Chapter 4. The Garden In The Square

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_ CHAPTER IV. THE GARDEN IN THE SQUARE

As it chanced Godfrey did see Isobel once more before he left England. It was arranged that he was to leave Charing Cross for Switzerland early on a certain Wednesday morning. Late on the Tuesday afternoon, Mr. Knight brought the lad to the Charing Cross Hotel. There, having taken his ticket and made all other necessary arrangements, he left him, returning himself to Essex by the evening train. Their farewell was somewhat disconcerting, at any rate to the mind of the youth.

His father retired with him to his room at the top of the hotel, and there administered a carefully prepared lecture which touched upon every point of the earnest Christian's duty, ending up with admonitions on the dangers of the world, the flesh, and the devil, and a strong caution against frivolous, unbelieving and evil-disposed persons, especially such as were young, good-looking and wore petticoats.

"Woman," said Mr. Knight, "is the great danger of man. She is the Devil's favourite bait, at least to some natures of which I fear yours is one, though that is strange, as I may say that on the whole I have always disliked the sex, and I married for other reasons than those which are supposed to be common. Woman," he went on, warming to his topic, "although allowed upon the world as a necessary evil, is a painted snare, full of [he meant baited with] guile. You will remember that the first woman, in her wicked desire to make him as bad as herself, tempted Adam until he ate the apple, no doubt under threats of estranging herself from him if he did not, and all the results that came from her iniquity, one of which is that men have had to work hard ever since."

Here Godfrey reflected that there was someone behind who tempted the woman, also that it is better to work than to sit in a garden in eternal idleness, and lastly, that a desire for knowledge is natural and praiseworthy. Had Isobel been in his place she would have advanced these arguments, probably in vigorous and pointed language, but, having learnt something of Adam's lesson, he was wiser and held his tongue.

"There is this peculiarity about women," continued his parent, "which I beg you always to remember. It is that when you think she is doing what you want and that she loves you, you are doing what she wants and really she only loves herself. Therefore you must never pay attention to her soft words, and especially beware of her tears which are her strongest weapon given to her by the father of deceit to enable her to make fools of men. Do you understand?"

"Yes," said Godfrey, with hesitation, "but----" this burst from him involuntarily, "but, Father, if you have always avoided women, as you say, how do you know all this about them?"

For a moment Mr. Knight was staggered. Then he rose to the occasion.

"I know it, Godfrey, by observing the effect of their arts on others, as I have done frequently."

A picture rose in Godfrey's mind of his father with his eye to keyholes, or peering through fences with wide-open ears, but wisely he did not pursue the subject.

"My son," continued and ended Mr. Knight, "I have watched you closely and I am sure that your weakness lies this way. Woman is and always will be the sin that doth so easily beset you. Even as a child you loved Mrs. Parsons much more than you did me, because, although old and unsightly, she is still female. When you left your home this morning for the first time, who was it that you grieved to part from? Not your companions, the other boys, but Mrs. Parsons again, whom I found you embracing in that foolish fashion, yes, and mingling your tears with hers, of which at your age you should be ashamed. Indeed I believe that you feel being separated from that garrulous person, who is but a servant, more than you do from me, your father."

Here he waited for Godfrey's contradiction, but as none came, went on with added acerbity:

"Of that /anguis in herba/, that viper, Isobel, who turns the pure milk of the Word to poison and bites the hand that fed her, I will say nothing, nothing," (here Godfrey reflected that Isobel would have been better described as a lion in the path rather than as a snake in the grass) "except that I rejoice that you are to be separated from her, and I strictly forbid any communication between you and her, bold, godless and revolutionary as she is. I had rather see any man for whose welfare I cared, married to a virtuous and pious-minded housemaid, than to this young lady, as she is called, with all her wealth and position, who would eat out his soul with her acid unbelief and turn the world upside down to satisfy her fancy. Now I must go or I shall miss my train. Here is a present for you, of which I direct you to read a chapter every day," and he produced out of a brown paper parcel a large French Bible. "It will both do you good and improve your knowledge of the French tongue. I especially commend your attention to certain verses in Proverbs dealing with the dangers on which I have touched, that I have marked with a blue pencil. Do you hear?"

"Yes, Father. Solomon wrote Proverbs, didn't he?"

"It is believed so and his wide--experience--gives a special value to his counsel. You will write to me once a week, and when you have had your dinner get to bed at once. On no account are you to go out into the streets. Goodbye."

Then he planted a frosty kiss upon Godfrey's brow and departed, leaving that youth full of reflections, but to tell the truth, somewhat relieved.

Shortly afterwards Godfrey descended to the coffee-room and ate his dinner. Here it was that the universal temptress against whom he had been warned so urgently, put in a first appearance in the person of a pleasant and elderly lady who was seated alongside of him. Noting this good-looking and lonely lad, she began to talk to him, and being a woman of the world, soon knew all about him, his name, who he was, whither he was going, etc. When she found out that it was to Lucerne, or rather its immediate neighbourhood, she grew quite interested, since, as it happened, she--her name was Miss Ogilvy--had a house there where she was accustomed to spend most of the year. Indeed, she was returning by the same train that Godfrey was to take on the following morning.

"We shall be travelling companions," she said when she had explained all this.

"I am afraid not," he answered, glancing at the many evidences of wealth upon her person. "You see," he added colouring, "I am going second and have to spend as little as possible. Indeed I have brought some food with me in a basket so that I shall not need to buy any meals at the stations."

Miss Ogilvy was touched, but laughed the matter off in her charming way, saying that he would have to be careful that the Custom-house officers did not think he was smuggling something in his basket, and as she knew them all must look to her to help him if he got into difficulties on the journey. Then she went on chatting and drawing him out, and what is more, made him take several glasses of some delicious white wine she was drinking. It was not very strong wine, but except for a little small beer, practically Godfrey had been brought up as a teetotaller for economy's sake, and it went to his head. He became rather effusive; he told her of Sir John Blake about whom she seemed to know everything already, and something of his friendship with Isobel, who, he added, was coming out that very night at a fancy dress ball in London.

"I know," said Miss Ogilvy, "at the de Lisles' in Grosvenor Square. I was asked to it, but could not go as I am starting to-morrow."

Then she rose and said "Good-night," bidding him be sure not to be late for the train, as she would want him to help her with her luggage.

So off she went looking very charming and gracious, although she was over forty, and leaving Godfrey quite flattered by her attention.

Not knowing what to do he put on his hat and, walking across the station yard, took his stand by a gateway pillar and watched the tide of London life roll by. There he remained for nearly an hour, since the strange sight fascinated him who had never been in town before, the object of some attention from a policeman, although of this he was unaware. Also some rather odd ladies spoke to him from time to time which he thought kind of them, although they smelt so peculiar and seemed to have paint upon their faces. In answer to the inquiries of two of them as to his health he told them that he was very well. Also he agreed cordially with a third as to the extreme fineness of the night, and assured a fourth that he had no wish to take a walk as he was shortly going to bed, a statement which caused her to break into uncalled-for laughter.

It was at this point that the doubting policeman suggested that he should move on.

"Where to?" asked Godfrey of that officer of the law.

"To 'ell if you like," he replied. Then struck with curiosity, he inquired, "Where do you want to go to? This pillar ain't a leaning post."

Godfrey considered the matter and said with the verve of slight intoxication:

"Only two places appeal to me at present, heaven (not hell as you suggested), and Grosvenor Square. Perhaps, however, they are the same; at any rate, there is an angel in both of them."

The policeman stared at him but could find no fault with the perfect sobriety of his appearance.

"Young luny, I suspect," he muttered to himself, then said aloud: "Well, the Strand doesn't lead to 'eaven so far as I have noticed, rather t'other way indeed. But if you want Grosvenor Square, it's over there," and he waved his hand vaguely towards the west.

"Thank you," said Godfrey, taking off his hat with much politeness. "If that is so, I will leave heaven to itself for the present and content myself with Grosvenor Square."

Off he started in the direction indicated, and, as it seemed to him, walked for many miles through a long and bewildering series of brilliant streets, continually seeking new information as to his goal. The end of it was that at about a quarter to eleven he found himself somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Edgware Road, utterly stranded as it were, since his mind seemed incapable of appreciating further indications of locality.

"Look here, young man," said a breezy costermonger to whom he had appealed, "I think you had better take a 'ansom for the 'orse will know more about London than you seem to do. There's one 'andy."

"That is an idea," said Godfrey, and entered the cab, giving the address of Grosvenor Square.

"What number?" asked the driver.

"I don't know," replied Godfrey, "the Ball, Grosvenor Square."

Off they went, and in due course, reaching the square, drove round it until they came to a great house where there were signs of festivity in the shape of an awning above the entrance and a carpet on the pavement.

The cab stopped with a jerk and a voice from above--never having been in a hansom before, at first Godfrey could not locate it--exclaimed:

"Here's your Ball, young gent. Now you'd better hop out and dance."

His fare began to explain the situation through the little trap in the roof, demonstrating to the Jehu that his object was to observe the ball from without, not to dance at it within, and that it was necessary for him to drive on a little further. That worthy grew indignant.

"Blowed if I don't believe you're a bilk," he shouted through the hole. "Here, you pay me my fare and hook it, young codger."

Godfrey descended and commenced a search for money, only to remember that he had left his purse in his bag at the hotel. This also he explained with many apologies to the infuriated cabby, two gorgeous flunkeys who by now had arrived to escort him into the house, and a group of idlers who had collected round the door.

"I told yer he was a bilk. You look after your spoons, Thomas; I expect that's wot he's come for. Now you find that bob, Sonny, or I fetches the perlice."

Then an inspiration flashed on Godfrey's bewildered mind. Suddenly he recollected that, by the direction of heaven, Mrs. Parsons had sewn a ten shilling piece into the lining of his waistcoat, "in case he should ever want any money sudden-like." He undid that garment and heedless of the mockery of the audience, began to feel wildly at its interior calico. Joy! there it was in the lefthand corner.

"I have money here if only I can get it out," he gasped.

A woman in the gathering crowd, perhaps from pity, or curiosity, in the most unexpected way produced a pair of scissors from her pocket with which he began to hack at the waistcoat, gashing it sadly. At length the job was done and the half-sovereign appeared wrapped in a piece of cotton wool.

"Take it," said Godfrey, "and go away. Let it teach you to have more trust in your fellow creatures, Mr. Cabman."

The man seized the coin, examined it by the light of his lamp, tasted it, bit it, threw it on the top of the cab to see that it rang true, then with a "Well, I'm blowed!" whipped up his horse and went off.

Godfrey followed his example, as the flunkeys and the audience supposed to recover his change, though the last thing he was thinking of at that moment was change--except of locality. He ran a hundred yards or more to a part of the square where there was no lamp, then paused to consider.

"I have made a fool of myself," he reflected, "as Isobel always says I do when I get the chance. I have come all this way and been abused and laughed at for nothing."

Then his native determination began to assert itself. Why should it be for nothing? There was the house, and in it was Isobel, and oh! he wanted to see her. He crossed to the square-garden side and walked down in the shadow of the trees which grew there.

Under one of these he took his stand, squeezing himself against the railings, and watched the glowing house that was opposite, from which came the sounds of music, of dancing feet, of laughter and the tinkling of glasses. It had balconies, and on these appeared people dressed in all sorts of costumes. Among them he tried to recognise Isobel, but could not. Either she did not come or he was too far off to see her.

A dance was ending, the music grew faster and faster, then ceased with a flourish. More people appeared on the balconies. Others crowded into the hall, which he could see, for the door was open. Presently a pair came onto the steps. One of them was dressed as a knight in shining armour. He was a fine, tall young man, and his face was handsome, as the watcher could perceive, for he had taken off his plumed helm and carried it in his hand. The other was Isobel in her Plantagenet costume, to which were added one rose and a necklet of pink pearls. They stood on the steps a little while laughing and talking. Then he heard her say:

"Let us go into the square. It will be cooler. The key is hanging on the nail."

She vanished for a moment, doubtless to fetch the key. Then they walked down the steps, over the spread carpet, and across the roadway. Within three paces of where Godfrey stood there was a gate. She gave the key to the knight, and after one or two attempts the gate swung open. Whilst he was fumbling at the lock she stood looking about her, and presently caught sight of Godfrey's slim figure crouched against the railings in the deepest of the shadows.

"There is someone there, Lord Charles," she said.

"Is there?" he answered, indifferently. "A cab-tout or a beggar, I expect. They always hang about parties. Come on, it is open at last."

They passed into the garden and vanished. A wild jealousy seized Godfrey, and he slipped after them with the intention of revealing himself to Isobel. Inside the railings was a broad belt of shrubs bordered by a gravel path. The pair walked along the path, Godfrey following at a distance, till they came to a recessed seat on which they sat down. He halted behind a lilac bush ten paces or so away, not that he wanted to listen, but because he was ashamed to show himself. Indeed, he stopped his ears with his fingers that he might not overhear their talk. But he did not shut his eyes, and as the path curved here and the moon shone on them, he could see them well. They seemed very merry and to be playing some game.

At any rate, first with her finger she counted the air-holes in the knight's helmet which he held up to her. Then with his finger he counted the pearls upon her neck. When he had finished she clapped her hands as though she had won a bet. After this they began to whisper to each other, at least he whispered and she smiled and shook her head. Finally, she seemed to give way, for she unfastened the flower which she wore in the breast of her dress, and presented to him. Godfrey started at the sight which caused him to take his fingers from his ears and clutch the bush. A dry twig broke with a loud crack.

"What's that?" said Isobel.

"Don't know," answered Lord Charles. "What a funny girl you are, always seeing and hearing things. A stray cat, I expect; London squares are full of them. Now I have won my lady's favour and she must fasten it to my helm after the ancient fashion."

"Can't," said Isobel. "There are no pins in Plantagenet dresses."

"Then I must do it for myself. Kiss it first, that was the rule, you know."

"Very well," said Isobel. "We must keep up the game, and there are worse things to kiss than roses."

He held the flower to her and she bent forward to touch it with her lips. Suddenly he did the same, and their lips came very close together on either side of the rose.

This was too much for Godfrey. He glided forward, as the stray cat might have done, of which the fine knight had spoken, meaning to interrupt them.

Then he remembered suddenly that he had no right to interfere; that it was no affair of his with whom Isobel chose to kiss roses in a garden, and that he was doing a mean thing in spying upon her. So he halted behind another bush, but not without noise. His handsome young face was thrust forward, and on it were written grief, surprise and shame. The moonlight caught it, but nothing else of him. Isobel looked up and saw.

He knew that she had seen and turning, slipped away into the darkness back to the gate. As he went he heard the knight called Lord Charles, exclaim:

"What's the matter with you?" and Isobel answer, "Nothing. I have seen a ghost, that's all. It's this horrible dress!"

He glanced back and saw her rise, snatch the rose from the knight's hand, throw it down and stamp upon it. Then he saw and heard no more for he was through the gate and running down the square. At its end, as he turned into some street, he was surprised to hear a gruff voice calling to him to stop. On looking up he saw that it came from his enemy, the hansom-cab man, who was apparently keeping a lookout on the square from his lofty perch.

"Hi! young sir," he said, "I've been watching for you and thinking of wot you said to me. You gave me half a quid, you did. Jump in and I'll drive you wherever you want to go, for my fare was only a bob."

"I have no more money," replied Godfrey, "for you kept the change."

"I wasn't asking for none," said the cabby. "Hop in and name where it is to be."

Godfrey told him and presently was being rattled back to the Charing Cross Hotel, which they reached a little later. He got out of the cab to go into the hotel when once again the man addressed him.

"I owe you something," he said, and tendered the half-sovereign.

"I have no change," said Godfrey.

"Nor 'ain't I," said the cabman, "and if I had I wouldn't give it you. I played a dirty trick on you and a dirtier one still when I took your half sov, I did, seeing that I ought to have known that you ere just an obfusticated youngster and no bilk as I called you to them flunkeys. What you said made me ashamed, though I wouldn't own it before the flunkeys. So I determined to pay you back if I could, since otherwise I shouldn't have slept well to-night. Now we're quits, and goodbye, and do you always think kindly of Thomas Sims, though I don't suppose I shall drive you no more in this world."

"Goodbye, Mr. Sims," said Godfrey, who was touched. Moreover Mr. Sims seemed to be familiar to him, at the moment he could not remember how, or why.

The man wheeled his cab round, whipping the horse which was a spirited animal, and started at a fast pace.

Godfrey, looking after him, heard a crash as he emerged from the gates, and ran to see what was the matter. He found the cab overturned and the horse with a 'bus pole driven deep into its side, kicking on the pavement. Thomas Sims lay beneath the cab. When the police and others dragged him clear, he was quite dead!

Godfrey went to bed that night a very weary and chastened youth, for never before had he experienced so many emotions in a few short hours. Moreover, he could not sleep well. Nightmares haunted him in which he was being hunted and mocked by a jeering crowd, until Sims arrived and rescued him in the cab. Only it was the dead Sims that drove with staring eyes and fallen jaw, and the side of the horse was torn open.

Next he saw Isobel and the Knight in Armour, who kept pace on either side of the ghostly cab and mocked at him, tossing roses to each other as they sped along, until finally his father appeared, called Isobel a young serpent, at which she laughed loudly, and bore off Sims to be buried in the vault with the Plantagenet lady at Monk's Acre.

Godfrey woke up shaking with fear, wet with perspiration, and reflected earnestly on his latter end, which seemed to be at hand. If that great, burly, raucous-voiced Sims had died so suddenly, why should not he, Godfrey?

He wondered where Sims had gone to, and what he was doing now. Explaining the matter of the half-sovereign to St. Peter, perhaps, and hoping humbly that it and others would be overlooked, "since after all he had done the right thing by the young gent."

Poor Sims, he was sorry for him, but it might have been worse. /He/ might have been in the cab himself and now be offering explanations of his own as to a wild desire to kill that knight in armour, and Isobel as well. Oh! what a fool he had been. What business was it of his if Isobel chose to give roses to some friend of hers at a dance? She was not his property, but only a girl with whom he chanced to have been brought up, and who found him a pleasant companion when there was no one else at hand.

By nature, as has been recorded, Godfrey was intensely proud, and then and there he made a resolution that he would have nothing more to do with Isobel. Never again would he hang about the skirts of that fine and rich young lady, who on the night that he was going away could give roses to another man, just because he was a lord and good-looking --yes, and kiss them too. His father was quite right about women, and he would take his advice to the letter, and begin to study Proverbs forthwith, especially the marked passages.

Having come to this conclusion, and thus eased his troubled mind, he went to sleep in good earnest, for he was very tired. The next thing of which he became aware was that someone was hammering at the door, and calling out that a lady downstairs said he must get up at once if he meant to be in time. He looked at his watch, a seven-and-sixpenny article that he had been given off a Christmas tree at Hawk's Hall, and observed, with horror, that he had just ten minutes in which to dress, pack, and catch the train. Somehow he did it, for fortunately his bill had been paid. Always in after days a tumultuous vision remained in his mind of himself, a long, lank youth with unbrushed hair and unbuttoned waistcoat, carrying a bag and a coat, followed by an hotel porter with his luggage, rushing wildly down an interminable platform with his ticket in his teeth towards an already moving train. At an open carriage door stood a lady in whom he recognized Miss Ogilvy, who was imploring the guard to hold the train.

"Can't do it, ma'am, any longer," said the guard, between blasts of his whistle and wavings of his green flag. "It's all my place is worth to delay the Continental Express for more than a minute. Thank you kindly, ma'am. Here he comes," and the flag paused for a few seconds. "In you go, young gentleman."

A heave, a struggle, an avalanche of baggage, and Godfrey found himself in the arms of Miss Ogilvy in a reserved first-class carriage. From those kind supporting arms he slid gently and slowly to the floor.

"Well," said that lady, contemplating him with his back resting against a portmanteau, "you cut things rather fine."

Still seated on the floor, Godfrey pulled out his watch and looked at it, then remarked that eleven minutes before he was fast asleep in bed.

"I thought as much," she said severely, "and that's why I told the maid to see if you had been called, which I daresay you forgot to arrange for yourself."

"I did," admitted Godfrey, rising and buttoning his waistcoat. "I have had a very troubled night; all sorts of things happened to me."

"What have you been doing?" asked Miss Ogilvy, whose interest was excited.

Then Godfrey, whose bosom was bursting, told her all, and the story lasted most of the way to Dover.

"You poor boy," she said, when he had finished, "you poor boy!"

"I left the basket with the food behind, and I am so hungry," remarked Godfrey presently.

"There's a restaurant car on the train, come and have some breakfast," said Miss Ogilvy, "for on the boat you may not wish to eat. I shall at any rate."

This was untrue for she had breakfasted already, but that did not matter.

"My father said I was not to take meals on the trains," explained Godfrey, awkwardly, "because of the expense."

"Oh! I'm your father, or rather your mother, now. Besides, I have a table," she added in a nebulous manner.

So Godfrey followed her to the dining car, where he made an excellent meal.

"You don't seem to eat much," he said at length. "You have only had a cup of tea and half a bit of toast."

"I never can when I am going on the sea," she explained. "I expect I shall be very ill, and you will have to look after me, and you know the less you eat, well--the less you can be ill."

"Why did you not tell me that before?" he remarked, contemplating his empty plate with a gloomy eye. "Besides I expect we shall be in different parts of the ship."

"Oh! I daresay it can be arranged," she answered.

And as a matter of fact, it was "arranged," all the way to Lucerne. At Dover station Miss Ogilvy had a hurried interview at the ticket office. Godfrey did not in the least understand what she was doing, but as a result he was her companion throughout the long journey. The crossing was very rough, and it was Godfrey who was ill, excessively ill, not Miss Ogilvy who, with the assistance of her maid and the steward, attended assiduously to him in his agonies.

"And to think," he moaned faintly as they moored alongside of the French pier, "that once I wished to be a sailor."

"Nelson was always sick," said Miss Ogilvy, wiping his damp brow with a scented pocket-handkerchief, while the maid held the smelling-salts to his nose.

"Then he must have been a fool to go to sea," muttered Godfrey, and relapsed into a torpor, from which he awoke only to find himself stretched at length on the cushions of a first-class carriage.

Later on, the journey became very agreeable. Godfrey was interested in everything, being of a quick and receptive mind, and Miss Ogilvy proved a fund of information. When they had exhausted the scenery they conversed on other topics. Soon she knew everything there was to know about him and Isobel, whom it was evident she could not understand.

"Tell me," she said, looking at his dark and rather unusual eyes, "do you ever have dreams, Godfrey?" for now she called him by his Christian name.

"Not at night, when I sleep very soundly, except after that poor cabman was killed. I have seen lots of dead people, because my father always takes me to look at them in the parish, to remind me of my own latter end, as he says, but they never made me dream before."

"Then do you have them at all?"

He hesitated a little.

"Sometimes, at least visions of a sort, when I am walking alone, especially in the evening, or wondering about things. But always when I am alone."

"What are they?" she asked eagerly.

"I can't quite explain," he replied in a slow voice. "They come and they go, and I forget them, because they fade out, just like a dream does, you know."

"You must remember something; try to tell me about them."

"Well, I seem to be among a great many people whom I have never met. Yet I know them and they know me, and talk to me about all sorts of things. For instance, if I am puzzling over anything they will explain it quite clearly, but afterwards I always forget the explanation and am no wiser than I was before. A hand holding a cloth seems to wipe it out of my mind, just as one cleans a slate."

"Is that all?"

"Not quite. Occasionally I meet the people afterwards. For instance, Thomas Sims, the cabman, was one of them, and," he added colouring, "forgive me for saying so, but you are another. I knew it at once, the moment I saw you, and that is what made me feel so friendly."

"How very odd!" she exclaimed, "and how delightful. Because, you see-- well never mind----"

He looked at her expectantly, but as she said no more, went on.

"Then now and again I see places before I really do see them. For example, I think that presently we shall pass along a hillside with great mountain slopes above and below us covered with dark trees. Opposite to us also, running up to three peaks with a patch of snow on the centre peak, but not quite at the top." He closed his eyes, and added, "Yes, and there is a village at the bottom of the valley by a swift-running stream, and in it a small white church with a spire and a gilt weathercock with a bird on it. Then," he continued rapidly, "I can see the house where I am going to live, with the Pasteur Boiset, an old white house with woods above and all about it, and the beautiful lake beneath, and beyond, a great mountain. There is a tree in the garden opposite the front door, like a big cherry tree, only the fruit looks larger than cherries," he added with confidence.

"I suppose that no one showed you a photograph of the place?" she asked doubtfully, "for as it happens I know it. It is only about two miles from Lucerne by the short way through the woods. What is more, there is a tree with a delicious fruit, either a big cherry or a small plum, for I have eaten some of it several years ago."

"No," he answered, "no one. My father only told me that the name of the little village is Kleindorf. He wrote it on the label for my bag."

Just then the line went round a bend. "Look," he said, "there is the place I told you we were coming to, with the dark trees, the three peaks, and the stream, and the white church with the cock on top of the spire."

She let down the carriage window, and stared at the scene.

"Yes," she exclaimed, "it is just as you described. Oh! at last I have found what I have been seeking for years. Godfrey, I believe that you have the true gift."

"What gift, Miss Ogilvy?"

"Clairvoyance, of course, and perhaps clairaudience as well."

The lad burst out laughing, and said that he wished it were something more useful.

From all of which it will be guessed that Ethel Ogilvy was a mystic of the first water. _

Read next: Chapter 5. Madame Riennes

Read previous: Chapter 3. The Plantagenet Lady

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