“You have been making acquaintance with your patients? I hope there are no severe cases,” said Lady Mary.

“No, none at all, luckily for them—or I should not have long answered for their lives,” he said, with an unsteady smile.

“Ah! you do not like Dr. Franks’ mode of treatment? Neither do I. I have disapproved of him most highly sometimes; and I assure you,” said Lady Mary, in her most gracious tone, “I am so very glad to know that there is now some one on the spot who may be trusted, whatever happens. With one’s nursery full of children, that question becomes of the greatest importance. Many an anxious moment I have had.”

And then there was a pause. Dr. Murray was unbending, less afraid of how people looked at him.

“My cousin Mr. Earnshaw has not yet come back?” he said.

“He is occupied with some business in town. I am only waiting, as I told your sister, till he comes. As soon as he does so, I hope we may see more of you here; but in the meantime, Mrs. Smith must come to me. I hope I shall see a great deal of her; and you must spare her for my lectures, Dr. Murray. You must not let her give herself up too much to her housekeeping, and all her thrifty occupations.”

“Margaret has no occasion to be overthrifty,” he said, looking at her. “I have always begged her to go into society. We have not come to that, that my sister should be a slave to her housekeeping. Margaret, remember, I hope you will not neglect what her Ladyship says.”

“After the flitting,” said Margaret, softly.

“Ah, yes; after our removal. We shall then have a room more fit to receive you in,” he said. “I hear on all hands that it is a very good house.”

At this moment some one came in to announce the carriage, which Lady Mary had ordered to take her visitor home; and here there arose another conflict in Dr. Murray’s mind. Which was best, most like what a man of the world would do? to drive down with his sister or to walk? He was tired, and the drive would certainly be the easier; but what if they should think it odd? The doctor was saved from this dilemma by Harry, who came unwittingly to the rescue, and proposed to walk down the avenue with him. Harry had not fallen in love with him as with his sister; but still he was at that stage when a man is anxious to conciliate everybody belonging to the woman whom he loves. And then little Sibby was brought down from the nursery, clasping closely a doll which had been presented to her by the children in a body, with eyes blazing like two stars, and red roses of excitement upon her little cheeks. Never in all her life before had Sibby spent so happy a day. And when she and her mother had been placed in the warm delicious carriage, is it wonderful that various dreams floated into Margaret’s mind as she leant back in her corner, and was whirled past those long lines of trees. Harry had been ready to give her his arm downstairs, to put her into the carriage. He had whispered, with a thrill in his voice:

“May I bring those books to-morrow?”

He had all but brushed her dress with his face, bowing over her in his solicitude. Ah, how comfortable it would be, how delightful to have a house like that, a carriage like this, admiring, soft-mannered people about her all day long, and nothing to do but what she pleased to do! Had she begun to cherish a wish that Harry’s fancy might not be a temporary one, that he might persevere in it, and overcome opposition? It would be hard to expect from Margaret such perfection of goodness as never to allow such a train of thought to enter her mind; but at the same time her practical virtue stood all assaults. She would never encourage him; this she vowed over again, though with a sensation almost of hope, and a wish unexpressed in her heart.

For ah! what a difference there is between being poor and being rich—between Lady Mary in the great house, and Margaret Murray, or Smith, in Mrs. Sims’ lodging!—and if you went to the root of the matter, the one woman was as good as the other, as well adapted to “ornament her station,” as old-fashioned people used to say. I think, on the whole, it was greatly to Margaret’s credit, seeing that so much was at stake, that she never wavered in her determination to give Harry no encouragement. But she meant to put no barrier definitively in his way, no obstacle insuperable. She was willing enough to be the reward of his exertions, should he be successful in the lists; and Lady Mary’s kindness, nay, affectionateness towards her seemed to point to a successful issue of the struggle, if Harry went into it with perseverance and vigour. She could not help being a little excited by the thought.

Lady Mary, on her side, was charmed with her new friend. “The brother may be a cad, as you say, but she is perfection,” she said incautiously to Harry, when he came in with a glowing countenance from his walk. “What good breeding, what grace, what charming graceful ways she has! and yet always the simplicity of that pretty Scotch accent, and of the words which slip out now and then. The children are all in raptures with little Sibby. Fancy making a graceful name like Sybil into such a hideous diminutive! But that is Scotch all over. They seem to take a pleasure in keeping their real refinement in the background, and showing a rough countenance to the world. They are all like that,” said Lady Mary, who was fond of generalizations.

Harry did not say much, but he drew a chair close to the fire, and sat and mused over it with sparkling eyes, when his aunt went to dress for dinner. He did not feel capable of coherent thought at all; he was lost in a rapture of feeling which would not go into words. He felt that he could sit there all night long not wishing to budge, to be still, not even thinking, existing in the mere atmosphere of the wonderful day which was now over. Would it come back again? would it prolong itself? would his life grow into a lengthened sweet repetition of this day? He sat there with his knees into the fire, gazing into the red depths till his eyes grew red in sympathy, until the bell for dinner began to peal through the silent winter air. Mr. Tottenham had come home, and was visible at the door in evening costume, refreshed and warmed after his drive, when Harry, half-blind, rushed out to make a hasty toilette. His distracted looks made his host wonder.

“I hope you are not letting that boy get into mischief,” he said to his wife.

“Mischief! what mischief could he get into here?” Lady Mary replied, with a smile; and then they began to talk on very much more important matters—on Herr Hartstong’s visit, and the preparations at the Shop, which were now complete.

“I expect you to show a good example, and to treat my people like friends,” said Mr. Tottenham.

“Oh, friends!—am not I the head shopwoman?” asked Lady Mary, laughing. “You may be sure I intend to appear so.”

The entertainment was to take place on the next evening, after the botanical lecture at Harbour Green. It was, indeed, likely to be an exciting day, with so much going on.

And when the people at Tottenham’s went to dinner, the Murrays had tea, for which they were all quite ready after the sharp evening air. “You were wrong to speak about your housekeeping, and all that,” the doctor said, in the mildest of accents, and with no appearance of suspicion, for in the bosom of his family he feared no criticism. “Remember always, Margaret, that people take you at your own estimate. It does not do to let yourself down.”

“And it does not do to set yourself up, beyond what you can support,” said Margaret. “We are not rich folk, and we must not give ourselves airs. And oh, Charles, one thing I wanted to say. If you wouldn’t say ladyship—at least, not often. No one else seems to do it, except the servants. Don’t be angry. I watch always to see what people say.”

“I hope I know what to say as well as anyone,” said the doctor, with momentary offence; but, nevertheless, he made a private note of it, having confidence in his sister’s keen observation. Altogether, the start at Harbour Green had been very successful, and it was not wonderful if both Dr. Charles and his sister felt an inward exhilaration in such a prosperous commencement of their new life.

CHAPTER VIII.

The Entertainment at the Shop.

“Do, Harry; go to the Red House, and to the Rectory, and tell them half-past twelve precisely. We did not quite settle upon the hour,” said Lady Mary. “And you might ask Sissy Witherington to send round to some of the other people; she knows them all. You will meet us at the schoolroom? So many thanks!”

“I shall be there,” said Harry, cheerily, marching off with his books under his arm.

If Lady Mary had not been so busy, no doubt she would have asked herself the cause of this wonderful conversion; but with a lecture to attend to in the morning, and an entertainment at night, what time had she for lesser matters? And she had to send some servants to Berkeley Square to get the rooms ready, as the family were to dine and sleep there; altogether she had a great deal upon her hands. Harry had his difficulties, too, in getting safely out of the house without Phil, who, abandoned by Edgar, and eluded by his cousin, was in a very restless state of mind, and had determined this morning, of all others, not to be left behind. Harry, however, inspired by the thoughts of Mrs. Smith, was too clever for Phil, and shot down the avenue like an arrow, with his books under his arm, happy in his legitimate and perfectly correct errand, to which no one could object. He left his message with the Witheringtons on his way, for he was too happy not to be virtuous, poor fellow. It damped his ardour dreadfully to find that no plea he could put forth would induce Margaret to go to the lecture.

“I don’t take any interest in botany,” she said, “and I have no time for it, to keep it up if I began.”

“What of that,” said Harry; “do you think I take an interest in botany?”

“But you are a great florist, Mr. Thornleigh,” she said, demurely. It was some time before he remembered his pretence about the flowers.

“I shall bring you some specimens of my skill to-morrow,” he said, laughing, with a flush of pleasure. At least, if she would not come to-day, here was an excuse for making another day happy—and as a lover lives upon the future, Harry was partially consoled for his disappointment. I don’t think he got much good of the lecture; perhaps no one got very much good. Ellen Gregory did not come, for botany was not in her list of subjects for the pupil-teachers’ examination, and Lady Mary did not take any notes, but only lent the students the encouragement of her presence; for she could not, notwithstanding what she had said, quite disabuse her own mind from the impression that this was a young-lady-like science, and not one of those which train the mind to thought. So that on the whole, as I have said, the chief result was that Myra “got up” Herr Hartstong to the great delight of all the light-minded population at Harbour Green, who found the professor much more amusing in that audacious young mimic’s rendering than in his own person.

In the afternoon the whole party went to London. “Everybody is going,” said little Molly, in huge excitement. “It is like the pantomime; and Phil is to do the cheering. Shouldn’t you like to be him, Harry? It will almost be as good as being on the stage oneself.”

“Don’t talk of things you don’t understand,” said Phil, who was too grand to be spoken to familiarly, and whose sense of responsibility was almost too heavy for perfect happiness. “I sha’n’t cheer unless they deserve it. But the rehearsal was awful fun,” he added, unbending. “You’ll say you never saw anything better, if they do half as well to-night.”

Tottenham’s was gorgeous to behold when the guests began to arrive. The huge central hall, with galleries all round it, and handsome carpeted stairs leading on every hand up to the galleries, was the scene of the festivity. On ordinary occasions the architectural splendour of this hall was lost, in consequence of the crowd of tables, and goods, and customers which filled it. It had been cleared, however, for the entertainment. Rich shawls in every tint of softened colour were hung about, coloured stuffs draped the galleries, rich carpets covered the floors; no palace could have been more lavish in its decorations, and few palaces could have employed so liberally those rich Oriental fabrics which transcend all others in combinations of colour. Upstairs, in the galleries, were the humbler servants of the establishment, porters, errand boys, and their relatives; down below were “the young ladies” and “the gentlemen” of Tottenham’s occupying the seats behind their patrons in clouds of white muslin and bright ribbons.

“Very nice-looking people, indeed,” the Duchess of Middlemarch said, as she came in on Mr. Tottenham’s arm, putting up her eyeglass. Many of the young ladies curtseyed to Her Grace in sign of personal acquaintance, for she was a constant patroness of Tottenham’s. “I hope you haven’t asked any of my sons,” said the great lady, looking round her with momentary nervousness.

Mr. Tottenham himself was as pleased as if he had been exhibiting “a bold tenantry their country’s pride” to his friends. “They are nice-looking, though I say it as shouldn’t,” he said, “and many of them as good as they look.” He was so excited that he began to give the Duchess an account of their benefit societies, and saving banks, and charities, to which Her Grace replied with many benevolent signs of interest, though I am afraid she did not care any more about them than Miss Annetta Baker did about the lecture. She surveyed the company, as they arrived, through her double eyeglass, and watched “poor little Mary Horton that was, she who married the shopkeeper,” receiving her guests, with her pretty children at her side. It was very odd altogether, but then, the Hortons were always odd, she said to herself—and graciously bowed her head as Mr. Tottenham paused, and said, “How very admirable!” with every appearance of interest.

A great many other members of the aristocracy shared Her Grace’s feelings, and many of them were delighted by the novelty, and all of them gazed at the young ladies and gentlemen of the establishment as if they were animals of some unknown description. I don’t think the gentlemen and the young ladies were at all offended. They gazed too with a kindred feeling, and made notes of the dresses, and watched the manners and habits of “the swells” with equal curiosity and admiration. The young ladies in the linen and in the cloak and mantle department were naturally more excited about the appearance of the fine ladies from a book-of-fashion point of view than were the dressmakers and milliners, who sat, as it were, on the permanent committee of the “Mode,” and knew “what was to be worn.” But even they were excited to find themselves in the same room with so many dresses from Paris, with robes which Wörth had once tried on, and ribbons which Elise had touched. I fear all these influences were rather adverse to the due enjoyment of the trial scene from Pickwick, with Miss Robinson in the part of Serjeant Buzfuz. The fine people shrugged their shoulders, and lifted their eyebrows at each other, and cheered ironically now and then with twitters of laughter; and the small people were too intent upon the study of their betters to do justice to the performance. Phil, indeed, shrieked with laughter, knowing all the points, with the exactitude of a showman, and led his claque vigorously; but I think, on the whole, the employés of Tottenham’s would have enjoyed this part of the entertainment more had their attention been undisturbed. After the first part of the performances was over, there was an interval for “social enjoyment;” and it was now that the gorgeous footmen appeared with the ices, about whom Mr. Tottenham had informed his children. Lady Mary, perhaps, required a little prompting from her husband before she withdrew herself from the knot of friends who had collected round her, and addressed herself instead to the young ladies of the shop.

“Must we go and talk to them, Mr. Tottenham? Will they like it? or shall we only bore them?” asked the fine ladies.

The Duchess of Middlemarch was, as became her rank, the first to set them the example. She went up with her double eyeglass in her hand to a group of the natives who were standing timorously together—two young ladies and a gentleman.

“It has been very nice, has it not,” said Her Grace; “quite clever. Will you get me an ice, please? and tell me who was the young woman—the young lady who acted so well? I wonder if I have seen her when I have been here before.”

“Yes, Your Grace,” said one of the young ladies. “She is in the fancy department, Miss Robinson. Her father is at the head of the cloaks and mantles, Your Grace.”

“She did very nicely,” said the Duchess, condescendingly, taking the ice from the young man whom she had so honoured. “Thanks, this will do very well, I don’t want to sit down. It is very kind of Mr. Tottenham, I am sure, to provide this entertainment for you. Do you all live here now?—and how many people may there be in the establishment? He told me, but I forget.”

It was the gentleman who supplied the statistics, while the Duchess put up her eyeglass, and once more surveyed the assembly. “You must make up quite a charming society,” she said; “like a party in a country-house. And you have nice sitting-rooms for the evening, and little musical parties, eh? as so many can sing, I perceive; and little dances, perhaps?”

“Oh no, Your Grace,” said one of the young ladies, mournfully. “We have practisings sometimes, when anything is coming off.”

“And we have an excellent library, Your Grace,” said the gentleman, “and all the new books. There is a piano in the ladies’ sitting-room, and we gentlemen have chess and so forth, and everything extremely nice.”

“And a great deal of gossip, I suppose,” said Her Grace; “and I hope you have chaperons to see that there is not too much flirting.”

“Oh, flirting!” said all three, in a chorus. “There is a sitting-room for the ladies, and another for the gentlemen,” the male member of the party said, somewhat primly, for he was one of the class of superintendents, vulgarly called shopwalkers, and he knew his place.

“Oh—h!” said the Duchess, putting down her eyeglass; “then it must be a great deal less amusing than I thought!”

“It was quite necessary, I assure you, Your Grace,” said the gentleman; and the two young ladies who had been tittering behind their fans, gave him each a private glance of hatred. They composed their faces, however, as Mr. Tottenham came up, called by the Duchess from another group.

“You want me, Duchess?” how fine all Tottenham’s who were within hearing, felt at this—especially the privileged trio, to whom she had been talking, “Duchess!” that sublime familiarity elevated them all in the social scale.

“Nothing is perfect in this world,” said Her Grace, with a sigh. “I thought I had found Utopia; but even your establishment is not all it might be. Why aren’t they all allowed to meet, and sing, and flirt, and bore each other every evening, as people do in a country house?”

“Come, Duchess, and look at my shawls,” said Mr. Tottenham, with a twinkle out of his grey eyes. Her Grace accepted the bait, and sailed away, leaving the young ladies in a great flutter. A whole knot of them collected together to hear what had happened, and whisper over it in high excitement.

“I quite agree with the Duchess,” said Miss Lockwood, loud enough to be heard among the fashionables, as she sat apart and fanned herself, like any fine lady. Her handsome face was almost as pale as ivory, her cheeks hollow. Charitable persons said, in the house, that she was in a consumption, and that it was cruel to stop her duet with Mr. Watson, and to inquire into her past life, when, poor soul, it was clear to see that she would soon be beyond the reach of all inquiries. It was the Robinsons who had insisted upon it chiefly—Mr. Robinson, who was at the head of the department, and who had daughters of his own, about whom he was very particular. His youngest was under Miss Lockwood, in the shawls and mantles, and that was why he was so inexorable pursuing the matter; though why he should make objections to Miss Lockwood’s propriety, and yet allow Jemima to act in public, as she had just done, was more than the shop could make out. Miss Lockwood sat by herself, having thus been breathed upon by suspicion; but no one in the place was more conspicuous. She had an opera cloak of red, braided with gold, which the young ladies knew to be quite a valuable article, and her glossy dark hair was beautifully dressed, and her great paleness called attention to her beauty. She kept her seat, not moving when the others did, calling to her anyone she wanted, and indeed, generally taking upon herself the rôle of fine lady. And partly from sympathy for her illness, partly from disapproval of what was called the other side, the young ladies and gentlemen of Tottenham’s stood by her. When she said, “I agree with the Duchess,” everybody looked round to see who it was that spoke.

When the pause for refreshments was over, Mr. Tottenham led Her Grace back to her place, and the entertainment recommenced. The second part was simply music. Mr. Watson gave his solo on the cornet, and another gentleman of the establishment accompanied one of the young ladies on the violin, and then they sang a number of part songs, which was the best part of the programme. The excitement being partially over, the music was much better attended to than the Trial Scene from Pickwick; and all the fine people, used to hear Joachim play, or Patti sing, listened with much gracious restraint of their feelings. It had been intended at first that the guests and the employés should sup together, Mr. Robinson offering his arm to Lady Mary, and so on. But at the last moment this arrangement had been altered, and the visitors had wine and cake, and sandwiches and jellies in one room, while the establishment sat down to a splendid table in another, and ate and drank, and made speeches and gave toasts to their hearts’ content, undisturbed by any inspection. What a place it was! The customers went all over it, conducted by Mr. Tottenham and his assistants through the endless warehouses, and through the domestic portion of the huge house, while the young ladies and gentlemen of Tottenham’s were at supper. The visitors went to the library, and to the sitting-rooms, and even to the room which was used as a chapel, and which was full of rough wooden chairs, like those in a French country church, and decorated with flowers. This curious adjunct to the shop stood open, with faint lights burning, and the spring flowers shedding faint odours.

“I did not know you had been so High Church, Mr. Tottenham,” said the Duchess. “I was not prepared for this.”

“Oh, this is Saint Gussy’s chapel,” cried Phil, who was too much excited to be kept silent. “We all call it Saint Gussy’s. There is service every day, and it is she who puts up the flowers. Ah, ah!”

Phil stopped suddenly, persuaded thereto by a pressure on the arm, and saw Edgar standing by him in the crowd. There were so many, and they were all crowding so close upon each other, that his exclamation was not noticed. Edgar had been conjoining to the other business which detained him in town a great deal of work about the entertainment, and he had appeared with the other guests in the evening, but had been met by Lady Augusta with such a face of terror, and hurried anxious greeting, that he had withdrawn himself from the assembly, feeling his own heart beat rather thick and fast at the thought, perhaps, of meeting Gussy without warning in the midst of this crowd. He had kept himself in the background all the evening, and now he stopped Phil, to send a message to his father.

“Say that he will find me in his room when he wants me; and don’t use a lady’s name so freely, or tell family jokes out of the family,” he said to the boy, who was ashamed of himself. Edgar’s mind was full of new anxieties of which the reader shall hear presently. The Entertainment was a weariness to him, and everything connected with it. He turned away when he had given the message, glad to escape from the riot—the groups trooping up and down the passages, and examining the rooms as if they were a settlement of savages—the Duchess sweeping on in advance on Mr. Tottenham’s arm, with her double eye-glass held up. He turned away through an unfrequented passage, dimly lighted and silent, where there was nothing to see, and where nobody came. In the distance the joyful clatter of the supper-table, where all the young ladies and gentlemen of the establishment were enjoying themselves came to his ears on one side—while the soft laughter and hum of voices on the other, told of the better bred crowd who were finding their way again round other staircases and corridors to the central hall. It is impossible, I suppose, to hear the sounds of festive enjoyment with which one has nothing to do, and from which one has withdrawn thus sounding from the distance without some symptoms of a gentle misanthropy, and that sense of superiority to common pursuits and enjoyments which affords compensation to those who are left out in the cold, whether in great things or small things. Edgar’s heart was heavy, and he felt it more heavy in consequence of the merry-making. Among all these people, so many of whom he had known, was there one that retained any kind thought of him—one that would not, like Lady Augusta, the kindest of them all, have felt a certain fright at his re-appearance, as of one come from the dead? Alas, he ought to have remained dead, when socially he was so. Edgar felt, at least, his resurrection ought not to have been here.

With this thought in his mind, he turned a dim corner of the white passage, where a naked gaslight burned dimly. He was close to Mr. Tottenham’s room, where he meant to remain until he was wanted. With a start of surprise, he saw that some one else was in the passage coming the other way, one of the ladies apparently of the fashionable party. The passage was narrow, and Edgar stood aside to let her pass. She was wrapped in a great white cloak, the hood half over her head, and came forward rapidly, but uncertain, as if she had lost herself. Just before they met, she stopped short, and uttered a low cry.

Had not his heart told him who it was? Edgar stood stock still, scarcely breathing, gazing at her. He had wondered how this meeting would come about, for come it must, he knew—and whether he would be calm and she calm, as if they had met yesterday? Yet when the real emergency arrived he was quite unprepared for it. He did not seem able to move, but gazed at her as if all his heart had gone into his eyes, incapable of more than the mere politeness of standing by to let her pass, which he had meant to do when he thought her a stranger. The difficulty was all thrown upon her. She too had made a pause. She looked up at him with a tremulous smile and a quivering lip. She put out her hands half timidly, half eagerly; her colour changed from red to pale, and from pale to red. “Have you forgotten me, then?” she said.

CHAPTER IX.

Miss Lockwood’s Story.

I am obliged to go back a few days, that the reader may be made aware of the causes which detained Edgar, and of the business which had occupied his mind, mingled with all the frivolities of the Entertainment, during his absence. Annoyance, just alloyed with a forlorn kind of amusement, was his strongest sentiment, when he found himself appointed by his patron to be a kind of father-confessor to Miss Lockwood, to ascertain her story, and take upon himself her defence, if defence was possible. Why should he be selected for such a delicate office? he asked; and when he found himself seated opposite to the young lady from the cloak and shawl department in Mr. Tottenham’s room, his sense of the incongruity of his position became more and more embarrassing. Miss Lockwood’s face was not of a common kind. The features were all fine, even refined, had the mind been conformable; but as the mind was not of a high order, the fine face took an air of impertinence, of self-opinion, and utter indifference to the ideas or feelings of others, which no coarse features could have expressed so well; the elevation of her head was a toss, the curl of her short upper lip a sneer. She placed herself on a chair in front of Mr. Tottenham’s writing-table, at which Edgar sat, and turned her profile towards him, and tucked up her feet on a foot-stool. She had a book in her hand, which she used sometimes as a fan, sometimes to shield her face from the fire, or Edgar’s eyes, when she found them embarrassing. But it was he who was embarrassed, not Miss Lockwood. It cost him a good deal of trouble to begin his interrogatory.

“You must remember,” he said, “that I have not thrust myself into this business, but that it is by your own desire—though I am entirely at a loss to know why.”

“Of course you are,” said Miss Lockwood. “It is one of the things that no man can be expected to understand—till he knows. It’s because we’ve got an object in common, sir, you and me——”

“An object in common?”

“Yes; perhaps you’re a better Christian than I am, or perhaps you pretend to be; but knowing what you’ve been, and how you’ve fallen to what you are, I don’t think it’s in human nature that you shouldn’t feel the same as me.”

“What I’ve been, and how I’ve fallen to what I am!” said Edgar, smiling at the expression with whimsical amazement and vexation. “What is the object in life which you suppose me to share?”

“To spite the Ardens!” cried the young lady from the mantle department, with sudden vigour and animation. Her eyes flashed, she clasped her hands together, and laughed and coughed—the laughter hard and mirthless, the cough harder still, and painful to hear. “Don’t you remember what I said to you? All my trouble, all that has ever gone against me in the world, and the base stories they’re telling you now—all came along of the Ardens; and now Providence has thrown you in my way, that has as much reason to hate them. I can’t set myself right without setting them wrong—and revenge is sweet. Arthur Arden shall rue the day he ever set eyes on you or me!”

“Wait a little,” said Edgar, bewildered. “In the first place, I don’t hate the Ardens, and I don’t want to injure them, and I hope, when we talk it over, you may change your mind. What has Arthur Arden done to you?”

“That’s my story,” said Miss Lockwood, and then she made a short pause. “Do you know the things that are said about me?” she asked. “They say in the house that I have had a baby. That’s quite true. I would not deny it when I was asked; I didn’t choose to tell a lie. They believed me fast enough when what I said was to my own disadvantage; but when I told the truth in another way, because it was to my advantage, they say—Prove it. I can’t prove it without ruining other folks, or I’d have done it before now; but I was happy enough as I was, and I didn’t care to ruin others. Now, however, they’ve forced me to it, and thrown you in my way.”

“For heaven’s sake,” cried Edgar, “don’t mix me up with your scheme of vengeance! What have I to do with it?” He was alarmed by the calm white vehemence with which she spoke.

“Oh! not much with my part of the business,” she said lightly. “This is how it is: I’m married—excuse enough any day for what I’m charged with; but they won’t take my word, and I have to prove it. When I tell them I’m only a widow in a kind of a way, they say to me, ‘Produce your husband,’ and this is what I’ve got to do. Nearly ten years ago, Mr. Earnshaw, if that is your name—are you listening to me?—I married Arthur Arden; or, rather, Arthur Arden married me.”

“Good God!” cried Edgar; he did not at first seem to take in the meaning of the words, but only felt vaguely that he had received a blow. “You are mad!” he said, after a pause, looking at her—“you are mad!”

“Not a bit; I am saner than you are, for I never would have given up a fortune to him. I am the first Mrs. Arthur Arden, whoever the second may be. He married me twice over, to make it more sure.”

“Good God!” cried Edgar again; his countenance had grown whiter than hers; all power of movement seemed to be taken out of him. “Prove this horrible thing that you say—prove it! He never could be such a villain!”

“Oh, couldn’t he?—much you know about him! He could do worse things than that, if worse is possible. You shall prove it yourself without me stirring a foot. Listen, and I will tell you just how it was. When he saw he couldn’t have me in any other way, he offered marriage; I was young then, and so was he, and I was excusable—I have always felt I was excusable; for a handsomer man, or one with more taking ways—You know him, that’s enough. Well, not to make any more fuss than was necessary, I proposed the registrar; but, if you please, he was a deal too religious for that. ‘Let’s have some sort of parson,’ he said, ‘though he mayn’t be much to look at.’ We were married in the Methodist chapel up on the way to Highgate. I’ll tell you all about it—I’ll give you the name of the street and the date. It’s up Camden Town way, not far from the Highgate Road. Father and mother used to attend chapel there.”

“You were married—to Arthur Arden!” said Edgar; all the details were lost upon him, for he had not yet grasped the fact—“married to Arthur Arden! Is this what you mean to say?”

“Yes, yes, yes!” cried Miss Lockwood, in high impatience, waving the book which she used as a fan—“that is what I meant to say; and there’s a deal more. You seem to be a slow sort of gentleman. I’ll stop, shall I, till you’ve got it well into your head?” she said, with a laugh.

The laugh, the mocking look, the devilish calm of the woman who was expounding so calmly something which must bring ruin and despair upon a family, and take name and fame from another woman, struck Edgar with hot, mad anger.

“For God’s sake, hold your tongue!” he cried, not knowing what he said—“you will drive me mad!”

“I’m sure I don’t see why,” said Miss Lockwood—“why should it?—it ain’t anything to you. And to hold my tongue is the last thing I mean to do. You know what I said; I’ll go over it again to make quite sure.”

Then, with a light laugh, she repeated word for word what she had already said, throwing in descriptive touches about the Methodist chapel and its pews.

“Father and mother had the third from the pulpit on the right-hand side. I don’t call myself a Methodist now; it stands in your way sometimes, and the Church is always respectable; but I ought to like the Methodists, for it was there it happened. You had better take down the address and the day. I can tell you all the particulars.”

Edgar did not know much about the law, but he had heard, at least, of one ordinary formula.

“Have you got your marriage certificate?” he said.

“Oh! they don’t have such things among the Methodists,” said Miss Lockwood. “Now I’ll tell you about the second time—for it was done twice over, to make sure. You remember all that was in the papers about that couple who were first married in Ireland, and then in Scotland, and turned out not to be married at all? We went off to Scotland, him and me, for our wedding tour, and I thought I’d just make certain sure, in case there should be anything irregular, you know. So when we were at the hotel, I got the landlady in, and one of the men, and I said he was my husband before them, and made them put their names to it. He was dreadfully angry—so angry that I knew I had been right, and had seen through him all the while, and that he meant to deceive me if he could; but he couldn’t deny it all of a sudden, in a moment, with the certainty that he would be turned out of the house then and there if he did. I’ve got that, if you like to call that a marriage certificate. They tell me it’s hard and fast in Scotch law.”

“But we are in England,” said Edgar, feebly. “I don’t think Scotch law tells here.”

“Oh! it does, about a thing like this,” said Miss Lockwood. “If I’m married in Scotland, I can’t be single in England, and marry again, can I? Now that’s my story. If his new wife hadn’t have been so proud——”

“She is not proud,” said Edgar, with a groan; “it is—her manner—she does not mean it. And then she has been so petted and flattered all her life. Poor girl! she has done nothing to you that you should feel so unfriendly towards her.”

“Oh! hasn’t she?” said Miss Lockwood. “Only taken my place, that’s all. Lived in my house, and driven in my carriage, and had everything I ought to have had—no more than that!”

Edgar was like a man stupefied. He stood holding his head with his hands, feeling that everything swam around him. Miss Lockwood’s defender?—ah! no, but the defender of another, whose more than life was assailed. This desperation at last made things clearer before him, and taught him to counterfeit calm.

“It could not be she who drove you from him,” he said, with all the composure he could collect. “Tell me how it came about that you are called Miss Lockwood, and have been here so long, if all you have told me is true?”

“I won’t say that it was not partly my fault,” she replied, with a complacent nod of her head. “After awhile we didn’t get on—I was suspicious of him from the first, as I’ve told you; I know he never meant honest and right; and he didn’t like being found out. Nobody as I know of does. We got to be sick of each other after awhile. He was as poor as Job; and he has the devil’s own temper. If you think I was a patient Grizel to stand that, you’re very much mistaken. Ill-usage and slavery, and nothing to live upon! I soon showed him as that wouldn’t do for me. The baby died,” she added indifferently—“poor little thing, it was a blessing that the Almighty took it! I fretted at first, but I felt it was a deal better off than it could ever have been with me; and then I took another situation. I had been in Grant and Robinson’s before I married, so as I didn’t want to make a show of myself with them that knew me, I took back my single name again. They are rather low folks there, and I didn’t stay long; and I found I liked my liberty a deal better than studying his temper, and being left to starve, as I was with him; so I kept on, now here, now there, till I came to Tottenham’s. And here I’ve never had nothing to complain of,” said Miss Lockwood, “till some of these prying women found out about the baby. I made up my mind to say nothing about who I was, seeing circumstances ain’t favourable. But I sha’n’t deny it; why should I deny it? it ain’t for my profit to deny it. Other folks may take harm, but I can’t; and when I saw you, then I felt that the right moment had come, and that I must speak.”

“Why did not you speak before he was married?—had you no feeling that, if you were safe, another woman was about to be ruined?” said Edgar, bitterly. “Why did you not speak then?”

“Am I bound to take care of other women?” said Miss Lockwood. “I had nobody to take care of me; and I took care of myself—why couldn’t she do the same? She was a lady, and had plenty of friends—I had nobody to take care of me.”

“But it would have been to your own advantage,” said Edgar. “How do you suppose anyone can believe that you neglected to declare yourself Arthur Arden’s wife at the time when it would have been such a great thing for you, and when he was coming into a good estate, and could make his wife a lady of importance? You are not indifferent to your own comfort—why did you not speak then?”

“I pleased myself, I suppose,” she said, tossing her head; then added, with matter-of-fact composure, “Besides, I was sick of him. He was never the least amusing, and the most fault-finding, ill-tempered—One’s spelling, and one’s looks, and one’s manners, and one’s dress—he was never satisfied. Then,” she went on, sinking her voice—“I don’t deny the truth—I knew he’d never take me home and let people know I was his real wife. All I could have got out of him would have been an allowance, to live in some hole and corner. I preferred my freedom to that, and the power of getting a little amusement. I don’t mind work, bless you—not work of this kind—it amuses me; and if I had been left in peace here when I was comfortable, I shouldn’t have interfered—I should have let things take their chance.”

“In all this,” said Edgar, feeling his throat dry and his utterance difficult, “you consider only yourself, no one else.”

“Who else should I consider?” said Miss Lockwood. “I should like to know who else considered me? Not a soul. I had to take care of myself, and I did. Why should not his other wife have her wits about her as well as me?”

Then there was a pause. Edgar was too much broken down by this disclosure, too miserable to speak; and she sat holding up the book between her face and the fire, with a flush upon her pale cheeks, sometimes fanning herself, her nose in the air, her finely-cut profile inspired by impertinence and worldly selfishness, till it looked ugly to the disquieted gazer. Few women could have been so handsome, and yet looked so unhandsome. As he looked at her, sickening with the sight, Edgar felt bitterly that this woman was indeed Arthur Arden’s true mate—they matched each other well. But Clare, his sister—Clare, whom there had been no one to guard—who, rich in friends as she was, had no brother, no guardian to watch over her interests—poor Clare! The only thing he seemed able to do for her now was to prove her shame, and extricate her, if he could extricate her, from the terrible falseness of her position. His heart ached so that it gave him a physical pain. He had kept up no correspondence with her whom he had looked upon during all the earlier part of his life as his sister, and whom he felt in his very heart to be doubly his sister the moment that evil came in her way. The thing for him to consider now was what he could do for her, to save her, if possible—though how she could be saved, he knew not, as the story was so circumstantial, and apparently true. But, at all events, it could not but be well for Clare that her enemy’s cause was in her brother’s hands. Good for Clare!—would it be good for the other woman, to whom he had promised to do justice? Edgar almost felt his heart stand still as he asked himself this question. Justice—justice must be done, in any case, there could be no doubt of that. If Clare’s position was untenable, she must not be allowed to go on in ignorance, for misery even is better than dishonour. This was some comfort to him in his profound and sudden wretchedness. Clare’s cause, and that of this other, were so far the same.

“I will undertake your commission,” he said gravely; “but understand me first. Instead of hating the Ardens, I would give my life to preserve my sister, Mrs. Arden, from the shame and grief you are trying to bring upon her. Of course, one way or another, I shall feel it my duty now to verify what you say; but it is right to tell you that her interest is the first thing I shall consider, not yours.”

“Her interest!” cried Miss Lockwood, starting up in her chair. “Oh! you poor, mean-spirited creature! Call yourself a man, and let yourself be treated like a dog—that’s your nature, is it? I suppose they’ve made you a pension, or something, to keep you crawling and toadying. I shouldn’t wonder,” she said, stopping suddenly, “if you were to offer me a good round sum to compromise the business, or an allowance for life—?”

“I shall do nothing of the kind,” said Edgar, quietly. She stared at him for a moment, panting—and then, in the effort to speak, was seized upon by a violent fit of coughing, which shook her fragile figure, and convulsed her suddenly-crimsoned face. “Can I get you anything?” he asked, rising with an impulse of pity. She shook her head, and waved to him with her hand to sit down again. Does the reader remember how Christian in the story had vile thoughts whispered into his ear, thrown into his mind, which were none of his? Profoundest and truest of parables! Into Edgar’s mind, thrown there by some devil, came a wish and a hope; he did not originate them, but he had to undergo them, writhing within himself with shame and horror. He wished that she might die, that Clare might thus be saved from exposure, at least from outward ruin, from the stigma upon herself and upon her children, which nothing else could avert. The wish ran through him while he sat helpless, trying with all the struggling powers of his mind to reject it. Few of us, I suspect, have escaped a similar experience. It was not his doing, but he had to bear the consciousness of this inhuman thought.

When Miss Lockwood had struggled back to the power of articulation, she turned to him again, with an echo of her jaunty laugh.

“They say I’m in a consumption,” she said; “don’t you believe it. I’ll see you all out, mind if I don’t. We’re a long-lived family. None of us ever were known to have anything the matter with our chests.”

“Have you spoken to a doctor?” said Edgar, with so deep a remorseful compunction that it made his tone almost tender in kindness.

“Oh! the doctor—he speaks to me!” she said. “I tell the young ladies he’s fallen in love with me. Oh! that ain’t so unlikely neither! Men as good have done it before now; but I wouldn’t have anything to say to him,” she continued, with her usual laugh. “I don’t make any brag of it, but I never forget as I’m a married woman. I don’t mind a little flirtation, just for amusement; but no man has ever had it in his power to brag that he’s gone further with me.”

Then there was a pause, for disquiet began to resume its place in Edgar’s mind, and the poor creature before him had need of rest to regain her breath. She opened the book she held in her hand, and pushed to him across the table some written memoranda.

“There’s where my chapel is as I was married in,” she said, “and there’s—it’s nothing but a copy, so, if you destroy it, it won’t do me any harm—the Scotch certificate. They were young folks that signed it, no older than myself, so be sure you’ll find them, if you want to. There, I’ve given you all that’s needed to prove what I say, and if you don’t clear me, I’ll tell the Master, that’s all, and he’ll do it, fast enough! Your fine Mrs. Arden, forsooth, that has no more right to be Mrs. Arden than you had to be Squire, won’t get off, don’t you think it, for now my blood’s up. I know what Arthur will do,” she cried, getting excited again. “He’s a man of sense, and a man of the world, he is. He’ll come to me on his knees, and offer a good big lump of money, or a nice allowance. Oh! I know him! He ain’t a poor, mean-spirited cur, to lick the hand that cuffs him, or to go against his own interest, like you.”

Here another fit of coughing came on, worse than the first. Edgar, compassionate, took up the paper, and left the room.

“I am afraid Miss Lockwood is ill. Will you send some one to her?” he said, to the first young lady he met.

“Hasn’t she a dreadful cough? And she won’t do anything for it, or take any care of herself. I’ll send one of the young ladies from her own department,” said this fine personage, rustling along in her black silk robes. Mr. Watson was hovering near, to claim Edgar’s attention, about some of the arrangements for the approaching festivity.

“Mr. Tottenham bade me say, sir, if you’d kindly step this way, into the hall,” said the walking gentleman.

Poor Edgar! if he breathed a passing anathema upon enlightened schemes and disciples of social progress, I do not think that anyone need be surprised.

CHAPTER X.

A Plunge into the Maze.

“Pardon me, I must think of it, and follow it out,” said Edgar; “it is too serious to be neglected. Altogether independent of this woman, a lady’s—my friend’s happiness, her reputation, perhaps her life—for how could she outlive name and fame, and love and confidence?” he said, suddenly feeling himself overcome by the horrible suggestion. “It looks like preferring my own business to yours, but I must see to this first.”

“Go, go, my dear Earnshaw—never mind my business—have some money and go!” cried Mr. Tottenham. “I can’t tell you how grieved I am to have brought you into this. Poor lady! poor lady!—I won’t ask who it is. But recollect they lie like the devil!—they don’t mind what they say, like you or me, who understand the consequences; they think of nothing beyond the spite of the moment. I am in for three quarrels, and a resignation, all because I want to please them!” cried the poor master of the great shop, dolorously. He accompanied Edgar out to the private door, continuing his plaint. “A nothing will do it,” he said; “and they don’t care for what happens, so long as they indulge the temper of the moment. To lose their employment, or their friends, or the esteem of those who would try to help them in everything—all this is nought. I declare I could almost cry like a baby when I think of it! Don’t be cast down, Earnshaw. More likely than not it’s all a lie!”

“If I cannot get back this evening in time for you—” Edgar began.

“Never mind, never mind. Go to the Square. I’ll tell them to have a room ready for you. And take some money—nothing is to be done without money. And, Earnshaw,” lie added, calling after him some minutes later, when Edgar was at the door, “on second thoughts, you won’t say anything to Mary about my little troubles? After all, the best of us have got our tempers; perhaps I am injudicious, and expect too much. She has always had her doubts about my mode of treatment. Don’t, there’s a good fellow, betray to them at home that I lost my temper too!”

This little preliminary to the Entertainment was locked in Edgar’s bosom, and never betrayed to anyone. To tell the truth, his mind was much too full of more important matters to think upon any such inconsiderable circumstance; for he was not the Apostle of the Shop, and had no scheme to justify and uphold in the eyes of all men and women. Edgar, I fear, was not of the stuff of which social reformers are made. The concerns of the individual were more important to him at all times than those of the mass; and one human shadow crossing his way, interested his heart and mind far beyond a mere crowd, though the crowd, no doubt, as being multitudinous, must have been more important. Edgar turned his back upon the establishment with, I fear, very little Christian feeling towards Tottenham’s, and all concerned with it—hating the Entertainment, weary of Mr. Tottenham himself, and disgusted with the strange impersonation of cruelty and selfishness which had just been revealed to him in the form of a woman. He could not shut out from his eyes that thin white face, so full of self, so destitute of any generous feeling.

Such stories have been told before in almost every tone of sympathy and reprobation; women betrayed have been wept in every language under heaven, and their betrayer denounced, but what was there to lament about, to denounce here? A woman sharp and clever to make the best of her bargain; a man trying legal cheats upon her; two people drawn together by some semblance of what is called passion, yet each watching and scheming, how best, on either side, to outwit the other. Never was tale of misery and despair so pitiful; for this was all baseness, meanness, calculation on both hands. They were fitly matched, and it was little worth any man’s while to interfere between them—but, O heaven! to think of the other fate involved in theirs. This roused Edgar to an excitement which was almost maddening. To think that these two base beings had wound into their miserable tangle the feet of Clare—that her innocent life must pay the penalty for their evil lives, that she must bear the dishonour while spotless from the guilt!

Edgar posted along the great London thoroughfare, through the continually varying crowd of passers-by, absorbed in an agitation and disquiet which drove all his own affairs out of his head. His own affairs might involve much trouble and distress; but neither shame nor guilt was in them. Heaven above! to think that guilt or shame could have anything to do with Clare!

Now Clare had not been, at least at the last, a very good sister to Edgar—she was not his sister at all, so far as blood went; and when this had been discovered, and the homeliness of his real origin identified, Clare had shrunk from him, notwithstanding that for all her life, in childish fondness and womanly sympathy, she had loved him as her only brother. Edgar had mournfully consented to a complete severance between them. She had married his enemy; and he himself had sunk so much out of sight that he had felt no further intercourse to be possible, though his affectionate heart had felt it deeply. But as soon as he heard of her danger, all his old love for his sister had sprung up in Edgar’s heart. He took back her name, as it were, into the number of those sounds most familiar to him. “Clare,” he said to himself, feeling a thrill of renewed warmth go through him, mingled with poignant pain—“Clare, my sister, my only sister, the sole creature in the world that belongs to me!” Alas! she did not belong to Edgar any more than any inaccessible princess; but in his heart this was what he felt. He pushed his way through the full streets, with the air and the sentiment of a man bound upon the most urgent business, seeing little on his way, thinking of nothing but his object—the object in common which Miss Lockwood had supposed him to have with herself. But Edgar did not even remember that—he thought of nothing but Clare’s comfort and well-being which were concerned, and how it would be possible to confound her adversaries, and save her from ignoble persecution. If he could keep it from her knowledge altogether! But, alas! how could that be done? He went faster and faster, driven by his thoughts.

The address Miss Lockwood had given him was in a small street off the Hampstead Road. That strange long line of street, with here and there a handful of older houses, a broader pavement, a bit of dusty garden, to show the suburban air it once had possessed; its heterogeneous shops, furniture, birdcages, perambulators, all kinds of out-of-the-way wares fled past the wayfarer, taking wings to themselves, he thought. It is not an interesting quarter, and Edgar had no time to give to any picturesque or historical reminiscences. When he reached the little street in which the chapel he sought was situated, he walked up on one side and down on the other, expecting every moment to see the building of which he was in search. A chapel is not a thing apt to disappear, even in the changeful district of Camden Town. Rubbing his eyes, he went up and down again, inspecting the close lines of mean houses. The only break in the street was where two or three small houses, of a more bilious brick than usual, whose outlines had not yet been toned down by London soot and smoke, diversified the prospect. He went to a little shop opposite this yellow patch upon the old grimy garment to make inquiries.

“Chapel! there ain’t no chapel hereabouts,” said the baker, who was filling his basket with loaves.

“Hold your tongue, John,” said his wife, from the inner shop. “I’ll set you all right in a moment. There’s where the chapel was, sir, right opposite. There was a bit of a yard where they’ve built them houses. The chapel is behind; but it ain’t a chapel now. It’s been took for an infant school by our new Rector. Don’t you see a little bit of an entry at that open door? That’s where you go in. But since it’s been shut up there’s been a difference in the neighbourhood. Most of us is church folks now.”

“And does nothing remain of the chapel—nobody belonging to it, no books nor records?” cried Edgar, suddenly brought to a standstill. The woman looked at him surprised.

“I never heard as they had any books—more than the hymn-books, which they took with them, I suppose. It’s our new Rector as has bought it—a real good man, as gives none of us no peace——”

“And sets you all on with your tongues,” said her husband, throwing his basket over his shoulder.

Edgar did not wait to hear the retort of the wife, and felt no interest in the doings of the new Rector. He did not know what to do in this unforeseen difficulty. He went across the road, and up the little entry, and looked at the grimy building beyond, which was no great satisfaction to his feelings. It was a dreary little chapel, of the most ordinary type, cleared of its pews, and filled with the low benches and staring pictures of an infant school, and looked as if it had been thrust up into a corner by the little line of houses built across the scrap of open space which had formerly existed in front of its doors. As he gazed round him helplessly, another woman came up, who asked with bated breath what he wanted.

“We’re all church folks now hereabouts,” she said; “but I don’t mind telling you, sir, as a stranger, I was always fond of the old chapel. What preaching there used to be, to be sure!—dreadful rousing and comforting! And it’s more relief, like, to the mind, to say, ‘Lord, ha’ mercy upon us!’ or, ‘Glory, glory!’ or the like o’ that, just when you pleases, than at set times out o’ a book. There’s nothing most but prayers here now. If you want any of the chapel folks, maybe I could tell you. I’ve been in the street twenty years and more.”

“I want to find out about a marriage that took place here ten years ago,” said Edgar.

“Marriage!” said the woman, shaking her head. “I don’t recollect no marriage. Preachings are one thing, and weddings is another. I don’t hold with weddings out of church. If there’s any good in church—”

Edgar had to stop this exposition by asking after the “chapel-folks” to whom she could direct him, and in answer was told of three tradesmen in the neighbourhood who “held by the Methodys,” one of whom had been a deacon in the disused chapel. This was a carpenter, who could not be seen till his dinner-hour, and on whom Edgar had to dance attendance with very indifferent satisfaction; for the deacon’s report was that the chapel had never been, so far as he could remember, licensed for marriages, and that none had taken place within it. This statement, however, was flatly contradicted by the pork-butcher, whose name was the next on his list, and who recollected to have heard that some one had been married there just about the time indicated by Miss Lockwood. Finally, Edgar lighted on an official who had been a local preacher in the days of the chapel, and who was now a Scripture-reader, under the sway of the new Rector, who had evidently turned the church and parish upside-down. This personage had known something of the Lockwoods, and was not disinclined—having ascertained that Edgar was a stranger, and unlikely to betray any of his hankerings after the chapel—to gossip about the little defunct community. Its books and records had, he said, been removed, when it was closed, to some central office of the denomination, where they would, no doubt, be shown on application. This man was very anxious to give a great deal of information quite apart from the matter in hand. He gave Edgar a sketch of the decay of the chapel, in which, I fear, the young man took no interest, though it was curious enough; and he told him about the Lockwoods, and about the eldest daughter, who, he was afraid, had come to no good.

“She said as she was married, but nobody believed her. She was always a flighty one,” said the Scripture-reader.

This was all that Edgar picked up out of a flood of unimportant communications. He could not even find any clue to the place where these denominational records were kept, and by this time the day was too far advanced to do more. Drearily he left the grimy little street, with its damp pavements, its poor little badly-lighted shops and faint lamps, not without encountering the new Rector in person, an omniscient personage, who had already heard of his inquiries, and regarded him suspiciously, as perhaps a “Methody” in disguise, planning the restoration of dissent in a locality just purged from its taint. Edgar was too tired, too depressed and down-hearted to be amused by the watchful look of the muscular Christian, who saw in him a wolf prowling about the fold. He made his way into the main road, and jumped into a hansom, and drove down the long line of shabby, crowded thoroughfare, so mean and small, yet so great and full of life. Those miles and miles of mean, monotonous street, without a feature to mark one from another, full of crowds of human creatures, never heard of, except as counting so many hundreds, more or less, in the year’s calendar of mortality—how strangely impressive they become at last by mere repetition, mass upon mass, crowd upon crowd, poor, nameless, mean, unlovely! Perhaps it was the general weariness and depression of Edgar’s whole being that brought this feeling into his mind as he drove noisily, silently along between those lines of faintly-lighted houses towards what is impertinently, yet justly, called the habitable part of London. For one fair, bright path in the social, as in the physical world, how many mean, and darkling, and obscure!—how small the spot which lies known and visible to the general eye!—how great the confused darkness all round! Such reflections are the mere growth of weariness and despondency, but they heighten the depression of which they are an evidence.

The whole of noisy, crowded London was as a wilderness to Edgar. He drove to his club, where he had not been since the day when he met Mr. Tottenham. So short a time ago, and yet how his life had altered in the interval! He was no longer drifting vaguely upon the current, as he had been doing. His old existence had caught at him with anxious hands. Notwithstanding all the alterations of time, circumstances, and being, he was at this moment not Edgar Earnshaw at all, but the Edgar Arden of three years ago, caught back into the old sphere, surrounded by the old thoughts. Such curious vindications of the unchangeableness of character, the identity of being, which suddenly seize upon a man, and whirl him back in a moment, defying all external changes, into his old, his unalterable self, are among the strangest things in humanity. Dizzy with the shock he had received, harassed by anxiety, worn out by unsuccessful effort, Edgar felt the world swim round with him, and scarcely could answer to himself who he was. Had all the Lockwood business been a dream? Was it a dream that he had been as a stranger for three long years to Clare, his sister—to Gussy, his almost bride? And yet his mind at this moment was as full of their images as if no interval had been.

After he had dined and refreshed himself, he set to work with, I think,—notwithstanding his anxiety, the first shock of which was now over,—a thrill of conscious energy, and almost pleasure in something to do, which was so much more important than those vague lessons to Phil, or vaguer studies in experimental philosophy, to which his mind had been lately turned. To be here on the spot, ready to work for Clare when she was assailed, was something to be glad of, deeply as the idea of such an assault upon her had excited and pained him. And at the same time as his weariness wore off, and the first excitement cooled down, he began to feel himself more able to realize the matter in all its particulars, and see the safer possibilities. It began to appear to him likely enough that all that could be proved was Arthur Arden’s villainy, a subject which did not much concern him, which had no novelty in it, and which, though Clare was Arthur Arden’s wife, could not affect her more now than it had done ever since she married him. Indeed, if it was but this, there need be no necessity for communicating it to Clare at all. It was more probable, when he came to think of it, that an educated and clever man should be able to outwit a dressmaker girl, however deeply instructed in the laws of marriage by novels and causes célèbres, than that she should outwit him; and in this case there was nothing that need ever be made known to Clare.

Edgar was glad, and yet I don’t know that a certain disappointment, quite involuntary and unawares, did not steal into his mind with this thought; for he had begun to cherish an idea of seeing his sister, of perhaps resuming something of his old intercourse with her, and at least of being known to have worked for and defended her. These thoughts, however, were but the secondary current in his mind, while the working part of it was planning a further enterprise for the morrow. He got the directory, and, after considerable trouble, found out from it the names and addresses of certain officials of the Wesleyan body, to whom he could go in search of the missing registers of the Hart Street Chapel—if registers there were—or who could give him definite and reliable information, in face of the conflicting testimony he had already received, as to whether marriages had ever been celebrated in it.

Edgar knew, I suppose, as much as other men generally do about the ordinary machinery of society, but he did not know where to lay his hand on any conclusive official information about the Hart Street Chapel, whether it had ever been licenced, or had any legal existence as a place of worship, any more than—you or I would, dear reader, were we in a similar difficulty. Who knows anything about such matters? He had lost a day already in the merest A B C of preliminary inquiry, and no doubt would lose several more.

Then he took out the most important of Miss Lockwood’s papers, which he had only glanced at as yet. It was dated from a small village in the Western Highlands, within reach, as he knew, of Loch Arroch, and was a certificate, signed by Helen Campbell and John Mactaggart, that Arthur Arden and Emma Lockwood had that day, in their presence, declared themselves to be man and wife. Edgar’s knowledge of such matters had, I fear, been derived entirely from novels and newspaper reports, and he read over the document, which was alarmingly explicit and straightforward, with a certain panic. He said to himself that there were no doubt ways in law by which to lessen the weight of such an attestation, or means of shaking its importance; but it frightened him just as he was escaping from his first fright, and brought back all his excitement and alarm.