XCVI. THE GIPSY AMD MRS. BOURNE――THE SURPRISE…

XCVI. THE GIPSY AMD MRS. BOURNE――THE SURPRISE

Rawton deemed it best not to venture paying a visit to Mrs. Bourne without first of all making sure that the doctor was from home.

How this was to be ascertained, he could not at first determine, but after some consideration had been spent in reflection, he elected to send Cooney with a note addressed to Mrs. Bourne, with strict injunctions that it was to be delivered into her hands, and if this could not be conveniently done, Cooney was to return with the letter and wait a more favourable opportunity.

It took him some time to indite the brief epistle, which was couched in very guarded, albeit not in very elegant, language but it sufficed for the purpose.

Cooney was as hang-dog a looking rascal as it was well possible to conceive, but the gipsy had no other person to send upon whom he could rely――his messenger was by no means a fool――although of a common coarse type and as ignorant as a “hack horse;” but he was artful and was not easily “cornered,” to make use of an American phrase, so away he went upon his mission. The maid servant opened the door and Cooney asked if her mistress was disengaged.

“Suppose she is. What do you want with her?” inquired the girl, looking at the speaker with evident mistrust and suspicion.

“I don’t want anything with her, my dear,” returned Cooney, in oleaginous accents.

“Don’t dear me, man,” cried the girl. “What’s your business?”

“Is the doctor in?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is your mistress alone?”

“If she is I’m sure she won’t see you.”

“Well, you’re a nice-looking girl, but a little sharp, but that don’t matter. Now listen.”

“I am listening. Go on, and be as quick as possible.”

“I’ve got a letter for your mistress,” said Cooney, in a strange whisper, “which must be delivered into her own hands.”

“A begging letter I suppose.”

“No, it aint no begging letter, nuffin of the sort. You were never more mistaken in your life, but it’s a letter from a friend, and is of the greatest importance.”

The girl laughed derisively.

“You’re on the wrong tack, my lady,” observed Cooney, reprovingly. “Don’t be so cheeky, because it aint becoming in young females to be cheeky.”

“Get out with your impudence. Give me the letter at once, and I will take it up to Mrs. Bourne.”

“All right, my lass, there it is; but don’t you be agivin’ it to anybody else. Do yer hear?”

“Yes, I hear,” cried the maid, tripping lightly upstairs with the missive in question.

“She is a pretty creature,” murmured Cooney, as he was waiting in the passage. “A jolly nice gal, but a little pert; but I like her all the better for that. Don’t care a bit about your smooth-tongued wenches.”

In a minute or so the maid returned and handed an envelope with no name or address upon it to Rawton’s messenger.

“You are to give that to him,” said the maid, in a more subdued tone of voice.

“Thank you kindly,” returned Cooney. “Oh, but you are a darling, and no mistake.”

“Get along with your impudence. I never met with such a rude man in all my life.”

“Oh――don’t say that.”

“Go away at once. You’ve got your answer――so now be off.”

Cooney sallied forth, and the door was slammed to the moment he had passed out of the house.

He took the answer he had received to his pal, Bill Rawton, who tore open the envelope, and drew forth a slip of paper, on which was written these words――

“If you desire to see me, call to-morrow evening at about half-past seven.”

“That’s all right,” cried the gipsy. “I’ll be there.”

“She aint altogether the most amiable girl I’ve met with,” observed Cooney.

“Who aint?”

“Why the maid-servant. But she’s jolly good-looking, and I ’xpect she knows it.”

“You haven’t been fool enough to chaff the doctor’s servant? Why, she’s a most respectable, well-behaved young woman.”

“Aint no manner of doubt about that ere,” returned Cooney.

“I am sorry I sent you.”

“Why, it’s all right enough――aint it?”

“Yes; but it strikes me you’ve been too forward with the girl.”

“Nuffin of the sort. Is it likely?”

“Well, if I must say what I think, I feel certain that there’s nothing more likely. You ought to know better.”

“Well, I’m blest! Do you expect a bloke to stand like a mute at the door of a gentleman’s house?”

“There, shut up! Enough of this,” observed Rawton, who made a shrewd guess of what had taken place. “He never could keep his tongue still,” murmured Rawton, “and I suppose never will. However, it doesn’t much matter I suppose.”

On the following evening, at a little before the appointed time, Bill Rawton left the lodging-house, and made direct for the doctor’s house.

As he came within sight of this he observed the boy in the street with a basket of medicine bottles on his arm.

“Hallo, young gallipot!――just one moment, my lad,” cried Rawton.

“Yes, sir.”

“Is your master in?”

“No.”

“Oh, then, I’ll just call and leave my card. When do you expect him to return?”

“He didn’t say when he would be back.”

“All right. I may as well call. Good night.”

“Good night, sir.”

“Oh, he’s not in; so much the better for my purpose,” said the gipsy, as he gave a gentle knock at the door, which was opened by the girl Amy.

“Do you want to see missus?” said she.

“Yes, if she’s disengaged and alone.”

“She’s quite disengaged, and told me to show you upstairs.”

Bill was conducted into the front room, first floor, where he found Mrs. Bourne, pale and anxious, awaiting his appearance.

“So,” said she, “you are here again. I concluded you had something to communicate, and am glad you have come at the specified time. My husband is not in the way, and we can converse without fear of interruption. Be seated, and proceed to business at once.”

The gipsy dropped into the nearest chair.

“It would be a sore trouble to me if I thought my presence here and my interview with the doctor, and the words I have spoken, might cause you trouble or anxiety.”

“They have caused me great trouble and anxiety, but let that pass. I do not blame you. What you have done――the information you have given――places me in the utmost peril: but, as I before observed, it is no fault of yours. Pray tell me what you purpose doing? It appears to me, if you have any consideration for me, that you had better avoid this house, and not present yourself here again. You will thereby avoid being cross-questioned by my husband, who, from what I can gather, wishes to extract all he can get from you.”

“He will get nothing more from me――remember, not a smell. Of that I will be as silent as the grave. If I do open my mouth at all it will be to deny all I have said. You say I have placed you in a situation of extreme peril?”

“I believe you have. And you would agree with me if you knew all. Doctor Bourne will not rest, night or day, till he has found out the church where we were married. This done, he will have proof which will be fatal to me.”

“He will find no proof, madam,” said Bill Rawton. “I have taken good care of that.”

“How can you talk in such an inconsistent and unreasonable way? How is it possible for you to remove a record so indisputable? The books in the church contain a register of this unfortunate and fatal marriage.”

“I told you, when last here, that I would repair the evil I had done. I have kept my word. There is no record of our union――none whatever. And no living man can procure it――except myself,” cried Rawton, in a solemn tone of voice.

“You are speaking more like a madman than a sane person.”

“Am I?”

“I should imagine so.”

“You are mistaken. Listen to me for one moment. I say there is no record. The leaf in the book containing the certificate of the marriage between William Rawton and Hester Teige is no longer in the books of the church. I have it here.”

As he said this Bill Rawton drew forth the page he had abstracted from the breast pocket of his coat. He handed it to his companion, who was bewildered and awe-struck.

“In Heaven’s mercy what have you done?” she ejaculated.

“Read and judge for yourself,” he returned.

She did read, and her face became as pale as death.

She was so overwhelmed with astonishment and fear that she could not find words to express herself.

“I have kept my word,” he said slowly, and with something like melancholy and remorse in his tone. “I have at all risks contrived to make you a free woman――free, as far as I am concerned, and free also from the danger which threatened you. Bear witness, Mrs. Bourne, for you alone can do so, that I have been mindful of your interest, that I have shown a desire to shelter and shield you. The tie which bound us was cancelled years and years ago. Now it no longer has existence. It has passed away, and will never rise up in judgment against either of us――never.”

He took the paper in his hand, thrust it into the fire, where in a few moments it was consumed.

Mrs. Bourne looked at him in a state of stupefaction, but he was calm and quite unmoved.

“William Rawton,” she presently exclaimed, “I never would have believed this of you, certainly not, unless I had been witness of it and seen it with my own eyes. I have found a champion and friend where I least expected to meet with one. I know not how to express myself. I never dreamed you had so much magnanimity in your nature. How can I possibly recompense you?”

“I don’t want any recompense,” observed the gipsy. “What I have done has been done for your sake. Perhaps you will find it hard to believe this, but it is a fact nevertheless. I aint of much good in this world, and nobody has a good word for Bill Rawton the gipsy. Nobody cares about him, who is at best an outcast and a blot upon the face of the earth; but it may be in the years that are to come that one person will think well of him, and remember he was not altogether the selfish and abandoned wretch people suppose him to be. If that one thinks well of him――remembers him with something like gratitude――he will be amply rewarded for the favour he has conferred upon her.”

Mrs. Bourne was touched, her eyes were moist with tears, and she stretched forth her hand which the gipsy clasped fervently, and respectfully raised to his lips.

“I am glad to have been of service to you,” he cried. “This is the brightest hour I have known for many a day, and the remembrance of it will last my life.”

“Oh! Rawton, how much I have reason to be thankful for what you have done. I tremble when I reflect upon the act you have committed. Suppose it should be discovered, what then? What a risk you have run!”

“It will not be discovered――rest assured of that. I am in no fear of the consequences.”

“But it’s a dreadful alternative, and a most discreditable proceeding. It’s direct robbery.”

“Nothing of the sort.”

“Oh, yes, it is――there’s no denying it.”

“Well, suppose it is, what does it matter. You are not bound to know anything about it――nobody is bound to do so. Don’t you be concerned about the matter; it’s right enough.”

“Right! I think it’s very wrong, sinful, and wicked.”

“Ah, that all depends upon the way you look at these things. I see no harm in it――not a morsel of harm. However, it’s done, and done to save you.”

“I know that, and am, of course, duly grateful; but it is a terrible alternative.”

“There was no other left, as I could see, and it was the wisest course. Any way, it makes you safe, and that’s all I care about.”

The conversation was cut short by the sudden and unexpected entrance of Dr. Bourne into the room in which his wife and the gipsy were seated.

They were both astonished, and not a little alarmed at his appearance.

“You here, eh!” he exclaimed, in a tone of anger, addressing himself to Rawton.

“Right you be, doctor,” returned the gipsy. “I’m here, as you see.”

“And pray, sir, if it is not an impudent question,” observed the doctor, with bitter irony, “may I inquire how it is that I find you holding a secret conference with my wife? But I need not ask. I can make a pretty shrewd guess.”

“If you can guess, I wouldn’t trouble myself to inquire, if I were you,” said Rawton, nothing moved.

“You are an impudent, low-bred fellow,” cried Bourne, in a towering passion. “How dare you have the impertinence to address this lady, and what can you be thinking of to encourage the visits of such a low ruffian, madam?”

This last observation was made to his wife, who was too distressed and overcome to make any reply.

“You were out,” said Bill, “and I asked to see your lady. ’spose there’s no great harm in that?”

“Harm!” cried Bourne. “Don’t imagine you can deceive me. I ask you again, what brought you hither?”

“Why my legs, of course; I ain’t got a carriage, and so had to walk.”

“Hark ye, my man, let me have no more of your impudence, or I shall find means to punish you. I say, again, what business have you here holding a conference with Mrs. Bourne, who ought to be ashamed of herself to be seen conversing with such a ruffian. Answer my question without any more ado.”

“You’re so sharp upon a cove that you don’t give a chap time to answer. Well, if you must know, I wanted to leave a message with the lady.”

“It’s a lie――an impudent lie; you wanted to do nothing of the sort. You think I cannot see through you, I suppose, you shameless woman.”

“Hold hard, guv’nor――one at a time, if you please,” cried Bill.

“You will be pleased to address me in a more respectful manner, my man. Do you hear?”

“Yes, I hear.”

“Now, madam,” said Bourne, turning to his wife, “will you kindly enlighten me on this subject? What is the reason for this man being here?”

“He is your acquaintance, not mine,” said Mrs. Bourne.

“Thank you for the compliment. He’s a robber, a thief, and a disgrace to a civilised community; and this is the man you choose to encourage here, is it?”

“I do not encourage him――I have told him to go away.”

“Yes, that’s quite true; she has told me to go away and not come here any more, and I have promised to do so.”

“You are not going away just yet, my man,” cried the doctor. “I have a goodish bit to say to you.”

“Ah, that being the case, it’s lucky I am here.”

“You are very well acquainted with this lady it would appear――eh?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” returned Bill.

“Don’t you?”

“No.”

“I know what I mean――look at her.”

“Well, I am looking at the lady.”

“You’ve seen her before years ago――haven’t you?”

“Me, no; not as I know of.”

“You can’t deceive me, you scoundrel――she is your wife.”

At this, Bill Rawton burst out into a loud laugh, which a little disconcerted the doctor.

“My wife,” cried Bill. “Why, doctor, you’re a little touched in the upper story, I’m thinking.”

“I say she is your wife.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

“And I say she’s not.”

“And never was?”

“And never was.”

“Well, my man, you have any amount of audacity――that I frankly admit; but it won’t be of much service to you in this case. You have already acknowledged your name to be William Rawton.”

“I have passed as William Rawton.”

The doctor started.

“You haven’t got the right sow by the ear as yet, doctor,” observed the gipsy, with the most admirable self-possession. “Him as you call Will Rawton was drowned years agone in Harcott’s millstream.”

“Audacious liar!” exclaimed Bourne, in a fury; “think not to disprove your identity.”

“I don’t intend to do so; but, as I observed before, you’ve got the wrong pig by the ear.”

“Then you are not William Rawton?”

“I have passed as him――that’s all.”

The doctor made no answer to this. He quietly walked into an adjoining room, without even so much as uttering a word. Presently he returned with something in his hand.

It was a miniature.

“Look at this,” he said, holding it before the gipsy.

“Yes, I see it; it’s a picture, and a very pretty one, too――a likeness of somebody, I ’spose?”

“A likeness of yourself, my man,” said Bourne, in high glee.

“Of me?”

“Most certainly, and an admirable one it is, or was, for it was taken about twenty years ago. It must have been wonderfully like at that time――I should say most remarkably like the original.”

“Not having seen the original I can’t say,” said Bill, perfectly unmoved.

“The original is yourself, my man.”

Bill shook his head.

“That won’t do; look at the nose, it’s a mile too long, and the picture is not in any way like me――leastways as far as I can see――but if you say it is, of course I give in to your superior judgment.”

“I say it is a portrait of William Rawton, and that you are he.”

“Very good――have it your own way. It does not make much difference to me. I don’t quite see what you are driving at, but that is of no great consequence, I suppose?”

“It is of very great consequence to me though.”

“Is it?”

“Yes, and so, my very excellent friend, you may as well confess all. You will have to do so, you know, sooner or later. You are the lawful husband of this lady.”

“Get out――me her husband!――it’s false,” exclaimed Bill. “You must think me a fool to believe what you say.”

“I shall find means to prove the truth of what I’m saying,” said Bourne, in a confident tone.

“I am sure you won’t. What’s your little game? Do you want to get rid of your wife――eh?”

“Your wife.”

“No; yours, if you please. Of all the capers I ever heard of this is about the rummest. Why, you must have been swallowing some of your own medicine, doctor, and it has flown to your head, and driven you silly.”

“Don’t you give me any more of your impudence, fellow,” cried Bourne, in a fury. “I am in no mood to stand it. Your audacity is exceeding all bounds; but I know very well how to deal with a man of your type. You will find it difficult, or, indeed, I may say impossible, to deceive me. This miniature which I hold in my hand is in itself quite sufficient to prove your identity. You are William Rawton, the gipsy――the same William Rawton who was wedded some twenty years ago to Hester Teige――the beauteous and fascinating Hester Teige, as she was afterwards called,” continued the doctor, in a sarcastic tone.

“Am I?”

“Yes, you are; and I think you will find it difficult to disprove my statement.”

“All right, governor; have it your own way,” cried Bill, with an aggravating laugh. “All right. Have it your own way. It does so happen, however, that Rawton was drowned in a mill-stream, and that, for special reasons, best known to myself, I chose to call myself by his name.”

“Then you told me a false and wicked lie on the evening when we first met, but I know which story to believe.

“Pray, sir, how is it I find you here in company with this lady? Answer me that. Shall I tell you?”

“If you like.”

“It is just this: you are here plotting together for the purpose of determining how you can best deeeive me. But do not think you will succeed in your nefarious plans. Still at the same time I have to apologize for disturbing a tête-à-tête between husband and wife,” observed the doctor, with aggravating sarcasm.

Mrs. Bourne, who had purposely abstained from saying anything more than the occasion absolutely required, now observed in a deprecatory tone――

“I do hope and trust, Mr. Bourne, that this conversation will be brought to a close as speedily as possible, if it be only for my sake.”

“For your sake, madam!” exclaimed her husband with a sneer. “Upon my word that is really a good joke. It is really amusing. I think, madam, I shall have no very great difficulty in dissolving the galling and odious tie which binds me to so amiable a partner. A prior marriage [Sidenote: No. 51.] with a gentleman who is still alive will suffice for the purpose. Mr. William Rawton, who is here present――――”

“I am not William Rawton,” interrupted the gipsy.

“Then who are you?”

“What do you want to know for?”

“No matter; I do want to know――let that suffice.”

“Then I don’t choose to tell you; let that suffice; but even if you could prove me to be Rawton, which you never can, what would it matter?”

“Then this lady would be the wife of two husbands,” cried the doctor, bowing with mock gravity; “don’t you see that?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Ah! but I do.”

“Oh, so you think; but you are mistaken,” observed the gipsy, perfectly unmoved; “never were more mistaken in your life.”

“Am I?”

“Yes; you are most miserably mistaken. Shall I tell you why?”

“I am always glad to receive information, especially in this case, as it is a subject which concerns myself.”

“Right you are, doctor; I s’pose it does concern yourself. Well, then, the young girl named Hester Teige was married to a gipsy; there’s no denying that; but what sort of marriage was it?”

“What sort?”

“Aye, what sort, indeed! She was married in the gipsy’s camp――after the manner of gipsies――married by the father of the tribe, with the sun for a witness, and the greensward for her couch. As far as the legal part of the business is concerned, it wasn’t any marriage at all. So you may take your change out of that.”

As he brought this brief speech to a conclusion, he burst out into a mocking laugh.

“You lying scoundrel!” exclaimed Bourne, in a paroxysm of rage. “You contemptible, deceptive hound――it is false――and I will prove you to be a liar as well as a thief――you unmitigated ruffian!”

“Go on, governor, lay it on thick. Your hard words won’t hurt me; cause why? I’m too much used to them.”

“You shameless abandoned woman,” cried Bourne, turning towards his wife. “I have disgraced myself by my connection with you. What have you to say to this fellow’s declaration?”

“I don’t choose to say anything. You have heard all he has said, and can judge for yourself. You have brought this scandal upon yourself; but it was not done without a cause. I decline to argue the question with you.”

“Insolent strumpet!” exclaimed the doctor, striking his wife on the side of the head. “Hence――get out of this house at once.”

“Hold hard!” cried Bill, stepping between the enraged husband and his ill-used wife. “Hit a woman! You are a coward and a bully. If you want to hit anyone pitch into me.”

“Stand out of my way――you dirty lying thief,” cried Bourne.

“Look here, if you give me any more of your cheek,” said the gipsy, “or attempt to lay hands on this lady I’ll smash you――that’s what I’ll do with you, and no flies.”

“You audacious miscreant!” cried Bourne, almost beside himself with rage, and striking the gipsy over the head with his walking stick.

Bill at once let out with his right and left in rapid succession, hitting the doctor some terrible blows in the face, which were delivered direct from the shoulder. Bourne was so taken aback by the suddenness and vigour of the attack that he had not time to recover himself.

“I’ll make you smart for this,” he said, presently. “You can’t escape me, you scoundrel. I’ve two officers below.” And as he uttered these words he rushed towards the door, calling out for assistance at the same time.

The gipsy intercepted his passage, and levelled him to the floor with one powerful blow from his clenched fist.

In falling the doctor’s head came in contact with the fender, and he lay on the hearthrug, speechless and senseless.

At this crisis the sound of a low whistle fell upon the ears of Bandy-legged Bill, who judged rightly enough that danger was at hand. He went at once to the door of the apartment, closed and locked it, then he bethought him of what to do.

“Oh merciful heaven, save and succour me,” ejaculated Mrs. Bourne, wringing her hands. “What have you done?” She glanced at the prostrate form of her husband. “Perhaps murder.”

The noise of ascending footsteps on the stairs was now heard, and another whistle was given by somebody outside the house.

“This is indeed terrible. You will be captured; ruin and disgrace will fall upon me. Oh, unhappy and fatal was the hour you set foot in this house.”

“I’ll leave it for good and for all,” returned Bill, “and never of my own free will enter it again.”

“Leave――but how?” inquired Mrs. Bourne. “Hark, they are knocking at the door and endeavouring to break it open.”

Bill Rawton felt that not a moment was to be lost; he flew to the back window of the apartment and threw it open.

Then he thrust his head forth and took a rapid survey of the surrounding yards. Abutting out from the window was the roof of a washhouse. To drop on this was no very difficult task, but even when this had been done, the gipsy did not see any way of getting clear of the yards in the rear, and the sides of the doctor’s residence were surrounded by walls and houses, and he did not see any place for concealment. Nevertheless, he felt that to remain where he was would most assuredly end in his capture. There were one or two little matters against him which rendered an interview with police officers in no way desirable. Rawton had risked much for the sake of Mrs. Bourne. He had acted towards her with a spirit of magnanimity, which was the one bright spot in his shadowy character, and it is but fair that he should have full credit for the better impulse of his nature, which prompted him to save the woman whom he had once loved.

The officers were beating violently against the door of the apartment, and demanding immediate admittance.

“Fly!” cried Mrs. Bourne. “Get clear off while there is yet time.”

“It is evident you have done something wrong, and the police are on your track. Doubtless my husband has brought them hither. Fly! for mercy’s sake hesitate no longer!”

“Hammer away, my sweet pets,” cried Bill, as he heard the thumps at the door. “My name’s Walker.”

He crept through the window, hung by his hands for a moment from the sill, and dropped safely on the roof of the outhouse. From here he slid down into the yard. Then he looked about him for a moment or two, not knowing very well what next to be at. He felt pretty certain that some of the neighbours would soon observe his movements from the backs of the surrounding houses, and therefore prompt action was required in his present emergency, for he did not intend to be taken if he could help it.

He jumped over the wall and reached another yard, which was paved. He soon discovered he was in close proximity to a stable.

A man was cleaning some harness in the yard, where he now found himself, and while thus occupied he looked at the gipsy in an inquiring and, it might be, a suspicious manner.

“All right, mate,” said Bill. “You’ve no call to be afeard. I’ve just given a bloke a prop in the eye, and another on the sneezer. We’ve had a bit of a scrimmge, and the bobbies are after me.”

“Who have you been mugging, then?” said the ostler, with a laugh.

“Why, a doctor.”

“What name?”

“Bourne.”

“Oh, scissors! What, that varmint!”

“Ah, you’re right, he is a varmint. But, I say, just let me come inside――there’s a good fellow.”

“Inside where?”

“The stable. Anywhere to get out of sight.”

“I’d step it, if I were you.”

“That’s just what I want to do.”

“Come in, mate, I won’t turn my back upon a man whose in a bit of a mess, which I ’xpect you are.”

“In a jolly mess, and no flies.”

The gipsy crept into the stable, and his newly-formed friend went on cleaning the harness as if nothing had happened.

Both remained for some time inside the stable without saying a word. Presently his friend, the ostler, said, in a low whisper――

“I say, old fellow, there’s some blokes a looking out of the window of the doctor’s house.”

“The devil,” murmured Bill, “I wish I was out of this. They’ll be in the yard presently I expect. Tell me when they draw in their ugly heads.”

“Hush, stow magging,” cried the man in a whisper. “Hold your row, you fool.”

The gipsy did not venture to speak after this timely admonition, but awaited the issue in breathless suspense.

In a few moments after this the harness cleaner entered the stable.

“You’d better step it,” he observed.

“Yes, that’s all very well, but how? Show me the way, and I’ll be off in the twinkling of a bedpost.”

“I don’t know who you are,” said the ostler. “You may have committed murder, for aught I know; but I don’t like to give a cove up, unless he’s a downright bad un.”

“Oh, get out――murder, indeed! I tell you, all I’ve done is to floor the doctor; but he’s got his knife into me for other reasons. I can’t explain all to you now, but show me the way to escape. Could you take me through the house?”

“I can, of course, but you may be seen, and then there will be the devil to pay!”

“Well, I’m sure you’re a good sort. Take pity on a poor chap. Come, now, just think it over. A man is never the worse for doing another a good turn.”

“Who and what are you?”

“Well, if you must know, I was a jockey. Now, I’m in the horse-training line.”

“I guessed as much by your looks. Wait a bit; I’ll just have a squint, and see if the blokes are there or not.”

The speaker went out into the yard again, and glanced at the back window of the doctor’s residence, then he returned to the stable.

“They’ve hooked it,” he ejaculated. “Now’s your time. Follow me.”

Bill Rawton did not need a second bidding. He passed quickly out, went up a narrow passage by the side of the stable, and then entered the back door of the house to which it was attached. Passing quickly along this until he reached the end of the hall, he came to the front door of the establishment.

The ostler opened this, placed his finger on his lips to enjoin silence, and Bill emerged into the street.

It is needless to say perhaps that he walked as fast as his legs would carry him.

He had succeeded, thanks to the ostler, in getting clear off.

Leaving him for awhile, we will return to the room from which he had escaped.

The hammering at the door continued for some time after Bill had dropped on to the outhouse. Mrs. Bourne did not know what to do.

On the floor lay her husband in an insensible condition. Who the men were outside the room she could not very well determine, but she judged rightly enough that they were officers of the law.

She was, however, in no way disposed to admit them till Rawton had sufficient time afforded him to effect his escape.

The poor woman was in a terrible state of fright and trepidation, and she stood, pale and irresolute, wringing her hands, in the centre of the apartment.

“If you don’t unlock the door, we will break it open,” cried a voice from the outside.

“For mercy’s sake, what’s the matter? Do say what you want!” cried Mrs. Bourne.

“We want to see the doctor. Open the door without further ado.”

“But I am afraid. Doctor Bourne has had a desperate struggle with some man, and is lying senseless on the floor. Are you friends or enemies?”

“Friends. We are detective officers.”

Mrs. Bourne unlocked the door, and our old friend, Mr. Wrench, entered, in hot haste. He was accompanied by another person, who was a detective from New York.

“What is the meaning of all this, madam?” said Wrench. “Your husband lying senseless, and you alone with him! Please to account for this as best you can.”

Mrs. Bourne briefly explained the conflict that had taken place, and said that the man who had struck her husband threatened to take her life if she opened the door. She wound up by declaring that he had made his escape through the window.

“Foiled!” ejaculated Wrench. “Our man has given us the slip. But no matter, I shall be able to find him.”

“What has he been doing, gentlemen?” inquired Mrs. Bourne.

“We have to arrest him upon the charge of horse-stealing――that’s all,” observed Wrench.

“But my poor husband? Pray see to him at once.”

The two officers lifted up the doctor and placed him on the sofa.

The movement seemed to revive him, for he slowly opened his eyes and exclaimed, in an anxious tone――

“Where is he?”

“Who, sir?” inquired Wrench.

“That infamous wretch, the gipsy.”

“He has escaped, but don’t trouble yourself about that, we shall catch him. How do you feel now?”

“Very bad――my head swims――I――――”

He ceased speaking, having swooned.

A doctor in the immediate neighbourhood was sent for, who at once proceeded to make an examination of the injuries received.

He said there was nothing to be alarmed at; there was a contused wound at the base of the skull. This had, in all probability, been caused by the head coming in contact with the fender, but in addition to this there were two or three abrasures and contusions on the face.

The patient was weak from shock to the system and loss of blood, but there was no danger to be apprehended.

The injuries were strapped up, and the doctor ordered him to keep his bed till his medical adviser’s next visit.

“I care not for myself,” said he to Wrench; “all I am anxious about is that miscreant. Lose no time in hunting him down. Don’t let him escape if you can possibly help.”

“I dare say we shall be able to find him, sir. Leave that matter to me and my friend Shearman.”

“Ah, just so, you have not introduced me to the gentleman.”

“I beg pardon, I have not. Mr. Shearman, of the New York detectives; Shearman, Doctor Bourne.”

“I should have liked to make the doctor’s acquaintance under more favourable circumstances,” observed Shearman, dryly. “But, let us hope he will be himself again in a day or two.”

“There is not the least doubt of that,” said Bourne; “but, meanwhile, do your best to capture that ruffian.”

“Wrench and Shearman drew aside and had a long conversation, which was carried on in whispers.

“Not at present; there will be time enough for that,” cried Wrench, in a louder tone――“plenty of time.”

“Good; so be it, then,” ejaculated the Yankee.

“I tell you no time is to be lost,” exclaimed the doctor, who was under the impression that they were discussing the mode of proceeding to be adopted in reference to Rawton.

“We will do our best, rest assured of that, sir,” observed Wrench, quietly. “In the meantime, keep as quiet as possible. Good evening. We both wish you a speedy recovery.”

“Thank you. Good evening, gentlemen.”

The two detectives then left the patient to himself. Doctor Bourne’s head and temples were throbbing, and he was in great pain, but consciousness had returned, and he was already much better than anyone would have supposed.

“I wonder who that fellow is Wrench brought with him? A detective from New York, he said. Strange! What made him bring him here, I wonder. Our constabulary is sufficiently effective without enlisting the services of officers belonging to America. It seems a strange thing to me that Wrench should be in such close companionship with a mysterious man like that. From New York, eh?”

He tossed about in an uneasy manner, and kept harping upon the subject for some time; presently the medicine he had swallowed took effect, and he sank into a sound slumber.

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XCVII. WATCHING AND WAITING――A TETE-A-TETE BETWEEN TWO DETECTIVES

When Mr. Wrench and his companion descended to the basement of the house they were invited into the parlour by the mistress of the establishment, who placed before them wine and brandy――they both elected to have a glass of the latter.

“How do you think the doctor is? He seems very prostrate,” said Mrs. Bourne.

“I think he’s going on all right, madam,” returned Wrench. “He’s weak, of course, but is far better than we had a right to expect, considering the damage to which he has been subjected.”

“You think so?”

“Oh, dear me, I feel assured of it. You need not be under any apprehension. He’ll soon be himself again, but we must now look after our man――that is the next duty we have to perform.”

“You allude to his assailant, I presume?”

“Precisely――to the man Rawton. It will be joyful news to you, I expect, when you hear of his arrest.”

“It’s an unfortunate business, Mr. Wrench――very unfortunate. Rawton was not so very much to blame.”

“Indeed!” exclaimed Shearman. “The attack was not made for the purpose of robbery, then?”

“Dear me, no. There was a dispute――a wrangle――and words were used, and the doctor struck him first.”

“Oh, oh!” cried Shearman, glancing at Wrench.

“It does not matter,” returned the latter. “He is wanted――is charged with horse-stealing; this assault is only a secondary sort of affair, but of course it will have to be inquired into when we get our man. Did you see which way he went, madam, after he got out of the window?”

This last query was addressed to Mrs. Bourne.

“No, I did not,” she answered.

“If it is not an impertinent question,” observed Shearman, “may I inquire how long you have been married to Doctor Bourne?”

“Sir!” ejaculated the lady.

“Pray excuse the observation. Do not imagine, madam, that I am inquiring out of mere idle curiosity. Gentlemen in our profession seldom do that.”

“I confess I am at a loss to understand the reason for such a question, but there is no secret in the matter――indeed, there is no reason for secrecy. I have been married to the doctor between five and six years.”

“More than five years of wedded bliss,” ejaculated the American.

“I have not said so.”

“Ahem! No. But I infer it. I hope the inference is a correct one, for your sake.”

“I do not as yet see what you are driving at, sir,” returned Mrs. Bourne, a little nettled, “and for the life of me cannot understand what my wedded bliss, as you term it, has to do with you.”

“Pardon my friend,” cried Wrench, coming to the rescue, “he’s at times too plain-spoken, and, I think I may add, a little too inquisitive, but it is a way he and his countrymen have, and which, I am sure, or at any rate I hope, you will overlook.”

“I am not offended with the gentleman, but he is to me a perfect stranger. That you must admit. And――well, to speak plainly, he is a little peculiar for a stranger.”

“I beg ten thousand pardons, my dear madam,” said Shearman. “I will not offend in a like manner again.”

“I have already told you, sir, that I am not offended. Let that suffice.”

“Let it suffice also for the present,” observed Shearman, “that as time goes on you will be able to discover the reason for my query, which, as I before observed, was not made out of idle curiosity.”

“Good evening, Mrs. Bourne.”

“Good evening, gentlemen,” said the doctor’s wife, as she saw her two visitors to the door.

“Now, Shearman,” ejaculated Wrench, when they had got some little distance from the house, “you have your duty to perform and I have mine. In the first place, I must see and find my man.”

“Certainly, by all means; the sooner the better, say I. Am I in your way?”

“By no means. I shall be glad of your company, if you’ve nothing better to do.”

“I’ve nothing to do at all just at present.”

Mr. Wrench made direct for a public-house called “The Bag o’ Nails.” This place was nearly opposite the common lodging-house to which Rawton was known to repair. The detective’s object was to keep watch and ward over the entrance to the lodging-house from the front-floor window of the public opposite. He argued shrewdly enough that as the night wore on, the gipsy would pass in to the lodging-house in question, and when this had taken place, Mr. Wench proposed paying a visit to the establishment and capturing the runaway horse-stealer.

The front room first floor of the “Bag ’o Nails” was used by the Foresters, who held their weekly meetings there. On the evening in question it was vacant, and this Mr. Wrench knew perfectly well.

The detective was known to the landlord of the house, and a few explanatory words in the bar parlour with that worthy sufficed to make him comprehend that our two detectives wanted the use of the room for a few hours, and this was at once acceded them.

They took up their station close by the window, but like bashful gentlemen as they were, they did not court the public gaze. Far from it――they concealed themselves, as well as they could conveniently do so, behind the thick wire blind which obscured the lower part of the window. There was a flaming gaslight immediately in front of the lodging-house, so that there was but little difficulty in observing those who entered the place after dark.

Some brandy cold was ordered by the two detectives, who, after it had been brought in, closed the door, and took up their stations.

“You know best, I suppose,” said Shearman, “but I should say the fellow would never be fool enough to betake himself to his old quarters since he must know he’s wanted.”

“Well, he’s hard up, and has no other place to go to, I believe. Anyway, there is a chance, and I don’t care to miss it.”

It is weary work watching and waiting in cases of this sort, and the outside world has probably no idea of the patience and unremitting attention which detectives have at times to exercise.

In this case, however, Wrench had a companion, and that in a measure beguiled the tediousness of the hours.

“The doctor’s wife must have been a beautiful woman in her early days,” said Shearman. “Indeed, she is so now, to my thinking.”

“Oh, yes, very beautiful at one time, and was thought a good deal of in the fashionable world.”

“Has been kept by one or more, I suppose?”

Mr. Wrench nodded.

“Bourne married her for money, I should imagine.”

“For nothing else, money and patronage.”

“Ah, just so. That I should imagine. Don’t hit it very well together, eh?”

“Do people ever hit it who contract marriages of that description?”

“Perhaps not. Still there are exceptions.”

“Very few.”

“He’s a bad lot.”

“Dear me, yes, a very bad lot.”

The conversation began to flag, and the first hour passed slowly away. Two more glasses were ordered, and two cigars, and the watchers shifted their seats and prepared themselves for a long sitting.

“You’ve seen a goodish bit in your time, Wrench?”

“Yes; and so have you, I expect?”

“Certainly; but the life of chaps like us is very different, I should imagine, in the States to what it is in this country. You see, there is such an extent of territory, and it would puzzle a Philadelphia lawyer to tell which way your man has taken. But, mind you, your London thief is a match for all the world in cunning――he hasn’t any equal, I should say.”

“None whatever,” returned Wrench, puffing blue wreaths of smoke from his cigar.

“Your man don’t make his appearance as yet.”

“No; and it’s precious tedious, this waiting. But don’t you stop unless you like.”

“Ah, but I do like. I don’t find it tedious. We are all right here, in a snug room quite to ourselves. Did I ever tell you of a midnight adventure I had in the new country?”

“No, I don’t know that you ever did. Let’s have it. Anyway, it will break the monotony of the evening.”

“No one knows better than yourself, Wrench, that a detective’s life is full of incident and adventure. One hears this remark often enough, but few out of the force reflect upon what a multitude of remarkable circumstances and events such an experience does cover. You must know that at one time I was night policeman in the New York force.”

“Oh, were you? I didn’t know that,” said Wrench.

“Yes, was only a night policeman at the commencement, and I must say, that notwithstanding the many disagreeable things connected with the calling, on the whole I liked it.”

“Ah, you would not like it in this country.”

“Possibly not; but I did there, and took an interest in my business. Perhaps this is why I was in several instances more successful in certain matters of importance connected with our profession than were others of my companions, and eventually attracted the head of our department. At all events, I received a note from our chief, and was agreeably surprised upon calling, to find that I was to be removed from the position I then occupied, and was to be put upon special duty as a detective officer.”

“Oh, that’s how it came about, eh?” said Wrench.

“Yes, and you――?”

“I commenced as a detective, but proceed.”

“We have had an eye upon you, Shearman,” said our leader, “and in addition to you being a brave and efficient officer, certain matters show you to be ingenious and incorruptible――the characteristics which should be vital tests in the selection of our detective force; so you know the reason of your promotion.”

“He was quite right,” observed Wrench. “I am sorry to say that corruption creeps in to no small extent here――I don’t know how it is in America.”

“Oh, bad enough. I thanked him for my good fortune, and so much that was flattering confused me not a little.”

“Now, Shearman,” said he, after I had concluded, “we are about to put you on a trail that will test your powers to the utmost, and one which, if successfully followed up to a favourable termination, will establish your reputation as a detective.”

I eagerly listened to the details which were placed before me, and made careful and copious notes of the same; and when I left the office it was with the determination never to return unless as a successful man――that is, as far as this case was concerned.

With an excess of caution I said nothing to my old companions about the change in my circumstances, for I had determined to be as faithful as I possibly could. The facts of the case were as follows:――

A bank robbery, so bold and startling as to create a good deal of excitement, even in those days of sensation, had been perpetrated a few weeks previously on one of our State institutions, and the whole matter had been accomplished in such an exquisitely adroit and skilful manner as to baffle hitherto the most persistent attempts to discover the clever operators.

A large reward had been offered for the offenders, but all seemed useless, and the losers had about made up their minds that the affair must go to their profit and loss account.

I had little hope that I, so inexperienced, could succeed, where men thoroughly educated and disciplined by years of practice had signally failed, and almost grumbled that the department had put me upon such a case for my maiden attempt; still I determined to do my best.

Of course, my first move was to carefully examine the premises where the robbery had taken place, and discover, if possible, some clue to the villains.

From the style of the work they were undoubtedly experienced hands, but I was too new to the brotherhood to determine with any degree of probability as to the identity of the men from the character of the job, like others who had preceded me.

I found nothing which would apparently throw the faintest gleam of light upon the matter, and in fact said as much to the president, as I was about to leave the place.

The stone bank building joined the wooden building of the cashier, and was accessible from his rooms by a glass half door. It was plain enough that the thieves had effected an easy entrance into his house, and passing softly through his sleeping chamber, had gained the interior of the bank and the vaults by removing a pane of glass from the upper part of the door, and had escaped by opening a window from the back of the bank from the inside.

The vault locks, themselves, had been destroyed in a common way, by the agency of gunpowder. While I was talking with the president, I stood idly drumming on the sash where the glass had been removed, and as I turned away, felt a sharp pain like the prick of a needle upon my right forefinger, and upon looking at my hand found that it was bleeding slightly.

Naturally my first thought was that I had been cut with a piece of glass broken off in the sash when the pane was first removed, but not liking to overlook anything, however trivial apparently, I privately turned back, and upon examination, to my joy extracted from the wood-work the ragged end of a penknife blade, which had perhaps been used to remove the glass.

I examined it intently, and found that the fracture was peculiar――rather a longitudinal one than the ordinary breakage straight across the blade. I said nothing of my discovery, but put the piece carefully away, perhaps for further use.

Now all this seems a very small matter, but I well knew that a very slight clue would sometimes lead up to an important disclosure; still there was nothing at present to do, but to take the cars and return to New York.

I had been riding for over an hour, quite amused by an animated political discussion between two gentlemen who sat directly in front of me, and, indeed, had come to the conclusion that they were both more than usually intelligent and interesting talkers, when a little incident put me once more on the extremest official alert.

It chanced that a boy passed through the car with a basket of fruit and confectionery for sale, and my companions each bought an orange, a thing common enough, and which almost escaped my notice.

I happened to be looking at the one who sat on the inside, as he took out a knife and began to peel his orange. An exclamation or annoyance which escaped him caused me to glance at the knife, when, to my astonishment, I noticed that part of the blade was gone, and, singularly enough, the fracture startlingly suggested the fragment that I had rescued from the bank window.

I fancied I saw a look exchanged by the two men, but kept quiet and cool. My next move was to call back the boy, although I had refused to buy as he passed, and purchased an apple.

This done, it was a delicate venture to request the loan of the aforesaid knife, pleading the loss of my own. As we had had some little conversation previously, he could hardly refuse, and, indeed, passed it with no apparent hesitation. I had, of course, taken care to have the fragment handy, and, when unobserved, tried the two. They were two parts of one whole.

I was satisfied that I held the knife that cut out the bank window, but whether the man in possession of the same was the robber or not, was uncertain, but of course now I had nothing to do but follow up the trail opening before me.

I returned the knife with thanks, and gave myself up to a severe study and scrutiny of the two, so that I could never forget or mistake them at any other time; but to my surprise, I discovered that to a great extent I was baffled in this by what seemed a design on their part.

Instead of proceeding direct to New York, as I had supposed they would, at the next station they got out and took seats in a car running on a branch road towards the interior of the State.

Of course I had nothing to do but to follow. I saw that they glanced suspiciously at me as I entered, and fancied that I detected a look of anxiety on their faces, but said nothing.

“It’s best to say nothing in cases of that sort,” observed Wrench. “Many of our chaps spoil all by opening their mouths when they ought to be closed.”

“Oh, and so do ours, but we can none of us be wise at all times.”

“Well; how did you get on after that?”

“You shall hear.”

It was near nightfall when we all three dismounted at a lonely station, where a large old-fashioned house seemed to be the only indication of life about the place.

I must needs make some explanation of my course, so I casually told them that I had come down into that part of the country to look up a desirable farm, with the idea of purchasing if suited.

They accepted my explanation without comment, and as they informed me that the adjacent house was used as a sort of tavern, I accompanied them there, and engaged lodgings and supper, taking occasion to ask our host, a withered old fellow, in an audible voice, if he knew of any good farms for sale in that region.

Of course I had to listen to a string of tedious enumerations in reply, but it answered my purpose very well, and I saw that my companions seemed easier than before.

There were four other fellows in the great kitchen, and rough-looking chaps they were, too, and had I met them in the purlieus of Five Points, or Cow Bay, I should have instantaneously set them down as a quartette of arrant cut-throats and burglars; however, out here in the country that was hardly likely, and they were doubtless honest enough drovers or horse jockeys.

I was, however, considerably worried when I saw a silent but unmistakeable look of intelligence pass between my gentleman friends and these fellows, and I speedily made up my mind that I was in the midst of a gang of desperate characters, and that my only safe way would be to leave the place, if possible, by the very first morning train, as I had ascertained that this being a branch road no night trains passed. I was well armed, but what could one man do against six such fellows as these?

About nine o’clock I was shown to a large unfurnished room overhead, and, to my consternation, found that I must share my bed with one of these worthies; but fearful of exciting suspicion, I made no objection, but only partially undressed, and lay down not to sleep, but still pretended to do so, and was soon breathing deep and heavily.

Everything was quiet until about midnight, when my companion stirred, got up in bed, and I was sure bent over me to see if I slept.

I lay very still, and he, evidently believing that my feigned breathing was real, crawled softly over me, and stepped out upon the floor, where, hastily dressing, and taking a parting glance at the bed, he silently left the room. I heard him descend the stairs, and the next minute I was at the window.

It was quite light without, and shortly I saw my friends steal out of the house, and move in the direction of the station. An impulse seized me, and I was quickly upon their track. I had no idea of their purpose, but I was sure that it was no good one.

I soon reached the station, and almost stumbled upon them, but had presence of mind enough to conceal myself in a dark shadow, in time to escape detection, but where I could overhear their conversation distinctly, from which I soon learned that not only had I discovered the missing bank thieves, but come into possession of a number of other facts of great importance.

It seems that they had become suspicious of me, and had determined to leave the place in the night, with which idea they had determined to break open the door of one of the railroad buildings, and stealing a hand-car, make their way with that to a junction some seven miles down the road, and there take an early train for the West.

I heard the door burst open, and the muttered oaths as the party discovered that the car usually there was that night, unluckily for them, gone. It was then that I was seized with an irresistible desire to cough; in vain I struggled against it; it would come, and it did.

I had hardly time to dart away when they were in full pursuit, and despite my utmost efforts, I was caught, knocked down, and borne back to the station; and now my heart failed me entirely, for I was completely disarmed, and I knew by the scowling glances, that I was in the deadliest peril. Still, I had only done my duty, and I determined if I must die, to do so like a man.

There was little said to me, but I saw that they were deliberating as to the best way of disposing of me, and when two of them approached me, I thought that my time was come, indeed; but it was not to be so yet, for they pushed me into the empty car-house, and shut the door, leaving me to my reflections.

I soon found out the motives of this; the house was to be fired, and I was to be burned alive! to destroy every evidence of guilt! I attempted to cry out, but the roll of thick cloth in my mouth stopped that effectually.

The thought of my poor wife and child drove me to despair; could I have had a chance to die in conflict, selling my life as dearly as possible, it would be easy to such a death as this; but to be confined in a dark room, unable to move or speak, or to make a single effort for my own relief, to helplessly lie and listen to the crackling of the fire, and feel the gentle warmth at first, grow to a savage, terrible, horrid torture fiend eventually lapping the moisture from my bones and blood, and swelling my black and blistering tongue till, consumed by its own rage, it fell a foul and withered cinder in the common ruin.

What a decree of deadly, deadly fate it seemed that only a week before, the night train that would at least have saved me from this kind of death, had been taken off, and no relief could come until eight o’clock the next morning, before which time nothing distinguishable would be left of me.

I already choked with the smoke that came rushing in through the loose sides of the building, when something tore past the station with what seemed to me a scream of frantic exulting joy and hope. My heart leaped at the sound, and with a tremendous effort I snapped the cords that bound my arms.

It was the whistle of an approaching engine, and I knew that, as this was one of the few watering places on the road, they would certainly stop there.

My captors heard it, too, and in a minute I heard them at the door. I prepared myself for a rush, and, as it hastily swung open, I darted out, and struck wildly right and left at the desperate fellows who surrounded me.

They fell upon me with knives, and I felt myself, although a very powerful man, and fighting as only a strong man can fight in the last extremity, half-blinded, badly cut, and gradually sinking under the terrible assaults of one huge fellow in particular. I slipped over an old dry-goods box that stood near. The fiend had me by the throat in an instant, and, poising his monstrous bowie-knife over my head, cried out――

“D――n you! what can save you now? You miserable spy! This and this!”

I heard a terrible voice cry, and then came the crash of a revolver, and the hand at my throat relaxed, and with a loud cry, my assailant fell heavily backward. I gained my feet, and to my utter amazement, saw the two gentlemen that I had first met on the train, struggling desperately with the other three.

I was weak and wounded, but I did what I could to help. I heard a roar and a rumble, and a great blazing eye came out of the night, and an engine and car loaded with labourers stopped at our feet.

I fell to the ground, and only knew that we were helped upon the train. When I came to in earnest, three days afterwards, I found two smiling and somewhat familiar faces at my bedside, who unravelled the tangled skein of my night adventure.

I found my two companions to be detectives from Chicago, who, in the guise of swell mobsmen, had made the acquaintance of the real criminal in our party of that terrible night, and had gone down there with the supposed intention of participating in a burglary already planned, but with the real purpose of preventing the robbery and arresting the party, with the assistance of others lying in wait at the selected house.

But I had interfered with all their plans, and they had not dared to reveal themselves to a stranger, when with such a large party. Still at the same time I came so near being burned, they had made up their minds, despite the risk, to attempt a rescue, but the fortunate arrival of the train solved the difficulty partially. While with the robbers, a few days previously, they had come into possession of the peculiarly broken knife that had attracted my attention, and had retained it, thinking something might come of it, as there did, for the crime was traced beyond a doubt, to two of the prisoners, and they received a sentence that will probably furnish them with lodgings for a life time.

You can imagine what this lucky exposure did for me. Had I not have been a new man in the force, the Chicago men would probably have known me.

“Ah, yes; there is a great advantage in not being known; we all find that out,” said Wrench. “It’s a great drawback, and causes us no end of trouble.”

“Does your man know you?”

“What Rawton, Lord bless you, yes――know me? Why I gave evidence against him in a former case.”

“Oh,” cried Shearman, “I shall have to tell you one or two more of my adventures, then.”

While this conversation had been taking place, and the two detectives had been keeping watch over the entrance to the common lodging-house, a man with a shambling gait had made his way to the “Bag o’ Nails”. This personage was Cooney, and, as the reader will doubtless readily imagine, he had not paid a visit to the place without a purpose.

His object was to have a word or two with the potman of the establishment, to whom he was very well known.

Cooney’s circle of acquaintances, if not very select, might be considered extensive. Potmen he looked upon us his natural associates; any way, he generally managed to ingratiate himself in their good graces.

Cooney entered the taproom of the house, and drew the potman on one side in a mysterious manner.

“I say, Dick, old man――a word with you,” whispered Cooney. The two went into the passage.

“Well, what’s the row?” cried the potman.

“Just give us the straight tip. You’ve got two blokes――upstairs in the front room, first floor, aint you?”

“There are two gentlemen there, I believe.”

“Guessed as much. Gentlemen with eyes like gimlets, as can pierce through a four-inch deal board. Eh?”

“I don’t know about that.”

“They hail from Scotland Yard.”

“That’s about the size of it, I fancy.”

“Thank you, Dick. That’s all I wanted to know. Been here long?”

“An hour and more.”

“I see rocks ahead. Good night.”

Cooney did not want to make any further inquiries. He saw which way the land lay, and acted accordingly. There wasn’t much chance of the gipsy making his appearance at the lodging-house for that night, or a good many more after. Cooney “blew the gaff,” gave the alarm, and of course Bill Rawton was very shortly far away from the scene of action.

The night wore on.

Mr. Wrench and his are anecdotal lively companion began to consider the case as hopeless. The latter had done so on the outset, and Wrench was fast inclining to his friend’s opinion.

But Wrench was a most persevering officer, and was not one to give up easily when he had made up his mind to any course of action.

“I guess we shall have to go away as wise as we came”, said Shearman, with a short, dry laugh. “The fellow’s fly, and it’s no use watching the dark shadows cast on yonder door.”

“I fancy not. I shall give it up for to-night; but I shall have him before many hours are over our heads.”

“I hope you may; but what are you going to do now?”

“Cut it. Are you ready?”

“I have been a long time ago.”

The two friends passed out of the club-room, and descended the stairs. The obsequious landlord came out of his bar-parlour.

“Are you off, sir?” said he.

“Yes,” returned Wrench. “It’s been a bit of a sell, but it don’t matter. The bird has flown.”

The landlord gave a mysterious nod, and the detectives took their departure.

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XCVIII. THE WOUNDED MAN AND HIS BETTER HALF

In the course of a day or two Doctor Bourne was sufficiently recovered to sally forth and attend to his professional duties. He was in no very amiable frame of mind, and his temper was not improved when he learnt from Mr. Wrench that Rawton had not been arrested. He offered a handsome reward for his apprehension, albeit he was in no way concerned in the charge of horse stealing, but he was furious when he thought of his assailant, whom he hated with no common hate. Rawton had deceived him. He had done more than this, he had insulted him, and committed a violent assault. All this was bad enough, but a number of other circumstances conspired to irritate the doctor, which filled his bitter cup to overflowing.

Mrs. Bourne had, of course, a fine time of it. She saw as little as possible of her selfish and overbearing partner.

He was morose and snarlish; answering her in short sentences, and treating her with the utmost contempt. At length, however, after a few days had passed over, he became more outspoken.

“And so, madam,” he said one afternoon, “you and your worthless infamous champion and protector have done your worst. You have chosen a thief and a ruffian of the very worst type for your companion. It is a pity you did not take yourself off with him. I should then be rid of a pest and a nuisance.”

“I am perfectly well aware, sir,” said Mrs. Bourne, indignantly, “that my presence here is obnoxious to you. I would gladly go, and would be thankful to be released from this odious thraldom.”

“Then why the devil don’t you go? Nobody wants you to stop. I am sure I don’t,” he added, sarcastically.

“You wish to be rid of me, and have done so for a long time past. Do not for a moment imagine, sir, that I do not know the reason. If you were an honourable man, which you are not, you would at once agree to a separation.”

“Agree! ’gad it would be the most desirable thing that could happen. Agree, indeed!”

“You had five thousand pounds settled on you on the day I became your wife. Resign that, or a portion of it, and the tie which binds us can be dissolved. You are then a free man, and will be at liberty to marry the rich lady upon whom you have an eye. Upon that condition I will resign all claim to you.”

“I am much obliged, very much obliged, I am sure; but does it not [Sidenote: No. 52.] occur to you that I can obtain a release without acceding to any such condition?”

“I know your mercenary, grasping nature; you would not willingly part with a shilling of the money.”

“No, I don’t intend to do so. Certainly not to such a shameless, abandoned woman as you are. I was a fool――worse than a fool――to be cozened into marrying a common harlot.”

“Mr. Bourne, your language is intolerable. What were you at the time? What are you now? I will proclaim you to all the world as a brute and a ruffian, for such you are. If you had one spark of manhood in your coarse, callous nature you would blush at such observations.”

“Thank you, madam, for your good opinion. We know each other pretty well, I believe, and there’s no very great love lost between us. I shall find the means of proving your marriage with William Rawton, notwithstanding the assertion made by that wretch as to its being an illegal one. When I am in a position to prove it――which I soon shall be――out of this house you go.”

“I am in danger of my life while I remain here,” exclaimed his wife.

“What do mean, madam?” he returned sharply.

“Oh, you know what I mean.”

“Liar and adultress!” he exclaimed, in a violent fury. “I demand to know what you mean. You know well enough that I am not a man to be trifled with. Explain yourself.”

“I say, I believe my life to be in danger――that is my answer.”

“Who cares what you believe? Your life――it doesn’t much matter how soon it comes to an end――certainly, not as far as I am concerned. You are an adept at dealing in inuendoes――I deal with facts. I wish to be rid of you.”

“I am well aware of that. My life has been for a long time almost insupportable, and it would indeed be a joyful hour when I could feel assured that I was about to part from you, so that I might never see you more.”

“The feeling is quite reciprocal, madam,” said Bourne. “I hope the hour is at hand, for both our sakes. You have passed through many grades in the social scale; you can now return to the arms of your admirer and protector――your ruffianly husband――who is a thief, and for aught I know may be a murderer as well.”

“You base, infamous man,” cried Mrs. Bourne, in a perfect frenzy, “you have not one spark of honour in your whole composition.”

Upon the impulse of the moment she caught hold of a scent bottle, which stood on the table, and hurled it at her husband. It struck him a sharp blow on the left cheek.

He sprang forward and struck his wife with his clenched fist. Then he wound his fingers around her throat, and pinned her to the wall.

“You common harlot,” he exclaimed, “I’ll make an end of you at once, and take all consequences.”

He pressed the unfortunate woman’s throat with such force that she was half strangled. She made a desperate struggle to release herself, and called out for assistance, being under the impression at the time that he would carry his threat into execution; but her cries were soon stifled by her brutal husband.

Fortunately for her the street-door had been opened by the maid in answer to a gentle rap, and Mr. Wrench, hearing a noise in the front parlour, entered without any ceremony.

The detective was awe-struck at beholding Mrs. Bourne purple in the face, and her husband grasping her remorselessly by the throat.

“Mr. Bourne――doctor!” ejaculated Wrench, dragging at the same time the man he was addressing from his wife, and thrusting him forcibly into one corner of the room.

When this had been done, he said, “How is this, sir? You are sadly forgetting yourself, it would seem.”

“Leave me alone. Don’t you interfere between man and wife,” exclaimed Bourne. “I know what I am about.”

“Do you? Well, and so do I.”

“There is good reason for all this. You don’t know the provocation I have had.”

“I have nothing to do with that. I will not allow an assault of this nature to take place in my presence without interfering. I know my duty, Mr. Bourne, and am surprised at you.”

“You would not be if you knew all.”

“I know a great deal more than you imagine,” said Wrench, with admirable coolness.

“A parcel of lies she has been telling you, I presume.”

“No such thing. This lady has never spoken to me about your disagreements. You are mistaken.”

“She would not scruple to malign me to you, or anyone else.”

“I say I am very much shocked at your conduct during the scene I have just witnessed. I sympathise with you, madam,” said the detective in continuation, and turning towards Mrs. Bourne.

“God knows I need sympathy; I am weary of life,” cried the lady.

“Silence! hold your tongue, woman!” exclaimed her husband.

“Mr. Bourne, do let me endeavour to prevail upon you to be a little more temperate, and conduct yourself in a more becoming manner.”

“I’m not to be lectured or dictated to by you, sir,” was the reply.

“I have no desire to dictate to anyone, but in a case of this description I am of necessity constrained to be outspoken.”

“Oh, go on, sir, pray go on. I am not master in my own house, it would appear.”

“I hope you are. I should say, judging from appearances, that you are very much the master.”

“I’ll get a warrant,” said Mrs. Bourne, “and swear that I am in danger of my life. I can do that, I suppose?”

“You can do it, of course,” returned Wrench. “But it would be a very great exposure for a gentleman in your husband’s position.”

“I don’t care if it is.”

“She does not care for anything, and has no regard for my interests. She is a worthless woman, Wrench. I am very sorry to be obliged to say so, but it is a fact.”

“You don’t believe him, I hope,” observed Mrs. Bourne, quietly.

“He does not mean what he says, madam――I am sure of that.”

“I do,” ejaculated the doctor. “I say she is a worthless, infamous woman.”

“I am sure you don’t expect me to believe you.”

“Indeed, but I do.”

“Well, we will not discuss that question, Mr. Bourne. You are out of temper, and say a great deal more than you mean; but let that pass. I hope and trust there will be no recurrence of this scene of violence.”

“I want to have nothing to say to her. I hope and trust to be in a position before many days are over my head to get rid of this abusive woman.”

Mrs. Bourne made no further observation, but quietly left the apartment.

“Well,” said her husband, after she had retired, “have you any good news for me? Is that scoundrel still at large?”

“We have not as yet been able to meet with him, but hope to do so before long.”

“Hang it! but that’s most unfortunate. I concluded, when I saw you, that business had brought you hither.”

“Well, so it has. It is partly business matters that I have come upon.”

“Ah, indeed, just so. And what is the nature of the matters you speak of?”

“Upon my word, doctor, I don’t know that I am in position to tell you precisely. I have come hither for the purpose of inquiring what time it will be convenient for you to see Mr. Shearman?”

“Mr. Shearman? What!――that detective from America?”

“Yes.”

“What can he possibly want with me?”

“That you had better hear from his own lips.”

Doctor Bourne looked puzzled, or, it might be said, a little disconcerted.

“From his own lips?” he iterated.

“If you please. That, I think, would be the best course.”

“Upon my word, Wrench, you are monstrously mysterious. What has the man to tell me?”

“I am not able to say.”

“Ah, very well, I will see the gentleman. I hope he will bring me good news. Perhaps a rich relative has died abroad, and left me some thousands――eh?”

“I don’t think so,” observed Wrench, quietly.

“Or it may be that I am the owner of some unclaimed property. Such things have taken place before now.”

“They have, I admit; but I would not buoy myself up with any such fallacious expectations.”

“Oh, you don’t appear to be at all hopeful or sanguine, but at any rate I trust this active and intelligent Yankee will bring me good news of some kind.”

“You will learn all when you see him,” observed Wrench. “The case is in his hands――not mine.”

“Case! What do you mean? What case has he in hand that can possibly concern me? I never saw the man before in my life that I am aware of. Not till you brought him here.”

“That is likely enough.”

“And has he ever seen me before?”

“I believe not.”

“Hang it, Wrench, you are most confoundedly mysterious. I wish you would be a little more communicative.”

“When will it be convenient for you to see Mr. Shearman?” said the detective, not appearing to take any notice of the doctor’s query.

“When? Oh, any time that may be most convenient to the gentleman.”

“Any time is no time, Dr. Bourne. You had better state the day and the hour.”

“Certainly. Will to-morrow evening suit?”

“Very well, I should imagine. And at what hour?”

“Let me see. I am rather busy, it is true; but will eight o’clock do, or between that and nine?”

“It will suit Shearman, if it does you.”

“So be it, then; I will be in then, and shall be glad to receive your friend between eight and nine o’clock.”

“Agreed, doctor; I will make a point of being here. I am quite sure of that.”

“Shall I have the pleasure of seeing you as well?”

“I cannot promise; besides, it would be perhaps advisable for him to confer with you without the presence of a third party. The case has been entrusted to him to conduct.”

“Oh, indeed,” cried Bourne, in a tone of mistrust. “But here――you must not go, my dear friend, without a glass of wine or some refreshment. What will you take?”

“I would rather not have anything just now, if you’ll excuse me.”

“Umph! I see how it is; you are a little out of sorts just now. Probably this may be attributable to the scene you have just witnessed: but permit me, in justice to myself, to assure you that there was a strong reason for my being so moved to anger. It is not possible to make you acquainted with the nature of the provocation I have received from that woman.”

“I do not desire to inquire into your domestic troubles――for such I suppose them to be,” said Wrench, rising; “I hope there will be no further violence displayed on either side.”

“There shall not be as far as I am concerned. I pledge my word as to that, Wrench. I lost my temper, I admit; but it is all over now. I shall be more guarded for the future. Thank you for your good advice.”

“I wish you a good evening, sir,” said the detective, with something like dignity in his tone and manner. “My friend, Mr. Shearman, will be here at the time specified. Good evening.”

“Good evening. But I say――one word before you go.”

“Yes, what is it?”

“There is no occasion for you to mention the outbreak――the fracas――you have been witness of. Do you see?”

“Yes, I will not mention it to any one.”

“You pass your word as to that?”

“I do. Once more, good-night.”

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Chapter XCIX

MR. DETECTIVE SHEARMAN IS OUTSPOKEN――A STORY OF WOMAN’S WRONGS AND MAN’S BASENESS.

Dr. Bourne, after Wrench had taken his departure, was calm and thoughtful; he was by no means so self-confident and overbearing in his manner as heretofore. Indeed, he might be said to be considerably cowed, why or wherefore it would, perhaps, not be so easy to determine, but the storm of passion had passed over, and was succeeded by a dead calm.

The doctor busied himself in his surgery. He had to make up several prescriptions, with which he purposed drenching his patients. Nevertheless, the compounding of deleterious drugs occupied some time.

It served one good purpose. While thus engaged Bourne’s mind was in a measure released from the weight that seemed to oppress him; but despite his employment a foreboding of coming evil seemed to fall upon him. This he found it impossible to dispossess himself of.

Late in the evening he sallied forth, paying a visit to one or more of his familiar acquaintances. With this be whiled away the time till long past midnight. All the occupants of the house had retired to rest. This is precisely what the owner of the establishment desired.

He did not trouble himself to inquire after his wife, for at this time they occupied separate apartments, and saw as little of each other as possible. To say that there was no love lost between them would be but making use of a very mild figure of speech. As far as Bourne himself was concerned he cordially hated the woman whom he had sworn at the altar to cherish and protect. If any one had come to his bedside with the news of her death they would have been greeted as a messenger bearing glad tidings, but no one had come with such welcome intelligence, and Bourne slept peacefully, albeit his slumbers were now and then disturbed by strange, uncouth, and fantastic visions.

What greater misery can by possibility fall upon any one than being compelled to live with a person whose presence is repugnant and abhorrent, yet the man and woman――the doctor and his wife――had submitted to this torment for years.

He never loved the woman he had espoused, but in the earlier portion of the period of his intimacy with her――and, indeed, for the first year or two of his married life――he had liked her. Had this not been the case, he would never have made her his wife, but the liking no longer existed. It was succeeded by a deadly and rancorous hate, which of late had become intensified.

When he saw her on the following morning, he maintained a dignified silence, and the miserable pair did not exchange a word. Whatever it was necessary to say was conveyed through the medium of Amy, the servant girl, a faithful little maid, who was very well used to these scenes. She liked her mistress, but had no very great predilection for the doctor.

Bourne was from home the greater part of the following day. He came in shortly before seven o’clock in the evening, and betook himself to his surgery.

At twenty minutes after eight he heard a loud rap at the front door. He started, and listened. He heard the well-known voice of Shearman, who was speaking to the servant.

There was no mistaking it for the voice of the detective, who had an American twang, and was altogether dissimilar to any of the other visitors to the doctor’s residence.

“Show the gentleman in here,” said Bourne to Amy, when he was informed by the girl that the American was in the passage.

Mr. Shearman entered the surgery in an easy, self-satisfied sort of manner; he was smoking a cigar, which he at once took out of his mouth and placed on the mantelpiece.

“Pardon me, doctor, I forgot for the moment that the Virginian weed might be objectionable to gentlemen of your profession.”

“By no means; I am a smoker myself, and have no kind of objection to the fumes of tobacco. Pray continue your smoking. I shall in all probability join you shortly.”

“Oh, well, if you’ve no objection.”

“None in the least. Pray do not stand upon ceremony, my friend.”

Mr. Shearman took up his cigar, the end of which he replaced between his lips.

“So you are pretty punctual, it would appear,” observed his companion.

“Ya’s; always make it a rule to be up to time, if it is possible.”

The doctor placed a chair for his visitor.

“Oh, thank you――much obliged, I’m sure.”

He seated himself, and stretched out his long thin legs with the utmost complacency.

The doctor looked at him inquiringly, but his countenance gave no indication of either pleasure or anger; it was a perfect blank.

“Wrench said you had something to communicate to me. I assume that his statement is correct.”

“Perfectly correct; but you are not in any hurry――that is, I ’spose you’ve got an hour or two to spare?”

“Certainly; I am quite at your service.”

“Ah, that’s well, because it’s a matter which will require some little time. I don’t like to jump at conclusions, doctor; I like to take matters in regular order. You understand?”

“At present I do not understand the nature of your business, but I dare say I shall do so in the due course of time.”

“There is not the least doubt of that,” remarked Shearman, sending out several blue wreaths of smoke from his Havanna.

“That is well,” observed Bourne.

“You know, or at least you can imagine, that every man has his own way of going about business. I have mine, and if you please I will begin at the beginning. The tale I have to tell you is a little singular, and I think there is an air of romance about it, considering all the circumstances of the case; but I deem it but fair and just that you should be put in full possession of all the particulars. It may be better for you.”

“For me?”

“Well, for me, for you, for everybody. That’s my view of the matter. I may be mistaken, but I think I am not.”

“It is not for me to dictate, Mr. Shearman, or even to suggest; I am here to listen.”

“Hadn’t you better light up?” said the detective, offering his cigar-case to the other.

“Yes, perhaps it would be as well.”

The doctor drew forth a cigar, which he lighted.

“Now we are on equal terms,” observed Shearman, with a laugh.

“Confound the man!” muttered the doctor. “When is he going to begin?”

He had not long to wait.

“You see, doctor, I must take you over to the United States, for that’s where great part, and, I may say, the most important part, of the events I have to describe took place.”

“Oh, indeed. In the United States, eh?”

“Ye-es,” drawled the American. “Wall, some years ago there resided at Baltimore a gentleman of the name of Leaven.”

The doctor started, and gasped out――“Yes. Well, what of him?”

“He was a planter, tolerably well to do. He had a daughter, whose baptismal name was Clara. She was a wild, hair-brained, giddy little flirt, I’ve been told, but that’s not much to the purpose. Mr. Leaven had the misfortune to lose his wife before his daughter Clara was fifteen years of age, and, as a matter of course, the loss was a severe one, as far as the gal herself was concerned, for she was deprived of a mother’s care just at the time when she most needed it. However, misfortunes of this kind are inevitable, and cannot be averted. In addition to his daughter, the planter had two sons, who were, however, younger than the gal. They were a little wayward and self-willed. But the planter loved his children so much that he was blind to their faults or foibles――for to speak the truth, if I am to judge from what I’ve been told, neither the boys nor the gal had anything much the matter with them――certainly nothing very serious; but you follow me, I hope,” suddenly ejaculated Shearman.

“I beg your pardon, but I don’t quite understand your question,” observed Bourne.

“Oh, don’t you? You follow me――that is, you understand the narrative as far as I’ve gone.”

“I should indeed be a dunce if I could not do that.”

“Ah, ’xactly, that’s all right then. Where was I? Oh, the sons and the daughter. Wall, matters went on right enough for some considerable time after the old lady’s death. She was not very old by the way, but I call her so to distinguish her from the younger members of the family. I say matters went on all right enough for some time. Clara Leaven had her admirers, with whom she flirted to her heart’s content. One of these was a Britisher, who was very persistent in his attentions to the young gal. Wall, ye see, the planter, for some reason or another, didn’t like this gentleman――perhaps the reason for this was his being a Britisher, for prejudice does run high with some. Anyway he did not approve of him as a suitor to his daughter’s hand.”

“The old story, I suppose,” observed the doctor, with a sickly smile. “A hard-hearted parent and a self-willed, disobedient child.”

“I s’pose we may call it the old story,” returned the detective. “She was a little fool――that’s what she was; but it is not much use dwelling upon that now. She gave the Britisher encouragement, and I suppose she fell madly in love with him. That’s what I’ve been told. Her father, when he discoverd the state of her mind towards him, became furious. He threatened to lock her up, to take her life, if she acted in disobedience to his expressed commands. If his daughter was a little fool he was a big one, for that was not the way to quench the flame which had been kindled. Women, and gals in particular, are so perverse that by opposing them in affairs of this sort you clench the nail more securely――on the other side.”

“Really, Mr. Shearman, I do hope you have not come hither for the purpose of reciting a love story to a hackneyed man of the world like myself. If it concerned me――――”

“If!” cried the detective. “There’s the point, which I hope to arrive at in good time.”

“Oh, well, that being the case, I have no other alternative than to complacently listen.”

“I think you’d better hear me out, doctor――indeed I do. Wall, as I was saying, Leaven led the gal a devil of a life. He wasn’t altogether a tyrant or anything of that sort, but he was impetuous, and liked to have his own way. He did his level best to corner the Britisher, who, however, in the end proved too much for him. A parent hasn’t much chance against a favourite lover of his daughter, and so Leaven found out. As to giving his consent, that was altogether out of the question――not to be thought of for a moment. What was to be done under the circumstances? The old expedient――an elopement. Clara Leaven was under the delusion that her parent would forgive her, and matters would be made up after the marriage, so she consented to fly with the Britisher.”

“And pray, Mr. Shearman, what was the name of the ‘Britisher,’ as you are pleased to call him?”

“His name?” cried the detective, “oh, Wagstaff. Doctor Wagstaff he called himself.”

Bourne’s countenance became of an ashen hue.

Mr. Shearman relighted his cigar, which had gone out during the recital, and puffed away vigorously.

“I am burning him all on one side, doctor. Gone out, and a relighted weed is always a bit obstinate.”

“Take another. You won’t do much good with that.”

“I will take another.”

Mr. Shearman threw the half-smoked cigar behind the fire, and then re-commenced his narrative.

“Yes,” he said, “the Britisher’s name was Wagstaff. He was an artful cuss as ever stepped in shoe leather, so I’ve been told. He planned and carried out the elopement, the gal of course assisted him, the two were married and settled in Texas. After the lapse of a short time Clara Leaven wrote to her father to beg his forgiveness. He forwarded her some money, but informed her that he would not consent to receive her husband upon any conditions whatever. He was firm and staunch in that resolution, and his sons could not turn him. So there was no help for it. The young and loving pair had to shift for themselves, but in justice to the planter it must be said that he sent his daughter several sums of money, stating at the same time that nothing would please him better than to have her back, but it must be without her husband. Wall, you see, doctor, the gal clung to her partner even as the ivy clings to the ruined wall. She would not return home, although it was said that she had by no means a bed of roses in Texas. To make use of a common phrase, she found out in the due course of time that she had outlived his liking, but she never told anybody this but one person.”

“And who might that be?” inquired Bourne.

“That was a young black gal, who had left the plantation to follow her mistress, whom she accompanied in her flight. She made a confidante of her sable companion, who was a liberated slave, and ‘Tilda,’ as she was called, was in possession of all her secrets.”

“Your story is doubtless very entertaining, sir,” observed the doctor; “but, for the life of me, I cannot see how it can in any way concern me.”

“I hope to arrive at that point presently,” returned Mr. Shearman. “Do, pray, permit me to deal with the case in my own way.”

“Oh, certainly――I will not interfere with you.”

“So the happy pair lived in Texas for some months――over a year, or it might be a year and a half. Before the expiration of that time Mr. Leaven died somewhat suddenly from disease of the heart. The land and stock were sold under the hammer, in accordance to the will he had left. The bulk of the proceeds was left to the sons; some few hundreds――I don’t know precisely how many――being Clara Wagstaff’s share. Shortly after the demise of her father Clara grew suddenly sick. The circumstance was a little singular, but it is not more strange than many others one hears of of a similar character. Well, to cut a long story short, the young wife died. The cause of death was not clearly established, but the doctor who attended her in her last hours gave the requisite certificate, and she was buried.”

Mr. Shearman at this point of the narrative paused.

“Very sad――a very sad story,” ejaculated Bourne, casting his eyes up to the ceiling.

“Ya’as, most melancholy, aint it?” said his companion.

“Very much so, indeed. And the husband――――”

“Oh, wall, he had, of course, the money left to his wife. It wasn’t a great deal, I believe, but it sufficed him to run the rig in Texas for many months. He led a life of pleasure, and “blewed” the greater part of the money. Then he sloped, and returned to the old country――so people say; anyway, he was not heard any more of in the ‘States.’”

“Not heard of, eh?”

“No. To make use of a nautical phrase, he slipped his moorings, and was not seen any more.”

“Perhaps he’s dead?”

“And perhaps he aint,” said Mr. Shearman. “That all depends. You see, I have paid a visit to this country for the purpose of finding him out.”

“Oh, indeed! I hope you may be successful.”

“Tha――ank you.” Mr. Shearman rolled the end of his cigar in his mouth. “I think I shall go away wiser than I came, but that don’t matter.”

“And what do you want to ‘find out’――this man, Wagster, did you say?”

“Wagstaff.”

“Ah, just so. What do you want to find this Wagstaff out for, then?”

“We must not jump at conclusions,” returned Mr. Shearman; “that would never do. You have as yet only heard part of my story.”

“True, I am most anxious to hear the conclusion.”

“Aire you? Wall, then, you shall. You must know that after the planter’s death the war between the Federals and the Confederates took place. The North and South went at it like hammer and tongs. Both the young Leavens were engaged throughout the terrible and sanguinary war. The Southerns had a hard time of it, but they fought for their homes like lions, and the odds were against them, and, despite their valour and heroism, they were whipped in the end. I guessed they would, but they were brave fellows, and deserved a better fate.”

“Oh, I know all about the war to which you refer.”

“No doubt. Well, I’m only mentioning it to account for the occupation of the two Leavens. One, the youngest, fell on the field of battle, the other is now a farmer in South Carolina. Ye must understand that he never knew the whole particulars concerning his sister’s sudden and, I may add, mysterious death.”

“Mysterious!” exclaimed Bourne, suddenly.

“Ya-as, it was a bit mysterious.”

“Was it?”

“Ya-as.”

“How so?”

“I’ll tell you. As I before observed, Silas Leaven settled in South Carolina. Shortly after his arrival there he began to reflect seriously upon the sudden death of his sister. It may appear strange that he should let so many years pass over without troubling himself to make any inquiries, but the fact is he didn’t suspect anything was amiss, and took it for granted that she had died of a broken heart. In South Carolina he met with some persons who hailed from Texas, who resided there when Mr. and Mrs. Wagstaff were there. Wall, they told Silas a lot of things about the young people, which greatly surprised him. They hinted at foul play, and said that the ill-fated Clara had been poisoned.”

“Poisoned!” exclaimed Bourne, in an evident state of trepidation. “Gracious Heaven! I hope there was no ground for any such statement.”

“I am pretty sure there was. Wall, you see, when Silas Leaven heard all these things it occurred to him that he had better try and find the girl Tilda in the first place, and after that he might make further inquiries.”

“And did he find her?”

“Oh, ya-as, he found her. She was at work on a plantation a good many miles from his own, it is true, but he found her nevertheless, and engaged her as a help on his own farm, for she was a faithful, hardworking darkie. She told him a lot more.”

“What did she tell him then?”

“Ah, she up and told him as plain as the letter O that she believed her dear young mistress was done away with.”

“Oh! it’s not at all likely upon the very face of it. Calumnies――all calumnies.”

“Wait a bit, doctor. The case was placed in my hands, and I need not tell you that I did not let it go to sleep. It had been slumbering for a good many years, but when I had hold of it I was not disposed to let it rest.”

“Quite right. What did you do then?”

“I got an order to exhume the body, so that a post-mortem might be made, and an inquest held.”

“Excellent device. Nothing could be better.”

“A good move――wasn’t it?”

“Oh, dear me, yes, most admirable.”

“I thought you would say so.”

“And so a post-mortem was made?”

“It was.”

“With what result?”

“It was clearly established, beyond all cavil, that the ill fated young woman had died from the effects of a mineral poison.”

When Mr. Shearman uttered these last words, he regarded his companion with a searching glance.

The doctor quailed before the piercing eyes of the detective. In appearance his face resembled that of a corpse rather than that of a living being.

He endeavoured to muster up an air of intrepidity to his brow, but it was plainly perceptible that he was a prey to a deadly and sickening fear.

Shearman affected not to see this, but it did not escape his notice.

“The poor creature died by poison――did she?” said Bourne, after a pause.

“Yes, doctor, that has been clearly demonstrated.”

“Was it a case of suicide, then?”

“No, murder!” exclaimed the detective, sententiously.

“And whom do you suspect?”

“Her husband.”

“Mr. Wagstaff?”

“He went by the name of Wagstaff when in the States, but we concluded that he would not be fool enough to pass under the same name here, and I believe the presumption is a correct one.”

“Ah!” ejaculated the doctor, gasping for breath, “you astonish me.”

“I thought I should. Now do you want to know in what way this story concerns you?”

“Sir――Mr. Shearman――what can you possibly mean?”

“I always like to do things in a straightforward, upright sort of way. Before coming to that part of the evidence which so seriously affects you, I have deemed it advisable to put you in possession of those facts which lead up to the main issue. This is but fair to a suspected person, and one I invariably adopt when circumstances will admit of my so doing.”

“You are still speaking in enigmas. I again ask in what way does the case concern me?”

“I don’t want to ask you any questions, Doctor Bourne,” said the American. “I should not be justified in doing so, and I may observe that I don’t want you to make any statement. It would not be advisable for you to do so, since you might criminate yourself.”

“Criminate myself, sir!” cried the doctor, rising suddenly, and regarding the speaker with an eye of flame. “Are you mad?”

“I hope not. Let me come at once to the point. We have reason to believe that Dr. Wagstaff, of Texas, and Doctor Bourne, of London, are one and the same person.”

“Gracious Heaven! what do I hear?” ejaculated the miserable man. “Me accused of a heinous crime of this nature! It is monstrous, scandalous, and most improbable.”

“Well, doctor, I hope you may be able to prove your innocence, but I have a duty to perform, and, unpleasant one as it may be, I have no other alternative than to execute it.”

“Mr. Shearman,” said Bourne, in a whining tone, “surely you are not serious?”

“Ah, but I am. I’ve my own way of doing business. It’s different, perhaps, to the ways of detectives of this country, and I must inform you that I hold in my possession a warrant for your apprehension upon the charge of wilfully murdering Clara Wagstaff.”

“But I am not Wagstaff, Shearman; you are mistaken. I swear you are mistaken.”

“Don’t swear, doctor; you will not be benefitted by so doing. There is no help for it; you will have to meet the charge.”

Bourne looked down upon the floor in all but hopeless despair.

He remained silent for a brief period; then, as if suddenly something had occurred to him, he raised his head, and glancing at his companion, said in a conciliatory tone――

“Let us arrange this matter, Mr. Shearman. Give me a little time, and I shall then be in a position to prove my innocence. As far as recompense is concerned, you had better name your own terms.”

“I never accepted a bribe from any man,” said Shearman, indignantly, “and it is not likely I should do so now. You are my prisoner!”

“My God, this is indeed horrible!” exclaimed the conscious-stricken man, falling into a chair in a perfect state of prostration.

“I cannot help you, doctor, but you had better meet the charge like a man. It is of no use attempting to shirk it; the matter has gone too far for that, and the weight of evidence too strong.”

“Too strong――eh!” said the doctor, looking up.

“I fancy so; but, of course, I may be mistaken.”

“But I tell you again I am not the man. I never passed under the name of Wagstaff――never in my life. What proof have you of it?”

“That you will hear when the first examination takes place.”

“And when will that be?”

“To-morrow, I believe.”

“This is a false and malicious charge got up to ruin me.”

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

C. THE INQUIRY――THE END OF A MURDERER

Although Doctor Bourne was what might be termed a black sheep, he was in a good position; he mixed with a respectable class of persons, and was in tolerably fair repute as a medical man.

The darker side of his character was, of course, not known to those whom he counted as his friends.

Some people, gossiping and mischievously disposed persons, hinted that he was not the best of husbands; that he was a mercenary grasping man, but nobody was prepared to hear that he was a murderer.

His social position caused him to be treated with some degree of consideration, and bail was accepted pending the serious and weighty charge made against him. He had not much difficulty in obtaining the necessary sureties, after which he returned home. The offence with which he stood charged was committed in America, and the prosecution sought, by means of the extradition treaty, to take him over to that country for trial.

The doctor hoped, as other culprits have hoped both before and since, that the identification would fail to be established, and at the outset of the proceedings he buoyed himself up with this delusion. But Mr. Shearman had managed the case with a considerable amount of skill and tact, and he was not at all the sort of man to let the accused escape through any neglect or want of forethought.

When the first examination took place before the sitting magistrate, the counsel for the prosecution gave a brief but succinct recital of the leading events. He dwelt with much force upon the sudden and mysterious death of Clara Wagstaff, who appeared, so he averred, to be in sound and robust health but a few days before her decease.

Suddenly, and without any perceptible cause, she was stricken down with insupportable and violent pains in the viscera.

A doctor was called in, who declared her to be suffering from inflammation of the bowels. He prescribed and attended her with the greatest assiduity, but despite his remedies she gradually sank and expired in her husband’s arms, who was said to be overwhelmed with grief at the loss of his partner.

The body of the ill-fated woman was interred, and her husband, after a short period of mourning, plunged, so it was alleged, into a vortex of dissipation.

The theory that the young woman came by her death from natural causes, which were beyond the control of man, was very generally accepted. Some few, however, at the time of her decease, were a little mistrustful. One in particular, the black girl, Tilda, shook her head, and said she was not at all satisfied with the manner of her mistress’s death, which she declared to be strange and mysterious, and in every way suspicious. She spoke her mind pretty freely at the time, with no better result than being reviled for what people chose to call her scandalous and wicked aspersions. So the matter dropped, and, as years passed on, the death of Mrs. Wagstaff was forgotten by the inhabitants of the neighbourhood. And it was not until Mr. Silas Leaven instituted inquiries, that the real facts of the case were brought to light. The body was exhumed, and the presence of arsenic was detected in the stomach, intestines, and other organs of the body. A sufficient amount was recovered to prove beyond all question that the poor creature had been poisoned by that deleterious drug. Two doctors from America, who made the post mortem examination, gave their evidence at the police-court, and their testimony was unanswerable.

Up to this point the case was as clear as the sun at noonday. The next question was, how far Dr. Bourne was connected with the case. Was he the man who passed as Wagstaff, and who married the planter’s daughter?

In proof of this a photograph was produced of the person known as Wagstaff; it bore a most remarkable similarity to the accused――that is, if allowance was made for the difference in his age now and at the period when the photo was taken.

The magistrate, however, was of opinion that the photo, although valuable as collateral evidence, was not in itself sufficient to establish identity.

When the doctor heard this he smiled――hope dawned upon him, and he emphatically declared that he was not the man.

But the case did not rest on the photo alone.

Two persons, who had resided at Texas at the time of the lady’s death, were present at the inquiry, and were placed in the box.

One swore to the prisoner most positively, and the other would not go further than that he was the gentleman whom he had known as Mr. Wagstaff to the best of his belief; further than this he would not undertake to say.

“I confess,” observed the magistrate, “that the case assumes a grave aspect, and certainly cannot be permitted to drop without a searching inquiry, but at present I fail to see that the idendity is clearly established. It is true, one witness swears to the person being the man, but it is possible――nay, indeed, probable――that he may be mistaken.”

“He is not mistaken, sir,” said the counsel. “And that I hope to be in a position to prove to your satisfaction in the course of two or three days at the latest.”

“How do you propose to do that?” inquired the worthy magistrate.

“By producing the black servant who lived in the house with Mr. and Mrs. Wagstaff at the time of the unfortunate lady’s decease. She is well acquainted with the countenance and general personal appearance of her late master, and if she recognises the prisoner as the husband of the now dead lady, I assume the case is established as far as the identity is concerned.”

“If she does recognise him, and can swear positively to his being the person, then it is established, and all difficulties will be removed. When do you expect her?”

“She ought to be here now. She may arrive to-morrow or the next day. In fact, she is hourly expected.”

“That being so, it would be best to adjourn the case for a week, perhaps.”

“Will that be long enough?”

“Oh, I should imagine so. She is sure to arrive before the expiration of that time――at least, we hope so.”

“She will be the only other witness, I presume, you are likely to call?”

“No; there will be another――a lady who was on intimate terms with the Wagstaffs when they resided in Texas. She is also well acquainted with the personal characteristics of the murdered woman’s husband.”

“Where was this photograph taken?” said the magistrate, glancing first at it and then at the prisoner.

“At Baltimore, I believe.”

“No, New York,” said Shearman. “I purchased it myself in that city.”

“And are you sure it is a representation of Mr. Wagstaff? We have at present no proof of that, you know.”

“It has been recognised by a number of persons in Texas who were acquainted with the person it is supposed to represent. Indeed, many of the inhabitants have copies of it, presented to them by Mr. Wagstaff himself.”

“It is to be regretted that one or more of them are not here.”

“But two are here, sir.”

“And who may they be? and why have you not called them?”

“The two gentlemen who have already been examined can speak to the photo being a representation of Mr. Wagstaff,” said the counsel.

“Then let them be recalled.”

The two witnesses from Texas were again placed in the box. They both swore that the photo in question was a representation of Mr. Wagstaff as he then appeared.

“I adjourn the case till this day week,” said the magistrate.

“I hope, sir, you will accept good and substantial bail for the reappearance of my client,” said Bourne’s solicitor. “We have not had any time allowed us to meet this charge. My client is a gentleman moving in a good position in society; he is greatly respected by, I may say, all who have the honour of his acquaintance, and a charge of this nature presses with a heavy overwhelming weight upon one who, we hope and trust it will be proved beyond all controversy, is perfectly innocent.”

“I am not likely to prejudge the case, and should, indeed, be sorry by any observation of mine to prejudice Doctor Bourne in the eyes of the world or his associates,” observed the magistrate. “Still you must admit――indeed, everyone must admit, I think, who has heard the evidence――that the case cannot be dismissed without a searching inquiry. I hope and trust that the prisoner may be in a position, on the next inquiry, to rebut the grave testimony that has been given against him here to-day. I, however, deem it advisable, for many reasons, not to enter into any discussion upon the merits of the case in this early stage of the proceedings. I will accept good and substantial bail for Doctor Bourne’s reappearance at the next examination.”

“Thank you, sir. With the usual notice?”

“Yes, with the usual notice. There will be no difficulty in the matter, I suppose?”

“None whatever. Doctor Bourne can produce bail to any amount.”

In the course of the day bail was offered and accepted, and the doctor was liberated. He returned home, miserably depressed――dejected and sick of heart.

He had not counted on the array of evidence which had been presented on the first examination. His legal advisers endeavoured to comfort him with the assurance that as yet there was not enough to send the case for trial. Much depended upon the girl Tilda.

She might break down. Anyway she would be subjected to an exhaustive and searching cross-examination. Then came the question of an alibi; when everything else failed an alibi was the invariable recourse of an accused person. Was it possible to get up one? Such things had been done, and in some cases they had been successful. The doctor clung to this as the drowning wretch clings to a straw, but he could not, at present, see his way clear as to working it successfully.

He returned home, and at once made for his surgery, where he remained for hours still and thoughtful. The clouds which had been gathering over his head seemed to be darkening and thickening.

What was he to do? Could he fly and escape the avenging arm of the law? It had been made painfully manifest to him at the examination before the magistrate that his enemies or accusers were on the alert; they did not intend to let him escape.

Certainly not if they could help it. Mr. Shearman had acted in a business-like way throughout the inquiry; he had hunted up evidence in the States with the greatest assiduity, and had succeeded in obtaining information connected with a number of smaller and less important circumstances connected with the death of the ill-fated woman.

At present, Bourne had only been made acquainted with a portion of the evidence to be preferred against him. Much of it was kept in the background, but what had been given before the magistrate was of a most damnatory character.

Bourne appeared to be almost paralysed at the array of evidence. He trembled for the future; an oppressive and all but insupportable weight seemed to press upon him.

Just as he was about to accuse his wife of bigamy, so that he might be rid of her, and be free to marry a third wife, in the shape of a rich widow, a fearful accusation was brought against him, which in any case would hurl him from his present position, if nothing worse happened; but the chances were that he would have to suffer a dreadful and ignominious death.

[Sidenote: No. 53.]

They would take him over to America to try him――so his solicitor informed him――and he knew perfectly well that prejudice ran high against him when he resided in Texas, and the probability was that this feeling had been strengthened and intensified, so that if there was a chance of bringing the charge home to him, a Yankee jury would be sure to return an adverse verdict.

Dr. Bourne, therefore, could not conceal from himself that he was in imminent danger.

He knew himself to be guilty of the charge preferred against him, and was in consequence scourged by conscience, and in a state of fear and trepidation.

Nevertheless, he was in hopes that the evidence in respect to the identity would break down.

The crime had been committed many years ago, and if he could throw discredit on the witnesses there might be some chance of upsetting the whole case. Much depended upon the girl, Tilda. Bourne was in hopes that he was so much altered in appearance that the black slavey would be a little puzzled, and would fail to recognise him.

It is thus that criminals of every degree have been from time immemorial accustomed to delude themselves with hopes that in most cases have turned out fallacious.

The doctor affected to put as bold a front on the matter as possible, but he studiously avoided his wife, and she had no desire to force herself into his company. It had been at best but a miserable state of affairs as far as their domestic happiness, if it could be so termed, was concerned, and it was a relief to both when they were apart. Consequently they saw as little of each other as possible.

Mrs. Bourne, however, was not altogether in the dark in respect to the state of affairs as regards her husband. Her faithful attendant, Amy, who like, most servants, was something of a gossip, made her mistress acquainted with the full particulars of the grave charge made against her master. Mrs. Bourne was perfectly astounded at the revelation. She had never for a moment supposed that her husband had contracted any marriage previous to his nuptials with her. He had throughout their acquaintance signified that he was a bachelor.

“Ah!” murmured the unhappy wife――“my suspicious were not groundless. I have indeed escaped almost by a miracle; but, after all, I cannot find it in my heart to believe him guilty of such an atrocious crime.”

Facts, however, are stubborn things, and there was no getting away from those made manifest on the first magisterial inquiry.

Mrs. Bourne was now very careful in examining minutely what she partook of in the house of her suspected husband――who, however, had very little opportunity at this time of tampering with either food or drink; he was too much occupied with his own guilty thoughts, and in devising some scheme to turn aside the course of justice. He went about, as usual, paid visits to his patients, and endeavoured to make out that the whole affair was a wicked conspiracy on the part of some evil-disposed persons who owed him a grudge. There were many who believed this view of the matter; for it is at all times most difficult to believe a man you have been intimately acquainted with capable of committing a crime of such enormity.

The few friends the doctor possessed rallied round him on this occasion, and sought to console him with words of comfort. Prone as the world is to look upon the dark side of the picture, the most hardened offender has at times a few faithful followers, and the doctor was not an exception to the rule; nevertheless it was pretty generally buzzed about that he was in a precarious position, and that those engaged for the prosecution were using every endeavour to bring the murderer of the dead woman to the bar of justice. The matter was canvassed at several fashionable clubs, in select coteries, and by the public generally; indeed, it was the universal topic of conversation at the West-end of the town, and many bets were offered and taken upon the issue of the next examination.

Two days of suspense had passed over. On the third, as Doctor Bourne was getting into his brougham, he saw at the corner of the street two persons looking eagerly at him. His heart seemed to sink when he discovered that one of these was the black girl, Tilda, the other being Mr. Shearman.

“Oh, golly!” exclaimed the black girl, “that’s ’im, massa; I could swear to him out of ten tousand. It’s Massa Wagstaff, as did away wi’ missus.”

“Hush! mind what you are saying, girl,” cried Shearman. “Remember you are in England, and people are not permitted to speak their minds as freely as in the States.”

“Dunno ’bout dat,” returned Tilda. “I knows ’im, an’ I mean to tell all ’bout de cuss, come what may.”

“Silence! Come along, and cease your clattering, you foolish wench,” said Shearman, dragging her forcibly from the spot.

Doctor Bourne broke down; his last hope was gone. It was evident enough that Tilda would swear to him――we won’t say till she was black in the face, for that she was already――but she would swear to him while she had the power of speech.

Bourne felt convinced of this. He knew pretty well the temperament and disposition of the young woman who had come across the seas to give evidence against him. He knew that she would not budge an inch when she had once made up her mind.

She had years before been forcibly impressed with the fact that her mistress had met with her death through foul play, and at the time of her decease she had not scrupled to say so.

She had been throughout her life devotedly attached to the planter’s daughter. This is not at all surprising, seeing that “Tilda,” as she was termed, had been a “help” in the family since she was little more than a child.

“Curse her!” exclaimed Bourne through his clenched teeth. “I wish the ship that brought her over had sunk to the bottom of the sea before she set foot on these shores. The game is up――they’ll prove their case, and I am lost――lost!”

He was so miserable, so completely overcome, that he would fain have burst out into tears, but his eyes were dry and bloodshot, and his tongue was hot and parched; there was a singing in his ear like the murmur of rushing waters; his temples throbbed painfully, and he fell back in the cushions of his brougham in a state of prostration.

Something seemed to whisper to him, “Can’t she be bribed?” At this suggestion hope dawned again upon him for a moment, but it was only for a fleeting moment or so, and he came to the conclusion that bribery in her case would be an impossibility.

“What was he to do? what would be the end of this terrible business? Death on the public scaffold.”

This thought was a maddening one. He struck his forehead with his clenched fist, let down the window of the vehicle, and gasped for air, for he felt as one about to faint.

Mr. Shearman would be too much for him――that was but too painfully manifested. On the next examination he could complete his case, and then in all probability he would be given into the custody of the American representatives. Bail would, of course, be refused, and it was not very difficult to see how it would all end.

Doctor Bourne, upon arriving at his own residence, endeavoured to muster up an air of intrepidity to his brow. Upon alighting he told his coachman that he should not go out for the remainder of the day. Then, having signified this much, he opened the street door with his key and made at once for his surgery.

He remained there for two or three hours making up some prescriptions. The medicine boy came in and sallied forth with his basket of drugs, after which the doctor went into the front parlour.

When dinner was laid he was informed by the maid servant that her mistress was indisposed and begged to be excused at the dinner hour, adding that she, Amy, was to take her up a basin of soup and a small portion of fish into her bedroom. This was done, and Bourne sat down to his solitary meal.

He was glad, however, to be by himself. He did not believe in the indisposition of his wife, and deemed it only an excuse. Perhaps he was not very far out in his supposition. He did not care to meet her, nor she him; and, so as far as that went, they were both satisfied.

He had no appetite, but swallowed several glasses of wine, which he supplemented by a small modicum of cognac. Then he endeavoured to swallow a few mouthfuls of food. This he found no easy task. His throat was inflamed, and his tongue seemed to cleave to the roof of his mouth. Nevertheless, he felt constrained to make a pretence of dining, and to say the truth a most miserable pretence it was. However, it had to be gone through.

He was very quiet and reserved, and only hazarded a few chance observations to Amy, who was struck with the paleness of his countenance and his distraught manner. However, she did not appear to notice it, and spoke to her master in her usual respectful cheery manner.

Bourne looked at her for a moment, and then heaved a deep-drawn sigh.

What would he have given at that time to be possessed of a conscience as pure and untroubled as his servant girl!

The dinner things were cleared away, and Bourne took a medical book, which for some time he appeared to peruse with interest.

The grey dusk of the evening was succeeded by the gloom of night, and the girl lit all the branches of the chandelier.

Her master was busily occupied with his book and did not appear to be aware of her presence, or if he was, he did not care to take any notice of her. The night wore on. Bourne left the front parlour and entered his surgery.

His countenance was pale and haggard. It was indicative of some settled and defined purpose. There was a fixed and rigid expression about the mouth, and an almost savage look darted from the flaming eyes.

He sat himself down in his chair, and then bent his body forward, resting his head on his hands, while the elbows were supported on the table before him. His breathing was heavy and troubled, and his whole attitude was one of abject despair. Presently he rose from his seat, went towards the bottles, which were ranged on some shelves at the side of the room. He took one after another in his hand, and examined their contents with the eye of a connoisseur.

He selected one and placed it on the table near to a medicine glass, then he sat down again.

The terrible and appalling nature of his thoughts at this time it would be impossible to describe.

He took the glass stopper out of the bottle, emptied the contents of the bottle into the medicine glass, and swallowed the liquid with one gulp.

And then? Well, there was silence in the room――silence deep, dark, and impenetrable.

A few fleeting hours passed over, the night waned and passed away, the second hour of the morning arrived. All the inhabitants of the house had retired to rest――all save the master of the establishment.

There was a violent ring at the night bell, which was unanswered; a second summons was given, whereupon the servant, Amy――who had hastily slipped on her things――descended the stairs and opened the door. A man servant stood on the steps outside.

He informed the doctor’s maid that his mistress was seriously ill, and desired Doctor Bourne’s attendance immediately. The doctor had been retained as accoucheur to the lady in question, and the man said that not a moment was to be lost.

“I will tell Doctor Bourne,” said the girl, “and am quite sure he will be with your mistress in less than a quarter of an hour, or perhaps before that.”

“The messenger upon this assurance took his departure. Amy closed the street door gently, and made direct for her master’s bedroom. She knocked at the door, but received no answer. She called him by his name, and then knocked louder, but still no answer. In cases of this sort ceremony could be dispensed with. She opened the door, and entered the room, which she found tenantless.

“Perhaps he’s gone there,” she murmured. “He knows Mrs. Curtis is near her time. It is possible he may have gone there.”

She paused for a moment, and pressed one hand to her side as a troubled expression passed over her countenance.

She looked at the bed. It was just the same as she had made it in the morning. It was evident enough that no one had occupied it since then.

“I did not hear him go out,” she murmured, “and I believe he was in the surgery when I went to bed.”

She crept downstairs without awaking her mistress, and made direct for the surgery.

She could see through the crevices of the door that a light was still burning.

She knocked, but received no answer.

Then a vague shadowy fear seemed to take possession of her, and she was half afraid to enter, but being a girl of high spirit, and one who was not easily cowed, she opened the door and entered.

She saw the figure of her master in his high-backed chair.

To all appearance he was slumbering.

“Mr. Bourne――doctor!” cried Amy. “You are wanted immediately, if you please. Mrs. Curtis is very ill!”

The figure in the chair did not stir or give any indications of life. The girl cried out in something like a terrified voice, but she did not succeed in arousing her master, who had fallen back in his chair with his legs stretched out like one who had suddenly sunk into a deep slumber.

“I can’t wake him! What on earth shall I do?” cried the girl. “How very strange and how fearfully pale he looks.”

There was a small hand-lamp on the table. Amy seized hold of this and by the aid of the flame examined the features of her master.

“Heaven save us!” she ejaculated, “he must be in a fit or else――――”

She did not complete the sentence, but examined the features of the doctor more minutely. She placed her hand on his shoulder, shook him, and called him again by his name.

Then she shuddered and crept out of the room like one bewitched. She hastened upstairs and aroused her mistress, who was sleeping soundly.

“For Heaven’s sake do tell me what’s the matter, Amy? You look like a person who has just seen a ghost.”

“Oh, ma’am, if you please I don’t know what to make of master, he looks so strange. I am afraid something’s happened to him――he appears to be in a fit.”

“Where is he――in his bedroom?”

“No, in the surgery.”

“In the surgery at this hour! It is just upon two o’clock,” said Mrs. Bourne, as she glanced at the timepiece on the shelf.

“He hasn’t been to bed, that’s quite certain, and I told Thomas, Mr. Curtis’s footman, that he would be with her in less than a quarter of an hour. Whatever are we to do?”

“I’ll get up at once,” cried Mrs. Bourne, springing out of bed and arraying herself in her capacious dressing gown.

“In the surgery――eh?”

“Yes, ma’m, sitting in his chair.”

“Ah, he’s all right enough, I dare say. Don’t give way to groundless fears――let us hope you are mistaken.”

Mrs. Bourne put her feet into her slippers, and, accompanied by her faithful handmaiden, she went downstairs.

She entered the surgery, and glanced at her husband. Then a bolt of ice seemed to shoot through her heart.

“Where is Peter?” she inquired.

“In bed, I suppose.”

“Go and rouse him at once. Tell him to put on his things and go off at once for Doctor Garnet. Quick! not a moment is to be lost.”

“What is the matter with the doctor?” inquired Amy, in evident trepidation.

“Matter, girl, something very serious. It appears to me that he is dead.”

At these words, the girl uttered a sort of shriek, and flew upstairs for the boy Peter.

The young urchin was not long in bundling on his things.

Upon descending below he found his mistress in the front parlour.

“Go as quickly as possible to Doctor Garnet’s house, ring the night bell, and say I want to see him. We fear something has happened to Mr. Bourne. Do you hear?”

“Yes, ma’am, I’ll run all the way.”

“Good lad, and mind you don’t return without Dr. Garnet,” cried Mrs. Bourne, seeing her messenger to the door.

Dr. Garnet lived but two streets off. He had been accustomed to attend to Bourne’s practice when that gentleman was away from home.

He was a little alarmed, however, upon being informed of the urgent nature of the case. He had seen Bourne a day or two before, and considered him to be in excellent health.

He was a little depressed, it is true, but nothing to speak of――certainly not to give rise to fears as to his health.

Garnet was a little fussy bald-headed gentleman, with a soft musical voice, and a conciliatory agreeable manner. He was very popular with the ladies, to whom he was at all times remarkably attentive.

“Dear me, this is a very sad business,” he ejaculated, as he proceeded to make a careful toilette, for Garnet made it a rule never to be caught en deshabille. “Very sad. Poor Mrs. Bourne, it must have greatly alarmed her. Did you say your master was insensible, my lad?”

“I aint seen him, sir,” returned the boy; “but missus said he was, and Amy could not get him to speak.”

“Ah, we will see what ails him. Over work, worry, anxiety of mind, that’s the remote cause, the proximate may be――be――well, apoplexy perhaps.”

“Tell your mistress I will be with her in a few minutes.”

“If you please, sir――――”

“Well, what?”

“She said I was not to return without you.”

“Oh, very well, my man, go down stairs and wait, I will be with you shortly.”

The lad went down as requested. Presently he was joined by Dr. Garnet, who hurried off at once to his patient. As a matter of course he found Mrs. Bourne anxiously awaiting his appearance.

“My dear Mrs. Bourne, let me beg of you to bear up against this trial, for such it must prove to be in any case, but we none of us know how soon we may be stricken down; but this is of so sudden a nature that――――”

“It is sudden, Dr. Garnet, both sudden and unaccountable.”

“We shall be able to account for it, my dear madam, there is not the slightest doubt about that. But where is the patient?”

“In the surgery.”

“I will see what can be done for him,” said Garnet, with the same soft voice――the same mellifluous and measured accents――for he never at any time permitted himself to be betrayed into an expression of surprise. To use a common phrase, he invariably took things in a quiet sort of way.

He entered the surgery, and glanced at the face of Bourne; then he felt his pulse, and then placed his hand on the region of the heart; then he lifted up one of the eyelids and looked at the pupil of the eye.

This done, he drew a chair up to the table and sat down, placing at the same time another chair for the mistress of the establishment.

“Well, doctor, what is it?”

“It is very plain what it is, Mrs. Bourne; but let me beg of you to bear up against this terrible trial.”

“What is it?” cried the lady.

“It is death!” returned Garnet. “But the cause which led to it we have yet to determine.”

“My husband is dead then?” exclaimed Mrs. Bourne. “Then there is no hope?”

“None whatever. He has passed away peacefully and tranquilly, and to all appearance without pain. Be thankful for that.”

The bereaved wife burst into tears. He had never been at any time an affectionate partner, or even a passable sort of husband, but the suddenness of the blow quite unnerved his widow, who demonstrated an amount of feeling which few would, perhaps, have given her credit for.

“Dead!” she iterated in sorrowful accents, “and the last time we met we parted in anger.”

“There is no occasion for you to make that declaration, my dear lady; people will talk quite soon enough without you giving them a handle for their discourse. Say as little as possible upon that subject, which is nobody’s business but your own. Poor Bourne, I confess I was not prepared for this, but after all, everything is for the best.”

“I do not understand your meaning,” said Mrs. Bourne.

“Umph, no, perhaps not. When was the doctor last seen alive?”

“When he went into the surgery――in the early part of last evening.”

“And by whom?”

“By me, sir,” returned Amy.

“And did he appear in his usual health at that time?”

“He looked very pale, and his manner was strange.”

“How strange?”

“He seemed to be in trouble about something――so I thought.”

“Oh, likely enough, girl; the probability is that he was very much troubled in his mind. He gave indications of that when I last saw him, but not to so great an extent as to suggest this act.”

Mrs. Bourne looked hard at the speaker, but said nothing.

“What a strange odour there is in the room, doctor,” observed Amy.

“Odour, girl――of what description?”

“Like peaches.”

“Umph! Ah――yes, there is, I admit.”

He took up the medicine-glass, which had fallen upon the floor after its contents had been swallowed by the dead man, and smelt it.

“It proceeds from this,” observed Garnet, in the same soft voice as heretofore. “Yes, that is from whence this odour proceeds. Let us return into the next room, my dear madam.”

Mrs. Bourne rose from her seat and went into the front parlour with Doctor Garnet. Amy and the boy made their way into the kitchen, after carefully closing the door of the surgery.

“I shall purposely abstain from making any observations upon the state of mind of my friend, Bourne, prior to his decease. In fact, it will be as well, I think, to say as little as possible upon the subject, certainly not till the inquest is held.”

“Inquest!”

“Yes, my dear madam. There must be an inquest. That is a sine quâ non. It is pretty clearly demonstrated that Bourne has died from the effects of poison, and there can be but little doubt, I think, that he took it of his own free will.”

“What poison has he taken, then?”

“Prussic acid! That is as far as I can judge at present. I must beg of you, my dear friend, not to disturb anything in that room――in fact it had better be locked up, and either you or I will take charge of the key.”

“Oh, you had better do so. I would much prefer it.”

“Well, I will if you wish it. Let us lock the door at once.”

Garnet and Mrs. Bourne went out of the front parlour. The former locked the door of the surgery and placed the key in his pocket; then they returned to the parlour once more.

“These things will occur,” said Garnet, casting his eyes up to the ceiling. “In fact they do so, I may say, almost daily. Death is terrible at all times and under any circumstances――that is a truism everyone must admit; but all things considered I really do not think there is any great reason to repine in this case. I have lost an old friend and companion, and you have lost a husband, and we have, of course, both of us reason to mourn. Still, matters might have been worse.”

“They might have been, I admit,” said Mrs. Bourne.

“This is a shock to you, a sad blow,” cried Garnet, placing his hand on her shoulder with well-simulated kindness of manner. “Let me again beg of you to bear it with becoming fortitude. I will be with you in the morning after I have given notice to the coroner. Till then, adieu, my dear madam. I need hardly say that it will afford me great pleasure in being of service to you in this matter.”

“You are very kind, I am sure, Mr. Garnet. Accept my thanks. At the present moment I find it difficult, and indeed, I may say impossible, to realise the terrible reality which has been presented to us so suddenly.”

“Of course not. I can well understand that,” observed the oily-tongued doctor; “but do not worry yourself, the worst is over. I was not prepared for such an ending, but all things considered, it is after all but a natural sequence, and not so much to be regretted as we at first supposed.”

“Not to be regretted, Doctor Garnet?”

“Umph. Well, no, not so much, my dear madam.”

“What do you mean? Are you of opinion that my husband was guilty of the charge preferred against him?”

“Really, Mrs. Bourne, you must excuse me. You cannot expect me to answer such a query. I should not be justified in hazarding an opinion at this early stage of the inquiry. Still you know people will draw their own conclusions after what has occurred. Be thankful that you are here.”

“I now perfectly understand your meaning.”

“The lady died from the effects of poison; that has been established beyond dispute,” said Garnet. “Who administered it is another question. The prosecution says my late friend, Doctor Bourne; but assertions are one thing and proof is another. This is a question, however, which I think we had better not attempt to discuss just now. Good-night, or rather morning, my dear friend. I will see you as early as possible to-morrow.”

And with these words the fashionable physician took his departure.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

Chapter CI

AFTER THE DEED――THE SALE BY AUCTION――MRS. BOURNE PAYS A VISIT TO MR. THOMPSON.

The news of Doctor Bourne’s sudden departure from the world, together with the manner of his death, spread like wildfire. It was in every person’s mouth. Would-be wiseacres shook their heads and said “it was no more than they expected.” Rich dowagers and antiquated maiden ladies said it was very shocking, and that the poor dear man had been persecuted by a lot of good-for-nothing Americans who were envious of his position and fair fame.

Everybody had something to say upon the subject――the diversity of opinion was most remarkable.

Meanwhile the dead body of the doctor remained in the chair, in precisely the same position in which it had been found, till the day appointed for the coroner’s inquest.

The inmates of the house and Doctor Garnet were of course the chief witnesses. A feeble attempt was made to prove that death resulted from disease of the heart. There was, as usual, a great deal of hair-splitting, and the medical evidence was contradictory. But the facts were so clearly manifested that after a short deliberation the jury returned a verdict “that the deceased died from the effects of prussic acid, taken while labouring under a fit of temporary insanity.”

Everybody appeared to be satisfied with the verdict, and the last remains of the doctor were interred with great pomp and ceremony. Upon the cavalcade reaching the grave many hundreds of persons were to be seen awaiting the arrival of the hearse.

To say that there was not a dry eye in the assembly would be but to make use of a newspaper reporter’s stereotyped phrase.

As far as grief was concerned there was but little, if any at all, but there was a vast amount of curiosity, and it was this that had drawn the people to the spot.

Strange to say Doctor Bourne, to the surprise of everybody, and to his wife in particular, died intestate; Mrs. Bourne, therefore, took out letters of administration.

As may readily be imagined she was not permitted to have it all her own way――the doctor’s relatives stepped forward to have a wrangle over the effects.

He died worth a great deal more than was supposed, and the widow’s share of the property was quite sufficient to maintain her handsomely; so that after all the American plotters, as they were termed by some, had really done her a very great service.

She was released from a thraldom which had daily become more and more painful, and she was rendered independent for the remainder of her life――proving the old adage, “that no evil occurs but some good comes from it.”

It was necessary for the better distribution of the property that the furniture and personal property of the doctor should be disposed of, and consequently a public sale took place. Everything was brought under the hammer.

The number of curiosity hunters and sightseers who flocked to the house during the three days appointed for the sale was prodigious.

Every class of the community seemed to be represented on this occasion, Jews and brokers being, as usual, the most prominent.

Some of the articles fetched fancy prices, while others went at sums considerably below their value.

The aristocratic and more wealthy class of bidders went in for the pictures and articles of virtu.

The reader will perhaps be in no way surprised to learn that Charles Peace attended the sale. He purchased a violin.

Bourne had at one time taken lessons of an eminent professor of that instrument, and in early life had amused himself during his leisure hours in practising, but he never made much of a hand at fiddling.

However, his violin was sufficiently good in tone and quality to tempt our hero to bid for it, and he became the purchaser at a ridiculously low sum.

Peace had always a penchant for visiting places of public resort, and the probability is that he was attracted to the sale by the circumstances connected with the dead man.

He knew that Bourne had been accused of murder――this fact in itself was quite sufficient to excite the curiosity of Charles Peace.

There was, it must be admitted, something like a grim jest in a murderer purchasing a murderer’s musical instrument at a public sale.

Rawton, or Bandy-legged Bill, as he was more frequently termed, kept his word; he never again paid a visit to Mrs. Bourne. He had not been seen or heard of by any of the detectives since he had effected his escape.

Mrs. Bourne very much regretted not having had any tidings of him.

She did not wish him to be captured――far from that, but he had behaved so well to her that she was desirous of forwarding him some money as a recompense for his exertions on behalf of herself.

Bill, however, contrived to remain perdu, and the doctor’s widow had lost all trace of him.

She was the more concerned about this since she was about to leave the house she at present occupied, and then there would be but little chance of her ever again communicating with the gipsy.

This reflection seemed to have a depressing effect upon her, for it occurred to her that perhaps Bill had been captured and cast into prison without her knowledge, and when the thought crossed her mind she was more than ever deeply concerned about him.

The servant girl Amy, who happened to be looking out of the window watching the throngs of persons going in and out of the house, cried out in a surprised tone――

“Well, I declare, if there isn’t the man who brought the letter to you just gone in!”

“What man, and what letter do you allude to?”

“Why, that impudent forward man who brought a letter from Mr. Dorton or Rawton. I don’t know his right name.”

“Gone inside, did you say?”

“Yes, ma’m.”

Mrs. Bourne reflected for a few moments, and then said――

“I wish you would go downstairs and see if you can find him. Do go at once, there’s a good girl――it is rather important.”

“And if I do find him?”

“Oh true, if you do, I never thought of that. Well, you can ask him for the address of Mr. Rawton.”

Amy was under the impression at the time that the man would not give the required address, but she said nothing.

Her mistress again urged her to go downstairs, and she obeyed.

The sale-room was thronged with visitors, who chaffed and bantered each other, to say nothing of the auctioneer, to their heart’s content. At a public sale all restraint is thrown off, and people say and do what they please.

Amy, who was a remarkably pretty girl, had to run the fire of a series of observations, which doubtless were meant to be flattering and complimentary, but which were, however, very distasteful to her.

Presently she caught sight of the person whom she was seeking.

This was Cooney, who had just dropped in to see if he could get a job to do in the way of porterage, and if, at the same time, he could pick anything up, it would suit him better.

The girl beckoned to him, and he came forward out of the crowd.

“What, my charmer!” he ejaculated. “I said as how you’d think better of me as time went on. Well, I’m jolly glad to see you――and how’s the missus?”

“Come this way,” said Amy, drawing him towards the passage.

“Vell, what is it?” inquired Cooney, who now began to be a little alarmed. “Out wi’ it. Let us know the whole and true particulars.”

“I wish you’d hold your tongue, you fool,” said Amy. “You’ve a great deal too much to say. Listen to me for a moment, if you please.”

“Vell, aint I a-listenin’ to your sweet voice?――In course I am. I like to hear you speak.”

“Can you give me the address of Mr. Rawton?”

Cooney gave a prolonged “Ah!” and looked puzzled.

“Don’t you hear? I want Mr. Rawton’s address.”

“Do you?”

“Yes――at least missus does. She sent me down for it.”

“Vell, you see, my pretty pet, I can’t give it.”

“And why not?”

“For a good reason――he aint got no address.”

“But you know where to find him, I dare say?”

“Yes, I might find him, but he won’t come here any more.”

“Wait till I have asked missus.”

“Wait where?”

“Here, or in the sale-room, anywhere you choose, but don’t go away till I come downstairs.”

“I won’t.”

Amy tripped upstairs and told her all that had passed between herself and Cooney.

“Ah, no, he won’t give the address――of course not. We can’t hardly expect him to do so; Rawton is at hide and seek. There is but one way to get over the difficulty. I will write a letter and this he will deliver to Mr. Rawton.”

She sat down and penned a hasty epistle to Bandy-legged Bill.

“There,” she said, handing it to Amy, “give him that and tell him to deliver it to the party to whom it is addressed. But stay, better give him something for the favour. Here is half-a-sovereign, slip that into his hand when you give him the letter.”

“I think he’s a sort of a man who is quite open to receive a bribe,” cried Amy, bursting out into a laugh, as she descended the stairs once more.

“Oh, gi’ him this――eh?” said Cooney. “Right you are, Mary. It shall be done, and no flies. What! half a quid. S’help me bob, I wish I could find a few more of your sort. Your missus is a stunner, and no mistake.”

“Do hold your tongue, you donkey.”

“Vell, I’m blest. Don’t like to hear a cove speak――don’t yer?”

“I don’t care about listening to your conversation.”

“Why, what’s the matter with it?”

“It doesn’t please me――that’s all. You have a deal too much to say.”

“All right, darling, then. I’ll remain mum. So I’m to give this to Bill?”

“You are to deliver it into the hands of Mr. Rawton.”

“And bring an answer?”

“Yes, if you can, that will be all the better, but we leave here the day after to-morrow――remember that.”

“I’ll be here afore you leave, please the pigs!” cried Cooney, as he left.

“What a common brute!” exclaimed Amy, after he had left. “He is a coarse common sort of man, but I suppose he will keep his word――at least, I hope so, for missus seems to be very anxious about Rawton for some reason or another, which I can’t quite make out.”

Cooney was sufficiently faithful to his pal the gipsy not to let anybody know his hiding-place; but he had very little difficulty in delivering the letter to its rightful owner on the evening of the day upon which it had been placed in his hands by the girl, Amy, whom he still declared to be the most aggravating, charming creature he had ever set eyes upon.

On the following day he returned with an answer to the epistle which had been entrusted to his care.

“I’m here again,” said he to Amy, when she opened the door; “I can’t keep away from you. You’re in my thoughts by day and by night; I can’t sleep for thinking of you.”

“I don’t intend to listen to any more of your nonsense, you impudent vulgar fellow,” returned the girl, in an angry tone, “and so you’d better conduct yourself in a more becoming manner. If you don’t, I shall have to tell my mistress, who, I am sure, will forbid you coming again to this house.”

“What for? I aint said or done nothing that any one can complain of. Here’s a jolly sell. Well, I’m blowed.”

“Silence, let me have no more of this. Have you got an answer?”

“Well, in course I have, but you won’t give a cove time. I never seed such a pretty little tartar in all my born days.”

“Give me the answer if you’ve got one.”

“Didn’t I tell you I had? Here it is. Am I to wait outside or come in?”

“Oh come in,” cried Amy, in a pet, slamming the door violently. “I shall be glad when we are rid of you.”

She went into the parlour.

“Ah, I aint fortunate wi’ women or gals, never was,” murmured Cooney, looking meditatively at the hall clock. “Charles Peace is the man for that sort of business. He’d make any on ’em b’lieve black was white if he’d a mind to. Howsomever, it don’t much matter, I s’pose. They’ve been a deal of trouble to Charlie――that’s sartin sure.”

Amy returned, gave Cooney two half-crowns for his trouble, and told him to be off.

“You’re in a jolly hurry to get rid of me,” said he. “I’ll give ye the two half bulls if you’ll――――”

“Well, what?”

“Let me have one kiss.”

“Get out, you wretch. If you don’t――Well, there’s a detective in the back parlour.”

“Oh, crikey!” exclaimed Cooney. “I’ll step it if you please, my dear, but you might――――”

“Hush!” cried the girl, “he’ll hear,” and she pointed significantly to the door of the back parlour.

She found this ruse a most admirable and efficacious one, for Cooney hesitated no longer. He as noiselessly as possible passed out of the house, and was lost to sight in an incredibly short space of time.

Amy laughed.

There was no detective in the house, but she had got rid of a troublesome customer by the mere mention of such a personage.

The contents of the letter which Mrs. Bourne received from Rawton proved to be sufficiently satisfactory to that lady. The epistle was a brief one.

The gipsy congratulated her upon being rid of what he chose to term a tyrannical and worthless husband, and at the same time he said he did not require a recompense or even thanks for whatever he had done for her.

It was enough for him to know that she was relieved from an oppressive thraldom, that she was now her own mistress, and that he had been of some little service to her, or at any rate what he had done was with the view of rendering her a service.

That, however, was all over now, and he bade her a final farewell, but as the chances were that she would not be contented without knowing where to address him, he informed her that any letter forwarded to Mr. Thompson, Evelina-road, Peckham, would be sure to reach him; the said Mr. Thompson being an old friend of his would be sure to know where to find him.

So far the letter from Rawton was explicit enough, and Mrs. Bourne felt that all communication was not cut off from herself and the man to whom she owed a deep debt of gratitude.

“Poor fellow,” she ejaculated, “he’s self-sacrificing and magnanimous enough. His conduct to me is, I presume, the one bright spot on his character――perhaps the only one, for it is evident enough that for years he has been leading a lawless and depraved life. Dear me! but this is all very terrible. I do not desire, however, to see him again, and shall, therefore, as far as that is concerned, take him at his word; but, this Mr. Thompson, I wonder who he can be――some worthless character I suppose. Well, I can leave him a cheque or bank-note enclosed in a letter addressed to Rawton. Yes, that will be my best course.”

When the sale was over and the goods removed, Mrs. Bourne took furnished lodgings in Somerset-street, Portman-square.

As yet she had not determined her course of action.

She thought of taking up her residence in Paris for awhile.

She spoke French fluently, and understood something of German.

Indeed, she was what is called an accomplished woman, who shone in society as a sort of star.

She was a good musician, an excellent singer, and, as we have already signified, had at one time been an actress of no inconsiderable merit.

But with Dr. Bourne she had been buried as far as the external world was concerned. She was so depressed, so miserable, that she had not the heart to go into society to the extent she had done before her fatal marriage.

After her husband’s death she was sought after and patronised by the upper classes in a way that not only astonished her but numbers of others besides.

In fact she was more popular than ever. Although the bloom on the peach had long since disappeared, and the springtime of her life had passed away, she was still a beautiful woman, and was capable of making herself very agreeable in society.

In addition to all this there was a halo of romance cast upon her――her career had been a most remarkable one――that was pretty generally admitted, but the culminating point was reached when her husband was accused of a murder committed years before his marriage with Hester Teige.

Mr. Shearman and his confederates were miserably disappointed when they heard of Doctor Bourne’s suicide.

No end of trouble and money had been expended in getting up the case against the guilty doctor; and it certainly was very mortifying to the American detective to find himself “cornered,” as he termed it, by that “artful cuss.”

Mr. Shearman was baulked just as his prey was about to fall into his hands.

It would have been quite a triumph for him to have escorted Bourne to the States, proved his guilt, and had him executed.

However, as he could not pot his man, he contented himself while in this country in seeing all the sights he possibly could in the great metropolis, and these, as the reader can imagine, were not a few.

Mrs. Bourne looked very well in her widow’s weeds, which, however, she purposed throwing off as early as custom and the usages of society would admit.

She had not been very long in her new quarters before she determined upon paying a visit to Rawton’s friend, her object being to leave a sum of money for the gipsy with Mr. Thompson.

The doctor’s two vehicles, together with the horses, had been sold, but his widow had purchased a neat unostentatious-looking brougham for her own use. She had been so long accustomed to a carriage that from force of habit she felt constrained to have one.

She had taken with her into her lodgings in Somerset-street her maid Amy, who was a faithful girl and devotedly attached to her mistress. The brougham was ordered, and as the doctor’s widow did not care to wait upon a stranger without a companion, she took Amy with her.

Peace’s house in the Evelina-road was a decent, respectable-looking habitation enough, but in its external appearance it certainly could not be described as aristocratic-looking. Its general appearance is doubtless familiar to many of my readers from the representations of it which have appeared in several of the illustrated papers at the time of Peace’s arrest for the attempted murder of police-constable Robinson.

Anyway, it was a far better sort of habitation than Mrs. Bourne had expected to see, for she was under the impression that Rawton’s friends must be of the very lowest class.

Mrs. Thompson opened the door, and to Mrs. Bourne’s inquiry as to whether Mr. Thompson was within, she was answered in the affirmative.

She was shown into an elegantly furnished parlour, and saw there an old gentleman looking over a draft which he had before him, stretched out on the table.

Upon the widow’s entrance he looked up from the chart or draft, and made a sort of bow, which the widow returned.

“Pardon my intruding upon you, sir,” said Mrs. Bourne. “You are Mr. Thompson, I presume.”

“Yes, madam,” said Peace, “Pray be seated.”

“You are a friend of Mr. Rawton’s, I believe.”

“Eh――of who did you say?”

“Mr. William Rawton, or Bill Rawton, as he is more familiarly termed.”

“Oh, certainly, yes, I know Bill Rawton perfectly well, but he is certainly not in London just now――is far away, I believe. What might you want with him?” inquired Peace or rather Thompson, with a suspicious look.

“I have no desire to see him, Mr. Thompson, but he has rendered me a service, and I am desirous of offering him some recompense for the same.”

“Oh, I see; that’s a different matter altogether. It will be very acceptable to him, I have no doubt.”

“You’ve got a grand work here, sir,” said Mrs. Bourne, glancing at the paper on the table. “You are in the engineering line, I suppose?”

“Well, I do a little in that way; this is a draft of an invention a neighbour of mine and myself are about to patent.”

“I hope it may prove successful and lucrative,” said the widow.

“I hope so, I’m sure, for his sake. Luckily for me, I don’t depend upon those sort of things. I am possessed of independent means.”

He spoke so confidently, and was withal so plausible and urbane in his manner, that Mrs. Bourne was rather taken with him than otherwise.

“Well, as I was observing, Mr. Thompson,” said the widow, “I have no desire to see Rawton, but he has informed me by letter that anything I might leave for him with you would be sure to fall into his hands. Is that correct?”

“Perfectly correct. I will undertake to give him anything you may entrust to my care.”

“I am greatly obliged, I’m sure.”

Mrs. Bourne took from her pocket a large-sized envelope, containing two ten pound notes and a slip of paper with a line or two written thereon, saying who had sent them. The envelope was addressed to――

“Mr. William Rawton, care of Mr. Thompson.”

“Will you be good enough to give your friend Rawton this?” said the widow.

“Certainly, with the greatest of pleasure. And to say who it comes from?”

[Sidenote: No. 54.]

“I have signified that inside――from Mrs. Bourne.”

“Dear me!” exclaimed Peace. “Not the widow of Dr. Bourne, at whose house a sale has recently taken place?”

“The very same; I am the lady.”

“How very remarkable.”

“Indeed――in what way?”

“I attended the sale merely as a matter of curiosity――that is all. I purchased a violin, which I presume was the property of the deceased gentleman.”

Peace went to a side table and produced the violin.

“Yes,” said Mrs. Bourne, “that belonged to my husband. You play, I presume?”

“Yes, a little.”

“Dear me, what a singular circumstance! Are you pleased with your bargain?”

“Not a bad instrument,” said Peace, carelessly; “it has a mellow, rich tone.”

He drew the bow across the strings and ran through a scale or so.

“You know how to handle the instrument, I can see that,” said Mrs. Bourne; “dear me, I should have supposed you to be a professional.”

“I have played in public,” observed our hero.

“So I should imagine; I am a devotee to music, Mr. Thompson.”

Peace, or rather Thompson, pointed to the piano in his room, and said “Do you do anything in that line?”

“I used to play very often, but am now out of practice. Indeed, I have not taken much interest in music of late years.”

“That is no reason for you not doing so now. See, I have here a charming piece set for the violin and piano. Will you accompany me?”

“I’ll do my best,” said Mrs. Bourne, who believed at the time that she had met with a kindred spirit.

She sat down at the instrument, and very soon convinced Mr. Thompson that she was an accomplished musician.

They played a duet together. Mr. Thompson did his best, and the piece, it is needless to say, was most charmingly rendered.

“It is not often,” observed Mr. Thompson, “that I meet with such an admirable executant. Really, madam, your style is most admirable, and merits the warmest commendation.”

“Ah, sir, you flatter; I am out of practice.”

“I should hardly have supposed so. However, we will, if you please, try another.”

“I am a little nervous,” suggested the lady.

“Oh, but you must get over that. Remember we are not playing before an audience, only to amuse ourselves.”

Mrs. Bourne thought he was a very nice old gentleman, quiet, unobtrusive, and well-behaved.

As we have before intimated, Charles Peace was a most plausible man, and could deceive the most wary person in the world.

Another duet was gone through with even greater success than the first, and the girl, Amy, who was waiting for Mrs. Bourne in the brougham, wondered what was detaining her mistress. She heard the sounds of music, and was under the impression that the doctor’s widow was taking a lesson of some well-known professor.

After the second duet was over, Mrs. Bourne rose from the music-stool on which she had been seated, and said――

“You must now excuse me, Mr. Thompson. My brougham is waiting, and I have several calls to make, and therefore I must, however reluctantly it may be, wish you good morning.”

“I am sure I have been most delighted with this short visit, and only wish it could be protracted; but I will not seek to detain you.”

“You will remember the letter I have given you for Mr. Rawton?”

“Most certainly I will; it shall be delivered into his hands upon the very first opportunity.”

“Thank you very much.”

Peace saw his aristocratic visitor to the door; she entered her brougham, waved her hand to the gentleman of independent means and musical proclivities, and the vehicle was driven off.

“I thought you were having a lesson, ma’am,” said Amy, after they had got out of the Evelina-road. “I’m sure it sounded beautiful.”

“Oh, dear me, no, you silly girl. A lesson, indeed! Only just trying a new piece of music over, that’s all. Mr. Thompson is such a nice, genial old gentleman; quite a fatherly man, and I should say he is a most respectable person.”

“Is he a professor of music?”

“Oh dear, no――nothing of the sort. He has played in public, though. So he told me.”

“I hope you have not lost your heart,” cried Amy, bursting out into a merry laugh.

“Hush, don’t be so ridiculous! What can you be thinking about? Lost my heart, indeed. I should hope not. He may be very nice in his way, but he’s not a sort of man I am likely to fall in love with.”

“No, he’s not particularly handsome――is he?”

“You mind your own business, girl, and don’t be so demonstrative or talkative.”

Amy said no more――she felt that she had already said more than enough.

The vehicle was driven rapidly along, and in the due course of time the doctor’s widow reached her house.

She threw off her travelling costume, and arranged herself in an exquisitely and faultlessly-made dress. She was about to receive visitors. Throngs of persons now flocked to her house; indeed, she was quite the rage for a brief period, and people who before had taken but little notice of her, all of a sudden demonstrated a feeling of friendship, or it might be attachment, which, to say the least of it, was most remarkable.

She was a woman, however, who had a pretty good knowledge of the world, and the people who lived in it, and could gauge with a tolerable degree of accuracy the amount of sincerity of those who all of a sudden professed to be her friends.

She had had at all times an extensive circle of acquaintances. From the very nature of her position, this could not be otherwise, for although she had not been recognised or patronised by the extremely discreet and virtuous of the upper classes, she had been received as a guest by some of the most wealthy and aristocratic persons in the land; the union with the doctor silenced in a great measure the rumours as to her antecedents. She cared but little for the opinion of the world. Indeed, she had been lectured by her former protectors to contemn it, but deep down in the bottom of her heart lurked sad and bitter recollections, which she could not smother; but despite all this she looked hopefully to the future.

She had always been a well-conducted, lady-like woman, and never indulged in coarse inuendoes or vulgar display. Error had been in a great measure forced upon her; and considering how she had been petted and sought after, it is a matter of surprise that she contrived to remain so quiet and unobtrusive in her ways and habits.

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Chapter CII

DOMESTIC SQUABBLES――BILL RAWTON PAYS A VISIT TO THE EVELINA-ROAD.

Peace’s house in the Evelina-road, to which Mrs. Bourne had paid a visit, has attained a considerable share of notoriety. It is most remarkable how he contrived to live there so long and carry on his lawless practices in the surrounding districts without being discovered. A glance at his house would, at first sight, have suggested the impossibility of his going on for so long a time without being brought to justice.

In the front of him was a row of houses, to the rear were the backs of a whole roadful of dwellings, in which the windows seemed so many eyes looking down into the Peace establishment.

On the railway side he was safe enough, as the embankment was high, and the trains passed within a few yards of his dwelling, but high above his roof. Yet it does seem, looking from the street, as if he must have been observed sometimes by the people in the bedrooms to the rear of that road.

If we take a glance at the back we shall soon find out why Peace managed to escape observation.

The tenant of No. 5 neglected nothing. He had a microscopic eye for what people foolishly call “little things.” A master of detail, he made the stable serve two purposes――to house his pony and to conceal his doings.

It was constructed so as to shut off all prospect from the rear. The stable was placed and covered in so cleverly that nothing short of the power to pierce through wooden boards could have enabled anyone to see anything.

To make assurance doubly sure, he had, all round the back, a wooden partition put up――even on the side next the railway, where there was only the hedge to guard against. Timber of fine quality was used for this purpose, and the workmanship was creditable to the carpenter――Peace himself.

A neighbour remonstrated with him once for using such good wood for what seemed to be so common and trivial a purpose.

“Ah,” replied Peace, “I know my own business best; money’s no object to me, for I like things well done, whatever it costs.”

He had a peculiar light which enabled him to show varying colours in rapid succession, and the effect was to dazzle and bewilder the person in whose face it was flashed. He guarded the lamp very carefully.

Mr. Knight, the neighbour who served him with milk, said they were a remarkable lot for playing early in the morning. Frequently when he went out with the milk in the morning he would find Peace playing on the fiddle, and the lad of seventeen, Willie Ward, strumming on the guitar. “And capital music it was too,” he added; “sometimes sacred, but they played all sorts as well――operatic and dance music.”

Occasionally the boy had the violin and Peace the guitar, and they would go at it for hours, getting a name for the eccentricity which they took pains to encourage on all sides.

Very rarely when Peace was at home was the sound of music unheard, and Mrs. Thompson could do her part on the harmonium. “The old gentleman” was fond of the harmonium; he preferred it to the piano for sacred music.

“There was a fulness and depth about the notes,” he said, “which gave the peculiar solemnity he liked in the rendering of sacred music.”

There is a tradition that Peace was once induced to go to some Methodist chapel, but we think that this story must be relegated to the region of fiction. Nobody at Peckham believed it, and the gentleman who was said to have taken him denied that he ever did anything of the kind. Peace on the Sunday had always a little chapel of his own, in which the service was exclusively musical.

He read the daily papers with great diligence, yet music had greater charms to soothe his savage breast, so that when he was wrapt up in his harmonies, the papers lay unregarded on the doorstep; and sometimes when the pair of Peaces fiddled and guitared, the milkman, who was not so enamoured of the melodious art, perused the papers to see if they were worth a penny.

Mr. Knight usually delivered the milk at Mr. Thompson’s house himself. He gave rather a different account of the appearance of the habitation in the morning from that given by the other neighbours, who were privileged to drop in to tea in the evening. He said that things were very higgledy-piggledy. All the kitchen utensils seemed to be in a mess. One morning he particularly remembered seeing all the tea and supper things in the fire-place within the fender, and on the rug in front of the fire was Mrs. Thompson lying full length, with a cushion for a pillow. She had evidently lain there all night; Thompson himself was then “up.” Perhaps he had been at an unusual distance that morning. “The family,” he said, seemed to live well. They wanted for nothing, but they appeared to have it in a rough and ready fashion. That was his idea of how they lived when they had no visitors, but Mr. S. Smith, of Ryde-villas, who let them the house, declared that at Peace’s little tea parties “everything was up to the knocker.” Peace’s life in the Evelina-road is perhaps the most remarkable period in his whole career; and as far as his lawless depredations are concerned, appears to be almost incredible. But we must not let this little sketch break the continuity of our story.

A few days after Mrs. Bourne’s visit to our hero, Bandy-legged Bill put in an appearance. After his escape from the doctor’s house he had, as already mentioned, been playing at hide and seek. It was Bourne himself who had aroused the detectives and sought thereby to bring the unfortunate gipsy under the ban of the law, but despite the vigilance of Mr. Wrench, Bill had succeeded in keeping out of harm’s way. To explain how this was done would be only a waste of space, which we hope to occupy with more important and interesting details.

Bill Rawton did contrive to “dodge” the detectives――that is sufficient for our purpose. By the merest accident in the world he happened to meet with Peace in the neighbourhood of Whitechapel.

A mutual recognition took place, and an interchange of expressions of friendship, for Peace liked the gipsy in consequence of his always acting fair and square to him. Indeed, it must be conceded to that worthy that he had done a number of acts of disinterested kindness for our hero, and as we have before said, with all Bill Rawton’s faults, selfishness was not one of them.

Peace invited him to his house in the Evelina-road, which Bill accepted. They very soon became as good pals as ever, but our hero, albeit he gave his friend an account of his adventures since they had last parted, did not make any allusion to the Banner-cross murder. This was a subject upon which he was remarkably reticent. Soon after this Rawton received the letter from Mrs. Bourne, which Cooney had undertaken to deliver. He then asked our hero if he had any objection to receive any communication for him which a friend of his might at some time or another entrust to his care.

Peace at once expressed his willingness to do so, but told Bill that he was no longer Charles Peace, but Mr. Thompson, and that on no account whatever was the name of Peace to be mentioned to a living soul. He had sufficient confidence in the gipsy to trust him with his secret thus far, and his confidence was not misplaced.

The gipsy was, as heretofore, true to the core.

One afternoon, when he did not know very well what to be up to, as he termed it, he determined upon calling again in the Evelina-road, not that he had the most remote idea any communication from Mrs. Bourne had been left for him in charge of our hero. Upon Bill’s arriving at Peace’s house he heard a violent altercation in the front parlour; this was succeeded by a scream from a woman. Bill entered, and beheld his friend Peace in the passage giving some straightforward blows to a female, whom he afterwards took by the shoulders and thrust into an adjacent apartment, closing the door and locking her in without further ceremony.

Rawton made no observation, but concluded naturally enough that it was a domestic squabble, the cause of which he was unable to fathom.

“Oh! it’s you Bill, eh!” cried Peace, catching sight of his friend. “Come in, old boy.”

Peace went into the front parlour, from whence a moment or so before he had emerged in such a towering passion.

“What’s the row, guv’nor,” said Bill.

“Oh! row――don’t ask me,” returned his companion. “These women drive me distracted at times. That fool can’t keep her tongue from wagging, and I feel like a man who is walking with a lighted pipe over a powder magazine. Sit down.”

Rawton sat down, but did not make any further remarks for the present. He was at no loss to see that his friend was in one of his tantrums, and that he had “let her ladyship have it.”

“I tell you, those two women are the torment of my life,” cried Peace, still irate.

“Two――eh?”

“Well, yes, two, worse luck. It’s bad enough to be troubled with one, but two is more than mortal man can bear.”

“It’s no business of mine,” said Bill, “but I should have thought――”

“Well, what should you have thought?”

“One jibber would have been enough for you to do with at a time.”

“You are right――they are both jibbers; but then it’s no use talking about the matter――every man has his troubles in this world.”

“And yours appear to be women――eh, old man?” cried the gipsy, with a laugh, for he was well acquainted with his friend’s predilection for the fair sex.

“Now don’t chaff me, I tell you――I’m in no mood to stand it.”

Rawton said no more. He looked hard at the speaker, and saw that he was still in a great state of flustration.

The gipsy remained silent and thoughtful for some time.

Presently Mrs. Peace entered the room; she started at perceiving Rawton. “Dear me! how are you?” she said, offering the gipsy her hand.

“I’m pretty well for an old un,” replied Bill. “We ’aven’t met for a good while. How’s yourself?”

“Middling――only middling; but I am glad to see you.”

“Thank you, marm, an’ the same to you.”

“Where is Susan?” said Mrs. Peace, addressing herself to her husband.

“Where I put her――in the next room. Hang her! she can’t, or rather won’t, keep her tongue still. I tell you what it is――she shan’t go out of the house at all. I’ll stop this little game! I’ll tame her, as sure as my name is――――”

He was about to say Charles Peace, but he substituted “what it is,” instead.

“Nobody wants her to go out,” said his wife.

“Well, then, why does she? Merely out of aggravation. But I won’t have it. If she does, I shall have to wring her neck, that’s all.”

“I’ll look after her; do not put yourself in these tantrums.”

“But you don’t look after her.”

“Yes; I do.”

“I say you don’t. If you had there wouldn’t have been this row. I am sick and tired of speaking about this.”

“She’s in the next room; I’ll give her a good talking to,” observed Mrs. Peace, who was on the point of leaving the parlour.

“Here,” shouted her husband, “take the key of the next room. I’ve locked the self-willed obstinate fool in.”

Mrs. Peace took the key, unlocked the door of the back parlour, and went into the kitchen with Mrs. Thompson.

“She wants a deal of watching, that woman does,” observed our hero. “And if she is not watched, mind you, she’ll most likely get me into a devil of a mess.”

“Oh, Jerusalem――will she, though?”

Peace nodded significantly.

“I give in to you, Charlie,” said Bill, “you’ve had more experience with women and such like than I have by a long way. I confess they’ve generally proved too much for me.”

“I’ll take good care they don’t get the better of me――not if I can help it,” remarked our hero; “but let’s drop this――I’m sick of it. We will talk about other matters. How fares it with you? Have you managed to keep dark?”

“As dark as the old gentleman himself. Not a blessed crusher has been at my heels. I’ve dodged them to rights; but I say, Charlie, old man, you’ve got a jolly comfortable little crib here, snug, quiet, and everything you can desire.”

“It would be comfortable enough if it wasn’t for anxiety of mind. That ’ud knock over any man.”

“Anxiety of mind?”

“Yes. Well, you see, Bill, these women are almost more than I can manage. To a certain extent they have me in their power, and they know it.”

“I see――might round upon you at any moment?”

“If they felt disposed to do so of course they could.”

“Ah, but they won’t do that; leastways, I think not. I can answer for one――the other I know nothing about.”

“Umph!” ejaculated Peace――“all the better for you. I wish I had known nothing about her.”

“Women will be your downfall, old man,” observed Rawton. “There aint any mistake about that.”

“Get out; mind your own business. I know my way about, and don’t intend them to get the best of me, if I can help it.”

“All right, Charlie; I dare say you know best.”

“But I’m blowed if I ain’t forgot something.”

“What’s up, then?”

“Why, I’ve got a letter for you.”

“For me? Never!”

“I say I have. A lady――a proper sort of one, too, I can tell you――called here a few days ago, and asked if I knew you. She was as nicely behaved a woman as I ever clapped eyes upon, and her manner was so sweet and gentle, so ladylike, that――well, hang me, if I didn’t get quite spoony on her.”

“What! another?”

“Oh! as for that it’s only in a manner of speaking. Well, after some conversation and a little music we got quite friendly-like.”

“Yes, I understand; she knew me, did she?”

“Yes, and left a packet for you. A letter with an enclosure. So she told me. I’ll give it you.”

Peace went to a side table, unlooked his desk, and drew therefrom the letter which had been given to him by Mrs. Bourne.

Rawton glanced at the writing on the envelope, and turned suddenly pale.

“Why what on earth ails you?” cried Peace.

“Oh nothing, I’m all right.”

He twisted the letter in his hands for some little time as if afraid to break the envelope which enclosed it.

“Fire away, old man――open it,” said his companion.

“Oh! yes, certainly.”

Bill did as he wished, and drew forth a slip of paper and two £10 notes.

“Finnips, eh, Bill?” cried Peace in a voice of surprise.

“Yes; two tenners as I’m a living man.”

“Well I’m blessed. What did you mean the other day by saying you had not a friend in the world?”

“I’ve one or two friends left for all my grumbling,” observed Rawton, “and she who sent these is one.”

It was easy to see that he was much moved, for as he held the notes his hands trembled, and his countenance was indicative of deep emotion.

“You are a star in your way,” said Peace.

“Why?”

“Why, indeed, to all appearance you seem to be knocked silly instead of being pleased as anyone else would be under the circumstances. Who’s your friend?”

“Oh, I hardly know what to say to that question.”

“If it’s a secret, keep it to yourself. I don’t expect you are the sort of man to make up to the widow.”

“Widow?”

“Yes, she had on widow’s weeds when she called.”

“I suppose so.”

“I know it, and that’s better than supposing. She’s a downright good sort, I should say.”

“You are right; she is a good sort.”

“Her name is Mrs. Bourne.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because she said so. Why, her husband that was, Doctor Bourne, committed suicide. His furniture and other effects were brought under the hammer, and, strange to say, I attended the sale and bought his violin――that one that you see lying on the top of the piano. We played a duet or two together when she called.”

“Did you?”

“Yes. What is there to be surprised at in that we did?”

“Ah! you’d be surprised if you knew all.”

“But I don’t know all; in point of fact, I know nothing as yet. Certainly not from you.”

“No, that is true enough.”

“Why, Bill, what’s the matter with you? You don’t appear to me to be a bit like yourself. Keep your pecker up, old man. There’s nothing so very dreadful in receiving two tenners from a pretty woman――is there?”

“Oh, dear me, no, nothing at all; but I am surprised, never expected she would come here or give a thought about me――never expected it――and don’t deserve it. I think I’ll send them back.”

“Don’t be a fool. Send them back! Why you must be off your head to think of such a thing. Send back the flimsies――well that’s beyond a joke.”

Bill Rawton made no reply――he seemed to be at a loss to determine his course of action, and remained for some time silent and thoughtful.

“I say again, you’re a star; I can’t make you out,” observed his companion.

“Well, you see, Charles,” said the gipsy, “we’ve all got our weak places. The most callous cove as ever lived finds that out some time or another, though maybe he don’t care to confess it, and somehow or another I aint come off scot-free. The lady as called on you was, when I first knew her, one of the purtiest creatures as ever broke the bread of life. I met her when she warn’t but a wee bit of a thing, a chit of a girl, as one might say――and――to meet her was to love her.”

“Oh, scissors! it came to that――did it? What you, Bill the gipsy, fall in love with a ladylike person such as she appears to be?”

“It doesn’t seem natural, does it?” returned Rawton; “and now nobody would b’lieve it; perhaps can’t quite b’lieve it myself. But mind yer, she aint nuffin to me, nor has been for more than――well, getting on for twenty year. I hadn’t set eyes on her for all that time, nor she me――supposed her to be dead――I had been dead to her for ever so long a time. Well, you see, Charlie, lately, by the merest accident in the world, I met with her. She was at this time the wife of that doctor chap named Bourne, and I was well-nigh upsetting the apple cart when I got acquainted with old Gallipot. I wished myself at Jericho――in quod――anywhere, rather than where I was.”

“What harm did you do, then?”

“A goodish bit of harm――that is, I might have done, but as matters turned out, there wasn’t much call for grumbling, though it was a narrow squeak.”

“I’m blessed if I know what you’re driving at, Bill, and that’s the truth. You’re getting into a fog, and no mistake.”

“No I aint, I sees my way clear enough.”

“Glad you do. It’s more than I can. How was it that you were so near upsetting the apple-cart?”

“Cause Gallipot was a varmint, a bad un, and wanted an excuse to get rid of his wife――that’s why――don’t you see?”

“Not just at present.”

“Well, I’ll go back a bit.”

“Yes, do try back.”

“I will. As I was a saying, Charlie, I fell in love with her.”

“Oh, gammon and all――shut up.”

“But I won’t shut up; I did more than this. When she was a chit of a girl as didn’t know her own mind, and was anxious to get away from her stepmother, who treated her with the greatest unkindness, she gave her consent and became my wife.”

“Your wife!” cried Peace, wheeling back his chair, and regarding the gipsy with an incredulous look. “Why you must have taken leave of your senses.”

“No, I aint; what I’ve said is the solemn truth. She became my wife; but, Lord, it wasn’t to be supposed that a purty delicate creature like her would stay with me――it wasn’t possible――not likely. She was a deal too good for me, and so in less than six months after our wedding we parted. I gave her up. She went her way, and I went mine. She left the country. Remained in India for some years, so I was told; indeed, I thought she was there still; never dreamed of her being in this country. However, she was, and we met.”

“And did you claim her then as your wife.”

“Claim her! I should think not. Hav’n’t I told you we were separated twenty years ago――divorced?”

“Oh, you were divorced.”

“Well, in a manner of speaking we were.”

“I’ll tell you what it is, old man, you’re having a bit of game with me to-day.”

“No, I aint――it’s all fair and square what I’ve been a telling yer. It’s as right as the mail――aint a bit of falsehood about it――not a morsel. I tell ye I wouldn’t harm a hair of her head, and if needs be, if needs be, I’d lay down my life for her. There, I’ve said it out――I mean it!”

“It is a most extraordinary thing that you should never have told me anything about your having a wife before,” cried Peace――“a most extraordinary circumstance.”

“I never told anyone, ’cos why, it’s so many years ago that I had really forgotten all about Hester Teige, as she was called.”

“That was her maiden name, then?”

“Yes, Hester Teige. She had changed it three or four times, I believe, before she became Mrs. Bourne.”

“But how about the bit of a mess you were likely to get into?”

“You shall hear.”

Bill Rawton at this point proceeded to give Peace a succinct detail of all the particulars connected with his visit to Bourne’s house, with which the reader is already acquainted.

“Now I understand,” observed our hero. “Old Gallipot wanted to come the artful dodge and be rid of his partner without the trouble or risk of putting her out of the way. Very natural, and, all things considered, a wise course, perhaps; but he was floored, it seems, just in the nick of time.”

“Oh, I haven’t the slightest doubt about the end. If he couldn’t be shut of her by fair means he would have done it by foul. She would have been poisoned like his first wife. He was a cold-blooded, cruel scoundrel.”

“Upon my word, the story you’ve been telling sounds more like a romance than an actual reality.”

“Perhaps it does; it seems almost like a romance. When I think of the time when I first met with Hester, and what I have passed through since then――what I am and what I might have been, and how gentle and beautiful she was, I feel a heavy weight fall upon me――I feel that I want a heart not made out of human flesh, but out of the nether millstone.”

There was a mournful cadence in the gipsy’s voice as he gave utterance to these words, which made them additionally expressive, as the sounds fell upon the ears of Charles Peace the burglar.

Then on the bronzed and wrinkled cheeks of Bill Rawton two tears chased their way. They were the first he had shed for many a year. The hard man’s heart was softened. The remembrance of his early days――the dawn and noontide of love――seemed to him then like the oasis in the sterile and arid desert, and he leant forward and buried his face in his hands.

To say that Charles Peace was moved by the display of feeling in one from whom he would have least expected to find any genuine sentiment, would be, perhaps, saying too much. But he was surprised; more so, perhaps, than he had been in the whole course of his life.

He might well be so, for many reasons. He never for a moment gave his companion credit for so much chivalrous and disinterested feeling as he had displayed in his endeavours to shelter and shield Mrs. Bourne, and perhaps the reader will find it difficult to believe that a man of such essentially coarse a type as Rawton was capable of being moved by the higher instincts of our nature.

In answer to this we have but to declare that the gipsy’s character is sketched from life; the leading incidents in his career are but records of actual occurrences; his devotion to Mrs. Bourne was the one bright spot on his character, which nothing could dim or diminish. Throughout his life he invariably spoke of her with respect and admiration, not unmixed by a latent but enduring love.

Instances of this kind are by no means so rare as people are led to believe, although, perhaps, they are not outwardly manifested, as in the case of Rawton. The human character is diverseful, and it would not be a pleasing thought, nor indeed would it be correct, to suppose the most callous do not possess “one touch of nature which makes the whole world kin.”

“What can be said about Peace, then?” some of our readers may exclaim. It is true he was a bold bad man, who had but little to recommend him; he was about as bad a sample of the human species as it is possible for us to find. Nevertheless, he had some lighter shades in his character. He was fond of animals, of music; he was not an unkind father. Perhaps there may be what we may term negative qualities, for taken altogether he cannot be deemed anything else than a ruffian or freebooter of the very worst type.

Rawton remained for some time silent, with his head resting on his hands, and Peace was so taken back by the narrative and the deep dejection of the gipsy, that he had not the heart to question him further, and so the two sat in the front parlour of the house in the Evelina-road for some minutes without exchanging a word.

“I’ve known this bloke for a good while,” murmured Peace to himself, “but I’m blessed if he haven’t queered me now and no mistake. Hang the fellow! I’m afraid some parson has got hold of him.”

He took his violin and began to play a prelude to a new piece of music.

“Ah, that’s right,” cried Rawton. “Give us something soft and touching; you know I always like to hear you play.”

“You want something lively, old fellow, to cheer you up,” returned our hero. “You’re down among the dead men just now, and seem inclined to do the snivelling business, which, to say the truth, I should have thought quite out of your line.”

“Don’t be hard on a cove, Charlie――I’m a bit down, I confess; but, fire away, let’s have a tune.”

Peace played a surprising bravura air upon his violin. As the strains of music reached the ears of the gipsy his countenance became radiated with pleasurable emotion.

“That’s grand, an’ no mistake,” he ejaculated. “I wish I could handle the instrument as you do; but that I never shall, it ain’t in me――not, mind you, but I’ve a great liking for it――always had.”

“Well do you feel better, old man?” inquired Peace, with a lurking smile upon his countenance.

“Yes, a deal better.”

“That’s well. Have a dram of brandy――that’ll set you to rights.”

He passed the bottle towards his companion.

Bill poured himself out a glassful, which he drank off at one gulp.

“You are all right now,” said Peace, “or you ought to be by this time. Pull yourself together, and drop the sentimental.”

“Ah,” murmured the gipsy, “I dare say you think me a weak silly fool, and, indeed, to say the truth, I think so myself. But you must know, Charlie, that I never think of Hester Teige and of the days when I first knew her, without many bitter regrets for the past.”

“Ah, I dare say. It won’t do to give way to this sort of thing. Are you spoony on her now?”

“Spoony be hanged!――she’s nothing to me, and I am nothing to her. Lord bless yer, what can you be thinking about? Why, she’s far above me in every way. What am I, old man? A cadger――a dodger――a miserable wretch who’s not worth her notice.”

“She has noticed you, though,” returned Peace. “Aint she left you two tenners?”

“Ah, true. Well, I rather fancy it would be best for me to return them. Did she leave her address?”

“Not a bit of it. She left no address with me, so you must pocket the affront――that’s the best thing you can do.”

“I don’t like to take her money. I would sooner rob than accept anything from her.”

“And why, pray?”

“Because I don’t deserve it, and would rather not have a sixpence of her money.”

“You don’t like to be beholden to her. Is that what you mean?”

“No, it aint that; but I don’t like her to think that what I’ve done was with any idea of getting paid for it. It goes agin the grain for me to receive a single quid from one whom I would serve for the mere pleasure of serving her.”

“Well, you are a stunner, and no mistake!” cried Peace. “I never could have believed you had so much honour in you――not unless I had been witness of it.”

“I’m a queer chap, Charles, and I dare say I’ve queer ways, but I am too old to alter now; but there, let us say no more about the matter. We’ll talk about something else.”

“I think we had better. Perhaps you’ll be a little more reasonable upon other subjects. Are you in the mind to take a bit of a drive with me this evening?”

“In course I am; where to?”

“That we will determine by and bye. I am going to have a spin in the pony trap, and shall be glad of your company.”

“All right, I’m your man. Never say no to a good thing. Is it business matters you are going on?”

Peace smiled.

“Well, yes, it’s all in the way of business.”

“What time do you start?”

“Oh, about seven o’clock, I suppose.”

“Very good, I’ll come round at that time.”

“No, don’t do that. I would rather you would not. Meet me in the road, and I can pick you up. Do you see?”

“Just as you like, where shall I meet you then?”

“Ah, I don’t know, let’s see; Spurgeon’s Tabernacle will be as good a place as any.”

“I’ll be there, old boy, only let me know the time.”

“From seven to about a quarter or twenty minutes after. I’m sure not to be later than that.”

“I’m on. Will be there at seven without fail. Now I’ll be off; but, I say, keep yourself quiet, and don’t have any more shindies with the women.”

“Oh no; that’ll be all right,” replied Peace, with a laugh. “Don’t you bother yourself about my domestic affairs. Good-bye for the present. You won’t forget the appointment?”

“Not I――t’aint likely.”

Bill Rawton took his departure.

Peace returned to his little parlour, and began scraping away at his violin.

Presently Willie Ward came in and took up the guitar, and they played several duets.

Mrs. Peace, who had been in the kitchen below endeavouring to console Mrs. Thompson, shortly after this presented herself.

“Ah! it’s you, eh?” cried our hero. “Well, what about that beauty? Wants to go out again, I suppose, to make as much mischief as possible.”

“She does not want to go out, and has promised to remain indoors, but of course she does not like to be kept a prisoner.”

“I tell you she must not go out. She can have whatever she likes, and enjoy herself as much as she likes here, but I will not have her trapesing about and letting everybody know our business, and what is going on here.”

“I’ll take good care she doesn’t do that any more.”

“That’s all right then. I hope you’ll keep your word this time.”

“Mother’s sure to do that,” cried Willie. “She does her best, I’m sure.”

“I wish I could be as sure of it; but no matter. Now then go on with your music.”

The two began to play once more. Mrs. Peace, who had quite enough of their musical entertainments, left the room, and made the best of her way towards the kitchen.

As seven o’clock approached the pony and trap were got ready, and Peace drove off to meet Bill Rawton.

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