His colour came back, and he laughed brutally. "Blast him! d'ye think I care?" said he, with a wild flourish of his arm; but added in a quieter voice, "Perhaps it's as well, la.s.s. Cold meat isn't very handy to hide, and he's worth more alive than dead. I couldn't hardly keep from laffin' this mornin' when I saw them bills. I'll stand ye a drop, la.s.s, if you're dry, but I mustn't stop with ye to drink it."

Dorothea declined this liberal offer.

"Good-night, Jim," said she, and turned coldly away. She had no heart for a more affectionate farewell; and could their positions have been reversed he must have detected something strange in this unusual lack of cordiality. But men are seldom close observers in such matters, and Jim was full of his own interests, his own projects, his own wild senseless infatuation.

He watched her round her homeward turn, and then started off at a quick pace in an opposite direction. With all his cunning he would never have suspected that Dorothea, whose intellect he considered little better than an idiot's, could presume to dog his footsteps; and the contempt he entertained for her--of which she was beginning to be uncomfortably conscious--no doubt facilitated this unhappy creature's operations.

Overhead the sky was dark and lowering, the air thick as before thunder; and though the gaslights streamed on every street in London, it was an evening well suited to watch an unsuspecting person un.o.bserved.

Dorothea, returning on her footsteps, kept Jim carefully in sight, walking from twenty to fifty yards behind him, and as much as possible on the other side of the street. There was no danger of her losing him. She could have followed that figure--to her the type of comeliness and manhood--all over the world; but she dreaded, with a fear that was almost paralysing, the possibility of his turning back and detecting that he was tracked. "He'd murder me, for sure," thought Dorothea, trembling in every limb. Nevertheless, the love that is strong as death, the jealousy that is cruel as the grave, goaded her to persevere; and so she flitted in his wake with a noiseless step, wonderfully gliding and ghostlike considering the solidity of her proportions.

Jim turned out of Oxford Street to stop at an ill-looking dirty little house, the door of which seemed to open to him of its own accord. She spied a small grocer's shop nearly opposite not yet shut up. To dodge rapidly in and sit down for a few minutes while she cheapened a couple of ounces of tea, afforded Dorothea an excellent chance of watching his further movements unseen.

He emerged again almost immediately with a false beard and a pair of spectacles, carrying a large parcel carefully wrapped in oiled silk; then, after looking warily up and down the street, turned into the main thoroughfare for the chase to begin once more.

"He must be dreadful hot, poor Jim!" thought Dorothea, pitying him in spite of herself for his false beard and heavy parcel, while she wiped away the drops already beginning to pour off her own forehead.

The night was indeed close and sultry. A light warm air, reeking like the steam from a cook-shop, breathed in her face, while a low roll of thunder, nearly lost in the noise of wheels, growled and rumbled among the distant Surrey hills.

She followed him perseveringly through the more fashionable streets and squares of London, tolerably silent and deserted now in the interval between dinner and concert, ball or drum. Here and there through open windows might be seen a few gentlemen at their wine, or a lady in evening dress coming out for a gasp of fresh air on the balcony overhead; but on the pavement below, a policeman under a lamp or a lady's-maid hurrying on an errand were the only occupants, and these took no heed of the bearded man with his parcel, nor of the dirty gaudily-dressed woman who followed like his shadow. So they turned down Grosvenor Place and through Belgrave Square into one of the adjoining streets. Here Jim, slackening pace, took his hat off and wiped his brow. Dorothea, with all her faculties on the stretch, slipped into a portico at the very moment when he glanced round on every side to make sure he was not watched. From this hiding-place she observed him, to her great astonishment, ring boldly at the door of a large handsome house. That astonishment was increased to see him admitted without demur by an irreproachable footman, powder, plush, and all complete. Large drops of rain began to fall, and outside London, beyond the limits of our several gas companies, it lightened all round the horizon.

Dorothea crept nearer the house where Jim had disappeared. On the ground floor, in a dining-room of which the windows stood open for the heat, she saw his figure within a few yards of her. He was unpacking his bundle and arranging its contents on the table, where a servant had placed a lamp when he admitted this unusual visitor. The rain fell now in good earnest, and not a living creature remained in the street.

Dorothea cowered down by the area railings and watched.

Not for long. The dining-room door opened, and into the lamplight, like a vision from some world of which poor Dorothea could scarcely form the vaguest conception, came a pale haughty woman, beautiful exceedingly, before whom Jim, her own Jim, usually so defiant, seemed to cower and tremble like a dog. Even in that moment of bewilderment Dorothea's eye, woman-like, marked the mode in which Miss Bruce's long black hair was twisted, and missed neither the cut nor texture of her garments.

Jim spread his goods out for inspection. It was obvious that he had gained admission to the house under the guise of a dealer in rare silks and Eastern brocades. We, who know everything, know that Mrs.

Stanmore was dozing over her coffee up-stairs, and that this scheme, too, originated in the fertile brain and determined character of her niece.

"I'll take that shawl, if you please," said Maud, in her cool authoritative way. "I dare say it's better than it looks. Put it aside for me. And--you were to ask your own price."

Dorothea, drenched to the skin, felt nevertheless a fire burning within; for, raising her face to peer above the area railings, she marked a mute worship in Jim's adoring eyes; she marked the working of his features, pale, as it seemed, with some new and overpowering emotion. Could this be Gentleman Jim? She had seen him asleep and awake, pleased and angry, drunk and sober, but she had never seen that face before. Through all its agony there rose in her heart a feeling of anger at such transparent folly--almost of contempt for such weakness in a man.

His voice came hoa.r.s.e and thick while he answered--

"Never name it, miss, never name it. I done as you desired, an' a precious awkward job it were! _He'll tell no tales now!_"

She started. The hand in which she held a small embroidered note-case trembled visibly; but her voice, though low, was perfectly firm and clear.

"If you exceeded my order," said she, "you have nothing to hope from my forbearance. I shall be the first to have you punished. I told you so."

He could scarcely contain his admiration.

"What a plucked 'un!" he muttered; "what a plucked 'un! No, miss," he added, "you needn't fear. Fear, says I! You never feared nothink in your life. You needn't think of that 'ere. Me and another party we worked it off as neat as wax, without noise and without violence.

We've a-trapped him safe, miss, and you've got nothink to do but just you lift up your hand, and we'll put him back, not a ha'porth the wuss, on the very spot as we took him from."

She drew a great breath of relief, but suffered not a muscle of her countenance to betray her feelings.

"It is better so," she observed quietly. "Remember, once for all, when I give orders they must be obeyed to the letter. I am satisfied with you, Jim--I think your name is Jim?"

There was just the least possible inflection of kindness in her voice, and this ruffian's heart leaped to meet it, while the tears came to his eyes. He dashed them savagely away, and took a letter from his breast-pocket.

"That's all we found on him, miss," said he, "that an' a couple o'

cigars. He hadn't no watch, no blunt, no latch-key, no nothink. I kep' this here careful to bring it you. Bless ye, I can read, I can, _well_, but I've not read that there. I couldn't even smoke of his cigars. No, I guv 'em to a pal. This here job warn't done for money, miss! It were done for--for--well--for _you_!"

She took the letter with as little emotion as if it had been an ordinary tradesman's bill for a few shillings; yet had she once p.a.w.ned a good many hundred pounds' worth of diamonds only on the chance of recovering its contents.

"At least, I must pay you for the shawl," said she, pulling the notes out of their case.

"For the shawl, miss? Yes," answered Jim. "Ten pounds will buy that, an' leave a fair profit for my pal as owns it. Not a shilling more, miss--no--no. D'ye mind the first time as ever I see you? D'ye mind what I said then? There's one chap, miss, in this world, as belongs of you, body and soul. He's a poor chap, he is, and a rough chap, but he asks no better than to sarve of you, be the job what it may--ay, if he swings for it! Now it's out!"

Over her pale haughty face swept a flash of mingled triumph, malice, and even amus.e.m.e.nt, while she listened to this desperate man's avowal of fidelity and belief. But she only vouchsafed him a cold condescending smile, observing, as she selected a ten-pound note--

"Is there nothing I can do to mark my satisfaction and approval?"

He fidgeted, glanced at the note-case, and began packing up his goods.

"If _you're_ pleased, miss, that's enough. But if so be as you _could_ do without that there empty bit of silk, and spare it me for a keepsake--well, miss, I'd never part with it--no, not if the rope was rove, and the nightcap drawed over my blessed face!"

She put the empty note-case in his hand.

"You're a fool," she said, ringing the bell for a servant to show him out; "but you're a stanch one, and I wish there were more like you."

"Blast me, I _am_!" he muttered; adding, as he turned into the wet street, and walked on through the rain like a man in a dream, "if there was more such gals as you, maybe there'd be more fools like me.

It would be a rum world then, blessed if it wouldn't! And now it will be a whole week afore I shall see her again!"

Dorothea, clinging to the area railings, even in the imminence of discovery had not the heart to leave them as he went out. Stupefied, bewildered, benumbed, she could scarcely believe in the reality of the scene she had witnessed. She felt it explained much that had lately puzzled her exceedingly; but at present she was unequal to the task of arranging her ideas so as to understand the mystery that enveloped her.

Gradually the thunderstorm rolled away, the rain cleared off, the moon shone out, and Dorothea reached her squalid home, drenched, cold, weary, and sick at heart.

CHAPTER XVII

"WANTED--A LADY"

We must go back a few days to watch with d.i.c.k Stanmore through the sad sorrowing hours that succeeded his step-mother's ball. I trust I have not so described this gentleman as to leave an impression that he was what young ladies call a romantic person. Romance, like port wine, after-dinner slumbers, flannel next the skin, and such self-indulgences, should be reserved as a luxury for after-life; under no circ.u.mstances must it be permitted to impair the efficiency of manhood in its prime. d.i.c.k Stanmore took his punishment with true British pluck and pertinacity. It was a "facer." As it could not possibly be returned, his instincts prompted him to "grin and bear it." He had sustained a severe fall. His first impulse was to get up again. None the less did nerves thrill and brain spin with the force and agony of the blow. Perhaps the very nature that most resists, suffers also the most severely from such shocks, as a granite wall cracks and splinters to the round shot, while an earth-work accepts that rushing missile with a stolid harmless thud.

d.i.c.k's composition was at least not earthy enough to let him go to bed after this recent downfall of his hopes. Restless, hurt, sorrowful, angry with himself, not _her_--for his nature could be gallantly loyal under defeat--sleep was as impossible as any other occupation requiring quietude and self-control. No. The only thing to be done was to smoke, of course! and then to pack up everything he could lay hands on, without delay, so as to leave London that very morning, for any part of England, Europe, or the habitable world. All places would be alike to him now, only the farther from Belgrave Square the better.

Therefore it was, perhaps, that, after shamming to breakfast, and enduring considerable pain in a state of enforced inactivity, while his servant completed their travelling arrangements, he drove through this very Square, though it lay by no means in a direct line for the railway station to which he was bound. Those who believe in ghosts affirm that a disembodied spirit haunts the place it best loved on earth; and what are we but the ghosts of our former selves, when all that const.i.tuted the pith and colouring and vitality of our lives has pa.s.sed away? Ah! Lady Macbeth's are not the only white hands from which that cruel stain can never be removed. There are soft eyes and sweet smiles and gentle whispers, enough in the world guilty of moral manslaughter (I believe the culprits themselves call it "justifiable homicide"), not entirely divested of that malice prepense which const.i.tutes the crime of murder! Happy the victims in whom life is not completely extinguished, who recover their feet, bind up their wounds, and undeterred by a ghastly experience, hazard in more encounters a fresh a.s.sa.s.sination of the heart. Such fort.i.tude would have afforded a remedy to d.i.c.k Stanmore. "Wanted--a lady!" should have been the motto emblazoned on his banner if ever he turned back into the battle once more. h.o.m.oeopathy, no doubt, is the treatment for a malady like that which prostrated this hapless sufferer,--h.o.m.oeopathy, at first distrusted, ridiculed, accepted only under protest, and in accordance with the force of circ.u.mstances, the exigences of the position; gradually found to soothe, to revive, to ameliorate, till at last it effects a perfect and triumphant cure, nay, even shows itself powerful enough to produce a second attack of the same nature, fierce and virulent as the first. But, meanwhile, d.i.c.k Stanmore followed the ghost's example, and drove sadly through Belgrave Square, as he told himself, for the last--last time! Had he been an hour later, just one hour, he might have taken away with him a subject for considerable speculation, during his proposed travels in search of distraction.

This is what he would have seen.

A good-looking bad-looking man, with dark eyes and hair, sweeping a crossing very inefficiently, while he watched the adjacent street with an air of eager anxiety, foreign to an occupation which indeed seems to demand unusual philosophy and composure of mind. Presently, Maud Bruce, tripping daintily across the path he had swept clean, let herself into the Square gardens, dropping her glove in the muddy street as she took a pa.s.s-key from her pocket. The crossing-sweeper pounced at it like a hawk, stuck his broom against a lamp-post, and hurried round to the other side of the Square.

Here Maud appeared at the gate, while "Gentleman Jim," for it was none other, returned her glove without a word through the iron bars.