XLIII. AN IRRUPTION ON MARK CRAY…

XLIII. AN IRRUPTION ON MARK CRAY

If anything could exceed the prosperity of the Great Wheal Bang Mine itself, it was the prosperity of those immediately connected with it. There was only one little drawback--ready money ran short. It had been short a long while, and the inconvenience was great in consequence; but the prolonged inconvenience was now approaching to such a height that even that sanguine spirit, Barker, even Mark Cray in his confiding carelessness, felt that something must be done to remedy it.

Of course the cause of this will be readily divined--that the Great Wheal Bang's ore was not yet in the market. The heat of summer had passed, September was in with its soft air and its cool breezes, and still that valuable ore had not begun to "realise." It was obstinate ore, and it persisted in giving the greatest possible trouble before it would come out of its mother earth, where it had been imbedded for ages and ages. Those who understood the matter best, and the process of working these mines, tedious at all times, did not consider that any time was being lost; and it is more than probable that the impatience of Barker and Mark Cray alone caused the delay to appear unduly long.

The money swallowed up by that mine was enormous, and Mark Cray got half-dismayed at odd moments. The shareholders were growing tired of the calls upon their pockets; yet they were on the whole confiding shareholders, believing implicitly in the mine and its final results. As a natural sequence, the mine's wants being so great, its mouth so greedy a one, Mark Cray and his friend could have the less money to play with on their own score: still they managed to secure a little for absolute personal wants, and tradespeople of all denominations were eager to supply anything and everything to the great men of the Great Wheal Bang. How entire was the confidence placed in the mine by these two masters of it may be seen from the fact of their depriving themselves of money to pour it into the ever-open chasm. They might so easily have diverted a little channel into their own pockets! True, it might not have been quite the honest thing to do, but in these matters few men are scrupulous. Mark had surreptitiously sent a few shares into the market and realised the proceeds; but he had done it with reluctance: he did not care to part with his shares; neither was it well that the Great Wheal Bang's shares should be afloat.

Standing at the window of their drawing-room on this balmy September afternoon were Mark Cray and his wife. The fashionable world were of course not in London, but Mr. and Mrs. Cray formed an exception--there is no rule without one, you know. Mark felt that he could not be absent from those attractive offices in the City, even for a day. It was well that one of them should be seen there, and Barker was everlastingly running down into Wales. "Never mind, Carine," he said to his wife. "We'll take it out next year: we'll have a three-months' autumn trip in Germany. The money will be rolling in upon us then, and I need not stick here to keep the shareholders in good humour, as I have to do now." Carine obediently acquiesced; and she did it with cheerfulness: she had not been sufficiently long in her new and luxurious home to care about leaving it.

But she solaced herself with all the gaiety that was obtainable within reach. Drives out of town by day, and the theatre at night, or some other amusement accessible in September. On this day they had been to a wedding at the house of some new friends at Richmond; and they had but now returned. If you look out you may see the fine carriage with its four grey horses just turning from the door, for Caroline, capricious Caroline, wayward and whimsical as a child, had stepped out of it undecided whether to go out again and drive in the Park before dinner. So she kept the carriage waiting until she was pleased to decide not to go.

"I am a little tired, Mark, and they'd be ever so long taking out those post-horses and putting in our own," she said to her husband. "We could never go in the Park with four horses and postboys wearing white favours. Empty as the drive is, we should have a crowd round us."

"Taking you for the bride; and a very pretty one!" returned Mark, gallantly.

Caroline laughed; a little all-conscious laugh of vanity. She laid her beautiful bonnet of real lace and marabouts--and for which the milliner would assuredly charge £10--on a side-table, and threw off her costly white lace mantle. The folds of her silk dress, its colour the delicate bloom of the spring lilac, rustled as she went back to the window.

"Only think, Mark, we have been married nearly a year! It will be a year next month." Mark stood with his face close to the window. He was looking at the trees in the Green Park, their leaves playing in the golden light of the setting sun. Caroline flirted a few drops on her handkerchief from the miniature essence-bottle dangling from her wrist, and raised it to her carmine cheeks. The day's excitement had brought to them that rich bloom so suspiciously beautiful.

"I declare there's Barker!" exclaimed Mark. "I thought he'd be in."

Mr. Barker was dashing up the street in a cab, as fast as the horse's legs would go. He had been at the offices all day, doing duty for Mark. He saw them at the window, and gave them a nod as he leaped out. Mark looked at his watch and found it wanted yet some time to dinner. They sat down now, all three together, leaving the window to take care of itself. There was always so much to say when Barker was there. He talked so fast and so untiringly; present doings and future prospects were so good; and Caroline was as much at home in it as they were. They had had a splendid day in the City, Barker said volubly, except for grumbling. A hundred, or so, groaning old disappointed fellows had been in, who wanted to embark in the Wheal Bang and make their fortunes, but there were no shares to be had for love or money, and they were fit to bite their fingers off. Altogether, nothing could be more smooth, more delightful than affairs, and Barker had received news from the mines that morning promising loads upon loads of ore in a month or so's time.

Mark rubbed his hands. "I say, Barker, what do you say to a quiet little dinner at Blackwall tomorrow?" cried he. "I and Carine are thinking of driving down. Will you come?"

"Don't mind if I do," returned Barker. "What, time?"

"Well, not very late. The evenings are not so light as they were. Suppose we say"----

Before the hour had left Mark's lips he was stopped by a commotion. A sound as of much talking and bumping of boxes in the hall below: of boxes that appeared to be coming into the house. Caroline went to the window and saw a cab drawn up to the door, a last trunk being taken off it, and three band-boxes in a row on the pavement.

"Why, who can it be?" she exclaimed.

The question was soon set at rest. A lady in fashionable half-mourning entered the room and clasped Mark round the neck. Three young ladies entered after her and clasped Mark also, all three at once, two by the arms, one by the coat-tails. Mr. Barker's red whiskers stood out in wonder at the sight, and Caroline's violet eyes opened to their utmost width.

"We thought we'd take you by surprise, darling," the elder lady was saying. "The girls declared it would be delightful. I couldn't afford any change for them this year, Mark, out of my poor means, and we determined to pay you a visit for a few days. And so we have come, and I hope you can take us in."

"Yes, but don't smother me, all of you at once," was poor Mark's answer. "I am glad to see you mother; and I am sure my wife--Caroline, you remember my mother and my sisters."

It was certainly an imposing number to take a house by storm, and there was vexation in Mark's eye as he looked deprecatingly at his wife. But Caroline rose superior to the emergency. She came forward prettily and gracefully, and welcomed them all with a cordial smile. Mrs. Cray the elder could not take her eyes from her face: she thought she had never seen one grown so lovely. She withdrew them at length and turned them on Mr. Barker.

But that gentleman scarcely needed an introduction. He was of that free and easy nature that makes itself at home without one; and in an incredibly short time, before indeed the strangers had taken their bonnets off, he was chattering to them as familiarly as though he had known them for years. They were rather pleasing girls, these sisters of Mark--Fanny, Margaret, and Nina: very accomplished, very useless, and bearing about them the tone of good society.

Leaving Mark to welcome them, we must turn for an instant to the house of Miss Davenal. Sara was at rest, for she had paid Mr. Alfred King. In her desperate need--it surely might be called such!---she wrote the facts of the case to Mr. Wheatley. Not telling him the details, not saying a word that might not have been disclosed to the whole body of police themselves, but simply stating to him that she had very urgent need of this two hundred pounds for her father's sake. The result was, that Mr. Wheatley sent her the money. But he was not a rich man, and he candidly told her he could not have done it but for the certainty there existed of its speedy return to him. Sara lost not a moment in seeking another and a final interview with Mr. Alfred King. The papers were given up to her, the receipt signed, all was done as specified by Dr. Davenal, and the affair and the danger to Edward were alike at an end. The horrible nightmare on Sara Davenal's days was lifted; the fear which had been making her old before her time was over. Her countenance lost its look of wearing pain, and she seemed like a child again in her freedom from care.

Yes, the dreadful nightmare was over, and Sara was at rest. In her immunity from pain, in her renewed happiness, it almost seemed as if the world might still have charms for her. You can look at her as she stands in the drawing-room by Miss Davenal's side. It is the same evening as the one spoken of above, when Mrs. Cray and her daughters made that irruption upon Mark. Sara is in evening dress--a black gauze, with a little white net quilling on the low body and sleeves. Her white cloak lies on the sofa, and she is drawing on some new lavender gloves. But look at her face! at her cheek's rich colour! at the sweet smile on the lips, at the bright eye! Is it the anticipated evening's enjoyment that is calling these forth? No, no; the pleasant signs spring from a heart at rest: a heart that had long been aching, worn, terrified with a secret care.

It was very rare indeed that Miss Davenal went out, but she had accepted an invitation for dinner that evening. She had a few friends in London, not new ones (of new ones she had made none); but old acquaintances of her earlier days. The friend she was going to this evening, Lady Reid, had been her schoolfellow at Hallingham; they had grown up together, and Bettina Davenal was her bridesmaid when she married young Lieutenant Reid, who had then his fortune to make. He made it out in India, and he came home a colonel and a K.C.B.; came home only to die, as is the case with too many who have spent their best days in the Indian empire. His widow lived at Brompton, and Miss Davenal and she liked nothing better than to spend an hour together and talk of the days when they were so young and hopeful. How different, how different to them was the world now! Could it be the same world? Many of you, my readers, have asked the very question.

Neal had gone to the livery stables to order round a carriage, for Miss Bettina had a horror of cabs, and had not put her foot inside one since the evening of her arrival in London. She stood in her rich black silk and her cap of that fine white lace called point d'Angleterre, glancing from the window and talking with Sara. They had had news from Bombay that afternoon from Edward. Great news! and perhaps Sara's cheeks owed some of their unusual colour to this.

Captain Davenal was married. He had fallen in love with a pretty girl in India, or she had fallen in love with him, and they were married. She was an only child, he wrote them word, and an heiress; her name Rose Reid, now Rose Davenal. Miss Davenal felt nearly sure it must be a niece of her old friend to whom she was that evening engaged. Lady Reid's late husband had a brother in the civil service at Bombay, reported to be a rich man, and it was probable this was his daughter.

"It is just like Edward," she said tartly to Sara, as she watched for the carriage. "To think that he should marry after a month or two's acquaintance! He can't have known her much longer."

"But he says she is so pretty, aunt; so lovable!" was Sara's pleading answer. "And--if she is an heiress, I am very glad for Edward's sake."

"Ah," grimly returned Miss Bettina, having as usual heard all awry, "that's it, no doubt, the money's sake. I don't forget a good old proverb: 'Marry in haste and repent at leisure!' Here comes the carriage."

They went down to it. Neal, all perfection as usual, assisted them in and took his place by the side of the driver. They were nearly at their journey's end when, in passing a row of houses, Sara, who happened to be looking out, saw Oswald Cray at one of the windows: and by his side a fair face half-hidden by the crimson curtain; the face of Jane Allister.

A mist gathered over her eyes and her heart. She looked out still, mechanically; she saw the name written up as they left the houses behind them, "Bangalore Terrace;" she answered her aunt's remarks as before; but the change within her was as if sunshine had given place to night.

Why, could she still be cherishing those past hopes? No; never for an instant. She knew that all was over between her and Oswald Cray; that he was entirely lost to her. But she could not put away from her the old feelings and the old love; she could not see him thus in familiar companionship with another without bitter pangs and wild emotion. Perhaps Jane Allister was to be his wife!

Neal left them at Lady Reid's, his orders being to return with the carriage a quarter before eleven. When he reached home it was dusk; and Dorcas, attired in her bonnet and shawl, came to him in the passage, and said she was going out to do a little shopping.

Neal watched her fairly off and then went indoors. He closed the shutters of the dining parlour, went up to the drawing-room, where he set the candle on the table, and closed those shutters also. He took a leisurely survey of the room, apparently searching for something, and reading, en passant, a note or two left upon the mantelpiece, and then he took his seat before Sara's desk.

That little episode, the spoiled lock of the doctor's desk, had taught him caution; he would not make the same mistake with this. Neal was an adept at his work: and, by the ingenious use of a penknife and a piece of wire, the desk was opened. It may be a question how long Neal had waited for this opportunity. Such a one had not occurred for months: his ladies out, and Dorcas out; and the house wrapped in the silence of night, and not likely to be invaded.

And now a word to my readers. Should there be any among you who may feel inclined to cavil at this description of Neal's treachery, deeming it improbable, let me tell you that it is but the simple truth--a recital of an episode in real life. The reading of the letters, the opening of the desks, the ferreting propensities, the treachery altogether, were practised by a retainer in a certain family, and the mischief wrought was incalculable. It separated those in spirit who had never been separated before; it gave rise to all sorts of misconception and ill-feeling; it caused animosity to prevail between relatives for years: and the worst was--the worst, the worst!--that some of those relatives were never reconciled again in this world, for before the truth came to light death had been busy. As Coleridge says,

"Whispering tongues can poison truth."

What Neal's motive was I cannot tell you. What the motive of that other one was, was as little to be traced. There was nothing to be gained by it, so far as could be seen. It may have been that the prying propensities were innate in both natures; the love of working mischief inherent in their hearts. Certainly it was the ruling passion of their lives. The most extraordinary inventions, the strangest stories, were related by the one: you will find, before you have done with the other, that they were not abjured by him.

The first letter Neal came to in the desk--at least, the first he opened--happened to be one from Mr. Wheatley. By that he learned that two hundred pounds had been lent to Sara in the summer for the "completion of the payment she spoke of." Coupled with his previously-acquired knowledge, Neal came to the conclusion that the trouble as regarded Captain Davenal was over, and the money paid. The precise nature of the trouble Neal had never succeeded in arriving at, but he did know that money had to be paid in secret on his account. The next letter he came upon was the one received from the Captain that day: and if Neal had hoped to find groans and trouble and difficulty in it, he was most completely disappointed. It was one of the sunniest letters ever read; it spoke of his girl-wife and his own happiness: not a breath was there in it of care in any shape. Neal was nonplussed: and the letters did not afford him pleasure.

"The thing all settled!--the money paid!" he repeated to himself, revolving the various items of news. "No wonder she has looked sprightly lately. Why, for months after the doctor's death she seemed fit to hang herself! I thought some change had come to her. And he is married, is he!--and has picked up an heiress! I don't like that. Some folks do have the luck of it in this world. It's a great shame! And she has no right to be happy, for I know she hates me. I know she suspects me, that's more. I'll try--I'll try and deal out a little small coin in exchange. There's always that other thing, thank goodness; the break with Mr. Oswald Cray. I wonder if she saw him this evening at that window? I did; and I saw the young lady too. I hope it's going to be a match, if only to serve out this one?"

With this charitable wish Mr. Neal resumed his research of the desk. But nothing more of particular moment turned up, and he soon made it fast again in his own artistic manner, which defied detection.

And when Dorcas came in she found Neal, his supper eaten stretched comfortably before the kitchen fire, taking a dose.

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XLIV. WAS SHE NEVER TO BE AT PEACE?

News of an unpleasant nature was on its way to Miss Davenal and Sara; but they sat at breakfast unconscious of its nearness, waited upon by Neal the immaculate, in all confiding security, and entirely unsuspicious of that gentleman's desk researches of the previous evening. A letter came in; it was directed to Miss Davenal in the handwriting of Dr. Keen.

"What's a-gate now?" exclaimed Miss Davenal, as she opened it. For it was not very usual for the doctor to write in the middle of a quarter.

"Dear Madam,--

"I grieve much to have to inform you that an accident has happened to your nephew Leopold. It being a half-holiday yesterday afternoon (granted, according to annual custom, on the auspicious occasion of Mrs. Keen's birthday), the young gentlemen had leave accorded them to go into the fields and gather blackberries. Engaged in this (hitherto deemed harmless) recreation, Leopold unfortunately met with a fall. In stretching up to reach a high branch, he lost his balance, and fell from the top of a bank. I fear he may have been pushed, but the boys appear not to be quite clear upon the point. At any rate, he fell in some way with his arm doubled under him, and on examination it proved to be broken.

"Deeply sorry as I am to be obliged to impart to you this sad news, I can yet qualify it in some degree by stating that it is a simple fracture. It was at once set, and the surgeon assures me it will do as well as possible. Mrs. Keen bids me say that she does not think Master Leopold has appeared very strong of late; I have remarked myself that he looks delicate. Master Davenal, I am happy to say, is quite well, and gives us every satisfaction in his studies, in which he takes great pleasure.

"With very kind remembrances from Mrs. Keen to yourself and Miss Sara Davenal, and best compliments from myself,--I remain, dear Madam, faithfully yours, John Keen.

"Miss Davenal."

Miss Bettina gave the letter to her niece in an excess of vexation "If that mischievous Dick was not at the bottom of it, I shall wonder!" she exclaimed. "He pushed him off in his roughness. He is rough."

Sara gathered in the words of the letter in silence, with strained eyes and a beating heart.

"I'd have every blackberry-tree in the land rooted up, if I had my will," proceeded Miss Bettina. "Boys are as venturesome as monkeys when their mouths are in question. They don't care for their clothes or how they get torn; they don't care for their shirtfronts or how they get stained; they fight, and quarrel, and climb, and scratch their hands and faces with the thorns, and all for greediness--that they may fill themselves with those rubbishing berries. And now they have caused this mischief! The boy's arm may be weak for life. Yes, if I had the power, I'd destroy every blackberry-tree that grows. I should think D. Keen will interdict 'blackberrying' for the future."

"I wonder how it happened?" said Sara, musingly.

"So do I," said Miss Bettina, in a tart tone. "One would think the bank was as high as a house. They'd climb up a house, boys would, if they thought they should find blackberries growing upon its roof. Ah, never shall I forget--it has this moment recurred to my mind--Leo's father coming home in a sorry plight when he was a boy. He went blackberrying. He went without anybody's knowledge, too, and was absent for hours, and we grew alarmed at home, as was natural, for he was but a little fellow of eight. I remember my dear mother feared he had fallen into some pond, but we children thought Johnny had gone after the wild-beast caravan, which had been in the town exhibiting two bears and an elephant. He arrived at home at dusk; and I'm sure he looked more fit to belong to a caravan than to a gentleman's house. His knees were out of his trousers, and his brown-holland blouse was in flounces, and his shirt-frill had three hanging rents in it, and his hair and face and hands were crimson with the stains, causing my mother to cry out with fear at the first sight of him. To crown all, he had filled his new straw hat with the blackberries, and the juice was dropping through the crown! John does not forget that exploit, I know, to this day. Your grandpapa gave him a sound whipping and sent him to bed supperless; not so much for the plight he had put himself into as for roaming out alone and frightening my dear mother. Johnny was ill for three days afterwards with stomach-ache, from the quantity he had devoured. He remembers blackberrying, I know; and I should think Mr. Leo will, after this."

"I hope his arm will soon be well!"

"Dr. Keen might have mentioned what surgeon was attending to it! if Mark Cray had remained at Hallingham," continued Miss Bettina, very sharply--for it was impossible for her to speak of that exit of Mark's without sharpness--"he might have gone over by rail, and seen that it was being properly----What do you say, Neal?"

Miss Bettina's interruption was caused by the entrance of Neal. Mrs. Cray's maid had come round, and was waiting to speak to Miss Sara.

"Let her come in," said Miss Bettina.

The tone was as sharp a one as that just given to the absent Mark. Caroline's maid, a remarkably fashionable damsel, did not reign in the favour of Miss Bettina. She came in in obedience to orders; a pink gauze bonnet on the back of her head, and a pair of dirty and very tight straw-coloured gloves strained on her hands. Miss Bettina's countenance lost none of its severity as she surveyed her.

"What do you want, Long?"

"If you please, mem, my message is to Miss Sara Davenal," returned Long, pertly, for she did not like Miss Bettina any more than Miss Bettina liked her.

"Tell it, then. Miss Sara Davenal's there, you see." Long fairly turned her back on Miss Bettina as she delivered the message she was charged with. She explained that Mr. Cray's mother and sisters had arrived unexpectedly the previous night, and the object of her coming round now was, to ask if Miss Sara Davenal would go out with Mrs. Cray senior that morning.

"Arrived last night unexpectedly!" exclaimed Miss Bettina, who had been bending her ear. "How many of them?"

"Four," replied Long. "Mrs. Cray and three Miss Crays."

"It's well the house is large! I should not like to be taken by storm in that way."

"I suppose I can go, aunt?"

"I suppose you can't refuse. What's it for? Where is she going?"

"Where is Mrs. Cray going, do you know, Long?" asked Sara.

"I believe she's only going shopping, miss," answered the girl, who was always civil to Sara. "I heard her say she must get a bonnet, and other things, before she could appear in London. My mistress has promised to take the young ladies out, and she said perhaps you'd be so good as accompany Mrs. Cray senior, as she does not know London."

"I don't think I know it much better than she does," observed Sara, smiling. "But you can tell Mrs. Cray that I shall be happy to accompany her, and to render her any service that I can. Oh, and, Long, will you tell your mistress that we have received sad news from Dr. Keen," she resumed, as the maid was turning away. "Poor little Leopold has broken his arm."

"And that he did it scrambling after blackberries," indignantly added Miss Bettina.

The maid departed, saying that Mrs. Cray senior would be round in the course of the morning. Sara went up to the drawing-room, and opened her letter-case, which she used sometimes instead of her desk. Her first thought was to write a few words to poor Leo. But ere she began she leaned her aching brow upon her hand; the vision she had seen at the window of Bangalore Terrace, as they drove to Lady Reid's the previous evening, had left its sting upon her brain.

A slight tap at the door, and Neal came in. He could not but note the weary expression of her face as she looked up at him. He advanced to the table, some papers in his hand, and spoke in a low voice as if what he said was for her ear alone.

"The postman brought another letter, Miss Sara. It was enclosed in this envelope addressed to me by Master Richard. Perhaps you would like to see what he says." Neal was really honest in this. Possibly he saw no opportunity to be otherwise. Sara, in some curiosity, took the papers from Neal's hands. The whole lot was characteristic of Dick. The envelope was addressed "Mr. Neal, at Miss Davenal's. Private," the proper address of their residence being added. On opening it when delivered to him by the postman, Neal had found it to contain a sealed letter for Miss Sara Davenal and a scrap of paper evidently torn from a copy-book for himself. On the latter he read the following lines, and these he now showed to his young mistress.

"Dear Neal, give the note to my couzin Sara when nobodys buy and be sure dont let aunt bett see it or therell be a row, R. D."

"Oh, thank you, Neal," she said heartily. But as the man left the room and she broke the seal, a half-dread came over her of what it would contain.

"Dear Sara,--

"The most horrid catastrofy has hapened, leo's gone and broke his arm, and I want to tell you how it was done I must tell somebody or I shall burst, leo's a brave littel chap and kept his mouth shut when old Keen and the docter were asking questions and let him think it was through the blackberys, we had half holliday it was Mrs. Keens berthday and we went after the blackberys, this was yesterday afternoon, and about 6 of us, me and Jones and tom Keen and Halliday and leo and Thomson, if you want to know which of us it was, where separated from the rest and got into one of farmer clupp's feilds and what should we see but his poney trying to nible at the short grass, we set up a shout, which Halliday stoppt for fear of being heard, and caught him, and then there was a shindy as to which 3 of us should have first ride, for we were afraid thered not be time for the other three if the school came up, and the under master dogskin (thats our name for him hes a sneek) was with them, so to end the dispute we all 6 got on the poney and a stunning gallopp we had only it was rather close to sit, well leo was the hindmost and as he hadnt much beside the tail to sit on he fell off but he must be a great duff for he had held on all round the feild once, he says it was Jones moved and made him fall and tom Keen says hes sure it was, for Jones who has got the longest legs kept jogging them to make the poney go and he was next to leo and leo held on by him, I was first and guided the poney and in taking the sweep round at the turning leo shot off behind, his arm was doubled under him and a soft duffer of an arm it must be for it took and broke, we didnt know he was gone at first, Jones called out, young Davenal's off, but we thought nothing and galloped all round the feild again, he was lying there when we got back, and his face was white and we called to him and he never answered so we stopt the poney and went to him, Jones tried to pull him up and leo screamed, and halliday calls out Im blest if I dont think hes hurt, leo began saying he hoped he wasnt kill'd, you know what a regular little muff he is, we picked him up at last and when we saw his arm hang down we were frightened above a bit, well we didnt know what was to be done, we carried him into the next feild where the poney wasnt, for fear of anybody suspecting and just as we had laid him by the bank the rest of the fellows came down the lane and saw us and tom keen called out that davenal junior was hurt, with that they came up and Marsh (thats dogskin) looks up at the high bank above leo and sees the blackberys growing atop of it and sings out to leo, I know how this was done, you where on the top of that bank trying to get blackberys beyond your reach and you fell off it, well if you'll believe me sara we never told the story to say yes, only Jones said says he I'm sure I dont know sir how ever he managed to fall, and Marsh he thought he did fall off the bank and went off to take the news to Keen, and us 6 all thought what a jolly chance it was that we had happened to lay him down by the bank, and none of them ever saw the poney, leo was carried home and Mrs. Keen she came out with a face as white as his, tom how did it happen, says she laying hold of tom, and we got affraid again, for toms uncomon fond of his mother, but he didnt split, and then Keen came and the surjon came and Keen he says to leo how did you fall did any body push you off the bank, no sir says leo, and the surjon he asked how t was done, and leo shook like anything, and began to cry, afraid he should have to tell a story at last which he cant bare, he was shut up in a room then with the doctor and Keen and one or two more and we heard him cry out when they were setting his arm, but you know what a baby he is poor little chap and I wish with all my hart it had been me instead of him, the worst is I should have lost my share of the supper and a jolly good one they give us on her berthday every year, cakes and tarts and pidjon pies and lots of things and we have to dress for it and a heap of duffing girls come to it in white frocks but we dont mind em much, and dear sara thats the whole facts of how it came about and I couldn't write it truer if I were telling it to poor Uncle Richard himself, leos all jolly this morning and he is in bed and has got no lessons to do and he says I am to tell you that he'll never get on a poney with 6 again and Mrs. Keens very kind to him, and Miss Keen (shes the big one you know) is going to read him some storys, he says I am to tell you it doesn't hurt much and oh sara there's only one thing we are sorry for, that Uncle Richard isnt alive to cure him because hed have him home to Hallingham to do it and perhaps me as well and I should get a holliday from these horrid books, I shall send this to neal for fear of aunt bett, and mind you hide it, and dont let a sight of it reach her, we are aufully afraid of that about the poney getting to old keens ears for thered be the dickens to pay, yours affectionately

"DICK.

"p s leo sends his love and he hopes you wont be angry with him for breaking his arm and I am writing this after school at twelve instead of playing, Good buy."

Sara smiled, in spite of herself, as she folded up the letter. But she thought it rather a wonder there had not been a few broken legs among the "6," instead of one broken arm.

She got ready for Mrs. Cray, and went down to the dining-room. Miss Bettina was gone out then. She took up a book, but had not been looking at it many minutes when she saw Neal coming up the street talking to a young person whose condition in life it was rather difficult to guess. In these days of dress it is difficult. She had a pretty face, Sara could see that, though a veil covered it; her gown was one of those called a "washing silk"--and very much "washed out" it seemed to be; and a smart shawl, just flung on the shoulders, trailed on the ground behind. But for this trailing shawl and a sort of general untidiness, there would have been something superior about the girl. In the face she looked like a lady, and Sara had seen many a lady worse dressed.

Sara, behind the blind, could see them, but they could not see her. Neal stood a moment at the door, and then looked down over the railings of the area.

"Are the ladies out?" he asked.

"Yes," came back for answer in Dorcas's voice. The woman evidently did not know that Miss Sara had not accompanied her mistress.

"You can come in then," Sara distinctly heard Neal say to the lady--if lady she was. And he opened the door with his latch-key.

They stood talking in the passage for some little time in an undertone, and then Neal took her into the back room. It opened to the dining-room with folding-doors; but the doors were always kept closed: and indeed the back room was chiefly used as Neal's pantry. Sara, who at first had been doubtful whether it might not be a visitor to herself, came to the conclusion that it was only a visitor to Neal, and she resumed her reading.

But the voices grew rather louder; and the words "Captain Davenal" caused her to look up with a start. No wonder she should start at that name, remembering the past. A sudden fear same over her that something or other connected with that past was again threatening her brother.

She could not hear more, for the voices dropped again to their covert tone. Another minute, and Neal was conducting the stranger to the front door.

"We shall hear more by the next mail; but there's not the slightest doubt he's married," Sara heard him say as he passed the room. "The lady is an heiress: a Miss Reid."

"Well," cried the other voice, "I'll have satisfaction. I'll have it somehow. I don't care what punishment it brings him to, I'll have it."

The visitor went away. Neal closed the street-door upon her and turned to behold his young mistress at that of the dining-room, a scared look in her eyes, a white shade upon her face.

"Neal! what has that young "--Sara hesitated between the words person and lady, but chose the former--"person to do with Captain Davenal?"

She had spoken without reflection in her impulse; in her renewed fear, which she had deemed buried with the past. Neal for once in his life was confounded. He did not speak immediately; he was probably striving to recall what had been said, inconvenient for her to hear.

"Tell me at once, Neal; I insist on your speaking," she reiterated, attributing his hesitation to unwillingness to speak. "Indeed it is better that I should know it. What was she saying about my brother?"

That alarm of some nature had been aroused within her, that she was painfully anxious, and that the alarm and anxiety were connected with Captain Davenal, Neal could not fail to read. But his speech was certainly less ready than usual, for he still kept silence.

"I heard you tell her that Captain Davenal was married; that further news would be in by the next mail," pursued Sara, growing more inwardly perturbed with every moment. "What was it to her? Who is she? For what purpose did she come here? Neal, can't you answer me?" and her voice grew quite shrill with its alarm and pain.

"Miss Sara--if I hesitated to answer, it is that I do not like to speak," he said at length. "I tell the young woman she must be mistaken in what she says--that it can't be. But she won't hear me."

"What is it that she says? Have you seen her before today?"

"She has been here once or twice before. But for understanding that you and my mistress were out I should not have allowed her to come in this time. I am very sorry that it should have happened, miss."

"But what is it?" returned Sara, nearly wild with suspense. "What has she come for?"

"She has come to ask questions about Captain Davenal."

"But what about him? What is he to her?"

Neal coughed. He took out his handsome silk handkerchief--he always used very handsome ones--and wiped his mouth. Sara trembled. His manner was unpleasantly mysterious, and it seemed that she was on the verge of hearing something terrible.

"Does she know my brother?"

"She says she does. Miss Sara, I would have given a great deal to prevent this happening today. It will only worry you, and I daresay I could still have put her off and kept her quiet."

"Neal, tell me the worst," she cried, her voice and heart alike growing faint. "I must hear it now."

"Well, Miss Sara, she says she is the wife of Captain Davenal."

"She--says--she--is--the--wife--of--Captain Davenal!"

The words were echoed slowly in very astonishment, a pause between each. Vague as her fears had been they had not touched on this.

"It is what she says, Miss Sara. I told her it must be one of two things--either that she was deceiving me in saying it, or that she was herself deceived. But she insists upon it that she is his true and lawful wife; that she was married to him nearly twelve months before he went abroad. She says my late master, Dr. Davenal, knew of it."

Sara stared at Neal in a sort of helpless manner. Never for a moment did it occur to her to question the truth; her mind accepted it--a terrible calamity; worse, it seemed in this moment, than all that had gone before.

"She came here this morning in consequence of hearing of the Captain's marriage to Miss Reid. I acknowledged that news had come home to that effect. It would have been quite useless, you see, Miss Sara, to deny what's known publicly."

"Neal! Neal! you will not mention this?" came the feverish wish, the first uttered in her bewilderment. "You will guard it faithfully? We--I--some one must see what can be done."

"You may entirely depend on me, Miss Sara," replied Neal, speaking more impressively than was his wont--Neal the impassive. "Of course, miss, the chief thing will be to guard against exposure."

Sara turned into the dining-room, mind and body alike sinking. A sick, faint fear came over her that this must be the secret connected with her brother which had been disclosed that long past night to Dr. Davenal. Another moment, and she did not see how that could be. There would have been no crime in it: Captain Davenal was not married then. Her brain was in a chaos of perplexity, her mind agitated with doubt. If this young woman--lady--whatever she might be--was Edward's wife, how could he have married Rose Reid? Was it the money tempted him? Calm, self-controlled though she was usually, a groan of despair broke from her lips.

Neal in the back room thought she called him, and came round to the dining-room door. She looked up as he stood there and stared at him, just as though she had forgotten who he was.

"Did you call, Miss Sara?"

"I--I--I did not call. Neal--do you know--what the name is?--I mean--what it was?"

"Yes, miss, I know so much as that. Catherine Wentworth."

He retired, leaving Sara alone. Almost a rebellious thought was stealing over her--was she never to be at rest? Not at much rest just then certainly; for Mrs. Cray had driven to the door and was asking for her.

Sara tied her bonnet mechanically and went out. Mrs. Cray was seated in a fly. She would not alight then, she said: she had a great deal to do. Sara stepped in. Mrs. Cray was an imperious-looking woman, fair and pale, with a handsome face. Sara thought her over-dressed and very fidgety. They were not much acquainted when at Hallingham.

"I have nothing to wear," she said to Sara. "I want a host of things. A bonnet first. Mrs. Mark Cray has given me the address of a superior dressmaker. She is a little selfish, is she not?"

"Who is?" cried Sara, in answer to the sentence, which came out rather abruptly after the rest.

"Mrs. Mark Cray. To confess to you my opinion, I think she might have lent me the carriage this morning, instead of sending me out in a hired fly, and keeping the carriage for herself and the girls. It seems to be the way of the world nowadays--the young before the old. She is Mark's wife, and I am only his mother."

Whether Sara would have found a suitable answer is uncertain. Something outside completely took away all thoughts of it. They were at that moment passing the War Office; and, coming from it with an angry and determined look upon her pretty face, was the person whom she had just heard called Catherine Wentworth. Sara shrunk back in the cab's corner, dismay on her countenance, dismay in her heart. Had she already denounced Captain Davenal at headquarters?

From milliners to linen-drapers, from linen-drapers to dressmakers, one place after another continually, until Sara was tired to death, the day wore away. The afternoon was getting on when the last commission was done, and Mrs. Cray, who had put on the new bonnet just bought, had leisure to think of the horse and driver.

"Poor things, they must want some repose," she remarked, as she came out of the Pantheon. "Well, there's only one place more. Will you tell the man, my dear?" she added as she got in. "Parliament Street. You know the number, I suppose."

"What number?" inquired Sara. "Where to in Parliament Street?"

"To Mr. Oswald Cray's. Bracknell and Street, I think, is the name of the firm."

"There!" returned Sara in her discomposure. "I can't go there."

"Not go there! My dear, I must go there. Mr. Oswald Cray is my step-son. I shall call in for a minute to let him know I am in London."

Opposition would be worse than acquiescence. Besides, what could be her plea? Sara, all her pulses fluttering, spoke the address to the driver, and took her place in silence opposite Mrs. Cray.

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XLV. MRS. BENN'S WRONGS

"Then, Benn, I'll not have it done! You can't go."

"But I tell you I have got my orders. I am sent."

"And who gave you the orders, pray, Joe Benn? Who sent you?"

"Mr. Oswald Cray. And the best thing for you to do is to hold your tongue and take off that there guy of a bonnet, and hide your bare arms, and put on a apron that's clean, and otherwise make yourself decent, for you have got to do it. And when folks have got to do a thing, they may as well make up their minds to do it in the best way and readiest way they can."

Mr. Benn, in thus breathlessly telling his wife she had "got to do it," did not allude to the little items of personal embellishment he mentioned, but to something else which Mrs. Benn abhorred above all things--that of waiting on gentlemen. It happened now and then that a luncheon or other meal would be ordered at the offices in Parliament Street for some stranger or friend stopping in London, which meal Mrs. Benn had to prepare, and her husband to wait at. On this day Mr. Street had ordered mutton-chops to be ready for two o'clock, and the tray laid for three persons; and this it was that was discomposing Mrs. Benn. In the first place, it was one of those oft-recurring periodical battles of her life--a cleaning-day; in the next place, her husband had just given her the startling information that she would have to wait at the meal as well as to cook it. "And a fine object you be, to do it!" he had wound up with in a mutter to himself.

Certainly Mrs. Benn did not appear to particular advantage today, looking at her in an artistic point of view. You have had the pleasure of seeing her once before in the high costume donned for the occasion of those days specially marked in her calendar. I don't think there's much change. Her bonnet, black once, rusty brown now, is on, brim downwards, crown up, strings tied in a knot at the back; her apron is a piece of wrappering off a bale of goods, embellished with sundry holes and fastened round her with an iron skewer; and her gown, turned up under it, is pinned into a heap behind. She stands over the Dutch oven, her arms bare and black, and a fork in her hand; and ever and anon as she stoops to turn or touch the chops in the Dutch oven, the gathered gown sways itself up at the back, not unlike a sail. Mr. Benn is in his shirtsleeves, having taken off his coat to brush it, preparatory to going out.

"It's sure to be the case! I've marked it times and times again!" burst forth Mrs. Benn, trying to fling off a live coal which bad intruded itself into the Dutch oven. "If ever there's lunch or any bothering extra of that sort wanted, it's safe to be on my cleaning-day! Mr. Street have got no more consideration nor a stalking gander; and Mr. Oswald Cray have got as little. They might remember my cleaning-days, and spare a body on 'em."

"And a fine speech that is," said Mr. Benn, in a reprimanding tone. "You'd better not let it come anigh their ears. We are here, you and me, to do what work's required of us, at any hour, whether it's cooking or whether it's waiting, and your ord'nary work must give way when it's wanted to give it. They'd soon get other servants in our places."

"He comes to the top o' the stairs just as the clock was going one," observed Mrs. Benn, paying no more attention to the words of her husband than if she had been deaf. "'Are you there?' he calls out, and I looked up and see it was Mr. Street. 'Yes, sir,' says I, 'I be;' and I was in a cloud of dust at the moment fit to smother you, a doing out of that there wood and bottle cupboard. 'Oh,' says he 'some mutton-chops for two o'clock, and lay the tray for three. And do 'em well,' says he, 'and a dish of mashed potaters.' A nice thing that was for me to hear!--and to have to go out the figure I be, after chops, and to be hindered in my cleaning a good two hours! Ain't that enough, Joe Benn, without having to turn to and wait?"

"I can't help it," said Joe, civilly, as he put on his coat. "If I am ordered work out of doors I must go about it, just as you must the work in. Mr. Oswald Cray has sent me down to Limehouse, and I must be back before the office closes. Don't I tell you I can't even stop for my dinner?"

He went away without more words. He probably would have had a few sent after him, but for an unlucky catastrophe that occurred at the moment. The saucepan of potatoes fell on its side, and enveloped Mrs. Benn and the Dutch oven in a mass of steam. It took all that lady's best attention to remedy it; and when she looked up Mr. Benn was gone.

Very reluctantly indeed did she set about making herself presentable; but, as Benn had said, there was no help for it. She washed her face and hands, and turned down the gown, and drew down its sleeves, and put on a white apron, and replaced the choice bonnet with a clean cap, grumbling bitterly all the time. And at the appointed hour she took up the luncheon-tray.

Three gentlemen partook of the meal--Mr. Street, Oswald Cray and a well-known contractor, who had only that day arrived in London from Spain, and was going into the country to his works by a four o'clock train. They were discussing business while they ate.

A certain projected line of rail in Spain was being organised. Bracknell and Street were the engineers, and it was proposed that Mr. Oswald Cray should go out as superintendent. The details of the affair do not concern us; but it must be mentioned that the sojourn in Spain would be likely, from certain attendant circumstances, to prove of great advantage to Mr. Oswald Cray in a pecuniary point of view.

After the departure of the guest Mr. Street and Oswald remained together a few minutes talking. "You'll not think of declining it, of course, Cray?" remarked the latter. "I only wish I could go!"

"I don't see how you will manage without me here," remarked Oswald.

"We must manage in the best way we can. Bracknell must be with us more than he has been lately. Of course we could send somebody else to do the Spain business were it impossible that you could leave; but it is not impossible, and I speak in your interest when I say it is a chance you ought not to miss."

"True. I shall like to go, if home affairs can spare me. I suppose it will involve a stay there of two years?"

"Nearer three," remarked Mr. Street. "Then we will consider your going as settled; and things must be at once prepared at home contingent upon it."

"Yes," acquiesced Oswald. "Wait a moment," he added, as Mr. Street was turning away to descend. "I want to speak to you about Allister. I wish you would take him on again."

Mr. Street pursed his lips up. He had a round face and small light eyes, in which sat a hard look. Whether it was the hard look or not, I can't tell, or whether it was that the look was only the index of the nature--as it generally is--certain it was that Mr. Street was not liked in the house. Oswald knew the sign of the contracted lips.

"What is your objection?" he pursued. "Allister's quite well apparently, and----"

"Apparently! there it is," interrupted Mr. Street. "It's a great hindrance to business, these sickly clerks--well one day, ill the next; especially in such a house as ours. We have no time for it."

"Allister seems well. At one time I thought his lungs were fatally diseased, but I begin to believe I was entirely mistaken. It is nearly twelve months since the worst symptoms left him, and he seems now as strong as I am."

"Pooh!" said Mr. Street. "A warm climate, if he could get to it, might set him up; but in this place of change and fogs and damp, rely upon it he'll not keep well long."

Oswald was silent. So far as the warm climate went, he agreed with Mr. Street. Had Frank Allister the opportunity of going to one it might set him up for a long life.

"How has he lived?" asked Mr. Street. "He has no money."

"He has done work at home lately. We have furnished him with some to do; plans and estimates, and such like. He has had tracings also from another house or two."

"Is that sister of his with him still?"

"Yes. She is a faithful ally. She has taken a daily situation as companion to a blind lady. It all helps to bring grist to the mill. Allister is very anxious to come back, Mr. Street. I really see no reason why he should not. I am sure of one thing--that he is as capable of doing his work here now as any clerk we employ."

"Now. Will you guarantee that he shall continue capable of doing it?"

"I wish I could guarantee it."

"Of course. If wishes were horses--you know the old adage. Were I to take him on now, perhaps in winter he would get ill, and have to leave again. We can't afford those interruptions."

"I trust indeed he would not. He passed well through last winter; improving in it every day."

"Last winter was a mild one, except for a little extreme cold we had in November. Next winter may be a severe one. I tell you, Cray, there's only one safeguard for Allister; and that's a warmer climate. At any rate, a more settled one. Such is my opinion."

Oswald would not give in. "Considering that Allister is now in health and strength----"

"Strength for him," put in Mr. Street.

"Well, strength for him if you like to put it so. But I am sure you would be surprised to see how strong he does appear to be. Considering this, and that he believes himself to be permanently and radically cured, it will sound very hard to him if I tell him that we cannot take him back again."

"If your wish is to have him back--that is, if you make a personal matter of it--have him," said Mr. Street. "I see you want it."

"Yes, I do," said Oswald. "I wish him back, both as a matter of personal liking and that his services are efficient. This departure of mine for Spain will involve the taking on of at least one mon clerk. Let it be Allister."

"Have it as you like, then," said Mr. Street. "Let Allister come back at once. Tell him to come on Monday."

So it was settled. They went down talking together, and encountered Mrs. Benn on the lower passage with a hearth-broom in her hand.

"May I take the tray away, gentlemen?"

Oswald nodded, and the woman went upstairs, her face and her temper as crusty as they could be.

"I wonder the world's let go on!" she ejaculated, as she flung the broom on a chair and began to put the things together on the tray. "I wonder how they'd like to have a day's cleaning to do, and to be called off for three mortal hours in the midst of it? It's four o'clock if it's a minute, and I was stopped in my work at one; and if that's not three hours, I'd like to know what is. I've set to nothing since; how can I, dressed up to please them? and I'm sure----my! what cormorants!"

The subjoined sentence, given utterance to by Mrs. Benn in her surprise, had reference to the mutton-chop dish, on which her eyes had just rested. She stood a moment gazing at it, her hands uplifted.

"If they haven't gone and ate 'em all! Nine thick chops, and only the tails of two of 'em left! Well, I'd not own to such famine if I was gentlefolks. I sent 'em up for show--for I don't forget the trimming I got for skimping the number last time chops was ordered--never supposing they'd eat 'em. I meant two of them chops to come up again for Mr. Oswald Cray's dinner; they'd have done for him, warmed up. And now they're demolished!--and I must dance out again to that butcher's--and Benn a-wanting something with his tea, as he's sure to do, going out without his dinner!--and me with; all the lower part of the house to do yet!--and got my things to change again. It's a wonder the world do go on!"

She carried the tray down; but what with glasses and other things, she could not carry all at once, and had to make two journeys of it. It did not add to her geniality of mood. Arrived in the kitchen the second time, she took the things off the tray, folded the cloth carefully--for in such matters she was very particular--and laid it in the dresser-drawer. Then putting the other things in a stack to be washed by and by, she began to make preparations for resuming the interrupted work. As a preliminary to this, she slowly turned her gown up over the white apron, and looked round for the broom. After casting her eyes in all directions, and casting them in vain, recollection returned to her.

"Drat the broom! If I haven't gone and left it upstairs. I wish their luncheons and their bother was far enough!"

She turned down her gown again, possibly lest she might encounter either of her masters on the way, and proceeded up the kitchen stairs. The broom lay on the chair where she had flung it, in Oswald's sitting-room. As she took it up she espied some crumbs under the table, and stooped down to brush them carefully into her hand, grumbling all the while.

"It's just like 'em! dropping their crumbs down like so many children! The trouble I'd used to have with that when old Bracknell was here! He'd shake his table-napkin on the carpet, he would; and Benn, he'd come away and never----"

"Is this the room? Is he here?"

To be interrupted by those words in a female voice close to her elbow brought Mrs. Benn to her legs at once. A lady in a gay white bonnet and violet-tipped feathers, with other attire on the same grand corresponding scale, stood confronting her. Mrs. Benn could only stare in the first moment from consternation. And the lady stared too, first at the room, then at Mrs. Benn, waiting for her question to be answered.

"Is who here?" cried Mrs. Benn.

"Mr. Oswald Cray. We were ushered up here by a young man whom we saw in the passage. He said this was Mr. Oswald Cray's room, and he would send him to us. Is he well?"

Mrs. Benn naturally looked round for some one to whom the "we" could apply, and saw a young lady at the door. A sweet-looking young lady whose manner was timid and hesitating, as if she did not like to advance further into the room. You need not be told that it was Sara Davenal. She had wished to remain in the fly while Mrs. Cray came up; but Mrs. Cray had insisted on being accompanied by her indoors, and Sara was obliged to yield, for she was unable to give any good reason against it. How could she hint at the relations which had once existed between her and Mr. Oswald Cray?--at the love that lingered still?

"He's as well as a body can be; leastways if his luncheon's anything to go by, which he have just eat," replied Mrs. Benn in answer to the question of the lady, whom she had not taken a fancy to, as she was permitting her tone to show. "Did you want him?"

"I have come to see him," was the answer. "He is my step-son, and we have not met for a good while."

Mrs. Benn's manner turned to a sudden thaw. In her crusty way she was fond of her master, Mr. Oswald Cray; and she thought she might as well be civil to the lady before her as his step-mother.

"Take a seat, ladies," she said, dusting two chairs with her white apron, and disposing herself to be cordial and confidential. Fate seemed to be against Mrs. Benn's cleaning that day, and we most of us resign ourselves to what can't be helped. This appearance of Mr. Oswald Cray's step-mother Mrs. Benn regarded as an era in that gentleman's life, for she could not remember that during his whole residence there any living relative had come to inquire after him, with the exception of his brother.

"His step-mother," cried she approvingly, as she stood behind a chair and rested her arms on the back of it, one hand grasping the brush. "And might your name be the same as his, ma'am--Mrs. Oswald Cray!" "I am Mrs. Cray," replied the lady, with emphasis on the one word, and an impulse to resent the familiarity. But she felt inclined to encourage the woman in her sociability, feeling a curiosity as to the everyday movements and doings of Mr. Oswald Cray.

Sara sat a little apart, near the centre table. Her cheek rested on her fingers, and her eyes were mechanically fixed on a small chart or plan, which lay at the end of the table opposite to where the luncheon-tray had been. Quite mechanically her thoughts were buried in the unhappy occurrence of that morning: the advent of the stranger at her house and the startling communication of Neal. The gossip of Mrs. Cray and the woman fell on her ear like the humming of gnats in summer; heard, but not heeded. Oswald did not appear; and Mrs. Cray, always restless, as Sara had that morning found out, started from her seat and said she should go to the rooms below in search of him.

Mrs. Benn had this peculiarity--and yet, I don't know that it can be called a peculiarity, since so far as my experience teaches me, it is characteristic of women in general--that however pressing might be her occupations, if once called off them and launched into the full tide of gossip, the urgent duties would give way, and the gossip be willingly pursued until night should fall and stop it. Mrs. Benn, deprived of her chief listener, the elder lady, turned her attention on the younger.

"Would you believe it, miss," she said, dropping her voice to a confidential tone, "his mother's coming here this afternoon bears out some words I said to my husband only a day or two ago, just as one's dreams gets bore out sometimes. I says to Benn, 'Mr. Oswald Cray's relations'll be up, now there's going to be the change.'"

"What change?" asked Sara.

"His marriage, miss."

Ah, she was all too awake to the present now. Her lips parted; her brow turned cold. "His marriage?"

"It can't be nothing else but his marriage," repeated Mrs. Benn. "Benn was waiting on him at dinner, and he told him there was perhaps going to be a change, that he wouldn't have him to wait on long, for he might be leaving. Joe Benn he comes down and repeats to me, all wondering, like the gaby he is, what his master meant by it. Why, his wedding of course, says I; it don't take a conjuror to tell that. Well, she's a nice young lady."

Sara had her hand raised to her face, apparently pushing back her braided hair. "Who is she?" came breathing from her lips; and she could hardly have helped asking it had it been to save her life.

"Well, it's Miss Allister, if it's anybody," returned Mrs. Benn, in apparent contradiction of what she had just asserted. "They are as thick as two peas, and I know he goes there a'most every evening."

Sara had heard enough. In her confusion of mind she had scarcely noted a change taking place in the room. With the last words Mrs. Benn and her brush glided away, and Oswald Cray had come in. Some one had told him that a lady was waiting for him in his room, but he was busy at his desk at the moment and waited to finish what he was about. Nothing could well exceed his surprise when he saw seated there Miss Sara Davenal.

Sara rose. She saw by his manner that he was ignorant of his stepmother's visit, and she felt a little embarrassed as she explained. "She had only come with Mrs. Cray; Mrs. Cray had just gone down in search of him."

Oswald supposed she alluded to his brother's wife, and made no answering comment. As he stood with Sara's hand in his in greeting, he noted how pale she was; for the startling communication of Mrs. Benn had scared the blood from her face. It was somewhat singular that this was the first time they had been alone together since that memorable day of meeting in the Temple gardens: they had met once or twice casually at Mark's in a full room, but not otherwise.

"Have you been well?" he asked. "You are not looking very strong."

"Oh, quite well, thank you."

Oswald hastened to ask a question that had long been on his mind. One that had troubled him perhaps more than he cared to acknowledge to himself: but he had not felt justified in seeking a special occasion to put it.

"Now that I have the opportunity, will you forgive me if I ask whether that unpleasant matter is settled that caused your visits to Essex Street? I still think you would have done wisely to confide it to me."

"It is quite settled," answered Sara, her tone full of satisfaction. "Settled and done with." Ah, poor thing, she forgot momentarily, as she spoke, the fresh grievance opened that morning, which was perhaps connected with it.

"I am glad of it," he heartily said. "I should not like to have gone away for an indefinite period knowing that you were in any dilemma, and no one perhaps to see you out of it. Friendship may still exist between us tacitly, if not yet actively," he continued in a low earnest tone. "Nothing else is left to us."

She thought he alluded to his marriage. She stood something like a statue, feeling cruelly wronged, but loving him beyond everything in life. Not wronged by him: it was fate that wronged her: he would have loved her still, had he dared, and she felt that he honoured her in all tenderness. She felt--and the hot crimson came dyeing her face at the thought--that he loved her better than that other one.

The rebellious tears welled up to her eyes, and she turned her face away. "Are you going to be absent long?" she asked, trying to speak indifferently.

"I think so. How long I cannot tell yet. I am going to Spain."

There was a pause of silence. Sara, with an air of unconcern, began putting straight the crape folds on her dress skirt. Oswald turned to the door.

"Where can Caroline be?" he exclaimed. "Did you say she had gone down in search of me?"

"Not Caroline. It is not Caroline. It is Mrs. Cray, Mark's mother. I came out with her to show her the way to different places, but I did not know she was going to bring me here."

"Mark's mother!" But ere Oswald could say more, Mrs. Cray appeared. She had found her way into Mr. Street's room downstairs, thinking it might be Oswald's, and had remained making acquaintance with that gentleman. Oswald Cray the rising engineer, and Oswald Cray the interloping little son in her husband's house, were essentially two people in the worldly mind of Mrs. Cray.

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XLVI. AN UNWELCOME VISITOR

Mark Cray and his wife were attiring themselves by gas-light for some scene of evening gaiety. The past fortnight--for that period had elapsed since the arrival of Mrs. Cray in London--had brought nothing else but gaiety. Shopping in the morning, drives in the afternoon, whitebait dinners at Blackwell or Greenwich, dinners at Richmond, theatres in the evening, receptions at home, parties out; noise, bustle, whirl, and cost. Caroline loved the life; were it taken from her, she said randomly to Mrs. Cray one day, she could not survive, she should die of ennui; and the Miss Crays had never been so happy in their lives, or their mother either.

Their visit had come to an end now, and they had left for home that morning. Unwillingly, it is true, but Mrs. Cray had deemed it wise not to wear out their welcome. They were a large party; and she privately contemplated a longer visit in the spring, during the glories of the London season. Mark had treated them right regally, and had contrived to screw out from some impossible pocket a twenty-pound note, which he put into his mother's hands for the journey. "I shall be able to allow you and the girls something worth having next year, when the ore's in the market regularly," he said to her. Altogether, Mrs. Cray was well satisfied with her impromptu visit.

"I say, Carine," cried Mark, coming forth from his dressing-room, "what's gone with my diamond studs?"

"Where's the use of asking me?" was Carine's answer, who was turning herself slowly round before the large glass, to contemplate the effect of a new dress which her maid had just finished fixing upon her. "You must make haste, Mark, or we shall be late. The dinner's at seven, mind; and I know it does not want above a quarter."

"We shall get there in five minutes," carelessly answered Mark. "I can't find my diamond studs."

"I think they are in your dressing-case, sir," spoke up the maid. "I saw them there a day or two ago." Mark went back, and found he had overlooked them. He finished dressing himself, all but the coat, and came into his wife's room again.

"Carry, isn't it old what's-his-name's affair tonight in Kensington Gardens? We promised to go, didn't we?"

"Of course we did, Mark. I intend to go, too. He says it will be a charming party in spite of the world being out of town. We shall get away from the dinner by ten o'clock, I daresay. Shall I do?"

She was turning herself round before the glass, as before. Between two glasses, in fact, one in front, one behind. Her dress was some beautiful fabric, white and mauve; and her violet eyes and her glowing cheeks spoke all too plainly of her besetting vanity. Certainly, if vanity is ever pardonable, it was in Caroline Cray as she stood there, so radiant in her youth and beauty.

"Oh, you'll do," returned Mark, with scant gallantry; but his white necktie had been refractory, and he was resettling it again. At that moment he heard a knock at his dressing-room door.

"Who's there? Come in," he called out, stepping into his own room.

One of the men-servants entered and presented a card to him. Mark, whose hands were busy with his necktie, bent his head to read it as it lay on the silver waiter. "Mr. Brackenbury."

"Mr. Brackenbury!" repeated Mark to himself. "Who on earth's Mr. Brackenbury? I can't see anybody now," he said to the servant. "Tell him so. I am just going out."

"I told the gentleman you were on the point of going out with my mistress, sir, that the carriage was waiting at the door; but he insisted on coming in, and said you would be sure to see him."

"Who is it?" cried Caroline, stepping forward.

"Some Mr. Brackenbury. Don't know him from Adam. Go down, George, and say that I can not see him, or any one else, this evening."

"The idea of strangers intruding at this hour!" exclaimed Caroline. "Mark, I daresay it's somebody come to worry you to get them shares in the mine."

Mark made no reply. He was in enough "worry" just then over his necktie. "Bother the thing!" he cried, and pulled it off entirely with a jerk.

The servant came back again. He bore another card, a few lines added to it in pencil.

"I must and will see you. Denial is useless."

Mark Cray read the words twice over and decided to go down. They almost seemed to imply a threat, and he did not understand threats. Mr. Brackenbury had arrived in a Hansom cab, the horse reeking with the speed it had made; but Mark did not know that yet.

"I won't be a minute, Caroline. The fellow insists on seeing me. I'll just see what he wants."

Tying on a black necktie temporarily--the one he had taken off earlier--and putting on his morning coat as he descended the stairs, Mark entered the room where the visitor was waiting. And then Mark recognised Mr. Brackenbury as a gentleman who had recently purchased a few shares in the mine. Amidst the many, many shareholders, it was not surprising that Mark had forgotten the name of one of them. In point of fact these few shares had been Mark's own. Being excessively pressed for ready money he had ordered his broker to sell them out.

"Oh, Mr. Brackenbury!" said Mark, shaking hands with him in a cordial manner. "Do you know, your name had completely escaped my memory. I have not a moment to spare for you tonight. I am going out with my wife to dinner."

"Mr. Cray," said the visitor, a middle wed, solemn-looking man, "you must return me my two hundred pounds. I have come for it."

"Return you your two hundred pounds!" echoed Mark. "My good sir, I don't understand you. What two hundred pounds?"

"The two hundred pounds I paid for those shares. They were transferred from your name to mine; therefore I know they were your own."

"They were my own," said Mark. "What of that?"

"Well, I must have the money returned to me, and you can receive back the shares. I have brought them in my pocket. I am of a determined spirit, sir, and I will have it returned." Mark flew into a rage. He was a great man now, and great men do not take such words with impunity. "You can have your money back tomorrow," he said, with haughty contempt. "Take the shares to my broker--if you don't possess one of your own--and he will repurchase them of you."

"Ah," said Mr. Brackenbury. "But I want the money from you tonight. I want it now."

"Then you can't have it," returned Mark.

Mr. Brackenbury advanced--both of them were standing--and laid his finger on Mark's arm. "Mr. Cray, I have not come to you as an enemy; I don't wish to be one, and there's no occasion for unpleasantness between us. I want my money back, and I must have it--I must have it, understand, and tonight. After that, I will hold my tongue as long as it will serve you."

Was the man talking Greek? was he out of his mind? What did it mean? Mark's indignation began to lose itself in puzzled curiosity.

"I have had a private telegram tonight from the mine," resumed Mr. Brackenbury, dropping his voice to a cautious whisper. "Something is amiss with it. I jumped into a Hansom----"

"Something amiss with it!" interrupted Mark, cutting short the explanation, and his tone insensibly changing to one of dread; for that past summer's night which had brought the telegram to Mr. Barker recurred vividly to his mind. "Is it water?" he breathed.

Mr. Brackenbury nodded. "An irruption of water. I fear--you'll see, of course--but I fear the mine and its prosperity are at an end. Now, Mr. Cray, you repay me my money and I'll hold my tongue. If this does not get about--and it shall not through me--you'll have time to negotiate some of your shares in the market tomorrow morning, and put something in your pocket before the disaster gets wind. I only want to secure myself. Trifling as the sum of two hundred pounds may seem to you, its loss to me would be utter ruin."

Mark felt bewildered. "And if I do not give you the two hundred pounds tonight, what then!"

"Then I go out with the dawn of morning and publish the failure of the mine to the City. I'll publish it tonight. But you'll not drive me to that, Mr. Cray. I don't want to harm you; I have said it; but my money I must have. It would not be pleasant for me to proclaim that there has already been one irruption of water into the mine, which you and Barker kept secret. I happen to know so much; and that the shares were sold to me after it, as I daresay shares have been sold to others. Perhaps the public might look on that as a sort of fraud. I do; for I consider a mine never is safe, once the water has been in it."

Mark paused. "It is strange that news of this should have come to you tonight and not to me."

"Not at all," said Mr. Brackenbury. "I am having the mine watched. It is only lately that I heard about that first irruption of water: I did not like it; and as I happen to have a friend down there I got him to be on the look-out."

"Is it any one connected with the mine?" asked Mark, sharply.

"Yes, it is; no one else could do it. But that's of no consequence. I had a telegram from him tonight----"

"Will you let me see it!" interrupted Mark.

"I did not bring it with me. It told me that the water was flowing into the mine; flowing, mind; and it added these words. 'Not known here yet.' I infer, therefore, that the men had left the mine for the night, that the mischief will not be generally known there until the morning, and consequently cannot be known here. You will have time to save something."

Mark felt as if water were flowing over him. He stood there under the gas-burner--the servant had only lighted one--a picture of perplexity, his face blank, his hand running restlessly through his hair, after his old restless manner, the diamond studs in his shirt sparkling and gleaming. All this sounded as though some treason, some treachery, were at work. If this man could get news up, he and Barker ought to have got it.

A knock at the door. It opened about an inch, and Caroline's voice was heard.

"Mark, we must go. We are keeping the dinner waiting." And Mark was turning towards her, when Mr. Brackenbury silently caught him by the arm, and spoke in a whisper.

"No! Not until you have given me my money."

"Allow me to say a word to my wife," said Mark, haughtily. "I will return to you in an instant."

Caroline stood there with questioning eyes and a rebellious face. Mark shut the door while he spoke to her.

"You must go on alone, my dear. I can't come yet. I'll join you later in the evening."

"Mark! What's that for?"

"Hush! This gentleman has come up on business from the City, and I must attend to him," whispered Mark. "I'll get rid of him as soon as I can."

He was hurrying her out to the carriage as he spoke, and he placed her in it, she yielding to his strong will in her bewilderment. Once seated in it then she spoke.

"But, Mark, why should he come on business now? What is the business?"

"Oh, it has to do with the Great Wheal Bang," said Mark, carelessly. "It's all right; only I can't get away just at the minute. I won't be long. They are not to wait dinner, mind."

The carriage drove away, and Mark returned indoors. His unwelcome visitor stood in the same place, apparently not having stirred hand or foot.

"How am I to know whether this news you have brought it true?" was Mark's first question. And Mr. Brackenbury looked at him for a minute before replying to it.

"I don't altogether take you, Mr. Cray. You cannot think I should knowingly bring you a false report; my character is too well respected in the City for you to fear that; and you may rely upon it, unhappily, that there's no mistake in the tidings forwarded to me."

"Well--allowing that it shall prove to be true--why can't you take your shares into the market and realise tomorrow morning, as well as coming to me for the money tonight?"

"Because I am not sure that I could realise!" was the frank response. "I don't suppose the intelligence will be public by that time; I don't think it will; but I cannot answer for it that it won't. You must give me the money, Mr. Cray."

Mark took an instant's gloomy counsel with himself. Might he dare to defy this man, and refuse his demands He feared not. Mark was no more scrupulous than are some other shareholders we have read of; and the chance of realising something in the morning, to pit against the utter ruin that seemed to be impending was not to be forfeited rashly. But how was he to pay the money? He had not two hundred shillings in the house, let alone two hundred pounds.

"I can't give it you tonight," said Mark; "I have not got it to give."

"I must and will have it," was the resolute answer. "I daresay you can go out and get it somewhere: fifty people would be glad to lend you money. I shall stay here until I have it. And if you deem me scant of courtesy tonight, Mr. Cray, you may set it down to the sore feeling in my mind at the circumstances under which the shares were sold to me. I'd never have touched them had I suspected water had been already in the mine."

"That's talking nonsense," said Mark, in his irritation. "The mine was as sound and as safe after the water had been in it as it was before. It was nothing more than a threatening; nothing to hurt."

"A threatening--just so. Well, it is of no use to waste time squabbling over terms now. That will do no good."

Mr. Brackenbury was right. It certainly would do no good. Mark went out, leaving him there, for he refused to stir; and, not seeing a cab, ran full speed to Mr. Barker's lodgings in Piccadilly. A Hansom could not have gone quicker. It was not that he hoped Mr. Barker would supply the two hundred pounds; that gentleman was as short of ready cash as himself; but Mark was burning with impatience to impart the disastrous news, and to hear whether Barker had had intelligence of it.

Disappointment. When Mark, panting, breathless, excited, seized the bell of Mr. Barker's house and rang a peal that frightened the street, he was told that Mr. Barker was not within. He had gone out in the afternoon: the servant did not know where.

"Has any telegram come up from Wales tonight?" gasped Mark.

"Telegram, sir? No, sir; nothing at all has come tonight, neither letter nor anything."

"I'll be back in a short while," said Mark. "If Mr. Barker returns, tell him to wait in for me. It is of the very utmost importance that I should see him."

He turned away, jumped into a cab that was passing, and ordered it to drive to Parliament Street. The two hundred pounds he must get somehow, and he knew nobody he could apply to at the pinch, save Oswald.

Mark was not the only visitor to Oswald Cray that night. He had been sitting alone, after his dinner, very deep in deliberation, when Benn came up showing in a gentleman. It proved to be Henry Oswald.

They had not met since the funeral of Lady Oswald twelve months before, and at the first moment Oswald scarcely knew him. Henry Oswald was a cordial-mannered man. He had not inherited the cold heart and the haughty bearing so characteristic of the Oswalds of Thorndyke, and he grasped Oswald's hand warmly.

"I have been out of England nearly ever since we met, Oswald--I am sure you will let me call you so, we are near relatives--or I should have sought to improve the acquaintance begun at that short meeting. I want you to be friendly with me. I know how wrong has been the estrangement, and what cause you have to hate us; but surely you and I can afford to do away with the prejudice that has kept you from Thorndyke, and Thorndyke from you."

Oswald saw how genuine were the words, how earnest the wish imparted in them; and from that moment his "prejudice" went out of him, as far as Henry Oswald was concerned, and his eye lighted up with an earnest of the future friendship. He had liked Henry Oswald at that first meeting; he liked him still.

They sat together, talking of the days gone by, when they two were unconscious children. Of Oswald's mother; of the conduct of her family towards her; of the insensate folly--it was his son called it so--that still estranged Sir Philip from Oswald Cray. They talked freely and fully as though they had been intimate for years--far more confidentially than Oswald had ever talked to his half-brother.

"I shall be proud of your friendship, Oswald," cried the young man, warmly; "if that's not an ominous word for one of us. But I fancy you inherit the family failing far more than I. You will be one of the world's great men yet, making yourself a name that the best might envy."

Oswald laughed. "If the world envies those who work hard, then it may envy me."

"I can tell you what, Oswald, if work's not envied in these days, it is honoured. In the old days of darkness--I'm sure I can call them so, in comparison with these--it was such as I who were envied. The man born with a silver spoon in his mouth, who need do nothing his whole life long but sit down in idleness and enjoy his title and fortune, and be clothed in purple and fine linen, and fare sumptuously every day--he got the honour then. Now the man of industry and talent is bowed down to, he who labours onwards and upwards to use and improve the good gifts bestowed upon him by God. It may be wrong to say it, but I do say it in all sincerity, that I, Henry Oswald, born to my baronetcy, envy you, Oswald Cray, born to work."

From one subject they went to another. In talking of the Cray family, they spoke of Mark, and from Mark the transition to the Great Wheal Bang Company was easy. Henry Oswald had heard and read of its promise, and he now asked Oswald's opinion of its stability. He had a few hundreds to spare for he had not been an extravagant man, and felt inclined to embark them in the Great Wheal Bang. Oswald advised his doing so. He himself had embarked all his saved cash in it, a thousand pounds, and he thought he had done well.

"Then I'll see about it tomorrow," decided Henry Oswald; "and get it completed before I go down to Thorndyke."

He departed soon, for he was engaged out that evening, and Oswald resumed the train of thought which his entrance had interrupted. The deliberation it may be said. He was pondering a grave question: Should he not despatch Frank Allister to Spain in place of himself? Allister was equally capable; and two or three years' residence in that climate might renovate him for life. It would be a great sacrifice for him, Oswald; a sacrifice, in some degree, of name and fame, and of pecuniary benefit; but he was a conscientious man, very different from the generality of business men, who seek their own elevation, no matter who is left behind. Oswald as a child had learnt the good wholesome doctrine of doing to others as we would be done by: and he carried it out practically in life, content to leave the issue with God. How many of us can say as much?

A few minutes' earnest thought and he raised his head with a clear countenance. The decision was made.

"Allister shall go," he said, half-aloud. "Should he get ill again in this wretched climate next winter, and die, I should have it on my conscience for ever. It will be a sacrifice for me: but how can I put my advancement against his life? I ought not, and I will not."

The words had scarcely left his lips when Mark came in. Not Mark as we saw him just now, troubled, eager, panting; but Mark all coolness and smiles. A little hurried, perhaps, but that was nothing.

He had come to ask Oswald a favour. Would he accommodate him with a cheque for two hundred pounds until the banks opened in the morning? A gentleman, to whom was owing that sum on account of the Great Wheal Bang bad urgent need of it that very night, and had come bothering him, Mark, for it. If Oswald would accommodate him, he, Mark, should feel very much obliged, and would return it in the morning with many thanks.

"I have not got as much of my own," said Oswald.

"But you can give me a cheque of the firm's, can't you?" returned Mark, playing carelessly with his diamond studs.

Oswald did not much like this suggestion, and hesitated. Mark spoke again.

"It will be rendering me the greatest possible service, Oswald. The fellow has to leave town, or something, by one of the night trains. You shall have it back the first thing in the morning."

"You are sure that I shall, Mark?"

"Sure!" echoed Mark, opening his small grey eyes very wide in surprise. "Of course I am sure. Do you think I should forget to bring it you? Let me have it at once, there's a good brother. Carine will think I am never coming; we have to go to two parties tonight."

Oswald wrote the cheque and gave it him. It was a cheque of the firm: "Bracknell, Street, and Oswald Cray:" for Oswald's name appeared now.

And Mr. Mark carried it off with him. "There's a good brother," indeed! I wonder how he slept that night!

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XLVII. COMMOTION

With the wing of the dawn--that is, with the wing of the dawn for business in London--Mark Cray was at the offices in the City. Barker was there before him, and started forward to meet him as he entered. Mark had not succeeded in seeing Barker the previous night.

"Cray, it's all up. I'm afraid it's all up."

"Have you heard from Wales?"

"I got a telegram this morning. There's an irruption of water, in earnest this time. It's flowing in like so many pumps. Look here."

Mark's hands shook as he laid hold of the telegram. "I wasn't in bed till three o'clock," said he, as if he would give an excuse for the signs of agitation. But though he tried to account for his shaking hands, he could not for his scared face.

Yes Mr. Barker was no doubt right: it was "all up" with the Great Wheal Bang. Mark and he stood alone over the table in the board-room: in consultation as to what they could do, and what they might do.

Might they dare--allowing that the public still reposed in happy security--to take some shares into the market, and secure themselves something out of the wreck? Barker was all for doing it; at any rate for trying it--"whether it would work," he said. Mark hung back in indecision: he thought there might be after-consequences. He told Barker the episode of Mr. Brackenbury's visit, and of his satisfying that gentleman with the cheque of Bracknell, Street, and Oswald Cray, which cheque was no doubt cashed by that time.

"Mean old idiot!" apostrophised Mr. Barker. "That's always the way with those petty people. They'll make more fuss over their paltry hundred pounds or two than others do over thousands. I'd not have paid him, Mark."

"I couldn't help it," said Mark. "You should have seen the work he made. Besides, if I had not, he'd have proclaimed the thing from one end of London to another."

"Well, about these shares," said Barker. "We must make as much as ever we can. Will you go, or shall I?"

"Perhaps it's known already," returned Mark, dubiously.

"Perhaps it isn't. Brackenbury gave you his word that he'd keep quiet, and who else is likely to know it? Letters can't get here till the afternoon post, and nobody at the mine would make it their business to telegraph up."

Mark stood in restless indecision. When annoyed, he was fidgety to a degree; could not be still. Perhaps he had inherited his mother's temperament He pushed back his hair incessantly; he fingered nervously the diamond studs in his shirt. Mark was not in the habit of wearing those studs by day, or the curiously fine embroidery they were adorning. Whether, in his confusion of faculties, he had put in the studs that morning, or had absently retired to rest in his shirt the previous night, studs and all, must be left to conjecture.

"Look here, Barker," said he. "If news had not come to us of the disaster, to you and to me, I'd willingly have taken every share we possess into the market, and got the money for them down, if I could. But the news has come: and I don't think it would do."

"Who's to know it has come?" asked Barker.

"Well, things do often come out, you know; they nearly always do; especially if they are not wanted to. Perhaps the telegraph office could be brought up to prove it, or something of that."

"Well?" said Barker.

"Well," repeated Mark. "It mightn't do."

"Oh, bother, Cray! We must do it. We must stand out through thick and thin afterwards that the message never reached us. I could; and you are safe, for you have not had one at all. Look at our position. We must realise. Of course we can't attempt to negotiate many shares; that would betray us; but a few we might, and must. We must, for our own sakes we can't stand naked, without a penny to fall back upon."

Mark still hesitated. "I'd have done it with all the pleasure in life but for this telegram," he reiterated. "For one thing, Oswald would never forgive me; my name's the same as his, you know; and I shall have to face him over this two hundred pounds: that will be bad enough. And there's my mother. And my wife, Barker; you forget her."

"I don't forget her. I am thinking of her," was Mr. Barker's answer. "It's for her sake, as much as ours, that you ought to secure a little ready money. You'll want it. I know that much, for I have been down in luck before."

Mark looked irresolute and pitiably gloomy. "I don't see my way clear," he resumed, after a pause. "Let's put the thing into plain black and white. I go out, and sell some shares, and get the money paid down for them, and pocket it. An hour afterwards the news spreads that the mine's destroyed, and the shares are consequently worthless. Well, Barker, my belief is that they could proceed against me criminally for disposing of those shares----"

"Not if you did not know the mine was wrong when you took them into the market."

"Nonsense," returned Mark, irritably, "they'd be sure to know it. I tell you it would be safe to come out by hook or by crook. They'd call it felony, or swindling, or some such ugly name. Do you suppose I'm going to put my head into that noose? I was born a gentleman."

"And do you suppose I wish either of us to do it?" retorted Barker. "I shouldn't be such a fool. I never go into a thing unless I know I can fight my way out of it. I shall take a few shares into the market, and feel my way. I shall sell them for money, if I can; and you shall share it, Mark. I suppose you won't object to that."

No, certainly, Mark would have no objection to that.

"I did not hear of the disaster until later, you know," said Barker, winking. "News of it came up to us by the afternoon post. If they do find out about the telegram, why, I never opened it. Nobody saw me open it," added Barker, with satisfaction. "I have had so many up from the mine at my lodgings that the servants sign and put them in my sitting-room as a matter of course. This one was put there this morning, and I found it when I came down, but nobody was in the room. Oh, it will be all right. And I say, Mark, if----"

Mr. Barker's smooth projects were stopped. Absorbed in their conversation, he and Mark had alike failed to notice a gradually gathering hum in the street outside. A very gentle, almost imperceptible hum at first, but increasing to a commotion now. With one bound they reached the window.

A concourse of people, their numbers being augmented every moment, had assembled beneath. They were waiting for the opening of the offices of the Great Wheal Bang at ten o'clock. And the hour was almost on the point of striking.

"It's all up," shouted Barker in Mark's ear. "The news is abroad, and they have heard of it. Look at their faces!"

The faces were worth looking at, though not as a pleasant sight. Anger, rage, disappointment, above all impatience, were depicted there. The impatience of a wolf waiting to spring upon its prey. One of the faces unluckily turned its gaze upwards and caught sight of Barker's. Barker saw it; he had not been quick enough in drawing away from the window.

"They'll not be kept out now, doors or no doors," said he quietly to Mark.

Mr. Barker was right. Ere the words had died away upon his lips a sound as if the walls of the house were being beaten in ensued. The bells commenced a perpetual peal the knocker knocked incessantly, the doors were pushed and kicked and thumped. In the midst of it rose the sound of human voices in a roar: disjointed words distinguishable amidst the tumult. "Let us in! Come out to us!"

Mr. Barker advanced to the stairs, and leaned over the balustrades. "Williams," he called out to an attendant official below, "you can open the doors. The gentlemen may come up."

It was curious to note the difference in the two men. Barker was as cool as a cucumber; self-possessed as ever he had been in his life; ready to make the best of everything, and quite equal to the emergency. Mark Cray, on the contrary, seemed to have parted alike with his wits and his nerves. Not more completely did he lose his presence of mind in that long past evening which had been so fatal to Lady Oswald. His hands shook as with terror; his faff was white as death.

"Will they pull us to pieces, Barker?"

"Pooh!" said Barker, with a laugh at the evident tremor. "What has taken you, Mark? Let them rave on a bit without answering, and they'll calm down. Put that in your pocket," he continued. "It will be a trifle to fall back upon."

He had touched the diamond ring that glittered on Mark Cray's finger. Mark obeyed like a child. He took it from his hand and thrust it into his waistcoat pocket; next he buttoned his coat, some vague feeling perhaps prompting him to hide the studs; but he did it all mechanically, as one not conscious of his actions. Terror was holding its sway over him.

"Why should they be excited against us? Heaven knows we have not intentionally wronged them."

"That's just the question I shall ask them myself when they are cool enough to listen to it," rejoined Barker with a gay air. "Now then comes the tug of war."

In they came, thick and threefold, dashing up the stairs and pouring into the room like so many bees. And then it was found that Mark's apprehensions had been somewhat premature. For these shareholders had come flowing to the offices not so much to abuse the projectors of the company as to inquire the true particulars of the disaster. The news had gone forth in a whisper--and to this hour neither Mark nor Barker knows how, or through whom, it had oozed out--but that whisper was vague and uncertain. Naturally those interested flew to the offices for better information. Was the damage of great extent? and would the mine and the company stand it?

Barker was of course all suavity. He treated the matter more as a joke than anything else, making light of it altogether. An irruption of water? well, perhaps a little drop had got in, but they must wait for the afternoon's post. It would be all right.

He looked round for Mark, hoping that gentleman's face would not arouse suspicion; but he could not see him. Mark, as Barker learnt afterwards, had contrived to escape from the room as the throng entered, and got into the street unnoticed, and leaped into a cab. Mark was beside himself that morning.

The unfortunate news spread from one end of London to the other. It was carried to Oswald Cray; but the day was advancing then. "The Great Wheal Bang Company had exploded, and there was a run upon the office." Oswald was startled; and betook himself at once to the premises, as the rest had done. On his way he called in upon Henry Oswald, and spoke a word of caution.

"It may be a false rumour," said he; "I hope it is. But don't do anything in the shares until you know."

A false rumour! When Oswald reached the offices he found it all too true a one. The secretary to the company, without meaning to do ill--indeed he had let it out in his lamentation--had unwittingly disclosed the fact of the previous irruption of water in the summer: and the excited crowd were going wild with anger. Many of them had bought their shares at a period subsequent to that.

Oswald heard this, and went to Mr. Barker in the board-room. That gentleman, rather heated certainly, but with unchanged suavity of demeanour, was still doing his best to reassure everybody. Oswald drew him aside.

"What a dreadful thing this is! What is the real truth of it?"

"Hush!" interrupted Mr. Barker. "No need to tell the worst to them. You are one of us. I'm afraid it is all up with the mine; but we will keep it from them as long as we can. Anyway, it's no fault of ours."

"What is it that they are saying about an irruption of water having occurred in the summer?"

"Well, so it did," answered Mr. Barker, whose past few hours' temporising with the crowd caused him perhaps to throw off reserve to Mr. Oswald Cray as a welcome relief. "But it wasn't much, that; and we succeeded in keeping it dark."

"Did Mark know of it?"

"Mark know of it!" rejoined Barker; "of course he knew of it. What should hinder him? Why, the telegram bringing the news was given me at Mark's house; and, by the way, you were present, I remember. It was the evening that old doctor in the yellow trousers was there, with his two frights of daughters."

The scene rose as in a mirror before Oswald's memory. Dr. Ford and his daughters, Miss Davenal and Sara, Caroline Cray in her silks and her beauty. He remembered the telegram, he remembered that it appeared to disturb both Barker and Mark; and he remembered Mark's denial to him that anything was amiss with the mine.

"I do recollect it," he said aloud. "It struck me--perhaps it was rather singular it should do so--that something was wrong. Mark declared to me that it was not so."

The words seemed to tickle Barker uncommonly.

"Ah," said he, laughing, "Mark told me of it, and how he turned you off the scent. You'd not have put your thousand into it, perhaps, had you known of the water."

"Perhaps not," quietly replied Oswald. "And my thousand was wanted, I suppose."

"Law! you don't know the money that's been wanted," was the response. "And that irruption of water, slight as it was, made the demand for it worse. The mine has sucked it in like a sponge."

Oswald made no answering remark. "I suppose this irruption is worse than that?" he presently observed.

"Indeed I fear this is another thing altogether--ruin. But we ion% know anything certain until the post comes in this afternoon. We have had no letter yet."

"How did the news of it come to you?"

"By telegram. But the first news came to Mark; in an odd manner, too. A curmudgeon of a shareholder, old Brackenbury, went up yesterday evening to Mark just as he was going out to dinner with his wife, and insisted upon his paltry money, only two hundred pounds, being returned to him. He was inclined to be nasty; and if Mark had not satisfied him he'd have gone over London proclaiming that the mine was overflowing with water. The odd thing is, who could have telegraphed the news to him. We must have a traitor in the camp. Mark told me--oh, ah," broke off Mr. Barker, interrupting himself as a recollection flashed upon him--"I think he got the two hundred from you."

"And Mark knew the mine was then ruined!" returned Oswald, drawing in his lips, but not losing his calm equanimity.

"Brackenbury said it was. He didn't know it otherwise. Brackenbury--Halloa! what's that?"

It was a shout in the street. A shout composed of roars, and hisses, and groans. Drawing up to the door of the offices was the handsome carriage of Mark Cray; and the crowd had turned their indignation upon it.

One look, one glimpse of the white and terror-stricken faces of its inmates, and Oswald Cray bounded down the stairs. They were the faces of Mrs. Cray and Sara Davenal.

What could have brought them there?

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XLVIII. DAY-DREAMS RUDELY INTERRUPTED

Before a costly breakfast service of Sèvres porcelain, with its adjuncts of glittering silver, on the morning subsequent to the visit of Mr. Brackenbury, had sat Caroline Cray, in a charming morning robe of white muslin and blue ribbons, with what she would have called a coiffure, all blue ribbons and white lace, on her silky hair. A stranger, taking a bird's-eye view of the scene, of the elegant room, the expensive accessories, the recherché attire of its mistress, would have concluded that there was no lack of means, that the income supporting all this must at least be to the extent of some thousands a-year.

In truth Mark Cray and his wife were a practical illustration of that homely but expressive saying which must be so familiar to you all; they had begun at the wrong end of the ladder. When fortune has come; when it is actually realised, in the hands, then the top of the ladder, comprising its Sèvres porcelain and other costs in accordance, may be safe and consistent; but if we begin there without first climbing to it, too many of us have an inconvenient fashion of slipping down again. The furniture surrounding Caroline Cray was of the most beautiful design, the most costly nature; the lace on that morning-robe, on that pretty "coiffure," would make a hole in a £20 bank-note, the silver ornaments on the table were fit for the first palace in the land, and Mr. and Mrs. Cray had got these things about them--and a great deal more besides which I have not time to tell you of--anticipatory of the fortune that was to be theirs; not that already was. And now their footing on that high ladder was beginning to tremble: just as that of the milkmaid did when she sent the milk out of her milk-pails, and so destroyed her dreams.

Caroline sat at her late breakfast, toying with a fashionable newspaper--that is, one giving notice of the doings of the fashionable world--sipping her coffee, flirting with some delicate bits of buttered roll, casting frequent glances at the mirror opposite to her, in whose polished plate was reflected that pretty face, which in her pardonable vanity she believed had not its compeer. All unconscious was she of that turbulent scene then being enacted in the City; of the fact that her husband was at that moment finding his way to her in a cab, into which he had jumped to hide himself in abject fear and dismay. Caroline had slept sound and late after her night's gaiety, and awoke in the morning to find her husband had gone out.

The French clock behind her struck eleven, and she finished her breakfast quickly, and began thinking over her plans for the day. Some excursion into the country had been spoken of for the afternoon, and now Mark was gone she was at an uncertainty. Mrs. Cray tapped her pretty foot in petulance on the carpet, and felt exceedingly angry with the tiresome stranger who had disturbed her husband when he was dressing on the previous evening, and kept him from going out with her to dinner.

"How long did that gentleman stop here last night, George!" she suddenly asked of the servant who was removing the breakfast things. "Mr.-- what was the name? Brackenbury, I think."

"He stopped a good while, ma'am. I think it was between nine and ten when he left."

"What a shame! Keeping Mr. Cray all that while. I wonder he stayed with him! I wouldn't. I'd make people come to me in business hours, if I were Mark."

She sat on, after the departure of the breakfast things, leaning back in an easy chair and turning carelessly the leaves of a new novel, those that would open, for she did not exert herself to cut them. A very listless mood was she in that morning, tired and out of sorts. By and by her maid came in to ask about some alteration that was to be made in a dress, and Caroline told her to bring the dress to her.

That a little aroused her. It was a beautiful evening dress of flowered silk, and she stood over the table where the maid laid it consulting with her about some change in the colour of the trimmings. Becoming absorbed in this, she scarcely noticed that some one had come into the hall and opened the door of the room. Some expression in the maid's countenance as she looked up caught her attention, and she turned quickly round.

Mark was there, glancing into the room. Mark with a white aspect and a scared dreamy look on his face. Before Caroline had time to question, in fact almost before she looked, he was gone and had closed the door again. So quiet had been the movement, so transient the vision, that Caroline spoke in her surprise.

"Was not that your master?"

"Yes, ma'am. Something was the matter, I think. He looked ill."

"I will go and see. Mind, Long, I'll decide upon pink. It is the prettiest colour."

"Very well, ma'am. As you please, of course. I only think pink won't go so well with the dress as violet."

"I tell you, Long, that violet will not light up. You know it won't, without my having to reiterate it over to you. No colour lights up so bad as violet. Pink: and let the ruchings be very full and handsome."

Speaking the last words in a peremptory tone, she went in search of Mark. He was standing upright in the dining-room, in the midst of its floor, looking more like a man lost than a man in his composed senses.

"Mark, what's the matter?"

He turned to his wife,--he had been undecided whether to tell her or not. It was a question he debated with himself on his way down: that is, it had been floating through his mind in a sort of undercurrent. To concentrate his thoughts deliberately upon one point sufficiently to debate it was that day beyond the power of Mark Cray.

Mark's true disposition was showing itself now. Vacillating and unstable by nature, utterly deficient in that moral courage which meets an evil when it comes, and looks it steadily in the face to see how it may be best dealt with, the blow of the morning had taken away what little sense Mark possessed. He was as a frightened child; a ship without a rudder; he was utterly unable to distinguish what his proper course ought to be: he did not know where to go or what to do; his chief thought was, to get away from the torrent that had broken loose. He must hide himself from the storm, but he could not face it.

When he jumped into the cab, and the driver had said, "Where to, sir?" he gave his home in Grosvenor Place in answer, simply because he could not think of another direction to give in that bewildering moment: so the cab drove on. But Mark did not want to go to Grosvenor Place. He had nothing to get from there: he had no business there, and a feeling came over him that he had rather not meet his wife just then. He wanted to hide himself and his bewildered mind and his scared face in some nook of remote shelter, far from the haunts of men, where that remorseless crowd, just escaped from, would not pounce upon him. Mark had not given himself time to ascertain that their disposition was pacificatory: he was wondering rather whether they had yet pulled the offices down. Neither Mark Cray nor Caroline was fitted to encounter the storms of life. So long as the sailing was smooth it was well; but when the waves arose, rough and turbulent, the one proved physically, the other morally, unable to breast them.

Mark stopped the cab as it was turning into Grosvenor Place; some vague feeling prompting him that it might be safer to steal quietly into his home than to dash up to it in a cab. The tidings had perhaps travelled far and wide, and people might be already there, as well as at the offices. Mark was half determined to make the best of his way at once to the scene of the Great Wheal Bang itself, the mine; and see with his own eyes whether things were so bad that they could not be mended. At least he should be away from his furious enemies in London. One more under the influence of reason than Mark Cray might have thought it well to ascertain whether those enemies were so furious, before running from them. When a man of no moral courage loses his presence of mind, he merits pity perhaps rather than condemnation.

"Mark, what's the matter?"

With her actual presence before him, with the pointed question on her lips, Mark Cray's indecision went completely out. He could no more have told her the truth at that moment, that the golden prospects so implicitly believed in had turned to ruin, and the offices yonder were being besieged by noisy shareholders, than he could have told it to the besiegers themselves.

"The matter?" repeated Mark, at a loss for any other answer.

"You look as if something were the matter, Mark. And what have you come back for?"

"Oh, I left some papers at home," answered Mark, speaking as carelessly as he could. "There's nothing the matter with me. The fellow drove fast, that's all. I gave him an extra sixpence."

Perhaps Caroline did not deem this communication particularly relevant to the subject. "What made you go away so early, Mark?" she asked. "You never settled anything about Hendon today."

"Well, I don't think I can go," said Mark. "I'll--I'll see later. Hark!"

Mark's "hark" was spoken in echo to a thundering knock at the door. A knock and a ring enough to shake the house down. He looked round at the walls for a moment as if he wanted to make a dash into them; he stepped towards the window, hesitated, and drew away again; finally he opened the door to escape, but too late, for voices were already in the hall. Caroline looked at her husband in wondering dismay.

"Mark, what has come to you?"

"Hush!" whispered Mark, the perspiration welling up to his forehead, as he bent his head to catch the sound from those voices. "Hark! hush!"

"Is Mr. Cray at home?"

"No, sir. He went to the City early this morning." How Mark Cray blessed his servant for the unconscious mistake, he alone could tell. The man had not seen his master come in, and had no idea he was in the house.

"Gone to the City, is he? Are you sure?"

"Quite sure, sir."

A pause. Mark's heart was beating.

"What time will he be home?"

"I don't know, sir."

Another pause. "I suppose Mr. Barker's not here?"

"Mr. Barker? O dear no, sir."

And that was followed by the closing of the hall-door. Mark Cray gave a great gasp of relief, and went upstairs to his own room.

He did not stay there above a minute. Caroline--she remembered it afterwards--heard a drawer or two opened and shut. She had been following him, but was momentarily detained by a question from her maid, who was coming out of the breakfast-room with the dress upon her arm. Caroline stopped while she answered it, and in going up the stairs she met Mark coming down.

"Who was that at the door, Mark? Did you think it was any one in particular?"

"I don't know who it was."

"You seemed alarmed. Or annoyed."

"Well," returned Mark, speaking rather fast, "and it is annoying to have business fellows corning after me to my house. Why can't they go to the offices?"

"To be sure," said Caroline, reassured. "I'd not see a soul here, if I were you."

He had been walking on towards the hall-door while he spoke. But ere he had well reached it, he turned, and drew his wife into one of the rooms.

"Look here, Caroline: I'm not sure but I shall have to go down to the mines tonight. If so, it is just possible I may not be able to come here first. So you won't be alarmed if you don't see me home."

"What a hurry you must be in!" exclaimed Caroline. "Not come home first!"

"But if I do go, mind, it will be on a little private matter that I don't want known," he continued, taking no notice of the remark. "So, if anybody should ask where I am, just answer that you can't tell, but that I shall be back in a day or two. Do you understand, Carine?"

"Quite well. But, Mark, you will come home first, won't you?"

"I only tell you this in case I don't come," he answered evasively. "I have a good deal to do today. Goodbye, Carine."

"But about Hendon?" she interrupted.

"Hendon? Oh, I am quite sure I shan't have time for Hendon today. If you don't like to go without me, we must put it off for a day or two." He stooped to kiss her. Opening the hall-door, he stood on the steps, looking right and left; carelessly, as it seemed; in reality, cautiously. Very timorous was Mark Cray in that hour; he did not like that people should have hunted him to his very home. Then he turned to the Victoria Station, perhaps as the nearest point of refuge. He would make his way to Wales, to the mine, as straightly and speedily as he could, consistent with precaution.

Mark had been gone the best part of an hour, and it was hard upon midday. His wife was just deliberating whether to go shopping in the afternoon, or make calls, or pay a visit to the empty park, or take a drive out of town; which way, in short, would be the least tedious of killing the precious time that God had given her, when she was aroused by a formidable summons at the door, and a noise as of many steps and voices besieging the hall.

What next took place Caroline never clearly remembered. Confused recollections remained to her afterwards of angry demands for Mr. Cray, of indignant denials to the servant's assertion that his master was in the City; the hubbub was great, the voices were threatening. Caroline's first surprise was superseded by indignation; and that in its turn gave place to alarm.

You all know what it is to pour oil upon a spark of fire previously ready to burst forth into a flame. When the Great Wheal Bang's shareholders had flocked to the Great Wheal Bang's offices that morning they were on the balance, as may be said, between war and peace; somewhat uncertain in their own minds whether to treat Mark Cray and Mr. Barker as unfortunate fellow-sufferers with themselves, or to expend upon them their wrongs and their wrath. That mistake of the Great Wheal Bang's secretary--as alluded to in the last chapter--turned the scale. In his dismay and confusion he inadvertently referred to the former irruption of water, and the unlucky disclosure maddened the throng. They forthwith looked upon themselves as dreadfully injured people; in fact they jumped to the conclusion that the Great Wheal Bang itself was little better than a swindle; so apt are we all to rush into extremes. Barker did what he could to stem the torrent; but the crowd vociferously demanded to see Mark Cray. It was he they had known mostly in the affair, for Barker was usually at the mine. And, not finding Mark answer to their demands, some of them tore off on the spur of the moment in Hansom cabs to his residence.

Caroline stood the very image of dismay. She did not show herself; she was too much alarmed; she peeped from the half-closed dining-room door and listened, just as Mark had done a short while before. Confused words of "water" and "mine" and "swindle" and "ruin" saluted her ears; and the demands for Mr. Cray became more threateningly imperative. Some movement of the door occurred; she staggered against it; and it was observed from the hall. Perhaps it was only natural to the belligerents to conclude that Mark Cray was there. They pressed forward to the room; but upon seeing that the lady was its only occupant, the young and lovely lady in her gala morning dress and the roses chased from her cheeks by fear, they drew back and clustered outside it.

"What is it you want!" gasped Caroline from her trembling lips.

One of the foremost answered her. He was a gentleman, and he raised his hat, and made his tone as courteous as his sense of injury allowed. They were very sorry to disturb her, but they must see Mr. Cray. They had come to see him and they would see him.

"I assure you that he is not here," said Caroline, her earnest voice carrying truth with it. "He has been gone some time."

"He was at the offices this morning, madam, and disappeared. We were told he had no doubt come home."

"It is true," she answered. "He went to the offices very early, and came home again about eleven o'clock for something he had forgotten, papers I think he said. He did not stay two minutes; he got them and went back again. What is it that is the matter?"

"Back to the offices?" they asked, disregarding the question.

"Yes, back to the offices. He said he must make haste, for he had a great deal to do today. I am sure you will find him there." She had no suspicion that she was asserting what was not true. Whether they believed it or not--though most of them did believe it--they had no resource but to act upon it. Filing out again, they jumped into the cabs, and rattled back at the rate of nine-and-twenty miles an hour.

Leaving Mrs. Cray in a grievous state of perplexity and of distress: for they had spoken of "ruin" as connected with the mine. She was one of those who cannot bear suspense: she had no patience; no endurance, not even for an hour. In a tumult of hurry and emotion, she had her carriage brought round, called for Sara Davenal, to whom, however, she did not tell what had taken place, and drove on to the City almost as fast as those cabs had driven, to get an explanation of Mark.

The cabs had arrived previously, and their occupants found they had been deceived. No Mark Cray was at the offices, or had been there since his first departure from them. They burst bounds, in tongue at any rate, and talked of warrants and prosecutions and various inconvenient things. Other shareholders joined in the general fury, and it may perhaps be excused to them that when the carriage of Mark Cray suddenly appeared in the general melée, they turned their rage upon it.

That is, they pressed round it and saluted it with reproaches not at all soft or complimentary. Possibly in the moment's blind anger they did not see that Mark himself was not its occupant. They were, on the whole, men who knew how to behave themselves, and would have desisted, perhaps apologised, when they had had time and calmness to see that only ladies were there: but that time was not allowed them.

One came, with his tall strong form, his pale, resolute, haughty face, and pushed them right and left, as he laid his hand on the carriage door.

"Are you men?" he asked. "Don't you see that you are terrifying these ladies? Stand back. I had thought----"

"Oh, Oswald, save us! save us!" came the interrupting cry, as Caroline Cray caught his hand. "What is it all? what has happened?"

He got her out of the carriage and into some adjacent offices, whose friendly doors were opened to them. Sara followed, unmolested, and Oswald went back to rescue, if might be, the carriage. But the gentlemen had been a little recalled to common-sense by the incident: and the carriage was no longer in danger. Smashing Mark Cray's carriage would not make good their losses, or bring forth him who was missing. Oswald returned to Mrs. Cray.

"It is all right again now," he said. "The carriage is waiting for you a little further off. Shall I take you to it?"

"But I want to go into the offices, Oswald," she feverishly rejoined. "I want to see Mark. I must see him."

"Mark is not at the offices. Neither would it be well that you should go there just now."

"Not at the offices! where is he then?"

"I don't know where he is. I should like to find him."

He spoke in a cold, proud, bitter tone, and it struck dismay to the heart of Mrs. Cray. Indeed Oswald's frame of mind was one of the most intense bitterness. He had been plausibly defrauded out of his money: his pride, his sensitive honour, his innate justice, had been wounded to the core. All this disgrace Mark Cray had been earning for himself; Mark, his half-brother!

"But I must see Mark," she reiterated in a helpless manner. "Don't you know where I can go to find him, Oswald?"

"I do not indeed."

"I want to know what has happened. I heard them speak of ruin; of water in the mine. Can you tell me?"

"News has come up that an irruption of water has taken place. I find it is not the first: but the other, they say, was not serious."

"And this is?"

"I fear so."

"But what right have those men to be so angry, so excited against Mark? He did not let the water in." Oswald made no answer. If Mark had treated those shareholders with the duplicity that he had treated him, they had certainly a very good right to be angry and excited.

Mrs. Cray turned towards the door in her restlessness to take a reconnoitring glimpse of the state of affairs outside. Mark might have come up! might be in the midst of the mob! Sara, who had waited for the opportunity, drew near to Oswald Cray, and spoke in a whisper.

"Is it ruin?"

"Irretrievable--as I believe," he answered, his voice unconsciously assuming a strange tenderness as he looked at her pale, sad face. "Ruin for Mark Cray, perhaps for many others." And the words fell like a shock of ice on her heart. What would become of the engagement that she had made to repay the two hundred pounds to Mr. Wheatley from the money owing her by Mark?

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XLIX. THE EVENING OF THE BLOW

It was the peculiarity of Miss Bettina Davenal to be more especially deaf when suddenly surprised or annoyed. Possibly it is the same with other deaf people. Sara Davenal stood before her in her drawing-room striving to make her comprehend the state of affairs relative to the Great Wheal Bang; and not at first successfully. Miss Bettina had not understood why Mrs. Cray had driven round in hurried agitation that morning and carried off Sara by storm: Caroline would not explain why, and Sara could not. Sara had returned home now, willing to afford every explanation; indeed believing it to be her duty so to do; but Miss Bettina, offended at the morning's slight, was keeping her heart closed; and when that was shut, the ears would not open.

"What d'you say? You went up to the offices? I should like to know what took you and Caroline to the offices? Young ladies don't require to go to such places."

"She went to try to see Mark, aunt."

"Ugh!" growled Miss Bettina. "Mark told her, indeed! If Mark Cray told her to go down the mine amidst the lead, she'd do it. Doesn't he see enough of her at home?"

"She went to try to see Mark, Aunt Bettina," repeated Sara, more slowly. "I--I am afraid they are ruined."

"Serve them right," returned Miss Bettina, catching the last word, but attaching no importance to it.

"Some disastrous news has been received from Wales, from the mine. Caroline says a Mr. Brackenbury called in Grosvenor Place last night----"

"Mr. who?"

"Mr. Brackenbury. She did not know then why he called, but Mr. Oswald Cray has now told her that he brought the first news of it to Mark. It had come up to him by telegram."

Miss Bettina Davenal bent her ear. "He came up by telegram! What do you mean by that? Have they got a new invention that brings up people, pray? Why are you not more careful how you speak, Miss Sara Davenal?"

"I said the news came up by telegram, aunt. It came to Mr. Brackenbury; and that's why he called on Mark last night. At least so Mr. Oswald Cray told Caroline. Caroline had been surprised or annoyed at his visit; she did not understand it; and she mentioned it to Mr. Oswald Cray."

Miss Bettina lifted her hands helplessly. "What's any Mr. Brackenbury to me?--or Oswald Cray either? I want to know why Caroline took you to those offices today?"

"I am trying to tell you, aunt," said poor Sara. "Mark went up to the offices early this morning before Caroline was awake; he came home again about eleven, saying he had forgotten something, but Caroline thought his manner absent and strange. He left again, and soon after the house was invaded by quite a crowd of men, gentlemen, demanding to see him----"

"Had they got an organ with them?"

Miss Bettina's interruption took Sara rather aback. "An organ, aunt? I don't know what you mean."

"Not know what I mean!" was the wrathful answer. "Crowds don't collect round houses unless there's a cause; organs or monkeys, or some such nonsense. What did they collect there for?"

Sara bent her head lower and strove to speak with even more distinctness. "It was a crowd of gentlemen, aunt; gentlemen from the City; though perhaps I ought not to have said a crowd, but it was what Caroline called it to me. They came down in Hansom cabs, she said, and they were fierce in their demands to see Mark, and they'd hardly go away again, and they said the mine was ruined. Caroline was alarmed, and she went up herself to try to see Mark, but she did not like to go alone, and came round for me."

The words were as a hopeless jumble in Miss Bettina's ear; their sense nowhere. "I wish you'd be clear," she said, tartly. "If you want to tell me a thing, tell it in a straightforward manner. Why do you mix up crowds and organs with it?"

"Dear aunt, I never said a word about an organ. The--mine--is--ruined," she added, almost out of heart with her task.

"What's ruined?" shrieked Miss Bettina.

"The mine. The Great Wheal Bang." Miss Bettina heard this time. She had lived in expectation of the news ever since the Great Wheal Bang first jumped into existence. Nevertheless it scared her; and an expression of dismay sat on her refined features as she turned them on Sara with a questioning gaze.

"I believe the water has got in. They say it is utter ruin. And Mark Cray can't be found."

"What has Mark Cray found?"

"He can't be found, aunt. He was not at the offices when we got there, and the shareholders--as I suppose the people were--attacked the carriage: some of them have sunk a great deal of money in the mine. There was no real danger, of course; but Mr. Oswald Cray got us out of it."

Miss Bettina stared hopelessly. "Oswald Cray got you out of the mine! What are you talking of?"

"Out of the carriage, aunt; not out of the mine. That's in Wales."

"Do you suppose I thought it was in London?" retorted offended Miss Bettina. "You'll be obligingly informing me where London is next. Where is Mark Cray?"

"No one seems to know. His wife does not; except that he said to her he might have to go down to Wales this evening, and she was not to mention it. She is in great uncertainty and distress."

"What's she in?"

"Uncertainty, distress," repeated Sara. "She is as frightened as a child. I fear she will not be a good one to bear misfortune. I went home with her and remained some time; it was that made me so late. When I came away she was growing very angry with Mark: she says he ought to have told her of it this morning."

"And so he ought," said Miss Bettina. "Ah! I never cordially approved that match for Caroline, and the doctor knew it. She'll see what he's made of now. You say you came in contact with the shareholders: what did they say?"

Sara hesitated. "They were saying very disagreeable things, Aunt Bettina."

"That's not telling me what they said."

"They talked of deceit and--and swindling. They seem dreadfully bitter against Mark Cray."

"Dreadfully what against him?"

"Bitter."

"Oh," said Miss Bettina. "Mark Cray's a fool in more ways than one; but they should blame themselves, not him. Mark told them the mine was of gold, I daresay; but it was their fault if they believed it. A man might come to me and say, If you will give me a ten-pound note I'll bring it you back tomorrow doubled, and if I fell into the trap I ought not to turn my anger on him. Mark Cray believed in the mine: those schemers are so sanguine."

Sara bent her head until her lips almost touched her aunt's ear, and lowered her voice to a cautious tone: but somehow it was terribly distinct to Miss Bettina.

"Aunt, I fear it is not quite so straightforward as you think. There was an irruption of water in the summer--a slight one, I fancy--and Mark and Mr. Barker concealed it. It is this which makes the shareholders so angry, and, they say--they say they can prosecute him for it."

"Who said this?" asked Miss Bettina, after a pause.

"I can hardly tell who. We heard a great deal of talking altogether. One gentleman came up to Mr. Oswald Cray as he was taking us to the carriage again, and asked him if he was not Mark's brother. Oswald replied that he was Mark's half-brother; and then the gentleman said harsh things, and Oswald could not stop him, and could not get us by."

Miss Bettina poured forth question upon question. Incensed as she had been against Mark Cray and his wife for the past months, much as she had blamed their folly, sharp as were her prophecies of the final results, perhaps this was worse than she had bargained for. She had looked for ruin, but not for criminal disgrace.

"And Mark can't be found, you say?" she asked, her tone a shrill one.

"No."

She sat down to the dinner-table, for the day had gone on to evening, despatching Neal for a fly while she ate a bit, and then she went out, taking Sara. "Grosvenor Place," she said to Neal And that observant domestic knew by the compressed lips, the clasped hands, the rigid head, how inwardly flurried was his mistress.

They found Caroline in a state of emotion, bordering upon hysteria. Fear, anger, perplexity, and despair, succeeding each other so rapidly that her mood may have been said to savour of the whole at once. Poor Caroline Cray knew nothing of either endurance or reticence; her anger against Mark was great at the present moment, and she gave way to it loudly.

"Where is he?" was the first pointed question of Miss Davenal.

"I don't know where he is. He might have trusted me. It's not his fault if the water has come into the mine, and he had no cause to go away; but if he had gone, he might have taken me. Barker has been down here in a dreadful passion, and says Mark was not a good fellow to steal a march on him and leave him alone all day to fight the battle with the shareholders. A hundred people, about, have been here after Mark, and it's a shame that I should be left to hear all the remarks."

"Is Oswald Cray with you?" asked Miss Bettina.

"Oh, my goodness, I don't suppose he'll come here again," returned poor Caroline, half beside herself. "I thought him cold and queer in his manner today. Barker says he is vexed at losing his thousand pounds; and that Mark got two hundred more from him last night after he knew the mine had gone. Oswald said nothing to me, but of course he is incensed at it."

Miss Davenal had been listening with her hand to her ear, and she heard pretty well. "Do you know the particulars of the calamity?" she asked. "Is the mine irretrievably ruined!"

"I don't know anything, except that I'm fit to go mad," she answered, beginning to sob like a petulant child.

In that one first moment of the blow Miss Davenal was generous enough to spare reproaches for all the folly of the past, though she had plenty at her tongue's end. She had not sat down since she entered; she had stood rigid and upright; and when she went out to the fly she ordered it to Mr. Oswald Cray's.

"Tell the man to drive quickly," said Miss Bettina to Neal. "What do you say, Sara? Let you stop with Caroline? Caroline wants neither you nor me; I can see that. There'll be trouble over this."

Mrs. Cray had not chosen an inapt word when she said Oswald must be incensed against Mark. It was precisely Oswald's present state of feeling. He saw that the thousand pounds had been nothing but a stopgap; not drawn from him for his own good and benefit, as Mark so largely boasted, but for Mark's own necessities. And as to the two hundred pounds of the previous night, the money of the firm--Oswald did boil over at the thought of that. Oh, why could not Mark have been upright and open! why could he not have gone to Oswald with the truth upon his lip, and said, Let me have this two hundred pounds in my dire necessity, and I will repay you when I can! Oswald was not the brother to refuse him.

Oswald had had a battle with himself. When he returned home after that scene in the city, feeling that his money, the twelve hundred pounds, was irretrievably lost, he sat down and thought. Should he cancel the offer made to Frank Allister to go out to Spain, and take the appointment himself, as at first intended? Was he justified in foregoing it, under this unexpected loss? The same considerations swayed him now as previously; his own interest versus Frank's health, perhaps life; but how weighty a balance was now thrown into his own scale!

If ever Oswald had need of a better guidance than his own, he had need now. And he was conscious of it. He had many failings, as we all have; and his pride often stood in his way; but he had one great and good gift--a conscience that was ever prompting him on the upward way.

"No, I will not hesitate," he said to himself. "The necessity for Allister's going remains the same, and he shall go. I must overget this other loss as I best can, though it may be years first, but I'll not set my own interest against Allister's life."

And so Frank Allister and his sister received no countermand, and they proceeded to Mr. Oswald Cray's that evening, to talk over arrangements, as it had been decided they should; and they never knew the sacrifice that had been made for them, or had the least suspicion that Mr. Oswald Cray had yielded up the appointment.

When Miss Davenal and Sara arrived, Mrs. Benn received them. That errant husband of hers and valued servant of the firm, was out again. This was not Mrs. Benn's cleaning-day; but any little extra duty, though it was but the receiving a visitor at unusual hours, put her out excessively; and it was not usual for a levee of ladies to attend the house in an evening. She appeared at the door with the ordinary crusty face and a candle in her hand.

"Is Mr. Oswald Cray at home?" was Neal's demand.

"Yes, he is," returned Mrs. Benn, speaking as if the question injured her very much indeed.

Neal stepped back to the fly, and opened the door for the ladies to alight. Mrs. Benn stared at the proceedings with all her eyes.

"Well, if this don't bang everything!" she ejaculated, partly to herself, partly to the street. "If he was agoing to have a party tonight, he might have told me, I think. And that there Benn to go out, and never light the hall-lamp first! It cracks my arms to do it: a nasty, high, awk'ard thing! Will he be for ordering tea for 'em, I wonder I when there ain't nothing but a hot loaf in the house, and one pat o' but--"

"Show me to Mr. Oswald Cray's private rooms," came the interrupting voice of Miss Davenal, as she entered.

"This way," returned sulky Mrs. Benn; "there's one of them there already."

The "one of 'em" must have applied to the assumed evening party, for in the sitting-room sat Jane Allister. Her bonnet was off, her shawl was unpinned; her fair face was serene and contented, as though she were in her own home. Miss Davenal bowed stiffly in her surprise, and the rebellious jealousy rose up in Sara's heart.

"Is Mr. Oswald Cray not here?" asked Miss Davenal, halting on the threshold.

Jane Allister came forward with her good and candid face, and Miss Davenal's reserved tone relaxed. "Mr. Oswald Cray is downstairs with my brother and another gentleman. They are settling some business together; I don't think they will be long."

Miss Davenal did not hear, but Sara repeated the words to her. They sat down; and Miss Allister, finding the elder lady was deaf, took her seat by Sara.

"I came here tonight to settle particulars about our Spanish journey," explained Jane Allister, as if in apology for being found there. "I am going to live in Spain."

Sara heard it as one in a dream. Oswald Cray was going to Spain for a lengthened residence: he had told her so when she was in that room a fortnight ago. If Jane Allister was going with him, why then, it must be that they were going to be married immediately.

Her face flushed, her brow grew moist. In a sort of desperation, in her eager wish to know the worst at once, she turned to Jane Allister.

"Are you going with Mr. Oswald Cray?"

"I am going with my brother."

"With--your--brother! And not with Mr. Oswald Cray?"

"No, surely not. How could I go with Mr. Oswald Cray? It would not be proper," she simply added.

"I--I thought--I meant as his wife," said poor Sara, all confused in her heart sickness. "I beg your pardon."

"As his wife!--Mr. Oswald Cray's! Nay, but that is an unlikely thing to fancy. I am not suitable to Mr. Oswald Cray. Do you know him?

"O yes."

"Then you might have been sure he'd not cast his thoughts to a plain body like me. Why should he? I am not his equal in position. He has been a brother to Frank, and I reverence him beyond any one I know as a good and true friend. That's all."

Why did her heart give a great bound of hope at the words, when she knew--when she knew that he was lost to her? Oswald Cray came bounding up the stairs, but a mist had gathered before Sara's eyes, and she saw nothing clearly.

"Frank is waiting for you, Jane. He will not come upstairs again."

"Does he know about everything?"

"Everything, I think. We have discussed it all, and he will tell you. But he is coming again in the morning."

Oswald had spoken as he shook hands with Miss Davenal. Another moment and they were alone together: the young Scotch lady had left the room.

"Mr. Oswald Cray, you must tell me all you know of this unhappy business, from beginning to end," said Miss Davenal. "I have come to you for the information, and I beg you to conceal nothing. Is Mark Cray in danger?"

Oswald scarcely knew in what sense to take the word. He hesitated as he looked at Miss Davenal.

"How has it all come about? Let me hear the whole of it; the best and the worst. His wife professes to know nothing, and it was of no use my asking her. The water has got into the mine."

"It is said to be overflowing it; but particulars are not ascertained yet," replied Oswald, as he proceeded to speak of what he knew.

It was not much, for he was nearly as much in the dark as they were. Miss Davenal listened with compressed lips.

At the conclusion of the interview, Oswald took Miss Davenal out to the fly upon his arm, placed her in it, and turned to Sara.

"The last time I saw you I had a journey in my head," he said in a low tone; "I told you I was going to Spain."

"Yes."

"I am not going now. I have given up the idea. We shall send out a gentleman instead; my friend, Frank Allister. Goodnight; goodnight, Miss Davenal."

Severely upright in the carriage sat Miss Davenal, her countenance one picture of condemnation for the absent Mark. Only once did she open her lips to Sara opposite to her, and that was as the carriage turned out of the glare and gas of the more populous streets to the quiet one which contained their home.

"What would your brother Edward say to this, were he at home?"

What would he say to something else? As the carriage drew up to the door, a female figure was slowly pacing before it, as if in waiting. And Sara shrank into the remotest corner of the carriage with a shiver of dread, for she recognised her for the stranger. Catherine Wentworth.

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L. HARD USAGE FOR DICK

Do you remember the severe weather of the Christmas of 1860? How for once we had an old-fashioned Christmas day, when the icicles hung bright and frozen from the trees and the ponds were alive with skaters, after the manner of the Christmases we read of, of the days gone by. It was indeed a bitter winter, that at the close of 1860, and an unusual number of the poor and friendless, the sick and ailing, passed from its biting sharpness to a better world.

In the mind of one it almost seemed as though he had held some mysterious prevision of it; and that was Oswald Cray. When deliberating, the previous autumn, whether he should go to Spain himself, times and again had the thought recurred to him--what if we have a sharp winter?--how will Allister weather it? And now that the sharp winter, more terribly sharp than even Oswald dreamt of, had indeed come, he was thankful to have sacrificed his own self-interest. In that more southern climate Allister would no feel the cold of this; and it almost seemed as if the thought alone brought to Oswald his reward.

"Isn't it stunning, Aunt Bett?"

You will probably recognise the words as likely to emanate from nobody's lips but Mr. Dick Davenal's. Mr. Dick had arrived for the holidays; rather against the inclination as well as the judgment of Miss Bettina, but she did not see her way in courtesy to exclude him. Leopold had been in town with her since October, she and Sara nursing him; so it would have been unkind to keep Dick at school alone for the holidays. Miss Bettina said London was a bad place for Dick; he would be getting into all sorts of mischief: perhaps get run over, perhaps get lost; it was uncertain what: but Sara, in her love for the boy, promised to keep him in order and out of harm. A rash undertaking.

What of the Great Wheal Bang? The Great Wheal Bang was gone for ever It had passed out ignobly, never probably to be heard of as a mine again, except in name at certain law courts, to which some of its angry shareholders persisted in bringing it. Mr. Barker was abroad, and did not come home to face the storm; it appeared there was no law to force him home, the matters of the Wheal Bang just escaped that; and he carried on a free-and-easy correspondence with some of the exasperated shareholders, who told him to his face in their answers that he deserved hanging.

And Mark Cray? Mark Cray was nowhere. The defunct company did their best to find him, but, try as they would, they could not discover his hiding-place. They assumed he was out of the country, most probably with Barker, and perhaps their home search was, through that very assumption, less minute than it might have been. A run from danger is always more formidable than a faced one; and if Mark Cray had only faced those shareholders he would no doubt have found their bite less hurtful than their bark. That they were loud and threatening and angry, was true; but Mark would have done well to meet the worst, and get it over. The luxurious house in Grosvenor Place had been long ago abandoned by Mark and his wife; and so temporarily had it been lived in, so fleeting had been the enjoyment of the carriages, the servants, the society, and all the rest of the accessories, that altogether that time seemed only like a dream.

"Isn't it stunning, Aunt Bett?"

Dick was standing at the dining-room window, his sparkling eyes devouring the ice in the streets, the tempting slides in the gutters. A young gentleman who was coming to the house with a small tray of meat upon his back had just gone down one beautifully, and Dick longed to be behind him. Leo stepped to the window to look, and thought he should like it too; but Leo was not in strong health, as Dick was.

"Isn't it what?" asked Aunt Bett, looking up quickly. "Raining?"

"Stunning," roared Dick.

"I wish you would learn to speak like a gentleman, Richard, and not use those expressions. If they do for school, they don't do for home."

"I have been oiling my skates this morning," continued Dick. "They are rather short, but they'll do."

"Oiling what?"

"My skates."

"What cakes?"

"Sk--a--tes, Aunt Bett. Everything will bear today."

"Nothing bears in London," said Miss Bettina. "You must not try it, Richard. A great many boys are drowned every winter in the Serpentine."

"What muffs they must be!" returned Dick; "Aunt Bett, the ponds would bear you if you'd put on a pair of skates and try. They'd bear me a hundred times over."

"Would they?" said Miss Bettina. She turned to Sara, who was busy at the table and pointed with her finger to indicate Dick.

"I will not have him to go into this danger. Do you hear, Sara? You undertook to keep him out of harm, if he came to us; so see to it. Perhaps the best plan will be to lock up his skates. I don't want to have him brought home drowned."

Dick was resentful. He might have broken into open rebellion but for fear of being sent back to enjoy his holidays at school. He sat in a sullen sort of mood, on the edge of a chair, his hands in his pockets clicking their contents about, and his boots beating time restlessly on the carpet.

"How it's all altered!" he exclaimed.

"How is what altered?" inquired Sara. They were alone then. Miss Bettina had gone from the room to give Leopold his eleven o'clock dose of strengthening medicine.

"Since Uncle Richard's time. Why, he bought me those very skates last winter, when that frost came in November. That is, he sent word to school that I might have them. And then we had no more ice at all! and Uncle Richard kept wishing through the holidays there might be some for us! He'd have let us skate."

Sara was silent. Things had indeed altered since then.

"It's an awful shame of Aunt Bett! The ice stunning thick, and a fellow can't enjoy it! Drowned! She might get drowned herself perhaps, but I shouldn't. Uncle Richard would have let us skate in Hallingham!" added Dick, excessively resentful. "He wanted us to skate."

"But I think it was a little different, Richard dear. Those ponds at Hallingham were not deep; and people do get drowned in the Serpentine. And there's nobody to go with you." Dick tossed his head. "Perhaps you think I want somebody! You had better send a nursemaid. Fine holidays these are!"

A few minutes more of sitting still and Dick could stand it no longer. He darted into the passage and snatched his cap. Sara, quick as he, caught him with the street-door in his hand.

"Dick, it must not be. You know I have answered for you to Aunt Bettina."

"All right, Sara. I'm not going near the Serpentine, or any other deep water."

"You promise?"

"Yes; on my honour. There! Why, I have not got my skates. I'm going up and down the street-slides; that's all. You can't expect me to sit twirling my thumbs all day in Aunt Bett's parlour, as Leo does."

She had no fear then. If Dick once gave his honour, or if put upon his honour, he could but be a loyal knight. Left to himself, no promise extracted from him, he would have decamped right off to the Serpentine, or to anything else mischievous and dangerous; but not now.

But Dick "took it out"--the words were his own--in street-slides. All the most attractive ruisseaux within a few miles of home Mr. Dick exercised his legs upon. It required a terrible amount of resolution to keep his promise not to "go near" the forbidden water; and how long Dick stood in envy, his nose frozen to the park railings as he watched the streams of people pouring towards the ice, he never knew. He was not in a good humour; the slides were very ignoble pastime indeed, only fit for street-boys; and he thought if there was one gentleman more ill-used than another that day in all Her Majesty's dominions, that one was himself.

Mr. Dick stopped out his own time. He knew that he would be expected home about one o'clock to have something to eat; but as nothing had been expressly said to him, he took rather a savage pleasure in letting them expect, punishing his hunger. He saw a man selling hot potatoes; and he bought three and ate them, skins and all. Dick was not in the least troubled with proud notions: Leo would have looked askance at the tempting edible, and passed on the other side; Dick danced round the man's machine while he feasted, in the face and eyes of the passers-by. If Miss Davenal had but seen him!

Altogether, what with the slides, the hot potatoes, and the temper, Mr. Richard Davenal remained out long after dark. When he began to think it might be as well to return home, and to feel as if fifteen wolves were inside him fighting for their dinner, he was in some obscure and remote region of Chelsea, where the population was more crowded than aristocratic, and the ice abundant. Happening to cast his eyes to a clock in a baker's shop he saw that it wanted but twenty-five minutes to six.

"My?" ejaculated Dick in his dismay. Miss Davenal's dinner-hour had been altered from six to five while the boys were with her, and Dick had certainly meant to be home to time. He had not thought it was so late as this. Dick's hair stood on end, and the wolves fought desperately.

"Suppose old Bett should say I shan't have any dinner?"

The shop next door to the baker's was a cook's shop--as they are called: and perhaps Dick's dreadful doubt caused him irresistibly to linger for a fond moment at the window and gaze at the attractions inside. Under Dick's very nose was a steaming mound of beef just out of the pot, some parsnips round it; other joints were there in plenty; peas-pudding, plum-pudding, sausages, and a whole host of things irresistible to a boy in Dick's famishing condition. He mechanically put his hand into his pocket, lest a stray sixpence might by some miracle be there. In vain. Dick Davenal was one who could not keep money for an hour, and his having sufficient to buy the potatoes was a fact notable.

Hurried as he was, he could not tear himself from the tempting shop. The shopman, in a white apron, a great carving-knife and fork in his hand, was cutting thin slices from a cold round of beef and placing them in the scale on a piece of white paper. The balance went down, and he rolled the paper round the meat and handed it to the customer waiting for it, a young woman--or rather lady, for she looked like one--who wore a black veil over her face. She gave him sixpence and some halfpence in return, but the man did not seem to like the sixpence; he held it close to the gas and then showed it to her, and she put her veil aside and bent her face nearer while she looked at it.

If ever Dick Davenal believed he was in a dream he believed so then. He rubbed his eyes; he rubbed his frozen nose; he stared through the intervening steam; and he pinched himself to see whether he was awake. For that face was the face of his cousin, Mrs. Cray.

Dick could not believe his senses. The shopman apparently decided that the sixpence was a good one, and put it in his till, and the lady had left the shop before Dick recovered his bewilderment. He had believed Mr. and Mrs. Cray were abroad. From a shrewd boy like Dick it had been impossible to guard the secret that something was wrong; besides, he had heard of the failure of the Great Wheal Bang, and that its promoters were away, abroad or somewhere.

But that was surely Caroline gone out of the shop with a paper of meat in her hand! Dick's spirit went down to zero. However he might condescend to the purchase of hot potatoes, and such like stray escapades, he did not like to see Caroline buy cooked meat and carry it away with her. Dick knew that something or other must be all wrong, and he suddenly felt as timid as Leo.

She crossed the road and went down a by-street, where the lights were scanty and the houses poor. Dick followed her. He saw how tightly her veil was drawn over her face; and she walked with her head down: it might be to keep out the cold, or it might be to avoid observation.

She turned into a house on the left-hand side whose door stood open; a shabby-looking house, but sufficiently large. Dick, hardly certain in his own mind yet, deliberated whether he should follow her and show himself: and when he at length went to the door nobody was in sight. He took courage and knocked; and a woman came out of the parlour on the right.

"Is Mrs. Cray here?" asked Dick.

"Mrs. who?"

"Mrs. Cray. She's just gone in."

"There's nobody here of that name. Who's Mrs. Cray? You have mistook the house, young man." Dick had his wits about him, as the saying runs, and they were sufficiently alert to prevent his insisting on the point of its being Mrs. Cray. "I'm sure I saw some lady come in," said he.

"Mrs. Mark came in a minute ago, for I met her in the passage. First floor if you want her."

"Can I go up?" asked Dick.

"That's as you please," returned the woman, who was crusty enough to be first cousin to Mrs. Benn. "The other lodgers in the house is nothing to me, who goes up to 'em or who doesn't."

She retreated inside the parlour and banged the door. Dick stumbled upstairs in the dark, the words "first floor" having guided him. Some light came in from a window on the landing, and he distinctly heard Caroline's voice in the front room. Dick-fashion, he burst in without knocking.

Caroline gave a short scream. She was untying her bonnet, and the paper of meat, slowly unfolding itself, lay on the table. It was a plain sitting-room carpeted with drugget, a large sofa covered with dark blue stuff seeming to take up one side of it. A white cloth was spread on part of the table, with some tea-cups and saucers, a loaf of bread, and a piece of butter.

"Caroline, I was sure it was you!" The first moment of surprise over, Caroline threw herself on a chair and burst into tears. Dick sat down opposite to her and stared round the room, staring off his bewilderment. Poor Dick was not possessed of any superfluous sentiment, and the sobs and emotion only made him feel awkward. The sight of a home face was too much for Mrs. Cray.

"Is Mark here?"

Dick asked presently.

"No." Dick glanced round again, but he could see no door except the one he had entered at.

"I'm sure I heard you talking to somebody, Caroline. It made me know which was the room."

"I was talking to myself. The words I said were, 'I hope Mark will not be long,' and I suppose I spoke them aloud."

A few final sobs, and the emotion passed. Dick was timid, almost nervous, and he never remembered to have been so in his life. A thought crossed the boy's mind of what his uncle Richard would say, could he see this curious state of things.

"Do you live here, Caroline!"

"Yes. We went away in the country for a little time at first; but it was so out of the way of hearing anything, so dull, so wretched, that we came back again. Mark thought it would be better to come pretty near to the old neighbourhood; that there was less chance of our being looked for there than elsewhere."

"You don't have all the house."

"All the house!" echoed Caroline. "We only have this room and the use of the kitchen, which I hardly ever go down to. That sofa is a bed," she added, pointing to it. "Mark draws it out at night."

Dick felt more at sea than ever. "Has Mark got no money?"

Caroline shook her head. "There's a little left; not much. We did not save a thing from Grosvenor Place. People came in and took possession while Mark was away, and I got frightened and left it. Afterwards, when my clothes were asked for, they sent me a boxful of the poorest I had, and said those were all. I don't know whether it was that they kept the best, or that the maid-servants helped themselves to them. Dick!" she passionately added, "I'd rather die than have to bear all this."

"Do you have to go out and buy the meat?" questioned Dick, unable to get the practical part he had seen out a his head.

"There's a boy that waits on the lodgers, the landlady's son, and he goes on errands sometimes. Mark thought we should be safer in a house like this, where there are different lodgers, and one does not interfere with the concerns of the others; that we should be less likely to attract notice. In truth we were afraid to venture on a better place where persons might recognise us."

"Afraid of what?" questioned Dick.

"I'm sure I hardly know," she answered. "Of his being arrested, I suppose."

"I say, does Sara know you are here?"

Caroline shook her head. "I have written her a note twice, saying we are safe; but Mark would not let me give the address. Aunt Bettina has shaken us off, there's no doubt; she'll never forgive Mark."

"Forgive him for what!"

"Oh, altogether," returned Caroline with a gesture of impatience. "There was the leaving Hallingham, and Sara's money, and other things."

"Where is Mark?" continued Dick.

"He won't be long. He strolls out a little after dark, but he does not care to venture abroad by daylight. And so, you are up for the holidays, I suppose?"

Dick nodded. "Aunt Bett wouldn't have us at midsummer. But Leo broke his arm, and he wasn't strong, and she sent for him; and then she said I might come up for Christmas, and we could both go back to school together. I say, wasn't it unkind of her not to have us in the summer? She said her house was small. Summer holidays are jollier than winter ones, especially when they don't let you go on the ice."

Did a remembrance cross Caroline of somebody else who would not have them in the summer?--whose house was not small? Probably not. Caroline had room only for her own griefs. Since the falling of the blow she had existed in a state of bewilderment. The change was so great, the order of things so completely altered, that at times she believed she must be in a prolonged dream, and should shortly wake up to reality. As one who has suddenly put ashore in a foreign country, where the land, the customs, the people, and the tongue, are all strange to him, and he can only accept them passively, yielding himself perforce to the necessity of circumstances, so it was with Caroline Cray. Believe me, I am telling you no untrue story.

"How you cough?" exclaimed Dick, as she was interrupted by a heavy fit of coughing, not for the first time.

"I caught a bad cold. It was very bad for a day or two, and I lay in bed. O Dick! I wonder if I shall ever have a bedroom again!"

"Couldn't you have a bedroom as well as this room?" sensibly answered Dick.

"There was only this room to let when we came here, and we thought it would do. It's tolerably good-looking you see, and we are more to ourselves. Every week, too, we are hoping to leave it."

"Where to go to?"

"I don't know. Mark says something will be sure to turn up."

"I say, do they know about this in Barbadoes?"

"Not from us. I daresay Aunt Bettina has taken care to tell them. Is she as deaf as ever, Dick?"

"She's deafer. And she's getting a regular old woman. What do you think? she'd not let me go out skating this morning, for fear----"

A gentleman entered, and cut Dick's revelations short. The boy looked at him in puzzled bewilderment, for he thought he knew him, and yet did not. It was a full minute before Dick recognised him for Mark Cray.

Formerly Mark had whiskers and no moustache; now he had a moustache and no whiskers, and his beard was growing, and his face looked longer. He had on blue spectacles too. Altogether, Dick was hardly certain yet.

Mark did not seem glad to see him. In manner he rather appeared to resent the accident which had discovered them to Dick, than to feel pleasure at it. Caroline put the slices of beef upon a dish, made the tea, and asked Dick to partake.

But Dick declined. And nobody, perhaps, would have given careless Dick credit for the true motive, or for the real self-denial that it was to a hungry boy. He had somehow drawn a conclusion that Mr. and Mrs. Cray had not too much meat for themselves, and he would not lessen it.

"I can't stay now," he said rising, "I shall have Aunt Bett at me as it is. Goodnight, Mr. Cray; goodnight, Caroline."

Mr. Cray followed him down the stairs. "You must be very cautious not to say that you found us here," he said. "Can we depend upon you?"

"As if you couldn't!" returned Dick. "I know! A fellow of ours at school has got a big brother, and he has to be in hiding nine months at least out of every year. I'll tell nobody but Sara." He vaulted off, or perhaps Mark Cray's injunction might have been extended to Sara in particular. When he reached home, Miss Bettina, who had believed nothing less but that he was drowned, and had sent Neal to a circuit of police-stations, met him in the corridor, followed by Sara and Leo.

"You ungrateful boy! Where have you been?"

"Don't, Aunt Bettina! No need to seize hold of me in that way. I have only been sliding. I haven't been to the water."

"You shall go back to school tomorrow," said Miss Bettina, as she turned into the dining-room.

Dick caught his cousin by the arm. "You be off after Aunt Bett, Leo; I want to speak to Sara. I say," he continued in a whisper, as Leo obeyed him, "I have seen Caroline and Mark Cray!"

"Nonsense, Dick! Why did you stay out so and frighten us?"

"I have. I should have been in earlier but for that. Frightened? How stupid you must all be! As if I couldn't take care of myself. I saw Carine in a beef and pudding shop, buying cold meat, and I watched where she went to, and I've been there for half an hour, and I saw Mark. He has shaved off his whiskers, and wears blue----"

"Hush!" breathed Sara, as Dorcas came up the stairs. "You must tell me later."

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LI. WEARY DAYS

The cold, bitter, biting winter passed away, and when the lovely spring came round again little trace was left of its effects, save in the remembrance of those in whose homes sickness, or privation, or death, had been busy.

Two of those visitations had been rife in the poor house of Caroline Cray: sickness and privation. Perhaps you noticed Caroline's reply to Dick's question of whether Mark had no money: there was a little left, she said, not much. Left from what? Dick did not ask.

If ever an unfortunate company had come to grief more completely than other unfortunate companies, it was surely that noted one, the Great Wheal Bang. Sympathising friends--Barker's and Mark's--were wont to assure those gentlemen that they had "managed wretchedly:" and if we may dare to assume that the reproach was levelled at the fact of having secured nothing for themselves, it was a right one. On the day that Mark Cray went up to the offices for the last time he had but a trifling sum of money about him: Caroline had even less in her own purse; and that was all. Barker's word of precaution had secured the diamond ring and studs, and these were converted into money, Mark and Barker equally dividing the spoil. Barker, with his share, took a little tour abroad while the cloud blew over; Mark, as you have seen, went into hiding, and lived upon his part as long as it held out.

Yes, it was an unhappy fact, very debasing indeed after all the glory of Grosvenor Place, lowering as you may feel it to be to this history, Mr. Mark Cray hid himself by day, and slipped out to take the air at dusk in a moustache and blue spectacles. Mark Cray could but be a coward in the hour of trial; he ran from the danger instead of facing it. Had Mark but looked the angry shareholders and the trouble in the face, he need not have been so very fearful; but to look a difficulty in the face was not in the nature of Mark Cray. He scarcely understood what he was afraid of; he did not know what they could do to him--whether imprison him, or make him a bankrupt, or what; and Mark would rather have jumped into the sea than ascertain. He was exactly like a child who runs away screaming from a dark closet, and dare not look to see whether cause for terror is there. Some of us, my friends, have been sadly frightened at shadows.

When this state of affairs was to end, and what was to get Mark out of his difficulty, he did not at present see. As long as the money lasted he was not unduly anxious. He had great faith in something "turning up," he had unlimited faith in Barker; and Barker's letters were pretty frequent, and in the highest degree cheering. Barker happened to have a cousin, about the nineteenth remove, settled at Honfleur, in Normandie, and Barker had steered for the same port, and seemed to be living at ease there. Towards the close of the winter he wrote word to Mark that he had something good in contemplation, connected with Paris, and if it came to anything Mark should share in it.

But when Mark's money was gone things changed. He grew restless and gloomy. He could not starve, he could not go to the workhouse: he must do something. Miss Bettina Davenal would not help them: she said she could not--perhaps with justice. Leopold Davenal had been an expense to her, and was still; he went back to school after the Christmas holidays with Dick, but he was not strong yet, and sundry expensive extras were provided for him out of her pocket. That was not much: but a heavier expense had fallen upon her: for she had repaid Mr. Wheatley the two hundred pounds borrowed by Sara. Sara had disclosed to her aunt the fact of borrowing it, and in her pride Miss Bettina had made a sacrifice and repaid the sum. She had none left to bestow on Mark; there was clearly no help to be had from her.

And Caroline? You can take a look at her as she sat in the sun, which was shining into the room this bright day in early April. Perhaps you remember a remark Dr. Davenal once made--that Caroline was not one, as he believed, to bear well the adversities of life. Dr. Davenal was quite right: neither physically nor mentally did they agree with poor Caroline.

I don't know whether anybody gets ill at once under a great shock. Caroline had not. When it fell upon her she was too stunned, too entirely surprised, to be anything but bewildered. It may be questioned if a change so sudden--from seemingly assured prosperity to hiding and disgrace and poverty--has ever fallen. You may feel inclined to question it in this instance; nevertheless, I repeat that I am telling you the simple truth. The reaction had come now, and Caroline Cray gave way sadly. Her cough, that Dick remarked upon, had got well; but she would lie back in her chair all day, and it seemed next to impossible to get her out of it.

But if the body was at rest the mind was only the more active. Caroline's hours, in point of fact, were pretty equally divided between outward complaining and inward lamentation. Such lamentation is nearly always rebellious, and so was hers. The blow had been so complete; the change was so very great! All that pomp and vanity, all the luxuries, the carelessness, the pleasure attendant on that one past sunshiny wave in life's current, to have given place to this! Perhaps the worst mortification, looking back, was that the play now seemed to have been so unreal; as if they had had no right to indulge in it, were such fools to have embarked in it, worse than fools to have believed in it. Mortified, fretful, miserable, Caroline Cray seemed to live but in repining and repentance. Mark was different He neither repined nor repented; he was always restless, always expecting something to turn up; and he would stalk up and down the room, giving tongue to all sorts of wild visions of what he would do were he but clear of the world and the Great Wheal Bang.

As he was doing now. While Caroline sat listless and inert in her chair, Mark was indulging a dream of the future, sanguine as a child. He had lately taken to consult the newspapers, and one tempting advertisement in particular had attracted him. Mark Cray was getting that experience which comes inevitably in a life of vicissitude; he had yet to learn how many of these advertisements are but traps for the unwary, how next to impossible to be the one successful applicant, if they are genuine. But ever and anon Mark's dream was brought unpleasantly to a break, as the recollection intruded itself that he was not a free man.

"You see, Carine, if I were but clear of that resentful company, there are a hundred good things to be picked up. I'm sure there's a dozen at least in the paper every day. That's a splendid thing, I know, that one advertisement of this morning; any fellow securing that----"

"Where's the use of talking of it?" interrupted Carine. "It all comes to nothing. You know you are not clear of the company."

She spoke in a fretful, peevish tone. Just at first, Mark's sanguine visions of rising again more gloriously than ever, like a phoenix from its ashes, had somewhat infected her, but she was learning what they were worth: as she had just said, "it all came to nothing." Utterly weary was her spirit. Hope deferred making the heart sick; but hope destroyed--and it had come to that with Caroline Cray--maketh it die.

Physical privation tells terribly on the mind as well as the body, and it was telling upon her. They were next door to starving. What made it worse for Caroline was, that hers was a constitution requiring the best of nourishment. The Davenals were a healthy family, but there had been a taint in her mother's blood. These physical privations would alone have made Caroline fretful: and she could not help it.

"I shall be clear of it soon," said Mark.

"But how?"

Even sanguine Mark could not detail the precise means by which the emancipation was to be accomplished. "Oh, somehow," said he, in his careless way. "The company must wind itself up."

"Why can't you apply to Oswald?"

He shook his head very decisively. "I can't face him. And if I did, he'd not assist me. He has lost too much, and is sure to bear malice."

"Are we to go on like this for ever?"

"I hope we shan't go on so for a month. I wish you'd not talk so, Caroline."

"How am I to talk? You have been saying the same all along?"

"Well it's of no good your looking on the dark side of things. You are always doing it now." Caroline was silent for a few moments, when she suddenly lifted up her hands, and her voice broke into a passionate wail.

"Oh, if that money had been but settled on me, as Uncle Richard wished! This must be a judgment upon us for defying his last commands."

"Rubbish!" said Mark.

"Are we to go out in the street and beg?" she plaintively asked.

"Are you going to be a child? One must get a rub or two through life; Caroline. Barker has been down upon his beam-ends five or six times, just as much as we are, but it has always come right again."

She relapsed into a fit of weeping; half her hours, abed and up, were so spent. Mark had ceased either to soothe or reproach; he had tried both, but ineffectually; and now was fain to let her weep simply because he was helpless to prevent it. Mark Cray could not be unkind; he was not that; but he was hardly the right sort of husband for adversity. Shallow-minded, shallow-hearted, possessed of no depth of feeling, there seemed something wanting in him now. He did his best to cheer his wife; but the result was not satisfactory.

The fits of weeping would sometimes go on to hysterics; sometimes stopped just short of it. As this one stopped. Caroline suddenly roused herself and looked round wearily at the mantelpiece, as if there were a timepiece there, perhaps in momentary forgetfulness. Grosvenor Place had been rich in such; elegant bijoux, worth no end of money.

"I wish Sara would come!"

"Sara?" repeated Mark, halting in his monotonous promenade.

"I wrote to her to come."

She spoke the words half defiantly. Sara, in consequence of the discovery of Mr. Dick Davenal, had come to see them once; but she was not encouraged to repeat the visit. Mark especially was against it. "If we have them coming here, we may get dropped upon," he had said to his wife; "it would never do." But poor Caroline, wearied out with the wretched loneliness that seemed to continue month after month, and to have no end, had at length written to her cousin.

"Why did you not tell me, Caroline?"

"You might have forbidden me."

"It's just what I should have done. We don't want her here. What good will she do?"

"What good will anything in the world do? I wish I was out of it!"

Mark Cray began to ask himself the question whether the expected visit could be stopped now. He had an intense dislike to meet Sara Davenal; we all shrink from meeting those whom we have injured directly or indirectly. But the question was set at rest by Sara's entrance, and Mark, after a short greeting, disappeared.

All Caroline did for the first quarter of an hour was to sob hysterically. Sara, in slighter mourning now, unfastened the white crape strings of her straw bonnet, and sat over her in dismay, her sweet face full of compassion for the change she saw.

"I want to know how it is all to end," were the first distinct words Caroline uttered. "Am I to stop here till I die?"

A question difficult for Sara to answer. "Is Mark doing nothing?" she asked.

"He is doing nothing. He can't do anything while that business of the Wheal Bang hangs over him. If that were settled, there are fifty things he might get into. And if it can't be settled, we may both of us as well die at once as be famished to death. For that's what it would come to. Those poor creatures that shut themselves up with the fumes of charcoal are not so much to blame, after all."

"Caroline!"

"Well, I mean it," returned Caroline, a sullen tone beginning to mingle with her sobs. "It is all very well for you to exclaim 'Caroline!' as if I were mad; but you don't know what sorrow is. Nobody does until poverty comes."

Sara thought that there were worse sorrows to be borne in the world than poverty. And she was right; bad as poverty, to those unaccustomed to it, undoubtedly is. "What can I do for you?" she gently asked.

"Here we are, buried alive, and nobody comes near us! Sara, if you only knew how I yearn for a home face!--how I lie and cry for it!"

"Mark--and you also--said I must not come, lest it might lead to discovery."

"Neither must you, I suppose. At least, not often. But sometimes I think it would be well if discovery happened. There'd be an end to this uncertainty at any rate. What is Mark to do if the thing can't get settled?"

She asked the question in strange earnestness, and Sara was struck with the yearning beauty of the lifted face, of the wasting form. The violet eyes were larger than of yore, the cheeks were of a delicate crimson, and the hands were long and white and thin.

"But can it not get settled?" returned Sara.

"We have nothing to eat, you know. That is, there's bread, and suchlike; but I can't eat it. Mark will dine on bread and cheese, or a thick slice of bread and butter; and he really does not seem to mind; but I can't. O Sara! if I could but have a good dinner!"

Sara caught up her breath. What comfort could she give?

"Sometimes, when I am sick with hunger I lie and imagine the dinners we used to sit down to in Grosvenor Place. I imagine it, you know; that they are before me now, and I am eating them. Turkey and bread sauce, or salmon and lobster sauce--it's nearly always substantial things I think of, I suppose because of my hunger--and I quite seem to taste them, to eat through a whole plateful Sara, it is true."

Sara Davenal had heard the doctor speak of some kinds of hunger as a disease, and could only suppose this must be one. "I wish--I wish I could help you," she murmured.

"You can't, I know. You have it not in your power, and Aunt Bettina won't; she's implacable. I did not send for you to ask it. But, Sara, there's Oswald Cray. If you would ask him perhaps he might do something for Mark."

The words startled her. "Ask Oswald Cray!"

"I think if he would listen to any one, it is you. I don't forget how fond he used to be of you in the days gone by. Indeed, I got to think--but I was wrong, I suppose, so let it pass. O Sara, you'll ask him for my sake! Don't abandon us quite. I think he might help Mark out of this difficulty. Perhaps he might see the company, and get them to be friendly with Mark; or perhaps he'd pay a few of Mark's pressing debts. It might not take much money?"

"But why cannot Mark ask him?"

"He won't. Mark would rather it came to the charcoal--not that anything of that sort would ever be in his line--than apply to Oswald. There was some trouble between them about the money Oswald put into the mine, and Mark has kept away from him since. That is just why I have sent for you. Mark will not apply to Oswald; no, not if it were to save him from prison; and I don't feel well enough to go, and my bonnet's shabby. O Sara, when a recollection comes over me--and it is always coming--of the nice clothes I had, and how foolishly they were abandoned, I feel fit to go mad. Anyway, unless a change takes place, I shan't want clothes long. Sara, surely you will do for us so trifling a thing as this!"

To pursue the interview would be waste of time. When Sara Davenal quitted her cousin it was with a given promise to see Oswald Cray. Very much indeed did she shrink from it; as much as she had shrunk from those interviews with Mr. Alfred King: but she saw no other means to help them; and in truth she did not anticipate much would come of this.

Money seemed to be wanted everywhere. Miss Bettina complained sadly of shortness; the repaid money to Mr. Wheatley had crippled her: and Captain Davenal's letters to Sara dwelt on his embarrassments. They told her privately how "hard up" he was, and in his random meaningless way said he should have to run away to Australia and dig for gold, unless some dropped shortly from the clouds. Captain Davenal's wife, as it turned out, was only an heiress in prospective; but he appeared excessively fond of her, anxious to supply her with every luxury: and we all know that a married captain's pay, without other means, does not accord with luxuries in India.

His wife! Over and over again Sara asked herself how it was possible Edward could have married her, how he could speak of her in the fond manner that he did, if there really existed that impediment. All the trouble and the care seemed to fall upon herself individually--upon her own hidden heart. So long as there existed a grain of doubt, she could not speak of this to Edward; and, besides, the letter might fall into the hands of his young wife.

Personally, Sara had not been annoyed by Catherine Wentworth. Occasionally through the winter and spring she had seen this young woman hovering outside waiting for Neal; twice she had come boldly to the house, knocked, and asked for him. Miss Bettina's keen eyes had seen her once. "Is it one of your nieces, Neal?" she graciously asked; "pray, invite her in." "Oh no, ma'am, she is no relative of mine," returned Neal, with pointed emphasis. Sara's breath had quickened at the colloquy, but it ended there. She was surprised at this immunity from personal annoyance, and wondered how long it would be hers.

It was a coincidence rather remarkable that Oswald Cray should be at the door when Sara returned home from the visit to Caroline. About once in three months he made a call of politeness on Miss Davenal. Sara met him turning away: Miss Davenal was out, and he had left his card. He would have passed her after shaking hands--his visit was not to her--but Sara detained him, her cheeks in a glow at having to do it.

"It is very strange," she exclaimed. "I was but now thinking how I could best get to see you. Do you mind coming in with me for five minutes?"

He returned with her, perhaps all too willingly. A great many of us are tempted to stray from the strict line of duty marked out in our own minds. Sara led the way to the drawing-room, and told him where she had been, and what Caroline said. The declining sun--for the afternoon was drawing towards its close--fell on Oswald as he sat listening to her. It was the same noble face that she had so loved to look upon--calm, still, good; but somehow all its youth seemed to have passed away. The eyes had a look of habitual sadness; some silver threads mingled with the dark chestnut hair. She simply repeated Mrs. Cray's words, almost as a child repeats a lesson; throwing no persuasive tone, no pleading of her own into it, for she felt that she had no right to do so.

"Did Mark Cray wish you to ask me this?" he inquired, as she ceased the tale.

"Not Mark; only Caroline. By what she said, I fancy Mark Cray feels--feels ashamed to ask you anything."

"And he well may," answered Oswald, the old look of pride unpleasingly crossing his face. "I could have borne almost anything from Mark better than deliberate deceit. I cannot, no I cannot forgive it."

Neither spoke for a few moments. Sara had untied her bonnet-strings, and sat with her face a little bent, the eyes raised straight to him in their simple trust. He had one glove off; it was a black one; and he was gently swaying it as his elbow rested on the arm of the chair.

"I cannot quite understand what it is that Mrs. Cray would ask me. She cannot seriously expect that I should pay Mark's debts. His personal debts alone would take, I imagine, a far deeper purse than mine. I am but making my way upwards, and Mark has taken care to put me back to an extent I shall not readily recover. Pay Marcus Cray's debts! It is not within my power, any more than it would be within my will."

Sara was silent, save for a glance. It said how foolish she herself had thought the demand.

"I very much fear that Mark Cray is one of those men who want others to 'pay their debts' throughout life," he resumed. "There are such. Were he free tomorrow he would be embarrassed again in a year. To assist such men is no charity."

"Do you think anything can be done to clear him of the company?"

"Not while he keeps aloof. Mark himself must know it to be impossible, or ought to know it. The only chance for these affairs to be wound up is for him and Barker to come forward."

"Yes, I thought so," she answered. "But--Caroline tells me--they are near upon starving!"

"More shame to Mark!" exclaimed Oswald. "I cannot describe to you how this affair has pained me. Mark is my father's son, and his disgrace seems to be reflected upon me. His hiding himself is the worst part of it all. While he does so he is only prolonging the trouble and the ill. Believe me, it would not be a kindness to help Mark. Let him come forward as a man and a gentleman ought; that would be the best help to him."

Sara felt that he was right; but she felt also that Mark would not come forward; and what was to be the ending?

"They are living in only one room; it is at--."

"Don't tell it me?" impulsively interrupted Oswald, something like anger in his tone. "I would not for the world be made cognisant of Marcus Cray's hiding-place. People have come to me for it times and again; and I am thankful to assure them in all truth that I know it not."

He rose, as if wishing to put an end to the subject, and held out his hand to Sara.

"At least you will forgive me for presuming to trouble you so far," she murmured. "I could not help it: Caroline besought me very piteously."

His dark blue eyes, so earnestly bent on her, gave sufficient answer, even without the pressure of the hand, the tender tone of the low words.

"You should not speak of it in that light. If you knew how great a pleasure it is to me for you to ask me anything! I had almost said it is the only one left to me in my matter-of-fact working life. You and I have none too much of such: it seems to me that we both have to suffer for the wrong-doing of others."

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LII. SOMETHING "TURNED UP" AT LAST

You might have taken a picture of the group in Mark Cray's room today, if only by way of contrast to that of yesterday. The living figures were the same: Mark, his wife, and Sara Davenal; but the contrast lay in the expression, in the tone of feeling. Yesterday it had been nothing but gloom, depression, almost despair; today it was all hope and hilarity. The cloud had gone from the faces of Mark and his wife, to give place to almost triumphal gaiety. On Sara's there was a look of pleasure, mingled with perplexity, as if she would rejoice with them, but as yet scarcely understood what there was to rejoice at.

Poor Mark Cray! The very slightest straw of expectancy was sufficient to send his sanguine spirit into the clouds. All this change had been wrought by a letter from Barker, which the eleven o'clock post had brought. Barker, who was another of Mark's stamp, had suddenly discovered, or thought he had discovered, that an English doctor was wanted in Honfleur. He wrote over to Mark, strongly recommending him to come and establish himself, and to lose no time, lest the opening should be snapped up. "There's a goodish many English here," said the letter, "and not the ghost of an English doctor. If an English fellow gets ill he must die, unless he chooses to call in a French surgeon, and the chances are he'll bleed him to death. If you'll believe me, they bled a young English lady this week for measles! She seemed ill, and her friends called in a Monsieur Somebody, with a name as unpronounceable as that mine of ours, and he looked at her, and asked a few questions, said he thought she was sickening for some disorder or other, and therefore he'd bleed her. Well, he did bleed her, and ordered her some drink, called tissan, or some such name--I always shirked my French at school--which it's my belief is made of nothing but sugar and water. Bleeding for measles! The English say to me: 'What a boon it would be if we had a countryman established here as doctor!' So Mark, old fellow, I've thought of you; and my advice to you is, come and try it until something better turns up. I'm off to Paris shortly, but I'll stop here and welcome you first, if you decide to come. I know you hate your profession, and so do I, or I might try the opening myself; but if you don't mind taking it up as a temporary thing, I think you may manage to find enough practice to get along with. Living's cheap over here, and the scenery's lovely, though the town isn't much. Havre is only twenty minutes' distance by steamer; it's over the water--the manche, as they call it; and Harfleur lies by its side, nearer to us still. We have got an English church, you can tell Mrs. Cray, if she's particular upon the point; we had a splendid sermon last Sunday, preached by a stranger. Altogether, it seems to me to be worth your thinking of under present circumstances, and when the horizon has cleared a little, you can leave the place as readily as you come to it."

And this was the golden bait that had laid tempting hold on Mark. Perhaps to a man "under his present circumstances," as Mr. Barker put it, it did look favourable. Estimating things by comparison, it looked more than well. That one present room he was in, the dinnerless days, the blue spectacles, and all the rest of the little disagreeables you have heard hints of, were things to be flown from with the fleetest wings, if they could be exchanged for the position of a flourishing doctor in Honfleur. Mark was on his exalted ropes again, and his wife seemed to have thrown off her sorrow and her ailments.

The first consideration was money. This desirable place could not be reached without some. Even sanguine Mark allowed that. Just a little, to allow of their getting there, and a pound or so to pay for lodgings, and carry them on until his patients came in. He and his wife were deep in the difficulties of the matter when Sara interrupted them. She had come to tell Caroline of her ill-success with Oswald Cray.

But Caroline was in no mood to listen to aught that savoured of non-success, and Sara's news was overwhelmed with the other. Barker's letter was read to her, and Mark enlarged upon it in his sanguine strain.

"I knew something would turn up," said he. "Barker's a right good fellow not to keep it himself. Those continental towns are charming, if you can put up with the sameness: of course they get a little same after a time. Not all of them, though. We stopped three months in Boulogne once, before my father's death, and were sorry to come away from it. Only think how this will set Carine up, after all the late bother."

"I fear Honfleur is a small place to support a medical man," observed Sara, who could look at the proposal more dispassionately than the other two.

"It's a lovely place," fired Mark. "Barker says so. It's renowned in history. If the places he mentions are not of note, I'd like to know what are. History tells us that! Why, it was from Harfleur that the children of one of the kings set sail and were overtaken by a storm and drowned, and the poor old father never was seen to smile again. I'm sure I remember having to learn that in my history. Honfleur a small place! Not support a doctor! You must be saying it for the purpose, Sara!"

"Well, Mark, I don't think it is large; but what I meant was, support an English doctor. Are there enough English living there to do that?"

"Of course there are," returned Mark, whose sanguine mood resented nothing more than a check. "Would Barker say there was an opening if there wasn't?"

She could have retorted that Barker had no more judgment than Mark; but it was utterly useless, and she held her tongue. Besides, she did hope that Mark might pick up some practice, and any change seemed an improvement upon the present state of things.

It seemed that there was only Oswald to apply to in the difficulty, and Sara was asked to do it. She declined. Upon which Caroline, in a defiant spirit--for she was angry with her--said she would go to him herself.

She kept her resolution. At the dusk of evening, not before, Caroline Cray took her way to Parliament Street, her step quick, her mood defiant still; not defiant against anybody in particular, but against the whole world save herself and Mark.

But when she came in view of the house she slackened her pace, going on slowly and cautiously, as one who wishes to reconnoitre the ground beforehand. What was she afraid of? Of meeting any of the wrathful shareholders of the Great Wheal Bang? If so, it was surely a singular coincidence that one of them should at that very moment be at Oswald Cray's door.

He was being shown out by a lady in an inverted bonnet, if the term may be held applicable--brim downwards, crown upwards. Caroline recognised him at once as a Major Pratt, rather an extensive shareholder. Some acquaintanceship had sprung up between him and Mark, and the Major had dined twice in Grosvenor Place. Mrs. Cray shrank into the shade, and drew her veil tighter over her face. He passed without seeing her, and Mrs. Benn, after taking a look out up and down the street, gave the door a bang after him.

Suffering a few moments to elapse, Caroline went to the door and knocked at it. Mrs. Benn had just reached her kitchen, and it went very much against the grain of that amiable lady's temper to have to go up again. Flinging open the door, she confronted the applicant, opposition written in every line of her face, in every movement of her working arms, bared to the elbow.

"I want to see Mr. Oswald Cray."

"You want to see Mr. Oswald Cray!" repeated Mrs. Benn, the tight and disguising veil completing her ire. "Well, that's modest! When folks come here they ask if they can see him--and that's pretty bold for young women. What might you want, pray?"

"I want him," angrily returned Caroline. "Is he at home? If so, show me into his presence."

Something in the refinement of the voice, in its tone of command, struck on the ear of Mrs. Benn. But she was at warfare with the world that evening, and her prejudices were unconquerable.

"I don't know about that. The other night a lady walked herself here, as bold as could be, and said she wanted to see Mr. Oswald Cray; and when I let her go in, it turned out that she had got some smuggled cambric handkechers to sell, and she kept worriting of him to buy for five-and-twenty minutes. 'Mrs. Benn,' says he to me afterwards in his quiet way, 'I don't want them sort of people showed in to me.' But how be I to know one sort from----Oh, so it is you, is it, Joe Benn? I wonder you come home at all, I do! You have been two mortal half-hours gone, and nothing but visitors a-tramping in and out. Perhaps you'll attend to 'em."

Caroline turned instinctively to the respectable-looking man who approached the door. "I wish to see Mr. Oswald Cray. My business is of importance."

"Certainly, ma'am. Is Mr. Oswald Cray alone?" he asked of his wife.

"Yes, he is alone. And I should think he'd like to remain alone, if only for a moment's peace and quiet. He can't get no rest at his work, any more than I can at mine."

She stood before Oswald with her veil thrown back, her face working with emotion, her hands clasped. The table was between them. Benn had closed the door after showing her in, and Oswald, who was busy over some tracings, rose and stared in very astonishment. She gave a summary of her business in a rapid, breathless manner, as if fearing there would be no time left to tell it in. Mark had at length an opening of escape from the present misery, if he could only be helped to embrace it. A surgeon was wanted at Honfleur, and the place was offered to him.

Oswald pressed her to a chair, sat down, and questioned her.

"Why does not Mark come forward and show himself?" he presently asked.

"Come forward and show himself?" she repeated. "What, and get put into prison?"

"He must come, sooner or later. He cannot remain a proscribed man all his life. What end has he in view by remaining concealed? What does he promise himself by it?"

"I don't know."

"But Mark ought to know. He must be aware that there's an imperative necessity for his coming forward; that it is a thing there is no escaping. What does he wait for?"

"He says he wants the storm to blow over first."

"The storm will not blow over. Were Mark to hide himself for ten years, and then appear, it would only raise itself again. The very best thing that he can do is to appear and face it."

"Then he never will--at least, not yet awhile. And, Oswald, I don't think you are a brother if you can wish him to do it. But I did not come here to discuss that," she added. "I came to ask if you would lend me--me, not Mark--the trifle necessary to take us over the water. I will pay you back again if I have to save it up by sixpences."

She betrayed more restlessness of manner than Oswald had ever observed. Since her entrance she had been incessantly taking off and putting on the left-hand glove. He thought her changed. Her face looked worn, her eyes anxious.

"It would be doing you no kindness, Mrs. Cray. Believe me, the only plan open to Mark is to come forward and meet the company. His stopping away makes things worse. Major Pratt was here just before you came in, asking if I could give him news of Mark. I am tempted to wish often that I had no connection with him. Tell him to face this."

"I will not tell him," she answered, her cheeks crimson, her violet-blue eyes shining with a purple light. "If you will not advance me these poor few pounds that I plead to you for there'll be nothing for us but to lie down and die. I have not"--she paused, struggling with her emotion--"I have not had a proper meal these three months; I feel often sick with want. Sometimes I wish I was with Uncle Richard."

Oswald hesitated, whether to ring at once for refreshment or to wait until her emotion had spent itself. He compassionated her with his whole heart.

"What would ten or twenty pounds be to you?" she resumed. "Ten might take us there; twenty would seem like a fortune. Won't you give us a chance of life?"

"It is not the money I think of; it is not indeed, Mrs. Cray. But Mark ought not to go to Honfleur while these clouds are hanging over him."

"Let me have the money," she pleaded; "let me have it. I don't want you to give it me tonight, only to promise it to me. Uncle Richard would have done as much for you."

What was he to do? What would you have done, my reader? Upright, honourable just though he was, he did not resist those tearful eyes, those pleading hands, and he promised her the money that would carry Mark Cray farther and farther away from his creditors.

"And now what will you take?" he asked, ringing the bell.

"Nothing. I don't think I am as strong as I was; and in moments of excitement I feel unable to touch bit or drop. Wine? no, I am not strong, I say; I am not used to wine now; only half a glass of it, and I should hardly walk home." He did not intend that she should walk, he told her; and he induced her to take a very little wine, but she could not eat. Then he gave her his arm downstairs.

Mrs. Benn met them in the hall. Caroline hastily drew her veil over her face, but not before the woman had caught a glimpse of her features. Oswald let himself out at the door, and shut it after him, and Mrs. Benn backed against the wall to recover her amazement.

"Mrs. Cray!--his brother's wife! them that are in hiding! And the last time she was here it was in a coach and four, as may be said, with her feathers in her bonnet and her satins on her back! What a world this is for change--and work! Yes she have just gone out, that there lady, Joe Benn, and the master with her. And you not up to open the door!"

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