Hudson sat up in his chair and appeared quite sober as he replied:

"It's too late. You don't know what a weak fool I am. It is no good my making resolutions. No, my boy, 'It's all up with poor Tommy now,' as that music-hall man sings--and I don't care. I used to try and reform once. It was no good--Ha! ha! Why it was only three months back, that I made my last attempt. I actually had resolution enough to live one whole week of the most abject virtue; think of that! but it was all the worse afterwards. I've gone a long way further down the hill these last three months."

He paused for some time, resting his head on his hand, as he tried to collect his scattered ideas, then he continued:

"Duncan, I am the most miserable of men--I am the slave of half-a-dozen vices. I have drunk them all to the dregs, yet I am not blase; I wish to G.o.d I were. No, I still love the world, love my vices more than ever, but cannot enjoy them--and in that is the h.e.l.l of it. I hate respectability; I hate work. I love dissipation, and can't dissipate. I look at steady fellows grinding away for little incomes and I hate them, I hate myself. No one can pity me--it's all my own fault. I feel sick and mad sometimes with regret, almost to killing myself--yes, with regret, and what for? I'll tell you--listen--regret that I cannot fly about, as I used to before health and coin and all had taken wings. Not regret for the wasting of any good there might have been in me--not a bit of it, I am too far gone to envy and admire _good_. Who can pity a man who suffers from so selfish and ign.o.ble a grief? and yet, dear Duncan, I believe that such a suffering is as bitter as any the human soul is capable of--all the bitterer because it can meet no sympathy, no pity. G.o.d help me!--The other day I heard a theatre-girl ask of another about me, 'Who is that bloated-looking old masher? Doesn't he look an old beast?' Yes, women have come to talk about me like that; you don't know, old man, you with your steady mind, what a h.e.l.l I am in. Despised where I loved. I gave up all for pleasure.--She is a hard mistress, not only does she jilt one--chuck one over with a heartless laugh when she has wrung all the good out of one--but she leaves one without the possibility of ever getting another mistress. Ambition will not come to the old rake--Fortune, mind, const.i.tution all gone.--Well, it can't be helped--d.a.m.n it! I can still drink anyhow. Bring me a shilling's worth of brandy, waiter. What for you, dear boy?"

"Nothing for me, old man, and don't you have any more just now.--Look here, Hudson, come along with me--to my diggings--we'll have a drink and a chat there. It will remind us of old times. I can give you a shake-down for the night."

The barrister smiled with that knowing and suspicious smile that is peculiar to drunkards. "Not to be caught, doctor," he cried, "none of that gammon for me.--I know your game--but I'm not so drunk as all that.

You are right, quite right, old man; I'm going to h.e.l.l--but I'll go there my own way--d.a.m.n it! the sooner the better."

"Hush, man!" said his friend. "Those two men at that table are listening to our conversation. We'll clear out of this. We can talk much better in my rooms, or your's if you prefer it as they are nearer."

Hudson glared at the men in question, rose a little from his chair, so that the doctor feared he was about to engage in a quarrel with them, but then altered his mind, drunk some of his brandy--neat again--sobered down, and continued in more subdued tones:

"No! no! doctor; don't think I am as bad as I appear. I'm a flabby idiot, but I'm never as far gone as I am to-night. But I've been upset to-day, Duncan. I saw a girl to-day--for the first time for three years.

She pa.s.sed me in Oxford Street--a girl that I knew when I was a different man. She was beautiful then as I had never seen woman before, and now she is more so. O G.o.d! I loved her then; I have often thought of her since; and to-day I saw her again.... I felt mad to see her beauty; and I, shabby, bloated drunkard, dared not speak to her, dared not contaminate her by my companionship. She did not recognize me, I pa.s.sed by her, and I have been mad ever since.--Oh, mad! to love and know that it is too late--too late--to think what might have been. Oh, dear old friend, pity me, do pity me a little--no one loves, no one pities me now."

There were tears in his eyes and his voice trembled--he was becoming maudlin again.

"Pity you! of course I pity you, old friend. I know poor human nature too well to do otherwise. Who am I to judge other's weakness? Good Heavens! I have been lately on the edge of a precipice myself, and I know how easy it is for a mind to lose its balance. Come with me, old man. I too am a miserable wretch even as you are. We will comfort each other. There is comfort in comforting one's fellows. I will help you and you will help me. Come along, Hudson," and he rose from his seat, anxious to get his friend quietly out of the place.

Hudson looked softened, then he smiled--an inscrutable smile: perhaps it had no meaning. He swallowed his brandy and got up from his chair. He was quite sober now and calm, but with an ominous glitter in his eyes that the doctor understood. He rose and said quietly, "Good night, Duncan; I can't come with you to-night, but I'll look you up in a day or two."

He then paid the waiter, carefully counted the change, and walked out of the Albion with the manner of a perfectly sober man.

But the doctor knew that the poor wretch was on the very verge of delirium tremens, and that a paroxysm might occur at any moment, so followed him close.

Once out of the Albion, the madman--before his friend could seize his arm--leaped back a few yards, laughed a discordant laugh in the doctor's face, and ran like a deer down the street.

Dr. Duncan ran after him; but the barrister's veins were full of fire!

his nerves tingled with the poison of alcohol, and he ran as only one in such a state of fearful exaltation of all the faculties can run; not to the right or to the left, but straight on, careless whither he rushed, unconscious of effort--feeling light as the wind, and as if impelled by spirits. The doctor soon lost sight of him, good runner though he was, and returned home with a heart heavier than ever. How dark all life seemed just then to this successful and prosperous man!

Deep was his compa.s.sion for his unfortunate friend--for he knew now that it would not have taken so much to have seen himself on the same downward career to destruction.

His pa.s.sion for Mary had revealed to him how weak his nature too was, how circ.u.mstances may overset the balance even of the strongest mind.

CHAPTER XII.

IN GREAT PERPLEXITY.

Mary had known what wretchedness was during her old life at Brixton; but that was almost happiness to the mental agony she was now experiencing.

For the image of one man was ever in her mind; the sound of his voice rang in her ears; and when the remembrance of his burning kisses came to her, as it often did, her cheek flushed and her heart beat with a flood of new emotions that terrified her.

She could not put him out of her thoughts. She hardly knew whether she loved him; but, with the exception of Mrs. King, he was her only friend, the only human being she liked and venerated; and though to be with him raised only thoughts of pain, yet when she was away from him, there came to her a worse misery, a want, that made her wish for that sweet pain again.

But it could not be; she must not love him; she, one of "the Sisters,"

committed to a Cause that killed its children! No, it could not be! She must suffer and endure in silence, but never know love.

A first, great love filling her being and a fearful consciousness of its hopelessness--so great a delight within her grasp and duty preventing her from seizing it--such was the mental conflict, full of agony, that had now come to her young life.

Her feverish restlessness undermined her health. When alone at night, she would sob through the long hours in broken-hearted despair. She would go through her duties by day with a listless languor.

Catherine King noticed how pale and thin and sad the girl was becoming; but shrewd as she was, she had no suspicions as to the true cause of this change.

I have said that a great affection had sprung up between the Chief of the Secret Society and her disciple. This affection was ever deepening.

The relation between them had long ceased to be that of mistress and servant; it was no longer merely that of teacher and pupil; but they had become to each other as mother and daughter. Catherine represented to the outside world that Mary was her niece; but the girl had of late fallen into the way of calling her protectress, when they were alone together, by the more affectionate name of mother.

One dismal November afternoon, before the lights were lit, Catherine King was sitting in her chair by the fire sewing. Mary was sitting by the window, listless, motionless, looking out to the street with a strange, sad air, as of one that despaired yet was resigned.

The elder woman occasionally cast keen glances towards her, and at last, putting down her work, said, "Mary!"

"Yes, mother!" replied the girl, starting suddenly from her reverie, while a bright flush came to her pale cheeks for a moment.

"You seem ill, Mary."

"Yes, mother; I am not very well," she replied in a low, apathetic voice.

"What is it? There seems to be something on your mind. Is it the idea of the work that has to be done soon that is weighing on you?"

"No, no! I know it is my duty, mother. I am proud to be a helper in the Cause. Oh, no! mother, it is not that.... I don't know what it is; but I fear I am weak and foolish. I am getting nervous.... I am a coward and unfit for so great a mission."

"Strange! that is not like you! I think a little change of air would do you good. We will take a holiday, Mary, and go to the sea-side."

"Thank you, mother; how very kind you are to me! but indeed I do not deserve it."

"You are a good girl, Mary. Happy for me was the day on which I first met you. Your companionship has been very dear to me. I, who thought that I had altogether given up tender emotions, that my whole being was absorbed in my work for Humanity, that I would never again care for any individual--I have come to love you dearly." She continued absently, not intending her words for the girl's ears: "Yes! I half regret sometimes that you should have to be one of the workers, poor girl"--then recollecting herself again, and putting aside her unwonted softness for her usual exalted zeal for Humanity that over-rode all lesser sentiments--"but this is nonsense. How n.o.bler our lives, how happier even, though severing us from mankind and human sympathies, than the weak loves and affections of the ordinary men and women! How glorious to feel we are so far above them!"

She did not suspect how she sent the arrow home to Mary's heart. Tears came to the girl's eyes. The sacrifice of human affections might be a little thing to the enthusiast, but to her, alas! it meant death. But she had determined that she would not waver in her allegiance; for the wild theories were to her great truths. She had such entire faith in her protectress, that she would not have hesitated to tear her heart out for the Chief and the Cause.

"Mother!" she cried out at last. "Oh, mother! you _must_ love me! I am so weak, I do not feel fit for the life that is before me. By myself I can do nothing. I shall be stronger if I may lean on you--if I may see you often--if you will let me love you. I cannot explain what I mean--I do not understand it myself." She spoke in a pitiful voice that expressed the great yearning that was in her.

Catherine King looked at the girl in silence for some moments, and the quivering of her lips showed that she was struggling with some strong emotion; then she said:

"I fear we are entering on a dangerous path--but, Mary! Mary! I do love you ... very much indeed--dear"--she hesitated over the last word as if ashamed of using it; she had never used it before--"too well, perhaps ... for it is our duty to look far beyond individual sympathies; we must steel our hearts; we must be of stern stuff; but I do love you, child. Come here, that I may kiss you!"

Mary knew what deep affection it must be to make this woman confess to such weakness. She came up to the chair where Catherine was sitting, and knelt before her. The woman kissed her on her forehead, and gently stroked the soft hair of the girl, feeling a tenderness in her heart that she had not known for many long years.

"There can be no harm in our loving each other, I think, Mary," she said, doubtfully, and with a tremulousness in her one as of consciousness of guilt, as of one hesitating on the brink of some sweet, strong temptation to crime--"no harm--but we must not be too affectionate; we must not fear for each other, or we shall be unnerved when the battle begins. Now, Mary! don't! don't! My dear child, I cannot bear it!" for the girl had seized her hand and was kissing it pa.s.sionately, while she shook with a paroxysm of sobs.

"Oh, mother! mother! I am so miserable--without your love I should die!

It is the only thing that makes life bearable. I cannot be strong and brave like you"--raising her head and looking admiringly at her through her tears--"but your love will make me braver too. Why are you not angry with me for being so silly and so weak?"