"A little surprised, but most awfully glad, too. Is all well?"

"Oh, far from that, I'm afraid. But I haven't got any time--and, oh my, I don't know how to say it,--but to be frank with you--could you lend Richard two pounds--?"

Loveday coloured to the roots of his hair.

He could not tell her: "Open that envelope in your hand", for that would have meant that it was he who had sent the 50 it contained; and he had now only one sixpence in Priddlestone.

"That is", she said--"if it is not an inconvenience to you--"

He could find no words. Some fifteen minutes before, having enclosed the notes, he had descended to the bar to get mine host to find him a messenger, and direct the envelope--for Hogarth knew his handwriting.

Mine host was not there--his wife could not write: but she had pointed out the Jewish park-keeper sipping beer; so Loveday had had the man upstairs, had made him write the address, and had bribed him to deliver the envelope with a mum tongue.

"I'm afraid I've taken a great liberty--" she said, shrinking at his silence.

Then he spoke: "Oh, liberty!--but--really--I'm quite broke myself--!"

"Then, good-afternoon to you", said she: "I am very sorry--but you will excuse the liberty, won't you--?"

In the forest she began to cry, covering her eyes, moaning: "Why, how could he be so _mean_? And I who loved that young man with all my heart, G.o.d knows--!"

Her eyes searched the ground for two sovereigns. Then she happened to look at the envelope: and instantly was interested. "Why, it is the Jew's hand!" she thought, for the letters were angular in the German manner, making a general similarity with Frankl's writing.

Curiosity overcame her: she opened, and saw...

"Oh, well, this is _generous_ though, after all!" she exclaimed.

And now she ran, coming out from mossy path upon wide forest-road: and there, taking promenade, was Frankl, quite near, with phylacteried left arm.

"Why, sweetheart..." said he.

She stopped before him. "Well, you can call me what you like for the time being", said she, laughing rather hysterically; "for I am most grateful to you for your generous present to my brother, Mr. Frankl!"

She had still no suspicion of Richard's visit of chastis.e.m.e.nt to the Hall!

"Now, what do you mean?" said Frankl.

"Why, you might guess that I know your handwriting by this time!" she said coquettishly, and held out the notes and the envelope.

His eyes twinkled; he meditated; he had, more than ever, need of her; and he said: "Well, you are as 'cute as they make them!"

"But instead of sending us this, which I am not at all sure that Richard will touch, why couldn't you pay it to yourself, and not turn us out--"

"I let business take its course: and afterwards I do my charity. But it wasn't for your brother, you know, that I sent it--but for _you_".

"I must be running--"

When she reached the farm, she gave the carman a secret glimpse of the notes, while Hogarth, who was now there, went to seek the old Hogarth, for whom a nest had been made among the furniture in the cart.

He was found above-stairs in an empty room, searching the floor for something.

"Come, sir", said Hogarth, and led him step by step.

But as the old man pa.s.sed the threshold, he fell flat on the slabs of the porch, striking his forehead, printing a stain there.

And the next day, the day of the sale, he still lay in the old chamber, on the ancient bed, dead.

VI

"PEARSON'S WEEKLY"

"Rose Cottage" was without roses: but had a good-sized "garden" at the back; and here Hogarth soon had a shed nailed together, with bellows, anvil, sledges, rasps, setts, drifts, and so on, making a little smithy.

He engaged a boy; and soon John Loveday would be leaning all a forenoon at the shed door, watching the lithe ply of Hogarth's hips, and the white-hot iron gushing flushes; while Margaret, peeping, could see Loveday's slovenly ease of pose, his numberless cigarettes, and hear the rhymes of the sledges chiming.

As to Loveday's 50, she had dared to say nothing to Richard, but kept them, intending to make up the amount already spent, and give them to Frankl. Loveday, meantime, she avoided with constant care.

So two weeks pa.s.sed, till, one day, Loveday, leaning at the forge-door, happened to say: "Are you interested in current politics? The East Norfolk division is being contested, one of the candidates, Sir Bennett Beaumont, is a friend of mine, and I was thinking that I might go to the meeting to-night, if you could come--"

"I invite you to supper here instead".

"Not interested?" queried Loveday.

"Not at all. Stop--I'll show you something in which I _am_ interested".

He ran to a corner, picked up a _Pearson's Weekly_, and pointed to a paragraph headed:

"FIVE HUNDRED-POUND NOTES!

"FIFTY TEN-POUND NOTES!!

"ONE HUNDRED FIVE-POUND NOTES!!!" --a prize for "the most intelligent"

article, explaining the cause, or causes, of "the present distress and commercial crisis".

Loveday read it smiling.

"Ah", said he, "but who is to be the judge of 'the most intelligent'

article? Pearson must himself be of the highest intelligence to decide".

"True", said Hogarth. "But the man who offered that prize has indicated to the nation the thing which it should be doing. If I was able to form an a.s.sociation to enter this compet.i.tion--and why not? Stop--I will go with you--"

So that evening they walked to Beccles, and took train for Yarmouth.

The candidate to speak was a Mr. Moses Max, a Liberal Jew; the chair to be taken by Baruch Frankl; and in the midst of a row, the stately great men entered upon the platform and occupied it, hisses like the escape of steam mixing with "He's a jolly good fellow". Midway down the pit sat Loveday, and with him Hogarth, whose large stare ranged solemnly round and down from galleries to floor.