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Chapter XVII.

‘None are all evil—quickening round his heart
One softer feeling would not yet depart.’

The Corsair.

Mr. Wishart had brought Maud and Mrs. Randall back to his own house, and had been glad to reach home after a dreary and somewhat harassing journey. But a few days only had passed since their return when he was in town again. After an absence of some weeks he had business to attend to: there was one thing, in particular, which he had promised Mrs. Randall should not be delayed.

There is, in the midst of this town, hard by the busiest and most crowded thoroughfare, as if it had been placed there to remind men of their mortality, a stone-mason's yard, full of monuments and tombstones. Mr. Wishart had designed to visit this place, for he walked quickly towards it, without turning to the right or the left, and went inside the yard. Shortly after he had entered another gentleman, who had been slowly walking up the street, stopped here also, not to go inside, but to lean against the wall; to rest himself no doubt, for he had the appearance of one who had only lately recovered from a serious illness.

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He had his back to the wall, and did not alter his position, although he soon became aware that one of two voices which he heard was not that of a stranger. The monument-maker, a man of solemn countenance, as befitted his trade, with also the venerability of a bald head, a long gray beard, and beetle-browed, deep-set eyes, was showing Mr. Wishart round the yard, and expatiating on his stock in trade, a large one, which, he assured his visitor, comprised almost every kind of monument, bearing every imaginable emblem of mortality.

Men have written their own epitaphs, and ordained their burials beforehand. They have chosen a place of sepulture, some even have prepared coffins for themselves and treasured them for years; but it has been given to very few to hear their gravestones ordered. The conversation among the rows of tombs held the listener outside spell-bound, as altogether the strangest thing that had yet greeted his ears. He felt like an impostor, or as if he had no right to be alive.

‘It shall be attended to as soon as possible, sir,’ said the man of monuments, copying the order into a pocket-book. ‘Yes, yes,’—and he read over part of what he had written,—“‘In remembrance of Henry Moncrieff Randall, only and beloved son of Margaret, widow of the late Henry Randall.” A sad case, Mr. Wishart,—cut off in his prime. These things ought to make us think of our own ends. I may say I have mine always in view. This, now, is what I've page 268 prepared for my own monument; that one with the weeping angel is for my wife. Oh, not the identical ones, sir; they're only patterns; they've been sold over and over again: but I always have them in stock, and when we're gone our son will know what to put over us. We people who have a great deal to do with things that remind us of dying look on it more cheerfully than others. The sight of that monument, now, is a comfort to me when trade's bad and I'm low-spirited. I know I shan't be troubled by such things when I'm under it.’

‘I can well imagine that,’ said Mr. Wishart. ‘Can it be done by the end of the week, Mr. Sculthorpe?

‘Well, really,’ said Mr. Sculthorpe, covering his head with a scarlet silk handkerchief, as he remembered that his baldness was exposed to the most penetrating glances of the sun. ‘We have our hands full just now; but I'll try to do it. But you won't think of having only a plain headstone. There's this one, which we supplied the other day for just such an afflicting case as yours,—a broken column with a few fragments lying at its base, or this,—a palm-tree, the stem snapped in the middle. These things may seem poor trifles to you, Mr. Wishart; but they're a consolation to the bereaved. If I'd lost my son I should like to set up my best over him; I shouldn't be satisfied with a common thing, or scamped work. This one, now, is a touching and elegant design; I've had a many orders for it; and here's an original idea page 269 of my own,—a full-length figure, the face turned away, the hands clasped, and a broken lyre lying at its feet. It would be suitable for the poor gentleman, as he had a genius for music. Sometimes, I assure you, sir, I feel quite affected over these monuments, and when a new one has been executed that we've put our best work into I get nervous about it and anxious to know the sort of person its been ordered for, as I couldn't bear the idea of it standing over the grave of some unworthy despicable man. I wouldn't part with that particular one there for all the world holds for a man I didn't know anything about, or of whom I knew rather too much. We ought to be conscientious in these things.’

‘If every one were as cautious as you, Mr. Sculthorpe, there would be an amazing difference in tombstones and epitaphs, and some difficulty in getting suitable ones for certain people. I hope you'll esteem me worthy of a monument some day, though I don't expect to deserve your best.’

‘Time enough yet, sir. That will be a business for my son; but you can order it whenever you like,’ said the obliging Sculthorpe.

‘Thank you, as I shan't see the effect myself when it is set up, I think I'll leave that to some one else,’ said Mr. Wishart.

‘My son Leopold,’ said Mr. Sculthorpe, ‘has a queer fancy about monuments. He says he's so wearied with seeing 'em here by hundreds, and with working at them every day, that when his time page 270 comes he'll have nothing over him but the turf. He's sure, he says, his ghost would walk if there were a great pillar or stone, with maybe some hypocritical epitaph on it, above his grave.’

‘I should think it would be more likely to keep him down,’ said Mr. Wishart.

Just then, for a reason which suddenly disclosed itself, Mr. Sculthorpe gave an ejaculation, and swerved from his balance backwards against a tombstone, stricken with awe and surprise, while Mr. Wishart irreverently leaped forward amongst the crowded monuments, and laid hands upon the apparition which had startled them both.

‘I see I need be in no hurry about this order,’ were the first words of Mr. Sculthorpe when he recovered his composure. ‘Well, well, life and death are strangely mingled together. We've plenty besides on our hands.’ And he erased the order in his pocket-book most vigorously.

Randall was fated to astonish many more persons that day. People began to recognise him from seeing him in company with Mr. Wishart, and very unwillingly he became the object of much attention. Mr. Gatherall waylaid him in the street, took him into his office, and told him a story of which he had already heard a garbled version from Mr. and Mrs. Bailey, whom it had reached by many devious windings. Mr. Wishart also had found time to say something about it to him; so he was neither overwhelmed nor overjoyed, as Mr. Gatherall had anticipated.

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‘Had Mr. Moresby no near relatives?’ he asked, almost sternly.

‘He has left money to his nephews,’ said Mr. Gatherall. ‘No doubt he had just reasons of his own for not giving them a larger share in his property. You will observe that to the clause which refers to you, Mr. Randall, there is a proviso attached. You do not inherit absolutely without conditions. Mr. Moresby never relinquished the idea that his son might have been saved. If he should be found all is to be his; and, in any case, during the next ten years only the income of the property can be used.’

‘I shall never use a penny of it,’ said Randall.

‘Isn't that going too far?’ said Mr. Gatherall, reproachfully. ‘He had reconciled himself to you; this will proves it; and I think you should accept the bequest in the same spirit of forgiveness, if, as I suppose from your manner, he offended you at some time.’

‘Whatever he did I do not think of now. It is over and done with. We are reconciled; but for all that I will not take what I have no right to. I know why he made this will; it was in remembrance of my sister. I have something to do for her sake as well.’

‘Do you refuse it on her account?’ said Mr. Gatherall. ‘I can't understand why you should do that.’

‘I refuse it because I believe that her child may page 272 be found,’ said Randall. And then he told Mr. Gatherall what he had heard in Sydney.

Mr. Wishart had been studying Randall's face all this while. A curious fancy came into his mind. Why was it that Harry and Randall were so much alike? He did not believe in unaccountable resemblances; there was a reason to be found for them. When little tricks of gesture or expression were common to two people what did it mean? when the same disposition or the same bent of mind reappeared, what did that mean? He was still thinking of this when they had gone out again and Randall had turned to cross the street.

‘Where are you going now?’ he asked him.

‘To Mrs. Sherlock's; I have a portrait of my sister to show her. It is just possible she may have been at her house; she was recommended to go there.’

‘If it is to Mrs. Sherlock's that your clue leads you, I can tell you as much as you will hear there. I don't wish to be precipitate; all things must be put to the proof; but I think you'll find the boy you want in my house, not in Mrs. Sherlock's.’

‘In your house?’ said Randall, and then, with a sudden light breaking upon him, he cried, ‘Harry!’

‘Of course,’ said Mr. Wishart. ‘Do you know how I guessed it?—for it was only a guess;—it was with looking at your face just now. Harry has the advantage of you, in most respects, I must say; but he's only an improved copy. And I found him at Mrs. Sherlock's, though I believe I never told you how.’

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They went together to Mrs. Sherlock's, and she shed tears at the sight of the portrait.

‘I always said I'd know that face again,’ she said. ‘I remember how it looked that morning—ah, dear, dear! And to think that you should have been in my house too and never have known of this!’

‘Have you nothing of hers to show me?’ asked Randall.

‘I have everything,’ said Mr. Wishart. ‘It was given into my hands when I adopted Harry. Alas! your gain is my loss. I have lost my boy. I had such splendid dreams of his future. I was going to train him up in the way he should go, to give him my name—everything I had, in the end,—and it has all come to naught.’

‘No; he belongs to us all,’ said Randall.

He did not leave Mrs. Sherlock's that day. Mr. Wishart advised him to stay where he was for the present.

‘You have done enough for one day,’ he said, ‘and you must not frighten them at home by suddenly coming on them like a spectre. I felt it rather too sudden a surprise when you interrupted me in my dealings with Sculthorpe. I shall send word that you have come to life again, and you had better not leave town till to-morrow.’

‘And if you stay at any house but mine, Mr. Randall,’ said Mrs. Sherlock, ‘I shall take it very much to heart.’

‘My dear Mrs. Sherlock,’ said Randall, ‘I should page 274 not think of staying at any house but yours.’ He noticed her black dress and widow's cap as he said this, and Mrs. Sherlock answered his inquiring glance.

‘Yes, I've lost poor dear Sherlock just lately.’ she said. ‘I get along but poorly without him. He often spoke of you to the last, and wished you were here to talk politics with him. Mr. Borage was not a good hand at that.’

Randall afterwards heard from another source that politics had slightly clouded Mr. Sherlock's brain for a short time before his death, and that he had died in the full belief that he was Sir George Grey. This, however, had not prevented him from giving his family some excellent advice, which Mrs. Sherlock now repeated to Randall. He had exhorted them not to forget how he had worked for their support, and how they owed everything to his exertions,—exertions which they should emulate in the bringing up of their own families.

‘Which was true enough,’ said Mrs. Sherlock, still cherishing the delusion that her husband had been a remarkable man. ‘He was wonderfully gifted, as you know, Mr. Randall, and it's owing to him that all our children have got on so well. There's James, —you remember James?—He's foreman now at the works, and very clever in his trade. It's done him a world of good being jilted by Miss Spowers. I never liked that flighty girl; Mr. Borage is welcome to her.’

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‘And does James go to debating classes yet?’ said Randall.

‘He belongs to the Mutual Improvement Society, as they call it, though I can't see it's improved some of the members, either in their minds or their manners. I don't care to talk against politics now, because Sherlock liked them, and they remind me of him; but all this debating of young men seems only to make them wise in their own conceits, and so much talking of things they don't understand lets out the little sense they have in their heads.’

Mrs. Sherlock, who persisted in considering Randall a very weak and fragile person, entreated him to think of nothing but rest for the remainder of the day; but it seemed he had come to her house to hold a levee instead of reposing in quietness. Somehow,—who can tell how news flies?—people found him out one by one.

Professor Crasher came, slightly stouter than of yore, but just as beautifully dressed, and quite as impecunious, as he soon informed his friend.

‘My dear Randall,’ he said, squeezing Randall's hand between what felt like two soft pads of flesh, ‘is it you—actually you?’

‘Why, I think so, Professor,’ said Randall, ‘though there is not quite so much of me as there used to be.’

‘You are a shadow,’ said Professor Crasher, ‘an ethereal image of your former self. I have heard of your success, my dear fellow; you have done better page 276 than Virchow, after all. And I—ah, behold me here yet, pressed hard on all sides by Mr. Emanuel Paul Peters, the scamp!—he gets all my pupils from me. He gives fortnightly concerts now. I shall give weekly ones. I wonder if your friendly assistance might be counted on?’

‘Certainly,’ said Randall; ‘but isn't there a fear of overdoing the thing with Mr. Paul. Peters' fortnightly concerts and your weekly ones?’

‘I want to overdo it,’ said the Professor. ‘I want to overdo it so much that no one will go to his. It enrages me to listen to such a travesty of music as he offers to the public. No wonder their taste is depraved. He has no soul in his music; it is all key and pedal work. Now I have a thing in my pocket which he calls a composition. Faugh! the fellow smokes the coarsest tobacco;’—the Professor showered fragrance upon the paper from a scent-fountain. ‘Not much in it, is there? but listen to it to know how poor it is.’

The Professor bounced to the piano with an elephantine tread which shook the furniture of the room. The bangs which he dealt upon the keyboard soon after shook everything again. While he was pounding vigorously, with his sleeves rolled away from his wrists, and his false cuffs, which he had taken off, resting on a chair beside him, and with his face growing redder and shinier every minute, Mrs. Sherlock came in, and in a moderate but decided tone requested him to cease.

‘I'm sorry to interfere, sir,’ she said, ‘especially page 277 as you're a friend of Mr. Randall's; but the piano's a hired one, and I don't want to have to pay for damages, as I shall have if you go on like that.’

‘Say no more, madam,’ said the Professor. ‘I have finished. What flimsy, poor things one meets with in pianos, Randall. I thought so; some nobody; Grigwold and Son. Whoever heard of Grigwold, or his son either? No; give me a good, sound Broad-wood grand, which will roar like a tempest in the bass, and be soft and sweet as an angel's song in the treble. Now this has no more tone in it than a gong.’ Here the Professor's hands descended on the keys with terrific force.

‘Sir, sir!’ cried Mrs. Sherlock, in a tone of entreaty.

‘Pardon me,’ cried the Professor. ‘I had forgotten myself. I must go. Pity me, Randall, I have to give eight music lessons. So very, very glad to have seen you. I would ask you to visit us; but, alas! we have a visitor at present, a fellow who came of his own accord—you understand?—sad, very; but it can't be helped. We kept him out for three days; but he got in last night through the pantry window. Mrs. Crasher feels these things; she has not my buoyancy, my indomitable spirit. I am astonished at it myself, when I consider how I have borne up against the assaults and buffets of evil fortune. I need only show you this,’—Professor Crasher turned a limp purse inside out,—‘and you see how it is with me. No, no! I really could not, page 278 my dear, generous friend; but rather than offend you, I will acknowledge that a little assistance just now, a trifle of five pounds or so, while I can hunt up those stingy parents and make them pay me for torturing my life out over their children, would be very acceptable. But only as a loan; I tell you that at once, if you should want to give it; my spirit cannot brook that.’

Professor Crasher's spirit brooked more than he had thought it could, and rose all the higher for the obligation laid upon it. He gave place to Mr. Borage, who blundered in, and hit his head against the gas-lamp, which was hung a little within his altitude of six feet three. He made a great effort to address Randall in words appropriate to the occasion; but he could only get out an assemblage of disjointed phrases and ejaculations. Mr. Borage seemed improved in health, and joyfully acknowledged it in answer to Randall's inquiries.

‘Yes, I feel perfectly splendid,’ he said. ‘That buzzing in the head has left me, and I sleep like a—Top. The fact is, I've something to do now. My father has been speculating a little too much, and he sent me word I should have to look out for myself. So I was thrown on my own—Resources, and it cured me. I've gone into business. I'm a land agent. There are a good many already—in fact I'd no idea how many there were till I started myself—but I don't know why there shouldn't be room for another. I think I shall—Get on. I'm glad you have succeeded, page 279 but of course we all knew you would: it is a great thing to have—Talent.’

‘It is a great thing to have friends, I think,’ said Randall. ‘When you lend books, are you still in the habit of interleaving them with bank-notes? I have that book of yours yet, and I don't know whether I shall ever return it. I should like to keep it in memory of the kindness of a friend.’

‘Oh—the book,’ said Mr. Borage, colouring at being reminded of his generosity. ‘Do keep it, if you like; I wish you hadn't returned something else, for it's pleasanter to give than lend.’

He grew more and more confidential, and showed Randall a portrait of the fair Miss Spowers, and observed how surprised he had been that such a bright and beautiful creature should have accepted him with all his imperfections. ‘I don't stay here now,’ he said. ‘Mrs. Sherlock made it so uncomfortable, I was obliged to go. She never forgave me for cutting out James. As if I could know what James wanted, or help being preferred to him! Thanks for your congratulations; I really think myself very fortunate. I don't mean to wait much longer—only while I can see the—Business going ahead.’

Mr. Borage only stayed a few minutes. Business must be attended to, he said; he was obliged to hasten back to the office. Mrs. Sherlock showed him out with a cold farewell. It was perfectly true that she had not forgiven him for the advantage he had obtained over James, notwithstanding she said page 280 so often that Miss Spowers was no favourite with her.

Scarcely had Mr. Borage's tall attenuated figure vanished, propelled by his new stock of energy at the rate of four miles an hour, when two other persons made their appearance, walking arm in arm. Such an odd couple had seldom visited Mrs. Sherlock even, and she was in the way of seeing odd people. At first sight Randall could not imagine who they were, although both appeared to know him very well. If he had known the lady he had forgotten her. She was of all the ages; her bonnet and her hair were decidedly youthful, her brown silk dress was of a middle-aged type, and her face—with no intention to be disrespectful is it said—was old. The gentleman was not old; but from head to foot he was altogether new. It would have been safe to stake a large amount that nothing which he wore had greeted the sunlight more than once previously. And, though it was a horrible suspicion to entertain, there was a new look about the shiny cleanness of his face and hands, which seemed as if soap and scrubbing had done all that was possible for them, and had brought them into a state of purity to which they were as unaccustomed as their owner was to his new clothes.

Randall looked from one to the other of his visitors, as the lady smiled and the gentleman did likewise, and both together made a profound obeisance.

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‘Why, Smithers!’ he said, after a pause, during which his memory had furnished him with a duplicate of the shaven and scrubbed face before him; a duplicate, however, which was several shades darker in complexion, and had several inches more of hair around it. ‘I could not think who you were at first.’

‘Right, sir, quite right,’ said Smithers. ‘You yourself are not what you used to be when you drove that injin for Mr. Palmer after he'd turned me off. He soon took me on again, poor gentleman, ho, ho! I shall never forget the way he had. Mrs. Smithers, Mr. Randall.’

‘Mr. Randall will remember me better as Mrs. Sligo,’ said the lady, with a fascinating smile.

‘I remember you very well now,’ said Randall, submitting to a vigorous shake of the hand from Mrs. Smithers—formerly Sligo.

‘We met Professor Crasher,’ said Mrs. Smithers, ‘and he told us you were here; so we ventured to call in remembrance of old times. Poor dear Mr. Palmer! We were mutually attached to him.’

‘Ay, that we were,’ said Smithers. ‘It was a shame, Mr. Randall, that the fire should have done for all his machinery. I'd a kind of feeling for the old injin. I meant to buy it at the sale; but it was a good deal injured by the cattastroke. I'm still at injin-driving. I'm third on the Tapanui; a good berth. She's in harbour to-day; so I and Mrs. Smithers have been enjoying ourselves. We took a cab and drove out to the old place.’

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‘It was affecting to see it again,’ said Mrs. Smithers. ‘The old willow trees are left yet, and I could tell where Mr. Palmer grew his vegetables. I remember he rooted up my flowers and planted cabbages in the place. He was very peculiar; but he had a heart under it all.’

‘So he had,’ said Smithers, ‘and though he did blow us up awfully, we liked it. I see him now as he used to come galloping along when we were out threshing, and how he'd take the fence rather than go round to a gate, or take the gate if he couldn't get it open at once. You don't find such a man more than once in a lifetime.’

‘No, Smithers, you don't,’ said Randall, meaningly, as he remembered other things of the man who had been so good a friend to him.

‘Mr. Palmer was a little hard on me,’ said Mrs. Smithers. ‘The way he spurned my offers of assistance when he was ill nearly broke my heart. He would suspect me of unworthy motives. I don't know why, I'm sure. I felt it very much.’

‘I am sure he did not mean to hurt your feelings, Mrs. Sligo—I beg pardon,—Smithers,’ said Randall smiling.

‘No need to apologise, sir,’ said Smithers. ‘The fact is, people have got so used to calling my wife Mrs. Sligo, along of her being a faithful widow for nineteen years,’—‘Nine, my dear,’ corrected Mrs. Smithers,—‘that they don't take kindly to her new name. On my word, I page 283 believe I'll have to call myself Sligo to suit them.’

Mr. and Mrs. Smithers were in no hurry to depart. They would not be satisfied with less than a full account of Randall's adventures. They were profoundly agitated by this, Mrs. Smithers having recourse to her pocket-handkerchief very often. Their parting grasp of his hand hurt Randall so much that he began to wish his levee were at an end.

‘Well, she's trapped some one at last,’ was Mrs. Sherlock's uncharitable remark, as soon as the lady she referred to was out of hearing. ‘Poor fellow! fifteen years younger than his wife, if he's a day. After this, no old woman need despair: diligence will be rewarded. My patience! Mr. Randall, here's some one else.’

The next visitor was easily recognisable. People generally remembered him. When they found it convenient to forget he had no diffidence in asserting himself. He saluted Mrs. Sherlock with a cool self-possession which disgusted her.

‘Of course I know you, and you know me,’ he cried; ‘don't pretend you've forgotten, Mrs. Sherlock. I am not likely to forget spending twenty-four hours very pleasantly in your house. In mourning! poor Sherlock gone? I am so sorry; a sad bereavement; but, pardon my remarking it, you look uncommonly well; nothing so becoming as widow's mourning.’

Mrs. Sherlock walked before him, with her head held so high in scornful disdain that it was a wonder page 284 her cap did not fall off. ‘Mr. Randall,’ she said, opening the door of the sitting-room, ‘here is some one who calls himself your friend. If he speaks the truth I'm sorry for you.’ With this she waved Mr. Godfrey Palmer into the room, and retired with stately composure.

Why Mr. Godfrey Palmer had come hardly admits of explanation. Perhaps he himself did not know. Generally, indeed, he had motives for all his actions; but now his mind was in an unsettled state, and he was the prey of a devouring curiosity. He appeared restless and fidgety, and—a very unusual thing with him—was a little embarrassed when alone with Randall His best behaviour made no impression; his congratulations were coldly received. Perceiving that fine manners were utterly thrown away upon his companion he became at once more natural and less polite.

‘And so you've baffled the Fates,’ he said. ‘I told Gatherall you would turn up all right. Really and truly, I had some faint suspicion, even when assisting at your obsequies, my dear fellow, that we hadn't seen the last of you. I knew your tenacity of life. You are too buoyant, you can't be kept down. It must gratify you to see how your unexpected reappearance has delighted us all. Your escapade will be a nine days' wonder. Odd, isn't it? to think you've been buried down there in that place by the sea; at least there's your name above a certain little mound.’

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‘But I'm happy to say I am not under that little mound,’ said Randall. ‘How long were you at the station?’ he suddenly asked after a pause. He had been looking at Mr. Godfrey Palmer, and wondering why he had indistinct recollections of having seen his face recently, in a very different place, and with a very different expression on its features.

‘Well, I went down to take a last look at you,’ said Godfrey Palmer, with a quick, suspicious glance. ‘That was all my business. Why?’

‘Because I've a strange fancy that when I was ill in that shepherd's hut you were there also.’

‘And nursed you devotedly, offering cups of cold water, and smoothing your pillow. Well, I might have done all that; but I didn't’

‘No; I don't suspect you of it. In my fancy,—a delirious one, very likely,—you crouched at the bedside and taunted me.’

‘My dear fellow, if you are going to tell me all your delirious imaginings you will have me out of this room in five seconds. There are some things I— even I—can't endure, and of those, hearing any one tell his mental wanderings or his dreams and nightmares is the most distractingly unbearable. I stand by your sickbed and make a mockery of your sufferings! What a wretch I must be!’ After this fervid avowal Mr. Godfrey Palmer looked relieved, and thought to himself, ‘He is in a blissful state of ignorance.’

‘But don't you think it strange I should imagine page 286 it?’ asked the other, who was now convinced that what he remembered was a fact, not a trick of the imagination.

‘Not at all. You were always imaginative. In a brain fever, with all your ideas turned topsy-turvy, who knows to what wild heights your fancy might soar! But why turn such a gloomy countenance upon me? You've no business to be sad; you've got through your troubles, and made a name and a fortune; that is, one has been given you. Nothing to do now but enjoy yourself in luxurious ease. I wonder, will it ever seem rather slow? will you ever wish yourself out of it? Perhaps you'll look back with regret to the old time when you weren't always certain of a dinner, but when at least there was the excitement of change, though it might be from bad to worse. As, for instance, when, for all that others would have cared, you might have let yourself drop from that bridge we stood on—do you remember?—and quietly floated away into the ocean of the unknown. But that's all done with. No more thrilling adventures for you; no roaming about the country; no tuning up your old violin in the depths of the wood; no playing the vagrant any more; that delightful time is gone. You'll have to be a dull, respectable kind of fellow now. There will be the burden of your immense property to keep you awake at nights; you'll have to go into society—for it will be so fond of you that it won't let you alone;—and oh, how you will be bored!’

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‘I My immense property, did you say?’

‘I believe I made use of those words.’

‘You are not well informed. I have made something during the last four years;—more than was expected;—but I have no property that can be called immense. What my brother-in-law was pleased to leave me I have no right to, and never should have used. Besides, it is mine no longer. Mr. Moresby's son is found, and of course inherits everything.’

Godfrey Palmer was seldom taken by surprise. If he did not know all things, it was his policy to appear as if he might have done so. But he could not help starting and changing colour at Randall's words.

‘Oh,’ he said, ‘is that it? Rather a sudden blow for you. Thought you looked melancholy. Never mind, your tum-tumming in public is so profitable you may be comfortable without legacies. Well, I must leave you again.’

‘Stop,’ said Randall, as Mr. Godfrey Palmer arose from his chair. ‘You have had most of the conversation so far; now listen to a few words from me.’

‘With pleasure,’ said the other; but he looked distrustful, and wished he had gone before.

‘You have not denied that you were with me in that hut, and I know you too well to be deceived by your manner. You were there; and from what I have heard at one time or another I know why you stayed so long at the place. Well, I don't care to page 288 speak of that; it matters little now that you wanted something to happen which, though you did not know it, would not have advantaged you in the least. But all this reminds me of a promise I made your brother when he was dying. I owe a great deal to him; he was my best friend, not only when I was with him but even after he had gone; for I couldn't forget his words, and they helped me. In his place let me do something for you if I can. Why need you ruin yourself?’

‘What does that matter to you?’ returned the other quickly. ‘You've chosen the right way to get rid of me, Randall. Do something for me? No! I don't want anything from you; neither your help nor your advice, and least of all that crowning insult you would-be-righteous put upon men like me—your forgiveness. You promised something to my brother, and you owe much to him, you say. Could any one know him well, and not be his debtor? Poor John! I wish you hadn't died first. What!’—and he angrily dashed his hand to his eyes—‘am I going to be babyish before you? Don't speak of him; say no more. Let me go my way, and you may go yours—you to be happy, I suppose; I to be—well, what half the world is. Good-bye. Oh! don't be afraid; I don't want to take your hand.’

In an instant he was out of the room. In the street he was once again cool and composed in manner. ‘Godfrey Palmer,’ he said to himself, ‘you were thought clever; people imagined you had talent. page 289 Don't lay that flattering unction to your soul any more. You are a simpleton—an idiot. A lucky chance has saved you from a most gigantic blunder. You were going to get rid of a person in your way, and there was another ready to step into his place! Next time you are tempted to break the sixth commandment, be more particular in your inquiries. Be sure of a recompense for laying such a load on your conscience. But you'd better not meddle with the commandments. Keep them if you can. Be moral: morality pays.’