MRS. ELDRIDGE IN FULL BLOW. THE IMPROPER STUDY OF MANKIND. NOTHING REALLY WRONG! AN IDENTIFICATION WITH A VENGEANCE. HOW CHALLIS CAME HOME LATE

Be good enough to note that none of the characters in this story are picturesque or heroic—only chance samples of folk such as you may see pass your window now, this moment, if you will only lay your book down and look out. They are passing—passing all day long—each with a story. And some little thing you see, a meeting, a parting, a quickened step, a hesitation and return, may make the next hour the turning-point of an existence. For it is of such little things the great ones are made; and this is a tale made up of trifles—trifles touching human souls that, for aught we know to the contrary, may last for ever.

It is the share Marianne had in a thousand little things like the triviality with which our last chapter ended that makes us say that she gave her husband no help against himself. Many a time a word of concession from her, in answer to any of his unspoken appeals for help—for the plain truth is, he made many such appeals—might have led to a rushed embrace of reconciliation, and a flood of not altogether uncontrite tears from her, and even some from him; for though one may pity him, he cannot be held absolutely blameless. The fact is, Alfred Challis had loved this Marianne even better than ever he did her sister, Bob's mother—loved her, that is, as men love what is called beautÉ de diable, and a kind of rough, good-natured manner. Besides, see how good she was with the boy!

If there had been no core of jealous reserve born of overstrained self-respect inside this rosy-seeming apple—if the girl would have obligingly matured without change—she would always have remained Polly Anne, as of old. But the core was there, and there Challis was to find it, after a pleasant year or so of experience of the outside of the fruit—the best part. Hence she came to be Marianne rather than Polly Anne to him, oftener and oftener; Mrs. Challis rather than Marianne to friends; and "your mother" rather than "mamma" to the children.

She was not the woman for the position in which she found herself. There was really only one chance of steady sailing for the domestic ship, and that was that she should go everywhere with her husband, brave the snubs of the scornful toff, laugh at her own inferiorities, and, above all, rejoice publicly at every new success of her husband. Inwardly she may have done the last; all the other conditions she failed in. The one chance was not caught at, and this man found himself alternately in the brilliant world of Imperial London, made much of, looked up to as an authority and quoted, refusing from sheer plenitude welcomes to one rich house after another—all these on the one hand, and on the other—suppose we put it briefly—Mrs. Steptoe.

If Marianne had only had a friend who would have pointed out the exaggerated nature of her impressions about the motley crew we owe so much to Sir Bernard Burke for telling the likes of us about! A friend, even, who would have said to her, "Don't give way to jealous pride, stupid; but go and observe the ways of the human toff, and come home and tell me, ici bas. I'll do your hair for you." But there was none such!—only Charlotte Eldridge!

Mrs. Eldridge certainly got some satisfaction out of the concern; it would have been a sad pity if no one had got any. It was all in the way of her own specialty, the proper—or improper—study of her kind. It may as well be admitted that the conversation the children overheard part of had run thus:

"I don't think, dear, that my feeling uneasy whenever John is out of my sight ought to count. John is a fool. Besides, girls that apply for situations are very mixed, whether telegraph or sorters. The most dangerous class of girl may apply. The safeguard in his case is that there is so little reserve in his nature. When his admiration is excited he always makes grimaces about them, and then I know who, at once. If taxed with them he always whistles popular airs and shuts one eye. 'Pop goes the Weasel' or 'Tarara-boomdeay.' But I try to believe he knows where to draw the line. This case is different."

"I don't see the difference."

"The girls are different. This Miss Sibyl What's-her-name...."

"The one Titus admires so much is Judith. Sibyl's the Art Coiffure one, that wanted to do my hair like a picture of Titian's...."

"Titian's mistress, I suppose. They did, then. Well!—I meant Judith. Don't you see how entirely different the cases are? Judith's position!—the publicity, dear!—the whole thing!..."

"No!—I see no difference."

"My dear!—what nonsense! Do you mean to say ... why, only look how he 'Miss Arkroyds' and 'Miss Sibyls' them! One judges from little things."

"When we're here, Titus does. But when they're alone...?"

"Well, of course! When they're alone, Mr. Challis may call her Judith. I don't say he does, but suppose he does, what does it all amount to?... Now don't be unreasonable, Marianne dear!"

"I am not unreasonable, Charlotte.... Nonsense! I'm not crying about it. I wouldn't be such a fool. But all I can say is, if Titus wants to go away to his Judith, let him go? I don't want to keep him, against his will.... What are those children at, in there?" At which point the conversation may stop.

Incidentally, it helps us to see that Sibyl had lent herself to an effort, which seemed to her—as to us—a politic one, to induce Mrs. Alfred Challis to be a little more coming and tractable. She quite appreciated that friendship between her sister and Challis, if Marianne was included in it, would be a very different thing from the same thing, conditioned otherwise. And when she called at the Hermitage with her sister, she was strongly impressed that scandal, if any arose, would be the more dangerous unless Marianne could be induced to change her attitude, which suggested that of a civil tigress, with a grievance against the jungle.

"You needn't make a fuss about me," said Mrs. Challis to her husband, just departing for the Acropolis Club. He always went through an apologetic phase, partly real, every time he deserted the domestic hearth. This time his remorse was superficial; for surely Marianne might just as well have accompanied him to this entertainment. You know the Acropolis Club, no doubt?—a cock-and-hen club of the purest water, with about the proportion of hens one sees in farmyards. He would have preferred her coming. However, he wasn't to make a fuss about her; that was settled. It was fine, she said; and Charlotte had said she would come in if it was fine. Challis became aware that Charlotte must have said she would come in, sometime before he himself had been reminded of his engagement to go out. His remorse vanished all the quicker, and he was beginning to enjoy his clean shirt-front—a phrase his mind put by for his next story on any light social subject—before his hansom landed him at Wimbledon Station. The Acropolis, you remember, is barely ten minutes cab from Waterloo, so this way did perfectly.

"John finds it do better," said Mrs. Eldridge, arriving in due course. "Only when he wants a walk he goes by East Putney, because the District saves him at the other end. Eight o'clock dinner, I suppose. Besides, they won't be punctual. They never are, nowadays." This was said to show how thoroughly au fait the speaker was of the ways of fashionable life. It was mere talk by the way, unspiced by direct reference to any Eros, respectable or otherwise.

"I know nothing about them," said Marianne damningly—that is, so far as a suggestion that she was none the worse thereby could condemn. Another, that it was best to know little of the class referred to, was latent. It rankled though, all the more that Mrs. Eldridge's expressive silence recognized its existence better than words. A garrulous person's silence may have all the force of a pause in a symphony. When the bÂton of Mrs. Eldridge's conductor, Mischief, allowed the music to steal gently in again, it came on tiptoe, with subtle finished skill; a pianissimo flute-phrase in the stillness, harbinger perhaps of a volume of sound.

"Couldn't you—Marianne dear—couldn't you...?"

"Couldn't I what?" It may be unfair to use the adjective grumpy to describe this question. When a lady beds her chin in both hands, with her elbows on her knees, and gazes at a slow-combustion stove doing its best, while she speaks, her words may have an altogether false effect.

"Ah—well! Perhaps I oughtn't to say.... Never mind, dear! Let's talk of something else. How's Mrs. Steptoe getting on with her soups?" A brisk rally of the orchestra—a rousing thrill on the drum. But too artificial!

"Elizabeth Barclay's been here to-day, to show her about blotting-paper. Greasy, and then Titus grumbles. But what did you mean to say?"

The conductor hushes the orchestra—gives gentle permission again to the flute. "No, dear, I oughtn't to say. Because I know how you feel about it, exactly. But what I thought of saying was...."

"Yes. Do go on, Charlotte!"

"Couldn't you have made up your mind to go—just this once? Because you were asked, this time."

"I shouldn't have enjoyed myself."

"Of course not, dear! Neither should I. But you know what I think. It all turns on a question of prudence. Anything is better than an esclandre." The other instruments come in again, and the conductor is warming to his work.

"I don't see why we want anything French in it. There's nothing of that sort, so far as I know."

"Of course not, with the people!" Given, that is, this character cast, Parisian laxities have no chance. But distinctions must be made. "Nobody's the least likely to do, but people will say, exactly the same as if they did do." Better expressed by Hamlet, in the plague he offered poor Ophelia as a dowry! Who shall escape calumny?

Marianne mutters something her friend takes to be, "I don't care what people say." The orchestra—pursuing our strained musical metaphor—sees a crescendo phrase ahead, and the conductor interprets it as accelerando.

"That's where you're so wrong, dear—do forgive me for saying it! But you are wrong. Pure and honest natures like yours always make that mistake. Of course you know, and I know—we all know—that to speak of anything really wrong in the same breath with your husband would be absurd, and even this fashionable girl for that matter. I mean, you know, really wrong." A nod-supported whisper—the music goes to pianissimo quite suddenly; consider the sharp ears of Mrs. Steptoe, and Harmood, in the kitchen! But enough of that. Our text calls for no secrecies; brush them aside, and resume without pedals, but con espressione. "But everyone is not like you, dear! So many people take pleasure in putting—well! the most horrid constructions on the most innocent.... What?" For Mrs. Charlotte had stopped to gloat so long over the first syllable of innocent—she did not enjoy the "horrid constructions" half so much—that she had not heard what Marianne said. Who, on request, repeated it:

"I didn't say I didn't care what people said ... oh well!—I've forgotten what I did say now, and it doesn't matter. Anyhow, I consider I've done my duty, and now I simply won't go to any of their dinners, come what may, Acropolis Club or no! So there!" This is a stronger ground than a plea of simple non-enjoyment as a cause of abstention, and Charlotte makes no protest. Her mind, too, is attracted by another point. She speaks dreamily to express that it is feeling its way, as through a mist, to illumination.

"What was it ... oh, don't you know? Lewis Smithson heard it ... oh dear!—what was the name of the club now? One of these mixed clubs ... oh no!—of course, I know what the story itself was—you needn't tell me that!... I mean what was the name of the club?" But Marianne cannot help, and conversation can't stop for it. At any rate, it wasn't the Acropolis. Which Mrs. Eldridge repeats more than once confirmatorily, to make the Acropolis safe before resuming the general question. She dismisses the legend itself—what it was does not matter here—as quite unworthy of credence. "I believe Lewis Smithson made it himself," she says. "Anyhow, it's nonsense. For my part, I should say they were much more likely to be stiff and straight up, for fear of its getting about. Besides, who was it you said was coming to this party? Lord and Lady Who?"

"Some name like Albatross."

"Ross Tarbet. Why, my dear, they're the pink! Corstrechan Castle in Banffshire. Oh no!—it's all right enough as far as that goes. But still I do think, if you ask me, it would have been just as well if you hadn't refused."

"Why? I do wish you would speak plainly, Charlotte, and not go round and round."

Mrs. Eldridge won't commit herself to a statement without passing through a period of reflection. It is consistent with the contemplation of the shadow of her free hand, held beyond it, on the screen she is interposing between her face and the fire. Its silhouette of outspread fingers seems to satisfy her, and not to interfere with the thoughts that her drooped eyelids and fixed look are grave about. After quite enough cogitation, she says abruptly: "I wasn't thinking of at the dinner. Nor the rest of the evening. But seeing home comes in. However, if you think of it, she would be with the Ross Tarbets, and they would drive her home. Let's see! The club's in Jermyn Street. Her family are in Grosvenor Square. I fancy the Ross Tarbets are in Park Lane. It's all in the way."

Such talk ought to have had a soothing, reassuring influence. Miss Arkroyd under the wing of a live Countess, safe of an escort to the paternal mansion, what more could be asked? Nevertheless, there is an hysterical sound—to Mrs. Eldridge's experienced ear—in the laugh with which Marianne says: "What silly nonsense! As if it made any difference to me if Titus saw the girl home in twenty cabs!"

"Because you have such confidence in Titus, my dear. And that is right! I wouldn't trust John myself. But he's different."

If Marianne had been in the least a humorist, the image of Mr. Eldridge, in danger from an aristocratic enchantress, seeking to unsettle his devotion to the stylish female he could now call his own, would have drawn from her a more genuine laugh than her last. But she was in no mood for laughing, and the greatest booby in Christendom might have passed muster with her as a parallel to her husband. We are not prepared to say he had not done so in the present case.

Marianne got up uneasily from the low chair she sat on before the fire; took another, but did not keep it long; rose again, and walked restlessly about the room. Unlike her!—so thought her companion, glancing up at her keenly, but furtively. Mrs. Eldridge had no definite plan of mischief; she only wanted the luxury of caressing her favourite subject. She felt a little alarmed, and rather wished the disquieted one would sit down again. But Marianne showed no tendency to do so. On the contrary, she said suddenly: "I forgot to tell Martha those underthings must not go to the wash. That woman always shrinks them," and left the room. Mrs. Eldridge heard her bedroom door close above, but no sound of colloquy with Martha. Then her attention was taken off by a tap at the door, whose executant she gave leave to come in.

It was Mrs. Steptoe, meek and creditable as an evening-cook; to wit, one that has done her washing-up. A sense of chapel hangs upon her, and the cough she gives as preface to speech seems conscious of its indebtedness to a pause in some sort of devotional service undefined. Her widowhood and the distinction of her sudden loss have given Aunt Stingy a chastened identity. But though in the ascendant, she will not obtrude herself. Mrs. Challis—servants seem lately to have left off saying missis and master—not being to the fore, she will retire and remain in abeyance, exceptin' rang for. It was only to remind about ordering Huntley and Palmer, Mr. Challis being that particular. But Mrs. Challis would be back directly, said Mrs. Eldridge. Aunt Stingy, nothing loth, would remain to chat.

Interrogated, Lizarann's aunt is finding the place comfortable. The ketching chemley draws a little imperfect, certainly; but the boiler full up, if hot over-night, lastis on the next day, and any quantity. A great convenience! It is noticeable about Mrs. Steptoe's speech that it does not improve when she tries to talk up to her company. When she spoke to her equals in Tallack Street, without desire to impress, she was provincial and unpolished, but seldom Cockney. Now, her attempts to be classical and win respect from Mrs. Eldridge are failures.

"What sort of a place was Mrs. Fossett's!"

"Miss!—excusin' my makin' bold to correct. But not in a place there. Only as a reference." "Where was your last place, then?" But Mrs. Steptoe explained, with many reserves and sidelights, that she had never been truly in service; having led, broadly speaking, a regal life, until she married beneath her, but, nevertheless, into a respectable trade connection. The suggestion that her husband's brain had been affected rounded off a tale that hinted at ancestry and a pursuing evil destiny—the race of Laius! "But you used to cook, wherever you were, once," said Mrs. Eldridge, wedded to practical issues.

"Oh, there, now!—cook, indeed! Why, I was sayin', only today, to Miss Harmood, 'If you could have seen the table they kep' at Sea View, soups and jellies and made-up dishes and the whole attention left to me, in the manner of speakin'.' Owing, ma'am, you see, to uncertain health, my aunt's sister—in charge of the establishment—suffering with a complication, and terminated fatally eleven years this Easter Day. Coming back to me, naturally, with the season." A retrospective sigh, over life's changes, came well in here.

"Was it a sort of private hotel, or boarding-house?" Mrs. Eldridge thought she saw light.

Mrs. Steptoe conveyed general assent, without close definition. "But very select!" she added. And Mrs. Eldridge said, "Of course," entirely without reason.

Aunt Stingy felt encouraged, and made up her mind to resume in full all particulars of the banquet we have heard about. After all, she is not the only person that ever dwelt overmuch on scanty incidents of slight importance in themselves; but oases, for all that, in the arid stretches of an eventless life. Besides—as her tale showed after Mrs. Eldridge had heard all about the splendid cooking accommodation of this establishment at Ramsgate, and full particulars almost of every dish on the table—there was revealed a curious sequel to this seaside dissipation, which no doubt would have been communicated to Mrs. Challis, if that lady had been as inquisitive as her friend. For Mrs. Charlotte hearing of an occasion—fifteen years ago!—when six or eight persons of either sex had dined together, forthwith smelt rats, and made for their places of concealment with the alacrity of a Dandie Dinmont.

"You seem to remember them all very well, Mrs. Steptoe."

"Along of what followed, no doubt, ma'am." The speaker appeared to become suddenly reserved, but awaiting catechism for all that.

Mrs. Eldridge's shrewd intelligence reached the issue promptly. "Perhaps you promised not to tell it. Don't tell me!" This would have disappointed Aunt Stingy, if she had believed it genuine. But she didn't, and confirmation of her disbelief came. "Only really, it's so long ago! It's almost ridiculous." The catechumen still awaited pressure. "But do just as you feel, Mrs. Steptoe. Of course, it's no affair of mine."

Aunt Stingy laughed slightingly, to remove the matter from among grave responsibilities. "Ho, as for that," she said, "I was never under any promise—only Mr. and Mrs. Hallock wished no reference made. Only, as you was sayin', such a many years after.... Is that Mrs. Challis coming?" But it wasn't.

"She's speaking to Martha upstairs. She won't come yet." Mrs. Eldridge betrays her curiosity—is very transparent. So urged, Aunt Stingy gives, not at all obscurely, a narrative some ten minutes long, which, for all purposes of this story, may be condensed as follows:—

The Mr. and Mrs. Hallock who figure in it had, for some not very evident reasons, felt justified in abetting the marriage of their nursery-governess with a man supposed to be of good means and antecedents, with the full knowledge that this marriage was concealed from her family, and was to remain so for a term. The dinner that was Aunt Stingy's culinary triumph was a festivity to welcome this happy couple on their return from a short honeymoon. The young gentleman named as Harris among the guests was a friend of the bridegroom. So far, nothing very criminal. But there was a sequel. The Hallocks, returning next season to the same apartments, where it seemed they spent every summer, frequently referred to the affair, but always with surprise that no news had reached them of the wedded couple, and this in spite of inquiries by letter. "Ungrateful girl!" was their verdict. One morning towards the end of their stay they were dumbfounded by an advertisement of a wedding, in the Telegraph. The bride actually bore the name of their ex-governess—her maiden name, that is—while the bridegroom's was, to their nearest recollection, that of the friend who had been introduced to them as Mr. Harris the year before. That was the substance of Mrs. Steptoe's story.

"They were that surprised," she said, "you might have knocked either of 'em down with an electric shock. 'My word,' says Mr. Hallock, 'to think of that!' he says. 'Then Horne must be dead, and that girl married to his friend already! And not so much as a letter!'... Oh yes! Mr. Hallock, he was resentful like, but Mrs. Hallock, she leans across to him, and she says: 'My dear, it's a coincidence! Kate never would—never! I knew the girl,' she says. So she talked him down, and they put it at a coincidence, and let it go."

"But did you hear no more?"

"They heard—not me! Or only remarks fell by chance. There come a letter next day, and they was a-talking and she a-crying over it. Little scraps they let drop, loud enough to reach. 'Ho, the miscreant!' and 'The licensual scoundrel!' And then Mrs. Hallock she says: 'Whatever could possess us, Edwin, not to make more certain about the ceremony?' Then they see me, and dropped to a whisper. Only saying to me after, not to repeat anything I'd heard, which I made the promise, as requested."

"There's Mrs. Challis coming. I wish you could have been more sure of the names, because it's interesting. Couldn't you think them up a little?"

Mrs. Steptoe cogitated. Hallock, of course, she said. Because she knew them a long time. But the other names hardly, to be any surer. Except it was the young lady's single name. Because that she see in the newspaper, when she come to look at the advertisement. Then she must have seen the bridegroom's name, said her interrogator. It seemed not; the glance was a hurried one. But she was sure about the girl's. It was Catherine Verrall.

This story has only had occasion once to refer to the name of Challis's first wife, Marianne's half-sister. And though Mrs. Eldridge had often talked with her friend about this half-sister, dead five or six years before the families became acquainted, it was always about "Kate"—no other name—or "my sister" when Marianne was the speaker. It is quite an open question whether she would at once have felt the name familiar, if it had not been for Bob's full name. Her knowledge that it was Robert Verrall Challis was perhaps what made her say, "What?—what's that?—did you say Verrall?" with stimulated interest. Mrs. Steptoe repeated "Catherine Verrall" quite distinctly, just as her mistress, returning, opened the door. Mrs. Eldridge hoped, without having had time to make up her mind why, that Marianne had not heard the name. For a few moments she thought she had not. The whole thing happened very rapidly.

Mrs. Steptoe delivered her reminder about Huntley and Palmer's Oatmeal Biscuits, to be ordered with the stores. Mrs. Challis had not forgotten them. One or two other small matters were referred to, and then Mrs. Steptoe said good-night with due humility, and departed. She was instructed not to sit up for Master Bob, who had gone to a neighbour's to assist in acting charades. Marianne would let him in. She did not resume her seat by the fire, but lay down on the sofa, away from it. She had a flushed, turbulent look, and a smell of eau-de-Cologne, backed by ruffled hair over the forehead, conveyed the idea that she had been putting it on her face, to cool it. Mrs. Eldridge felt uneasy. Had she gone too far?

"Was it all right about the flannels?" she asked.

"I think so. I don't know. I didn't see Martha. I felt sick, and lay down.... Oh yes!—I'm all right now."

"No, you're not, dear! You look very flushed. Shan't I get something? A little brandy-and-water?"

"Oh heavens, no!—make me sick! Like on the steamer—the very idea makes me ill! There's nothing the matter."

Mrs. Eldridge wasn't convinced. Should she open the window to let a little air in? She was one of those plaguing people that will remedy, whether you like it or no. Mrs. Challis repulsed her open-window movement with some asperity; reduced her to fiddling with her screen with a fixed gaze of solicitude, fraught with ultimatums about medical advice, failing prompt improvement in the patient.

Marianne remained still on the sofa, with her eyes closed for a few minutes. Then she said suddenly, rather as one who turns to an offered relief: "What were you and Steptoe saying about my sister when I came in?"

Her hearer started; grasped the coincidence of name fully for the first time probably. "Your sister, Marianne.... Why, how?" And then, with a complete perplexity: "How could that be?"

"My sister was Catherine Verrall—my sister Kate, that died. Why were you talking about her?"

"It must have been another Catherine Verral—must have been."

"Who must have been?"

"This girl. Stop, and I'll tell you!... But, really, the coincidence!" And, indeed, Mrs. Charlotte seems almost knocked silly by it, as the pugilists say. Marianne is roused and interested at her perplexity—sits up on the sofa fanning herself with her pocket-handkerchief—seems half inclined to laugh.

"What's it all about, Charlotte?" she says, and then adds—a little passing tribute to the memory abruptly revived—"Poor Kate!"

"Oh, my dear, of course it's nothing to do with poor Kate. Just an odd coincidence of a girl Mrs. Steptoe knew at Ramsgate, I think—years ago!"

"Kate was at Ramsgate, though, when I was a child. She taught music to some people's children. What was their name now?" But the name would not come back, on any terms. Marianne gave it up. Her friend felt actually glad, for the puzzle was too incisive to be pleasant.

"Very likely she was at Ramsgate. Why not? But she hadn't been twice a widow when she married your Titus, at any rate. Come, Marianne!"

"Certainly not! She wasn't nineteen, for one thing. Was this coincidence-lady a widow?"

"Perhaps I had better tell you the story?"

"Much better, I should say." On which Mrs. Eldridge repeats Mrs. Steptoe's tale, neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance, but with a tendency—very common in narratives we pass on to others, but ourselves have no part in—to substitute descriptions or epithets for names. Thus the Mr. and Mrs. Hallock of the original narrative appeared as "this lady and gentleman" until Mrs. Challis, whose puzzled look was on the increase, asked a question about them:

"What were they—this lady and gentleman? What was their name?"

"I fancy he was a coal merchant or dealer in something. Mrs. Steptoe didn't say. The name was Hallock." Mrs. Challis sprang up from the sofa excitedly.

"Charlotte!—what did you say? Hallock?"

"Yes—Hallock. Why not?"

Marianne's breath is quite taken away. "But that is the name I had forgotten—Hallock," she says, as soon as she can speak. "They're in one of those photographs in the old book—the one I brought from mother's." Her speech is rapid and frightened. The strangeness of the story is getting its mastery, and she feels, without imaging them, the ambushes in wait for her. "Oh dear!" she gasps, sinking back again on the sofa, "all this—it's so odd! Charlotte, I'm afraid to look at the photograph."

Charlotte's nerves are stronger, and she, recovered from the momentary alarm her friend had given her, is ready, one might say, to be in mischief again. "Don't be a goose, Marianne," she says. "You're frightened of everything. Do let's get the thing explained, dear, instead of going dotty over it. Which photograph book is it?... left-hand chiffonier?... no?—right-hand ... top shelf?... No!—I won't make a mess.... I expect it's this."

It was, and it exactly confirmed Mrs. Eldridge's anticipation of a coal merchant and his wife, two young daughters, and a governess a few years older than themselves. A stupid seaside photographer's group, but with well-marked face-features. The artist's address in a little oval underneath, conspicuously Ramsgate.

"Of course it's all some confusion of Mrs. Steptoe's," says Mrs. Eldridge. She knows she is talking nonsense, but she wants to calm all troubled waters while she gets her curiosity satisfied. "You'll see she won't recognize any of these—unless you give her hints, Marianne."

This is unprovoked, and Marianne resents it. "Show them to her when I'm not there if you like. Show her now and I'll go. Only I'm afraid they're gone to bed." If they have, no harm in ringing the bell! It is rung, and evolves Harmood, apologetic for not having gone up yet. And then Mrs. Steptoe, even more so.

Marianne does not go, but then that was mere talk. Mrs. Eldridge wants Steptoe—so she tells her—to see if she recognizes a photograph. Aunt Stingy is not dissatisfied to be consulted about anything. Mrs. Eldridge shows diplomacy, astutely getting her to identify Mrs. Challis at different ages. Having put the witness on a false scent, she shows the group, and asks: "Now which of those is Mrs. Challis?"

The witness tried to find an excuse for identification, but failed. But having admitted failure, why hold so tightly to the photo-album?

"Well, Mrs. Steptoe?" Mrs. Eldridge speaks.

"Nothing, ma'am. Oh no!—only what unaccountably caught my eye. Nothing to detain. What would be termed an impression." She relinquished the album slowly with a vaguely constructed "Excusin' the liberty I took, I'm sure!"

"You noticed something, Mrs. Steptoe?"

"In the manner of speaking, yes! But not to detain. It just cut across me like ... yes, ma'am, thank you, just a minute!" For Mrs. Eldridge had said, "Look at it again," and handed the open book back.

Aunt Stingy looked and looked, in more and more visible bewilderment. Pressed to explain it, she at last said: "I can't make no less of it, put it how you may. That's Mr. and Mrs. Hallock I was telling of, just now half-an-hour gone. And that is the young lady."

Iterations, stimulated by an incredulity Mrs. Eldridge affects in order to procure them, are interrupted by a knock at the front door. Mrs. Steptoe departs to open it. It is Mr. Eldridge, to accompany his wife home. He is not, she says, to hurry and fuss, but to sit down and wait, and not knock things over. He makes the remark, "Somethin' up! Easy does it!" implying, perhaps, readiness to wait for enlightenment, and becomes seated, but knocks nothing over. His wife throws him a gleam, to live on. "We are discussing the identity of a photograph," she says.

An occurrence interposes, Master Bob's arrival; the toleration for a few brief moments of exultation over the evening's successes, and his dismissal to bed, rather disgusted at Europe's want of appreciation. Then Mrs. Steptoe, who had retired to admit him, re-enters and resumes.

"Those are the parties I told you, ma'am," says she, in an undertone of confidence brought forward from the previous conversation, rather definitely exclusive of the newcomer, who had overlapped it. But he has his ideas, and as soon as he has thoroughly polished with his wrist the bridge of a nose he has just blown, he offers counsel:

"No name on 'em? Look on the back. Look on the edges where they tuck in. Nothin' like lookin'!" His wife accepts the suggestion without tribute to his sagacity; and when the photo is slipped from the passepartout, there on the back is plainly written: "Mr. and Mrs. Hallock, Nelly, Totty, and self. June, 1888."

"She'll be all right," said Mrs. Eldridge, returning to her husband in the drawing-room a quarter of an hour later. For Mrs. Challis, already upset by her previous interview with her friend, had been in no condition to have it burst upon her suddenly that important events—which she could not the least understand, so far—relating to her sister's life, and perhaps to his own, had been concealed from her by this husband whom she was now called upon to have so much faith in. She had completely broken down; had left the room white as ashes, having been previously flushed and feverish; and had nearly fainted away on the stairs. She had been got safely to bed, and had so far recovered as to be able to say that she should go to sleep soon. Perhaps her chief wish was to be let alone. She wanted to think to the bottom of this photograph story. What was it all about?

But Mr. Eldridge perceived that this sort of weather was trying to some constitutions, and suggested drastic treatment. His wife said, "Be quiet while I write this," and ignored his suggestions. She wrote a brief note to Mr. Challis, and left it in his bedroom candlestick on the hall-table outside. He was sure to see it. She then asked her husband whether he was coming, or was going to go on mooning there indefinitely. He chose the former course without insisting on closer definition of the latter.

A couple of hours later Alfred Challis paid a cabman a shilling too much, to avoid discussion, through his confessional guichet overhead, and escaped from a guillotine—thanks to its momentary forbearance—in a steady shower of rain that had heard that the wind had fallen, and caught at the opportunity to come down. It was lucky he had a waterproof on, though he had only to negotiate the garden's length to reach shelter and discover his latchkey.

He was not in the best of humours; all the more so that Miss Arkroyd, who was to have accompanied the Ross Tarbets, had been unable to do so on account of a sprained ankle—a trifle in itself, but warranted to become serious if walked on.

Seeing the envelope after lighting his candle, he opened it and read the note. His comments, in their order, were a "Hm—hm!" of concern and apprehension, another with some impatience in it, a grunt with nothing else, and a suppressed "Damn the woman!" He read it twice, and again, and went upstairs noiselessly.

Marianne was not asleep. She was wide awake, and wholesomely disposed to trust her husband, and tell the events of the evening at whatever risk. It would have to come out some time. Besides, the relief of knowing, either way! However, to tell him as natural sequence to an enquiry how things had gone with her was one thing; to rush the position another. She could not bring herself to call out to him—so little concerned about her as to make no such enquiry, and still scintillating, as it were, with sparks from the brilliancies of his evening's entertainment—to come into her room and hear the story. No, let him go—him and his Grosvenor Squares and Countesses!

Meanwhile he, however little weight he attached to anything Charlotte Eldridge said, conceived that he was on the safe side in paying attention to what she enjoined about a patient whom she had seen, and he had not. She might have been more definite about the nature of the attack. It was just like her to make a mystery of it. But it was evidently better to take her hint not to disturb his wife—now at near one in the morning! Challis made as little noise as possible, and got to bed in his own room, next to hers, without opening the door between lest he should wake her.

This was the text of Mrs. Charlotte's letter:

"She is much better, and will sleep. John and I both think you need not be the least alarmed. She has been too much excited lately, but will be all right now. Be very careful not to disturb her when you go up. I will try to come round in the morning. C. E."