathing, even.

Ha! here was a box of matches at last! He struck a light in feverish
haste, and lit the nearest gas-bracket. For an instant he could see
nothing, in the sudden glare; but the next moment he fell back against
the wall with a cry of horror and despair.

For there, in the centre of the disordered room, stood--not the Count,
not Braddle--but the statue, the mantle thrown back from her arms, and
those arms, and the folds of the marble drapery, spotted here and there
with stains of dark crimson!

DAMOCLES DINES OUT

X.

     "To feed were best at home."--_Macbeth._

As soon as Leander had recovered from the first shock of horror and
disappointment, he set himself to efface the stains with which the
statue and the oilcloth were liberally bespattered; he was burning to
find out what had happened to make such desperadoes abandon their design
at the point of completion.

They both seemed to have bled freely. Had they quarrelled, or what? He
went out into the yard with a hand-lamp, trembling lest he should come
upon one or more corpses; but the place was bare, and he then remembered
having heard them stumble and flounder over the wall.

He came back in utter bewilderment; the statue, standing calm and
lifeless as he had himself placed it, could tell him nothing, and he
went back to his bedroom full of the vaguest fears.

The next day was a Saturday, and he passed it in the state of continual
apprehension which was becoming his normal condition. He expected every
moment to see or hear from the baffled ruffians, who would, no doubt,
consider him responsible for their failure; but no word nor sign came
from them, and the uncertainty drove him very near distraction.

As the night approached, he almost welcomed it, as a time when the
goddess herself would enlighten part of his ignorance; and he waited
more impatiently than ever for her return.

He was made to wait long that evening, until he almost began to think
that the marble was deserted altogether; but at length, as he watched,
the statue gave a long, shuddering sigh, and seemed to gaze round the
saloon with vacant eyes.

"Where am I?" she murmured. "Ah! I remember. Leander, while you
slumbered, impious hands were laid upon this image!"

"Dear me, mum; you don't say so!" exclaimed Leander.

"It is the truth! From afar I felt the indignity that was purposed, and
hastened to protect my image, to find it in the coarse grasp of godless
outlaws. Leander, they were about to drag me away by force--away from
thee!"

"I'm very sorry you should have been disturbed," said Leander; and he
certainly was. "So you came back and caught them at it, did you? And
wh--what did you do to 'em, if I may inquire?"

"I know not," she said simply. "I caused them to be filled with mad
fury, and they fell upon one another blindly, and fought like wild
beasts around my image until strength failed them, and they sank to the
ground; and when they were able, they fled from my presence, and I saw
them no more."

"You--you didn't kill them outright, then?" said Leander, not feeling
quite sure whether he would be glad or not to hear that they had
forfeited their lives.

"They were unworthy of such a death," she said; "so I let them crawl
away. Henceforth they will respect our images."

"I should say they would, most likely, madam," agreed Leander. "I do
assure you, I'm almost glad of it myself--I am; it served them both
right."

"_Almost_ glad! And do you not rejoice from your heart that I yet remain
to you?"

"Why," said Leander, "it is, in course, a most satisfactory and
agreeable termination, I'm sure."

"Who knows whether, if this my image had once been removed from you, I
could have found it in my power to return?" she said; "for, I ween, the
power that is left me has limits. I might never have appeared to you
again. Think of it, Leander."

"I was thinking of it," he replied. "It quite upsets me to think how
near it was."

"You are moved. You love me well, do you not, Leander?"

"Oh! I suppose I do," he said--"well enough."

"Well enough to abandon this gross existence, and fly with me where none
can separate us?"

"I never said nothing about that," he answered.

"But yesternight and you confessed that you were yielding--that ere long
I should prevail."

"So I am," he said; "but it will take me some time to yield thoroughly.
You wouldn't believe how slow I yield; why, I haven't hardly begun yet!"

"And how long a time will pass before you are fully prepared?"

"I'm afraid I can't say, not exactly; it may be a month, or it might
only be a week, or again, it may be a year. I'm so dependent upon the
weather. So, if you're in any kind of a hurry, I couldn't advise you, as
a honest man, to wait for me."

"I will not wait a year!" she said fiercely. "You mock me with such
words. I tell you again that my forbearance will last but little
longer. More of this laggard love, and I will shame you before your
fellow-men as an ingrate and a dastard! I will; by my zone, I will!"

"Now, mum, you're allowing yourself to get excited," said Leander,
soothingly. "I wouldn't talk about it no more this evening; we shall do
no good. I can't arrange to go with you just yet, and there's an end of
it."

"You will find that that is not the end of it, clod-witted slave that
you are!"

"Now, don't call names; it's beneath you."

"Ay, indeed! for are not _you_ beneath me? But for very shame I will not
abandon what is justly mine; nor shall you, wily and persuasive
hairdresser though you be, withstand my sovereign will with impunity!"

"So you say, mum!" said Leander, with a touch of his native
impertinence.

"As I say, I shall act; but no more of this, or you will anger me before
the time. Let me depart."

"I'm not hindering you," he said; but she did not remain long enough to
resent his words. He sat down with a groan. "Whatever will become of
me?" he soliloquized dismally. "She gets more pressing every evening,
and she's been taking to threatening dreadful of late.... If the Count
and that Braddle ever come back now, it won't be to take her off my
hands; it'll more likely be to have my life for letting them into such a
trap. They'll think it was some trick of mine, I shouldn't wonder....
And to-morrow's Sunday, and I've got to dine with aunt, and meet Matilda
and her ma. A pretty state of mind I'm in for going out to dinner, after
the awful week I've had of it! But there'll be some comfort in seeing my
darling Tillie again; _she_ ain't a statue, bless her!"

"As for you, mum," he said to the unconscious statue, "I'm going to lock
you up in your old quarters, where you can't get out and do mischief. I
do think I'm entitled to have my Sunday quiet."

After which he contrived to toil upstairs with the image, not without
considerable labour and frequent halts to recover his breath; for
although, as we have already noted, the marble, after being infused with
life, seemed to lose something of its normal weight, it was no light
burden, even then, to be undertaken single-handed.

He slept long and late that Sunday morning; for he had been too
preoccupied for the last few days to make any arrangements for attending
chapel with his Matilda, and he was in sore need of repose besides. So
he rose just in time to swallow his coffee and array himself carefully
for his aunt's early dinner, leaving his two Sunday papers--the
theatrical and the general organs--unread on his table.

It was a foggy, dull day, and Millman Street, never a cheerful
thoroughfare, looked gloomier than ever as he turned into it. But one of
those dingy fronts held Matilda--a circumstance which irradiated the
entire district for him.

He had scarcely time to knock before the door was opened by Matilda in
person. She looked more charming than ever, in a neat dark dress, with a
little white collar and cuffs. Her hair was arranged in a new fashion,
being banded by a neat braided tress across the crown; and her grey
eyes, usually serene and cold, were bright and eager.

The hairdresser felt his heart swell with love at the sight of her. What
a lucky man he was, after all, to have such a girl as this to care for
him! If he could keep her--ah, if he could only keep her!

"I told your aunt _I_ was going to open the door to you," she said. "I
wanted----Oh, Leander, you've not brought it, after all!"

"Meaning what, Tillie, my darling?" said Leander.

"Oh, you know--my cloak!"

He had had so much to think about that he had really forgotten the cloak
of late.

"Well, no, I've not brought that--not the cloak, Tillie," he said
slowly.

"What a time they are about it!" complained Matilda.

"You see," explained the poor man, "when a cloak like that is damaged,
it has to be sent back to the manufacturers to be done, and they've so
many things on their hands. I couldn't promise that you'll have that
cloak--well, not this side of Christmas, at least."

"You must have been very rough with it, then, Leander," she remarked.

"I was," he said. "I don't know how I came to _be_ so rough. You see, I
was trying to tear it off----" But here he stopped.

"Trying to tear it off what?"

"Trying to tear it off nothink, but trying to tear the wrapper off _it_.
It was so involved," he added, "with string and paper and that; and I'm
a clumsy, unlucky sort of chap, sweet one; and I'm uncommon sorry about
it, that I am!"

"Well, we won't say any more about it," said Matilda, softened by his
contrition. "And I'm keeping you out in the passage all this time. Come
in, and be introduced to mamma; she's in the front parlour, waiting to
make your acquaintance."

Mrs. Collum was a stout lady, with a thin voice. She struck a nameless
fear into Leander's soul as he was led up to where she sat. He
thought that she contained all the promise of a very terrible
mother-in-law.

[Illustration: SHE STRUCK A NAMELESS FEAR INTO LEANDER'S SOUL.]

"This is Leander, mamma dear," said Matilda, shyly and yet proudly.

Her mother inspected him for a moment, and then half closed her eyes.
"My daughter tells me that you carry on the occupation of a
hairdresser," she said.

"Quite correct, madam," said Leander; "I do."

"Ah! well," she said, with an unconcealed sigh, "I could have wished to
look higher than hairdressing for my Matilda; but there are
opportunities of doing good even as a hairdresser. I trust you are
sensible of that."

"I try to do as little 'arm as I can," he said feebly.

"If you do not do good, you must do harm," she said uncompromisingly.
"You have it in your means to be an awakening influence. No one knows
the power that a single serious hairdresser might effect with worldly
customers. Have you never thought of that?"

"Well, I can't say I have exactly," he said; "and I don't see how."

"There are cheap and appropriate illuminated texts," she said, "to be
had at so much a dozen; you could hang them on your walls. There are
tracts you procure by the hundred; you could put them in the lining of
hats as you hang them up; you could wrap them round your--your bottles
and pomatum-pots. You could drop a word in season in your customer's ear
as you bent over him. And you tell me you don't see how; you _will_ not
see, I fear, Mr. Tweddle."

"I'm afraid, mum," he replied, "my customers would consider I was taking
liberties."

"And what of that, so long as you save them?"

"Well, you see, I shouldn't--I should _lose_ 'em! And it's not done in
our profession; and, to tell you the honest truth, I'm not given that
way myself--not to the extent of tracks and suchlike, that is."

Matilda's mother groaned; it was hard to find a son-in-law with whom she
had nothing in common, and who was a hairdresser into the bargain.

"Well, well," she said, "we must expect crosses in this life; though for
my own daughter to lay this one upon me is--is----But I will not
repine."

"I'm sorry you regard me in the light of a cross," said Leander; "but,
whether I'm a cross or a naught, I'm a respectable man, and I love your
daughter, mum, and I'm in a position to maintain her."

Leander hated to have to appear under false pretences, of which he had
had more than enough of late. He was glad now to speak out plainly,
particularly as he had no reason to fear this old woman.

"Hush, Leander! Mamma didn't mean to be unkind; did you, mamma?" said
Matilda.

"I said what I felt," she said. "We will not discuss it further. If, in
time, I see reason for bestowing my blessing upon a choice which at
present----But no matter. If I see reason in time, I will not withhold
it. I can hardly be expected to approve at present."

"You shall take your own time, mum; _I_ won't hurry you," said Leander.
"Tillie is blessing enough for me--not but what I shall be glad to be on
a pleasant footing with you, I'm sure, if you can bring yourself to it."

Before Mrs. Collum could reply, Miss Louisa Tweddle made an opportune
appearance, to the relief of Matilda, in whom her mother's attitude was
causing some uneasiness.

Miss Tweddle was a well-preserved little woman, with short curly
iron-grey hair and sharp features. In manner she was brisk, not to say
chirpy, but she secreted sentiment in large quantities. She was very far
from the traditional landlady, and where she lost lodgers occasionally
she retained friends. She regarded Mrs. Collum with something like
reverence, as an acquaintance of her youth who had always occupied a
superior social position, and she was proud, though somewhat guiltily
so, that her favourite nephew should have succeeded in captivating the
daughter of a dentist.

She kissed Leander on both cheeks. "He's done the best of all my
nephews, Mrs. Collum, ma'am," she explained, "and he's never caused me a
moment's anxiety since I first had the care of him, when he was first
apprenticed to Catchpole's in Holborn, and paid me for his board."

"Well, well," said Mrs. Collum, "I hope he never may cause anxiety to
you, or to any one."

"I'll answer for it, he won't," said his aunt. "I wish you could see him
dress a head of hair."

Mrs. Collum shut her eyes again. "If at his age he has not acquired the
necessary skill for his line in life," she observed, "it would be a very
melancholy thing to reflect upon."

"Yes, wouldn't it?" agreed Miss Tweddle; "you say very truly, Mrs.
Collum. But he's got ideas and notions beyond what you'd expect in a
hairdresser--haven't you, Leandy? Tell Miss Collum's dear ma about the
new machines you've invented for altering people's hands and eyes and
features."

"I don't care to be told," the lady struck in. "To my mind, it's nothing
less than sheer impiety to go improving the features we've been endowed
with. We ought to be content as we are, and be thankful we've been sent
into the world with any features at all. Those are my opinions!"

"Ah," said the politic Leander, "but some people are saved having resort
to Art for improvement, and we oughtn't to blame them as are less
favoured for trying to render themselves more agreeable as spectacles,
ought we?"

"And if every one thought with you," added his aunt, with distinctly
inferior tact, "where would your poor dear 'usband have been, Mrs.
Collum, ma'am?"

"My dear husband was not on the same level--he was a medical man; and,
besides, though he replaced Nature in one of her departments, he had too
much principle to _imitate_ her. Had he been (or had I allowed him to
be) less conscientious, his practice would have been largely extended;
but I can truthfully declare that not a single one of his false teeth
was capable of deceiving for an instant. I hope," she added to Leander,
"you, in your own different way, are as scrupulous."

"Why, the fact is," said Leander, whose professional susceptibilities
were now aroused, "I am essentially an artist. When I look around, I see
that Nature out of its bounty has supplied me with a choice selection of
patterns to follow, and I reproduce them as faithful as lies within my
abilities. You may call it a fine thing to take a blank canvas, and
represent the luxurious tresses and the blooming hue of 'ealth upon it,
and so do I; but I call it a still higher and nobler act to produce a
similar effect upon a human 'ed!"

"Isn't that a pretty speech for a young man like him--only
twenty-seven--Mrs. Collum?" exclaimed his admiring aunt.

"You see, mamma dear," pleaded Matilda, who saw that her parent remained
unaffected, "it isn't as if Leander was in poor papa's profession."

"I hope, Matilda," said the lady sharply, "you are not going to pain me
again by mentioning this young man and your departed father in the same
breath, because I cannot bear it."

"The old lady," reflected Leander here, "don't seem to take to me!"

"I'm sure," said Miss Tweddle, "Leandy quite feels what an honour it is
to him to look forward to such a connection as yours is. When I first
heard of it, I said at once, 'Leandy, you can't never mean it; she won't
look at you; it's no use your asking her,' I said. And I quite scolded
myself for ever bringing them together!"

Mrs. Collum seemed inclined to follow suit, but she restrained herself.
"Ah! well," she observed, "my daughter has chosen to take her own way,
without consulting my prejudices. All I hope is, that she may never
repent it!"

"Very handsomely said, ma'am," chimed in Miss Tweddle; "and, if I know
my nephew, repent it she never will!"

Leander was looking rather miserable; but Matilda put out her hand to
him behind his aunt's back, and their eyes and hands met, and he was
happy again.

"You must be wanting your dinner, Mrs. Collum," his aunt proceeded; "and
we are only waiting for another lady and gentleman to make up the party.
I don't know what's made them so behindhand, I'm sure. He's a very
pleasant young man, and punctual to the second when he lodged with me. I
happened to run across him up by Chancery Lane the other evening, and he
said to me, in his funny way, 'I've been and gone and done it, Miss
Tweddle, since I saw you. I'm a happy man; and I'm thinking of bringing
my young lady soon to introduce to you.' So I asked them to come and
take a bit of dinner with me to-day, and I told him two o'clock sharp,
I'm sure. Ah, there they are at last! That's Mr. Jauncy's knock, among a
thousand."

Leander started. "Aunt!" he cried, "you haven't asked Jauncy here
to-day?"

"Yes, I did, Leandy. I knew you used to be friends when you were
together here, and I thought how nice it would be for both your young
ladies to make each other's acquaintance; but I didn't tell _him_
anything. I meant it for a surprise."

And she bustled out to receive her guests, leaving Leander speechless.
What if the new-comers were to make some incautious reference to that
pleasure-party on Saturday week? Could he drop them a warning hint?

"Don't you like this Mr. Jauncy, Leander?" whispered Matilda, who had
observed his ghastly expression.

"I like him well enough," he returned, with an effort; "but I'd rather
we had no third parties, I must say."

Here Mr. Jauncy came in alone, Miss Tweddle having retired to assist the
lady to take off her bonnet.

Leander went to meet him. "James," he said in an agitated whisper, "have
you brought Bella?"

Jauncy nodded. "We were talking of you as we came along," he said in the
same tone, "and I advise you to look out--she's got her quills up, old
chap!"

"What about?" murmured Leander.

Mr. Jauncy's grin was wider and more appreciative than ever as he
replied, mysteriously, "Rosherwich!"

Leander would have liked to ask in what respect Miss Parkinson
considered herself injured by the expedition to Rosherwich; but, before
he could do so, his aunt returned with the young lady in question.

Bella was gorgeously dressed, and made her entrance with the stiffest
possible dignity. "Miss Parkinson, my dear," said her hostess, "you
mustn't be made a stranger of. That lady sitting there on the sofa is
Mrs. Collum, and this gentleman is a friend of _your_ gentleman's, and
my nephew, Leandy."

"Oh, thank you," said Bella, "but I've no occasion to be told Mr.
Tweddle's name; we have met before--haven't we, Mr. Tweddle?"

He looked at her, and saw her brows clouded, and her nose and mouth with
a pinched look about them. She was annoyed with him evidently--but why?

"We have," was all he could reply.

"Why, how nice that is, to be sure!" exclaimed his aunt. "I might have
thought of it, too, Mr. Jauncy, and you being such friends and all. And
p'r'aps you know this lady, too--Miss Collum--as Leandy is keeping
company along with?"

Bella's expression changed to something blacker still. "No," she said,
fixing her eyes on the still unconscious Leander; "I made sure that Mr.
Tweddle was courting _a_ young lady, but--but--well, this _is_ a
surprise, Mr. Tweddle! You never told us of this when last we met. I
shall have news for somebody!"

"Oh, but it's only been arranged within the last month or two!" said
Miss Tweddle.

"Considering we met so lately, he might have done us the compliment of
mentioning it, I must say!" said Bella.

"I--I thought you knew," stammered the hairdresser; "I told----"

"No, you didn't, excuse me; oh no, you didn't, or some things would have
happened differently. It was the place and all that made you forget it,
very likely."

"When did you meet one another, and where was it, Miss Parkinson?"
inquired Matilda, rather to include herself in the conversation than
from any devouring curiosity.

Leander struck in hoarsely. "We met," he explained, "some time since,
quite casual."

Bella's eyes lit up with triumphant malice. "What!" she said, "do you
call yesterday week such a long while? What a compliment that is,
though! And so he's not even mentioned it to you, Miss Collum? Dear me,
I wonder what reasons he had for that, now!"

"There's nothing to wonder at," said Leander; "my memory does play me
tricks of that sort."

"Ah, if it was only you it played tricks on! There's Miss Collum dying
to know what it's all about, I can see."

"Indeed, Miss Parkinson, I'm nothing of the sort," retorted Matilda,
proudly. Privately her reflection was: "She's got a lovely gown on, but
she's a common girl, for all that; and she's trying to set me against
Leander for some reason, and she shan't do it."

"Well," said Bella, "you're a fortunate man, Mr. Tweddle, that you are,
in every way. I'm afraid I shouldn't be so easy with my James."

"There's no need for being afraid about it," her James put in; "you
aren't!"

"I hope you haven't as much cause, though," she retorted.

Leander listened to her malicious innuendo with a bewildered agony. Why
on earth was she making this dead set at him? She was amiable enough on
Saturday week. It never occurred to him that his conduct to her sister
could account for it, for had he not told Ada straightforwardly how he
was situated?

Fortunately dinner was announced to be ready just then, and Bella was
silenced for the moment in the general movement to the next room.

Leander took in Matilda's mamma, who had been studiously abstracting
herself from all surrounding objects for the last few minutes. "That
Bella is a downright basilisk," he thought dismally, as he led the way.
"Lord, how I do wish dinner was done!"

DENOUNCED

XI.

  "There's a new foot on the floor, my friend;
  And a new face at the door, my friend;
  A new face at the door."

Leander sat at the head of the table as carver, having Mrs. Collum and
Bella on his left, and James and Matilda opposite to them.

James was the first to open conversation, by the remark to Mrs. Collum,
across the table, that they were "having another dull Sunday."

"That," rejoined the uncompromising lady, "seems to me a highly improper
remark, sir."

"My friend Jauncy," explained Leander, in defence of his abashed
companion, "was not alluding to present company, I'm sure. He meant the
dulness _outside_--the fog, and so on."

"I knew it," she said; "and I repeat that it is improper and irreverent
to speak of a dull Sunday in that tone of complaint. Haven't we all the
week to be lively in?"

"And I'm sure, ma'am," said Jauncy, recovering himself, "you make the
most of your time. Talking of fog, Tweddle, did you see those lines on
it in to-day's _Umpire_? Very smart, I call them; regular witty."

"And do you both read a paper on Sunday mornings with 'smart' and
'witty' lines in it?" demanded Mrs. Collum.

"I--I hadn't time this morning," said the unregenerate Leander; "but I
do occasionally cast an eye over it before I get up."

Mrs. Collum groaned, and looked at her daughter reproachfully.

"I see by the _Weekly News_," said Jauncy, "you've had a burglary in
your neighbourhood."

Leander let the carving-knife slip. "A burglary! What! in my
neighbourhood? When?"

"Well, p'r'aps not a burglary; but a capture of two that were 'wanted'
for it. It's all in to-day's _News_."

"I--I haven't seen a paper for the last two days," said Leander, his
heart beating with hope. "Tell us about it!"

"Why, it isn't much to tell; but it seems that last Friday night, or
early on Saturday morning, the constable on duty came upon two
suspicious-looking chaps, propped up insensible against the railings in
Queen Square, covered with blood, and unable to account for themselves.
Whether they'd been trying to break in somewhere and been beaten off, or
had quarrelled, or met with some accident, doesn't seem to be known for
certain. But, anyway, they were arrested for loitering at night with
housebreaking things about them; and, when they were got to the station,
recognized as the men 'wanted' for shooting a policeman down at
Camberwell some time back, and if it is proved against them they'll be
hung, for certain."

"What were they called? Did it say?" asked Leander, eagerly.

"I forget one--something like Bradawl, I believe; the other had a lot of
aliases, but he was best known as the 'Count,' from having lived a good
deal abroad, and speaking broken English like a native."

Leander's spirits rose, in spite of his present anxieties. He had been
going in fear and dread of the revenge of these ruffians, and they were
safely locked up; they could trouble him no more. Small wonder, then,
that his security in this respect made him better able to cope with
minor dangers; and Bella's animosity seemed lulled, too--at least, she
had not opened her mouth, except for food, since she sat down.

In his expansion, he gave himself the airs of a host. "I hope," he said,
"I've served you all to your likings? Miss Parkinson, you're not getting
on; allow me to offer you a little more pork."

"Thank you, Mr. Tweddle," said the implacable Bella, "but I won't
trouble you. I haven't an appetite to-day--like I had at those gardens."

There was a challenge in this answer--not only to him, but to general
curiosity--which, to her evident disappointment, was not taken up.

Leander turned to Jauncy. "I--I suppose you had no trouble in finding
your way here?" he said.

"No," said Jauncy, "not more than usual; the streets were pretty full,
and that makes it harder to get along."

"We met such quantities of soldiers," put in Bella. "Do you remember
those two soldiers at Rosherwich, Mr. Tweddle? How funny they did look,
dancing; didn't they? But I suppose I mustn't say anything about the
dancing here, must I?"

"Since," said the poor badgered man, "you put it to me, Miss Parkinson,
I must say that, considering the _day_, you know----"

"Yes," continued Mrs. Collum, severely; "surely there are better topics
for the Sabbath than--than a dancing soldier!"

"Mr. Tweddle knows why I stopped myself," said Bella. "But there, I
won't tell of you--not now, at all events; so don't look like that at
me!"

"There, Bella, that'll do," said her _fiancé_, suddenly awakening to the
fact that she was trying to make herself disagreeable, and perhaps
feeling slightly ashamed of her.

"James! I know what to say and what to leave unsaid, without tellings
from you; thanks all the same. You needn't fear my saying a word about
Mr. Tweddle and Ada--la, now, if I haven't gone and said it! What a
stupid I am to run on so!"

"_Drop_ it, Bella! Do you hear? That's enough," growled Jauncy.

Leander sat silent; he did not attempt again to turn the conversation:
he knew better. Matilda seemed perfectly calm, and certainly showed no
surface curiosity; but he feared that her mother intended to require
explanations.

Miss Tweddle came in here with the original remark that winter had begun
now in good earnest.

"Yes," said Bella. "Why, as we came along, there wasn't hardly a leaf on
the trees in the squares; and yet only yesterday week, at the gardens,
the trees hadn't begun to shed. Had they, Mr. Tweddle? Oh, but I forgot;
you were so taken up with paying attention to Ada----(_Well_, James! I
suppose I can make a remark!)"

"I'll never take you out again, if you don't hold that tongue," he
whispered savagely.

Mrs. Collum fixed her eyes on Leander, as he sat cowering on her right.
"Leander Tweddle," she said, in a hissing whisper, "what is that young
person talking about? Who--who is this 'Ada'? I insist upon being
told."

"If you want to know, ask her," he retorted desperately.

All this by-play passed unnoticed by Miss Tweddle, who was probably too
full of the cares of a hostess to pay attention to it; and, accordingly,
she judged the pause that followed the fitting opportunity for a little
speech.

"Mrs. Collum, ma'am," she began; "and my dearest Miss Matilda, the
flower of all my lady lodgers; and you, Leandy; and Mr. Jauncy; and,
though last mentioned, not intentionally so, I assure you, Miss
Parkinson, my dear--I couldn't tell you how honoured I feel to see you
all sitting, so friendly and cheerful, round my humble table. I hope
this will be only the beginning of many more so; and I wish you all your
very good healths!"

"Which, if I may answer for self and present company," said Mr. Jauncy,
nobody else being able to utter a word, "we drink and reciprocate."

Leander was saved for the moment, and the dinner passed without further
incident. But his aunt's vein of sentiment had been opened, and could
not be staunched all at once; for when the cloth was removed, and the
decanters and dishes of oranges placed upon the table, she gave a little
preparatory cough and began again.

"I'm sure it isn't my wish to be ceremonial," she said; "but we're all
among friends--for I should like to look upon you as a friend, if you'll
let me," she added rather dubiously, to Bella. "And I don't really think
there could be a better occasion for a sort of little ceremony that I've
quite set my heart on. Leandy, _you_ know what I mean; and you've got it
with you, I know, because you were told to bring it with you."

"Miss Tweddle," interrupted Matilda, hurriedly, "not now. I--I don't
think Vidler has sent it back yet. I told you, you know----"

"That's all you know about it, young lady," she said, archly; "for I
stepped in there yesterday and asked him about it, to make sure, and he
told me it was delivered over the very Saturday afternoon before. So,
Leandy, oblige me for once, and put it on the dear girl's finger before
us all; you needn't be bashful with us, I'm sure, either of you."

"What is all this?" asked Mrs. Collum.

"Why, it's a ring, Mrs. Collum, ma'am, that belonged to my own dear
aunt, though she never wore it; and her grandfather had the posy
engraved on the inside of it. And I remember her telling me, before she
was taken, that she'd left it to me in her will, but I wasn't to let it
go out of the family. So I gave it to Leandy, to be his engagement ring;
but it's had to be altered, because it was ever so much too large as it
was."

"I always thought," said Mrs. Collum, "that it was the gentleman's duty
to provide the ring."

"So Leandy wanted to; but I said, 'You can pay for the altering; but I'm
fanciful about this, and I want to see dearest Miss Collum with my
aunt's ring on.'"

"Oh, but, Miss Tweddle, can't you see?" said Matilda. "He's forgotten
it; don't--don't tease him about it.... It must be for some other time,
that's all!"

"Matilda, I'm surprised at you," said her mother. "To forget such a
thing as that would be unpardonable in _any_ young man. Leander Tweddle,
you _cannot_ have forgotten it."

"No," he said, "I've not forgotten it; but--but I haven't it about me,
and I don't know as I could lay my hand on it, just at present, and
that's the truth."

"_Part_ of the truth," said Bella. "Oh, what deceitful things you men
are! Leave me alone, James; I will speak. I won't sit by and hear poor
dear Miss Collum deceived in this way. Miss Collum, ask him if that is
all he knows about it. Ask him, and see what he says."

"I'm quite satisfied with what he has chosen to say already, Miss
Parkinson; thank you," said Matilda.

"Then permit me to say, Miss Collum, that I'm truly sorry for you," said
Bella.

"If you think so, Miss Parkinson, I suppose you must say so."

"I do say it," said Bella; "for it's a sorrowful sight to see meekness
all run to poorness of spirit. You have a right to an explanation from
Mr. Tweddle there; and you would insist on it, if you wasn't afraid (and
with good reason) of the answer you'd get!"

At the beginning of this short colloquy Miss Tweddle, after growing very
red and restless for some moments, had slipped out of the room, and came
in now, trembling and out of breath, with a bonnet in her hand and a
cloak over her arm.

"Miss Parkinson," she said, speaking very rapidly, "when I asked you to
come here with my good friend and former lodger, I little thought that
anything but friendship would come of it; and sorry I am that it has
turned out otherwise. And my feelings to Mr. Jauncy are the same as
ever; but--this is your bonnet, Miss Parkinson, and your cloak. And this
is my house; and I shall be obliged if you'll kindly put on the ones,
and walk out of the other at once!"

Bella burst into tears, and demanded from Mr. Jauncy why he had brought
her there to be insulted.

"You brought it all on yourself," he said, gloomily; "you should have
behaved!"

"What have I done," cried Bella, "to be told to go, as if I wasn't fit
to stay?"

"I'll tell you what you've done," said Miss Tweddle. "You were asked
here with Mr. Jauncy to meet my dear Leandy and his young lady, and get
all four of you to know one another, and lay foundations for
Friendship's flowery bonds. And from the moment you came in, though I
paid no attention to it at first, you've done nothing but insinuate and
hint, and try all you could to set my dear Miss Collum and her ma
against my poor unoffending nephew; and I won't sit by any longer and
hear it. Put on your bonnet and cloak, Miss Parkinson, and Mr. Jauncy
(who knows I don't bear him any ill-feeling, whatever happens) will go
home with you."

"I've said nothing," repeated Bella, "but what I'd a right to say, and
what I'll stand to."

"If you don't put on those things," said Jauncy, "I shall go away
myself, and leave you to follow as best you can."

"I'm putting them on," said Bella; and her hands were unsteady with
passion as she tied her bonnet-strings. "Don't bully _me_, James,
because I won't bear it! Mr. Tweddle, if you're a man, will you sit
there and tell me you don't know that that ring is on a certain person's
finger? Will you do that?"

[Illustration: HER HANDS WERE UNSTEADY WITH PASSION AS SHE TIED HER
BONNET-STRINGS.]

The miserable man concluded that Ada had disregarded his entreaties, and
told her sister all about the ring and the accursed statue. He could not
see why the story should have so inflamed Bella; but her temper was
always uncertain.

Everybody was looking at him, and he was expected to say something. His
main idea was, that he would see how much Bella knew before committing
himself.

"What have I ever done to offend you," he asked, "that you turn on me
in this downright vixenish manner? I scorn to reply to your
insinuations!"

"Do you want me to speak out plain? James, stand away, _if_ you please.
You may all think what you choose of me. _I_ don't care! Perhaps if
_you_ were to come in and find the man who, only a week ago, had offered
marriage to your youngest sister, figuring away as engaged to quite
another lady, _you_ wouldn't be all milk and honey, either. I'm doing
right to expose him. The man who'd deceive one would deceive many, and
so you'll find, Miss Collum, little as you think it."

"That's enough," said Miss Tweddle. "It's all a mistake, I'm sure, and
you'll be sorry some day for having made it. Now go, Miss Parkinson, and
make no more mischief!"

A light had burst in upon Leander's perturbed mind. Ada had not broken
faith with him, after all. He remembered Bella's conduct during the
return from Rosherwich, and understood at last to what a mistake her
present wrath was due.

Here, at all events, was an accusation he could repel with dignity, with
truth. Foolish and unlucky he had been--and how unlucky he still hoped
Matilda might never learn--but false he was not; and she should not be
allowed to believe it.

"Miss Parkinson," he said, "I've been badgered long enough. What is it
you're trying to bring up against me about your sister Ada? Speak it
out, and I'm ready to answer you."

"Leander," said Matilda, "I don't want to hear it from her. Only you
tell me that you've been true to me, and that is quite enough."

"Matilda, you're a foolish girl, and don't know what you're talking
about," said her mother. "It is not enough for _me_; so I beg, young
woman, if you've anything to accuse the man who's to be my son-in-law
of, you'll say it now, in my presence, and let him contradict it
afterwards if he can."

"Will he contradict his knowing my sister Ada, who's one of the ladies
at Madame Chenille's, in the Edgware Road, more than a twelvemonth
since, and paying her attentions?" asked Bella.

"I don't deny," said Leander, "meeting her several times, and being
considerably struck, in a quiet way. But that was before I met Matilda."

"You had met Matilda before last Saturday, I suppose?" sneered Bella,
spitefully--"when you laid your plans to join our party to Rosherwich,
and trouble my poor sister, who'd given up thinking of you."

"There you go, Bella!" said her _fiancé_. "What do you know about his
plans? He'd no idea as Ada and you was to be there; and when I told him,
as we were driving down, it was all I could do to prevent him jumping
out of the cab."

"I'm highly flattered to hear it," said Bella. "But he didn't seem to be
so afraid of Ada when they did meet; and you best know, Mr. Tweddle, the
things you said to that poor trusting girl all the time you were walking
and dancing and talking foolishness to her."

"I never said a word that couldn't have been spoke from the top of St.
Paul's," protested Leander. "I did dance with her, I own, not to seem
uncivil; but we only waltzed round twice."

"Then why did you give her a ring--an engagement ring too?" insisted
Bella.

"Who saw me give her a ring?" he demanded hotly. "Do you dare to say you
did? Did she ever tell you I gave her any ring? You _know_ she didn't!"

"If I can't trust my own ears," said Bella, "I should like to know what
I can trust. I heard you myself, in that railway carriage, ask my sister
Ada not to tell any one about some ring, and I tried to get out of Ada
afterwards what the secret was; but she wouldn't treat me as a sister,
and be open with me. But any one with eyes in their head could guess
what was between you, and all the time you an engaged man!"

"See there, now!" cried the injured hairdresser; "there's a thing to go
and make all this mischief about! Matilda, Mrs. Collum, aunt, I declare
to you I told the--the other young woman everything about my having
formed new ties and that. I was very particular not to give rise to
hopes which were only doomed to be disappointed. As to what Miss
Parkinson says she overheard, why, it's very likely I may have asked her
sister to say nothing about a ring, and I won't deny it was the very
same ring that I was to have brought here to-day; for the fact was, I
had the misfortune to lose it in those very gardens, and naturally did
not wish it talked about: and that's the truth, as I stand here. As for
giving it away, I swear I never parted with it to no mortal woman!"

"After that, Bella," observed Mr. Jauncy, "you'd better say you're sorry
you spoke, and come home with me--that's what you'd better do."

"I shall say nothing of the sort," she asserted. "I'm too much of a lady
to stay where my company is not desired, and I'm ready to go as soon as
you please. But if he was to talk his head off, he would never persuade
me (whatever he may do other parties) that he's not been playing double;
and if Ada were here you would soon see whether he would have the face
to deny it. So good-night, Miss Tweddle, and sooner or later you'll find
yourself undeceived in your precious nephew, take my word for it.
Good-night, Miss Collum, and I'm only sorry you haven't more spirit than
to put up with such treatment. James, are you going to keep me waiting
any longer?"

Mr. Jauncy, with confused apologies to the company generally, hurried
his betrothed off, in no very amiable mood, and showed his sense of her
indiscretions by indulging in some very plain speaking on their homeward
way.

As the street door shut behind them, Leander gave a deep sigh of relief.

"Matilda, my own dearest girl," he said, "now that that cockatrice has
departed, tell me, you don't doubt your Leander, do you?"

"No," said Matilda, judicially, "I don't doubt you, Leander, only I do
wish you'd been a little more open with me; you might have told me you
had gone to those gardens and lost the ring, instead of leaving me to
hear it from that girl."

"So I might, darling," he owned; "but I thought you'd disapprove."

"And if she's _my_ daughter," observed Mrs. Collum, "she _will_
disapprove."

But it was evident from Matilda's manner that the inference was
incorrect; the relief of finding Leander guiltless on the main count had
blinded her to all minor shortcomings, and he had the happiness of
knowing himself fully and freely forgiven.

If this could only have been the end! But, while he was still throbbing
with bliss, he heard a sound, at which his "bedded hair" started up and
stood on end--the ill-omened sound of a slow and heavy footfall.

"Leandy," cried his aunt, "how strange you're looking!"

"There's some one in the passage," he said, hoarsely. "I'll go and see
her. Don't any of you come out."

"Why, it's only our Jane," said his aunt; "she always treads heavy."

The steps were heard going up the stairs; then they seemed to pause
halfway, and descend again. "I'll be bound she's forgot something," said
Miss Tweddle. "I never knew such a head as that girl's;" and Leander
began to be almost reassured.

The steps were heard in the adjoining room, which was shut off by
folding doors from the one they were occupying.

"Leander," cried Matilda, "what _can_ there be to look so frightened
of?" and as she spoke there came a sounding solemn blow upon the
folding-doors.

"I never saw the lady before in all my life!" moaned the guilty man,
before the doors had time to swing back; for he knew too well who stood
behind them.

And his foreboding was justified to the full. The doors yielded to the
blow, and, opening wide, revealed the tall and commanding figure of the
goddess; her face, thanks to Leander's pigments, glowing lifelike under
her hood, and the gold ring gleaming on her outstretched hand.

"Leander," said the goddess, in her low musical accents, "come away."

"Upon my word!" cried Mrs. Collum. "_Who_ is this person?"

He could not speak. There seemed to be a hammer beating on his brain,
reducing it to a pulp.

"Perhaps," said Miss Tweddle--"perhaps, young lady, you'll explain what
you've come for?"

The statue slowly pointed to Leander. "I come for him," she said
calmly. "He has vowed himself to me; he is mine!"

Matilda, after staring, incredulous, for some moments at the intruder,
sank with a wild scream upon the sofa, and hid her face.

Leander flew to her side. "Matilda, my own," he implored, "don't be
alarmed. She won't touch _you_; it's _me_ she's come after."

Matilda rose and repulsed him with a sudden energy. "How dare you!" she
cried, hysterically. "I see it all now: the ring, the--the cloak; _she_
has had them all the time!.... Fool that I was--silly, trusting fool!"
And she broke out into violent hysterics.

"Go away at once, hypocrite!" enjoined her mother, addressing the
distracted hairdresser, as he stood, dumb and impotent, before her. "Do
you want to kill my poor child? Take yourself off!"

"For goodness' sake, go, Leandy," added his aunt. "I can't bear the
sight of you!"

"Leander, I wait," said the statue. "Come!"

He stood there a moment longer, looking blankly at the two elder women
as they bustled about the prostrate girl, and then he gave a bitter,
defiant laugh.

His fate was too strong for him. No one was in the mood to listen to any
explanation; it was all over! "I'm coming," he said to the goddess. "I
may as well; I'm not wanted here."

And, with a smothered curse, he dashed blindly from the room, and out
into the foggy street.

AN APPEAL

XII.

  "If you did know to whom I gave the ring,
  If you did know for whom I gave the ring,
  And how unwillingly I left the ring,
  You would abate the strength of your displeasure."

                       _Merchant of Venice._

Leander strode down the street in a whirl of conflicting emotions. At
the very moment when he seemed to have prevailed over Miss Parkinson's
machinations, his evil fate had stepped in and undone him for ever! What
would become of him without Matilda? As he was thinking of his gloomy
prospects, he noticed, for the first time, that the statue was keeping
step by his side, and he turned on her with smothered rage. "Well," he
began, "I hope you're satisfied?"

"Quite, Leander, quite satisfied; for have I not found you?"

"Oh, you've found me right enough," he replied, with a groan--"trust you
for that! What I should like to know is, how the dickens you did it?"

"Thus," she replied: "I awoke, and it was dark, and you were not there,
and I needed you; and I went forth, and called you by your name. And
you, now that you have hearkened to my call, you are happy, are you
not?"

"Me?" said Leander, grimly. "Oh, I'm regular jolly, I am! Haven't I
reason?"

"Your sisters seemed alarmed at my coming," she said. "Why?"

"Well," said Leander, "they aren't used to having marble goddesses
dropping in on them promiscuously."

"The youngest wept: was it because I took you from her side?"

"I shouldn't wonder," he returned gruffly. "Don't bother me!"

When they were both safely within the little upper room again, he opened
the cupboard door wide. "Now, marm," he said, in a voice which trembled
with repressed rage, "you must be tired with the exercise you've took
this evening, and I'll trouble you to walk in here."

"There are many things on which I would speak with you," she said.

"You must keep them for next time," he answered roughly. "If you can see
anything, you can see that just now I'm not in a temper for to stand it,
whatever I may be another evening."

"Why do I suffer this language from you?" she demanded
indignantly--"why?"

"If you don't go in, you'll hear language you'll like still less,
goddess or no goddess!" he said, foaming. "I mean it. I've been worked
up past all bearing, and I advise you to let me alone just now, or
you'll repent it!"

"Enough!" she said haughtily, and stalked proudly into the lonely niche,
which he closed instantly. As he did so, he noticed his Sunday papers
lying still folded on his table, and seized one eagerly.

"It may have something in it about what Jauncy was telling me of," he
said; and his search was rewarded by the following paragraph:--

"DARING CAPTURE OF BURGLARS IN BLOOMSBURY.--On the night of Friday, the
--th, Police-constable Yorke, B 954, while on duty, in the course of one
of his rounds, discovered two men, in a fainting condition and covered
with blood, which was apparently flowing from sundry wounds upon their
persons, lying against the railings of Queen Square. Being unable to
give any coherent account of themselves, and housebreaking implements
being found in their possession, they were at once removed to the Bow
Street Station, where, the charge having been entered against them, they
were recognized by a member of the force as two notorious housebreakers
who have long been 'wanted' in connection with the Camberwell burglary,
in which, as will be remembered, an officer lost his life."

The paragraph went on to give their names and sundry other details, and
concluded with a sentence which plunged Leander into fresh torments:--

"In spite of the usual caution, both prisoners insisted upon
volunteering a statement, the exact nature of which has not yet
transpired, but which is believed to have reference to another equally
mysterious outrage--the theft of the famous Venus from the Wricklesmarsh
Collection--and is understood to divert suspicion into a hitherto
unsuspected channel."

What could this mean, if not that those villains, smarting under their
second failure, had denounced him in revenge? He tried to persuade
himself that the passage would bear any other construction, but not very
successfully. "If they have brought _me_ in," he thought, and it was his
only gleam of consolation, "I should have heard of it before this."

And even this gleam vanished as a sharp knocking was heard below; and,
descending to open the door, he found his visitor to be Inspector
Bilbow.

"Evening, Tweddle," said the Inspector, quietly. "I've come to have
another little talk with you."

Leander thought he would play his part till it became quite hopeless.
"Proud to see you, Mr. Inspector," he said. "Will you walk into my
saloon? and I'll light the gas for you."

"No, don't you trouble yourself," said the terrible man. "I'll walk
upstairs where you're sitting yourself, if you've no objections."

Leander dared not make any, and he ushered the detective upstairs
accordingly.

"Ha!" said the latter, throwing a quick eye round the little room. "Nice
little crib you've got here. Keep everything you want on the premises,
eh? Find those cupboards very convenient, I dare say?"

"Very," said Leander (like the innocent Joseph Surface that he was);
"oh, very convenient, sir." He tried to keep his eyes from resting too
consciously upon the fatal door that held his secret.

"Keep your coal and your wine and spirits there?" said the detective.
(Was he watching his countenance, or not?)

"Y--yes," said Leander; "leastways, in one of them. Will you take
anything, sir?"

"Thank 'ee, Tweddle; I don't mind if I do. And what do you keep in the
other one, now?"

"The other?" said the poor man. "Oh, odd things!" (He certainly had
_one_ odd thing in it.)

After the officer had chosen and mixed his spirits and water, he began:
"Now, you know what's brought me here, don't you?"

("If he was sure, he wouldn't try to pump me," argued Leander. "I won't
throw up just yet.")

"I suppose it's the ring," he replied innocently. "You don't mean to say
you've got it back for me, Mr. Inspector? Well, I _am_ glad."

"I thought you set no particular value on the ring when I met you last?"
said the other.

"Why," said Leander, "I may have said so out of politeness, not wanting
to trouble you; but, as you said it was the statue you were after
chiefly, why, I don't mind admitting that I shall be thankful indeed to
get that ring back. And so you've brought it, have you, sir?"

He said this so naturally, having called in all his powers of
dissimulation to help him in his extremity, that the detective was
favourably impressed. He had already felt a suspicion that he had been
sent here on a fool's errand, and no one could have looked less like a
daring criminal, and the trusted confederate of still more daring
ruffians, than did Leander at that moment.

"Heard anything of Potter lately?" he asked, wishing to try the effect
of a sudden _coup_.

"I don't know the gentleman," said Leander, firmly; for, after all, he
did not.

"Now, take care. He's been seen to frequent this house. We know more
than you think, young man."

"Oh! if he bluffs, _I_ can bluff too," passed through Leander's mind.
"Inspector Bilbow," he said, "I give you my sacred honour, I've never
set eyes on him. He can't have been here, not with my knowledge. It's my
belief you're trying to make out something against me. If you're a
friend, Inspector, you'll tell me straight out."

"That's not our way of doing business; and yet, hang it, I ought to know
an honest man by this time! Tweddle, I'll drop the investigator, and
speak as man to man. You've been reported to me (never mind by whom) as
the receiver of the stolen Venus--a pal of this very Potter--that's what
I've against you, my man!"

"I know who told you that," said Leander; "it was that Count and his
precious friend Braddle!"

"Oh, you know them, do you? That's an odd guess for an innocent man,
Tweddle!"

"They found me out from inquiries at the gardens," said Leander; "and as
for guessing, it's in this very paper. So it's me they've gone and
implicated, have they? All right. I suppose they're men whose word you'd
go by, wouldn't you, sir--truthful, reliable kind of parties, eh?"

"None of that, Tweddle," said the Inspector, rather uneasily. "We
officers are bound to follow up any clue, no matter where it comes from.
I was informed that that Venus is concealed somewhere about these
premises. It may be, or it may not be; but it's my duty to make the
proper investigations. If you were a prince of the blood, it would be
all the same."

"Well, all I can say is, that I'm as innocent as my own toilet
preparations. Ask yourself if it is likely. What could _I_ do with a
stolen statue--not to mention that I'm a respectable tradesman, with a
reputation to maintain? Excuse me, but I'm afraid those burglars have
been 'aving a lark with you, sir."

He went just a little too far here, for the detective was visibly
irritated.

"Don't chatter to me," he said. "If you're innocent, so much the better
for you; if that statue is found here after this, it will ruin you. If
you know anything, be it ever so little, about it, the best thing you
can do is to speak out while there's time."

"I can only say, once more, I'm as innocent as the drivelling snow,"
repeated Leander. "Why can't you believe my word against those
blackguards?"

"Perhaps I do," said the other; "but I must make a formal look round, to
ease my conscience."

Leander's composure nearly failed him. "By all means," he said at
length. "Come and ease your conscience all over the house, sir, do; I
can show you over."

"Softly," said the detective. "I'll begin here, and work gradually up,
and then down again."

"Here?" said Leander, aghast. "Why, you've seen all there is there!"

"Now, Tweddle, I shall conduct this my own way, if _you_ please. I've
been following your eyes, Tweddle, and they've told me tales. I'll
trouble you to open that cupboard you keep looking at so."

"This cupboard?" cried Leander. "Why, you don't suppose I've got the
Venus in there, sir!"

"If it's anywhere, it's there! There's no taking me in, I tell you. Open
it!"

"Oh!" said Leander, "it is hard to be the object of these cruel
suspicions. Mr. Inspector, listen to me. I can't open that cupboard, and
I'll tell you why.... You--you've been young yourself.... Think how
you'd feel in my situation ... and consider _her_! As a gentleman, you
won't press it, I'm sure!"

"If I'm making any mistake, I shall know how to apologise," said the
Inspector. "If you don't open that cupboard, _I_ shall."

"Never!" exclaimed Leander. "I'll die first!" and he threw himself upon
the handle.

The other caught him by the shoulders, and sent him twirling into the
opposite corner; and then, taking a key from his own pocket, he opened
the door himself.

"I--I never encouraged her!" whimpered Leander, as he saw that all was
lost.

The officer had stepped back in silence from the cupboard; then he faced
Leander, with a changed expression. "I suppose you think yourself
devilish sharp?" he said savagely; and Leander discovered that the
cupboard was as bare as Mother Hubbard's!

He was not precisely surprised, except at first. "She's keeping out of
the way; she wouldn't be the goddess she is if she couldn't do a
trifling thing like that!" was all he thought of the phenomenon. He
forced himself to laugh a little.

"Excuse me," he said, "but you did seem so set on detecting something
wrong, that I couldn't help humouring you!"

Inspector Bilbow was considerably out of humour, and gave Leander to
understand that he would laugh in a certain obscure region, known as
"the other side of his face," by-and-by. "You take care, that's my
advice to you, young man. I've a deuced good mind to arrest you on
suspicion as it is!" he said hotly.

"Lor', sir!" said Leander, "what for--for not having anything in that
cupboard?"

"It's my belief you know more than you choose to tell. Be that as it
may, I shall not take you into custody for the present; but you pay
attention to what I'm going to tell you next. Don't you attempt to leave
this house, or to remove anything from it, till you see me again, and
that'll be some time to-morrow evening. If you do attempt it, you'll be
apprehended at once, for you're being watched. I tell you that for your
own sake, Tweddle; for I've no wish to get you into trouble if you act
fairly by me. But mind you stay where you are for the next twenty-four
hours."

"And what's to happen then?" said Leander.

"I mean to have the whole house thoroughly searched and you must be
ready to give us every assistance--that's what's to happen. I might make
a secret of it; but where's the use? If you're not a fool, you'll see
that it won't do to play any tricks. You'd far better stand by me than
Potter."

"I tell you I don't know Potter. _Blow_ Potter!" said Leander, warmly.

"We shall see," was all the detective deigned to reply; "and just be
ready for my men to-morrow evening, or take the consequences. Those are
my last words to you!"

And with this he took his leave. He was by no means the most brilliant
officer in the Department, and he felt uncomfortably aware that he did
not see his way clear as yet. He could not even make up his mind on so
elementary a point as Leander's guilt or innocence.

But he meant to take the course he had announced, and his frankness in
giving previous notice was not without calculation. He argued thus: If
Tweddle was free from all complicity, nothing was lost by delaying the
search for a day; if he were guilty, he would be more than mortal if he
did not attempt, after such a warning, either to hide his booty more
securely, and probably leave traces which would betray him, or else to
escape when his guilt would be manifest.

Unfortunately, there were circumstances in the case which he could not
be expected to know, and which made his logic inapplicable.

After he had gone, Leander thrust his hands deep into his pockets, and
began to whistle forlornly. "A little while ago it was burglars--now
it's police!" he reflected aloud. "I'm going it, I am! And then there's
Matilda and that there Venus--one predickyment on top of another!" (But
here a sudden hope lightened his burden.) "Suppose she's took herself
off for good?" He was prevented from indulging this any further by a
long, low laugh, which came from the closed cupboard.

"No such luck--she's back again!" he groaned. "Oh, _come_ out if you
want to. Don't stay larfin' at me in there!"

The goddess stepped out, with a smile of subdued mirth upon her lips.
"Leander," she said, "did it surprise you just now that I had vanished?"

"Oh," he said wearily, "I don't know--yes, I suppose so. You found some
way of getting through at the back, I dare say?"

"Do you think that even now I cannot break through the petty restraints
of matter?"

"Well, however it was managed, it was cleverly done. I must say that. I
didn't hardly expect it of you. But you must do the same to-morrow
night, mind you!"

"Must I, indeed?" she said.

"Yes, unless you want to ruin me altogether, you must. They're going to
search the premises _for you_!"

"I have heard all," she said. "But give yourself no anxiety: by that
time you and I will be beyond human reach."

"Not me," he corrected. "If you think I'm going to let myself be wafted
over to Cyprus (which is British soil now, let me tell you), you're
under a entire delusion. I've never been wafted anywhere yet, and I
don't mean to try it!"

All her pent-up wrath broke forth and descended upon him with crushing
force.