The poor clergyman, who was quite bewildered and covered with perspiration, tried to explain that he had never been in a theatre before in his life, and knew nothing about it; that, hearing Mr. Leighton had committed suicide, he thought it was because of his love affair, and having come from where the young lady he loved was lying very ill, he thought it his duty as a minister to rush on and say a word or two to the poor sinner before he died.

There was quite a buzz of astonishment among the people on the stage when the clergyman told his simple story, and they saw at once that it was true.

Mr. Leighton, who had been awfully wild at having his scene spoiled, when he heard the clergyman’s story, was very much affected, and said he would see the clergyman after the performance, if he would wait. They asked him if he would like to go into a box; but the clergyman said, “No; he did not want to see anything in a theatre. He would wait outside.”

The manager said perhaps it was as well, for if he went anywhere in the house where he could be seen it would start the people off, and be unpleasant; because, of course, as playgoers, what with the clergyman’s words and manners, and the curtain coming down bang, they knew something had happened that wasn’t in the play.

When the clergyman told the doctor the story, the doctor laughed till the tears came into his eyes; and he chaffed the poor man finely about making his first appearance, and having acted a part.

He was in a very good humour, because, though the clergyman, through his ignorance, had made such a mess of it at the beginning, he had finished by doing what he wanted. He told the young gentleman, after the play was over, all about the young lady, and what the doctor said, and the young fellow told him that he had never known a happy moment since they were parted, and he would make any sacrifice in the world to save his sweetheart’s life.

He quite won our clergyman’s heart by his nice manner and the way he talked. And before they parted he gave the clergyman his word that, if he was allowed to see his sweetheart again, dearly as he loved his profession, he would give it up for ever.

That made the clergyman take his part at once, and feel that he had done a wonderful thing; so he came back and saw Mrs. Elmore the next day, and told her it would be wicked to keep the young people apart, as, if she allowed them to see each other and be engaged, she would not only save her daughter’s life, but she would rescue a young fellow from play-acting.

It took a long time to convince the woman—she was so hard; but at last she consented, and first the young fellow was told to send his sweetheart a letter. And the clergyman gave it to her, telling her gently to hope that the happiness she thought lost for ever might yet be hers.

And then the young lady read the letter, and it made her cry. But from that day she began to mend slowly, and in a fortnight she was sitting up again on the sofa in the sitting-room.

And one day the doctor came to me, quite beaming, and said, “Now, Mrs. Beckett, who do you think’s coming to your hotel to-morrow?”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” I said.

“Why, Frank Leighton, the young play-actor.”

And then he told me that Mrs. Elmore had agreed that the young couple should have an interview in her presence, and that the whole matter should be discussed. I was delighted, and I could talk of nothing else. Harry at last got a bit tired of it, I think, and he said if I talked about the young play-actor any more he should have to go and put some brickdust on his face, and chalk his nose, or else he would be quite cut out.

Harry does say ridiculous things sometimes, and there is no romance about him. Perhaps it is quite as well, because an hotel-keeper, or, in fact, any man in business, doesn’t want to be too romantic. It isn’t the way to get rich.

Harry said it was lucky we didn’t have many love affairs in our house, or my brain would be turned; and he should be very glad when the young lady had got well enough to go away. He didn’t want a lot of play-actors coming and upsetting all the women in the house, from the missus to the kitchenmaid.

I don’t like to confess it; but there is no doubt that Harry is a little jealous. I have told you how disagreeable he was about that dreadful policeman. Of course you know what I mean by jealous. He isn’t absurd or ridiculous, but he turns nasty, and says sharp things, if I take too much interest in anything or anybody but himself. He’s jealous of my “Memoirs,” and I do believe sometimes he is jealous of baby. That’s the sort of jealousy I mean.

The next morning Mrs. Elmore called me upstairs, and said that they expected a visitor (of course she didn’t know that I knew everything), and that dinner was to be laid in the sitting-room for five people. I said to myself, “I know who the five will be—Mrs. Elmore, Miss Elmore, the doctor, the clergyman, and Mr. Frank Leighton.”

When I told Harry, he said, “Oh, that’s it, is it? Well, I’d sooner him than me.”

“What do you mean, Harry?” I said.

“What do I mean? Why, if that young fellow can make love to the young lady before her mother, her doctor, and her clergyman, he’s got more pluck than I give him credit for.”

“He needn’t make love at the dinner table,” I said. “Besides, they don’t want to make love—they’ve made it already—long ago. This is more of a family reconciliation.”

“Well,” he said, “I’m sorry for the girl. It can’t be pleasant to have a doctor and a clergyman standing like sentries on guard all the time your lover, that you haven’t seen for ever so long, is in the room with you.”

“How did you think they were going to meet, pray?” I asked.

“Well, seeing he’s a play-actor, I expected that he’d come outside our house when it was moonlight, and whistle, and that the young lady would open the windows and go out on the balcony, and that they’d talk low, like that.”

I saw what was in Harry’s head at once. It was that beautiful play about Romeo and Juliet. So I said, “A very likely thing. As if a young lady, brought up like Miss Elmore, and in her delicate state of health, would go talking to a man in the road, standing outside the balcony of a public-house. A nice scandal there would be!”

“Well,” he said, “I’ve seen it done on the stage.”

“I dare say; but there’s lots of things that are all right on the stage, but would get parties into trouble if they tried them in real life.”

What an idea, wasn’t it, that we were to have “Romeo and Juliet” played outside the ‘Stretford Arms’? Of course it would have been much more romantic. “Romeo and Juliet” wouldn’t be half so interesting if Juliet was only allowed to see her lover at dinner, with her mother and the doctor and the clergyman sitting down at the same table. Poor girl, if she had, perhaps it would have been much better for her in the long-run. She might have been a happy wife and mother, instead of coming to that creepy end in the family vault, and leading to such a lot of bloodshed.

I was on tiptoe all day, as the saying is, till the young lover arrived. I arranged a very nice little dinner and made up some flowers for the table, and saw to everything myself, being determined that nothing should be wanting on my part in bringing matters to a happy termination, and I know how much a good dinner has to do with the turn that things take.

The only time I can remember Harry to have spoken really unkindly to me was when we had a badly-made steak-and-kidney pie for dinner, and he wasn’t very well after it, and that made him tetchy and irritable, a most unusual thing for him, and he was quite nasty with me and lost his temper over a trifle that, if the steak-and-kidney pie had been all right, he would only have laughed at.

About two o’clock a fly drove up to the door, and a young gentleman got out and came in, and said, “This is the ‘Stretford Arms,’ is it not?”

I knew it was the young actor at once. There is something about an actor that you can always tell, even if you have not seen very many.

He really was handsome. He had lovely wavy hair, and beautiful sympathetic eyes, and his face was just like what you see in some of the statues in the British Museum—it was so nicely cut, if I may use the expression.

He spoke in a most eloquent voice, and it was quite a pleasure to listen to him. He was beautifully dressed, and I thought I never saw a young fellow’s clothes fit so elegantly.

Our barmaid (a flighty sort of girl, I am sorry to say) stared at him, almost with her mouth open, in admiration, till at last I was obliged to say, “Miss Bowles, will you please fetch me my keys from the parlour?” I couldn’t say out loud, “Don’t stare at the gentleman,” so I did it that way.

As soon as he had said who he was—of course, it wasn’t for me to tell him that I knew—I showed him into the sitting-room, that I had got ready for him, and had a fire lighted in it, so that he might be comfortable, while I went upstairs to announce to the ladies that he had arrived.

Poor Miss Elmore was sitting up in the arm-chair when I went into the room, and her mamma was in the other room.

The young lady knew before I opened my mouth what I had to say. She read it in my face, for I’m sure I was crimson with excitement and pleasure.

The sight of her turned me so that I could only gasp out, “He’s come, miss; he’s come.” And then I saw her cheeks flush burning red, and then go very pale again, and the tears came swimming up into her beautiful, loving blue eyes.

I felt that I would have given the world to have put my arms round her and given her a sisterly hug, and have a good cry with her; but, of course, it would have been forgetting my place.

“Tell mamma, please,” she said, as soon as she could speak.

So I went across to the bedroom door and rapped, and told Mrs. Elmore that Mr. Leighton had arrived.

“Very good,” she said. “As soon as Dr. —— and the Rev. —— have arrived, you can show him up.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said; and I went downstairs. And then, oh, such a wicked idea came into my head! It came, and it wouldn’t go away, and I wouldn’t give myself time to think how wrong it was. I knew that Mrs. Elmore was dressing herself, and wouldn’t be ready for ten minutes, and so I went straight down to the young gentleman, and I said, “This way, if you please, sir.” And I took him upstairs to the sitting-room, where the young lady was all alone, and I opened the door wide, and said, “Mr. Leighton, miss.”

I heard a little cry from the dear young lady. I saw her rise up and stagger forwards. I saw the young fellow catch her in his arms, and I pulled the door to with a bang, and ran downstairs as if an earthquake was behind me; and when I got to the parlour I went flop into a chair and laughed and cried till Harry came running in and slapped my hands, and the barmaid brought vinegar. And right in the middle of it, in walked the doctor and the clergyman.

I couldn’t help it. My nerves were overstrung, I suppose, and the excitement had been too much for me.

But I soon pulled myself together, as Harry calls it, and went into the kitchen to see the dinner served up properly. And once I made an excuse, when the dinner was on, to go into the room just to help the waitress.

Everything seemed all right, though at first I thought everybody looked a little uncomfortable, including the young play-actor.

It must have been a little awkward for him at first, for the old lady was awfully stiff and stony when she came in, and discovered her daughter with the young man, and no doctor or clergyman present.

But she didn’t say anything to them, only I caught her eye when I went in, and it was evident she’d something pleasant to say to me about it when the company was gone. But I didn’t care what she had to say, so long as I’d made two young hearts happy. And I know I did the very best thing possible in letting them meet like that.

The doctor told me all that happened when I saw him that evening; for, you may be sure, I was very anxious to know how matters had been arranged.

The young fellow had to leave at six o’clock, as he had to get to the theatre at eight; but after dinner he had a long private talk with the clergyman, who, it seems, had Mrs. Elmore’s instructions in the matter.

The young fellow agreed to give up his profession at once, for the young lady’s sake. Of course it was a blow to him, as he was getting on very nicely; and I’ve heard that a man or a woman who has once had a success on the stage is always hankering after the footlights and applause, and it makes them very unhappy to be away from them.

However, Mr. Leighton gave up acting for Miss Elmore’s sake. He got the manager to release him from his engagement, and he began to look about for some appointment that would bring him in five hundred pounds a year; as, of course, he didn’t want to live on the young lady’s mother, or the young lady, who, it seems, had three hundred pounds a year in her own right.

The young lady got quite well and left our hotel, and six months afterwards I read of her marriage in the papers, and the next day a three-cornered box arrived by post, and when I opened it there was a lovely piece of wedding-cake for me, with Mr. and Mrs. Frank Leighton’s compliments.

And some time afterwards I heard that, through the death of a relative, the young gentleman had come into a large fortune and a title—yes, a title!—and that dear Miss Elmore, that we thought would die in our house of a broken heart, lived to be a happy wife and mother, and to be called “my lady.”

I am pretty sure that Mrs. Elmore wouldn’t have given her daughter those “religious whackings,” as Harry called them, if she had known that the play-actor the poor young lady was in love with was going to have a title. What I know of the world has taught me that.

When I read the news I said to Mr Wilkins, “Well, Mr. Wilkins, what about play-actors being rogues and vagabonds now?—here is one that is a person of rank.”

“Oh yes,” he said, “I dare say; but rank isn’t what it was in the good old times. I have been told there is a baronet working as a labourer in the docks, and his wife, who is ‘my lady,’ goes out charing.”

Wilkins is certainly not so nice as he used to be. Perhaps it is age that is souring him; but we have never been such good friends since that business about the “Memoirs.” And he has the gout, too. I will be charitable, and put his nasty remarks down to his gout. I have heard it does make people very disagreeable. I once lived in a family where the master had the gout, and——

* * * * *

Six people arrived by the train! Oh, dear! and we have only four rooms—whatever shall we do? Wait a minute; I’ll come and see. We mustn’t turn custom away if we can help it.

CHAPTER XV.

THE BILLIARD-MARKER.

Jim Marshall was a broker—that is to say, he went all about the neighbourhood to sales and bought things for gentlemen, and sometimes for himself. All round our village there are old-fashioned houses and farms full of old-fashioned furniture and china, and things of that sort, that nowadays are very much run after, and fetch a good price. Old Jim knew everybody’s business and what everybody had got, because he used to do their business for them. These people, if they wanted anything, would tell Jim to look out for it for them, and if they wanted to sell anything they always sent for Jim, and he would find a purchaser for them on the quiet.

The neighbourhood round our place is full of people who have gone down since railways came in, because we are too near to London, and London has taken all the local trade. A lot of people lived and kept up appearances on what their fathers made before them—business people I mean—and when that was gone they had to give up their style and go into smaller houses, which, of course, they moved away to do, nobody who has been grand and looked up to for years in a place caring to look small there.

This gradual decay of the neighbourhood (not where we live—the railway has made us—but little towns and places round about) was a good thing for Jim, as there were lots of good old houses selling off their furniture and things, and he had lots of customers in London who wanted Chippendale and Sheraton and Adam’s furniture, and old books, and old clocks, and old china, and old silver ornaments; and these houses being in the country, there weren’t many brokers at the sales, so Jim was able to pick up plenty of bargains for his customers, and make a good thing for himself as well.

Plenty of ladies and gentlemen who came to our house, and got to know of Marshall being always at sales, would give him their address, and tell him always to send them a catalogue, if there was anything good going. Mr. Saxon, the author, I know, got a bookcase through Jim, a real old Chippendale for eleven pounds that was worth sixty pounds if it was worth a penny, and we have some fine old-fashioned things at the ‘Stretford Arms’ that Jim Marshall got us at sales.

You had only to say to Jim Marshall that you wanted a thing, and he would never rest till he got it for you. He would go into the grandest house in the neighbourhood and ask to see the gentleman, and say, “I say, sir, what will you take for your sideboard? I’ve a customer that wants one.”

“Hang your impudence, Marshall!” the gentleman would say. “Do you think I keep a furniture shop?”

“No offence, sir,” Jim would say. “Only remember, when you do want to part with it, I’m in the market.” That was how he would begin. Presently he would call on the gentleman again, and say he knew of a magnificent sideboard, two hundred years old, in an old farmhouse, that could be got cheap. And he would go on about it until, perhaps, he would work the gentleman up to buy the other sideboard and let him have the one he had a customer for, and he would make a nice thing out of the two bargains for himself.

He was very clever at it, because he knew the fancies of different people, and how to work on them. But the most impudent thing he ever did was with an old lady, who had a lovely pair of chestnut horses. A gentleman who was staying at our hotel one day saw them go by, and he said, “By Jove, that’s a fine pair of horses!—that’s just the pair I want.”

Jim Marshall was standing by at the time, and he said, “I’ll try and get ’em for you.” And he shouted, and waved his stick, and yelled at the coachman, who thought something was wrong, and pulled up.

Jim hobbled off till he came to the carriage, then raised his hat to the old lady, and said, “I beg your pardon, ma’am, but if you want to sell your horses, I’ve a customer for them.”

“What!” shrieked the old lady. And she shouted to the coachman to drive on, and pulled the window up with a bang.

Jim came back, not looking a bit ashamed of himself; and he said, “I’ve broken the ice. Now, sir, how much am I to go to for them horses?”

“The idea!” I said, for I had seen and heard everything; “as if old Mrs. —— would be likely to part with them! I do believe Jim you’d go up to a clergyman in church, and ask him what he’d take for his surplice!”

Jim smiled at that. It flattered his vanity, because nothing pleased him so much as being made out a smart fellow before London gentlemen.

“I’ll have them horses, Mrs. Beckett,” he said, “if the gentleman’ll go to a price.”

“Well,” said the gentleman, “I’m not in a hurry. I’ve got a very good pair now; but if they could be got for one hundred and twenty pounds, I wouldn’t mind.”

“Is that an order?” said Jim.

“Yes,” said the gentleman, “I’ll give one hundred and twenty pounds.”

“You’ll get a bargain if you get them at that,” said Jim, “for I know from the coachman as the lady paid over two hundred pounds for ’em, and they weren’t dear at that. But I’ll see what I can do.”

The gentleman got those horses through Jim, and he got them for the one hundred and twenty pounds. And it was only through a third party letting out the secret that I heard afterwards how it was done, and I’m not going to tell because it was told me in confidence; but I may say the old lady’s coachman was always being treated by Jim in a very generous manner. And soon after that, one of the horses took to showing temper in a way he had never done before, and the coachman told the old lady that sometimes after a certain age horses that had been very quiet developed a vice.

Jim Marshall had a great “pal,” as he called him, in our local veterinary surgeon—rather a fast young fellow, who was the great sporting authority, and was supposed to know more about horses and dogs than anybody in the county. I believe he was very clever—he certainly did wonders for our pony when it was ill—but he was too fond of betting, and going to London for a day or two, and coming back looking very seedy, so that he was generally hard up. Soon after the old lady’s horses had changed their ways so suddenly, the veterinary and old Jim were standing outside our house, when they saw old Mr. Jenkins, the old lady’s gardener, who had been with her for thirty years, come in. He was coming to see me about some fruit, which we wanted to buy of him for preserving, and about supplying us with vegetables from the kitchen garden.

Mr. Jenkins was, of course, asked into our parlour, and while he was there, in walks the veterinary, and they began to talk, till the conversation got on the horses. “Ah!” said the veterinary, “they’re a nice pair, but they aren’t quite the sort for your lady. I watched the mare go by the other day, and there was something about her I didn’t like. I dare say she’s all right in double harness, but I wouldn’t care to drive her myself in single.”

Then he began to tell stories about carriage accidents and runaway horses, till Mr. Jenkins turned quite pale, and said he should never know another minute’s peace while his mistress was out with “them animals.”

He went back, and you may be sure he told the lady all he had heard, and made the most of it. And the old lady was made quite nervous, and sent for the coachman, and the coachman said of course it wasn’t his place to say anything; but, if he was asked his honest opinion, he couldn’t say that he always felt quite safe with the horses himself. However, he should always be careful and do his best to prevent an accident.

A week after that, Jim Marshall got the horses for a hundred pounds. The old lady sent to him to come and take them, and he found her a nice quiet pair, that somebody else wanted to sell. I expect he did very well out of the transaction, and so did the old lady’s coachman.

This will show you what sort of a man Jim Marshall was, and how useful he could be to anybody who wanted anything. He got us our billiard-table, and it was in this way. Harry was saying one night that, as soon as he could afford it, he would have a billiard-room; but he couldn’t yet, as the table would cost such a lot of money, if it was by a good maker.

“Nonsense!” said Marshall; “do you want a good billiard-table?”

“Well,” said Harry, “I do want one, but I can’t afford——”

“It isn’t a question of affording. If I can get you one as good as new, with all the fittings complete—balls, cues, and everything—will you go to fifty pounds?”

“Certainly,” said Harry.

“Then get your billiard-room ready.”

Harry knew Marshall would keep his word. So we made a room at the back, with a little alteration, into a billiard-room. And as soon as it was ready Marshall said, “All right. The table is coming down from London to-morrow.”

And it did come, and a beautiful table it was, and as good as new. Harry said it couldn’t have been played on many times, and must have cost a lot of money when it was new. Marshall, it seems, knew of a young gentleman in London, who had come into some money, and fitted up a billiard-room in his house, and then taken a fit into his head to travel. And when he came back he didn’t want to live in a house any more, but was going to have chambers, and he wanted to get rid of a lot of his things. How Marshall did it, I don’t know; but, at any rate, we got our table and everything complete for fifty pounds.

Having a billiard-table was very nice for some things. Gentlemen who stayed at the hotel—artists, and such like—found it a great comfort on wet days and long evenings, and several of the young gentlemen from the houses round about would come in, and get up a game at pool, and it certainly did the house good in that way, though it brought one or two customers that I didn’t care about at all—young fellows who were too clever by half, as Harry said, and who came to make money at the game, and I don’t think were very particular how they made it.

Harry said, when we put the table up, that we should have to be careful, and keep the place select, as, if a billiard-room wasn’t well looked after, it soon got to be a meeting-place for the wrong class of customers.

When the table was first put up, Mr. Wilkins and Graves, the farrier, and one or two more of that sort, thought it was being put up for them.

Mr. Wilkins said he thought it was a better game than bagatelle, and he should have to practise, and then he would soon give Harry a beating.

Harry said, “You can practise as much as you like, Wilkins; but it’ll be sixpence a game if you play anybody, two shillings an hour if you practise, and a guinea if you cut the cloth.”

You should have seen Wilkins’s face at that!

“Two shillings an hour!” he said; “I thought you were putting it up for the good of the house.”

A nice idea, wasn’t it, that we had gone to the expense of a billiard-room and a table, and were going to engage a boy to mark, and all for the amusement of Mr. Wilkins and his friends! That is the worst of old customers. They don’t advance with the business, and they seem to think that they are to have their own way in everything.

The day after the table was up Harry asked Mr. Wilkins to come and look at it. The balls were put on the table, Harry having been knocking them about to try the cushions.

Of course, Wilkins must take up a cue, and show how clever he was. “See me put the white in the pocket off the red,” he said. He hit the white ball so hard, that it jumped off the cushion and went smash through the window.

“Wilkins, old man,” said Harry, “I think you’d better practice billiards out on the common. This place isn’t big enough for you.”

I shall always remember our opening the billiard-room, from the young fellow who came to us to be our first marker.

We were going to have a boy—one who could fill up his time about the house—at first; but, as a matter of fact, our first billiard-marker, though he didn’t stay long, was a young fellow named Bright—“Charley Bright,” everybody about the place called him.

Poor Charley! His was a sad story. When we first knew him, he was living in one room over Mrs. Megwith’s shop. Mrs. Megwith has a little drapery and stationery shop, and sells nearly everything. He was quite the gentleman. You could tell that by the way he spoke, and by his clothes, which, though they were shabby, were well cut and well made, and you could see that he had once been what is called a “swell.”

He was very tall and very good-looking. He had dark, sparkling eyes, and always a high colour, and very pretty curly, dark hair. But, oh, he was so dreadfully thin! One day I said to Mrs. Megwith, “How thin your young man lodger is!” “Yes,” she said; “and it isn’t to be wondered at. I don’t believe he has anything to eat of a day but a few slices of bread and butter.”

“Is he so very poor?” I said.

“Poor! He owes me eight weeks’ rent, and I know that he’s pawned everything except what he stands upright in. I can’t find it in my heart to turn him out, he’s such a good-hearted fellow, and a perfect gentleman; but I can’t afford to lose the rent of the room much longer. He’s welcome to the tea and bread-and-butter; but the five shillings a week rent means something to a struggling widow woman with a family.”

How we got to know Charley Bright was through one or two of the young gentlemen bringing him, now and then, to have a drink. They had made his acquaintance, and he knew a lot about racing, and was a capital talker, and so they used to talk to him. I noticed once or twice when they stood him a drink he would ask for a glass of wine, and say, “Just give me a biscuit with it, please.” A biscuit, poor fellow!—it was a leg of mutton with it that he wanted—but nobody knew how terribly poor he was.

On the day after our billiard-room was opened Charley Bright came in by himself. Harry had gone up to London, to see about some business. “Mrs. Beckett,” he said, almost blushing; “I hear you want a billiard-marker. I wish you’d try me.”

“What!” I said, “you a billiard-marker?”

“Yes. I can play a very good game, and I wouldn’t mind what I did that I could do. I don’t want much. My meals in the house and a few shillings a week—just enough to pay my rent over the road.”

“Well,” I said, “we shall want a marker; but, of course, there will be money to take and one thing and the other, and we shall want a reference. Can you give us a reference?”

His face fell at that. “I—I—can’t refer to my people,” he said, “I shouldn’t like them to know what I was doing.”

I saw a little tear come into his eye as he spoke, and, knowing what I did, that nearly set me off. So I said, “Won’t you have a glass of wine?” And I poured out a big glass of port, and I put the bread and cheese before him on the bar.

It was the only way I could do it.

He knew what I meant, and the tears trickled right down his nose. “Thank you,” he said, and his voice was so husky he could scarcely speak.

It upset me so terribly that I had to go into the parlour, so that he shouldn’t see me cry. I am an awful goose in that way—anything that is pathetic or miserable brings a gulp into my throat and the tears into my eyes in a minute.

I left him alone with the bread and cheese for a good ten minutes, and then I went back. He was evidently all the better for the meal, for he had got back the old spirits and began to smile and chatter away quite pleasantly.

“I’ll speak to my husband when he comes back, Mr. Bright,” I said. “I’m sure, if he can, he will let you have the place.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Beckett,” he said; and then he told me his story. He was a young fellow, the son of a professional gentleman with a large family—gentlefolks, but not very well off. When he was eighteen he went into an office in the City, and after a time, being quick at figures and clever, he got two hundred pounds a year. Unfortunately, he spent his evenings in a billiard-room at the West-end, where there were a very fast set of men, and among them a lot of betting men. Charley Bright took to betting, but only in small sums, and he used to play billiards for money; and what with one thing and another, and stopping out late at night, he got to neglect his business, to be late in the morning, and to make mistakes, and all that sort of thing.

But what ruined him was winning a thousand pounds. There was a horse running for the Derby that had been a favourite at one time and had gone back to fifty to one, I think, or something like that. At any rate, Mr. Bright, who had won twenty pounds over a race, put it all on this horse at one thousand pounds to twenty pounds. This was long before the race was run, and after a time everybody thought this horse had gone wrong, and Bright thought he had lost his money.

He had settled down again to business, and was getting more careful and not going to the billiard-room so much, when Derby Day came and the horse won!

That was the turning-point in his career.

He had a thousand pounds.

He was always very excitable, he told me, and the good luck drove him nearly mad with joy.

He was going to take to the turf, and make a fortune in backing horses.

No more drudgery in the City, no more gloomy offices. He would be out all day long in the country, watching the horses run, and pocketing handfuls of sovereigns over the winners.

He resigned his situation in the City, he left his home and took lodgings in the West-end, dressed himself up as a great racing swell, and for about six months lived his life at express railway speed.

His eyes quite flashed, and his cheeks glowed, as he told of those days. It was one wild round of pleasure, it carried the poor lad away body and soul—and then the end came.

Good fortune followed him at first; then came a change, and his “luck was dead out,” as he put it.

Presently he had lost all his money backing horses, and got into debt, and had to part with his things. His people would not help him. His father was very severe, and never forgave him for throwing up his situation, and the young fellow was proud, and so he kept his poverty to himself as much as he could.

Some of the fellows he had known when he was well off were kind to him in his misfortune for a bit; but as he got seedier and seedier they dropped away from him. And at last he was so ashamed of the dreadful position he had got in, that he didn’t care to go anywhere where people who had known him in his swell days were likely to be.

There was a billiard-room he used to go to for a long time, where he had first met the company that had been his ruin; but, though he had spent plenty of money there once, the landlord came to him one day and said, “Look here, Bright, I don’t want to hurt your feelings; but a lot of the gentlemen that come here don’t like to see you always hanging about the room. It annoys them. I’ll give you a sovereign to stop away.”

The landlord meant it kindly, perhaps; but the young fellow told me that it hurt him dreadfully. Of course it wasn’t nice for these people to see a seedy fellow, who had lost all his money through their bad example, hanging about the place. He didn’t take the sovereign, but he never went near the place again, and the people who knew him lost sight of him altogether.

He came down to our village and took a room, and tried to make a little money in a very curious way. He still thought that he was a good judge of racing, and knew a good deal about the turf. So, being desperate, he hit on a scheme.

He put an advertisement in a sporting paper, and called himself by a false name, and said that he was in a great stable secret, and for thirteen stamps he would send the absolute winner of a certain race. He told me that he had the letters sent to the post office, and he got over sixty answers, with thirteen stamps in them, and he sent in reply the name of the horse he thought was sure to win. Unfortunately, the very day after he had sent his horse off it was scratched, which he told me meant being struck out of the list of runners, so that while his customers were reading his letter, which gave them the certain winner, they would see in the paper that the horse would not even run.

He said that settled him for giving tips from that address, and he didn’t know where else to go, for he had paid his landlady nearly all his money, and bought a pair of boots, which he wanted badly, and so he hadn’t even the money to pay his railway fare anywhere else, and he didn’t know whatever he should do, for he was now absolutely starving.

“Why don’t you write to your father?” I said. “Surely he wouldn’t let you starve.”

“No,” he said, “I will starve; but I won’t ask him for help again, after what he said to me. I will go back home when I am earning my own living and am independent, and not before.”

When Harry came back, I told him about Charley Bright, and Harry was as sorry as I was. He said that it was a very sad tale, and no doubt the young fellow had had a lesson, and if he could give him a helping hand he would.

So it was settled that Charley Bright was to come and be our first billiard-marker. We couldn’t afford to give him much salary, of course, because really it was more for the convenience of the gentlemen staying in the house and visitors than anything, and we couldn’t hope to do very much at first. But he was quite satisfied, and, I think, what he looked forward to were the regular meals. You may be sure that when I sent up his dinner, I cut him as much meat as I could put on his plate, and I let him know if he wanted any more he was to send down for it.

I don’t think I had enjoyed my own dinner so much for many a long day, as I did the day that I knew that poor fellow was enjoying his upstairs. Oh, he was so dreadfully thin and delicate-looking! He wore a light grey overcoat—a relic of his old racing days, he said—and it hung on him like a sack. He had no undercoat on; he had parted with that weeks before, he told me.

After he had been with us a week he was quite a changed man. He was the life and soul of the place, always merry, and always in high spirits. The customers liked him very much, and he really brought a lot of custom to the room, some of the young gentlemen from the houses round about coming to see him, and liking to talk to him, and hear his stories of what he had seen and done.

After he had been with us a fortnight he told us he was doing very well, as most of the gentlemen gave him something for himself. He said it made him feel queer at first to take a tip, like a servant, but after all he would be able to pay his landlady what he owed her, and so that helped him to swallow his pride.

We all got to like him very much indeed. He said Harry and I were as good as a brother and sister to him—better than his own brothers and sisters had been—and he was so grateful to us, there was nothing he would not have done to show it.

Of course, that Graves, the farrier, had something to say about it, in his nasty vulgar way. One day we were talking about Charley, and Graves said to Harry, “Yes, he’s a handsome young fellow. If he’d a lame leg and a squint eye and red hair, I don’t suppose the missus would have taken him up so kindly.” Harry gave Graves a look and curled his lip. “Graves,” he said, “I know you don’t mean to be objectionable, but shoeing horses is more in your line than people’s feelings. Talk about what you understand!”

Mr. Wilkins had something to say too, only he wasn’t as coarse as Graves. There is a little more refinement about a parish clerk than there is about a farrier. Mr. Wilkins only said that, of course, we knew our own business best; but he didn’t think a broken down betting-man was the nicest kind of person to keep on a well-conducted establishment.

I said, “Mr. Wilkins, when you have an hotel, you can manage it yourself and choose your own people; while the ‘Stretford Arms’ is ours, we’ll do the same thing.”

Charley—Mr. Bright I suppose I ought to call him now—stayed with us for two months, and then one day he came to me, and he said, “Mrs. Beckett, I hope you won’t think me ungrateful, but I’m going to leave you.”

Of course I said I was very sorry, and I asked him why.

Then he told me that a young fellow who had known him in his good days had gone into business for himself, and had offered him a situation as clerk in his office if he would come.

Of course I saw that was a more suitable situation for a young man of his position, and I said so. A few days afterwards he left us, and there wasn’t a soul but was sorry when he left; our housemaid, silly girl!—who, I do believe, had fallen in love with him—crying her eyes out.

I heard about him several times after that, because he wrote to Harry, and said he was doing well, and was reconciled to his father again. And some weeks afterwards he came down to see us, and his handsome face was handsomer than ever. He was beautifully dressed, and looked what he was—a gentleman to the backbone.

He stayed and had tea with us, and told us that he had fallen in love with his friend’s sister, and they were going to be married, and he was to be taken into partnership.

Something like a friend that, was it not?

He told us that he was in business in the Baltic.

“Why,” said Harry, “that’s in Russia!”

But he explained it was the Baltic—an exchange or something of the sort—in London, where business is done in grain, I think, and tallow, that comes from Russia. At any rate, he was doing very well, and since then I have seen his marriage in the paper.

Some day he has promised to bring his young wife down with him to stay at our hotel.

I am sure that we shall make them heartily welcome, and take care not to mention before her about his once having been our billiard-marker.

After he left, we had to look out for another marker, and we engaged a lad about fifteen. He was a wonderful player; but of all the forward, artful young demons that ever lived, I know there never was his equal. He was that crafty, you’d have thought he was fifty instead of fifteen. Talk about old heads on young shoulders! I’ll just give you a specimen of what he could be up to. One day——

* * * * *

O, baby, whatever have you been doing? Nurse, look at the child’s face! What does it mean? Been at the coal-scuttle! Why, I declare he’s sucking a piece of coal now! O, oo dirty, dirty boy—and oo nice tlene pinny only just put on! Go and wash him, nurse, for goodness’ sake, before his father sees him, or I sha’n’t hear the last of it for a week.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE SILENT POOL.

Fortunately, the suit, and a scarf-pin of Harry’s, and a silver-mounted walking-stick were all he went off with, so far as we ever discovered. Perhaps he didn’t have a chance of getting anything else, and was satisfied with what he did get, and letting us in for £7 15s. He wanted to draw the cheque for ten pounds and have the change, I remember; but I said “No” to that, and very glad I was afterwards that I did. It was a lesson to us, not getting the cheque paid. And after that we had a notice printed across all our billheads, “No cheques taken,” like most hotel-keepers do now. Some of them have a very nice collection of unpaid cheques, which they keep as curiosities.

Having been “done,” as Harry calls it, once or twice, made us more careful, and so young fellows without much luggage that we didn’t know anything about, when they began to live extravagantly, having champagne, and all that sort of thing, and staying for more than a day, we generally kept an eye on.

When they were out, we used to go up to their rooms and just have a look round and see if they’d got much clothes with them, because the portmanteau is nothing to go by. It may be stuffed full of old books and newspapers.

It was just while we were extra suspicious through having been swindled and robbed by the man I’ve just told you about, that two gentlemen with two small portmanteaus came in one evening by the last train, and wanted two bedrooms and a sitting-room.

They were about thirty-five years old, I should say, by the look of them. One was tall and thin, and the other was short and stout. They certainly looked respectable, and were well dressed; but they talked in rather a curious way to each other, using words that neither Harry nor I could understand, and that made us a little suspicious, and so we kept a sort of watch on them, and kept our ears open, too, as, of course, we had a right to do, seeing we had not only the reputation of the house to look after, but also the comfort and the property of the other customers.

I showed them their bedrooms, and, as it was late, I said, “I suppose, gentlemen, you won’t want a fire lighted in the sitting-room this evening?”

What made me say that was, it was past eleven, and, of course, I expected they would take their candles and go to bed.

The tall one said, “Oh yes, we do; we’re rather late birds.”

“That’s a nice thing,” I said to myself. “They’ll want the gas on half the night, and somebody will have to sit up and turn it off.”

However, I said nothing to them, but rang the bell, and had the fire lighted, and the gas lighted, and their portmanteaus carried upstairs.

They both pulled their chairs up to the fire, and the short gentleman lit a pipe.

“Aren’t you going to smoke?” he said to the tall gentleman.

“I don’t know,” said the tall gentleman; “a cigar always makes me queer.” Then he turned to me, and said, “Have you got any very mild cigars?”

“Yes, sir,” I said; “I think so. Is there anything else you want?”

“What shall I have?” said the stout gentleman. “Can I have a cup of tea?”

I looked at him. It was past eleven o’clock, and we were just on closing up everything, and the fire was out in the kitchen.

“Well, sir,” I said; “if you particularly wish it—but——”

“Oh, don’t trouble,” he said. “Of course, we’re in the country. I forgot. Bring me a whiskey-and-seltzer.”

“Yes, sir; and what will you have, sir?” I said, turning to the long gentleman.

The long gentleman, if he was a minute making up his mind he was ten. First he thought he’d have whiskey, and then he said whiskey made him bilious; then he thought he’d have a brandy-and-soda; and then he thought he’d have a plain lemonade.

“You couldn’t make my friend a basin of gruel, could you?” said the stout gentleman; “he’s very delicate.”

Of course I took him seriously, so I said, “Well, sir, the cook’s gone to bed; but——”

“Oh, don’t pay any attention to what he says,” says the tall gentleman; “he’s a lunatic. Bring me—let’s see—lemonade’s such cold stuff this weather—I think I’ll have a port-wine negus.”

I was very glad to get the order and get out of the room, for I thought they were going to keep me there half an hour.

When I got downstairs, I said to Harry, “I can’t make those two men out quite, and I’m not sure I like them.”

“Oh,” said Harry, “I dare say they’re all right. I’ll take their measure to-morrow.”

I took up the cigar, and the whiskey-and-seltzer, and the port-wine negus, and put them down, and was just saying good night when the tall gentleman called me back.

“You’ve put nutmeg in this wine?” he said.

“Yes, sir, it’s usual to put nutmeg in negus.”

“I’m very sorry, but I can’t take nutmeg—it makes me bilious. I think I’ll have a bottle of lemonade, after all.”

“Bring him six of cod-liver oil hot, and a mustard-plaster,” said the stout gentleman.

The tall gentleman certainly looked rather delicate. He had a very fair face, and a lot of very fair hair, and there was a generally languid appearance about him.

“I can make you a mustard-plaster, sir,” I said, “if you would really like one.”

“Don’t you mind him,” said the tall gentleman; “he’s only trying to be funny.”

All this time he was pinching the cigar, and looking at it as though it were some nasty medicine.

“I’m afraid this is too strong for me,” he said. “Haven’t you anything milder?”

“Bring him a halfpenny sweetstuff one,” said the stout gentleman.

I took the negus and the cigar downstairs, and I said to Harry, “I shan’t go up again. Those two men are lunatics, I believe. They want lemonade and a halfpenny sweetstuff cigar now.”

Harry laughed, and said, “Go on—they’re chaffing you.”

“Well, I’m not going to be chaffed,” I said. So I called Jane, the waitress, who was just going to bed, poor girl, having to be up at six in the morning, and I said, “Jane, you must wait on No. 16, please.” And I gave her the lemonade.

She went up, and she was gone quite ten minutes. When she came down, I said, “Jane, whatever made you so long?”

“Oh, ma’am,” she said, “they’ve been asking me such things!”

“What have they been asking you, Jane?” I said, getting alarmed; for I was more than ever convinced the two men weren’t quite right.

“They’ve been asking me if ever there was a murder here, ma’am, and if there isn’t a silent pool in the wood where a body’s been found. And the stout gentleman says that the tall gentleman is mad, and he’s his keeper.”

“I knew it,” I screamed. And then I said, “Harry, I’m not going to bed to-night with a lunatic in the house. You must go upstairs and tell them to go. We are not licensed to receive lunatics, and I won’t have it.”

“Nonsense!” said Harry. “It’s only their nonsense. They’ve been chaffing Jane, that’s all. Don’t be a goose.”

“Well,” I said, “I shall ask them to-morrow to go somewhere else.”

“Let’s wait till to-morrow, then,” said Harry. “We’ve no reasonable excuse for turning them out at this hour of the night. Let’s go to bed.”

“Very well,” I said. “Jane, take the candles into No. 16, and turn out the gas.”

Jane took the candles, and presently she came down and said, “Please, ma’am, the gentlemen say they’ll turn out the gas themselves.”

“Very well,” I said. “Then, Harry, you’ll have to sit up, for I’m not going to leave the house at the mercy of these two fellows. They’ll go to bed and leave the gas full on, or turn it off and turn it on again, and there’ll be an escape, and we shall all be blown up, or some fine thing.”

“All right, my dear; anything to please you. I don’t mind sitting up,” said Harry; “only don’t fidget yourself so, for goodness’ sake, or you’ll be ill.”

I said I shouldn’t fidget if he sat up, and I went to bed; but I was awfully wild, because we didn’t want that sort of people at our quiet little place. It was very good of Harry to sit up, and he certainly is very kind and considerate, and I dare say I was fidgety and nervous; but I hadn’t been very well, and the least thing upset me. The doctor said it was “nerves,” and I suppose that was what it was. I had had a bad illness, and that had left me low, and the least thing upset me. I think I told you at the time Harry wanted me to go away to the seaside and get better; but I wouldn’t do that, for I should have been fidgeting all day and all night, lest something should go wrong while I was away.

I went to bed, leaving Harry in the bar-parlour smoking his pipe, and reading the newspaper; and after a bit, I fell fast asleep.

When I woke up it was just getting light. I turned to look for Harry. He wasn’t in bed.

I went hot and cold all over.

“Harry!” I called out.

There was no answer.

I jumped out of bed and looked at my watch by the window. It was five o’clock in the morning.

“Oh,” I said, “this is wicked—this is infamous. The idea of those fellows sitting burning the gas till this time in the morning in a respectable house, and my great gaby of a husband not going up and telling them of it.”

I hurried on some of my things, and went down the stairs.

I had to pass No. 16. The door was wide open and the gas was out.

Whatever could it mean?

A terrible thought flashed through my brain.

They had murdered Harry, robbed the house, and decamped.

How I got down to the bar-parlour I don’t know. Terror gave me strength.

Directly I got to the door I saw the gas was still on there. I pushed the door open and ran in, and there was Harry fast asleep in the arm-chair, with the newspaper in his lap and his pipe dropped out of his mouth and lying on the hearthrug.

“Harry!” I said, seizing him by the arm—“Harry!”

He started and opened his eyes. “Hullo,” he said, “what’s the matter?”

“What’s the matter!” I said. “Why, it’s five o’clock in the morning, and you’ve given me my death of fright.”

He was flabbergasted when he found out what time it was, and he said he supposed he must have dropped off sound asleep.

There wasn’t much suppose about it!

A nice thing, wasn’t it, to leave him to look after those two fellows, and put the gas out for safety? and then for them to put their gas out themselves, and him to go to sleep with his burning, and drop his lighted pipe on the hearthrug.

It’s a mercy we weren’t all burned alive in our beds.

* * * * *

What with the fright and the broken rest, I wasn’t at all well next day, and I dare say I was a little disagreeable. I know I began at Harry about those two gentlemen, and what we were going to do.

They didn’t get up till nearly ten, and it was past eleven before they’d done breakfast. I went into the sitting-room to ask about dinner; but really to have another look at them.

They didn’t look anything very dreadful in the daylight, and they were certainly very pleasant with me, though a bit more jokey than I felt inclined for.

They said they’d have dinner at five o’clock; and then they asked me all about the village and the neighbourhood, and they were on again about that silent pool. There had been a murder committed there years and years ago, and they must have heard about it somehow, for they asked me all about it, and I told them the story as well as I could remember it.

There was a young woman, the daughter of a farmer, who lived near the wood, and she was engaged to be married to a young fellow who was a farmer’s son. But it seems that she had been carrying on with a young gentleman of quality, who lived in a fine mansion some miles away. The young farmer had his suspicions, and watched her, and one moonlight night he saw her go out, and meet her gentleman lover in the wood near this pool. The lovers parted at the pool, after a very stormy scene, the poor girl saying that he had broken her heart, and that she would drown herself. An old man, a farm labourer, who was going through the wood, heard the girl say that she would drown herself. He didn’t see her, he only heard those words.

The next morning the poor girl was found lying drowned in the pool, and it was supposed to be suicide. The old man’s evidence of what he had heard, and something that the doctor said at the inquest, made it quite clear why the poor thing should have done so. But after the inquest was over and it had been brought in suicide, the rumour got about that it wasn’t a suicide after all, but a murder. Some people said that the young farmer had pushed her in, in a mad fit of jealousy and revenge, and others that the young gentleman had done it, because the poor girl had threatened to tell everything, and make a scandal; and it seems he was dreadfully in debt, and engaged to be married to a very rich young lady.

The rumour got so strong, and such a lot of evidence kept being found out by the girl’s father, that the young gentleman was arrested—arrested on the very morning that he was to have been married—and was charged with the murder. The pool had been dragged, and at the bottom of the pool was found, among other things, a piece of linen, with a small diamond pin still in it. It was in the days when gentlemen wore frill shirts, with a diamond pin in them—sometimes one pin and a little chain, and a smaller pin attached to that. I dare say you remember them, because it is not so long ago that some old-fashioned gentlemen wore them still. It was said that this belonged to the man who had pushed the poor girl in—that there had been a struggle, and she had clung to him, and the shirt-front had been torn away, and the girl had gone into the pool with it in her hand, and opening her hands struggling in the water, it had gone to the bottom.

At the trial, when the gentleman’s servants were examined, it was proved that he had come home that night very excited, and one of them had noticed that he wore his coat buttoned over his chest, and it was found out that a pin, which he was known to have had, had not been seen since—that he could not produce it, though he swore he was innocent.

He was committed for trial, I think—at any rate, after the examination before the magistrates there was another grand trial at the assizes, and everybody thought he would be found guilty, when suddenly the young farmer came into the court, and made a tremendous sensation by saying that he had murdered the girl himself, in a fit of passion.

He had overheard the conversation between the lovers, and he had sprung out on them, and attacked the young gentleman. The poor girl had clung to him to protect him, badly as he had used her, and that was how the piece of shirt and the diamond pin came away in her hand. The young gentleman, who was a coward, or he could never have treated a trusting girl as he did, slunk away, for the farmer threatened he would kill him like a dog if he did not. And as soon as he was gone, leaving the girl half-fainting, the young farmer turned on her, and she answered him, and said she hated him, and upbraided him for attacking the man she loved; and this made him so mad that he pushed her into the pool, and she was drowned.

I couldn’t tell the gentlemen all the details, because I didn’t know them, but that was the story as I had heard it. The young farmer was put in the dock in the place of the young gentleman, and was found guilty, and sentenced to be hanged; but he managed to hang himself in his cell before the day of execution. The young gentleman lost his rich bride, and went away abroad, and they say that he was stabbed soon afterwards in a row in a low gambling-house, which was a terrible tragedy, and three young lives lost because a man was wicked and a woman was weak; but I suppose there will be tragedies of that sort as long as the world lasts.

The gentlemen seemed very interested in what I told them, and I began to think better of them, because it is always nice to tell a story to intelligent people, and to see that you have made an impression.

After breakfast, they asked me to direct them to the pool in the wood, and they went off there, and didn’t come back till dinner-time.

When they came in I asked them if they had seen the pool.

“Yes,” said the tall gentleman; “it is a lovely place for a murder.”

“A lovely place for a murder,” I thought to myself. “That’s a nice way to talk certainly;” but I was wanted in the bar, and we didn’t have any more conversation.

That evening Harry had gone upstairs into one of the rooms that was being repapered, and when he came down he looked very serious.

“What’s the matter?” I said.

“Well,” he said, “I was passing No. 16, and, hearing them talking rather loud, I stopped for a minute, not exactly to listen; but I couldn’t help hearing what they said, and I heard something that’s rather worried me.”

“What is it?” I said. “You’d better tell me, or I shall think all manner of things.”

I had to press him; but he told me at last.

“I heard one say to the other,” he said, “that he thought they couldn’t do better than get the girl to that pool, and then have her pushed in.”

“‘Yes,’ said the other; ‘but who is to do it?’

“‘Why, James Maitland,’ said the other.

“‘But suppose she screamed—wouldn’t her screams be heard? And if her screams were heard, everybody would know it wasn’t suicide.’

“‘No,’ said the other, ‘there are no houses near. This other girl was murdered there, and everybody thought it was suicide.’

“There was silence for a minute, and then the other (the short one, I think, by his voice) said, ‘Let’s do it.’”

“Oh, Harry!” I said, “how awful!”

“We must keep our heads,” said Harry, “and not let them think we’ve heard anything.”

“Did you hear any more?”

“Yes, I heard the long one say that they’d better go up to the pool to-night, so as to see how it looked in the dark, and then they would be able to arrange all the details.”

“Harry,” I said, “not another moment do I rest in this house, with two men plotting murder in it. Go and tell them that we know all, and order them off the premises.”

Harry thought a minute, and then he said—

“No; we’ve got no proof yet. I’d better go and put the matter in the hands of the police.”

“Yes; go at once,” I said.

Harry went up to the station and told his story to the inspector, and the inspector said we had better not say anything to the two men, but have them watched. He said they wouldn’t know him, so he’d put on plain clothes and do the job himself; he didn’t care to trust it to Jones, as Jones was a bit of a fool. You remember Jones—he was the policeman that Dashing Dick had such a game with, with the empty revolver.

I said to Harry, “Well, if he doesn’t arrest them to-night, they don’t come back here. I’ve made up my mind to that.”

The inspector came down to our house soon afterwards in plain clothes, and sat in our bar-parlour. Harry persuaded him to let him go with him to the wood, and he promised he should, if he’d be careful.

About seven o’clock, the two fellows went out, and as soon as they’d gone the inspector and Harry went off, and took a short cut, so as to get to the pool first and conceal themselves.

Harry told me all about what happened afterwards.

They concealed themselves behind a clump of trees near the pool, and presently those two fellows came along talking earnestly together.

When they got to the pool they were silent for a bit, and walked all round it, looking at the ground.

“This’ll be the place,” said the tall one presently; “this mound gives a man a good foothold, and he can throw the girl in instead of pushing her.”

“Yes,” said the other. “James Maitland mustn’t make the appointment with the girl here, but in the wood, and then they can walk this way. He’ll start quarrelling with her here, and then he can throw her in.”

“Where’s he to go to when he’s done it? Run away?”

“No; stop and brazen it out. Nobody will see him or the girl together. We can arrange that, and the suspicion is sure to fall on the other fellow, because of what’s already passed between him and Norah. Besides,” said the short fellow, “who’s going to accuse Maitland? Nobody knows that he’s mixed up with the girl.”