Chapter VI: Part 6

"Cowardly! Ha! ha! ha! Cowardly!" screamed the old man, catching at his stick. "You say that--you?"

As Fred strode towards him, the old man struck him with his cane, a sharp well-directed blow across the left ear, and, stung to madness by the pain, the tall strong man caught the frail-looking old beau by the throat and bore him back into a chair, holding him with one hand while his other was clenched and raised to strike.

Volume One, Chapter XXIII.

FATHER AND DAUGHTER.

"Strike! Kill me! Add parricide to your other crimes, dog, and set me free of this weary life," cried the old man wildly, as he glared in the fierce, distorted face of the sturdy soldier who held him back.

But it wanted not Claire's hand upon Fred Denville's arm to stay the blow. The passionate rage fled as swiftly as it had flashed up, and he tore himself away.

"You shouldn't have struck me," he cried in a voice full of anguish. "I couldn't master myself. You struck her--the best and truest girl who ever breathed; and I'd rather be what I am--scamp, drunkard, common soldier, and have struck you down, than you, who gave that poor girl a cowardly blow. Claire--my girl--God bless you! I can come here no more."

He caught her wildly in his arms, kissed her passionately, and then literally staggered out of the house, and they saw him reel by the window.

There was again a terrible silence in that room, where the old man, looking feeble and strange now, lay back in the chair where he had been thrown, staring wildly straight before him as Claire sank upon the carpet, burying her face in her hands and sobbing to herself.

"And this is home! And this is home!"

She tried to restrain her tears, but they burst forth with sobs more wild and uncontrolled; and at last they had their effect upon the old man, whose wild stare passed off, and, rising painfully in his seat, he glared at the door and shuddered.

"How dare he come!" he muttered. "How dare he touch her! How--"

He stopped as he turned his eyes upon where Claire crouched, as if he had suddenly become aware of her presence, and his face softened into a piteous yearning look as he stretched out his hands towards her, and then slowly rose to his feet.

"I struck her," he muttered, "I struck her. My child--my darling! I-- I--Claire--Claire--"

His voice was very low as he slowly sank upon his knees, and softly laid one hand upon her dress, raising it to his lips and kissing it with a curiously strange abasement in his manner.

Claire did not move nor seem to hear him, and he crept nearer to her and timidly laid his hand upon her head.

He snatched it away directly, and knelt there gazing at her wildly, for she shuddered, shrank from him, and, starting to her feet, backed towards the door with such a look of repulsion in her face that the old man clasped his hands together, and his lips parted as if to cry to her for mercy.

But no sound left them, and for a full minute they remained gazing the one at the other. Then, with a heartrending sob, Claire drew open the door and hurried from the room.

"What shall I do? What shall I do?" groaned Denville as he rose heavily to his feet. "It is too hard to bear. Better sleep--at once and for ever."

He sank into his chair with his hands clasped and his elbows resting upon his knees, and he bent lower and lower, as if borne down by the weight of his sorrow; and thus he remained as the minutes glided by, till, hearing a step at last, and the jingle of glass, he rose quickly, smoothed his care-marked face, and thrusting his hand into his breast, began to pace the room, catching up hat and stick, and half closing his eyes, as if in deep thought.

It was a good bit of acting, for when Isaac entered with a tray to lay the dinner cloth, and glanced quickly at his master, it was to see him calm and apparently buried in some plan, with not the slightest trace of domestic care upon his well-masked face.

"Mr Morton at home, Isaac?" he said, with a slightly-affected drawl.

"No, sir; been out hours."

"Not gone fishing, Isaac?"

"No, sir; I think Mr Morton's gone up to the barracks, sir. Said he should be back to dinner, sir."

"That is right, Isaac. That is right. I think I will go for a little promenade before dinner myself."

"He's a rum 'un," muttered the footman as he stood behind the curtain on one side of the window; "anyone would think we were all as happy as the day's long here, when all the time the place is chock full of horrors, and if I was to speak--"

Isaac did not finish his sentence, but remained watching the Master of the Ceremonies with his careful mincing step till he was out of sight, when the footman turned from the window to stand tapping the dining-table with his finger tips.

"If I was to go, there'd be a regular wreck, and I shouldn't get a penny of my back wages. If I stay, he may get them two well married, and then there'd be money in the house. Better stay. Lor', if people only knew all I could tell 'em about this house, and the scraping, and putting off bills, and the troubles with Miss May and the two boys, and--"

Isaac drew a long breath and turned rather white.

"I feel sometimes as if I ought to make a clean breast of it, but I don't like to. He isn't such a bad sort, when you come to know him, but that--ugh!"

He shuddered, and began to rattle the knives and forks upon the table, giving one a rub now and then on his shabby livery.

"It's a puzzler," he said, stopping short, after breathing in a glass, and giving it a rub with a cloth. "Some day, I suppose, there'll be a difference, and he'll be flush of money. I suppose he daren't start yet. Suppose I--No; that wouldn't do. He'll pay all the back, then, and I might--"

Isaac shuddered again, and muttered to himself in a very mysterious way. Then, all at once:

"Why, I might cry halves, and make him set me up for life. Why not? She was good as gone, and--"

He set down the glass, and wiped the dew that had gathered off his brow, looking whiter than before, for just then a memory had come into Isaac's mental vision--it was a horrible recollection of having been tempted to go and see the execution of a murderer at the county town, and this man's accomplice was executed a month later.

"Accomplice" was an ugly word that seemed to force itself into Isaac's mind, and he shook his head and hurriedly finished laying the cloth.

"Let him pay me my wages, all back arrears," he said. "Perhaps there is a way of selling a secret without being an accomplice, but I don't know, and--oh, I couldn't do it. It would kill that poor girl, who's about worried to death with the dreadful business, without there being anything else."

Volume One, Chapter XXIV.

PRESSED FOR MONEY.

As a rule, a tailor is one who will give unlimited credit so long as his client is a man of society, with expectations, and the maker of garments can charge his own prices; but Stuart Denville, Esq, MC, of Saltinville, paid a visit to his tailor to find that gentleman inexorable.

"No, Mr Denville, sir, it ain't to be done. I should be glad to fit out the young man, as he should be fitted out as a gentleman, sir; but there is bounds to everything."

"Exactly, my dear Mr Ping, but I can assure you that before long both his and my accounts shall be paid."

"No, sir, can't do it. I'm very busy, too. Why not try Crowder and Son?"

"My dee-ar Mr Ping--you'll pardon me? I ask you as a man, as an artist in your profession, could I see my son--my heir--a gentleman who I hope some day will make a brilliant match--a young man who is going at once into the best of society--could I now, Mr Ping, see that youth in a suit of clothes made by Crowder and Son? Refuse my appeal, if you please, my dear sir, but--you'll pardon me--do not add insult to the injury."

Mr Ping was mollified, and rubbed his hands softly. This was flattering: for Crowder and Son, according to his view of the case, did not deserve to be called tailors--certainly not gentlemen's tailors; but he remained firm.

"No, Mr Denville, sir, far be it from me to wish to insult you, sir, and I thank you for the amount of custom you've brought me. You can't say as I'm unfair."

"You'll pardon me, Mr Ping; I never did."

"Thank you, sir; but as I was a saying, you've had clothes of me, sir, for years, and you haven't paid me, sir, and I haven't grumbled, seeing as you've introduced me clients, but I can't start an account for Mr Denville, junior, sir, and I won't."

The MC took snuff, and rested first on one leg and then on the other; lastly, he held his head on one side and admired two or three velvet waistcoat pieces, so as to give Mr Ping time to repent. But Mr Ping did not want time to repent, and he would not have repented had the MC stayed an hour, and this the latter knew, but dared not resent, bowing himself out at last gracefully.

"Good-morning, Mr Ping, good-morning. I am sorry you--er--but no matter. Lovely day, is it not?"

"Lovely, sir. Good-morning--poor, penniless, proud, stuck-up, half-starved old dandy," muttered the prosperous tradesman, as he stood in his shirt-sleeves at the door, his grey hair all brushed forward into a fierce frise, and a yellow inch tape round his neck like an alderman's chain. "I wouldn't trust his boy a sixpence to save his life. Prospects, indeed. Fashion, indeed. I expect he'll have to 'list."

The MC went smiling and mincing along the parade, waving his cane jauntily, and passing his snuff-box into the other hand now and then to raise his hat to some one or another, till he turned up a side street, when, in the solitude of the empty way, he uttered a low groan, and his face changed.

"My God!" he muttered. "How long is this miserable degradation to last?"

He looked round sharply, as if in dread lest the emotion into which he had been betrayed should have been observed, but there was no one near.

"I must try Barclay. I dare not go to Frank Burnett, for poor May's sake."

A few minutes later he minced and rolled up to a large, heavy-looking mansion in a back street, where, beneath a great dingy portico, a grotesque satyr's head held a heavy knocker, and grinned at the visitor who made it sound upon the door.

"Hallo, Denville, you here?" said Mr Barclay, coming up from the street. "Didn't expect to see you. I've got the key: come in."

"A little bit of business, my dear sir. I thought I'd come on instead of writing. Thanks--you'll pardon me--a pinch of snuff--the Prince's own mixture."

"Ah yes." _Snuff, snuff, snuff_. "Don't like it though--too scented for me. Come along."

He led the way through a large, gloomy hall, well hung with large pictures and ornamented with pedestals and busts, up a broad, well-carpeted staircase and into the drawing-room of the house--a room, however, that looked more like a museum, so crowded was it with pictures, old china, clocks, statues, and bronzes. Huge vases, tiny Dresden ornaments, rich carpets, branches and lustres of cut-glass and ormolu, almost jostled each other, while the centre of the room was filled with lounges, chairs and tables, rich in buhl and marqueterie.

At a table covered with papers sat plump, pleasant-looking Mrs Barclay, in a very rich, stiff brocade silk. Her appearance was vulgar; there were too many rings upon her fat fingers, too much jewellery about her neck and throat; and her showy cap was a wonder of lace and ribbons; but Nature had set its stamp upon her countenance, and though she was holding her head on one side, pursing up her lips and frowning as she wrote in the big ledger-like book open before her, there was no mistaking the fact that she was a thoroughly good-hearted amiable soul.

"Oh, bless us, how you startled me!" she cried, throwing herself back, for the door had opened quietly, and steps were hardly heard upon the soft carpet. "Why, it's you, Mr Denville, looking as if you were just going to a ball. How are you? Not well? You look amiss. And how's Miss Claire? and pretty little Mrs Mayblossom--Mrs Burnett?"

"My daughters are well in the extreme, Mrs Barclay," said the MC, taking the lady's plump extended hand as she rose, to bend over it, and kiss the fingers with the most courtly grace. "And you, my dear madam, you?"

"Oh, she's well enough, Denville," said Barclay, chuckling. "Robust's the word for her."

"For shame, Jo-si-ah!" exclaimed the lady, reddening furiously. She had only blushed slightly before with pleasure; and after kicking back her stiff silk dress to make a profound curtsey. "You shouldn't say such things. Why, Mr Denville, I haven't seen you for ever so long; and I've meant to call on Miss Claire, for we always get on so well together; but I'm so busy, what with the servants, _and_ the dusting, _and_ the keeping the books, _and_ the exercise as I'm obliged to take--"

"And don't," said Barclay, placing a chair for the MC, and then sitting down and putting his hands in his pockets.

"For shame, Jo-si-ah. I do indeed, Mr Denville, and it do make me so hot."

"There, that'll do, old lady. Mr Denville wants to see me on business. Don't you, Denville?"

"Yes--on a trifle of business; but I know that Mrs Barclay is in your confidence. You'll pardon me, Mrs Barclay?"

A looker-on would have imagined that he was about to dance a minuet with the lady, but he delicately took her fingers by the very tip and led her back to her seat, into which she meant to glide gracefully, but plumped down in a very feather-beddy way, and then blushed and frowned.

"Oh, Mr Denville won't mind me; and him an old neighbour, too, as knows how I keep your books and everything. It isn't as if he was one of your wicked bucks, and bloods, and macaronies as they calls 'em."

"Now, when you've done talking, woman, perhaps you'll let Denville speak."

"Jo-si-ah!" exclaimed the lady, reddening, or to speak more correctly, growing more red, as she raised a large fan, which hung by a silken cord, and used it furiously.

"Now then, Denville, what is it?" said Barclay, throwing himself back in his chair, and looking the extreme of vulgarity beside the visitor's refinement.

"You'll pardon me, Mr Barclay?" said the MC, bowing. "Thanks. The fact is, my dear Barclay, the time has arrived when I must launch my son Morton upon the stream of the fashionable world."

"Mean to marry him well?" said Barclay, smiling.

"Exactly. Yes. You'll pardon me."

He took snuff in a slow, deliberate, and studied mode that Mrs Barclay watched attentively, declaring afterwards that it was as good as a play, while her husband also took his pinch from his own box, but in a loud, rough, frill-browning way.

"I have high hopes and admirable prospects opening out before him, my dear Barclay. Fortune seems to have marked him for her own, and to have begun to smile."

"Fickle jade, sir; fickle jade."

"At times--you'll pardon me. At times. Let us enjoy her smiles while we can. And now, my dear Barclay, that I wish to launch him handsomely and well--to add to his natural advantages the little touches of dress, a cane and snuff-box, and such trifles--I find, through the absence of so many fashionable visitors affecting my fees, I am troubled, inconvenienced for the want of a few guineas, and--er--it is very ridiculous--er--really I did not know whom to ask, till it occurred to me that you, my dear sir, would oblige me with, say, forty or fifty upon my note of hand."

"Couldn't do it, sir. Haven't the money. Couldn't."

"Don't talk such stuff, Jo-si-ah," exclaimed Mrs Barclay, fanning herself sharply, and making a sausage-like curl wabble to and fro, and her ribbons flutter. "You can if you like."

"Woman!" he exclaimed furiously.

"Oh, I don't mind you saying `woman,'" retorted the lady. "Telling such wicked fibs, and to an old neighbour too. If it had been that nasty, sneering, snickle dandy, Sir Harry Payne, or that big, pompous, dressed-up Sir Matthew Bray, you'd have lent them money directly. I'm ashamed of you."

"Will you allow me to carry on my business in my own way, madam?"

"Yes, when it's with nobodies; but I won't sit by and hear you tell our old neighbour, who wants a bit of help, that you couldn't do it, and that you haven't the money, when anybody can see it sticking out in lumps in both of your breeches' pockets, if they like to look."

"'Pon my soul, woman," said Barclay, banging his fist down upon the table, "you're enough to drive a man mad. Denville, that woman will ruin me."

Mrs Barclay shut up her fan and sat back in her chair, and there was a curious kind of palpitating throbbing perceptible all over her that was almost startling at first till her face broke up in dimples, and the red lips parted, showing her white teeth, while her eyes half-closed. For Mrs Barclay was laughing heartily.

"Ruin him, Mr Denville, ruin him!" she cried. "Ha, ha, ha, and me knowing that--"

"Woman, will you hold your tongue?" thundered Barclay. "There, don't take any notice of what I said, Denville. I've been put out this morning and money's scarce. You owe me sixty now and interest, besides two years' rent."

"I do--I do, my dear sir; but really, my dear Barclay, I intend to repay you every guinea."

"He's going to lend it to you, Mr Denville," said Mrs Barclay. "It's only his way. He always tells people he hasn't any money, and that he has to get it from his friend in the City."

"Be quiet, woman," said Barclay, smiling grimly. "There, I'll let you have it, Denville. Make a memorandum of it, my gal. Let's see: how much do you want? Twenty-five will do, I suppose?"

"My dear friend--you'll pardon me--if you could make it fifty you would confer a lasting obligation upon me. I have great hopes, indeed."

"Fifty? It's a great deal of money, Denville."

"Lend him the fifty, Josiah, and don't make so much fuss about it," said the lady, opening the ledger, after drawing her chair to the table, taking a dip of ink, and writing rapidly in a round, clear hand. "Got a stamp?"

"Yes," said Barclay, taking a large well-worn pocket-book from his breast, and separating one from quite a quire. "Fill it up. Two months after date, Denville?"

"You'll pardon me."

"What's the use of doing a neighbour a good turn," said Mrs Barclay, filling up the slip of blue paper in the most business-like manner, "and spoiling it by being so tight. `Six months--after--date--interest--at-- five--per--centum'--there."

Mrs Barclay put her quill pen across her mouth, and, turning the bill stamp over, gave it a couple of vigorous rubs on the blotting-paper before handing it to her husband, who ran his eye over it quickly.

"Why, you've put five per cent, _per annum_," he cried. "Here, fill up another. Five per cent."

"Stuff!" said Mrs Barclay stoutly; "are you going to charge the poor man sixty per cent? I shan't fill up another. Here, you sign this, Mr Denville. Give the poor man his money, Josiah."

"Well," exclaimed Barclay, taking a cash-box from a drawer and opening it with a good deal of noise, "if ever man was cursed with a tyrant for a wife--"

"It isn't you. There!" cried Mrs Barclay, taking the bill which the visitor had duly signed, and placing it in a case along with some of its kin.

"There you are, Denville," said Barclay, counting out the money in notes, "and if you go and tell people what a fool I am, I shall have to leave the town."

"Not while I live, Mr Barclay," said the MC, taking the notes carefully, but with an air of indolent carelessness and grace, as if they were of no account to such a man as he. "Sir, I thank you from my very heart. You have done me a most kindly action. Mrs Barclay, I thank you. My daughter shall thank you for this. You'll pardon me. My visit is rather short. But business. Mr Barclay, good-day. I shall not forget this. Mrs Barclay, your humble servant."

He took the hand she held out by the tips of the fingers, and bent over it to kiss them with the most delicate of touches; but somehow, just then there seemed to be a catch in his breath, and he pressed his lips firmly on the soft, fat hand.

"God bless you!" he said huskily, and he turned and left the room.

"Poor man!" said Mrs Barclay after a few moments' pause, as she and her lord listened to the descending steps, and heard the front door close. "Why, look here, Josiah, at my hand, if it ain't a tear."

"Tchah! an old impostor and sham. Wipe it off, woman, wipe it off. Kissing your hand, too, like that, before my very face."

"No, Jo-si-ah, I don't believe he's a bad one under all his sham and fuss. Folks don't know folkses' insides. They say you are about the hard-heartedest old money-lender that ever breathed, but they don't know you as I do. There, it was very good of you to let him have it, poor old man. I knew you would."

"I've thrown fifty pounds slap into the gutter."

"No, you haven't, dear; you've lent it to that poor old fellow, and you've just pleased me a deal better than if you'd given me a diamond ring, and that's for it, and more to come."

As she spoke she threw one plump arm round the money-lender's neck, and there was a sound in the room as of a smack.

Volume One, Chapter XXV.

A REVELATION.

"Oh, May, May! As if I had not care and pain enough without this. Surely it cannot be true."

"Hush! don't make a fuss like that, you silly thing. You'll have the people hearing you down in the street. How could I help it?"

"Help it? May, you must have been mad."

"Oh! no, I wasn't," said Mrs Burnett, nestling into a corner of the couch in her father's drawing-room. "I believe he was, though, poor fellow."

She gazed up at her portrait with her pretty girlish face wrinkling up, and these wrinkles seeming to have had work to get the better of the dimples in her baby cheeks and chin.

"He was dreadfully fond of me, Claire," she continued, "and I was very fond of him. And then, you see, we were both so young."

Claire clasped her hands together and gazed at her sister with a face full of wonder, she seemed so calm and unconcerned, as if it were some one else's trouble and not her own that had brought the tears into her eyes.

"But, May, why did not you confide in me?"

"Likely! You were always scolding and snubbing me, as it was. I don't know what you would have said if you had known. Besides, I was afraid of you in those days."

"May, you will drive me mad," said Claire, pacing the room.

"Nonsense; and don't go on running up and down the room like that. Be sensible, and help me."

"Why have you not told me before?"

"I've been going to tell you heaps of times, but you've always had something or other to worry about, and I've been put off."

"Till you knew that detection was inevitable; and now you come to me," cried Claire reproachfully.

"Look here, Claire, are you going to talk sensibly, or am I to go to some lady friend to help me? There's Mrs Pontardent."

"No, no," cried Claire excitedly. "You must not take anyone else into your confidence. Tell me all. But May, May, is this really true, or is it some miserable invention of your own?"

"Oh, it's true enough," said May sharply, as she arranged her bonnet strings, and bent forward to catch a glimpse of her great ostrich feather.

Claire looked at her with her face drawn with care and horror, while she wondered at the indifference of the little wife, and the easy way in which she was trying to shift the trouble and responsibility of her weakness and folly upon her sister.

"Why, May, you could not have been seventeen."

"Sixteen and a half," said May. "Heigho! I begin to feel quite an old woman now."

"But, Frank? Do you ever think of the consequences if he were to know?"

"Why, of course I do, you silly thing. Haven't I lain in bed and quaked hundreds of times for fear he should ever find out? How can you talk so? Why do you suppose I came to you, if it was not that I was afraid of his getting to know?"

"May, it would drive our father mad if all came out."

"Of course it would. Now you are beginning to wake up and understand why I have come."

"How could you accept Frank Burnett, and deceive him so?"

"How could I marry him? What would papa have said if I had refused? Don't talk stuff."

Claire's brow knit more and more, as she realised her sister's utter want of principle, and her heart seemed rent by anger, pity, and grief.

"Besides, do you suppose I wanted to stop here and pinch and starve when a rich husband and home were waiting for _me_? Poor Louis was dead, and if I'd cried my eyes out every week and said I'd be a widow for ever and ever, it would not have brought him to life."

Claire did not speak. Her words would not come, and she gazed in utter perplexity, struggling to realise the fact that the girlish little thing before her could possibly have been a widow and mother before she became Mrs Burnett.

"When--when did this begin?" said Claire at last.

"Now, don't talk to me like that, Claire, or you'll set me off crying my eyes blind, and I shall go home red and miserable, and Frank will find it all out."

"He must be told."

"Told?" cried May, starting up. "Told? If he is told, I'll go right down to the end of the pier and drown myself. He must never know, and papa must never know. Do you think I've kept this a secret for more than two years for them to be told?"

"They will be sure to know."

"Yes, if you tell them. Oh, Claire, Claire, I did think I could find help in my sister, now that I am in such terrible trouble."

"I will help you all I can, May," said Claire sadly; "but they must know."

"I tell you they must not," cried May angrily, and speaking like a spoiled child. "Frank would kill me, and as for poor, dear, darling papa, with all his troubles about getting you married and Morton settled, and Fred turning out so badly, it would kill him, and then you'd have a nice time of it, far worse than poor old mummy Teigne being killed."

"Oh, hush, May!" said Claire, with a horrified look.

"That moves you, does it, miss? Well, then, be reasonable. I don't know what to make of you of late, Claire; you seem to be so changed. Ah, you'll find the difference when you're a married woman."

Claire gazed down at her, with the trouble and perplexity seeming to increase, while May Burnett arranged the folds of her dress, as she once more nestled in the corner of the old sofa, and seemed as if she were posing herself to be pitied and helped.

Then she lifted her eyes towards the florid portrait on the wall, and sighed.

"Poor Louis! How he did flatter me. But he always did that, and I suppose it was his flattering words made me love him so. I was very fond of him."

"May," said Claire excitedly, "when was it you were married?"

"Oh, it was such fun. It was while I was staying at Aunt Jerdein's, and taking the music lessons. I went out as usual, to go to Golden Square for my lesson as aunt thought, and Louis was waiting for me, and he took me in a hackney coach with straw at the bottom and mouldy old cushions, and one of the windows broken. And we went to such a queer old church somewhere in the city, and were married--a little old church that smelt as mouldy as the hackney coach; and the funny old clergyman took snuff all over his surplice, and he did mumble so."

"And then?"

"Oh, Louis left Saltinville, you know, when I went up to London, and gave lessons at Aunt Jerdein's, and we used to see as much of each other as we could, till he had to go back to Rome, and there, poor boy, you know he died of fever."

Claire did not speak, but stood with her hands clasped before her, listening to the calm, cool, selfish words that seemed to come rippling out from the prettily-curved mouth as if it were one of the simplest and most matter-of-fact things in the world.

"It was a great trouble to me, of course, dear," May continued; and she raised herself a little, to spread her handsome dress, so that it should fall in graceful folds. "I used to cry my eyes out, and I don't know what I should have done if it had not been for Anne Brown."

"Anne Brown? Aunt Jerdein's servant?" said Claire bitterly. "You trusted her, then, in preference to your own sister."

"No, I didn't, baby. She found me out. And besides, I daren't have told you. How you would have scolded me, you know," continued May. "Anne was very good to me, and I went and stayed with her mother when baby was born, and then Anne left aunt soon after. Aunt thought, you know, that I'd come down home, and, of course, you all thought I was still at aunt's. Anne Brown managed about the letters."

"Go on," said Claire, who listened as if this were all some horrible fiction that she was forced to hear.

"Then I did come home, and Anne Brown took care of poor baby with her mother, and it was terribly hard work to get money to send them, but somehow I did it; and then you know about Frank Burnett, how poor dear papa brought all that on."

Claire uttered a sigh that was almost a groan, but the pretty little rosebud of a wife went prattling on, in selfish ignorance of the agony she was inflicting, dividing her attention between her dress and the picture of herself that was smiling down at her from the wall.

"I suffered very much all that time, Claire dear, and, whenever I could, I used to go upstairs, lock myself in my room, and put on a little widow's cap I had--a very small one, dear, of white crape--and have a good cry about poor Louis. It was the only mourning I ever could wear for him, and it was nearly always locked up in the bottom drawer; but I used to carry a bit of black crape in my dress pocket, and touch that now and then. It was a little strip put through my wedding ring and tied in a knot. There it is," she said, fishing it out of her dress pocket; "but the strip of crape only looks like a bit of black rag now."

She held out a tiny, plain gold ring for her sister to see, and it looked so small that it seemed as if it had been used sometime when a little girl had been playing at being married with some little boy, or at one of the child weddings that history records.

"Poor Louis!" sighed May. "I was very fond of him. Then, when I was married again, of course I was able to send money up every week easily enough till Frank began to grow so stingy, when I've often had no end of trouble to get it together. But I always have managed somehow. Oh, dear me! This is a wearisome place, this world."

Claire stood gazing down at her, and May went on:

"Then all went smoothly enough till that stupid Anne's mother took a cold or something, and died; then Anne sent me word that she was going to be married, and I must fetch poor baby away."

The sisters' eyes now met as May continued:

"So, as I didn't know anyone else, I went to Mrs Miggles out there on the cliff, and told her how I was situated. She wouldn't help me at first. She said I was to tell you; but when I told her I dared not, and promised her I'd pay her very regularly, she came round, and she went up to London by the coach and fetched baby, and a great expense it was to me, for she had to come back inside. Do open the window, Claire; this room is stifling."

Claire slowly crossed the room and threw open the window and then returned to stand gazing at her sister.

"And your little innocent child is there at that fisherman's hut on the cliff?"

"Yes, dear," said May calmly; and then, for the first time, her face lit up, and she showed some trace of feeling as she exclaimed:

"And, oh, Claire dear, she is such a little darling."

Claire looked at her in a strangely impassive way. It was as if the story she had heard of her sister's weakness and deception had stunned her, and, instead of looking at her, she gazed right away with wistful eyes at the past troubles culminating in Fred's enlistment, and then that horror, the very thought of which sent a shudder through her frame.

And now this new trouble had come, one that might prove a terrible disgrace, while the future looked so black that she dared not turn her mental gaze in that direction.

"Well," said May, at last, "why don't you speak--though you need not, if you are only going to scold."

"Why have you come to tell me this now--this disgraceful story of deceit and shame?"

"Do you wish to send me back broken-hearted, Claire--crying my eyes out so that Frank is sure to know?"

"I say, why have you come to me, May?"

"Because I am in dreadful trouble at last, and don't know what to do. I daren't communicate with those people or go near the cottage, for I'm sure Frank is watching me and suspecting something."

"You will have to confess everything, May; he loves you and will forgive you."

"But he doesn't love me, and he never would forgive me," cried May excitedly. "You can't think how we quarrel. He's a horribly jealous little monster, and I hate him."

"May!"

"I don't care: I do. Now, look here, Claire, it's of no use for you to boggle about it, because you must help me. If it were to come out it would be social ruin for us all, and I've had quite enough poverty, thank you. I dare not go and see the little thing again, and if some one does not take the Miggleses some money regularly, likely as not they'll turn disagreeable and begin to talk. I shall bring you money, of course, and as some one must go and see that my poor darling is properly cared for, why you must."

"I?"

"Yes, dear, you. The poor little thing shall not be neglected, I'm determined upon that; and as my situation prevents me, why it is your duty, Claire."

"Who knows that this is your little girl, May?" said Claire coldly.

"Nobody."

"Not even the fisherman's wife?"

"Well, I dare say she thinks something; but those people never say anything so long as you pay them regularly. But there, I dare not stay any longer. There's a guinea, Claire; it's all I have to-day. Take that to Mrs Miggles, and see how the darling is. I must be off. I'll come in to-morrow and hear."

"May, I cannot--I dare not--try to cloak this shameful story."

"But you must, I tell you. Now, don't be so silly. Why, I'd do as much for you."

"I tell you I dare not do this. I must tell papa--or, there, I'll be your help in this; I'll come with you, and you shall confess to Frank."

"Why, he'd kill me. I know it has been a surprise to you, and you are a bit taken aback, but think about it, and you will see that it is your duty to help me now. Good-bye, Claire dear," she continued, as she kissed her sister. "Nobody knows anything about this but you, and it is our secret, mind. Good-bye."

Claire hardly heard the door close as May rustled out of the room, hot and excited by the confidence she had had to make, but evidently quite at her ease, as her bright eyes and smile showed, when she looked up from her carriage and nodded at her sister.

Claire looked down at her, drawn involuntarily to the window; and as the carriage drove off, and she still remained gazing straight before her, an officer passed and raised his hat.

Claire had an instinctive feeling that it was Major Rockley, but she neither looked nor moved, for the face of a tiny child seemed to be looking up at her, smiling, and asking her sympathy.

Then she started into life as there was another footstep on the boulder path, and another hat was raised, and an eager appealing look met hers, making her shrink hastily away, with her erst blank face growing agitated as she drew back trembling and fighting hard to keep down the sobs that rose.

For all that was past now for her. With the secrets she had held within her breast before, how dared she to think of his love? Now there was another--a secret so fraught with future trouble that she hardly dared dwell upon all that she had heard. It had come upon her that morning like a thunderclap--this new trouble, known only to herself and the fisherman's wife. So May had said: for she had gone to her sister to demand her aid in happy ignorance of this part of her miserable story being known, beside much more, to little library-keeping Miss Clode.

Volume One, Chapter XXVI.

THE MONEY-LENDER AT HOME.

"Who is it?"

"It's that Major Rockley, Jo-si-ah, and he's walking up and down, switching his riding-whip about, and he'll be knocking down some of the chimney if you don't make haste."

"Let him wait a minute," said Barclay, finishing a letter.

"I do 'ate that man, Jo-si-ah--that I do," said Mrs Barclay.

"I wish you wouldn't talk so, old lady, when I'm writing."

"I can't help it, Jo-si-ah. That man, whenever I meet him, makes me begin to boil. So smooth, and polite, and smiling, and squeeze-your-handy, while all the while he's laughing at you for being so fat."

"Laughing at me for being so fat?"

"No, no. You know what I mean--laughing at me myself for being so fat. I 'ate him."

"Well, I don't want you to love him, old lady."

"I should think not, indeed, with his nasty dark eyes and his long black mustarchers. Ugh! the monster. I 'ate him."

"Handsomest man in Saltinville, my dear."

"Handsome is as handsome does, Jo-si-ah. He's a black-hearted one, if ever there was one, I know."

"Now, you don't know anything of the kind, old girl."

"Oh, yes, I do, Jo-si-ah. I always feel it whenever he comes anigh one, and if I had a child of my own, and that man had come and wanted to marry her, I'd have cut her up in little pieces and scattered them all about the garden first."

"Well, then, I suppose I ought to be very, very glad that we never had any little ones, for, though I should be very glad to get rid of you--"

"No, you wouldn't, Jo-si-ah," said Mrs Barclay, showing her white teeth.

"Yes, I should, but I shouldn't have liked to see you hung for murder."

"Don't talk like that, Jo-si-ah. It gives me the shivers. That word makes me think about old Lady Teigne, and not being safe in my bed."

"Stuff and nonsense!"

"It isn't stuff and nonsense, Jo-si-ah. I declare, ever since that dreadful affair, I never see a bolster without turning cold all down my back; and I feel as if it wasn't safe to put my head upon my pillow of a night. There: he's ringing because you're so long."

"Then I shall be longer," growled Barclay, putting a wafer in his mouth.

"How that poor Claire Denville can stop in that house of a night I don't know."

"Ah, that puts me in mind of something: I wish you wouldn't be so fond of that Claire Denville."

"Why not? I must be fond of somebody."

"Be fond of me, then, I'm ugly enough."

"So I am fond of you, Jo-si-ah, and you are not ugly, and I should like to hear anyone say you were to my face."

"I don't like that Denville lot."

"No more do I, Jo-si-ah, only poor dear Claire. Her father ain't bad, but she's as good as gold."

"I don't know so much about that," muttered Barclay.

"And now, Jo-si-ah, just you be careful with that Major Rockley. He owes you a lot now."

"Yes, but I've got him tight enough."

"And if you let him have more you get him tighter. He's a bold, bad man, always gambling and drinking, and doing worse."

"Oh, I'm very fond of him, old lady," said Barclay, chuckling. "I love him like a son, and--there he is again. I must go now."

It was only into the next room, but there were double doors, and as Barclay entered the Major's countenance did not look at all handsome, but very black and forbidding.

"Come, Barclay," he cried, with a smile; "I thought you were going to put me off. Here, I've been hard hit again. I'm as poor as Job, and I must have a hundred."

For answer Barclay shrugged his shoulders, took out a fat pocket-book, and began to draw out the tuck.

"Put that away," cried the Major impatiently; and he gave the book a flick with his riding-whip, but not without cutting right across Barclay's fingers, and making a red mark.

The money-lender did not even wince, but he mentally made a mark against his client's name, intimating that the cut would have to be paid for some day or another.

"I know all about that. I've had five hundred of you during the past two months. Never mind that; the luck must turn sometime. Cards have been dead against me lately. That Mellersh has the most extraordinary luck; but I shall have him yet, and we'll soon be square again. Come, I want a hundred."

"When?"

"Now, man, now."

"Can't be done, Major, really."

"Don't talk nonsense, man. I tell you I must have it."

"Your paper's getting bad, Major. Too much of it in the market."

"Look here, Barclay; do you want to insult me?"

"Not I, sir; never thought of such a thing."

"Then what do you mean?"

"I mean? Only that you've had five hundred pounds of my money during these last three months."

"For which you hold bills for seven hundred and fifty."

"You put down five hundred pounds now in Bank of England notes, Major Rockley, and you shall have the lot."

"Then you do mean to insult me, sir?"

"No, Major."

"What do you mean, then?"

"Only that I won't part with another five-pound note till I get some of that money back."

Major Rockley's dark brows came down over his eyes as he glared at Barclay with a peculiarly vindictive expression, while the money-lender thrust his hands deep down into his drab breeches' pockets, and whistled softly.

"I shall not forget this, Barclay," he said slowly, and, turning upon his heels, he walked out of the place beating his boot viciously with his whip.

"Oh, the monster!" cried Mrs Barclay, entering the room.

"Why, you've been listening."

"Well, didn't you leave the door open on purpose for me to listen, Jo-si-ah? Oh, what a bad, evil-looking man, Jo-si-ah. I believe he wouldn't stop at anything to get money from you now."

"Black mask and a pair of pistols, on a dark night in a country road, eh, old lady? Stand and deliver; money or your life, eh?"

"Well, you may laugh, Jo-si-ah; but he looks just the sort of man who wouldn't stop at anything. I am glad you wouldn't let him have any money, for I'm sure you'd never get it back."

"I don't know so much about that, old lady, but whether or no, I wasn't going to let him have any this morning. He has been short lately, and no mistake. Some one I know's making a nice thing out of them at the mess."

"Colonel Mellersh?"

"Mum!"

"Oh, there's no one to hear us now. But, I say, Jo-si-ah, why is he so friendly with Miss Clode?"

"Because she sells packs of cards, old girl."

"Ah, but there's something more than that. I went in there one day, and he had hold of her hand across the counter; and I could see, though she turned it off, that she had been crying."

"Asking her to wed, and let him succeed to the business," said Barclay, with a chuckle.

"Don't talk nonsense, Jo-si-ah. I wish I had a good, clear head like you, and was as clever, and then perhaps I could make this out."

"What?"

"About Miss Clode. I'm sure she has seen better days."

"That she has," said Barclay, chuckling. "She looks pretty shabby now, a newsy, gossiping old hag!"

"I don't dislike Miss Clode," said Mrs Barclay thoughtfully. "There's much worse in Saltinville."

"I dare say," he said, laughing. "I've only one thing against her."

"What's that?"

"She hates poor Claire Denville like poison."

Volume One, Chapter XXVII.

FISHERMAN DICK STARES.

Major Rockley had counted upon getting a hundred pounds from Barclay, and the refusal annoyed him to so great an extent that he determined upon having a sharp walk to calm himself. So setting off at a good rate towards the main cliff to reach the downs beyond the town, he had not gone far before he saw a graceful figure, in a white dress, with black scarf and plain straw bonnet going in the same direction.

"Claire Denville as I'm a sinner!" he cried, his pale cheeks flushing, and a curious light shining in his dark eyes.

"Yes, without doubt," he muttered. "Off for a walk to the downs. Lucky accident. At last!"

He checked himself, walking slowly, so as not to overtake her until she was well out of the town, and thinking that perhaps it would be as well to keep back until she turned, and then meet her face to face.

"The jade! How she has kept me at a distance. Refused my notes, and coquetted with me to make me more eager for the pursuit. The old man's lessons have not been thrown away. I'm to approach in due form, I suppose. Well, we shall see."

Claire went straight on, walking pretty quickly, and without turning her head to right or left. The streets were left behind; the row of houses facing the sea had come to an end; and she was getting amongst the fishermen's cottages, while below the cliff the fishing boats were drawn high up on the shingle, and long, brown filmy nets spread out to dry, looking like square shadows cast by invisible sails, and mingled with piles of tarred barrels, lobster baskets, and brown ropes, bladders and corks.

Every here and there, on the railing at the cliff edge, hung oilskins to soften in the sunshine, and in one place a giant appeared to be sitting astride the rail, with nothing to be seen of him but a huge pair of boots. Farther on fish were drying in the air, and farther still there came up a filmy cloud of grey smoke from the shingle, along with a pleasant smell of Stockholm tar, for Fisherman Dick was busy paying the bottom of a boat turned upside down below the cliff.

These matters did not interest Major Rockley any more than the grey gulls that wheeled overhead and descended, to drop with a querulous cry upon a low spit of shingle where the sea was retiring fast.

For the fluttering white dress took up all his attention, and now that they were well beyond the promenaders, he was about to hasten his steps--too impatient to wait until she turned--when he uttered an impatient oath, for Claire suddenly stopped by a cottage where a woman was sitting knitting a coarse blue garment and nursing a little child.

It was all so sudden that it took the officer by surprise. The woman jumped up hastily on being spoken to, and curtseyed, and they went in at once, leaving the Major by the rails.

"Well, I can wait," he said, smiling and taking out his cigar-case. "I can study the tarring of boats till her ladyship appears."

He slowly chose and lit a cigar, and then, going close to the edge of the cliff, leaned upon the rails and gazed down at Fisherman Dick, who was working away busily, dipping his brush in a little three-legged iron pot, and carefully spreading the dark-brown odorous tar.

He was about forty feet below the Major, and for some time he went on steadily with his work, but all at once he stopped short, and turned his face upwards as if he felt that he was being watched; and as he did so his straw hat fell off and he stood fixed by the Major's eyes as if unable to move.

The sensation was mutual, for Major Rockley felt attracted by the dark, Spanish-looking face, and the keen eyes so intently fixed upon his.

"Confound the fellow! how he stares," said the Major, at last, as he seemed to wrench himself away, and turned his back.

As he did so, leaning against the rail, Dick Miggles drew a long breath, stared now at his iron tar-kettle, and carried it to the fire of old wreck-wood to re-heat it, as he stood by and thoughtfully scratched his head.

He looked up for a moment, and saw that the Major's back was towards him, and then bent over his kettle again, and began pushing half-burned scraps of wood beneath, making the fire roar and the pitch heat quickly, and he did not look up again till the Major had walked away, when he began to brush again at the boat as if relieved, ending by giving one leg a tremendous slap, and stopping short as if to think.

The Major had some time to wait, and he passed a good deal of it walking up and down, as if watching a sail in the offing, till fortune favoured him; so that as he was approaching the cottage again, Claire came out quickly, and, seeing him, started and turned to walk in the other direction, out on the downs and round by the London Road into the town.

She repented on the instant, and wished that she had faced him boldly and passed on. But she was excited and confused by her visit, which had to her a curious suggestion of wrong-doing in it; and she was leaving the place, feeling agitated and guilty, when, seeing the Major, she had turned sharply to walk on, trembling, and hoping that he had not seen her. The hope died out on the instant, for she heard his steps, with the soft _clink, clink_ of the rowels of his spurs; but he kept his distance till they were well beyond the cottages, and then rapidly closed up.

What would he think of her visit there? What would he say? were the questions Claire asked herself as she walked rapidly on to reach the stile that bounded the cornfield she would have to turn into and cross to get into the London Road; and all the time, _clink, clink--clink, clink_, those spurs rang on her ears, and came nearer and nearer.