do. He had to get the girl, if possible, and he meant to get her
whatever she might cost him. He was always confident though sometimes
perplexed. But Roger had no confidence. He knew that he should never
win the game. In his sadder moments he felt that he ought not to
win it. The people around him, from old fashion, still called him
the young squire! Why;--he felt himself at times to be eighty years
old,--so old that he was unfitted for intercourse with such juvenile
spirits as those of his neighbour the bishop, and of his friend
Hepworth. Could he, by any training, bring himself to take her
happiness in hand, altogether sacrificing his own?

In such a mood as this he did at last answer his enemy's letter,--and
he answered it as follows:--

   I do not know that I am concerned to meddle in your
   affairs at all. I have told no tale against you, and I
   do not know that I have any that I wish to tell in your
   favour, or that I could so tell if I did wish. I think
   that you have behaved badly to me, cruelly to Mrs. Hurtle,
   and disrespectfully to my cousin. Nevertheless, as you
   appeal to me on a certain point for evidence which I
   can give, and which you say no one else can give, I do
   acknowledge that, in my opinion, Mrs. Hurtle's presence in
   England has not been in accordance with your wishes, and
   that you accompanied her to Lowestoft, not as her lover
   but as an old friend whom you could not neglect.

   ROGER CARBURY.

   Paul Montague, Esq.

   You are at liberty to show this letter to Miss Carbury,
   if you please; but if she reads part she should read the
   whole!

There was more perhaps of hostility in this letter than of that
spirit of self-sacrifice to which Roger intended to train himself;
and so he himself felt after the letter had been dispatched.

CHAPTER LXXXVIII.

THE INQUEST.

Melmotte had been found dead on Friday morning, and late on the
evening of the same day Madame Melmotte and Marie were removed to
lodgings far away from the scene of the tragedy, up at Hampstead.
Herr Croll had known of the place, and at Lord Nidderdale's instance
had busied himself in the matter, and had seen that the rooms were
made instantly ready for the widow of his late employer. Nidderdale
himself had assisted them in their departure; and the German, with
the poor woman's maid, with the jewels also, which had been packed
according to Melmotte's last orders to his wife, followed the
carriage which took the mother and the daughter. They did not start
till nine o'clock in the evening, and Madame Melmotte at the moment
would fain have been allowed to rest one other night in Bruton
Street. But Lord Nidderdale, with one hardly uttered word, made Marie
understand that the inquest would be held early on the following
morning, and Marie was imperious with her mother and carried her
point. So the poor woman was taken away from Mr. Longestaffe's
residence, and never again saw the grandeur of her own house in
Grosvenor Square, which she had not visited since the night on which
she had helped to entertain the Emperor of China.

On Saturday morning the inquest was held. There was not the slightest
doubt as to any one of the incidents of the catastrophe. The
servants, the doctor, and the inspector of police between them,
learned that he had come home alone, that nobody had been near him
during the night, that he had been found dead, and that he had
undoubtedly been poisoned by prussic acid. It was also proved that he
had been drunk in the House of Commons, a fact to which one of the
clerks of the House, very much against his will, was called upon to
testify. That he had destroyed himself there was no doubt,--nor was
there any doubt as to the cause.

In such cases as this it is for the jury to say whether the
unfortunate one who has found his life too hard for endurance,
and has rushed away to see whether he could not find an improved
condition of things elsewhere, has or has not been mad at the moment.
Surviving friends are of course anxious for a verdict of insanity, as
in that case no further punishment is exacted. The body can be buried
like any other body, and it can always be said afterwards that the
poor man was mad. Perhaps it would be well that all suicides should
be said to have been mad, for certainly the jurymen are not generally
guided in their verdicts by any accurately ascertained facts. If the
poor wretch has, up to his last days, been apparently living a decent
life; if he be not hated, or has not in his last moments made himself
specially obnoxious to the world at large, then he is declared to
have been mad. Who would be heavy on a poor clergyman who has been
at last driven by horrid doubts to rid himself of a difficulty from
which he saw no escape in any other way? Who would not give the
benefit of the doubt to the poor woman whose lover and lord had
deserted her? Who would remit to unhallowed earth the body of the
once beneficent philosopher who has simply thought that he might
as well go now, finding himself powerless to do further good upon
earth? Such, and such like, have of course been temporarily insane,
though no touch even of strangeness may have marked their conduct
up to their last known dealings with their fellow-mortals. But let
a Melmotte be found dead, with a bottle of prussic acid by his
side--a man who has become horrid to the world because of his late
iniquities, a man who has so well pretended to be rich that he has
been able to buy and to sell properties without paying for them, a
wretch who has made himself odious by his ruin to friends who had
taken him up as a pillar of strength in regard to wealth, a brute
who had got into the House of Commons by false pretences, and had
disgraced the House by being drunk there,--and, of course, he will
not be saved by a verdict of insanity from the cross roads, or
whatever scornful grave may be allowed to those who have killed
themselves, with their wits about them. Just at this moment there was
a very strong feeling against Melmotte, owing perhaps as much to his
having tumbled over poor Mr. Beauclerk in the House of Commons as
to the stories of the forgeries he had committed, and the virtue of
the day vindicated itself by declaring him to have been responsible
for his actions when he took the poison. He was _felo de se_, and
therefore carried away to the cross roads--or elsewhere. But it may
be imagined, I think, that during that night he may have become as
mad as any other wretch, have been driven as far beyond his powers
of endurance as any other poor creature who ever at any time felt
himself constrained to go. He had not been so drunk but that he knew
all that happened, and could foresee pretty well what would happen.
The summons to attend upon the Lord Mayor had been served upon him.
There were some, among them Croll and Mr. Brehgert, who absolutely
knew that he had committed forgery. He had no money for the
Longestaffes, and he was well aware what Squercum would do at once.
He had assured himself long ago,--he had assured himself indeed not
very long ago,--that he would brave it all like a man. But we none
of us know what load we can bear, and what would break our backs.
Melmotte's back had been so utterly crushed that I almost think that
he was mad enough to have justified a verdict of temporary insanity.

But he was carried away, no one knew whither, and for a week his
name was hateful. But after that, a certain amount of whitewashing
took place, and, in some degree, a restitution of fame was made
to the manes of the departed. In Westminster he was always odious.
Westminster, which had adopted him, never forgave him. But in other
districts it came to be said of him that he had been more sinned
against than sinning; and that, but for the jealousy of the old
stagers in the mercantile world, he would have done very wonderful
things. Marylebone, which is always merciful, took him up quite with
affection, and would have returned his ghost to Parliament could his
ghost have paid for committee rooms. Finsbury delighted for a while
to talk of the great Financier, and even Chelsea thought that he had
been done to death by ungenerous tongues. It was, however, Marylebone
alone that spoke of a monument.

Mr. Longestaffe came back to his house, taking formal possession of
it a few days after the verdict. Of course he was alone. There had
been no further question of bringing the ladies of the family up to
town; and Dolly altogether declined to share with his father the
honour of encountering the dead man's spirit. But there was very much
for Mr. Longestaffe to do, and very much also for his son. It was
becoming a question with both of them how far they had been ruined by
their connection with the horrible man. It was clear that they could
not get back the title-deeds of the Pickering property without paying
the amount which had been advanced upon them, and it was equally
clear that they could not pay that sum unless they were enabled to
do so by funds coming out of the Melmotte estate. Dolly, as he sat
smoking upon the stool in Mr. Squercum's office, where he now passed
a considerable portion of his time, looked upon himself as a miracle
of ill-usage.

"By George, you know, I shall have to go to law with the governor.
There's nothing else for it; is there, Squercum?"

Squercum suggested that they had better wait till they found what
pickings there might be out of the Melmotte estate. He had made
inquiries too about that, and had been assured that there must
be property, but property so involved and tied up as to make it
impossible to lay hands upon it suddenly. "They say that the things
in the square, and the plate, and the carriages and horses, and all
that, ought to fetch between twenty and thirty thousand. There were
a lot of jewels, but the women have taken them," said Squercum.

"By George, they ought to be made to give up everything. Did you ever
hear of such a thing;--the very house pulled down;--my house; and all
done without a word from me in the matter? I don't suppose such a
thing was ever known before, since properties were properties." Then
he uttered sundry threats against the Bideawhiles, in reference to
whom he declared his intention of "making it very hot for them."

It was an annoyance added to the elder Mr. Longestaffe that the
management of Melmotte's affairs fell at last almost exclusively
into the hands of Mr. Brehgert. Now Brehgert, in spite of his many
dealings with Melmotte, was an honest man, and, which was perhaps
of as much immediate consequence, both an energetic and a patient
man. But then he was the man who had wanted to marry Georgiana
Longestaffe, and he was the man to whom Mr. Longestaffe had been
particularly uncivil. Then there arose necessities for the presence
of Mr. Brehgert in the house in which Melmotte had lately lived and
had died. The dead man's papers were still there,--deeds, documents,
and such letters as he had not chosen to destroy;--and these could
not be removed quite at once. "Mr. Brehgert must of course have
access to my private room, as long as it is necessary,--absolutely
necessary," said Mr. Longestaffe in answer to a message which
was brought to him; "but he will of course see the expediency of
relieving me from such intrusion as soon as possible." But he soon
found it preferable to come to terms with the rejected suitor,
especially as the man was singularly good-natured and forbearing
after the injuries he had received.

All minor debts were to be paid at once; an arrangement to which Mr.
Longestaffe cordially agreed, as it included a sum of £300 due to him
for the rent of his house in Bruton Street. Then by degrees it became
known that there would certainly be a dividend of not less than fifty
per cent. payable on debts which could be proved to have been owing
by Melmotte, and perhaps of more;--an arrangement which was very
comfortable to Dolly, as it had been already agreed between all the
parties interested that the debt due to him should be satisfied
before the father took anything. Mr. Longestaffe resolved during
these weeks that he remained in town that, as regarded himself and
his own family, the house in London should not only not be kept
up, but that it should be absolutely sold, with all its belongings,
and that the servants at Caversham should be reduced in number,
and should cease to wear powder. All this was communicated to Lady
Pomona in a very long letter, which she was instructed to read to her
daughters. "I have suffered great wrongs," said Mr. Longestaffe, "but
I must submit to them, and as I submit so must my wife and children.
If our son were different from what he is the sacrifice might
probably be made lighter. His nature I cannot alter, but from my
daughters I expect cheerful obedience." From what incidents of his
past life he was led to expect cheerfulness at Caversham it might be
difficult to say; but the obedience was there. Georgey was for the
time broken down; Sophia was satisfied with her nuptial prospects,
and Lady Pomona had certainly no spirits left for a combat. I think
the loss of the hair-powder afflicted her most; but she said not a
word even about that.

But in all this the details necessary for the telling of our story
are anticipated. Mr. Longestaffe had remained in London actually over
the 1st of September, which in Suffolk is the one great festival of
the year, before the letter was written to which allusion has been
made. In the meantime he saw much of Mr. Brehgert, and absolutely
formed a kind of friendship for that gentleman, in spite of the
abomination of his religion,--so that on one occasion he even
condescended to ask Mr. Brehgert to dine alone with him in Bruton
Street. This, too, was in the early days of the arrangement of the
Melmotte affairs, when Mr. Longestaffe's heart had been softened
by that arrangement with reference to the rent. Mr. Brehgert came,
and there arose a somewhat singular conversation between the two
gentlemen as they sat together over a bottle of Mr. Longestaffe's old
port wine. Hitherto not a word had passed between them respecting the
connection which had once been proposed, since the day on which the
young lady's father had said so many bitter things to the expectant
bridegroom. But in this evening Mr. Brehgert, who was by no means a
coward in such matters and whose feelings were not perhaps painfully
fine, spoke his mind in a way that at first startled Mr. Longestaffe.
The subject was introduced by a reference which Brehgert had made to
his own affairs. His loss would be, at any rate, double that which
Mr. Longestaffe would have to bear;--but he spoke of it in an easy
way, as though it did not sit very near his heart. "Of course there's
a difference between me and you," he said. Mr. Longestaffe bowed his
head graciously, as much as to say that there was of course a very
wide difference. "In our affairs," continued Brehgert, "we expect
gains, and of course look for occasional losses. When a gentleman in
your position sells a property he expects to get the purchase-money."

"Of course he does, Mr. Brehgert. That's what made it so hard."

"I can't even yet quite understand how it was with him, or why he
took upon himself to spend such an enormous deal of money here in
London. His business was quite irregular, but there was very much of
it, and some of it immensely profitable. He took us in completely."

"I suppose so."

"It was old Mr. Todd that first took to him;--but I was deceived as
much as Todd, and then I ventured on a speculation with him outside
of our house. The long and the short of it is that I shall lose
something about sixty thousand pounds."

"That's a large sum of money."

"Very large;--so large as to affect my daily mode of life. In my
correspondence with your daughter, I considered it to be my duty to
point out to her that it would be so. I do not know whether she told
you."

This reference to his daughter for the moment altogether upset Mr.
Longestaffe. The reference was certainly most indelicate, most
deserving of censure; but Mr. Longestaffe did not know how to
pronounce his censure on the spur of the moment, and was moreover at
the present time so very anxious for Brehgert's assistance in the
arrangement of his affairs that, so to say, he could not afford to
quarrel with the man. But he assumed something more than his normal
dignity as he asserted that his daughter had never mentioned the
fact.

"It was so," said Brehgert.

"No doubt;"--and Mr. Longestaffe assumed a great deal of dignity.

"Yes; it was so. I had promised your daughter when she was good
enough to listen to the proposition which I made to her, that I would
maintain a second house when we should be married."

"It was impossible," said Mr. Longestaffe,--meaning to assert that
such hymeneals were altogether unnatural and out of the question.

"It would have been quite possible as things were when that
proposition was made. But looking forward to the loss which
I afterwards anticipated from the affairs of our deceased friend,
I found it to be prudent to relinquish my intention for the present,
and I thought myself bound to inform Miss Longestaffe."

"There were other reasons," muttered Mr. Longestaffe, in a suppressed
voice, almost in a whisper,--in a whisper which was intended to
convey a sense of present horror and a desire for future reticence.

"There may have been; but in the last letter which Miss Longestaffe
did me the honour to write to me,--a letter with which I have not
the slightest right to find any fault,--she seemed to me to confine
herself almost exclusively to that reason."

"Why mention this now, Mr. Brehgert; why mention this now? The
subject is painful."

"Just because it is not painful to me, Mr. Longestaffe; and because
I wish that all they who have heard of the matter should know that it
is not painful. I think that throughout I behaved like a gentleman."
Mr. Longestaffe, in an agony, first shook his head twice, and then
bowed it three times, leaving the Jew to take what answer he could
from so dubious an oracle. "I am sure," continued Brehgert, "that I
behaved like an honest man; and I didn't quite like that the matter
should be passed over as if I was in any way ashamed of myself."

"Perhaps on so delicate a subject the less said the soonest mended."

"I've nothing more to say, and I've nothing at all to mend."
Finishing the conversation with this little speech Brehgert arose to
take his leave, making some promise at the time that he would use
all the expedition in his power to complete the arrangement of the
Melmotte affairs.

As soon as he was gone Mr. Longestaffe opened the door and walked
about the room and blew out long puffs of breath, as though to
cleanse himself from the impurities of his late contact. He told
himself that he could not touch pitch and not be defiled! How vulgar
had the man been, how indelicate, how regardless of all feeling, how
little grateful for the honour which Mr. Longestaffe had conferred
upon him by asking him to dinner! Yes;--yes! A horrid Jew! Were not
all Jews necessarily an abomination? Yet Mr. Longestaffe was aware
that in the present crisis of his fortunes he could not afford to
quarrel with Mr. Brehgert.

CHAPTER LXXXIX.

"THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE."

It was a long time now since Lady Carbury's great historical work
on the Criminal Queens of the World had been completed and given to
the world. Any reader careful as to dates will remember that it was
as far back as in February that she had solicited the assistance of
certain of her literary friends who were connected with the daily and
weekly press. These gentlemen had responded to her call with more or
less zealous aid, so that the "Criminal Queens" had been regarded
in the trade as one of the successful books of the season. Messrs.
Leadham and Loiter had published a second, and then, very quickly, a
fourth and fifth edition; and had been able in their advertisements
to give testimony from various criticisms showing that Lady Carbury's
book was about the greatest historical work which had emanated from
the press in the present century. With this object a passage was
extracted even from the columns of the "Evening Pulpit,"--which
showed very great ingenuity on the part of some young man connected
with the establishment of Messrs. Leadham and Loiter. Lady Carbury
had suffered something in the struggle. What efforts can mortals make
as to which there will not be some disappointment? Paper and print
cannot be had for nothing, and advertisements are very costly. An
edition may be sold with startling rapidity, but it may have been but
a scanty edition. When Lady Carbury received from Messrs. Leadham and
Loiter their second very moderate cheque, with the expression of a
fear on their part that there would not probably be a third,--unless
some unforeseen demand should arise,--she repeated to herself those
well-known lines from the satirist,--

   "Oh, Amos Cottle, for a moment think
    What meagre profits spread from pen and ink."

But not on that account did she for a moment hesitate as to further
attempts. Indeed she had hardly completed the last chapter of her
"Criminal Queens" before she was busy on another work; and although
the last six months had been to her a period of incessant trouble,
and sometimes of torture, though the conduct of her son had more than
once forced her to declare to herself that her mind would fail her,
still she had persevered. From day to day, with all her cares heavy
upon her, she had sat at her work, with a firm resolve that so many
lines should be always forthcoming, let the difficulty of making them
be what it might. Messrs. Leadham and Loiter had thought that they
might be justified in offering her certain terms for a novel,--terms
not very high indeed, and those contingent on the approval of the
manuscript by their reader. The smallness of the sum offered, and
the want of certainty, and the pain of the work in her present
circumstances, had all been felt by her to be very hard. But she had
persevered, and the novel was now complete.

It cannot with truth be said of her that she had had any special tale
to tell. She had taken to the writing of a novel because Mr. Loiter
had told her that upon the whole novels did better than anything
else. She would have written a volume of sermons on the same
encouragement, and have gone about the work exactly after the same
fashion. The length of her novel had been her first question. It must
be in three volumes, and each volume must have three hundred pages.
But what fewest number of words might be supposed sufficient to fill
a page? The money offered was too trifling to allow of very liberal
measure on her part. She had to live, and if possible to write
another novel,--and, as she hoped, upon better terms,--when this
should be finished. Then what should be the name of her novel; what
the name of her hero; and above all what the name of her heroine? It
must be a love story of course; but she thought that she would leave
the complications of the plot to come by chance,--and they did come.
"Don't let it end unhappily, Lady Carbury," Mr. Loiter had said,
"because though people like it in a play, they hate it in a book. And
whatever you do, Lady Carbury, don't be historical. Your historical
novel, Lady Carbury, isn't worth a--" Mr. Loiter stopping himself
suddenly, and remembering that he was addressing himself to a lady,
satisfied his energy at last by the use of the word "straw." Lady
Carbury had followed these instructions with accuracy.

The name for the story had been the great thing. It did not occur to
the authoress that, as the plot was to be allowed to develop itself
and was, at this moment when she was perplexed as to the title,
altogether uncreated, she might as well wait to see what appellation
might best suit her work when its purpose should have declared
itself. A novel, she knew well, was most unlike a rose, which by
any other name will smell as sweet. "The Faultless Father," "The
Mysterious Mother," "The Lame Lover,"--such names as that she was
aware would be useless now. "Mary Jane Walker," if she could be very
simple, would do, or "Blanche De Veau," if she were able to maintain
throughout a somewhat high-stilted style of feminine rapture. But
as she considered that she could best deal with rapid action and
strange coincidences, she thought that something more startling and
descriptive would better suit her purpose. After an hour's thought a
name did occur to her, and she wrote it down, and with considerable
energy of purpose framed her work in accordance with her chosen
title, "The Wheel of Fortune!" She had no particular fortune in her
mind when she chose it, and no particular wheel;--but the very idea
conveyed by the words gave her the plot which she wanted. A young
lady was blessed with great wealth, and lost it all by an uncle,
and got it all back by an honest lawyer, and gave it all up to a
distressed lover, and found it all again in the third volume. And the
lady's name was Cordinga, selected by Lady Carbury as never having
been heard before either in the world of fact or in that of fiction.

And now with all her troubles thick about her,--while her son was
still hanging about the house in a condition that would break any
mother's heart, while her daughter was so wretched and sore that she
regarded all those around her as her enemies, Lady Carbury finished
her work, and having just written the last words in which the final
glow of enduring happiness was given to the young married heroine
whose wheel had now come full round, sat with the sheets piled at her
right hand. She had allowed herself a certain number of weeks for
the task, and had completed it exactly in the time fixed. As she sat
with her hand near the pile, she did give herself credit for her
diligence. Whether the work might have been better done she never
asked herself. I do not think that she prided herself much on the
literary merit of the tale. But if she could bring the papers to
praise it, if she could induce Mudie to circulate it, if she could
manage that the air for a month should be so loaded with "The Wheel
of Fortune," as to make it necessary for the reading world to have
read or to have said that it had read the book,--then she would pride
herself very much upon her work.

As she was so sitting on a Sunday afternoon, in her own room, Mr. Alf
was announced. According to her habit, she expressed warm delight at
seeing him. Nothing could be kinder than such a visit just at such a
time,--when there was so very much to occupy such a one as Mr. Alf!
Mr. Alf, in his usual mildly satirical way, declared that he was not
peculiarly occupied just at present. "The Emperor has left Europe
at last," he said. "Poor Melmotte poisoned himself on Friday, and
the inquest sat yesterday. I don't know that there is anything of
interest to-day." Of course Lady Carbury was intent upon her book,
rather even than on the exciting death of a man whom she had herself
known. Oh, if she could only get Mr. Alf! She had tried it before,
and had failed lamentably. She was well aware of that; and she had
a deep-seated conviction that it would be almost impossible to get
Mr. Alf. But then she had another deep-seated conviction, that that
which is almost impossible may possibly be done. How great would be
the glory, how infinite the service! And did it not seem as though
Providence had blessed her with this special opportunity, sending Mr.
Alf to her just at the one moment at which she might introduce the
subject of her novel without seeming premeditation?

"I am so tired," she said, affecting to throw herself back as though
stretching her arms out for ease.

"I hope I am not adding to your fatigue," said Mr. Alf.

"Oh dear no. It is not the fatigue of the moment, but of the last six
months. Just as you knocked at the door, I had finished the novel at
which I have been working, oh, with such diligence!"

"Oh,--a novel! When is it to appear, Lady Carbury?"

"You must ask Leadham and Loiter that question. I have done my part
of the work. I suppose you never wrote a novel, Mr. Alf?"

"I? Oh dear no; I never write anything."

"I have sometimes wondered whether I have hated or loved it the most.
One becomes so absorbed in one's plot and one's characters! One loves
the loveable so intensely, and hates with such fixed aversion those
who are intended to be hated. When the mind is attuned to it, one
is tempted to think that it is all so good. One cries at one's own
pathos, laughs at one's own humour, and is lost in admiration at
one's own sagacity and knowledge."

"How very nice!"

"But then there comes the reversed picture, the other side of the
coin. On a sudden everything becomes flat, tedious, and unnatural.
The heroine who was yesterday alive with the celestial spark is found
to-day to be a lump of motionless clay. The dialogue that was so
cheery on the first perusal is utterly uninteresting at a second
reading. Yesterday I was sure that there was my monument," and she
put her hand upon the manuscript; "to-day I feel it to be only too
heavy for a gravestone!"

"One's judgment about one's-self always does vacillate," said Mr. Alf
in a tone as phlegmatic as were the words.

"And yet it is so important that one should be able to judge
correctly of one's own work! I can at any rate trust myself to be
honest, which is more perhaps than can be said of all the critics."

"Dishonesty is not the general fault of the critics, Lady
Carbury,--at least not as far as I have observed the business. It is
incapacity. In what little I have done in the matter, that is the
sin which I have striven to conquer. When we want shoes we go to a
professed shoemaker; but for criticism we have certainly not gone to
professed critics. I think that when I gave up the 'Evening Pulpit,'
I left upon it a staff of writers who are entitled to be regarded as
knowing their business."

"You given up the 'Pulpit'? asked Lady Carbury with astonishment,
readjusting her mind at once, so that she might perceive whether any
and if so what advantage might be taken of Mr. Alf's new position. He
was no longer editor, and therefore his heavy sense of responsibility
would no longer exist;--but he must still have influence. Might he
not be persuaded to do one act of real friendship? Might she not
succeed if she would come down from her high seat, sink on the ground
before him, tell him the plain truth, and beg for a favour as a poor
struggling woman?

"Yes, Lady Carbury, I have given it up. It was a matter of course
that I should do so when I stood for Parliament. Now that the new
member has so suddenly vacated his seat, I shall probably stand
again."

"And you are no longer an editor?"

"I have given it up, and I suppose I have now satisfied the scruples
of those gentlemen who seemed to think that I was committing a crime
against the Constitution in attempting to get into Parliament while
I was managing a newspaper. I never heard such nonsense. Of course
I know where it came from."

"Where did it come from?"

"Where should it come from but the 'Breakfast Table'? Broune and I
have been very good friends, but I do think that of all the men I
know he is the most jealous."

"That is so little," said Lady Carbury. She was really very fond of
Mr. Broune, but at the present moment she was obliged to humour Mr.
Alf.

"It seems to me that no man can be better qualified to sit in
Parliament than an editor of a newspaper,--that is if he is capable
as an editor."

"No one, I think, has ever doubted that of you."

"The only question is whether he be strong enough for the double
work. I have doubted about myself, and have therefore given up the
paper. I almost regret it."

"I dare say you do," said Lady Carbury, feeling intensely anxious
to talk about her own affairs instead of his. "I suppose you still
retain an interest in the paper?"

"Some pecuniary interest;--nothing more."

"Oh, Mr. Alf,--you could do me such a favour!"

"Can I? If I can, you may be sure I will." False-hearted,
false-tongued man! Of course he knew at the moment what was the
favour Lady Carbury intended to ask, and of course he had made up his
mind that he would not do as he was asked.

"Will you?" And Lady Carbury clasped her hands together as she poured
forth the words of her prayer. "I never asked you to do anything for
me as long as you were editing the paper. Did I? I did not think it
right, and I would not do it. I took my chance like others, and I am
sure you must own that I bore what was said of me with a good grace.
I never complained. Did I?"

"Certainly not."

"But now that you have left it yourself,--if you would have the
'Wheel of Fortune' done for me,--really well done!"

"The 'Wheel of Fortune'!"

"That is the name of my novel," said Lady Carbury, putting her hand
softly upon the manuscript. "Just at this moment it would be the
making of a fortune for me! And, oh, Mr. Alf, if you could but know
how I want such assistance!"

"I have nothing further to do with the editorial management, Lady
Carbury."

"Of course you could get it done. A word from you would make it
certain. A novel is different from an historical work, you know.
I have taken so much pains with it."

"Then no doubt it will be praised on its own merits."

"Don't say that, Mr. Alf. The 'Evening Pulpit' is like,--oh, it is
like,--like,--like the throne of heaven! Who can be justified before
it? Don't talk about its own merits, but say that you will have it
done. It couldn't do any man any harm, and it would sell five hundred
copies at once,--that is if it were done really con amore." Mr. Alf
looked at her almost piteously, and shook his head. "The paper stands
so high, it can't hurt it to do that kind of thing once. A woman is
asking you, Mr. Alf. It is for my children that I am struggling. The
thing is done every day of the week, with much less noble motives."

"I do not think that it has ever been done by the 'Evening Pulpit.'"

"I have seen books praised."

"Of course you have."

"I think I saw a novel spoken highly of."

Mr. Alf laughed. "Why not? You do not suppose that it is the object
of the 'Pulpit' to cry down novels?"

"I thought it was; but I thought you might make an exception here.
I would be so thankful;--so grateful."

"My dear Lady Carbury, pray believe me when I say that I have nothing
to do with it. I need not preach to you sermons about literary
virtue."

"Oh, no," she said, not quite understanding what he meant.

"The sceptre has passed from my hands, and I need not vindicate the
justice of my successor."

"I shall never know your successor."

"But I must assure you that on no account should I think of meddling
with the literary arrangement of the paper. I would not do it for
my sister." Lady Carbury looked greatly pained. "Send the book out,
and let it take its chance. How much prouder you will be to have it
praised because it deserves praise, than to know that it has been
eulogised as a mark of friendship."

"No, I shan't," said Lady Carbury. "I don't believe that anything
like real selling praise is ever given to anybody, except to friends.
I don't know how they manage it, but they do." Mr. Alf shook his
head. "Oh yes; that is all very well from you. Of course you have
been a dragon of virtue; but they tell me that the authoress of the
'New Cleopatra' is a very handsome woman." Lady Carbury must have
been worried much beyond her wont, when she allowed herself so far
to lose her temper as to bring against Mr. Alf the double charge of
being too fond of the authoress in question, and of having sacrificed
the justice of his columns to that improper affection.

[Illustration: "Of course you have been a dragon of virtue."]

"At this moment I do not remember the name of the lady to whom you
allude," said Mr. Alf, getting up to take his leave; "and I am quite
sure that the gentleman who reviewed the book,--if there be any
such lady and any such book,--had never seen her!" And so Mr. Alf
departed.

Lady Carbury was very angry with herself, and very angry also with
Mr. Alf. She had not only meant to be piteous, but had made the
attempt and then had allowed herself to be carried away into anger.
She had degraded herself to humility, and had then wasted any
possible good result by a foolish fit of chagrin. The world in which
she had to live was almost too hard for her. When left alone she sat
weeping over her sorrows; but when from time to time she thought of
Mr. Alf and his conduct, she could hardly repress her scorn. What
lies he had told her! Of course he could have done it had he chosen.
But the assumed honesty of the man was infinitely worse to her than
his lies. No doubt the "Pulpit" had two objects in its criticisms.
Other papers probably had but one. The object common to all papers,
that of helping friends and destroying enemies, of course prevailed
with the "Pulpit." There was the second purpose of enticing readers
by crushing authors,--as crowds used to be enticed to see men hanged
when executions were done in public. But neither the one object nor
the other was compatible with that Aristidean justice which Mr. Alf
arrogated to himself and to his paper. She hoped with all her heart
that Mr. Alf would spend a great deal of money at Westminster, and
then lose his seat.

On the following morning she herself took the manuscript to Messrs.
Leadham and Loiter, and was hurt again by the small amount of respect
which seemed to be paid to the collected sheets. There was the work
of six months; her very blood and brains,--the concentrated essence
of her mind,--as she would say herself when talking with energy of
her own performances; and Mr. Leadham pitched it across to a clerk,
apparently perhaps sixteen years of age, and the lad chucked the
parcel unceremoniously under a counter. An author feels that his work
should be taken from him with fast-clutching but reverential hands,
and held thoughtfully, out of harm's way, till it be deposited within
the very sanctum of an absolutely fireproof safe. Oh, heavens, if it
should be lost!--or burned!--or stolen! Those scraps of paper, so
easily destroyed, apparently so little respected, may hereafter be
acknowledged to have had a value greater, so far greater, than their
weight in gold! If "Robinson Crusoe" had been lost! If "Tom Jones"
had been consumed by flames! And who knows but that this may be
another "Robinson Crusoe,"--a better than "Tom Jones"? "Will it be
safe there?" asked Lady Carbury.

"Quite safe,--quite safe," said Mr. Leadham, who was rather busy,
and who perhaps saw Lady Carbury more frequently than the nature and
amount of her authorship seemed to him to require.

"It seemed to be,--put down there,--under the counter!"

"That's quite right, Lady Carbury. They're left there till they're
packed."

"Packed!"

"There are two or three dozen going to our reader this week. He's
down in Skye, and we keep them till there's enough to fill the sack."

"Do they go by post, Mr. Leadham?"

"Not by post, Lady Carbury. There are not many of them would pay the
expense. We send them by long sea to Glasgow, because just at this
time of the year there is not much hurry. We can't publish before the
winter." Oh, heavens! If that ship should be lost on its journey by
long sea to Glasgow!

That evening, as was now almost his daily habit, Mr. Broune came to
her. There was something in the absolute friendship which now existed
between Lady Carbury and the editor of the "Morning Breakfast Table,"
which almost made her scrupulous as to asking from him any further
literary favour. She fully recognised,--no woman perhaps more
fully,--the necessity of making use of all aid and furtherance
which might come within reach. With such a son, with such need for
struggling before her, would she not be wicked not to catch even
at every straw? But this man had now become so true to her, that
she hardly knew how to beg him to do that which she, with all her
mistaken feelings, did in truth know that he ought not to do. He had
asked her to marry him, for which,--though she had refused him,--she
felt infinitely grateful. And though she had refused him, he had
lent her money, and had supported her in her misery by his continued
counsel. If he would offer to do this thing for her she would accept
his kindness on her knees,--but even she could not bring herself to
ask to have this added to his other favours. Her first word to him
was about Mr. Alf. "So he has given up the paper?"

"Well, yes;--nominally."

"Is that all?"

"I don't suppose he'll really let it go out of his own hands. Nobody
likes to lose power. He'll share the work, and keep the authority. As
for Westminster, I don't believe he has a chance. If that poor wretch
Melmotte could beat him when everybody was already talking about
the forgeries, how is it likely that he should stand against such a
candidate as they'll get now?"

"He was here yesterday."

"And full of triumph, I suppose?"

"He never talks to me much of himself. We were speaking of my new
book,--my novel. He assured me most positively that he had nothing
further to do with the paper."

"He did not care to make you a promise, I dare say."

"That was just it. Of course I did not believe him."

"Neither will I make a promise, but we'll see what we can do. If we
can't be good-natured, at any rate we will say nothing ill-natured.
Let me see,--what is the name?"

"'The Wheel of Fortune.'" Lady Carbury as she told the title of her
new book to her old friend seemed to be almost ashamed of it.

"Let them send it early,--a day or two before it's out, if they can.
I can't answer, of course, for the opinion of the gentleman it will
go to, but nothing shall go in that you would dislike. Good-bye.
God bless you." And as he took her hand, he looked at her almost as
though the old susceptibility were returning to him.

As she sat alone after he had gone, thinking over it all,--thinking
of her own circumstances and of his kindness,--it did not occur
to her to call him an old goose again. She felt now that she had
mistaken her man when she had so regarded him. That first and
only kiss which he had given her, which she had treated with so
much derision, for which she had rebuked him so mildly and yet so
haughtily, had now a somewhat sacred spot in her memory. Through it
all the man must have really loved her! Was it not marvellous that
such a thing should be? And how had it come to pass that she in all
her tenderness had rejected him when he had given her the chance of
becoming his wife?

CHAPTER XC.

HETTA'S SORROW.

When Hetta Carbury received that letter from her lover which was
given to the reader some chapters back, it certainly did not tend
in any way to alleviate her misery. Even when she had read it over
half-a-dozen times, she could not bring herself to think it possible
that she could be reconciled to the man. It was not only that he had
sinned against her by giving his society to another woman to whom
he had at any rate been engaged not long since, at the very time at
which he was becoming engaged to her,--but also that he had done this
in such a manner as to make his offence known to all her friends.
Perhaps she had been too quick;--but there was the fact that with
her own consent she had acceded to her mother's demand that the man
should be rejected. The man had been rejected, and even Roger Carbury
knew that it was so. After this it was, she thought, impossible that
she should recall him. But they should all know that her heart was
unchanged. Roger Carbury should certainly know that, if he ever asked
her further question on the matter. She would never deny it; and
though she knew that the man had behaved badly,--having entangled
himself with a nasty American woman,--yet she would be true to him as
far as her own heart was concerned.

And now he told her that she had been most unjust to him. He said
that he could not understand her injustice. He did not fill his
letter with entreaties, but with reproaches. And certainly his
reproaches moved her more than any prayer would have done. It was too
late now to remedy the evil; but she was not quite sure within her
own bosom that she had not been unjust to him. The more she thought
of it the more puzzled her mind became. Had she quarrelled with him
because he had once been in love with Mrs. Hurtle, or because she had
grounds for regarding Mrs. Hurtle as her present rival? She hated
Mrs. Hurtle, and she was very angry with him in that he had ever been
on affectionate terms with a woman she hated;--but that had not been
the reason put forward by her for quarrelling with him. Perhaps it
was true that he, too, had of late loved Mrs. Hurtle hardly better
than she did herself. It might be that he had been indeed constrained
by hard circumstances to go with the woman to Lowestoft. Having so
gone with her, it was no doubt right that he should be rejected;--for
how can it be that a man who is engaged shall be allowed to travel
about the country with another woman to whom also he was engaged a
few months back? But still there might be hardship in it. To her, to
Hetta herself, the circumstances were very hard. She loved the man
with all her heart. She could look forward to no happiness in life
without him. But yet it must be so.

At the end of his letter he had told her to go to Mrs. Hurtle herself
if she wanted corroboration of the story as told by him. Of course
he had known when he wrote it that she could not and would not go to
Mrs. Hurtle. But when the letter had been in her possession three or
four days,--unanswered, for, as a matter of course, no answer to it
from herself was possible,--and had been read and re-read till she
knew every word of it by heart, she began to think that if she could
hear the story as it might be told by Mrs. Hurtle, a good deal that
was now dark might become light to her. As she continued to read the
letter, and to brood over it all, by degrees her anger was turned
from her lover to her mother, her brother, and to her cousin Roger.
Paul had of course behaved badly, very badly,--but had it not been
for them she might have had an opportunity of forgiving him. They had
driven her on to the declaration of a purpose from which she could
now see no escape. There had been a plot against her, and she was a
victim. In the first dismay and agony occasioned by that awful story
of the American woman,--which had, at the moment, struck her with
a horror which was now becoming less and less every hour,--she had
fallen head foremost into the trap laid for her. She acknowledged to
herself that it was too late to recover her ground. She was, at any
rate, almost sure that it must be too late. But yet she was disposed
to do battle with her mother and her cousin in the matter--if
only with the object of showing that she would not submit her own
feelings to their control. She was savage to the point of rebellion
against all authority. Roger Carbury would of course think that
any communication between herself and Mrs. Hurtle must be most
improper,--altogether indelicate. Two or three days ago she thought
so herself. But the world was going so hard with her, that she
was beginning to feel herself capable of throwing propriety and
delicacy to the winds. This man whom she had once accepted, whom she
altogether loved, and who, in spite of all his faults, certainly
still loved her,--of that she was beginning to have no further
doubt,--accused her of dishonesty, and referred her to her rival for
a corroboration of his story. She would appeal to Mrs. Hurtle. The
woman was odious, abominable, a nasty intriguing American female. But
her lover desired that she should hear the woman's story; and she
would hear the story,--if the woman would tell it.

So resolving, she wrote as follows to Mrs. Hurtle, finding great
difficulty in the composition of a letter which should tell neither
too little nor too much, and determined that she would be restrained
by no mock modesty, by no girlish fear of declaring the truth about
herself. The letter at last was stiff and hard, but it sufficed for
its purpose.

   MADAM,--

   Mr. Paul Montague has referred me to you as to certain
   circumstances which have taken place between him and you.
   It is right that I should tell you that I was a short time
   since engaged to marry him, but that I have found myself
   obliged to break off that engagement in consequence of
   what I have been told as to his acquaintance with you. I
   make this proposition to you, not thinking that anything
   you will say to me can change my mind, but because he has
   asked me to do so, and has, at the same time, accused me
   of injustice towards him. I do not wish to rest under
   an accusation of injustice from one to whom I was once
   warmly attached. If you will receive me, I will make it my
   business to call any afternoon you may name.

   Yours truly,

   HENRIETTA CARBURY.

When the letter was written she was not only ashamed of it, but very
much afraid of it also. What if the American woman should put it in
a newspaper! She had heard that everything was put into newspapers
in America. What if this Mrs. Hurtle should send back to her some
horribly insolent answer;--or should send such answer to her mother,
instead of herself! And then, again, if the American woman consented
to receive her, would not the American woman, as a matter of course,
trample upon her with rough words? Once or twice she put the letter
aside, and almost determined that it should not be sent;--but at
last, with desperate fortitude, she took it out with her and posted
it herself. She told no word of it to any one. Her mother, she
thought, had been cruel to her, had disregarded her feelings, and
made her wretched for ever. She could not ask her mother for sympathy
in her present distress. There was no friend who would sympathise
with her. She must do everything alone.

Mrs. Hurtle, it will be remembered, had at last determined that she
would retire from the contest and own herself to have been worsted.
It is, I fear, impossible to describe adequately the various half
resolutions which she formed, and the changing phases of her mind
before she brought herself to this conclusion. And soon after she had
assured herself that this should be the conclusion,--after she had
told Paul Montague that it should be so,--there came back upon her at
times other half resolutions to a contrary effect. She had written
a letter to the man threatening desperate revenge, and had then
abstained from sending it, and had then shown it to the man,--not
intending to give it to him as a letter upon which he would have to
act, but only that she might ask him whether, had he received it, he
would have said that he had not deserved it. Then she had parted with
him, refusing either to hear or to say a word of farewell, and had
told Mrs. Pipkin that she was no longer engaged to be married. At
that moment everything was done that could be done. The game had been
played and the stakes lost,--and she had schooled herself into such
restraint as to have abandoned all idea of vengeance. But from time
to time there arose in her heart a feeling that such softness was
unworthy of her. Who had ever been soft to her? Who had spared her?
Had she not long since found out that she must fight with her very
nails and teeth for every inch of ground, if she did not mean to be
trodden into the dust? Had she not held her own among rough people
after a very rough fashion, and should she now simply retire that
she might weep in a corner like a love-sick schoolgirl? And she had
been so stoutly determined that she would at any rate avenge her own
wrongs, if she could not turn those wrongs into triumph! There were
moments in which she thought that she could still seize the man by
the throat, where all the world might see her, and dare him to deny
that he was false, perjured, and mean.

Then she received a long passionate letter from Paul Montague,
written at the same time as those other letters to Roger Carbury and
Hetta, in which he told her all the circumstances of his engagement
to Hetta Carbury, and implored her to substantiate the truth of his
own story. It was certainly marvellous to her that the man who had
so long been her own lover and who had parted with her after such a
fashion should write such a letter to her. But it had no tendency to
increase either her anger or her sorrow. Of course she had known that
it was so, and at certain times she had told herself that it was only
natural,--had almost told herself that it was right. She and this
young Englishman were not fit to be mated. He was to her thinking
a tame, sleek household animal, whereas she knew herself to be
wild,--fitter for the woods than for polished cities. It had been one
of the faults of her life that she had allowed herself to be bound
by tenderness of feeling to this soft over-civilised man. The result
had been disastrous, as might have been expected. She was angry with
him,--almost to the extent of tearing him to pieces,--but she did not
become more angry because he wrote to her of her rival.

Her only present friend was Mrs. Pipkin, who treated her with the
greatest deference, but who was never tired of asking questions about
the lost lover. "That letter was from Mr. Montague?" said Mrs. Pipkin
on the morning after it had been received.

"How can you know that?"

"I'm sure it was. One does get to know handwritings when letters come
frequent."

"It was from him. And why not?"

"Oh dear no;--why not certainly? I wish he'd write every day of his
life, so that things would come round again. Nothing ever troubles
me so much as broken love. Why don't he come again himself, Mrs.
Hurtle?"

"It is not at all likely that he should come again. It is all over,
and there is no good in talking of it. I shall return to New York on
Saturday week."

"Oh, Mrs. Hurtle!"

"I can't remain here, you know, all my life doing nothing. I came
over here for a certain purpose, and that has--gone by. Now I may
just go back again."

"I know he has ill-treated you. I know he has."

"I am not disposed to talk about it, Mrs. Pipkin."

"I should have thought it would have done you good to speak your mind
out free. I know it would me if I'd been served in that way."

"If I had anything to say at all after that fashion it would be to
the gentleman, and not to any other else. As it is I shall never
speak of it again to any one. You have been very kind to me, Mrs.
Pipkin, and I shall be sorry to leave you."

"Oh, Mrs. Hurtle, you can't understand what it is to me. It isn't
only my feelings. The likes of me can't stand by their feelings
only, as their betters do. I've never been above telling you what a
godsend you've been to me this summer;--have I? I've paid everything,
butcher, baker, rates and all, just like clockwork. And now you're
going away!" Then Mrs. Pipkin began to sob.

"I suppose I shall see Mr. Crumb before I go," said Mrs. Hurtle.

"She don't deserve it; do she? And even now she never says a word
about him that I call respectful. She looks on him as just being
better than Mrs. Buggins's children. That's all."

"She'll be all right when he has once got her home."

"And I shall be all alone by myself," said Mrs. Pipkin, with her
apron up to her eyes.

It was after this that Mrs. Hurtle received Hetta's letter. She had
as yet returned no answer to Paul Montague,--nor had she intended
to send any written answer. Were she to comply with his request she
could do so best by writing to the girl who was concerned rather than
to him. And though she wrote no such letter she thought of it,--of
the words she would use were she to write it, and of the tale which
she would have to tell. She sat for hours thinking of it, trying to
resolve whether she would tell the tale,--if she told it at all,--in
a manner to suit Paul's purpose, or so as to bring that purpose
utterly to shipwreck. She did not doubt that she could cause the
shipwreck were she so minded. She could certainly have her revenge
after that fashion. But it was a woman's fashion, and, as such,
did not recommend itself to Mrs. Hurtle's feelings. A pistol or a
horsewhip, a violent seizing by the neck, with sharp taunts and
bitter-ringing words, would have made the fitting revenge. If she
abandoned that she could do herself no good by telling a story of her
wrongs to another woman.

Then came Hetta's note, so stiff, so cold, so true,--so like the
letter of an Englishwoman, as Mrs. Hurtle said to herself. Mrs.
Hurtle smiled as she read the letter. "I make this proposition not
thinking that anything you can say to me can change my mind." Of
course the girl's mind would be changed. The girl's mind, indeed,
required no change. Mrs. Hurtle could see well enough that the girl's
heart was set upon the man. Nevertheless she did not doubt but
that she could tell the story after such a fashion as to make it
impossible that the girl should marry him,--if she chose to do so.

At first she thought that she would not answer the letter at all.
What was it to her? Let them fight their own lovers' battles out
after their own childish fashion. If the man meant at last to be
honest, there could be no doubt, Mrs. Hurtle thought, that the girl
would go to him. It would require no interference of hers. But after
a while she thought that she might as well see this English chit who
had superseded herself in the affections of the Englishman she had
condescended to love. And if it were the case that all revenge was to
be abandoned, that no punishment was to be exacted in return for all
the injury that had been done, why should she not say a kind word
so as to smooth away the existing difficulties? Wild cat as she was,
kindness was more congenial to her nature than cruelty. So she wrote
to Hetta making an appointment.

   DEAR MISS CARBURY,--

   If you could make it convenient to yourself to call here
   either Thursday or Friday at any hour between two and
   four, I shall be very happy to see you.

   Yours sincerely,

   WINIFRID HURTLE.

CHAPTER XCI.

THE RIVALS.

During these days the intercourse between Lady Carbury and her
daughter was constrained and far from pleasant. Hetta, thinking that
she was ill-used, kept herself aloof, and would not speak to her
mother of herself or of her troubles. Lady Carbury watching her,
but not daring to say much, was at last almost frightened at her
girl's silence. She had assured herself, when she found that Hetta
was disposed to quarrel with her lover and to send him back his
brooch, that "things would come round," that Paul would be forgotten
quickly,--or laid aside as though he were forgotten,--and that Hetta
would soon perceive it to be her interest to marry her cousin. With
such a prospect before her, Lady Carbury thought it to be her duty
as a mother to show no tendency to sympathise with her girl's sorrow.
Such heart-breakings were occurring daily in the world around them.
Who were the happy people that were driven neither by ambition, nor
poverty, nor greed, nor the cross purposes of unhappy love, to stifle
and trample upon their feelings? She had known no one so blessed.
She had never been happy after that fashion. She herself had within
the last few weeks refused to join her lot with that of a man she
really liked, because her wicked son was so grievous a burden on her
shoulders. A woman, she thought, if she were unfortunate enough to be
a lady without wealth of her own, must give up everything, her body,
her heart,--her very soul if she were that way troubled,--to the
procuring of a fitting maintenance for herself. Why should Hetta hope
to be more fortunate than others? And then the position which chance
now offered to her was fortunate. This cousin of hers, who was so
devoted to her, was in all respects good. He would not torture her by
harsh restraint and cruel temper. He would not drink. He would not
spend his money foolishly. He would allow her all the belongings of
a fair, free life. Lady Carbury reiterated to herself the assertion
that she was manifestly doing a mother's duty by her endeavours to
constrain her girl to marry such a man. With a settled purpose she
was severe and hard. But when she found how harsh her daughter could
be in response to this,--how gloomy, how silent, and how severe in
retaliation,--she was almost frightened at what she herself was
doing. She had not known how stern and how enduring her daughter
could be. "Hetta," she said, "why don't you speak to me?" On this
very day it was Hetta's purpose to visit Mrs. Hurtle at Islington.
She had said no word of her intention to any one. She had chosen
the Friday because on that day she knew her mother would go in the
afternoon to her publisher. There should be no deceit. Immediately
on her return she would tell her mother what she had done. But she
considered herself to be emancipated from control. Among them they
had robbed her of her lover. She had submitted to the robbery, but
she would submit to nothing else. "Hetta, why don't you speak to me?"
said Lady Carbury.

"Because, mamma, there is nothing we can talk about without making
each other unhappy."

"What a dreadful thing to say! Is there no subject in the world to
interest you except that wretched young man?"

"None other at all," said Hetta obstinately.

"What folly it is,--I will not say only to speak like that, but to
allow yourself to entertain such thoughts!"

"How am I to control my thoughts? Do you think, mamma, that after
I had owned to you that I loved a man,--after I had owned it to him
and, worst of all, to myself,--I could have myself separated from
him, and then not think about it? It is a cloud upon everything. It
is as though I had lost my eyesight and my speech. It is as it would
be to you if Felix were to die. It crushes me."

There was an accusation in this allusion to her brother which the
mother felt,--as she was intended to feel it,--but to which she could
make no reply. It accused her of being too much concerned for her son
to feel any real affection for her daughter. "You are ignorant of the
world, Hetta," she said.

"I am having a lesson in it now, at any rate."

"Do you think it is worse than others have suffered before you? In
what little you see around you do you think that girls are generally
able to marry the men upon whom they set their hearts?" She paused,
but Hetta made no answer to this. "Marie Melmotte was as warmly
attached to your brother as you can be to Mr. Montague."

"Marie Melmotte!"

"She thinks as much of her feelings as you do of yours. The truth is
you are indulging a dream. You must wake from it, and shake yourself,
and find out that you, like others, have got to do the best you can
for yourself in order that you may live. The world at large has to
eat dry bread, and cannot get cakes and sweetmeats. A girl, when she
thinks of giving herself to a husband, has to remember this. If she
has a fortune of her own she can pick and choose, but if she have
none she must allow herself to be chosen."

"Then a girl is to marry without stopping even to think whether she
likes the man or not?"

"She should teach herself to like the man, if the marriage be
suitable. I would not have you take a vicious man because he was
rich, or one known to be cruel and imperious. Your cousin Roger, you
know--"

"Mamma," said Hetta, getting up from her seat, "you may as well
believe me. No earthly inducement shall ever make me marry my cousin
Roger. It is to me horrible that you should propose it to me when you
know that I love that other man with my whole heart."

"How can you speak so of one who has treated you with the utmost
contumely?"

"I know nothing of any contumely. What reason have I to be offended
because he has liked a woman whom he knew before he ever saw me? It
has been unfortunate, wretched, miserable; but I do not know that I
have any right whatever to be angry with Mr. Paul Montague." Having
so spoken she walked out of the room without waiting for a further
reply.

It was all very sad to Lady Carbury. She perceived now that she had
driven her daughter to pronounce an absolution of Paul Montague's
sins, and that in this way she had lessened and loosened the barrier
which she had striven to construct between them. But that which
pained her most was the unrealistic, romantic view of life which
pervaded all Hetta's thoughts. How was any girl to live in this world
who could not be taught the folly of such idle dreams?

That afternoon Hetta trusted herself all alone to the mysteries of
the Marylebone underground railway, and emerged with accuracy at
King's Cross. She had studied her geography, and she walked from
thence to Islington. She knew well the name of the street and the
number at which Mrs. Hurtle lived. But when she reached the door she
did not at first dare to stand and raise the knocker. She passed on
to the end of the silent, vacant street, endeavouring to collect her
thoughts, striving to find and to arrange the words with which she
would commence her strange petition. And she endeavoured to dictate
to herself some defined conduct should the woman be insolent to
her. Personally she was not a coward, but she doubted her power of
replying to a rough speech. She could at any rate escape. Should the
worst come to the worst, the woman would hardly venture to impede
her departure. Having gone to the end of the street, she returned
with a very quick step and knocked at the door. It was opened almost
immediately by Ruby Ruggles, to whom she gave her name.

"Oh laws,--Miss Carbury!" said Ruby, looking up into the stranger's
face. "Yes;--sure enough she must be Felix's sister." But Ruby did
not dare to ask any question. She had admitted to all around her
that Sir Felix should not be her lover any more, and that John Crumb
should be allowed to return. But, nevertheless, her heart twittered
as she showed Miss Carbury up to the lodger's sitting-room.

Though it was midsummer Hetta entered the room with her veil down.
She adjusted it as she followed Ruby up the stairs, moved by a sudden
fear of her rival's scrutiny. Mrs. Hurtle rose from her chair and
came forward to greet her visitor, putting out both her hands to do
so. She was dressed with the most scrupulous care,--simply, and in
black, without an ornament of any kind, without a ribbon or a chain
or a flower. But with some woman's purpose at her heart she had so
attired herself as to look her very best. Was it that she thought
that she would vindicate to her rival their joint lover's first
choice, or that she was minded to teach the English girl that an
American woman might have graces of her own? As she came forward she
was gentle and soft in her movements, and a pleasant smile played
round her mouth. Hetta at the first moment was almost dumbfounded by
her beauty,--by that and by her ease and exquisite self-possession.
"Miss Carbury," she said with that low, rich voice which in old
days had charmed Paul almost as much as her loveliness, "I need not
tell you how interested I am in seeing you. May I not ask you to
lay aside your veil, so that we may look at each other fairly?"
Hetta, dumbfounded, not knowing how to speak a word, stood gazing
at the woman when she had removed her veil. She had had no personal
description of Mrs. Hurtle, but had expected something very different
from this! She had thought that the woman would be coarse and big,
with fine eyes and a bright colour. As it was they were both of
the same complexion, both dark, with hair nearly black, with eyes
of the same colour. Hetta thought of all that at the moment,--but
acknowledged to herself that she had no pretension to beauty such as
that which this woman owned. "And so you have come to see me," said
Mrs. Hurtle. "Sit down so that I may look at you. I am glad that you
have come to see me, Miss Carbury."

[Illustration: "Sit down so that I may look at you."]

"I am glad at any rate that you are not angry."

"Why should I be angry? Had the idea been distasteful to me I should
have declined. I know not why, but it is a sort of pleasure to me to
see you. It is a poor time we women have,--is it not,--in becoming
playthings to men? So this Lothario that was once mine, is behaving
badly to you also. Is it so? He is no longer mine, and you may ask me
freely for aid, if there be any that I can give you. If he were an
American I should say that he had behaved badly to me;--but as he is
an Englishman perhaps it is different. Now tell me;--what can I do,
or what can I say?"

"He told me that you could tell me the truth."

"What truth? I will certainly tell you nothing that is not true. You
have quarrelled with him too. Is it not so?"

"Certainly I have quarrelled with him."

"I am not curious;--but perhaps you had better tell me of that. I
know him so well that I can guess that he should give offence. He can
be full of youthful ardour one day, and cautious as old age itself
the next. But I do not suppose that there has been need for such
caution with you. What is it, Miss Carbury?"

Hetta found the telling of her story to be very difficult. "Mrs.
Hurtle," she said, "I had never heard your name when he first asked
me to be his wife."

"I dare say not. Why should he have told you anything of me?"

"Because,--oh, because--. Surely he ought, if it is true that he had
once promised to marry you."

"That certainly is true."

"And you were here, and I knew nothing of it. Of course I should have
been very different to him had I known that,--that,--that--"

"That there was such a woman as Winifrid Hurtle interfering with him.
Then you heard it by chance, and you were offended. Was it not so?"

"And now he tells me that I have been unjust to him and he bids me
ask you. I have not been unjust."

"I am not so sure of that. Shall I tell you what I think? I think
that he has been unjust to me, and that therefore your injustice to
him is no more than his due. I cannot plead for him, Miss Carbury.
To me he has been the last and worst of a long series of, I think,
undeserved misfortune. But whether you will avenge my wrongs must be
for you to decide."

"Why did he go with you to Lowestoft?"

"Because I asked him,--and because, like many men, he cannot be
ill-natured although he can be cruel. He would have given a hand not
to have gone, but he could not say me nay. As you have come here,
Miss Carbury, you may as well know the truth. He did love me, but he
had been talked out of his love by my enemies and his own friends
long before he had ever seen you. I am almost ashamed to tell you my
own part of the story, and yet I know not why I should be ashamed. I
followed him here to England--because I loved him. I came after him,
as perhaps a woman should not do, because I was true of heart. He had
told me that he did not want me;--but I wanted to be wanted, and I
hoped that I might lure him back to his troth. I have utterly failed,
and I must return to my own country,--I will not say a broken-hearted
woman, for I will not admit of such a condition,--but a creature with
a broken spirit. He has misused me foully, and I have simply forgiven
him; not because I am a Christian, but because I am not strong enough
to punish one that I still love. I could not put a dagger into
him,--or I would; or a bullet,--or I would. He has reduced me to a
nothing by his falseness, and yet I cannot injure him! I, who have
sworn to myself that no man should ever lay a finger on me in scorn
without feeling my wrath in return, I cannot punish him. But if you
choose to do so it is not for me to set you against such an act of
justice." Then she paused and looked up to Hetta as though expecting
a reply.

But Hetta had no reply to make. All had been said that she had come
to hear. Every word that the woman had spoken had in truth been a
comfort to her. She had told herself that her visit was to be made in
order that she might be justified in her condemnation of her lover.
She had believed that it was her intention to arm herself with proof
that she had done right in rejecting him. Now she was told that
however false her lover might have been to this other woman he had
been absolutely true to her. The woman had not spoken kindly of
Paul,--had seemed to intend to speak of him with the utmost severity;
but she had so spoken as to acquit him of all sin against Hetta.
What was it to Hetta that her lover had been false to this American
stranger? It did not seem to her to be at all necessary that she
should be angry with her lover on that head. Mrs. Hurtle had told her
that she herself must decide whether she would take upon herself to
avenge her rival's wrongs. In saying that Mrs. Hurtle had taught her
to feel that there were no other wrongs which she need avenge. It was
all done now. If she could only thank the woman for the pleasantness
of her demeanour, and then go, she could, when alone, make up her
mind as to what she would do next. She had not yet told herself she
would submit herself again to Paul Montague. She had only told
herself that, within her own breast, she was bound to forgive him.
"You have been very kind," she said at last,--speaking only because
it was necessary that she should say something.

"It is well that there should be some kindness where there has been
so much that is unkind. Forgive me, Miss Carbury, if I speak plainly
to you. Of course you will go back to him. Of course you will be his
wife. You have told me that you love him dearly, as plainly as I have
told you the same story of myself. Your coming here would of itself
have declared it, even if I did not see your satisfaction at my
account of his treachery to me."

"Oh, Mrs. Hurtle, do not say that of me!"

"But it is true, and I do not in the least quarrel with you on that
account. He has preferred you to me, and as far as I am concerned
there is an end of it. You are a girl, whereas I am a woman,--and he
likes your youth. I have undergone the cruel roughness of the world,
which has not as yet touched you; and therefore you are softer to the
touch. I do not know that you are very superior in other attractions;
but that has sufficed, and you are the victor. I am strong enough
to acknowledge that I have nothing to forgive in you;--and am weak
enough to forgive all his treachery." Hetta was now holding the woman
by the hand, and was weeping, she knew not why. "I am so glad to
have seen you," continued Mrs. Hurtle, "so that I may know what his
wife was like. In a few days I shall return to the States, and then
neither of you will ever be troubled further by Winifrid Hurtle. Tell
him that if he will come and see me once before I go, I will not be
more unkind to him than I can help."

When Hetta did not decline to be the bearer of this message she
must have at any rate resolved that she would see Paul Montague
again,--and to see him would be to tell him that she was again his
own. She now got herself quickly out of the room, absolutely kissing
the woman whom she had both dreaded and despised. As soon as she was
alone in the street she tried to think of it all. How full of beauty
was the face of that American female,--how rich and glorious her
voice in spite of a slight taint of the well-known nasal twang;--and
above all how powerful and at the same time how easy and how gracious
was her manner! That she would be an unfit wife for Paul Montague was
certain to Hetta, but that he or any man should have loved her and
have been loved by her, and then have been willing to part from her,
was wonderful. And yet Paul Montague had preferred herself, Hetta
Carbury, to this woman! Paul had certainly done well for his own
cause when he had referred the younger lady to the elder.

Of her own quarrel of course there must be an end. She had been
unjust to the man, and injustice must of course be remedied by
repentance and confession. As she walked quickly back to the railway
station she brought herself to love her lover more fondly than she
had ever done. He had been true to her from the first hour of their
acquaintance. What truth higher than that has any woman a right to
desire? No doubt she gave to him a virgin heart. No other man had
ever touched her lips, or been allowed to press her hand, or to look
into her eyes with unrebuked admiration. It was her pride to give
herself to the man she loved after this fashion, pure and white as
snow on which no foot has trodden. But in taking him, all that she
wanted was that he should be true to her now and henceforward. The
future must be her own work. As to the "now," she felt that Mrs.
Hurtle had given her sufficient assurance.

She must at once let her mother know this change in her mind. When
she re-entered the house she was no longer sullen, no longer anxious
to be silent, very willing to be gracious if she might be received
with favour,--but quite determined that nothing should shake her
purpose. She went at once into her mother's room, having heard from
the boy at the door that Lady Carbury had returned.

"Hetta, wherever have you been?" asked Lady Carbury.

"Mamma," she said, "I mean to write to Mr. Montague and tell him that
I have been unjust to him."

"Hetta, you must do nothing of the kind," said Lady Carbury, rising
from her seat.

"Yes, mamma. I have been unjust, and I must do so."

"It will be asking him to come back to you."

"Yes, mamma:--that is what I mean. I shall tell him that if he will
come, I will receive him. I know he will come. Oh, mamma, let us be
friends, and I will tell you everything. Why should you grudge me my
love?"

"You have sent him back his brooch," said Lady Carbury hoarsely.

"He shall give it me again. Hear what I have done. I have seen that
American lady."

"Mrs. Hurtle!"

"Yes;--I have been to her. She is a wonderful woman."

"And she has told you wonderful lies."

"Why should she lie to me? She has told me no lies. She said nothing
in his favour."

"I can well believe that. What can any one say in his favour?"

"But she told me that which has assured me that Mr. Montague has
never behaved badly to me. I shall write to him at once. If you like
I will show you the letter."

"Any letter to him, I will tear," said Lady Carbury, full of anger.

"Mamma, I have told you everything, but in this I must judge for
myself." Then Hetta, seeing that her mother would not relent, left
the room without further speech, and immediately opened her desk that
the letter might be written.

CHAPTER XCII.

HAMILTON K. FISKER AGAIN.

Ten days had passed since the meeting narrated in the last
chapter,--ten days, during which Hetta's letter had been sent to her
lover, but in which she had received no reply,--when two gentlemen
met each other in a certain room in Liverpool, who were seen together
in the same room in the early part of this chronicle. These were our
young friend Paul Montague, and our not much older friend Hamilton
K. Fisker. Melmotte had died on the 18th of July, and tidings of the
event had been at once sent by telegraph to San Francisco. Some weeks
before this Montague had written to his partner, giving his account
of the South Central Pacific and Mexican Railway Company,--describing
its condition in England as he then believed it to be,--and urging
Fisker to come over to London. On receipt of a message from his
American correspondent he had gone down to Liverpool, and had
there awaited Fisker's arrival, taking counsel with his friend
Mr. Ramsbottom. In the mean time Hetta's letter was lying at the
Beargarden, Paul having written from his club and having omitted to
desire that the answer should be sent to his lodgings. Just at this
moment things at the Beargarden were not well managed. They were
indeed so ill managed that Paul never received that letter,--which
would have had for him charms greater than those of any letter ever
before written.

"This is a terrible business," said Fisker, immediately on entering
the room in which Montague was waiting him. "He was the last man I'd
have thought would be cut up in that way."

"He was utterly ruined."

"He wouldn't have been ruined,--and couldn't have thought so if he'd
known all he ought to have known. The South Central would have pulled
him through a'most anything if he'd have understood how to play it."

"We don't think much of the South Central here now," said Paul.

"Ah;--that's because you've never above half spirit enough for a big
thing. You nibble at it instead of swallowing it whole,--and then, of
course, folks see that you're only nibbling. I thought that Melmotte
would have had spirit."

"There is, I fear, no doubt that he had committed forgery. It was the
dread of detection as to that which drove him to destroy himself."

"I call it dam clumsy from beginning to end;--dam clumsy. I took him
to be a different man, and I feel more than half ashamed of myself
because I trusted such a fellow. That chap Cohenlupe has got off with
a lot of swag. Only think of Melmotte allowing Cohenlupe to get the
better of him!"

"I suppose the thing will be broken up now at San Francisco,"
suggested Paul.

"Bu'st up at Frisco! Not if I know it. Why should it be bu'st up?
D'you think we're all going to smash there because a fool like
Melmotte blows his brains out in London?"

"He took poison."

"Or p'ison either. That's not just our way. I'll tell you what I'm
going to do; and why I'm over here so uncommon sharp. These shares
are at a'most nothing now in London. I'll buy every share in the
market. I wired for as many as I dar'd, so as not to spoil our own
game, and I'll make a clean sweep of every one of them. Bu'st up! I'm
sorry for him because I thought him a biggish man;--but what he's
done 'll just be the making of us over there. Will you get out of it,
or will you come back to Frisco with me?"

In answer to this Paul asserted most strenuously that he would
not return to San Francisco, and, perhaps too ingenuously, gave
his partner to understand that he was altogether sick of the great
railway, and would under no circumstances have anything more to
do with it. Fisker shrugged his shoulders, and was not displeased
at the proposed rupture. He was prepared to deal fairly,--nay,
generously,--by his partner, having recognised the wisdom of that
great commercial rule which teaches us that honour should prevail
among associates of a certain class; but he had fully convinced
himself that Paul Montague was not a fit partner for Hamilton K.
Fisker. Fisker was not only unscrupulous himself, but he had a
thorough contempt for scruples in others. According to his theory of
life, nine hundred and ninety-nine men were obscure because of their
scruples, whilst the thousandth man predominated and cropped up into
the splendour of commercial wealth because he was free from such
bondage. He had his own theories, too, as to commercial honesty. That
which he had promised to do he would do, if it was within his power.
He was anxious that his bond should be good, and his word equally
so. But the work of robbing mankind in gross by magnificently false
representations, was not only the duty, but also the delight and the
ambition of his life. How could a man so great endure a partnership
with one so small as Paul Montague? "And now what about Winifrid
Hurtle?" asked Fisker.

"What makes you ask? She's in London."

"Oh yes, I know she's in London, and Hurtle's at Frisco, swearing
that he'll come after her. He would, only he hasn't got the dollars."

"He's not dead then?" muttered Paul.

"Dead!--no, nor likely to die. She'll have a bad time of it with him
yet."

"But she divorced him."

"She got a Kansas lawyer to say so, and he's got a Frisco lawyer to
say that there's nothing of the kind. She hasn't played her game
badly neither, for she's had the handling of her own money, and has
put it so that he can't get hold of a dollar. Even if it suited other
ways, you know, I wouldn't marry her myself till I saw my way clearer
out of the wood."

"I'm not thinking of marrying her,--if you mean that."

"There was a talk about it in Frisco;--that's all. And I have heard
Hurtle say when he was a little farther gone than usual that she was
here with you, and that he meant to drop in on you some of these
days." To this Paul made no answer, thinking that he had now both
heard enough and said enough about Mrs. Hurtle.

On the following day the two men, who were still partners, went
together to London, and Fisker immediately became immersed in the
arrangement of Melmotte's affairs. He put himself into communication
with Mr. Brehgert, went in and out of the offices in Abchurch
Lane and the rooms which had belonged to the Railway Company,
cross-examined Croll, mastered the books of the Company as far as
they were to be mastered, and actually summoned both the Grendalls,
father and son, up to London. Lord Alfred, and Miles with him, had
left London a day or two before Melmotte's death,--having probably
perceived that there was no further occasion for their services. To
Fisker's appeal Lord Alfred was proudly indifferent. Who was this
American that he should call upon a director of the London Company
to appear? Does not every one know that a director of a company need
not direct unless he pleases? Lord Alfred, therefore, did not even
condescend to answer Fisker's letter;--but he advised his son to run
up to town. "I should just go, because I'd taken a salary from the
d---- Company," said the careful father, "but when there I wouldn't
say a word." So Miles Grendall, obeying his parent, reappeared upon
the scene.

But Fisker's attention was perhaps most usefully and most sedulously
paid to Madame Melmotte and her daughter. Till Fisker arrived no one
had visited them in their solitude at Hampstead, except Croll, the
clerk. Mr. Brehgert had abstained, thinking that a widow, who had
become a widow under such terrible circumstances, would prefer to be
alone. Lord Nidderdale had made his adieux, and felt that he could do
no more. It need hardly be said that Lord Alfred had too much good
taste to interfere at such a time, although for some months he had
been domestically intimate with the poor woman, or that Sir Felix
would not be prompted by the father's death to renew his suit to
the daughter. But Fisker had not been two days in London before
he went out to Hampstead, and was admitted to Madame Melmotte's
presence;--and he had not been there four days before he was aware
that in spite of all misfortunes, Marie Melmotte was still the
undoubted possessor of a large fortune.

In regard to Melmotte's effects generally the Crown had been induced
to abstain from interfering,--giving up the right to all the man's
plate and chairs and tables which it had acquired by the finding of
the coroner's verdict,--not from tenderness to Madame Melmotte, for
whom no great commiseration was felt, but on behalf of such creditors
as poor Mr. Longestaffe and his son. But Marie's money was quite
distinct from this. She had been right in her own belief as to
this property, and had been right, too, in refusing to sign those
papers,--unless it may be that that refusal led to her father's act.
She herself was sure that it was not so, because she had withdrawn
her refusal, and had offered to sign the papers before her father's
death. What might have been the ultimate result had she done so when
he first made the request, no one could now say. That the money
would have gone there could be no doubt. The money was now hers,--a
fact which Fisker soon learned with that peculiar cleverness which
belonged to him.

Poor Madame Melmotte felt the visits of the American to be a relief
to her in her misery. The world makes great mistakes as to that
which is and is not beneficial to those whom Death has bereaved of
a companion. It may be, no doubt sometimes it is the case, that
grief shall be so heavy, so absolutely crushing, as to make any
interference with it an additional trouble, and this is felt also in
acute bodily pain, and in periods of terrible mental suffering. It
may also be, and, no doubt, often is the case, that the bereaved one
chooses to affect such overbearing sorrow, and that friends abstain,
because even such affectation has its own rights and privileges. But
Madame Melmotte was neither crushed by grief nor did she affect to
be so crushed. She had been numbed by the suddenness and by the awe
of the catastrophe. The man who had been her merciless tyrant for
years, who had seemed to her to be a very incarnation of cruel power,
had succumbed, and shown himself to be powerless against his own
misfortunes. She was a woman of very few words, and had spoken almost
none on this occasion even to her own daughter; but when Fisker came
to her, and told her more than she had ever known before of her
husband's affairs, and spoke to her of her future life, and mixed for
her a small glass of brandy-and-water warm, and told her that Frisco
would be the fittest place for her future residence, she certainly
did not find him to be intrusive.

And even Marie liked Fisker, though she had been wooed and almost
won both by a lord and a baronet, and had understood, if not much,
at least more than her mother, of the life to which she had been
introduced. There was something of real sorrow in her heart for her
father. She was prone to love,--though, perhaps, not prone to deep
affection. Melmotte had certainly been often cruel to her, but he
had also been very indulgent. And as she had never been specially
grateful for the one, so neither had she ever specially resented the
other. Tenderness, care, real solicitude for her well-being, she
had never known, and had come to regard the unevenness of her life,
vacillating between knocks and knick-knacks, with a blow one day and
a jewel the next, as the condition of things which was natural to
her. When her father was dead she remembered for a while the jewels
and the knick-knacks, and forgot the knocks and blows. But she
was not beyond consolation, and she also found consolation in Mr.
Fisker's visits.

"I used to sign a paper every quarter," she said to Fisker, as they
were walking together one evening in the lanes round Hampstead.

"You'll have to do the same now, only instead of giving the paper to
any one you'll have to leave it in a banker's hands to draw the money
for yourself."

"And can that be done over in California?"

"Just the same as here. Your bankers will manage it all for you
without the slightest trouble. For the matter of that I'll do it,
if you'll trust me. There's only one thing against it all, Miss
Melmotte."

"And what's that?"

"After the sort of society you've been used to here, I don't know how
you'll get on among us Americans. We're a pretty rough lot, I guess.
Though, perhaps, what you lose in the look of the fruit, you'll make
up in the flavour." This Fisker said in a somewhat plaintive tone,
as though fearing that the manifest substantial advantages of Frisco
would not suffice to atone for the loss of that fashion to which Miss
Melmotte had been used.

"I hate swells," said Marie, flashing round upon him.

"Do you now?"

"Like poison. What's the use of 'em? They never mean a word that they
say,--and they don't say so many words either. They're never more
than half awake, and don't care the least about anybody. I hate
London."

"Do you now?"

"Oh, don't I?"

"I wonder whether you'd hate Frisco?"

"I rather think it would be a jolly sort of place."

"Very jolly I find it. And I wonder whether you'd hate--me?"

"Mr. Fisker, that's nonsense. Why should I hate anybody?"

"But you do. I've found out one or two that you don't love. If you
do come to Frisco, I hope you won't just hate me, you know." Then he
took her gently by the arm;--but she, whisking herself away rapidly,
bade him behave himself. Then they returned to their lodgings, and
Mr. Fisker, before he went back to London, mixed a little warm
brandy-and-water for Madame Melmotte. I think that upon the whole
Madame Melmotte was more comfortable at Hampstead than she had
been either in Grosvenor Square or Bruton Street, although she was
certainly not a thing beautiful to look at in her widow's weeds.

"I don't think much of you as a book-keeper, you know," Fisker said
to Miles Grendall in the now almost deserted Board-room of the
South Central Pacific and Mexican Railway. Miles, remembering his
father's advice, answered not a word, but merely looked with assumed
amazement at the impertinent stranger who dared thus to censure his
performances. Fisker had made three or four remarks previous to
this, and had appealed both to Paul Montague and to Croll, who were
present. He had invited also the attendance of Sir Felix Carbury,
Lord Nidderdale, and Mr. Longestaffe, who were all Directors;--but
none of them had come. Sir Felix had paid no attention to Fisker's
letter. Lord Nidderdale had written a short but characteristic reply.
"Dear Mr. Fisker,--I really don't know anything about it. Yours,
Nidderdale." Mr. Longestaffe, with laborious zeal, had closely
covered four pages with his reasons for non-attendance, with which
the reader shall not be troubled, and which it may be doubted whether
even Fisker perused to the end. "Upon my word," continued Fisker,
"it's astonishing to me that Melmotte should have put up with this
kind of thing. I suppose you understand something of business, Mr.
Croll?"

"It vas not my department, Mr. Fisker," said the German.

"Nor anybody else's either," said the domineering American. "Of
course it's on the cards, Mr. Grendall, that we shall have to put you
into a witness-box, because there are certain things we must get at."
Miles was silent as the grave, but at once made up his mind that he
would pass his autumn at some pleasant but economical German retreat,
and that his autumnal retirement should be commenced within a very
few days;--or perhaps hours might suffice.

But Fisker was not in earnest in his threat. In truth the greater
the confusion in the London office, the better, he thought, were the
prospects of the Company at San Francisco. Miles underwent purgatory
on this occasion for three or four hours, and when dismissed had
certainly revealed none of Melmotte's secrets. He did, however, go
to Germany, finding that a temporary absence from England would be
comfortable to him in more respects than one,--and need not be heard
of again in these pages.

When Melmotte's affairs were ultimately wound up there was found to
be nearly enough of property to satisfy all his proved liabilities.
Very many men started up with huge claims, asserting that they had
been robbed, and in the confusion it was hard to ascertain who had
been robbed, or who had simply been unsuccessful in their attempts to
rob others. Some, no doubt, as was the case with poor Mr. Brehgert,
had speculated in dependence on Melmotte's sagacity, and had lost
heavily without dishonesty. But of those who, like the Longestaffes,
were able to prove direct debts, the condition at last was not very
sad. Our excellent friend Dolly got his money early in the day, and
was able, under Mr. Squercum's guidance, to start himself on a new
career. Having paid his debts, and with still a large balance at his
bankers', he assured his friend Nidderdale that he meant to turn over
an entirely new leaf. "I shall just make Squercum allow me so much a
month, and I shall have all the bills and that kind of thing sent to
him, and he will do everything, and pull me up if I'm getting wrong.
I like Squercum."

"Won't he rob you, old fellow?" suggested Nidderdale.

"Of course he will;--but he won't let any one else do it. One has
to be plucked, but it's everything to have it done on a system. If
he'll only let me have ten shillings out of every sovereign I think
I can get along." Let us hope that Mr. Squercum was merciful, and
that Dolly was enabled to live in accordance with his virtuous
resolutions.

But these things did not arrange themselves till late in the
winter,--long after Mr. Fisker's departure for California. That,
however, was protracted till a day much later than he had anticipated
before he had become intimate with Madame Melmotte and Marie. Madame
Melmotte's affairs occupied him for a while almost exclusively. The
furniture and plate were of course sold for the creditors, but Madame
Melmotte was allowed to take whatever she declared to be specially
her own property;--and, though much was said about the jewels, no
attempt was made to recover them. Marie advised Madame Melmotte to
give them up, assuring the old woman that she should have whatever
she wanted for her maintenance. But it was not likely that Melmotte's
widow would willingly abandon any property, and she did not abandon
her jewels. It was agreed between her and Fisker that they were to
be taken to New York. "You'll get as much there as in London, if you
like to part with them; and nobody 'll say anything about it there.
You couldn't sell a locket or a chain here without all the world
talking about it."

In all these things Madame Melmotte put herself into Fisker's hands
with the most absolute confidence,--and, indeed, with a confidence
that was justified by its results. It was not by robbing an old woman
that Fisker intended to make himself great. To Madame Melmotte's
thinking, Fisker was the finest gentleman she had ever met,--so
infinitely pleasanter in his manner than Lord Alfred even when Lord
Alfred had been most gracious, with so much more to say for himself
than Miles Grendall, understanding her so much better than any man
had ever done,--especially when he supplied her with those small warm
beakers of sweet brandy-and-water. "I shall do whatever he tells me,"
she said to Marie. "I'm sure I've nothing to keep me here in this
country."

"I'm willing to go," said Marie. "I don't want to stay in London."

"I suppose you'll take him if he asks you?"

"I don't know anything about that," said Marie. "A man may be very
well without one's wanting to marry him. I don't think I'll marry
anybody. What's the use? It's only money. Nobody cares for anything
else. Fisker's all very well; but he only wants the money. Do you
think Fisker'd ask me to marry him if I hadn't got anything? Not he!
He ain't slow enough for that."

"I think he's a very nice young man," said Madame Melmotte.

CHAPTER XCIII.

A TRUE LOVER.

Hetta Carbury, out of the fulness of her heart, having made up her
mind that she had been unjust to her lover, wrote to him a letter
full of penitence, full of love, telling him at great length all
the details of her meeting with Mrs. Hurtle, and bidding him come
back to her, and bring the brooch with him. But this letter she had
unfortunately addressed to the Beargarden, as he had written to her
from that club; and partly through his own fault, and partly through
the demoralisation of that once perfect establishment, the letter
never reached his hands. When, therefore, he returned to London he
was justified in supposing that she had refused even to notice his
appeal. He was, however, determined that he would still make further
struggles. He had, he felt, to contend with many difficulties. Mrs.
Hurtle, Roger Carbury, and Hetta's mother were, he thought, all
inimical to him. Mrs. Hurtle, though she had declared that she would
not rage as a lioness, could hardly be his friend in the matter.
Roger had repeatedly declared his determination to regard him as
a traitor. And Lady Carbury, as he well knew, had always been and
always would be opposed to the match. But Hetta had owned that she
loved him, had submitted to his caresses, and had been proud of
his admiration. And Paul, though he did not probably analyze very
carefully the character of his beloved, still felt instinctively
that, having so far prevailed with such a girl, his prospects could
not be altogether hopeless. And yet how should he continue the
struggle? With what weapons should he carry on the fight? The writing
of letters is but a one-sided, troublesome proceeding, when the
person to whom they are written will not answer them; and the calling
at a door at which the servant has been instructed to refuse a
visitor admission, becomes, disagreeable,--if not degrading,--after a
time.

But Hetta had written a second epistle,--not to her lover, but to one
who received his letters with more regularity. When she rashly and
with precipitate wrath quarrelled with Paul Montague, she at once
communicated the fact to her mother, and through her mother to her
cousin Roger. Though she would not recognise Roger as a lover, she
did acknowledge him to be the head of her family, and her own special
friend, and entitled in some special way to know all that she herself
did, and all that was done in regard to her. She therefore wrote to
her cousin, telling him that she had made a mistake about Paul, that
she was convinced that Paul had always behaved to her with absolute
sincerity, and, in short, that Paul was the best, and dearest, and
most ill-used of human beings. In her enthusiasm she went on to
declare that there could be no other chance of happiness for her in
this world than that of becoming Paul's wife, and to beseech her
dearest friend and cousin Roger not to turn against her, but to lend
her an aiding hand. There are those whom strong words in letters
never affect at all,--who, perhaps, hardly read them, and take what
they do read as meaning no more than half what is said. But Roger
Carbury was certainly not one of these. As he sat on the garden wall
at Carbury, with his cousin's letter in his hand, her words had
their full weight with him. He did not try to convince himself
that all this was the verbiage of an enthusiastic girl, who might
soon be turned and trained to another mode of thinking by fitting
admonitions. To him now, as he read and re-read Hetta's letter
sitting on the wall, there was not at any rate further hope for
himself. Though he was altogether unchanged himself, though he was
altogether incapable of change,--though he could not rally himself
sufficiently to look forward to even a passive enjoyment of life
without the girl whom he had loved,--yet he told himself what he
believed to be the truth. At last he owned directly and plainly that,
whether happy or unhappy, he must do without her. He had let time
slip by with him too fast and too far before he had ventured to love.
He must now stomach his disappointment, and make the best he could
of such a broken, ill-conditioned life as was left to him. But, if
he acknowledged this,--and he did acknowledge it,--in what fashion
should he in future treat the man and woman who had reduced him so
low?

At this moment his mind was tuned to high thoughts. If it were
possible he would be unselfish. He could not, indeed, bring himself
to think with kindness of Paul Montague. He could not say to himself
that the man had not been treacherous to him, nor could he forgive
the man's supposed treason. But he did tell himself very plainly that
in comparison with Hetta the man was nothing to him. It could hardly
be worth his while to maintain a quarrel with the man if he were once
able to assure Hetta that she, as the wife of another man, should
still be dear to him as a friend might be dear. He was well aware
that such assurance, such forgiveness, must contain very much. If it
were to be so, Hetta's child must take the name of Carbury, and must
be to him as his heir,--as near as possible his own child. In her
favour he must throw aside that law of primogeniture which to him was
so sacred that he had been hitherto minded to make Sir Felix his heir
in spite of the absolute unfitness of the wretched young man. All
this must be changed, should he be able to persuade himself to give
his consent to the marriage. In such case Carbury must be the home
of the married couple, as far as he could induce them to make it
so. There must be born the future infant to whose existence he was
already looking forward with some idea that in his old age he might
there find comfort. In such case, though he should never again be
able to love Paul Montague in his heart of hearts, he must live
with him for her sake on affectionate terms. He must forgive Hetta
altogether,--as though there had been no fault; and he must strive to
forgive the man's fault as best he might. Struggling as he was to be
generous, passionately fond as he was of justice, yet he did not know
how to be just himself. He could not see that he in truth had been to
no extent ill-used. And ever and again, as he thought of the great
prayer as to the forgiveness of trespasses, he could not refrain from
asking himself whether it could really be intended that he should
forgive such trespass as that committed against him by Paul Montague!
Nevertheless, when he rose from the wall he had resolved that Hetta
should be pardoned entirely, and that Paul Montague should be treated
as though he were pardoned. As for himself,--the chances of the world
had been unkind to him, and he would submit to them!

Nevertheless he wrote no answer to Hetta's letter. Perhaps he felt,
with some undefined but still existing hope, that the writing of such
a letter would deprive him of his last chance. Hetta's letter to
himself hardly required an immediate answer,--did not, indeed, demand
any answer. She had simply told him that, whereas she had for certain
reasons quarrelled with the man she had loved, she had now come to
the conclusion that she would quarrel with him no longer. She had
asked for her cousin's assent to her own views, but that, as Roger
felt, was to be given rather by the discontinuance of opposition than
by any positive action. Roger's influence with her mother was the
assistance which Hetta really wanted from him, and that influence
could hardly be given by the writing of any letter. Thinking of all
this, Roger determined that he would again go up to London. He would
have the vacant hours of the journey in which to think of it all
again, and tell himself whether it was possible for him to bring his
heart to agree to the marriage;--and then he would see the people,
and perhaps learn something further from their manner and their
words, before he finally committed himself to the abandonment of his
own hopes and the completion of theirs.

He went up to town, and I do not know that those vacant hours served
him much. To a man not accustomed to thinking there is nothing in
the world so difficult as to think. After some loose fashion we turn
over things in our mind and ultimately reach some decision, guided
probably by our feelings at the last moment rather than by any
process of ratiocination;--and then we think that we have thought.
But to follow out one argument to an end, and then to found on the
base so reached the commencement of another, is not common to us.
Such a process was hardly within the compass of Roger's mind,--who
when he was made wretched by the dust, and by a female who had a
basket of objectionable provisions opposite to him, almost forswore
his charitable resolutions of the day before; but who again, as he
walked lonely at night round the square which was near to his hotel,
looking up at the bright moon with a full appreciation of the beauty
of the heavens, asked himself what was he that he should wish to
interfere with the happiness of two human beings much younger than
himself, and much fitter to enjoy the world. But he had had a bath,
and had got rid of the dust, and had eaten his dinner.

The next morning he was in Welbeck Street at an early hour. When he
knocked he had not made up his mind whether he would ask for Lady
Carbury or her daughter, and did at last inquire whether "the ladies"
were at home. The ladies were reported as being at home, and he was
at once shown into the drawing-room, where Hetta was sitting. She
hurried up to him, and he at once took her in his arms and kissed
her. He had never done such a thing before. He had never even kissed
her hand. Though they were cousins and dear friends, he had never
treated her after that fashion. Her instinct told her immediately
that such a greeting from him was a sign of affectionate compliance
with her wishes. That this man should kiss her as her best and
dearest relation, as her most trusted friend, as almost her brother,
was certainly to her no offence. She could cling to him in fondest
love,--if he would only consent not to be her lover. "Oh, Roger, I am
so glad to see you," she said, escaping gently from his arms.

"I could not write an answer, and so I came."

"You always do the kindest thing that can be done."

"I don't know. I don't know that I can do anything now,--kind or
unkind. It is all done without any aid from me. Hetta, you have been
all the world to me."

"Do not reproach me," she said.

"No;--no. Why should I reproach you? You have committed no fault. I
should not have come had I intended to reproach any one."

"I love you so much for saying that."

"Let it be as you wish it,--if it must. I have made up my mind to
bear it, and there shall be an end of it." As he said this he took
her by the hand, and she put her head upon his shoulder and began to
weep. "And still you will be all the world to me," he continued, with
his arm round her waist. "As you will not be my wife, you shall be my
daughter."

"I will be your sister, Roger."

"My daughter rather. You shall be all that I have in the world. I
will hurry to grow old that I may feel for you as the old feel for
the young. And if you have a child, Hetta, he must be my child." As
he thus spoke her tears were renewed. "I have planned it all out in
my mind, dear. There! If there be anything that I can do to add to
your happiness, I will do it. You must believe this of me,--that to
make you happy shall be the only enjoyment of my life."

It had been hardly possible for her to tell him as yet that the
man to whom he was thus consenting to surrender her had not even
condescended to answer the letter in which she had told him to come
back to her. And now, sobbing as she was, overcome by the tenderness
of her cousin's affection, anxious to express her intense gratitude,
she did not know how first to mention the name of Paul Montague.
"Have you seen him?" she said in a whisper.

"Seen whom?"

"Mr. Montague."

"No;--why should I have seen him? It is not for his sake that I am
here."

"But you will be his friend?"

"Your husband shall certainly be my friend;--or, if not, the fault
shall not be mine. It shall all be forgotten, Hetta,--as nearly as
such things may be forgotten. But I had nothing to say to him till
I had seen you." At that moment the door was opened and Lady Carbury
entered the room, and, after her greeting with her cousin, looked
first at her daughter and then at Roger. "I have come up," said he,
"to signify my adhesion to this marriage." Lady Carbury's face fell
very low. "I need not speak again of what were my own wishes. I have
learned at last that it could not have been so."

"Why should you say so?" exclaimed Lady Carbury.

"Pray, pray, mamma--," Hetta began, but was unable to find words with
which to go on with her prayer.

"I do not know that it need be so at all," continued Lady Carbury. "I
think it is very much in your own hands. Of course it is not for me
to press such an arrangement, if it be not in accord with your own
wishes."

"I look upon her as engaged to marry Paul Montague," said Roger.

"Not at all," said Lady Carbury.

"Yes; mamma,--yes," cried Hetta boldly. "It is so. I am engaged to
him."

"I beg to let your cousin know that it is not so with my
consent,--nor, as far as I can understand at present, with the
consent of Mr. Montague himself."

"Mamma!"

"Paul Montague!" ejaculated Roger Carbury. "The consent of Paul
Montague! I think I may take upon myself to say that there can be no
doubt as to that."

"There has been a quarrel," said Lady Carbury.

"Surely he has not quarrelled with you, Hetta?"

"I wrote to him,--and he has not answered me," said Hetta piteously.

Then Lady Carbury gave a full and somewhat coloured account of what
had taken place, while Roger listened with admirable patience. "The
marriage is on every account objectionable," she said at last. "His
means are precarious. His conduct with regard to that woman has been
very bad. He has been sadly mixed up with that wretched man who
destroyed himself. And now, when Henrietta has written to him without
my sanction,--in opposition to my express commands,--he takes no
notice of her. She, very properly, sent him back a present that he
made her, and no doubt he has resented her doing so. I trust that his
resentment may be continued."

Hetta was now seated on a sofa hiding her face and weeping. Roger
stood perfectly still, listening with respectful silence till Lady
Carbury had spoken her last word. And even then he was slow to
answer, considering what he might best say. "I think I had better see
him," he replied. "If, as I imagine, he has not received my cousin's
letter, that matter will be set at rest. We must not take advantage
of such an accident as that. As to his income,--that I think may be
managed. His connection with Mr. Melmotte was unfortunate, but was
due to no fault of his." At this moment he could not but remember
Lady Carbury's great anxiety to be closely connected with Melmotte,
but he was too generous to say a word on that head. "I will see him,
Lady Carbury, and then I will come to you again."

Lady Carbury did not dare to tell him that she did not wish him to
see Paul Montague. She knew that if he really threw himself into
the scale against her, her opposition would weigh nothing. He was
too powerful in his honesty and greatness of character,--and had
been too often admitted by herself to be the guardian angel of the
family,--for her to stand against him. But she still thought that had
he persevered, Hetta would have become his wife.

It was late that evening before Roger found Paul Montague, who had
only then returned from Liverpool with Fisker,--whose subsequent
doings have been recorded somewhat out of their turn.

"I don't know what letter you mean," said Paul.

"You wrote to her?"

"Certainly I wrote to her. I wrote to her twice. My last letter was
one which I think she ought to have answered. She had accepted me,
and had given me a right to tell my own story when she unfortunately
heard from other sources the story of my journey to Lowestoft with
Mrs. Hurtle." Paul pleaded his own case with indignant heat, not
understanding at first that Roger had come to him on a friendly
mission.

"She did answer your letter."

"I have not had a line from her;--not a word!"

"She did answer your letter."

"What did she say to me?"

"Nay,--you must ask her that."

"But if she will not see me?"

"She will see you. I can tell you that. And I will tell you this
also;--that she wrote to you as a girl writes to the lover whom she
does wish to see."

"Is that true?" exclaimed Paul, jumping up.

"I am here especially to tell you that it is true. I should hardly
come on such a mission if there were a doubt. You may go to her, and
need have nothing to fear,--unless, indeed, it be the opposition of
her mother."

"She is stronger than her mother," said Paul.

"I think she is. And now I wish you to hear what I have to say."

"Of course," said Paul, sitting down suddenly. Up to this moment
Roger Carbury, though he had certainly brought glad tidings, had
not communicated them as a joyous, sympathetic messenger. His face
had been severe, and the tone of his voice almost harsh; and Paul,
remembering well the words of the last letter which his old friend
had written him, did not expect personal kindness. Roger would
probably say very disagreeable things to him, which he must bear with
all the patience which he could summon to his assistance.

"You know what my feelings have been," Roger began, "and how deeply
I have resented what I thought to be an interference with my
affections. But no quarrel between you and me, whatever the rights of
it may be--"

"I have never quarrelled with you," Paul began.

"If you will listen to me for a moment it will be better. No anger
between you and me, let it arise as it might, should be allowed to
interfere with the happiness of her whom I suppose we both love
better than all the rest of the world put together."

"I do," said Paul.

"And so do I;--and so I always shall. But she is to be your wife. She
shall be my daughter. She shall have my property,--or her child shall
be my heir. My house shall be her house,--if you and she will consent
to make it so. You will not be afraid of me. You know me, I think,
too well for that. You may now count on any assistance you could
have from me were I a father giving you a daughter in marriage. I do
this because I will make the happiness of her life the chief object
of mine. Now good night. Don't say anything about it at present.
By-and-by we shall be able to talk about these things with more
equable temper." Having so spoken he hurried out of the room, leaving
Paul Montague bewildered by the tidings which had been announced to
him.

CHAPTER XCIV.

JOHN CRUMB'S VICTORY.

In the meantime great preparations were going on down in Suffolk for
the marriage of that happiest of lovers, John Crumb. John Crumb had
been up to London, had been formally reconciled to Ruby,--who had
submitted to his floury embraces, not with the best grace in the
world, but still with a submission that had satisfied her future
husband,--had been intensely grateful to Mrs. Hurtle, and almost
munificent in liberality to Mrs. Pipkin, to whom he presented a
purple silk dress, in addition to the cloak which he had given on a
former occasion. During this visit he had expressed no anger against
Ruby, and no indignation in reference to the baronite. When informed
by Mrs. Pipkin, who hoped thereby to please him, that Sir Felix
was supposed to be still "all one mash of gore," he blandly smiled,
remarking that no man could be much the worse for a "few sich taps
as them." He only stayed a few hours in London, but during these few
hours he settled everything. When Mrs. Pipkin suggested that Ruby
should be married from her house, he winked his eye as he declined
the suggestion with thanks. Daniel Ruggles was old, and, under the
influence of continued gin and water, was becoming feeble. John Crumb
was of opinion that the old man should not be neglected, and hinted
that with a little care the five hundred pounds which had originally
been promised as Ruby's fortune, might at any rate be secured. He was
of opinion that the marriage should be celebrated in Suffolk,--the
feast being spread at Sheep's Acre farm, if Dan Ruggles could be
talked into giving it,--and if not, at his own house. When both the
ladies explained to him that this last proposition was not in strict
accordance with the habits of the fashionable world, John expressed
an opinion that, under the peculiar circumstances of his marriage,
the ordinary laws of the world might be suspended. "It ain't jist
like other folks, after all as we've been through," said he,--meaning
probably to imply that having had to fight for his wife, he was
entitled to give a breakfast on the occasion if he pleased. But
whether the banquet was to be given by the bride's grandfather or by
himself,--he was determined that there should be a banquet, and that
he would bid the guests. He invited both Mrs. Pipkin and Mrs. Hurtle,
and at last succeeded in inducing Mrs. Hurtle to promise that she
would bring Mrs. Pipkin down to Bungay, for the occasion.

Then it was necessary to fix the day, and for this purpose it was of
course essential that Ruby should be consulted. During the discussion
as to the feast and the bridegroom's entreaties that the two ladies
would be present, she had taken no part in the matter in hand. She
was brought up to be kissed, and having been duly kissed she retired
again among the children, having only expressed one wish of her
own,--namely, that Joe Mixet might not have anything to do with
the affair. But the day could not be fixed without her, and she
was summoned. Crumb had been absurdly impatient, proposing next
Tuesday,--making his proposition on a Friday. They could cook enough
meat for all Bungay to eat by Tuesday, and he was aware of no
other cause for delay. "That's out of the question," Ruby had said
decisively, and as the two elder ladies had supported her Mr. Crumb
yielded with a good grace. He did not himself appreciate the reasons
given because, as he remarked, gowns can be bought ready made at
any shop. But Mrs. Pipkin told him with a laugh that he didn't know
anything about it, and when the 14th of August was named he only
scratched his head and, muttering something about Thetford fair,
agreed that he would, yet once again, allow love to take precedence
of business. If Tuesday would have suited the ladies as well he
thought that he might have managed to combine the marriage and the
fair, but when Mrs. Pipkin told him that he must not interfere any
further, he yielded with a good grace. He merely remained in London
long enough to pay a friendly visit to the policeman who had locked
him up, and then returned to Suffolk, revolving in his mind how
glorious should be the matrimonial triumph which he had at last
achieved.

Before the day arrived, old Ruggles had been constrained to forgive
his granddaughter, and to give a general assent to the marriage. When
John Crumb, with a sound of many trumpets, informed all Bungay that
he had returned victorious from London, and that after all the ups
and downs of his courtship Ruby was to become his wife on a fixed
day, all Bungay took his part, and joined in a general attack upon
Mr. Daniel Ruggles. The cross-grained old man held out for a long
time, alleging that the girl was no better than she should be, and
that she had run away with the baronite. But this assertion was
met by so strong a torrent of contradiction, that the farmer was
absolutely driven out of his own convictions. It is to be feared that
many lies were told on Ruby's behalf by lips which had been quite
ready a fortnight since to take away her character. But it had become
an acknowledged fact in Bungay that John Crumb was ready at any hour
to punch the head of any man who should hint that Ruby Ruggles had,
at any period of her life, done any act or spoken any word unbecoming
a young lady; and so strong was the general belief in John Crumb,
that Ruby became the subject of general eulogy from all male lips
in the town. And though perhaps some slight suspicion of irregular
behaviour up in London might be whispered by the Bungay ladies among
themselves, still the feeling in favour of Mr. Crumb was so general,
and his constancy was so popular, that the grandfather could not
stand against it. "I don't see why I ain't to do as I likes with my
own," he said to Joe Mixet, the baker, who went out to Sheep's Acre
Farm as one of many deputations sent by the municipality of Bungay.

"She's your own flesh and blood, Mr. Ruggles," said the baker.

"No; she ain't;--no more than she's a Pipkin. She's taken up with
Mrs. Pipkin jist because I hate the Pipkinses. Let Mrs. Pipkin give
'em a breakfast."

"She is your own flesh and blood,--and your name, too, Mr. Ruggles.
And she's going to be the respectable wife of a respectable man, Mr.
Ruggles."

"I won't give 'em no breakfast;--that's flat," said the farmer.

But he had yielded in the main when he allowed himself to base his
opposition on one immaterial detail. The breakfast was to be given at
the King's Head, and, though it was acknowledged on all sides that no
authority could be found for such a practice, it was known that the
bill was to be paid by the bridegroom. Nor would Mr. Ruggles pay the
five hundred pounds down as in early days he had promised to do. He
was very clear in his mind that his undertaking on that head was
altogether cancelled by Ruby's departure from Sheep's Acre. When he
was reminded that he had nearly pulled his granddaughter's hair out
of her head, and had thus justified her act of rebellion, he did not
contradict the assertion, but implied that if Ruby did not choose to
earn her fortune on such terms as those, that was her fault. It was
not to be supposed that he was to give a girl, who was after all as
much a Pipkin as a Ruggles, five hundred pounds for nothing. But,
in return for that night's somewhat harsh treatment of Ruby, he did
at last consent to have the money settled upon John Crumb at his
death,--an arrangement which both the lawyer and Joe Mixet thought to
be almost as good as a free gift, being both of them aware that the
consumption of gin and water was on the increase. And he, moreover,
was persuaded to receive Mrs. Pipkin and Ruby at the farm for the
night previous to the marriage. This very necessary arrangement was
made by Mr. Mixet's mother, a most respectable old lady, who went
out in a fly from the inn attired in her best black silk gown and an
overpowering bonnet, an old lady from whom her son had inherited his
eloquence, who absolutely shamed the old man into compliance,--not,
however, till she had promised to send out the tea and white sugar
and box of biscuits which were thought to be necessary for Mrs.
Pipkin on the evening preceding the marriage. A private sitting-room
at the inn was secured for the special accommodation of Mrs.
Hurtle,--who was supposed to be a lady of too high standing to be
properly entertained at Sheep's Acre Farm.

On the day preceding the wedding one trouble for a moment clouded
the bridegroom's brow. Ruby had demanded that Joe Mixet should not
be among the performers, and John Crumb, with the urbanity of a
lover, had assented to her demand,--as far, at least, as silence
can give consent. And yet he felt himself unable to answer such
interrogatories as the parson might put to him without the assistance
of his friend, although he devoted much study to the matter. "You
could come in behind like, Joe, just as if I knew nothin' about it,"
suggested Crumb.

"Don't you say a word of me, and she won't say nothing, you may be
sure. You ain't going to give in to all her cantraps that way, John?"
John shook his head and rubbed the meal about on his forehead. "It
was only just something for her to say. What have I done that she
should object to me?"

"You didn't ever go for to--kiss her,--did you, Joe?"

"What a one'er you are! That wouldn't 'a set her again me. It is just
because I stood up and spoke for you like a man that night at Sheep's
Acre, when her mind was turned the other way. Don't you notice
nothing about it. When we're all in the church she won't go back
because Joe Mixet's there. I'll bet you a gallon, old fellow, she and
I are the best friends in Bungay before six months are gone."

"Nay, nay; she must have a better friend than thee, Joe, or I
must know the reason why." But John Crumb's heart was too big for
jealousy, and he agreed at last that Joe Mixet should be his best
man, undertaking to "square it all" with Ruby, after the ceremony.

He met the ladies at the station and,--for him,--was quite eloquent
in his welcome to Mrs. Hurtle and Mrs. Pipkin. To Ruby he said but
little. But he looked at her in her new hat, and generally bright in
subsidiary wedding garments, with great delight. "Ain't she bootiful
now?" he said aloud to Mrs. Hurtle on the platform, to the great
delight of half Bungay, who had accompanied him on the occasion.
Ruby, hearing her praises thus sung, made a fearful grimace as she
turned round to Mrs. Pipkin, and whispered to her aunt, so that those
only who were within a yard or two could hear her; "He is such a
fool!" Then he conducted Mrs. Hurtle in an omnibus up to the Inn, and
afterwards himself drove Mrs. Pipkin and Ruby out to Sheep's Acre;
in the performance of all which duties he was dressed in the green
cutaway coat with brass buttons which had been expressly made for his
marriage. "Thou'rt come back then, Ruby," said the old man.

"I ain't going to trouble you long, grandfather," said the girl.

"So best;--so best. And this is Mrs. Pipkin?"

"Yes, Mr. Ruggles; that's my name."