Chapter 6

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_ CHAPTER VI

"I don't say we have never had a suicide here before, sir," said the porter in reply to Harding as they descended the steps of the hotel; "but I don't see how we are to help it. Whenever the upper classes want to do away with themselves they chose one of the big hotels--the Grosvenor, the Langham, or ourselves. Indeed they say more has done the trick in the Langham than 'ere, I suppose because it is more central; but you can't get behind the motives of such people. They never think of the trouble and the harm they do us; they only think of themselves."

London was now awake; the streets were a-clatter with cabs; the pick of the navvy resounded; night loiterers were disappearing and giving place to hurrying early risers. In the resonant morning the young men walked together to the Corner. There they stopped to bid each other good-bye. John called a cab, and returned home in intense mental agitation.

"It really is terrible," said Mike. "It isn't like life at all, but some shocking nightmare. What could have induced her to do it?"

"That we shall probably never know," said Thompson; "and she seemed brimming over with life and fun. How she did dance! ..."

"That was nerves. I had a long talk with her, and I assure you she quite frightened me. She spoke about the weariness of living;--no, not as we talk of it, philosophically; there was a special accent of truth in what she said. You remember the porter mentioned that she asked if No. 57 was occupied. I believe that is the room where she used to meet her lover. I believe they had had a quarrel, and that she went there intent on reconciliation, and finding him gone determined to kill herself. She told me she had had a lover for the last four years. I don't know why she told me--it was the first time I ever heard a lady admit she had had a lover; but she was in an awful state of nerve excitement, and I think hardly knew what she was saying. She took the letter out of her bosom and read it slowly. I couldn't help seeing it was in a man's handwriting; it began, '_Ma chere amie!_' I heard her tell her husband to take the brougham; that she would come home in a cab. However, if my supposition is correct, I hope she burnt the letter."

"Perhaps that's what she lit the fire for. Did you notice if the writing materials had been used?"

"No, I didn't notice," said Mike. "And all so elaborately planned! Just fancy--shooting herself in a nice warm bed! She was determined to do it effectually. And she must have had the revolver in her pocket the whole time. I remember now, I had gone out of the room for a moment, and when I came back she was leaning over the chimney-piece, looking at something."

"I have often thought," said Harding, "that suicide is the culminating point of a state of mind long preparing. I think that the mind of the modern suicide is generally filled, saturated with the idea. I believe that he or she has been given for a long time preceding the act to considering, sometimes facetiously, sometimes sentimentally, the advantages of oblivion. For a long time an infiltration of desire of oblivion, and acute realization of the folly of living, precedes suicide, and, when the mind is thoroughly prepared, a slight shock or interruption in the course of life produces it, just as an odorous wind, a sight of the sea, results in the poem which has been collecting in the mind."

"I think you might have the good feeling to forbear," said Frank; "the present is hardly, I think, a time for epigrams or philosophy. I wonder how you can talk so...."

"I think Frank is quite right. What right have we to analyse her motives?"

"Her motives were simple enough; sad enough too, in all conscience. Why make her ridiculous by forcing her heart into the groove of your philosophy? The poor woman was miserably deceived; abominably deceived. You do not know what anguish of mind she suffered."

"There is nothing to show that she went to the Alexandra to meet a lover beyond the fact of a statement made to Mike in a moment of acute nervous excitement. We have no reason to think that she ever had a lover. I never heard her name mentioned in any such way. Did you, Escott?"

"Yes; I have heard that you were her lover."

"I assure you I never was; we have not even been on good terms for a long time past."

"You said just now that the act was generally preceded by a state of feeling long preparing. It was you who taught her to read Schopenhauer."

"I am not going to listen to nonsense at this hour of the morning. I never take nonsense on an empty stomach. Come, Thompson, you are going my way."

Mike and Frank walked home together. The clocks had struck six, and the milkmen were calling their ware; soon the shop-shutters would be coming down, and in this first flush of the day's enterprise, a last belated vegetable-cart jolted towards the market. Mike's thoughts flitted from the man who lay a-top taking his ease, his cap pulled over his eyes, to the scene that was now taking place in the twilight bedroom. What would Seymour say? Would he throw himself on his knees? Frank spoke from time to time; his thoughts growled like a savage dog, and his words bit at his friend. For Mike had incautiously given an account in particular detail of his _tete-a-tete_ with Lady Helen.

"Then you are in a measure answerable for her death."

"You said just now that Harding was answerable; we can't both be culpable."

Frank did not reply. He brooded in silence, losing all perception of the truth in a stupid and harsh hatred of those whom he termed the villains that ruined women. When they reached Leicester Square, to escape from the obsession of the suicide, Mike said--

"I do not think that I told you that I have sketched out a trilogy on the life of Christ. The first play _John_, the second _Christ_, the third _Peter_. Of course I introduce Christ into the third play. You know the legend. When Peter is flying from Rome to escape crucifixion, he meets Christ carrying His cross."

"Damn your trilogy--who cares! You have behaved abominably. I want you to understand that I cannot--that I do not hold with your practice of making love to every woman you meet. In the first place it is beastly, in the second it is not gentlemanly. Look at the result!"

"But I assure you I am in no wise to blame in this affair. I never was her lover."

"But you made love to her."

"No, I didn't; we talked of love, that was all. I could see she was excited, and hardly knew what she was saying. You are most unjust. I think it quite as horrible as you do; it preys upon my mind, and if I talk of other things it is because I would save myself the pain of thinking of it. Can't you understand that?"

The conversation fell, and Mike thrust both hands into the pockets of his overcoat.

At the end of a long silence, Frank said--

"We must have an article on this--or, I don't know--I think I should like a poem. Could you write a poem on her death?"

"I think so. A prose poem. I was penetrated with the modern picturesqueness of the room--the Venetian blinds."

"If that's the way you are going to treat it, I would sooner not have it--the face in the glass, a lot of repetitions of words, sentences beginning with 'And,' then a mention of shoes and silk stockings. If you can't write feelingly about her, you had better not write at all."

"I don't see that a string of colloquialisms constitute feelings," said Mike.

Mike kept his temper; he did not intend to allow it to imperil his residence in Temple Gardens, or his position in the newspaper; but he couldn't control his vanity, and ostentatiously threw Lady Helen's handkerchief upon the table, and admitted to having picked it up in the hotel.

"What am I to do with it? I suppose I must keep it as a relic," he added with a laugh, as he opened his wardrobe.

There were there ladies' shoes, scarves, and neckties; there were there sachets and pincushions; there were there garters, necklaces, cotillion favours, and a tea-gown.

Again Frank boiled over with indignation, and having vented his sense of rectitude, he left the room without even bidding his friend good-night or good-morning. The next day he spent the entire afternoon with Lizzie, for Lady Helen's suicide had set his nature in active ferment.

In the story of every soul there are times of dissolution and reconstruction in which only the generic forms are preserved. A new force had been introduced, and it was disintegrating that mass of social fibre which is modern man, and the decomposition teemed with ideas of duty, virtue, and love. He interrupted Lizzie's chit-chat constantly with reflections concerning the necessity of religious belief in women.

About seven they went to eat in a restaurant close by. It was an old Italian chop-house that had been enlarged and modernized, but the original marble tables where customers ate chops and steaks at low prices were retained in a remote and distant corner. Lizzie proposed to sit there. They were just seated when a golden-haired girl of theatrical mien entered.

"That's Lottie Rily," exclaimed Lizzie. Then lowering her voice she whispered quickly, "She was in love with Mike once; he was the fellow she left her 'ome for. She's on the stage now, and gets four pounds a week. I haven't seen her for the last couple of years. Lottie, come and sit down here."

The girl turned hastily. "What, Lizzie, old pal, I have not seen you for ages."

"Not for more than two years. Let me introduce you to my friend, Mr. Escott--Miss Lottie Rily of the Strand Theatre."

"Very pleased to make your acquaintance, sir; the editor of the _Pilgrim_, I presume?"

Frank smiled with pleasure, and the waiter interposed with the bill of fare. Lottie ordered a plate of roast beef, and leaned across the table to talk to her friend.

"Have you seen Mike lately?" asked Lizzie.

"Swine!" she answered, tossing her head. "No; and don't want to. You know how he treated me. He left me three months after my baby was born."

"Have you had a baby?"

"What, didn't you know that? It is seven months old; 'tis a boy, that's one good job. And he hasn't paid me one penny piece. I have been up to Barber and Barber's, but they advised me to do nothing. They said that he owed them money, and that they couldn't get what he owed them--a poor look-out for me. They said that if I cared to summons him for the support of the child, that the magistrate would grant me an order at once."

"And why don't you?" said Frank; "you don't like the _expose_ in the newspapers."

"That's it."

"Do you care for him still?"

"I don't know whether I do, or don't. I shall never love another man, I know that. I saw him in front about a month ago. He was in the stalls, and he fixed his eyes upon me; I didn't take the least notice, he was so cross. He came behind after the first act. He said, 'How old you are looking!' I said, 'What do you mean?' I was very nicely made up too, and he said, 'Under the eyes.' I said, 'What do you mean?' and he said, 'You are all wrinkles.' I said, 'What do you mean?' and he went down-stairs.... Swine!"

"He isn't good-looking," said Frank, reflectively, "a broken nose, a chin thrust forward, and a mop of brown curls twisted over his forehead. Give me a pencil, and I'll do his caricature."

"Every one says the same thing. The girls in the theatre all say, 'What in the world do you see in him?' I tell them that if he chose--if he were to make up to them a bit, they'd go after him just the same as I did. There's a little girl in the chorus, and she trots about after him; she can't help it. There are times when I don't care for him. What riles me is to see other women messing him about."

"I suppose it is some sort of magnetism, electro-biology, and he can't help exercising it any more than you women can resist it. Tell me, how did he leave you?"

"Without a word or a penny. One night he didn't come home, and I sat up for him, and I don't know how many nights after. I used to doze off and awake up with a start, thinking I heard his footstep on the landing. I went down to Waterloo Bridge to drown myself. I don't know why I didn't; I almost wish I had, although I have got on pretty well since, and get a pretty tidy weekly screw."

"What do you get?"

"Three ten. Mine's a singing part. Waiter, some cheese and celery."

"What a blackguard he is! I'll never speak to him again; he shall edit my paper no more. To-night I'll give him the dirty kick-out."

Mike remained the topic of conversation until Lottie said--

"Good Lord, I must be 'getting'--it is past seven o'clock."

Frank paid her modest bill, and still discussing Mike, they walked to the stage-door. Quick with desire to possess Lizzie wholly beyond recall, and obfuscated with notions concerning the necessity of placing women in surroundings in harmony with their natural goodness, Frank walked by his mistress's side. At the end of a long silence, she said--

"That's the way you'll desert me one of these days. All men are brutes."

"No, darling, they are not. If you'll act fairly by me, I will by you--I'll never desert you."

Lizzie did not answer.

"You don't think me a brute like that fellow Fletcher, do you?"

"I don't think there's much difference between any of you."

Frank ground his teeth, and at that moment he only desired one thing--to prove to Lizzie that men were not all vile and worthless. They had turned into the Temple; the old places seemed dozing in the murmuring quietude of the evening. Mike was coming up the pathway, his dress-clothes distinct in the delicate gray light, his light-gray overcoat hanging over his arm.

"What a toff he is!" said Lizzie. His appearance and what it symbolized--an evening in a boudoir or at the gaming-table--jarred on Frank, suggesting as it did a difference in condition from that of the wretched girl he had abandoned; and as Mike prided himself that scandalous stories never followed upon his loves, the unearthing of this mean and obscure liaison annoyed him exceedingly. Above all, the accusation of paternity was disagreeable; but determined to avoid a quarrel, he was about to pass by, when Frank noticed Lady Helen's pocket-handkerchief sticking out of his pocket.

"You blackguard," he said, "you are taking that handkerchief to a gambling hell."

Then realizing that the game was up, he turned and would have struck his friend had not Lizzie interposed. She threw herself between the men, and called a policeman, and the quarrel ended in Mike's dismissal from the staff of the _Pilgrim_.

Frank had therefore to sit up writing till one o'clock, for the whole task of bringing out the paper was thrown upon him. Lizzie sat by him sewing. Noticing how pale and tired he looked, she got up, and putting her arm about his neck, said--

"Poor old man, you are tired; you had better come to bed."

He took her in his arms affectionately, and talked to her.

"If you were always as kind and as nice as you are to-night ... I could love you."

"I thought you did love me."

"So I do; you will never know how much." They were close together, and the pure darkness seemed to separate them from all worldly influences.

"If you would be a good girl, and think only of him who loves you very dearly."

"Ah, if I only had met you first!"

"It would have made no difference, you'd have only been saying this to some one else."

"Oh, no; if you had known me before I went wrong."

"Was he the first?"

"Yes; I would have been an honest little girl, trying to make you comfortable."

Throwing himself on his back, Frank argued prosaically--

"Then you mean to say you really care about me more than any one else?"

She assured him that she did; and again and again the temptations of women were discussed. He could not sleep, and stretched at length on his back, he held Lizzie's hand.

She was in a communicative humour, and told him the story of the waiter, whom she described as being "a fellow like Mike, who made love to every woman." She told him of three or four other fellows, whose rooms she used to go to. They made her drink; she didn't like the beastly stuff; and then she didn't know what she did. There were stories of the landlady in whose house she lodged, and the woman who lived up-stairs. She had two fellows; one she called Squeaker--she didn't care for him; and another called Harry, and she did care for him; but the landlady's daughter called him a s----, because he seldom gave her anything, and always had a bath in the morning.

"How can a girl be respectable under such circumstances?" Lizzie asked, pathetically. "The landlady used to tell me to go out and get my living!"

"Yes; but I never let you want. You never wrote to me for money that I didn't send it."

"Yes; I know you did, but sometimes I think she stopped the letters. Besides, a girl cannot be respectable if she isn't married. Where's the use?"

He strove to think, and failing to think, he said--

"If you really mean what you say, I will marry you." He heard each word; then a sob sounded in the dark, and turning impulsively he took Lizzie in his arms.

"No, no," she cried, "it would never do at all. Your family--what would they say? They would not receive me."

"What do I care for my family? What has my family ever done for me?"

For an hour they argued, Lizzie refusing, declaring it was useless, insisting that she would then belong to no set; Frank assuring her that hand-in-hand and heart-to-heart they would together, with united strength and love, win a place for themselves in the world. They dozed in each other's arms.

Rousing himself, Frank said--

"Kiss me once more, little wifie; good-night, little wife ..."

"Good-night, dear."

"Call me little husband; I shan't go to sleep until you do."

"Good-night, little husband."

"Say little hussy."

"Good-night, little hussy."

Next morning, however, found Lizzie violently opposed to all idea of marriage. She said he didn't mean it; he said he did mean it, and he caught up a Bible and swore he was speaking the truth. He put his back against the door, and declared she should not leave until she had promised him--until she gave him her solemn oath that she would become his wife. He was not going to see her go to the dogs--no, not if he could help it; then she lost her temper and tried to push past him. He restrained her, urging again and again, and with theatrical emphasis, that he thought it right, and would do his duty. Then they argued, they kissed, and argued again.

That night he walked up and down the pavement in front of her door; but the servant-girl caught sight of him through the kitchen-window and the area-railings, and ran up-stairs to warn Miss Baker, who was taking tea with two girl friends.

"He is a-walking up and down, Miss, 'is great-coat flying behind him."

Lizzie slapped his face when he burst into her room; and scenes of recrimination, love, and rage were transferred to and fro between Temple Gardens and Winchester Street. Her girl friends advised her to marry, and the landlady when appealed to said, "What could you want better than a fine gentleman like that?"

Frank was conscious of nothing but her, and every vision of Mount Rorke that had risen in his mind he had unhesitatingly swept away. All prospects were engulfed in his desire; he saw nothing but the white face, which like a star led and allured him.

One morning the marriage was settled, and like a knight going to the crusade, Frank set forth to find out when it could be. They must be married at once. The formalities of a religious marriage appalled him. Lizzie might again change her mind; and a registrar's office fixed itself in his thought.

It was a hot day in July when he set forth on his quest. He addressed the policeman at the corner, and was given the name of the street and the number. He hurried through the heat, irritated by the sluggishness of the passers-by, and at last found himself in front of a red building. The windows were full of such general announcements as--Working Men's Peace Preservation, Limited Liability Company, New Zealand, etc. The marriage office looked like a miniature bank; there were desks, and a brass railing a foot high preserved the inviolability of the documents. A fat man with watery eyes rose from the leather arm-chair in which he had been dozing, and Frank intimated his desire to be married as soon as possible; that afternoon if it could be managed. It took the weak-eyed clerk some little time to order and grasp the many various notions which Frank urged upon him; but he eventually roused a little (Frank had begun to shout at him), and explained that no marriage could take place after two o'clock, and later on it transpired that due notice would have to be given.

Very much disappointed, Frank asked him to inscribe his name. The clerk opened a book, and then it suddenly cropped up that this was the registry office, not for Pimlico, but for Kensington.

"Gracious heavens!" exclaimed Frank, "and where is the registry office for Pimlico in Kensington?"

"That I cannot tell you; it may be anywhere; you will have to find out."

"How am I to find out, damn it?"

"I really can't tell you, but I must beg of you to remember where you are, sir, and to moderate your language," said the clerk, with some faint show of hieratic dignity. "And now, ma'am, what can I do for you?" he said, turning to a woman who smelt strongly of the kitchen.

Frank was furious; he appealed again to the casual policeman, who, although reluctantly admitting he could give him no information, sympathized with him in his diatribe against the stupidities of the authorities. The policeman had himself been married by the registrar, and some time was lost in vain reminiscences; he at last suggested that inquiry could be made at a neighbouring church.

Frank hurried away, and had a long talk with a charwoman whom he discovered in the desert of the chairs. She thought the office was situated somewhere in a region unknown to Frank, which she called St. George-of-the-Fields; her daughter, who had been shamefully deserted, had been married there. The parson, she thought, would know, and she gave him his address.

The heat was intolerable! There were few people in the streets. The perspiration collected under his hat, and his feet ached so in his patent leather shoes that he was tempted to walk after the water-cart and bathe them in the sparkling shower. Several hansoms passed, but they were engaged. Nor was the parson at home. The maid-servant sniggered, but having some sympathy with what she discovered was his mission, summoned the housekeeper, who eyed him askance, and directed him to Bloomsbury; and after a descent into a grocer's shop, and an adventure which ended in an angry altercation in a servants' registry office, he was driven to a large building which adjoined the parish infirmary and workhouse.

Even there he was forced to make inquiries, so numerous and various were the offices. At last an old man in gray clothes declared himself the registrar's attendant, and offered to show him the way; but seeing himself now within range of his desire, he distanced the old chap up the four flights of stairs, and arrived wholly out of breath before the brass railing which guarded the hymeneal documents. A clerk as slow of intellect as the first, and even more somnolent, approached and leaned over the counter.

Feeling now quite familiar with a registrar's office, Frank explained his business successfully. The fat clerk, whose red nose had sprouted into many knobs, balanced himself leisurely, evidently giving little heed to what was said; but the broadness of the brogue saved Frank from losing his temper.

"What part of Oireland do ye come from? Is it Tipperary?"

"Yes."

"I thought so; Cashel, I'm thinking."

"Yes; do you come from there?"

"To be sure I do. I knew you when you were a boy; and is his lordship in good health?"

Frank replied that Lord Mount Rorke was in excellent health, and feeling himself obliged to be civil, he asked the clerk his name, and how long it was since he had been in Ireland.

"Well, this is odd," the clerk began, and then in an irritating undertone Mr. Scanlon proceeded to tell how he and four others were driving through Portarlington to take the train to Dublin, when one of them, Michael Carey he thought it was, proposed to stop the car and have some refreshment at the Royal Hotel.

Frank tried several times to return to the question of the license, but the imperturbable clerk was not to be checked.

"I was just telling you," he interposed.

It seemed hard luck that he should find a native of Cashel in the Pimlico registrar's office. He had intended to keep his marriage a secret, as did Willy Brookes, and for a moment the new danger thrilled him. It was intolerable to have to put up with this creature's idle loquacity, but not wishing to offend him he endured it a little longer.

When the clerk paused in his narrative of the four gentlemen who had stopped the car to have some refreshment, Frank made a resolute stand against any fresh developments of the story, and succeeded in extracting some particulars concerning the marriage laws. And within the next few days all formalities were completed, and Frank's marriage fixed for the end of the week--for Friday, at a quarter to eleven. He slept lightly that night, was out of bed before eight, and mistaking the time, arrived at the office a few minutes before ten. He met the old man in gray clothes in the passage, and this time he was not to be evaded.

"Are you the gentleman who's come to be married by special license, sir?"

"Yes."

"Neither Mr. Southey--that is the Registrar--nor Mr. Freeman--that's the Assistant-Registrar--has yet arrived, sir."

"It is very extraordinary they should be late. Do they never keep their appointments?"

"They rarely arrives before ten, sir."

"Before ten! What time is it now?"

"Only just ten. I am the regular attendant. I'll see yer through it; no necessity to hagitate yerself. It will be done quietly in a private room--a very nice room too, fourteen feet by ten high--them's the regulations; all the chairs covered with leather; a very nice comfortable room. Would yer like to see the room? Would yer like to sit down there and wait? There's a party to be married before you. But they won't mind you. He's a butcher by trade."

"And what is she?"

"I think she's a tailoress; they lives close by here, they do."

"And who are you, and where do you live?"

"I'm the regular attendant; I lives close by here."

"Where close by?"

"In the work'us; they gives me this work to do."

"Oh, you are a pauper, then?"

"Yease; but I works here; I'm the regular attendant. No need to be afraid, sir; it's all done in a private room; no one will see you. This way, sir; this way."

The sinister aspect of things never appealed to Frank, and he was vastly amused at the idea of the pauper Mercury, and had begun to turn the subject over, seeing how he could use it for a queer story for the _Pilgrim_. But time soon grew horribly long, and to kill it he volunteered to act as witness to the butcher's marriage, one being wanted. The effects of a jovial night, fortified by some matutinal potations, were still visible in the small black eyes of the rubicund butcher--a huge man, apparently of cheery disposition; he swung to and fro before the shiny oak table as might one of his own carcasses. His bride, a small-featured woman, wrapped in a plaid shawl, evidently fearing that his state, if perceived by the Registrar, might cause a postponement of her wishes, strove to shield him. His pal and a stout girl, with the air of the coffee-shop about her, exchanged winks and grins, and at the critical moment, when the Registrar was about to read the declaration, the pal slipped behind some friends and, catching the bridegroom by the collar, whispered, "Now then, old man, pull yourself together." The Registrar looked up, but his spectacles did not appear to help him; the Assistant-Registrar, a tall, languid young man, who wore a carnation in his button-hole, yawned and called for order. The room was lighted by a skylight, and the light fell diffused on the hands and faces; and alternately and in combination the whiskied breath and the carnation's scent assailed the nostrils. Suddenly the silence was broken by the Registrar, who began to read the declarations. "I hereby declare that I, James Hicks, know of no impediment whereby I may not be joined in matrimony with Matilde, Matilde--is it Matilde or Matilda?"

"I calls her Tilly when I am a-cuddling of her; when she riles me, and gets my dander up, I says, 'Tilder, come here!'" and the butcher raised his voice till it seemed like an ox's bellow.

"I really must beg," exclaimed the Registrar, "that the sanctity of--the gravity of this ceremony is not disturbed by any foolish frivolity. You must remember ..." But at that moment the glassy look of the butcher's eyes reached the old gentleman's vision, and a heavy hiccup fell upon his ears. "I really think, Mr. Freeman, that that gentleman, one of the contracting parties I mean, is not in a fit state--is in a state bordering on inebriation. Will you tell me if this is so?"

"I didn't notice it before," said Mr. Freeman, stifling a yawn, "but now you mention it, I really think he is a little drunk, and hardly in a fit ..."

"I ne--ver was more jolly, jolly dog in my life (hiccup)--when you gentlemen have made it (hiccup) all squ--square between me and my Tilly" (a violent hiccup),--then suddenly taking her round the waist, he hugged her so violently that Matilda could not forbear a scream,--"I fancy I shall be, just be a trifle more jolly still.... If any of you ge--gen'men would care to join us--most 'appy, Tilly and me."

Lizzie, who had discovered a relation or two--a disreputable father and a nondescript brother--now appeared on the threshold. Her presence reminded Frank of his responsibility, so forthwith he proceeded to bully the Registrar and allude menacingly to his newspaper.

"I'm sure, sir, I am very sorry you should have witnessed such a scene. Never, really, in the whole course of my life ..."

"There is positively no excuse for allowing such people ..."

"I will not go on with the marriage," roared the Registrar; "really, Mr. Freeman, you ought to have seen. You know how short-sighted I am. I will not proceed with this marriage."

"Oh, please, sir, Mr. Registrar, don't say that," exclaimed Matilda. "If you don't go on now, he'll never marry me; I'll never be able to bring 'im to the scratch again. Indeed, sir, 'e's not so drunk as he looks. 'Tis mostly the effect of the morning hair upon him."

"I shall not proceed with the marriage," said the Registrar, sternly. "I have never seen anything more disgraceful in my life. You come here to enter into a most solemn, I may say a sacred, contract, and you are not able to answer to your names; it is disgraceful."

"Indeed I am, sir; my name is Matilda, that's the English of it, but my poor mother kept company with a Frenchman, and he would have me christened Matilde; but it is all the same, it is the same name, indeed it is, sir. Do marry us; I shan't be able to get him to the scratch again. For the last five years ..."

"Potter, Potter, show these people out; how dare you admit people who were in a state of inebriation?"

"I didn't 'ear what you said, sir."

"Show these people out, and if you ever do it again, you'll have to remain in the workhouse."

"This way, ladies and gentlemen, this way. I'm the regular attendant."

"Come along, Tilly dear, you'll have to wait another night afore we are churched. Come, Tilly; do you hear me? Come, Tilda."

Frightened as she was, the words "another night" suggested an idea to poor Matilde, and turning with supplicating eyes to the Registrar, she implored that they might make an appointment for the morrow. After some demur the Registrar consented, and she went away tearful, but in hope that she would be able to bring him on the morrow, as he put it, "fit to the post." This matter having been settled, the Registrar turned to Frank. Never in the course of his experience had the like occurred. He was extremely sorry that he (Mr. Escott) had been present. True, they were not situated in a fashionable neighbourhood, the people were ignorant, and it was often difficult to get them to sign their names correctly; but he was bound to admit that they were orderly, and seemed to realize, he would say, the seriousness of the transaction.

"It is," said the Registrar, "our object to maintain the strictly legal character of the ceremony--the contract, I should say--and to avoid any affectation of ritual whatsoever. I regret that you, sir, a representative of the press ..."

"The nephew and heir to Lord Mount Rorke," suggested the clerk.

The Registrar bowed, and murmured that he did not know he had that honour. Then he spoke for some time of the moral good the registry offices had effected among the working classes; how they had allowed the poor--for instance, the person who has been known for years in the neighbourhood as Mrs. Thompson, to legalize her cohabitation without scandal.

But Frank thought only of his wife, when he should clasp her hand, saying, "Dearest wife!" He had brought his dramatic and musical critics with him. The dramatic critic--a genial soul, well known to the shop-girls in Oxford Street, without social prejudices--was deep in conversation with the father and brother of the bride; the musical critic, a mild-faced man, adjusted his spectacles, and awaking from his dream reminded them of an afternoon concert that began unusually early, and where his presence was indispensable. When the declarations were over, Frank asked when he should put the ring on.

"Some like to use the ring, some don't; it isn't necessary; all the best people of course do," said the Assistant-Registrar, who had not yawned once since he had heard that Frank's uncle was Lord Mount Rorke.

"I am much obliged to you for the information; but I should like to have my question answered--When am I to put on the ring?"

The dramatic critic tittered, and Frank authoritatively expostulated. But the Registrar interposed, saying--

"It is usual to put the ring on when the bride has answered to the declarations."

"Now all of ye can kiss the bride," exclaimed the clerk from Cashel.

Frank was indignant; the Registrar explained that the kissing of the bride was an old custom still retained among the lower classes, but Frank was not to be mollified, and the unhappy clerk was ordered to leave the room.

The wedding party drove to the Temple, where champagne was awaiting them; and when health and happiness had been drunk the critics left, and the party became a family one.

Mike was in his bedroom; he was too indolent to move out of Escott's rooms, and by avoiding him he hoped to avert expulsion and angry altercations. The night he spent in gambling, the evening in dining; and some hours of each afternoon were devoted to the composition of his trilogy. Now he lay in his arm-chair smoking cigarettes, drinking lemonade, and thinking. He was especially attracted by the picture he hoped to paint in the first play of John and Jesus; and from time to time his mind filled with a picture of Herod's daughter. Closing his eyes slightly he saw her breasts, scarce hidden beneath jewels, and precious scarves floated from her waist as she advanced in a vaulted hall of pale blue architecture, slender fluted columns, and pointed arches. He sipped his lemonade, enjoying his soft, changing, and vague dream. But now he heard voices in the next room, and listening attentively he could distinguish the conversation.

"The drivelling idiot!" he thought. "So he's gone and married her--that slut of a barmaid! Mount Rorke will never forgive him. I wouldn't be surprised if he married again. The idiot!"

The reprobate father declared he had not hoped to see such a day, so let bygones be bygones, that was his feeling. She had always been a good daughter; they had had differences of opinion, but let bygones be bygones. He had lived to see his daughter married to a gentleman, if ever there was one; and his only desire was that God might spare him to see her Lady Mount Rorke. Why should she not be Lady Mount Rorke? She was as pretty a girl as there was in London, and a good girl too; and now that she was married to a gentleman, he hoped they would both remember to let bygones be bygones.

"Great Scott!" thought Mike; "and he'll have to live with her for the next thirty years, watching her growing fat, old, and foolish. And that father!--won't he give trouble! What a pig-sty the fellow has made of his life!"

Lizzie asked her father not to cry. Then came a slight altercation between Lizzie and her husband, in which it was passionately debated whether Harry, the brother, was fitted to succeed Mike on the paper.

"How the fellow has done for himself! A nice sort of paper they'll bring out."

A cloud passed over Mike's face when he thought it would probably be this young gentleman who would continue his articles--_Lions of the Season_.

"You have quarrelled with Mike," said Lizzie, "and you say you aren't going to make it up again. You'll want some one, and Harry writes very nicely indeed. When he was at school his master always praised his writing. When he is in love he writes off page after page. I should like you to see the letters he wrote to ..."

"Now, Liz, I really--I wish you wouldn't ..."

"I am sure he would soon get into it."

"Quite so, quite so; I hope he will; I'm sure Harry will get into it--and the way to get into it is for him to send me some paragraphs. I will look over his 'copy,' making the alterations I think necessary. But for the moment, until he has learned the trick of writing paragraphs, he would be of no use to me in the office. I should never get the paper out. I must have an experienced writer by me."

Then he dropped his voice, and Mike heard nothing till Frank said--

"That cad Fletcher is still here; we don't speak, of course; we passed each other on the staircase the other night. If he doesn't clear out soon I'll have to turn him out. You know who he is--a farmer's son, and used to live in a little house about a mile from Mount Rorke Castle, on the side of the road."

Mike thrilled with rage and hatred.

"You brute! you fool! you husband of a bar-girl!--you'll never be Lord Mount Rorke! He that came from the palace shall go to the garret; he that came from the little house on the roadside shall go to the castle, you brute!"

And Mike vowed that he would conquer sloth and lasciviousness, and outrageously triumph in the gaudy, foolish world, and insult his rival with riches and even honour. Then he heard Lizzie reproach Frank for refusing her first request, and the foolish fellow's expostulations suscitated feelings in Mike of intense satisfaction. He smiled triumphantly when he heard the old man's talents as accountant referred to.

"Father never told you about his failure," said Lizzie. Then the story with all its knots was laboriously unravelled.

"But," said the old man, "my books were declared to be perfect; I was complimented on my books; I was proud of them books."

"Great Scott! the brother as sub-editor, the father as book-keeper, the sister as wife--it would be difficult to imagine anything more complete. I'm sorry for the paper, though;--and my series, what a hash they'll make of it!" Taking the room in a glance, and imagining the others with every piece of furniture and every picture, he thought--"I give him a year, and then these rooms will be for sale. I shall get them; but I must clear out."

He had won four hundred pounds within the last week, and this and his share in a play which was doing fairly well in the provinces, had run up his balance at the bank higher than it had ever stood--to nearly a thousand pounds.

As he considered his good fortune, a sudden desire of change of scene suddenly sprang upon him, and in full revulsion of feeling his mind turned from the long hours in the yellow glare of lamp-light, the staring faces, the heaps of gold and notes, and the cards flying silently around the empty space of green baize; from the long hours spent correcting and manipulating sentences; from the heat and turmoil and dirt of London; from Frank Escott and his family; from stinking, steamy restaurants; from the high flights of stairs, and the prostitution of the Temple. And like butterflies above two flowers, his thoughts hovered in uncertain desire between the sanctity of a honeymoon with Lily Young in a fair enchanted pavilion on a terrace by the sea, near, but not too near, white villas, in a place as fairylike as a town etched by Whistler, and some months of pensive and abstracted life, full to overflowing with the joy and eagerness of incessant cerebration; a summer spent in a quiet country-side, full of field-paths, and hedge-rows, and shadowy woodland lanes--rich with red gables, surprises of woodbine and great sunflowers--where he would walk meditatively in the sunsetting, seeing the village lads and lassies pass, interested in their homely life, so resting his brain after the day's labour; then in his study he would find the candles already lighted, the kettle singing, his books and his manuscripts ready for three excellent hours; upon his face the night would breathe the rustling of leaves and the rich odour of the stocks and tall lilies, until he closed the window at midnight, casting one long sad and regretful look upon the gold mysteries of the heavens.

So his reverie ran, interrupted by the conversation in the next room. He heard his name mentioned frequently. The situation was embarrassing, for he could not open a door without being heard. At last he tramped boldly out, slamming the doors after him, leaving a note for Frank on the table in the passage. It ran as follows--"I am leaving town in a few days. I shall remove my things probably on Monday. Much obliged to you for your hospitality; and now, good-bye." "That will look," he thought, "as if I had not overheard his remarks. How glad I shall be to get away! Oh, for new scenes, new faces! 'How pleasant it is to have money!--heigh-ho!--how pleasant it is to have money!' Whither shall I go? Whither? To Italy, and write my poem? To Paris or Norway? I feel as if I should never care to see this filthy Temple again." Even the old dining-hall, with its flights of steps and balustrades, seemed to have lost all accent of romance; but he stayed to watch the long flight of the pigeons as they came on straightened wings from the gables. "What familiar birds they are! Nothing is so like a woman as a pigeon; perhaps that's the reason Norton does not like them. Norton! I haven't seen him for ages--since that morning...." He turned into Pump Court. The doors were wide open; and there was luggage and some packing-cases on the landing. The floor-matting was rolled, and the screen which protected from draughts the high canonical chair in which Norton read and wrote was overthrown. John was packing his portmanteau, and on either side of him there was a Buddha and Indian warrior which he had lately purchased.

"What, leaving? Giving up your rooms?"

"Yes; I'm going down to Sussex. I do not think it is worth while keeping these rooms on."

Mike expressed his regret. Mike said, "No one understands you as I do." Herein lay the strength of Mike's nature; he won himself through all reserve, and soon John was telling him his state of soul: that he felt it would not be right for him to countenance with his presence any longer the atheism and immorality of the Temple. Lady Helen's death had come for a warning. "After the burning of my poems, after having sacrificed so much, it was indeed a pitiful thing to find myself one of that shocking revel which had culminated in the death of that woman."

"There he goes again," thought Mike, "running after his conscience like a dog after his tail--a performing dog, too; one that likes an audience." And to stimulate the mental antics in which he was so much interested, he said, "Do you believe she is in hell?"

"I refrain from judging her. She may have repented in the moment of death. God is her judge. But I shall never forget that morning; and I feel that my presence at your party imposes on me some measure of responsibility. As for you, Mike, I really think you ought to consider her fate as an omen. It was you ..."

"For goodness' sake, don't. It was Frank who invented the notion that she killed herself because I had been flirting with her. I never heard of anything so ridiculous. I protest. You know the absurdly sentimental view he takes. It is grossly unfair."

Knowing well how to interest John, Mike defended himself passionately, as if he were really concerned to place his soul in a true light; and twenty minutes were agreeably spent in sampling, classifying, and judging of motives. Then the conversation turned on the morality of women, and Mike judiciously selected some instances from his stock of experiences whereby John might judge of their animalism. Like us all, John loved to talk sensuality; but it was imperative that the discussion should be carried forward with gravity and reserve. Seated in his high canonical chair, wrapped in his dressing-gown, John would bend forward listening, as if from the Bench or the pulpit, awaking to a more intense interest when some more than usually bitter vial of satire was emptied upon the fair sex. He had once amused Harding very much by his admonishment of a Palais Royal farce.

"It was not," he said, "so much the questionableness of the play; what shocked me most was the horrible levity of the audience, the laughter with which every indecent allusion was greeted."

The conversation had fallen, and Mike said--

"So you are going away? Well, we shall all miss you very much. But you don't intend to bury yourself in the country; you'll come up to town sometimes."

"I feel I must not stay here; the place has grown unbearable." A look of horror passed over John's face. "Hall has the rooms opposite. His life is a disgrace; he hurries through his writing, and rushes out to beat up the Strand, as he puts it, for shop-girls. I could not live here any longer."

Mike could not but laugh a little; and offended, John rose and continued the packing of his Indian gods. Allusion was made to Byzantine art; and Mike told the story of Frank's marriage; and John laughed prodigiously at the account he gave of the conversation overheard. Regarding the quarrel John was undecided. He found himself forced to admit that Mike's conduct deserved rebuke; but at the same time, Frank's sentimental views were wholly distasteful to him. Then in reply to a question as to where he was going, Mike said he didn't know. John invited him to come and stay at Thornby Place.

"It is half-past three now. Do you think you could get your things packed in time to catch the six o'clock?"

"I think so. I can instruct Southwood; she will forward the rest of my things."

"Then be off at once; I have a lot to do. Hall is going to take my furniture off my hands. I have made rather a good bargain with him."

Nothing could suit Mike better. He had never stayed in a country house; and now as he hurried down the Temple, remembrances of Mount Rorke Castle rose in his mind--the parade of dresses on the summer lawns, and the picturesqueness of the shooting parties about the long, withering woods. _

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