the golden horseshoe

Chapter I The Artistic Atmosphere

A noisy knocking startled Corbyn, brush in hand before his canvas and scowling blackly at the bare studio walls.

It preluded the entrance of a prosperous-looking youth, trimly attired in tight-fitting garments of pronouncedly English cut, and carrying a cane. From the soles of his neat shoes to the crown of his hat he was the very pink and pattern of decorous propriety. Even the plain leather watch-guard he wore outside his double-breasted waistcoat seemed but to emphasise the solidity of his social and financial standing; it was as though he had no need to advertise by means of a gold chain the fact that to the unseen end of it there was attached the eighteen-carat diamond-capped chronometer with which his greatgrandfather had timed the attack at Waterloo.

He greeted the preoccupied artist genteelly and said with suave directness, “I wish you’d lend me a V, old chap. I haven’t seen such a sight as a 1 cheque for centuries, and some infernal fellow’s had the impudence to stick a dispossess on the door of my den. I think it would be wise to appease my landlord with at least a five-dollar bill.”

Corbyn did not at once reply. He stood still, staring at his visitor, pipe in mouth, thumbin palette, a shadow on his forehead, only his eyes showing cognisance that he was not alone: a young man, thin-faced, tanned, athletic in appearance despite his careless studio dress, a man of open air propensities, of the stamp that they mint at Yale.

“Florian’s dead, Allardyce,” he at length answered, his tone unusually grave. “I’m emptyhanded. I’m trying to get this canvas covered on the chance that it may fetch 4

The other rose in haste from the decrepit chair on which he had cautiously seated himself, and drew from his waistcoat-pocket a rusty steel watch.

“The deuce!” he said, and moved towards the door. His exclamation spoke quick, sympathetic understanding.

“TI be back within half an hour and bring some money with me.”

Corbyn heard him clatter downstairs, and returned to his own task with a groan of disgust.

“T can’t paint pictures; not to sell, at any rate,”’ he told his usual confidant, the limp lay-figure which was all the model he could afford at that moment. “T never could. I'll never be able to.

“The only profitable opening on Fifth Avenue for my brush is with the broom-and-helmet brigade!”

He glared at the very creditable sketch before him, and broke into doleful song:

“*W hite—wings—that never—grow weary,’ ”’ and from far below there came a voice which finished for him:

“ * They carry me—cheerily—over the—sea.’ ”’

His face lit up, he laid aside the implements of his craft and hurried out into the dingy hall-way as there came clambering up one not unlike himself in build but fairer of complexion, with twinkling Irish eyes, who forthwith embraced him.

“Dennis O’Dare presents Himself—in one act,” said that gentleman a little breathlessly, and “ Hello, Denny!” Corbyn cried in very genuine welcome. “Where have you sprung from? When did you get back to Broadway? How are you, eh? What’s good ?”

“Ask nothing more of me, sweet!” implored the newcomer with melodramatic gesture. “Ask nothing more, nothing more—until you’ve helped me to a little low seat and a big high-ball. ‘These stairs are steeper every time I climb them, and What ? Nothing doing! Ales, wines and spirits all run dry ?

“Oh, my prophetic soul, my Corbyn! How sharper is it than a serpent’s tooth—to have an unquenched thirst!”

“I’m drefful sorry, Denny,” Corbyn apologised, “but—there’s something rotten in the state of my exchequer. The oil and colour trade’s gone back on me. I’m all to the bad this Fall, and—Florian’s dead.”

“Not Fifi’s brother?”

“Fifi’s brother. He died two days ago, and she’s left penniless. His illness cost them everything. ve done all I could for them, which wasn’t much, of course. And now I must see her through somehow; I promised him. That’s why the cupboard’s bare.

I haven’t even

O’Dare held up a hand in protest. “You talk, talk, talk,” he complained, “until my head goes round; and all J want to know is whether a ten would be of any use to you. I’ve got one in my jeans, and here it is. Now not another word, or you and Ill part in pain and anger, and Here’s the British lion with a big bundle of filthy lucre.

“What ho, without! I give thee greeting, good my lord.”

“What, Denny!” exclaimed the Englishman delightedly, dropping the bulky burden he had brought with him. “I’m deuced glad to see you again, old chap. Manhattan’s been a howling wilderness since you set out for Bullion City. How d’ye do? Eh? I’m deuced glad to see you.

“Speaking of bullion, I’ve brought you an X, Corbyn. Best I could do at such short notice, and Tm afraid I'll have to take it out in board and lodging too—I’ve brought my bedding with me, you’ll observe.”

Corbyn looked anxious. “But—but you haven’t given up your own place, have you, Allardyce?” he asked. “TI should have told you cS

“Tm homeless,” answered Allardyce. “I’ve parted with all my worldly possessions except these blankets and the clothes I stand in for ten paper dollars—and a receipt for rent overdue, to date. My landlord let me go without so much as shedding a tear.

“Don’t fuss. We'll camp here together until the next earthquake.”

“But Denny’s cashed in a ten for Fifi,” Corbyn responded somewhat vexedly. “I wish I could have let you know in time.”

“ However, we'd better settle—you’d better settle between you how much ic

“You talk, talk, talk!” snorted Dennis O’Dare. “Why don’t you take the girl her twenty dollars, eh ?”

“Cut loose,’ commanded Allardyce. “I haven’t time to argue with you.”

Corbyn obeyed with the greatest good will, and, after he had gone, his two guests grinned at each other genially.

“Tl stake my shirt you haven’t even a bronze Indian left to bless yourself with,” the actor adventured.

“Bet you a blanket I haven’t any less than you,” retorted his companion, and O’Dare laughed delightedly.

“T knew it! J knew it!” he asserted. “ You'll never prosper in business like me, my boy; you're too extravagant.”

“I’m economical; I’ve got two silver dollars saved up. Yes, right here.” He tapped a trouser-pocket. “And now you owe me a blanket. That’s how I accumulate wealth.”

“Poor Corbyn’s still at outs with his dad?” he went on more gravely, and Allardyce nodded.

“The old man’s as hard as nails,” he replied. “He has no use for a son outside the business, and Corbyn’s got about as much head for business as you or I, Denny. It’s our misfortune, but I don’t see that we should be blamed because we were born that way. And, after all, this is a free country. There’s no Jaw that I know of for forcing round pegs into square holes.

“Tf my father had been a business man and insisted on my following in his footsteps, I'd have followed. But within a week he’d have offered me half his remaining fortune to get out again, and stay out. Corbyn’s too conscientious to stick the old gentleman for the price of experience, and all the return he’s got for his scruples so far is the key of the street.”

“He'll come out right side up in the end, all the same,” said O’Dare. “I’ve known Corbyn ever since we were at college together. He'll stay the course, or drop dead—but he won’t give up. And—— Here he comes.”

Corbyn looked depressed as he entered and threw himself down on the rickety couch. He had stopped to open his letter-box in the hall-way both going and coming, but found it empty. “Poor Fifi!” he said presently. “It’s not six months yet since she came be)

over to nurse her brother, and now

“Will she go back to Europe?” asked Allardyce. “What does she think of doing?”

The artist shook his head. “She hasn’t a living soul to go to,” he replied. “Stephan was all the world to her.

“No, she’s made up her mind to stay right here and seek work till she finds it. She’s just as plucky as her brother was, and just as proud. She won’t be idle long, ’m sure, and with the money you two have put up for her she ought to manage. I had hard work to make her take it, but she’s a dollar or two short since the funeral, and I succeeded in the end.

“She’s been to see about a berth already, and

He was about to express her gratitude and his for the most timely helping hand when O’Dare, foreseeing that, broke in:

“Tt’s up to us three, then, to do a deal in futures,” he suggested. “I’m on the kerb myself—the idle of Broadway, you know—and have been for so long that ve almost made up my mind to move.”

“Then, why the devil did you turn in that ten?” Corbyn interposed. “I thought you had just got back to town and were still wallowing in wealth, 39 or

“Now don’t butt in,’ O’Dare commented, in mild reproof. “Put that in your mouth, and smoke it while I occupy the pulpit.” He produced three black cigars and passed them round.

“T may as well admit,” he resumed, having lit his own, “that I’ve been back from Bullion City— falsely so called, I assure you—for a full month. j reached the Grand Central Station without a cent. That’s why I haven’t been here before, you'll understand—and there’s no use kicking about it now, Corbyn.

“Since then I’ve worn a rut in the Rialto, with the usual result. My talents are thrown away in New York and I haven’t been able to get grub-wages to go on the Road again. I’ve even tried vaudeville, with the same result. Nothing doing.

“Tm down and out,” he ended abruptly.

“Me too,” said Corbyn with a wry grimace. “1 chucked the illustrating game for Art with a big A before I ought to, and forthwith ceased to earn a living.”

They looked at Allardyce, and he took up the tale. “My expenses in Manhattan,’’ he said precisely, “seem to exceed my earning capacity by some three hundred and fifty per cent. I haven’t sold a manuscript for months, so last night I burned the lot. It bores me to think about things. I'm going on the wallaby again. That’s my short story.”

“Then we're all three in the same street—which is Queer Street,” O’Dare summed up judicially. “Who knows of any way out ?”

“Tm going on the wallaby again,” repeated Allardyce, “and that’s as good a way as any.”

The actor looked intently at him. “ But is it wide enough for three ?” he asked, with evident anxiety. “Don’t joke about it, Allardyce. I’m all in earnest.”

“For twenty,” the other assured him, and Corbyn also looked relieved. “Here it is. Light the gas and see for yourselves.”

He drew forth an apparently empty pocket-book, from which he extracted a newspaper-clipping, and handed the latter to O’Dare.

Corbyn struck a match and lit a stump of candle— “The gas supply’s cut off,’ he explained—whereafter Dennis read aloud:

*** Wanted—Twenty young men for extremely hazardous exploring expedition: must be acquainted with the use of fire-arms and be able to stand severe marching: mounted: ex-soldiers preferred. Write full particulars to Barr, Amberley House, Mobile, Ala.’ ”

He rose, and, making joyful outcry, pranced about the room.

“* Now isn’t that a lucky strike!” he cried. “ Where did you i

“T cut it out of Sunday’s paper,” Allardyce proceeded, while his friends listened with breathless interest, “and wrote the amiable Barr that afternoon.

“‘Here’s his reply.”

He passed to O’Dare a telegram from Mobile which said:

“ Look out for Rose, Fifth Avenue Hotel, Manhattan, Saturday morning ten.”

And that was all. There was no signature.

“Anything else?” asked Corbyn, and Allardyce shcok his head.

*To-morrow’s Saturday,” said O’Dare, and they all fell silent.

The candle stump burned out, and still they sat there smoking contemplatively. Outside, in’ Twenty-third Street, it was snowing. ‘The surface-cars slipped past without their customary whiz and rattle. There was no rumble of wheels on the asphalt. Only a subdued murmur, very different — from the ordinary staccato outcry of the traffic there, came skywards as far as the studio.

“Tt’s very quiet here,” Allardyce remarked inconsequently.

“The building is empty after business hours except for this floor,’ Corbyn answered. “Do you think there’s anything in that advertisement ?”

“Tt reads like revolution,” O’Dare suggested, and the indifferent Englishman nodded entire agreement.

“And what if it does?” the Irishman added doughtily, his mind made up.

“A revolution, in our circumstances, is what we want. I’m with you, Allardyce.”

“Wait a minute,’ begged Corbyn, and left the room. He hurried downstairs to his letter-box. It was still empty, and the last mail delivery for the day had been made. He retraced his steps with bent head, a sudden, desperate resolution taking concrete shape in his mind. The reason therefor he expressed to himself in words, but beneath his breath, as he climbed the steep, dark staircase.

“T wouldn’t have believed it of her,’’ he whispered grievously. “Iwas poor enough before, God knows, but P’m bankrupt now, since she’s deprived me of hope and faith.”

“Count me in, too,” he told his friends from the doorway, and was glad that the gloom hid his face from them.

“'That’s settled, then,’’ said O’Dare in great glee. “And now put on your hats, brave hearts. I hear a still, small voice that tells me it’s long past dinner-time. The banquet waits. We'll hie us to a restaurant and there celebrate this most suspicious i

“You cut along,” amended Allardyce. ‘“Corbyn and I ” He choked as O’Dare, having laid hands on him after the manner of a professional strong man, propelled him towards the door.

“The dinners are on me, confound you!” cried that impetuous Thespian, and Corbyn followed meekly.

“We'll walk,” explained the economical capitalist as they stepped out upon the slippery pavement in ~ the direction of Sixth Avenue, “as far as a place I know where they fill you with artificial grape-juice, garlic, and spaghetti for forty cents. The money that we save in car-fares we'll invest in cocktails lest we lose it. Come right in here.” He led the way into a café before they could demur.

Two men pushed out through the swing-doors and paused to let them pass. Corbyn nodded coldly to one of them, who returned the compliment with foreign effusion.

“Who’s your shifty-looking friend?” asked O’Dare, leaning opulently over the bar.

“He calls himself Gonzalez,” the artist answered. “'That’s all I know about him besides the annoying fact that he seems to covet my studio. He came in yesterday to ask if I'd oblige him by moving. »He’s rented the one opposite and requires more room.”

“Td hate to meet him on a desert island,” said O’Dare dryly, and comforted himself with a cocktail. “I wonder why he wants the whole house to himself; and wears a wig which doesn’t match his moustache ?”

Five minutes more took them to a bohemian haunt in Twenty-seventh Street, where they were warmly greeted by the careless cosmopolitans of their acquaintance whose meagre incomes forced them to frequent it. ‘The diners were chiefly foreigners, actors, artists, musicians, a sprinkling of tradespeople, with here and there a stray couple or

—quartette of curiosity-seekers, their minds divided between detestation of the execrable table-wine and admiration of the insouciance with which Bohemia quaffed it. And there were among the habitués not a few men of fallen fortune, facing the squalid present and a barren future to the full as cheerfully as they had squandered the good years behind them. The meal according to the carte was an imposing one for the price, but actually consisted of morsels: tunny-fish and olives, soup, a fragment of malodorous bass, a mouthful of doubtful veal, spaghetti, the wings of a far-travelled fowl, a spoonful of sloppy ice cream, black coffee. And, although Corbyn’s father, the irascible millionaire who had bidden his only son to sink or swim as he would might have held up his hands in horror at the mere idea of such a dinner, that did not prevent his undutiful offspring from attacking with appetite all that came his way. While Allardyce, the man of family, a far-travelled epicure, was far too frankly hungry for question or cavil. Dennis O’Dare had often fared far worse in his experience of one-night stands on the long road he had elected to follow. He took whatever he could get, and asked for more.

| Tongues wagged and babel broke loose as the tablecloths were cleared away, from motives of economy, while cheap cigars and cheaper cigarettes created a blue cloud before which all the strangers fled in fits of coughing. ‘The double doors at the inner end of the long room were withdrawn, one seated himself at the piano in the alcove, another brought forth from a safe place his beloved violin, -and on the silence which ensued there rose such music as men may make who have sore hearts behind their shabby coats. They played for love as they could never play for payment, and the lost chord was theirs for once. It was a dead man’s requiem. Corbyn had told them that Stephan Florian would no more eome among them, and they had loved the silent exile for the magic of his touch upon the strings. He would be sadly missed there.

The place began to empty quietly, until only the three friends in misfortune remained. They stayed another hour for the sake of the warmth and light and comfort, and yet another that they might still more fully discuss Fifi Florian’s future and finances.

Corbyn had been her brother’s only intimate among many acquaintances and felt himself in some degree responsible for her safe guidance in the great city of which she knew so little. The other two were more than willing to back him up to the limit of their powers, and, before they finally rose to go, it had been arranged that they should mutually seek to enlist the sympathy of one or another of their more reliable women-friends on her behalf, that they should, if it were humanly possible, act as her bankers for so long as that might be necessary. |

“And if she can handle a bow anything like as well as her brother did,” said O’Dare more cheerfully, “it won’t be much she’ll have to take from us. Music of that sort’s worth more than a gold-mine.

“Now where am I going to sleep to-night ?”

“Corbyn can put us both up,” Allardyce answered hospitably, and they returned to Twenty-third Street through the snow.

A single gas-jet was burning dimly on the studio stair, and Corbyn, fumbling with frozen fingers for the familiar key-hole, failed to find it. He struck a match and looked again. Then they stared limply at each other and their faces fell.

There was no key-hole in the heavy iron plate which had been screwed fast to the wood and was securely padlocked to the staple in another on the doorpost.

“'They’ve locked us out of house and home,”’ said O’Dare lugubriously. Allardyce grunted his disgust, while Corbyn frowned and bit his lip.

“It’s too bad!” he protested wrathfully. “Tve been too busy to keep count of the days of grace they granted me, and -

“And they’ve evicted you, the soulless rascals!” concluded O’Dare. “They seem to think that an artist has nothing to do with his money but squander it paying rent!”

The card which had served Corbyn for name-plate had been torn down.

There were but two other doors on the top landing, and one of these had recently been embellished with the name of J. Gonzalez in large white letters. No light was visible through the transom above it, and that individual was evidently not at home, but Corbyn shook his fist at it ere he turned to the second.

“T’]l bet it was that ugly beast who egged them on to turn me out like this,’’ he muttered. “He wants my room and this is how he means to get it.

“Tet’s see if my things are in the lumber-room— I have the key here, luckily.

“J thought so,” he continued with rising anger. “They’ve shifted everything in here so that he may take possession in the morning.”

“How would it do to camp among them till then ?” asked Allardyce and peered in past him. The wisdom of his proposition was so obvious that no one gainsaid it. The shelter of the lumber-room was certainly preferable to the unsheltered street, and O’Dare had already calculated their remaining cash capital at twenty cents.

There were abundant blankets, and _ sufficient space under the rafters for a dozen men. Cold moonlight flooded the garret. They closed the door and made themselves as comfortable as might be.

“T only hope Gonzalez won’t shout fire and thieves when he hears Denny snoring,” whispered the Englishman. “It would be deuced awkward to be asked for explanations regarding this picnic, and still more so to be turned out into the snow.

“Phew! but I’m sleepy. Look not upon the wine when it is red ink, Corbyn, my boy. That was pure laudanum we had to dinner, Denny.

“Let’s turn in. 'There’s nothing else to do, and we'll be all the fresher for an early. start after a good sleep.”

He rolled his outer garments up in the shape of a rough pillow with all the indifference of an old campaigner, removed his shoes, and lay down quite contentedly.

“Call me in time for breakfast,’ he requested in a drowsy voice, and closed his eyes.

Corbyn was prompt to imitate him, and, as soon as O’Dare also had accommodated himself to circumstances, there was no more said.

It was not long before the other two men were slumbering peacefully, but the less fortunate O’Dare could not achieve a like result. There seemed to be nothing but knots in the particular planks he had unwillingly chosen for a couch, and a constant turning over only induced a fresh crop.

“This is most cursedly uncomfortable!” he said crossly to himself after an endless hour of it, and sat up, shivering, to rearrange his coverings.

The sound of shuffling footsteps on the stairway caught his attention and he leaned forward, elbows on knees, to listen.

Chapter II Beatrix

Tue other two were sleeping very tranquilly, heads buried beneath their blankets. A mouse which scuttled along the wainscot seemed to make much unnecessary noise, and O’Dare, considering attentively the echoes from below, felt cold and lonely as these became more audible.

There was more than one person ascending. There were two: two men. There were more than two; but the third was not necessarily a man. There were no more than three, all told.

“Two men and a woman,” he deduced ingeniously, “with rather more supper than they can conveniently carry on an even keel. They’re not very conversational: I wish they’d say something.”

His wish was not granted, however; and the footsteps halted, so that there was funereal stillness for a space. The ticking of his watch was like the blows of a trip-hammer. He could hear his heart beat.

“'They’ve reached the floor beiow,”’ he calculated. “A festive sort of owl our Italian friend!”

BEATRIX 19

Suspicions of a silent scuffle reached his straining ears, and then the nearer impression of slow but steadier climbing. There were only two pairs of feet now, and they seemed disproportionately heavier.

“'They’re sober enough,” thought the listener.

At the top of the stair they stopped again, and he heard a hoarse whisper. Some one came forward, and, having stealthily turned the handle of the locked door behind which he was cowering, retired, ‘apparently satisfied, to insert a key in that adjoining.

A match was struck, a gas-burner lit, and then three people entered the studio of J. Gonzalez: O’Dare believed that one of them had done so under some compulsion, although without spoken protest.

He did not quite know what to do next. It would not have been wise to wake the others, lest by some

‘startled exclamation they should apprise the enemy of their presence. He did not feel like lying down again and letting ill alone.

He had no wish to interfere in what did not concern him, but “Tl sit up for a while and see what happens,” he resolved, and rubbed his eyes as there shot a ray of light from a crack in the plaster of the partition facing him. Then he rose cautiously, and, creeping towards it in his stocking-soles, peered through.

The adjacent room was little larger than a cupboard and could boast no windows. Its walls were bare. There was no carpet on the floor. The furniture consisted of a single arm-chair.

Beyond it through an open door was a more commodious chamber, but almost empty also, in so far as O’Dare could judge.

It was Gonzalez who had lit the gas. He was bareheaded, but wore a fur-lined greatcoat, the upturned collar of which covered half his face. He glanced about him and then upwards before inviting his companions in.

“You must have been mistaken, Schweitzer,” O’Dare heard him mutter. “'There’s no sign of any trespass, and, as you know, the studio opposite is already empty. I saw to that. The lumber-room’s locked. I think we’re quite safe from outside interference.”

“There are fresh foot-prints on the stair since I went out,’ answered a sullen voice from the next room, “and os

+2?

“Oh, cease your croaking!” cried Gonzalez irritably. “The janitor no doubt came up to make the other door fast.

“Come this way, sefiorita, if you please. Pardon the poverty of my apartment, but, after all, it may serve well enough for waiting-room.”’

A woman appeared in the doorway, a young woman, almost a girl, and, pausing for an instant on the threshold to look about her, came bravely forward.

BEATRIX Q1

Her hands were bound behind her, her lips sealed by a silken handkerchief, but the bandage with which they had also blinded her had been loosened from about her eyes; and these spoke of overwhelming anger. ,

She crossed to the chair, and sat down. It seemed to O’Dare, looking on, that she did not stand in any awe of her captors.

Gonzalez gave way before her, and she was followed by a lean, dwarf-like, dried-up mannikin of furtive mien and most unpleasant personality: “A dangerous little divil that!” said Dennis O’Dare to himself.

“You see, sefiorita,’’ the former remarked with a wave of the hand, “that it will be quite useless to attempt escape. We are alone here, at the top of an empty house.

“Tf you will grant me your solemn promise not to cause any disturbance, I shall be glad to remove the gag you have forced me to employ. Please nod if you agree.”

She appeared to consider for a moment, and then accepted his condition with a haughty inclination. He stepped behind her, unloosed her remaining bonds, and came forward again.

“T trust you absolutely,” he reminded her, and braced himself to meet the storm of her displeasure.

She did not speak at once, but, when she did, he shrank away with an uneasy movement.

“There is that between us now, Gonzalez,’ she said, in a quiet, level voice, as if addressing a delinquent servant, “which will one day be wiped out very thoroughly—and you with it.”

The veiled threat was brief, but served its purpose better than more voluble denunciation.

She looked past him at his companion, but did not deign to address that evil-doer. Her count was with the chief criminal: with his accomplices she need not now concern herself.

“May I remind the sefiorita that I am acting under instructions from His Excellency,” Gonzalez ventured in a propitiatory tone, “and that,’ he added more malignantly, “she came here without sid

“You trapped me very cleverly,”’ she interrupted, and her eyes flashed again. “That also I shall not forget.”

“T could think of no other way,” he answered deprecatingly. “His Excellency’s orders were most stringent, and, had I failed, I should have incurred heavy penalty. The sefiorita knows that I serve a hard task-master. It is with him that she should cast accounts—not with his servants.”

“Enough,” she said. “ Please leave me, if you will.”

He bowed obediently, desirous to propitiate her. “T trust you,” he repeated, “since you have pledged your word.

“Step outside, Schweitzer.”

His underling obeyed, but he himself still lingered. O’Dare judged that he was anxious to make his peace with her.

BEATRIX 23

“The story of the accident was false,’ he said. “Tt was part of our plan. The sefiorita’s friend is safe and well, so far as I know.’’

She took no notice of the information.

“T trust you, Dofia Beatriz,” he once more reminded her impressively, and shut her in, alone. Then her eyes brightened with relief, not altogether due to his withdrawal. His news had evidently been of much more import to her than she was willing to admit to him.

She rose, that she might reach more easily the pocket of her expensively simple gown, but her hand came out of it empty. She swept her skirts to one side with a silken swish, and looked down as if in search of something she might have dropped. There was nothing upon the floor but a pair of small feet trimly shod in patent leather. She sank back into her seat with an expression of puzzled disappointment, and sat still, thinking, one elbow on an arm of the chair, chin on palm. O’Dare gazed at her as though she had bewitched him.