must be taken away this very afternoon. Every hour might make it too
late. Can you do this?"

Jim pondered. He was an experienced criminal. A man with certain
qualities which, in the honest paths of life, might have made him
successful, even remarkable. In a few seconds he had run over his
chances, his resources, his risk of detection, all the pros and cons
of the undertaking. He looked cheerfully in her face.

"I _can_, miss," said he confidently. "I don't go for to say as it's
a job to be done right off, like easy shavin', or taking a dozen of
hiseters. But it's to be worked. I'll engage for that, and I'm the
chap as can work it. You couldn't give me no longer than to-day, could
ye now?"

"If it's not done at once, you must let it alone," was the answer.

"Now that's business," replied Jim, growing cooler and more
self-possessed as he reviewed the difficulties of his enterprise. "The
party being in town, miss, o' course. You may depend on my makin' of
him safe before nine o'clock to-night. Shall I trouble you for the
name and address, or will you give me a description in full, that will
do as well?"

"You have seen him," she observed quietly. "On this very spot where I
am standing now. I walked with him in these gardens the first morning
you swept our crossing. A gentleman in a frock coat with a bunch of
flowers at his buttonhole. Do you remember?"

_Did he remember_? Why the man's figure, features, every detail of his
dress was photographed on Jim's heart.

"No need to tell me his name, miss," was the answer. "I knows him as
well as I knows these here old shoes o' mine. I've had my eye on him
ever since. I can tell you when he goes out, when he comes in, where
he takes his meals. I could lay my hand on him in any part of this
here town at two hours' notice. Make yourself easy, miss. Your job's
as good as done, and some day you'll see me again, miss, won't you?
And--and you'll thank me kindly, perhaps, when it's off your mind for
good and all!"

"You shall come and tell me the particulars," answered Miss Bruce,
with a gracious smile that seemed to flood him in sunshine, "when the
thing is finished. And now I ought to be at home again; but before I
go, understand plainly, to-morrow will be too late!"

Jim was deep in thought.

"The bird might be shy, miss," said he after a pause. "Some on 'em's
easy scared, and this doesn't seem like a green one, not a bit of it.
Supposin' as he _won't_ be 'ticed, miss; there's only one way, then!"

For a moment she felt a keen stab of compunction, but, remembering the
stake she ventured, nerved herself to resist the pang. This was no
time for child's play, for a morbid sensitiveness, for weak indulgence
of the feelings.

"Tell him you have a message from _me_, from Miss Bruce," she replied
firmly. "It will lead him anywhere."

Jim looked as if he would rather set about the business in any other
way; nevertheless, he was keenly alive to the efficiency of so
tempting a bait, reflecting at the same time with a kind of awe on Mr.
Ryfe's temerity in affronting such a character as this.

Another hurried sentence. A light in Jim's eyes like that with which a
dog receives directions from its master, a gesture such as dismisses
the same dog imperiously to its kennel, and Miss Bruce walked quietly
home to her music and her embroidery, while the crossing-sweeper,
recovering his broom, hurried off in another direction to commence
operations against the unsuspecting Tom Ryfe.

That gentleman's feelings, as he sat in his uncle's office the morning
after Mrs. Stanmore's ball, were of no enviable nature. Malice,
hatred, and all uncharitableness might indeed sufficiently describe
the frame of mind in which he went about his daily business,
unfortunately on the present occasion an affair of such mere routine
as in no way to distract his attention from his sorrows and his
wrongs.

"She has dared me," thought he, poring over a deed he knew by heart,
and of which his eye only took in the form and outward semblance,
"challenged me to do my worst, and herself declared it is to be war
to the knife. O Maud, Maud, how could you, how could you! Was it not
enough to have wound yourself round my heart, to have identified
yourself with my hopes, my ambition, my manhood, my very existence,
and then with one turn of your hand to have destroyed them, each and
all, but you must add insult to injury--must scorn and trample on me
as well? Some men may stand this sort of treatment--I won't. I _have_
a pull over you. Ah! I'm not such a fool, after all, perhaps, as you
thought. I have it, and hang me, but I'll make use of it! You have
blasted my life, and thought it good fun, no doubt. I'll see if I
can't give tit-for-tat and spoil _your_ little game, my haughty lady,
with your white face and your cursed high-handed airs. Yet, how I
loved them--how I loved them! Must I never see a woman again without
that queenly beauty coming between me and my share of happiness? What
right had you to destroy my whole future? And I would have been so
different if you had cared _for_ me; I might have made a better
gentleman than any of them. As for that emptyheaded cousin (to be sure
you've thrown him over, too, and I hope he feels it to his marrow),
and that swaggering lord, can they care for you like I did? Would they
have worked as hard to please you, and sat up night after night, as I
have done, poring over papers to see you righted? and why am I to
be sacrificed to such men as these? I won't be sacrificed; no, by
heavens! I've done my best for you hitherto, Miss Bruce, and you've
dared me now to do my _worst_. I shall rather astonish you, I think,
when you learn what that worst is. Curse you; I'll have no mercy! If
I _am_ to suffer, I'll take care not to suffer meekly and alone. It's
_my_ turn now, my lady, as, before twelve hours are out, you shall
know to your cost."

Mr. Ryfe, you see, was sadly wanting in that first element of chivalry
which establishes the maxim that "a woman can do no wrong." This
principle, when acted up to in its fullest sense, is convenient,
no doubt, and beneficial to us all. It involves free trade on the
broadest basis, sweeping away much of the selfishness and morbid
sentimentality that constitute the superstition we call Love. _She_
has a perfect right to change her mind, bless her! why shouldn't she?
And so, no doubt, have _you_! Ring for fresh cards, cut again for
partners, and so sit merrily down to another rubber. Thus, too, you
will learn to play the game cautiously and with counters, saving both
your temper and your gold. It may be you will miss the excitement of
real gambling, finding the pastime so wearisome that you are fain to
leave off and go to bed. Whatever you do, retire with a good grace.
It is but a choice of evils. Perhaps you had better be bored than
miserable, and, if less exciting, it is surely less painful to stifle
listless yawns, than to crush down the cry of a wilful wounded heart.

Mr. Ryfe, however, I consider perfectly inexcusable in the course
he chose to adopt. Self-sacrifice is, of all others, the quality by
which, in questions of feeling, the true gold is to be distinguished
from the false. But Tom had no idea of such generous immolation--not
he.

Hour after hour, poring over the deeds of which he never read a line,
he raged and chafed and came to a determination at last.

He had thought of writing to Lord Bearwarden, in his own name, warning
him as a true friend of the lady's antecedents who was about to become
his lordship's bride, enclosing at the same time a copy of her promise
to himself; for, with professional caution, he reflected that the
original had better not pass out of his hands. Then, he argued, if his
lordship could only see with his own eyes the treasured lines in her
well-known handwriting, by which Miss Bruce had bound herself in all
honour to the lawyer's clerk, that nobleman must readily, and of
necessity, hold himself absolved from any engagement he might have
contracted with her, and perceive at once the folly and impropriety
of making such a woman his wife. Yes, Lord Bearwarden should read the
letter itself; he would obtain a personal interview that very evening,
when the latter dressed for dinner. There would thus be no necessity
for trusting the important document out of his own possession, while
at the same time he could himself adopt a tone of candour and high
feeling, calculated to make a strong impression on such a true
gentleman as his friend.

He took Miss Bruce's promise from the safe in which he kept it locked
up, and hid it carefully in his breast-pocket. Then, looking at his
watch, and finding it was time to leave his office for the West-End,
heaped his papers together, bundled them into the safe, and prepared
to depart.

Walking moodily down-stairs he was waylaid by Dorothea, who, sluicing
the steps with dirty water under pretence of cleaning them, thus held,
as it were, the key of the position, and so had him at command. It
surprised him not a little that she should desist from her occupation
to request an interview.

"Can I speak to you for a moment, Mr. Thomas?" said she. "It's
private, and it's particular."

The amount of pressure put on Dorothea ere she consented to the
job now in hand it is not for me to estimate. Her Jim was a man of
unscrupulous habits and desperate resources. It is probable that she
had been subjected to the influences of affection, sentiment, and
intimidation, perhaps even physical force. I cannot tell, my business
is only with results.

There was no escaping, even had Mr. Ryfe been so inclined, for
Dorothea's person, pail, and scrubbing-brushes defended the whole
width of the staircase.

"It's strange, Mr. Thomas," she continued, pushing the hair off her
face. "Lor! I was that frightened and that surprised, as you might
have 'eard my 'eart beatin' like carpets. Who she may be, an' wot she
may be, I know no more than the dead. But her words was these--I'm
tellin' you her werry words--If you can make sure of seeing Mr. Ryfe,
says she,--that's _you_, Mr. Thomas,--any time afore to-night, says
she, tell him, as I must have a word with him in priwate atween him
and me this werry evening, or it would have been better for both of
us, poor things, says she, if we'd 'a never been born!"

Tom Ryfe stared.

"What do you mean?" he said. "Am I to understand that the--the
lady who spoke to you was desirous of an interview with me here in
chambers, or where?"

"An' a born lady she is an' were!" answered Dorothea, incoherent, and
therefore in the acute lawyer's opinion more likely to be telling
the truth. "A beautiful lady, too--tall and pale, 'aughty and
'andsome--(Tom started)--dressed in 'alf-mourning, with a
black-and-white parasol in her 'and. It's to see you priwate, Mr.
Thomas, as she bade me to warn of you. To-night at height in the
Birdcage Walk, without fail, says she, for it's life and death as is
the matter, or marriage, says she, which is sometimes wuss nor both."

Dorothea then removed herself, her pail, and her scrubbing-brushes to
one side, as though inviting him to follow out his assignation without
delay.

"I ask yer pardon," said she, "Mr. Thomas, if I done wrong. But the
young lady she seemed so anxious and aggrawated-like. No offence, sir,
I 'umbly 'ope, and she guv' me 'alf-a-sovereign."

"And I'll give you another," exclaimed Tom, placing a coin of that
value in Dorothea's damp hot hand. "The Birdcage Walk, at eight. And
it's past six now. Thank you, Dorothea. I've no doubt it's all right.
I'll start at once."

Leaving Gray's Inn, the warm tears filled his eyes to think he had
so misjudged her. Evidently she was in some difficulty, some
complication; she had no opportunity of confiding to him, and hence
her apparent heartlessness, the inconsistency of her conduct which he
had been unable to understand. Obviously she loved him still, and the
conviction filled him with rapture, all the more thrilling and intense
for his late misgivings.

He pulled her written promise from his pocket, and kissed it
passionately, reading it over and over again in the fading light. A
prayer rose from heart to lip for the woman he loved, while he looked
up to the crimson glories of the western sky. Do such prayers fall
back in the form of curses on the heads of those who betray, haunting
them in their sorrows--at their need--worst of all in their supreme
moments of happiness and joy? God forbid! Rather let us believe that,
true to their heaven-born nature, they are blessings for those who
give and those who receive.

Some two hours later, Tom Ryfe found himself pacing to and fro under
the trees in the Birdcage Walk, with a happier heart, though it beat
so fast, than had been within his waistcoat for weeks.

It was getting very dark, and even beneath the gas-lamps it was
difficult to distinguish the figure of man or woman, flitting through
the deep shadows cast by trees still thick with their summer foliage.
Tom, peering anxiously into the obscure, could make out nothing but
a policeman, a foot-guardsman with a clothes-basket, and a drunken
slattern carrying her baby upside-down.

He was growing anxious. Big Ben's booming tones had already warned him
it was a quarter past eight, when, suddenly, so close to him he could
almost touch it, loomed the figure of a woman.

"Miss Bruce," he exclaimed--"Maud--is it you?"

Turning his own body, so as to take advantage of a dim ray from the
nearest gaslight, he was aware that the woman, shorter and stouter
than Miss Bruce, had muffled herself in a cloak, and was closely
veiled.

"You have a letter--a message," he continued in a whisper. "It's all
right. I'm the party you expected to meet--here--at eight--under the
trees."

"And wot the--are you at with my missus under the trees?" growled
a brutal voice over his shoulder, while Tom felt he was helplessly
pinioned by a pair of strong arms from behind, that crushed and
bruised him like iron. Ere he could twist his hands free to show
fight, which he meant to do pretty fiercely, he found himself baffled,
blinded, suffocated, by a handkerchief thrust into his face, while a
strong, pungent, yet not altogether unpleasant flavour of ether filled
eyes, mouth, and nostrils, till it permeated to his very lungs. Then
with every pulsation of the blood Big Ben seemed to be striking
inside his brain till something gave way with a great whizz! like
the mainspring of a watch, and Tom Ryfe was perfectly quiet and
comfortable henceforth.

Five minutes afterwards a belated bricklayer lounging home with his
mate observed two persons, man and woman, supporting between them a
limp helpless figure, obviously incapable of sense or motion. Said the
bricklayer, "That's a stiff-'un, Bill, to all appearance."

"Stiff-'un be d----d!" retorted Bill; "he's only jolly drunk. I wish I
was too!"

The bricklayer seemed a man of reflection; for half-a-mile or so he
held his peace, then, with a backward nod of the head, to indicate his
meaning, observed solemnly--

"I wouldn't take that chap's head-ache when he comes to, no, not to be
as jolly drunk as he is this minnit--I wouldn't!"




CHAPTER XVIII


"THE COMING QUEEN"


"And whenever she comes she will find me waiting
To do her homage--my queen--my queen!"

How many an aspiring heart has breathed the high chivalrous sentiment,
never before so touchingly expressed, as in the words of this
beautiful song! How many a gallant generous nature has desired with
unspeakable longing to lay its wealth of loyalty and devotion at her
feet who is to prove the coming queen of its affections, the ladye of
its love! And for how many is the unwavering worship, the unfailing
faith, the venture of wealth and honour, the risk of life and limb,
right royally rewarded according to its merits and its claim! I am not
sure that implicit belief, unquestioning obedience, are the qualities
most esteemed by those illustrious personages on whom they are
lavished; and I think that the rebel who sends in his adhesion on his
own terms is sometimes treated with more courtesy and consideration
than the stanch vassal whose fidelity remains unaffected by coldness,
ingratitude, or neglect.

Dick Stanmore, reading in the _Morning Post_ an eloquent account of
Viscount Bearwarden's marriage to Miss Bruce, with the festivities
consequent thereon, felt that he had sadly wasted his loyalty, if
indeed this lady were the real sovereign to whom the homage of his
heart was due. He began now to entertain certain misgivings on that
score. What if he had over-estimated his own admiration and the force
of her attractions? Perhaps his _real_ queen had not come to him after
all. It might be she was advancing even now in her maiden majesty,
as yet unseen, but shedding before her a soft and mellow radiance, a
tender quiver of light and warmth, like that which flushes the horizon
at the break of a summer's day.

His dark hour had been cold and dismal enough. There is nothing to be
ashamed of in the confession. Dick suffered severely, as every manly
nature must suffer when deceived by a woman. He did not blame the
woman--why should he?--but he felt that a calamity had befallen him,
the heaviest of his young experience, and he bore it as best he might.

"_Caelum non animum_" is a very old proverb: his first impulse, no
doubt, was to change the scene, and seek under other skies an altered
frame of mind, in defiance of Horace and his worldly wisdom, so rarely
at fault. In these days a code of behaviour has been established by
society to meet every eventuality of life. When your fortunes are
impaired you winter at Rome; when your liver is affected you travel in
Germany; when your heart is broke you start at once for India. There
is something unspeakably soothing, I imagine, in the swing of an
elephant as he crashes through jungle, beating it out for tigers;
something consolatory to wounded feelings in the grin of a heavy old
tusker, lumbering along, half sulky, half defiant, winking a little
blood-red eye at the pig-sticker, pushing his Arab to speed with a
loose rein ere he delivers the meditated thrust that shall win first
spear. Snipe, too, killed by the despairing lover while standing in a
paddy-field up to his knees in water, with a tropical sun beating on
his head, to be eaten afterwards in military society, not undiluted by
pale ale and brandy-pawnee, afford a relief to the finer feelings of
his nature as delightful as it is unaccountable; while those more
adventurous spirits who, penetrating far into the mountainous regions
of the north-west frontier, persecute the wild sheep or the eland, and
even make acquaintance with the lordly ibex "rocketing" down from crag
to crag, breaking the force and impetus of his leap by alighting on
horns and forehead, would seem to gain in their life of hardship and
adventure an immunity from the "common evil" which lasts them well
into middle age.

Dick Stanmore's first impulse, therefore, was to secure a berth in the
P. and O. steamer at once. Then he reflected that it would not be
a bad plan to stop at Constantinople--one of the Egean islands,
Messina--or, indeed, why go farther than Marseilles? If you come to
that, Paris was the very place for a short visit. A man might spend
a fortnight there pleasantly enough, even in the hot weather, and it
would be a complete change, the eventual result of these deliberations
being a resolve to go down and look after his landed property in the
west of England. I believe that in this determination Mr. Stanmore
showed more wisdom than his friends had hitherto given him credit for
possessing. At his own place he had his own affairs to interest him, a
good deal of business to attend to, above all, constant opportunities
of doing good. This it is, I fancy, which constitutes the real pith
and enjoyment of a country gentleman's life--which imparts zest and
flavour to the marking of trees, the setting of trimmers, the shooting
of partridges, nay, even to the joyous excitement of fox-hunting
itself.

This, too, is a wondrous salve for such wounds as those under which
Dick Stanmore was now smarting. The very comparison of our own sorrows
with those of others has a tendency to decrease their proportions
and diminish their importance. How can I prate of my cut finger in
presence of your broken leg? And how utterly ridiculous would have
seemed Mr. Stanmore's sentimental sorrows to one of his own labourers
keeping a wife and half-a-dozen children on eleven shillings a week?

In the whole moral physic-shop there is no anodyne like duty,
sweetened with a little charity towards your neighbours. Amusement
and dissipation simply aggravate the evil. Personal danger, while
its excitement braces nerve and intellect for the time, is an
over-powerful stimulant for the imagination, and leaves a reaction
sadly softening to the heart. Successful ambition, gratified vanity,
what are these with none to share the triumph? But put the sufferer
through a steady course of daily duties, engrossing in their nature,
stupefying in the monotony of their routine, and insensibly, while his
attention is distracted from self and selfish feelings, he gathers
strength, day by day, till at last he is able to look his sorrow in
the face, and fight it fairly, as he would any other honourable foe.
The worst is over then, and victory a mere question of time.

So Dick Stanmore, setting to work with a will, found sleep and
appetite and bodily strength come back rapidly enough. He had moments
of pain, no doubt, particularly when he woke in the morning. Also at
intervals during the day, when the breeze sighed through his woods,
or the sweetbrier's fragrance stole on his senses more heavily than
usual. Once, when a gipsy-girl blessed his handsome face, adding, in
the fervour of her gratitude, a thousand good wishes for "the lass he
loved, as must love him dear, sure-lie!" but for very shame he could
have cried like a child.

Such relapses, however, were of rarer occurrence every week. It was
not long before he told himself that he had been through the worst of
his ordeal and could meet Lady Bearwarden now without looking like
a fool. In this more rational frame of mind Mr. Stanmore arrived in
London in business at that period of settled weather and comparative
stagnation called by tradesmen the "dead time of year," and found his
late-acquired philosophy put somewhat unexpectedly to the proof.

He was staring at a shop-window in Oxford Street--studying, indeed,
the print of a patent mowing-machine, but thinking, I fear, more of
past scenes in certain well-lit rooms, on slippery floors, than of the
velvet lawns at home--when a barouche drew up to the kerb-stone with
such trampling of hoofs, such pulling about of horses' mouths, such a
jerk and vibration of the whole concern, as denoted a smart carriage
with considerable pretension, a body-coachman of no ordinary calibre.
Dick turned sharply round, and there, not five yards off, was the pale
face, proud, dreamy, and beautiful as of old. Had she seen him? He
hardly knew, for he was sick at heart, growing white to his very
lips--he, a strong healthy man, with as much courage as his
neighbours. Horribly ashamed of himself he felt. And well he might be!
But with more wisdom than he had hitherto shown, he made a snatch at
his hat, and took refuge in immediate retreat. It was his only chance.
How, indeed, could he have met her manfully and with dignity, while
every nerve and fibre quivered at her presence? how endure the shame
of betraying in his manner that he loved her very dearly still? It
gave him, indeed, a sharp and cruel pang to think that it had come to
this--that the face he had so worshipped he must now fly from like a
culprit--that for his own sake, in sheer self-defence, he must
avoid her presence, as if he had committed against her some deadly
injury--against _her_, for whom, even now, he would willingly have
laid down his life! Poor Dick! He little knew, but it was the last
pang he was destined to feel from his untoward attachment, and it
punished him far more severely than he deserved.

Blundering hastily up a by-street, he ran into the very arms of a
gentleman who had turned aside to apply a latch-key at the door of a
rambling unfurnished-looking house, sadly in want of paint, whitewash,
and general repair. The gentleman, with an exclamation of delight, put
both hands on Mr. Stanmore's shoulders.

"This _is_ a piece of luck!" exclaimed the latter. "Why, it's 'old Sir
Simon the King'!"

His mind reverted insensibly to the pleasant Oxford days, and he
used a nickname universally bestowed on his friend by the men of his
college.

"And what can _you_ be doing here at this time of year?" asked Simon.
"In the first place, how came you to be in London? In the second, how
did you ever get so far along Oxford Street? In the third, being here,
won't you come up to the painting-room? I'll show you my sketches;
I'll give you some 'baccy--I haven't forgot Iffley Lock and your vile
habit of stopping to drink. I can even supply you with beer! We'll
have a smoke, and a talk over old times."

"Willingly," answered Dick, declining the beer, however, on the plea
that such potations only went well with boating or cricket, and
followed the painter up-stairs into an exceedingly uncomfortable room,
of which the principal object of furniture seemed to be an easel,
bearing a sketch, apparently to be transferred hereafter into some
unfinished picture.

Dick was in no frame of mind to converse upon his own affairs;
accepting the proffered cigar, and taking the only seat in the place,
he preferred listening to his friend, who got to work at once, and
talked disjointedly while he painted.

"I can't complain," said Simon, in answer to the other's questions
concerning his prosperity and success. "I was always a plodding sort
of fellow, as you remember. Not a genius--I don't _think_ I've the
divine gift. Sometimes I hope it may come. I've worked hard, I grant
you--very hard; but I've had extraordinary luck--marvellous! What do
you think of that imp's tail?--Isn't it a trifle too long?"

"I'm no judge of imps," answered Dick. "He's horribly ugly. Go on
about yourself."

"Well, as I was saying," continued Simon, foreshortening his imp the
while, "my luck has been wonderful. It all began with _you_. If you
hadn't gone fishing there, I should never have seen Norway. If I
hadn't seen it, I couldn't have painted it."

"I'm not sure that follows," interrupted Dick.

"Well, I _shouldn't_ have painted it, then," resumed the artist. "And
the credit I got for those Norway sketches was perfectly absurd. I see
their faults now. They're cold and crude, and one or two are quite
contrary to the first principles of art. I should like to paint them
all over again. But still, if I hadn't been to Norway, I shouldn't be
here now."

"No more should I," observed Dick, puffing out a volume of smoke. "I
should have been 'marry-ed to a mermy-ed' by this time, if you had
shown a proper devotion to your art, and the customary indifference to
your friend."

"O, that was nothing!" said the painter, blushing. "Any other fellow
could have pulled you out just as well. I say, Stanmore, how jolly it
was over there! Those were happy days. And yet I don't wish to have
them back again--do you?"

Dick sighed and held his peace. For him it seemed that the light heart
and joyous carelessness of that bright youthful time was gone, never
to come again.

"I have learned so much since then," continued Simon, putting a little
grey into his imp's muzzle, "and unlearned so much, too, which is better
still. Mannerism, Stanmore--mannerism is the great enemy of art. Now,
I'll explain what I mean in two words. In the first place, you observe
the light from that chink streaming down on my imp's back; well, in the
picture, you know--"

"Where _is_ the picture?" exclaimed Dick, whose cigar was finished,
and who had no scruples in thus unceremoniously interrupting a
professional lecture which previous experience told him might be
wearisome. "Let's see it. Let's see _all_ the pictures. Illustration's
better than argument, and I can't understand anything unless it's set
before me in bright colours, under my very nose."

Good-natured Simon desisted from his occupation at once, and began
lifting picture after picture, as they stood in layers against the
wall, to place them in a favourable light for the inspection of
his friend. Many and discursive were his criticisms on these, the
progressive results of eye, and hand, and brain, improving every
day. Here the drawing was faulty, there the tints were coarse. This
betrayed mannerism, that lacked power, and in a very ambitious
landscape, enriched with wood, water, and mountain, a patchy sky
spoiled the effect of the whole.

Nevertheless it seemed that he was himself not entirely dissatisfied
with his work, and whenever his friend ventured on the diffident
criticism of an amateur, Simon demonstrated at great length that each
fault, as he pointed it out, was in truth a singular merit and beauty
in the picture.

Presently, with a face of increased importance, he moved a large
oblong canvas from its hiding-place, to prop it artistically at such
an angle as showed the lights and shades of its finished portion to
the best advantage. Then he fell back a couple of paces, contemplating
it in silence with his head on one side, and so waited for his
friend's opinion.

But Dick was mute. Something in this picture woke up the pain of a
recent wound festering in his heart, and yet through all the smart and
tingling came a strange sensation of relief, like that with which a
styptic salves a sore.

"What do you think of it?" asked the artist. "I want your candid
opinion, Stanmore--impartial--unprejudiced, I tell you. I hope great
things from it. I believe it far and away the best I've painted yet.
Look into the work. O, it will stand inspection. You might examine it
with a microscope. Then, the conception, eh? And the drawing's not
amiss. A little more this way--you catch the outline of his eyebrow,
with the turn of the Rhymer's head."

"Hang the Rhymer's head!" replied Dick, "I don't care about it. I
won't look at it. I _can't_ look at it, man, with such a woman as
_that_ in the picture. Old boy, you've won immortality at last!"

But Simon's face fell.

"That's a great fault," he answered gravely. "The details, though
kept down as accessories to the whole, should yet be worked out so
carefully as to possess individual merit of their own. I see, though;
I see how to remedy the defect you have suggested. I can easily bring
him out by darkening the shadows of the background. Then, this fairy
at his elbow is paltry, and too near him besides. I shall paint her
out altogether. She takes the eye off my principal figures, and breaks
that grand line of light pouring in from the morning sky. Don't you
think so?"

But Dick gave no answer. With feverish thirst and longing, he was
drinking in the beauty of the Fairy Queen; and had not Simon Perkins
been the dullest of observers, and the least conceited of painters, he
must have felt intensely flattered by the effect of his work.

"So you like her," said he, after a pause, during which, in truth, he
had been considering whether he should not paint out the intrusive
fairy that very afternoon.

"Like her!" replied the other. "It's the image of the most beautiful
face I ever saw in my life; only it's softer and even more beautiful.
I'll tell you what, old fellow, put a price on that picture and I'll
have it, cost what it may! Only you must give me a little time," added
Dick somewhat ruefully, reflecting that he had spent a good deal of
money lately, and rent-day was still a long way off.

Simon smiled.

"I wonder what you'd think of the original," said he, "the model who
sits to me for my Fairy Queen! I can tell you that face on the canvas
is no more to be compared to hers than I am to Velasquez. And yet
Velasquez must have been a beginner once."

"I don't believe there's such a woman--two such women--in London,"
replied his friend, correcting himself. "I can hardly imagine such
eyes, such an expression. It's what the fellows who write poetry call
'the beauty of a dream,' and I'll never say poetry is nonsense again.
No, that's neither more nor less than an imaginary angel, Simon.
Simply an impossible duck!"

"Would you like to see her?" asked the painter, laughing. "She'll be
here in five minutes. I do believe that's her step on the stairs now."

A strange wild hope thrilled through Dick Stanmore's heart. Could it
be possible that Lady Bearwarden had employed his friend to paint her
likeness in this fancy picture, perhaps under a feigned name, and was
she coming to take her sitting now?

All his stoicism, all his philosophy, vanished on the instant. He
would remain where he was though he should die for it. O, to see her,
to be in the same room with her, to look in her eyes, and hear her
voice once more!

A gown rustled, a light step was heard, the door opened, and a
sweet laughing voice rung out its greeting to the painter from the
threshold.

"So late, Simon! Shameful, isn't it? But I've got all they wanted.
Such bargains! I suppose nobody ever did so much shopping in so short
a--"

She caught sight of Dick, stopped, blushed, and made a very
fascinating little curtsey, as they were formally introduced; but next
time she spoke the merriment had gone out of her voice. It had become
more staid, more formal, and its deeper, fuller tones reminded him
painfully of Maud.

[Illustration: "She caught sight of Dick."]

Yes. Had he not known Lady Bearwarden so well, he thought it would
have been quite possible for him to have mistaken this beautiful young
lady for that faithless peeress. The likeness was extraordinary,
ridiculous. Not that he felt the least inclined to laugh. The features
were absolutely the same, and a certain backward gesture of the head,
a certain trick of the mouth and chin were identical with the manner
of Lady Bearwarden, in those merry days that seemed so long ago
now, when she had been Maud Bruce. Only Miss Algernon's face had a
softness, a kindly trustful expression he never remembered on the
other, and her large pleading eyes seemed as if they could neither
kindle with anger nor harden to freezing glances of scorn.

As for the Fairy Queen, he looked from the picture to its original,
and felt constrained to admit that, wondrously beautiful as he had
thought its likeness on canvas, the face before him was infinitely
superior to the painter's fairest and most cherished work.

Dick went away of course almost immediately, though sorely against his
will. Contrary to her wont, Miss Algernon, who was rather a mimic and
full of fun, neither imitated the gestures nor ridiculed the bearing
of this chance visitor. "She had not observed him much," she said,
when taxed by Simon with this unusual forbearance. This was false. But
"she might know him again, perhaps, if they met." This, I imagine, was
true.

And Dick, wending his way back to his hotel buried in thought, passed
without recognising it the spot where he met Lady Bearwarden one short
hour ago. He was pondering, no doubt, on the face he had just seen--on
its truth, its purity, its fresh innocent mirth, its dazzling beauty,
more, perhaps, than on its extraordinary likeness to hers who had
brought him the one great misfortune of his life.




CHAPTER XIX


AN INCUBUS


It is not to be supposed that any gentleman can see a lady in the
streets of London and remain himself unseen. In the human as in meaner
races the female organ of perception is quicker, keener, and more
accurate than the male. Therefore it is that a man bowing in Pall Mall
or Piccadilly to some divinity in an open carriage, and failing to