Chapter XIII: (viewed by Henry W. Lucy.) (1)

[Sidenote: THE EMPTY SEAT.]

The new Session is already fairly advanced, and in some sense it is sad to reflect that business goes forward very much as if Mr. Gladstone were still in his place by the brass-bound box. It seemed when the first announcement of his retirement was made that the House of Commons could scarcely survive the withdrawal. There is not a man in the House to-day who remembers the place when Mr. Gladstone was not a prominent figure in it. It is true Mr. Villiers, having continuously sat since he was first elected for Wolverhampton in 1835, is known as "The Father of the House." But in a Parliamentary sense Mr. Gladstone was born before his father, seeing that he took his seat for Newark in the year 1832. Moreover, whilst Mr. Villiers, literally bent under the weight of his more than ninety years, has long withdrawn from regular attendance on Parliamentary duties, Mr. Gladstone was, up to the end of last Session, daily in his place, actively directing affairs and ready at a moment's notice to deliver a speech which, standing alone, would make a Parliamentary reputation.

[Sidenote: LISTENING.]

Up to the last his passion for Parliamentary life was overmastering. He was, probably, never so happy as when seated in the House following a debate. Some speeches, to others unbearably blank of interest, were to him irresistibly attractive. During the last Parliament he, in deference to an undertaking extorted by Sir Andrew Clark, promised to limit his regular attendance on debate up to a point marked by the dinner-hour, not returning save upon exceptional occasions. He made up for restraint of opportunity by exacting use of the measure provided. Often between seven and eight o'clock, when the House was almost empty and some unimportant, unattractive member found his chance, he had among his scanty audience the Prime Minister, sitting with hand to ear, apparently entranced. During the interminable Home Rule debates, Mr. Gladstone formed a habit, at which less excitable members used to smile, of moving to the gangway-end of the Treasury Bench, sitting there by the hour eagerly listening to a member whose measure of attraction for ordinary men was indicated by the emptiness of the benches. When in Opposition he carried this habit a step further, occasionally seating himself below the gangway the better to hear an Irish member.

[Sidenote: THE UNDERTAKER.]

Although immersed in affairs of State, Mr. Gladstone had that intimate personal knowledge of the House of Commons which seems more natural among the gossips in the smoke-room. He knew every man above the level of the absolutely silent members, and had formed a keen and well-defined judgment of their qualities. He was always on the look-out for promising young men among his own party, and sometimes found them, as in the cases of Mr. Asquith, Mr. Acland, Mr. Robertson, Sir Edward Grey, and Mr. Sydney Buxton. One evening during the Midlothian campaign, the conversation turned upon new members on the Conservative side who had made some mark in the last Parliament. I ventured to name one Irish member, seated above the gangway, who had taken frequent part in debate on Irish affairs, and had shown intimate knowledge of the Irish question.

"Yes," said Mr. Gladstone, "but his manner is so funereal. In my humble way," he added, his face wrinkling into the smile that illumined it when he was much amused, "I call him the Undertaker."

There was something charming in this way of putting it, as if he were only a beginner in the way of affixing nicknames to Parliamentary personages, and must not be understood in his "humble way" to be competing with practitioners.

[Sidenote: BAITED.]

One feeling that weighed with everyone when Mr. Gladstone withdrew from the forefront of Parliamentary life was that he, the greatest, is also the last of a type not cast for modern Parliaments. There was about him in the heat of battle a certain chivalry of manner, and in the minutest relationships a courtesy, which is too truly known as "old-fashioned." With his departure the House of Commons loses a standard of daily conduct which, though unattainable for the average man, was ever a wholesome incentive. To gentlemen below the gangway this courtly bearing under, sometimes, almost brutal provocation, was an incomprehensible and undesirable thing. They wanted to see him hit back, give stroke for stroke, and could not understand his patient, dignified bearing. No man, under my observation in the House of Commons--and I have lived in it for more than twenty years--was ever assailed with such bitterness as Mr. Gladstone; and none have shown so little resentment. During his Ministry of 1880-5, he was nightly the object of vituperation on the part of the Irish members, who came nearer to the language of Billingsgate than of Westminster. It seems now, as it seemed then, that no man could ever forget, or forgive, the savagery of that prolonged onslaught. I do not know whether Mr. Gladstone has forgotten it. Certainly, through the last seven years he sat on one or other of the Front Benches he comported himself as if it had never been: as if the men whom he alluded to as "my hon. friends" had ever, as then, cooed him as gently as a sucking dove.

In private I have heard him speak of only two members of the House of Commons with abhorrence, and then the tone of voice and visage were terrible to hear and see. When he has appeared at the table following some bitter personal attack, and the House has hushed every sound in expectation of an avalanche of scathing wrath, he has but lightly touched on the personal matter, and returned to the course of argument it had spitefully broken in upon. Once or twice last Session he turned upon Mr. Chamberlain, and delighted the House by the courtly grace and delightful skill of his reprisal. But it was never savage, or with any under-current of nastiness--which possibly, after all, made it the more effective.

The late Mr. Cavendish Bentinck was much treasured by the House of Commons by reason of the temptation, invariably irresistible, he laid in the way of Mr. Gladstone to indulge in lofty banter. Oddly enough, in these later years, the man who stirred the blackest water of his ire was Mr. Jesse Collings, whose almost venerable inoffensiveness of appearance, as Mr. Gladstone turned upon him, completed the enjoyment of the episode. Mr. Finlay was another member who seemed quite inadequately to stir his wrath. At one time a promising recruit to the Liberal party, Mr. Finlay in 1886 seceded with Lord Hartington and Mr. Chamberlain. Like the other Dissentient Liberals he retained his old seat, which happened to be immediately behind the Front Opposition Bench. His contiguity seemed to affect Mr. Gladstone with physical repulsion. In the heat of debate he would turn round to face Mr. Finlay, at the moment innocent of wrong-doing, fix him with flaming eye, and pour over him a torrent of scorching denunciation.

[Sidenote: MONUMENTAL PATIENCE.]

Mr. Gladstone's marvellous patience has been shown most conspicuously in his bearing towards temporary recalcitrant followers. For at least a quarter of a century his worst enemies have been those of his own household. As soon as he has completed the structure of a Ministry, so soon have "caves" been dug around it by hands that assumed to be friendly. His progress has ever been clogged by Tea Room cabals, the incessant unrest culminating in the great disruption of 1886.

I do not remember seeing Mr. Gladstone more angry than he was one Wednesday afternoon in the Session of 1870. Here again his wrath was excited by an ordinarily inoffensive person. The Irish Education Bill was before the House, and there was, naturally, a Tea Room Party formed by good Liberals for the destruction of their Leader and the bringing in of the other side. Mr. Fawcett was foremost in the cabal, laying the foundation, after a manner not unfamiliar in politics, of the Ministerial position he later attained under the statesman whom he had attacked from the flank. Mr. Miall, in genial Nonconformist fashion, accused Mr. Gladstone of profiting by the support of the Opposition, thus earning the suspicion, distrust, and antagonism of his most earnest supporters.

By an odd coincidence, Mr. Miall sat that afternoon in the very seat where last year Mr. Gladstone was accustomed to find Mr. Chamberlain. When he sat down the Premier leaped to his feet and, turning upon him with angry gesture, as if he would sweep him bodily out of the House, said: "I hope my hon. friend will not continue his support of the Government one moment longer than he deems it consistent with his sense of duty and right. For God's sake, sir, let him withdraw it the moment he thinks it better for the cause he has at heart that he should do so."

Twenty-four years have sped since that Wednesday afternoon. But I can see, as if it were yesterday, the figure with outstretched hand, and hear the thunderous voice in which this never since repeated invocation to the Deity rang through the House. The outbreak was memorable because rare. Since then the provocation has been as persistent as that which on this same Irish Education Bill prepared for the foundering of the Liberal party in the earliest months of 1874, and led to all that came to pass in the next six years of the Disraeli Parliament. Occasionally Mr. Gladstone has been moved to outburst of resentment. But it has been slight compared with the incentive.

We have heard and read in recent months much about the courage, eloquence, and statesmanship of this great career. To me it seems that the most strongly marked feature in it has been its quiet long suffering, its sublime patience. The fight is finished now, well done up to the very last, and to-day--

For thee, good knight and grey, whose gleaming crest
Leads us no longer, every generous breast
Breathes benediction on thy well-won rest.

[Sidenote: YOUTH AND AGE.]

Mr. Gladstone is so accustomed to make passing references to his extreme age, and those in close intercourse with him have grown so habituated to the phenomenon, that the marvel of it comes to be considerably lessened. There are two personal recollections which serve to place the fact in full light. One was revived by Sir William Harcourt at one of the Saturday-to-Monday parties with which the Prince of Wales occasionally brightens Sandringham. A reference to the Premier's then approaching eighty-fourth birthday being made, Sir William Harcourt said he had a perfect recollection of an occasion when he was nursed on the knee of Mr. Gladstone. Sir William is no chicken, either in years or girth, and recollection of this affecting scene carried him back nearly sixty years. It was too much for Mr. Frank Lockwood, who happened to be amongst the guests forming this particular house party. Through eyes softened with the gleam of tears, the Recorder of Sheffield sketched on the back of the menu a picture of the infantile Harcourt fondled on the knee of his right hon. friend, both unconscious of all the coming years held in store for them. The sketch is, I believe, now among the prized possessions of the Princess of Wales.

The other reminiscence also belongs to the records of a country house, and it is Mr. Gladstone who recalls it. Mr. Henry Chaplin was a fellow guest. Mr. Gladstone one evening asked him whether his grandmother had not lived in a certain street in Mayfair. Mr. Chaplin assented. "Ah," said Mr. Gladstone, "I remember it very well. I lived next door to her for awhile when I was a child. She used to give evening parties. When the carriages were assembled to take up, my brother and I used to creep out of bed--it was in the summer time--softly open the window, get out our squirts, and discreetly fire away at the coachmen on the boxes. I remember the intense delight with which we used to see them look up to the sky and call out to ask each other whether it wasn't beginning to rain."

[Sidenote: SIR ISAAC HOLDEN.]

Mr. Gladstone is not, after all, the oldest man in the present House of Commons. Sir Isaac Holden is his senior by two years. Of the twain, I fancy Sir Isaac is the younger-looking. During the winter Session, lacking the impulse of the constant fight round the Home Rule standard, disappointed by the success of Obstructionist tactics, Mr. Gladstone, from time to time, showed a distinct falling-off from the splendid form he had presented through the long summer Session. Sometimes he sat on the Treasury Bench, with chin sunk on his chest, a grey paleness stealing over his face, and the light of battle faded from his eyes. He never failed to pull himself together on returning to the House after a division. But the effort was made, not, as heretofore, in advance of his entrance, but after he had walked a few paces, with bent shoulders and weary gait.

Sir Isaac Holden, who has now entered on his eighty-seventh year, is as straight as a dart, and walks with springy step that shows no effort. He shares with Mr. Gladstone the characteristic, rare in a man of fourscore, that his eyes are still bright and clear. On occasions when the Standing Orders are suspended and the House sits late in anticipation of an important division, Sir Isaac waits till whatever hour is necessary in order to record his vote. When the House is up, he walks home.

Unlike Mr. Gladstone, Sir Isaac has leisure, means, and disposition to order his daily life upon carefully-considered rules. His day is automatically parcelled out: work, exercise, food, and recreation each having its appointed place and period. He is neither a vegetarian nor a teetotaler, though the main stock of his daily meals is fruit and vegetables. For wine he drinks a little claret. He has lived a busy, useful life, and owes a large fortune to his own industry and enterprise. Of singularly modest disposition, the only thing he thinks worthy of being mentioned to his credit is the fact that he invented the lucifer match.

[Sidenote: THE EFFACEMENT OF THE IRISH MEMBER.]

The still new Parliament possesses no more marked characteristic than the self-effacement of the Irish member. If any member of the 1874 or the 1880 Parliament were to revisit Westminster without knowledge of what had taken place since 1886, he would not recognise the scene. In those not distant days the Irish member pervaded the Chamber. Whatever the subject-matter of debate might be, he was sure to march in and make the question his own. If in any direct or indirect manner Ireland was concerned, this was natural enough. But any subject, found in China or Peru, would serve to occupy a night's sitting, and retard the progress of Government business. In the Parliament of 1880 two of the most prolonged and fiercest debates, inaugurated and carried on by the Irish members, related to flogging in the army and the state of affairs in South Africa.

This procedure was, up to 1886, part of a deliberate policy, of which Mr. Biggar and Mr. Parnell were the earliest exponents. They wanted their own Parliament on College Green. If the Saxon, regardless of entreaties and demands, insisted on keeping them at Westminster, they would make themselves as obnoxious as possible. The habit of constantly taking part in debate being thus formed, and fitting easily gentlemen to whom public speaking comes by nature, it was observed, though with less persistence, during the last Parliament, when the Irish party was no longer a political Ishmael, but was the acknowledged ally of one of the great English armies.

[Sidenote: MR. SEXTON.]

With the opening of the present Session a marvellous, almost miraculous, change has been wrought. Its most remarkable development, the fullest measure of rare personal sacrifice, is found in the case of Mr. Sexton. A man of rare gifts as a debater, no one takes so keen a pleasure in the delivery of Mr. Sexton's speeches as does the hon. member himself. This very excess of appreciation was at one time wont to mar his Parliamentary position. For the ordinary speaker, provision of one peroration per speech suffices. So illimitable are Mr. Sexton's natural resources, that he can toss off half-a-dozen perorations in the course of a single speech. In practice this habit grows a trifle tantalizing. Even the most indolent listener draws himself together and concentrates attention when a member, who has been talking for twenty minutes or half an hour, shows signs of coming to a conclusion. When, after declaiming a ringing peroration, the orator, recurring to leveller tones and less ornate style, quietly begins again, the feeling of disappointment is aggravated by a sense of having been betrayed.

In some of his set speeches, extending from one and a half to two hours, Mr. Sexton, doubtless unconsciously, has been known thus to impose on the confidence of the House three distinct times. This long-irresistible tendency to verbosity was regrettable as spoiling a position won by natural ability, hampered rather than assisted by adventitious circumstances.

Since the first Session of the new Parliament opened the Irish members, including Mr. Sexton, have conducted themselves in a manner that testifies to the potency of patriotism. The one object they have in view is to get a Home Rule Bill added to the Statute Book. It is avowedly, as Lord Randolph Churchill long ago, with brusque frankness, admitted, a race against time. Every week's delay in the accomplishment of the end imperils the success of the movement. In these circumstances any Irish member who lengthens the proceeding by speech-making is a traitor to the cause. The Irish members have, therefore, with one accord taken and kept a vow of silence.

[Sidenote: RADICAL MARTYRS.]

This is no new thing in Parliamentary tactics. A dozen years ago a similar effacement of another active party was brought about in the House of Commons. This was the active and useful private member, of whom the late Mr. Peter Rylands was a type, accustomed to sit through Committee of Supply worrying the Minister in charge of the Votes with innumerable questions and pin-pricking criticisms. The Irish were then the Obstructionists, and, taking full advantage of opportunity presented in Committee of Supply, they talked at large through the night in order to prevent Votes being taken. It came to pass that any honest, well-meaning member who desired to obtain information touching a particular Vote came to be regarded as a criminal. He was undoubtedly by his interposition playing the game of the Obstructionists. It was not only the time appropriated by his remarks that had to be taken into account. The quick-witted Irishmen, making the most of every opportunity, went off on the new trail opened, and followed it for the greater part of a sitting. The well-meaning economist was shunned by his friends, frowned on by his leaders, and took care not to repeat the indiscretion. Between 1880 and 1885 the old-fashioned custom of narrowly examining the Civil Service Estimates, not the least interesting function of a member of the House of Commons, received a blow from which it has not yet recovered.

The consequent self-repression was bad enough for sober Saxons like Mr. Peter Rylands and his mates in Committee. For the Celtic nature the strain must be much more severe. What Mr. Sexton suffers, as night after night he sits below the Gangway, hearing other members talk and recognising how much better he could put the points, who shall say? As for Mr. Tim Healy, he providentially finds partial relief in a running commentary that occasionally draws upon him reproof from the Speaker or Chairman. Mr. Balfour, with the instincts of a leader partially responsible for good order in the House, once welcomed these little ebullitions. They were, he said, equivalent to the blowing-off of steam. Shut off the means of partial relief, and fatal explosion might follow.

[Sidenote: THE EXTINCT IRISH MEMBER.]

It is curious but not inexplicable how the type of Irish member familiar eighteen or even thirteen years ago has disappeared. Of the band Isaac Butt reappeared on the political stage to lead, but few are left. Even of their successors, the body Mr. Biggar inspired and Mr. Parnell organized, those still in the House may be counted on the fingers of one hand. And what a rare group of individuals they formed! There were many characters that might have stepped out of the pages of Lever or Lover. Butt himself was an interesting figure, a relic of Parliamentary time and manner that to-day seem prehistoric. It is a pity that such a man, with his great gifts and his wide experience, should have been allowed to drop behind the horizon without the tribute of that biography rendered to many far less interesting and important people. There was something pathetic about the renunciation of his leadership by the party he had created. When Parnell was a youth at college, Butt was fighting for Home Rule for Ireland. He was the Moses of this Irish pilgrimage. Some failings and shortcomings may have justified the edict which forbade him to enter the Promised Land. But it was a little hard that he should have been ousted from the command whilst still on the march he had planned.

_From an Irish MS. of the 19th Century._]

I remember the night when, entering the House whilst the usual flood of questions was pouring from the Irish camp, he walked on, crossed the Gangway, and took his seat behind the Front Opposition Bench. He did not long survive this severance from the majority of his party. He was not old as years are counted. But he had lived his days, had heard the chimes at midnight, was bowed in body, harassed in mind, and this last blow shattered him.

There were few to migrate with him above the Gangway. Almost alone, McCarthy Downing followed the old leader, a lachrymose comforter, sitting near him, as Butt, with his back turned to the Irish quarter, sat with his head leaning on his hands listening to the shrill gibes of Joseph Gillis, or the more polished but not therefore less acrid taunts of Parnell.

Mr. Mitchell Henry was one of the few who stood by the old chief, the rift thus developed widening as the influence of Parnell and Biggar prevailed, and open war was declared against law and order and the House of Commons. When the Liberals came in in 1880, and the Irish members, breaking through a new tradition, decided to remain stationary on the left of the Speaker, Mitchell Henry crossed the floor, sat with the Ministerialists, and became a favourite target of the Parnellites.

[Sidenote: SIR PATRICK O'BRIEN.]

With him went Sir Patrick O'Brien, the most delightful embodiment of genuine Irish humour of the unconscious, inconsequential order known to the present generation. Sir Pat, with his left hand in his trousers pocket, his right hand shaking defiance at his countrymen opposite, was a precious possession, for ever lost to an increasingly prosaic Parliament. He could not away with the new kind of Irish member represented by Mr. Kenny, "the young sea-sarpent from County Clare," as in a flight of lofty but vague eloquence he called him. "Order! order!" cried the Speaker, sternly. "Then, Mr. Speaker," said Sir Pat, with a courtly bow, "I will withdraw the sea-sarpent and substitute the hon. member for County Clare."

_Stories From the Diary of a Doctor._

_By the Authors of_ "THE MEDICINE LADY."

X.--WITHOUT WITNESSES.

In the October of 1890 I went to pay a short visit to my friends, the Brabazons, of Penporran, in Cornwall. I could only spare a week out of town, and looked forward to my visit with the pleasure which a busy man must feel when he can relax his labours for a short time.

Brabazon was an old college friend, and on the first evening of my stay we had many memories to revive and many friends to talk over. We sat until the small hours in his smoking-room, and it was early morning before we retired to bed. Just as I was leaving the room, he said to me:--

"By the way, you will find some disturbing elements at work here. I know you are fond of attributing everything to some psychological cause. I wonder what you will say to the love affairs of Randall, Carleton, and Miss Farnham."

I naturally asked what my host meant.

"Randall and Carleton are both desperately in love with the same girl," he replied. "Did you not notice the state of affairs this evening at dinner?"

"I naturally noticed Miss Farnham," I answered at once. "It would be difficult not to be attracted by so striking a personality."

"Barbara Farnham is, without exception, the most dangerous girl of my acquaintance," replied Brabazon, with a slight laugh. "Before her advent on the scene, Randall and Carleton were the best possible friends. Now they are at daggers drawn."

"I confess I did not particularly observe them," I answered.

"Oh, they are just ordinary good young fellows," replied Brabazon. "I am sorry for Carleton, of course, for I don't think he has the ghost of a chance with Miss Farnham. He is not particularly good looking, and he has the misfortune to be poor. Randall is a handsome lad, and has considerable expectations. His father is Lord Hartmore--but the fact is, I don't think the girl means to marry either of them--she is simply playing one against the other for her own ends. She is a handsome witch, and a dangerous one. She plays as carelessly with edged tools--as carelessly and unconcernedly as a baby would with its rattle."

I said nothing further. Brabazon conducted me to my room, and wished me good-night. I sat down by the fire, and thought in an idle manner over the events of the evening. There was a large house party at Penporran. Shooting was going on vigorously, and cub-hunting had begun. Some of the guests were acquaintances of mine. In short, I looked forward to a pleasant week in this genial house. As I laid my head on my pillow I thought again, but without any specially keen interest, of Brabazon's story about the disturbing elements which were now agitating the air of this otherwise peaceful mansion.

Two young men were in love with the same girl. Surely the situation was a very ordinary one. Such a complication happened daily.

I wondered why Brabazon should have troubled himself to mention such an ordinary event, but as I was dropping off to sleep, I saw rising up before me, in my mind's eye, the proud, beautiful face of Barbara Farnham, and a kind of intuition told me that these commonplace incidents might assume the form of tragedy in her cruel and careless hands.

I dreamt of Miss Farnham that night, and came down to breakfast the next morning with my curiosity considerably aroused about her.

She was in the room when I entered, and was idly helping herself to a cup of coffee, which she carried to a distant window where a small table was also laid for breakfast. She sat down, and, sipping it leisurely, looked around her with a careless glance. Her eyes fell on me--she smiled and motioned to me to approach.

"Pray bring your breakfast to this table," she said, in a light tone. "I was immensely interested in you when I heard you were coming. I adore doctors, particularly if they are clever. Are you going to ride this morning?"

I answered in the affirmative, and asked her if she was fond of horses.

"Fond?" she replied, a flash of added warmth lighting up her peculiar red-brown eyes. "I am going to whisper a secret to you--I never could compare horses and human beings. I consider the horse the infinitely nobler creature of the two."

I laughed, and we entered into an animated conversation.

While we were talking, Carleton came into the room. He was a squarely built young man, with deeply set dark eyes, and a determined chin and mouth. His figure was slightly above the middle height; he was extremely spare, but had good shoulders and was well set up. As soon as ever he appeared in sight, Miss Farnham, by an almost imperceptible movement, slightly turned her back to him and her talk with me became even more animated and full of wit than before. Her gay, light laugh must have reached Carleton, who came straight across the room to her side.

"You are in your favourite seat," he said.

"Yes," she replied, "and Dr. Halifax is having breakfast with me."

Then she turned to continue her conversation with me, while Carleton stood perfectly erect and silent by her side.

"Why don't you eat something?" she said to him, presently.

"There is time enough," he answered.

Finding he would not go away she tried to draw him into conversation, but he was evidently not in the humour to make himself agreeable. His answers were confined to monosyllables, and to some of Miss Farnham's remarks he did not reply at all.

I confess that I began to think him an unmitigated bore.

A change was, however, quickly to take place in the situation--Randall, the other lover, appeared on the scene, and his coming acted like a flash of sunshine. He was a gay, handsome, debonair-looking young fellow. He had good teeth, good eyes, a genial smile, a hearty manner. His voice was musical, and he knew well how to use it. He nodded carelessly to one or two acquaintances when he entered the room, and then came straight to Miss Farnham's table.

She shook hands with him, and he nodded a cheerful good morning to Carleton and me.

"That is right," he said, smiling brightly at the handsome girl; "you promised to reserve a seat for me at this table, and I see you have kept your word. Have you done breakfast, Carleton?"

"I had something an hour ago," replied Carleton.

Randall went to a sideboard to help himself to a generous portion of a dish which was being kept hot with a spirit lamp. On his return our conversation became gayer and more lively than ever.

I must confess that I saw nothing to object to in Miss Farnham's manners. I could not imagine why Brabazon spoke of her as a dangerous witch. She tried to be polite to both men--or rather, she was polite without effort, but there was not a trace of the flippant in her manner or bearing. Her beauty was undoubtedly of a remarkable order. Her eyes were her most striking characteristic. There was a great deal of red in their brown, which was further accentuated by the red brown of her long eyelashes. The eyes were capable of every shade of expression, and could be at times as eloquent and as full of meaning as those of that bewitching creature, the collie. Her eyebrows were dark and delicately pencilled. Her hair was tawny in shade--she had quantities of it, and she wore it picturesquely round her stately, statuesque head. In some lights that brilliantly coloured hair looked as if a sunbeam had been imprisoned in it. Her complexion was of a warm, creamy whiteness. Her figure was slight and graceful. But for her eyes she might have been simply remarked as a handsome girl; but those eyes made her beautiful, and lifted her completely out of the commonplace.

We had nearly finished breakfast, when I was startled by seeing Randall suddenly press his hand to his eyes, and turn so white that I thought he was going to lose consciousness. He recovered himself almost immediately, however, and so completely, that no one else remarked the circumstance. Miss Farnham rose from the breakfast-table.

"I am going to ride with you, Dr. Halifax," she said, nodding brightly to me. "I shall come downstairs in my habit in half an hour."

She was crossing the room to speak to some of the other guests when Carleton came up to her.

"I want to say something to you," he said--"can we go to some room where we shall be quite undisturbed?"

His words were distinctly audible, not only to me, but to several other people in the room.

Randall in particular heard them, and I could see that he was waiting anxiously for the reply.

"I want to ride this morning. I have no time for private confidences," replied Miss Farnham, in a distinctly vexed tone.

"I won't keep you long," replied Carleton--"what I have to say is of great importance, at least to me."

"I will give you ten minutes after lunch; will that suffice?"

"Five minutes now will do better. I am very much in earnest when I make this request."

"Very well," said Miss Farnham, in a light tone; "importunate people generally have their way. Come into the conservatory--there is a rose there on which I have set my heart; it is too high for me to reach."

She left the room as she spoke, and Carleton quickly followed her. As they disappeared, I noticed more than one guest looking significantly after them. Carleton's pluck was distinctly approved of--I could see that by the expression on some of the ladies' faces and one, as she passed close to Randall's side, was heard to murmur, audibly:--

"Faint heart never won fair lady."

Randall came up to me and asked me to join him in a smoke on the balcony. As we walked up and down, he talked cheerfully, and, whatever anxiety he may inwardly have felt, was careful not to betray a trace of it.

In less than half an hour Miss Farnham joined us. She was in a dark brown riding-habit, which toned perfectly with her rich and peculiar colouring. Her spirits were gay, not to say wild, and the warm, creamy whiteness of her face seemed to glow now as if with hidden fire.

"Are you not ready for your ride?" she said, looking at me with a certain reproach. "The horses will be round in less than ten minutes. It is a splendid morning for a gallop. You are coming, too?" she added, turning suddenly to Randall.

"I only waited for you to invite me," he said. "Of course I shall come, with pleasure. But I thought," he added, in a low tone, coming close to her side as he spoke, "that you arranged to ride with Ronald Carleton this morning?"

"That is off," she replied, in a light tone. "Mr. Carleton has, I believe, another engagement."

The balcony on which we were walking led round to one of the entrances to the house; at this moment a groom was seen leading a smart mare up to the door, and at the same instant Carleton ran down the steps, and sprang lightly into the saddle.

"Where are you off to?" exclaimed Randall, bending out of the balcony to speak to him. "Miss Farnham, Dr. Halifax, and I are all going out immediately. Won't you join us?"

"Not this morning, I think," said Carleton, constraint in his tone. He gathered up the reins, and the mare began to prance about.

"You are holding her too much on the curb," exclaimed Randall.

"Thanks, I think I know what I'm about," replied Carleton, with evident temper. "Quiet, you brute, quiet," he continued, vainly endeavouring to restrain the movements of the impatient animal.

"I tell you, that mare won't stand the curb," shouted Randall. "Give her her head, and she'll do anything you ask her. I know, for I've often ridden her."

"When I require a riding lesson from you, I'll inform you of the fact," answered Carleton, in a sulky voice, which was rendered almost ridiculous by the frantic movements of the mare, now thoroughly upset.

Miss Farnham, who had been standing in the background, came up at this juncture, and took her place conspicuously by Randall's side.

"Mr. Randall is right and you are wrong," she exclaimed. "It is absolutely cruel to ride that mare on the curb."

Carleton looked up with a scowl, which anything but improved him. He would not even glance at Miss Farnham, but his eyes flashed an angry fire at his more fortunate rival.

"Of course, Randall is right," he exclaimed. "All the odds are in his favour."

"Nonsense," retorted Randall, with heat.

"Come, come, gentlemen, pray don't quarrel on this lovely morning," said Miss Farnham. "Mr. Carleton, I wish you a pleasant ride."

She left the balcony as she spoke, and Randall and I immediately followed her example.

We had a splendid ride over an extensive moorland country, and returned to lunch in excellent spirits and in high good humour with each other. Carleton had not yet come back, but his absence did not seem to depress anyone, certainly not Miss Farnham, whose bright eyes and gay, animated manner made her the life of the party. Randall was radiant in the sunshine of her presence. She was confidential and almost affectionate in her manner to him: and he undoubtedly looked, and was, at his best.

I could not help cordially liking him and thinking that the pair were well matched. Notwithstanding Brabazon's words of the night before, I had no doubt that Miss Farnham was sincerely attached to Randall, and would tell him so presently.

I spent the greater part of the afternoon alone with my host, and did not see the rest of the guests until we met at dinner. Carleton had then returned. He sat between a red-haired girl and a very fat old lady, and looked as _distrait_ and bored as man well could. Randall, on the other hand, was in his best form. His clothes sat well on him. He was, undoubtedly, a handsome, striking-looking man.

I cannot describe Miss Farnham's dress. It was ethereal in texture and suited her well. She was not seated in the neighbourhood of either Randall or Carleton, but once or twice I noticed that her eyes wandered down to their part of the table. For some reason, she was not in such high spirits as she had been in the early part of the day. My neighbour, a quiet, middle-aged spinster, began suddenly to talk to me about her.

"I see you are interested in Barbara Farnham," she began. "I am not the least surprised--you but follow the example of all the other men who know her."

"Miss Farnham is a very beautiful girl." I replied.

Miss Derrick gave a short sigh.

"Yes," she replied, "Barbara has a beautiful face. She is a fine creature too, although of course terribly spoilt."

"Have you known her long?" I asked.

"Yes; since she was a child. Of course you must notice, Dr. Halifax, the state of matters. Barbara's conduct is more or less the talk of the whole house. I presume from his manner that poor Mr. Carleton's chances of success are quite over, and for my part I am sorry. He is not rich, but he is a good fellow--he is devotedly attached to Barbara, and his abilities are quite above the average. Yes, I am sorry for Mr. Carleton. Barbara might have done worse than return his affection."

I did not feel inclined to pursue the subject any further with this somewhat garrulous lady. After a pause, I remarked:--

"Miss Farnham looks tired, and does not seem in her usual spirits."

Miss Derrick shrugged her thin shoulders.

"What else can you expect?" she answered. "Barbara is a creature of moods. She was quite _exaltée_ all the morning; now she will be correspondingly dull, until a fresh wave of excitement raises her spirits."

At this moment the signal for the ladies to withdraw was given. After their departure, Carleton and Randall found themselves sitting close together. I noticed that neither man spoke to the other, and also observed that after a time Carleton deliberately changed his seat for one at a distant part of the table.

We did not sit long over wine, and when we came into the drawing-room a lady was playing some classical music with precision and sufficient brilliancy to attract several musical men to the vicinity of the piano. Her place was quickly taken by the droll man of the party, who entertained the company with comic songs. The evening dragged on in the usual manner. For some unaccountable reason no one seemed quite in good spirits. As for me, I found myself constantly looking in the direction of the door. I heartily wished that either Carleton or Randall would come in--I acknowledged to myself that the presence of one at least of these gentlemen in the room would give me relief.

An hour and more passed away, however, and neither of them appeared. I glanced towards Miss Farnham. She was standing near the piano, idly playing with a large feather fan. I thought I read both solicitude and expectation in her eyes.

The funny man was trolling out a sea-song to which a lively chorus was attached. Brabazon came up and touched my arm.

"When that is over," he said, in a low voice, "I will ask Barbara Farnham to sing."

"Can she sing?" I asked.

"Can she!" he reiterated. "Yes, she sings," he replied, emphatically. "Wait--you will hear her in a moment. Her voice is the most absolutely sympathetic I have ever listened to."

Soon afterwards Miss Farnham went to the piano. She played her own accompaniment. One grand sweep her hands seemed to take of the instrument, as if they meant to embrace it, and then a voice, high, full, sweet, magnificent in its volume of melody, rose on the air and seemed to fill the room.

Brabazon was right, Barbara Farnham could sing. As the words fell from her lips, there was no other sound in the listening room.

I jotted those words down afterwards from memory--they seemed to me to be a fit prelude to the scene which was immediately to follow:--

Thou hast filled me a golden cup
With a drink divine that glows,
With the bloom that is flowing up
From the heart of the folded rose.
The grapes in their amber glow,
And the strength of the blood-red wine,
All mingle and change and flow
In this golden cup of thine
With the scent of the curling wine,
With the balm of the rose's breath--
For the voice of love is thine,
And thine is the Song of Death!

The voice of the singer sank low as she approached the end of her song. The final words were in a minor key. I looked full at Miss Farnham, and her dark eyes met mine. They were full of apprehension. A kind of premonition of coming sorrow might well have filled her breast from the look in their depths.

There was a noise and sense of confusion in the outer drawing-room. People stood back to make way for someone, and hurrying steps came quickly towards the piano.

Miss Farnham sprang to her feet, the last notes of the song arrested on her lips.

Carleton, an overcoat covering his evening dress, his hair dishevelled, his eyes wild, had come hastily to her side.

"You will think that I have killed him, Barbara; but, before God, it is not true!" he said in a hoarse whisper--then he grasped my arm.

"Come, I want you," he said, and he dragged me, as if he were a young fury, out of the room.

"What, in the name of Heaven, is the matter?" I asked of him when we found ourselves in the hall.

"Randall has fallen over the cliff down by Porran's field," he gasped. "I have found the--the body. Oh! no, no, what am I saying? Not the body yet--not a body when I left it--it breathed--it just breathed when I left. I tried to drag it up here, but it was too heavy. Come at once, for the love of Heaven."

Other people had followed us out of the drawing-room. I encountered a glance of fire from Miss Farnham's dark eyes--her face was like death itself. Brabazon, in a tone full of authority, as befitted the host, began to speak.

"Come!" he said. "Accident or no, there is not a moment to be lost in trying to help the poor fellow. You will lead us to the spot at once, Carleton. Come, Halifax; what a blessing that you happen to be on the spot!"

"Get some brandy and something which we can improvise into a litter or shutter," I exclaimed. "I am going to my room to fetch my surgical case."

I ran upstairs. A moment or two later we were on our way to the scene of the accident. Every man of the party accompanied us, and several of the ladies. The foremost of the group was Miss Farnham herself. She had hastily flung a shawl over her head, and the train of her rich dinner dress was slung across her arm. She looked at Carleton, and with a peremptory gesture seemed to invite him to come to her side. He did so, and they rushed on--too quickly for many of the rest of the party to keep up with them.

It was a bright, moonlight night, and we had scarcely any need of the lantern which Brabazon was thoughtful enough to bring with him. We had to go some distance to reach the spot where poor Randall was lying, but by-and-by we found him stretched partly on his back, partly rolled over on his left side, on a little strip of sand which gleamed cold in the moonlight.

"Yes, it was here I left him," exclaimed Carleton. He fell on his knees as he spoke and looked intently into the poor lad's face.

"Thank God!" he exclaimed, looking up at me, "he can't be dead. I dragged him as far as this, and then left him lying on his back. See, he has moved--he is partly on his side now!"

I motioned to Carleton to make way for me to approach. I felt for the pulse in the limp and powerless wrist. I laid my hand on the heart--then I gently raised the head, and felt along the region of the skull.

"You will give him a little brandy," exclaimed Brabazon; "here is the flask."

Miss Farnham took it out of Brabazon's hands, unscrewed it, and began to pour some into the cup. As she did so, she knelt also on the sand. I looked at her and felt that she would probably need the stimulant which could avail nothing now to the dead.

"It is all over," I said; "he is dead, poor fellow!"

As I spoke, I stretched out my hand and took the brandy flask from Miss Farnham. She looked wildly round, glanced at Carleton, gave a piercing cry, and fell forward over Randall's body. She had completely lost consciousness. I laid her flat on the sand, and, applying some restoratives, she quickly came to her senses.

The body of the dead man was lifted up and laid on some boards which we had brought with us, and we returned slowly to the house. Brabazon gave his arm to Miss Farnham, who truly needed it, for she staggered as she walked. I looked round for Carleton. There was a wild expression in his eyes, which made me anxious about him. I saw, too, that he wished to linger behind the others.

"Come," I said, going up to him, "this has given you a terrible shock; why, you are just as much overcome as Miss Farnham."

I dragged his hand through my arm, and we followed in the rear of the sad procession. All the way up to the house he did not speak, nor did I trouble him with questions. I saw that his misery had made him dumb for the time being--in short, he was in a stunned condition. I dreaded, however, the return tide of strong emotion which must inevitably follow this apparent calm. I guessed that Carleton was a man of strong sensibilities. I could read character well--most men in my profession have much practice in this art. The human eye tells a doctor a good deal. The lips may falter out certain utterances, which the eyes will belie. I read truth and sincerity in the honest eyes of this young man. He was intensely reserved--he was jealous to a morbid degree--he in all probability possessed anything but a good temper; nevertheless, his eyes were honest, and I felt certain that he had nothing whatever to do with poor Randall's death. Nevertheless, I knew well that appearances were strongly against him.

When we got to the house I turned to him and said, abruptly:--

"I should like to see you in Brabazon's smoking-room in about half an hour."

He raised sullen eyes to my face.

"Come," I said, laying my hand on his shoulder, "I tell you at once I do not believe that you killed that poor fellow, but we must talk the matter over. I am anxious to be your friend. It is absolutely necessary that you should confide in someone. I am as unbiased in my views of the whole situation as man can be. Come and talk to me in half an hour in the smoking-room."

He did not say a word, but I knew by the way in which he suddenly grasped my hand that he would come.

The dead man was carried into the library, where he was laid reverently on a table. Brabazon then had a consultation with me as to the best means of breaking the news to Lord and Lady Hartmore. Poor Randall was their only son; it was a terrible business altogether, and Brabazon was naturally greatly distressed.

I asked after Miss Farnham. He told me that she had gone straight to her room. His tone was scarcely sympathetic, and I looked at him in wonder.

"I have no patience with her," he exclaimed. "She has behaved very badly--this awful thing would not have occurred but for her. She has driven poor Carleton----"

I put up my hand to arrest the words.

"Hush!" I exclaimed. "You surely don't----?"

He laughed aloud in his agitation.

"I surely do," he began. "There, Halifax, we won't give the thing a name to-night. Of course, there must be a coroner's inquest."

"Yes," I replied.

"It is a terrible thing altogether," continued Brabazon; "and to think of its happening here. And to Randall, of all people--a man with his expectations. Well, it is a lesson which Miss Farnham may well lay to heart."

We were standing together in the library--the hour was now nearly midnight. The body of the dead man lay on the centre table covered with a white sheet. There came a knock at the door, and to my dismay and astonishment I saw Carleton enter the room.

"I heard voices, and guessed you would be here," he exclaimed. "I have recovered my nerves to a certain extent, and wish to tell you, sir," looking at his host, "and you also, Dr. Halifax, exactly what has occurred."

"Come into the smoking-room," said Brabazon, not unkindly.

"No," answered the poor lad. "If you will allow me, I will tell my story here. There is not much to tell, but what there is had best be told in the presence of----" his lip trembled--he could not get further words out. He sank suddenly into a chair, and covered his white face with his shaking hands. "We must humour him," I said, turning and speaking in a whisper to Brabazon--"and before God," I continued, impulsively, "I believe he is as innocent as I am."

I drew forward a chair for myself as I spoke, but Brabazon stood by the hearth.

Carleton began to speak almost directly--his emotion was quickly mastered.

"I have loved Barbara Farnham for two years. At intervals she has given me great encouragement, and I had fair hopes of winning her until she met Randall in this house a fortnight ago. This morning I felt desperate, and resolved to put my fortunes to the test. I asked her to give me an interview after breakfast, as you doubtless noticed." He paused and looked at me--I nodded my head, and he continued: "We went into the conservatory, and I--I spoke to her. I told her the naked truth, perhaps a little too bluntly. I asked her if she really meant to--no, I must not say what I did ask her. It is unfair--unfair to her. From her manner and her words I plainly gathered that she preferred Randall to me, and that I had no chance whatever of winning her. Perhaps I lost my temper--anyhow, it was unmanly of me to say what I did. I accused her of valuing Randall's position. I told her plainly that if Randall and I could change places, I should be the favoured one. We had a disagreement; our interview was full of pain, at least to me. When I left Miss Farnham the Evil One seemed to enter into me, and I hated Randall as I never knew before that I could hate anyone. I would not ride with the others, but went away by myself, and the whole day has been a long agony to me.