"Cast from the pedestal of pride with shocks."

All through the little supper, made gay by the brilliant dresses of the ladies and the bunches of roses in the middle of the table, a restlessness marked the guide's manner; he was clearly anxious to have it over, get rid of Poussette and Miss Cordova, and be alone with Pauline.

It was a quarter to twelve when this was arrived at, and Crabbe took the precaution of closing the door securely after the Frenchman, and of seeing that the blind was sufficiently lowered over the one window which looked on the side of the cleared yard nearer the river, but he did not think of looking out of the window. Perhaps if he had he would not have recognized Ringfield in the straight dark shadow that kept walking up and down, up and down, as long as the light shone from that room. When he at last found himself secure and alone, the Englishman's stoicism, pride, and remorse, all came forth at one bound. He sat down and swept the dishes away from him, reached for Pauline's hand, and bent his head down over it upon the table, smothering different ejaculations, which, warm and earnest enough, were totally removed from his usual style of impassioned speech—he uttered nothing profane. But he sobbed—sobbed.

"Oh, what is it?" cried Miss Clairville in alarm. "What has happened? I never saw you like this before. It frightens me—why you sound as if you were crying, but that would be impossible. Oh, tell me, tell me!"

He grew calmer, lifted his head and felt for his handkerchief. "Yes, it's quite possible! I believe I have shed a tear or two. The first in how many years, Pauline? Ah—that I could not, would not wish to compute, but it's over now, I——"

He stopped, released her hand and began settling his clothes with the familiar touches she remembered so well. "I—well; Pauline, it's this; I've come into money. Now you know. Now you understand. And another thing—I know how to make money—what's more. Nothing succeeds like success, you see, and by Heaven—one thing followed on another till I could have gambled for luck, lost all, and won all back! Oh—I don't know what I'm saying, but I mean that one thing would have been enough, and there came two, two at once, here in the middle of this gloomy wood, this Inferno of a place I have hated so well and so long. Gad—it isn't half bad to-night though! I feel like a gentleman, I hope I look like one; I can act like one at least: pay my way, pay for this little spread, pay for your roses—what did you think when you saw them?"

Pauline did not take her eyes off him. She was alarmed, not believing a word he said, and she did not answer with her usual spirit.

"I thought them very wonderful of course in this out-of-the-way place.
Did you send for them?"

"My lady is cautious. New for her. Where is our Gallic zeal and impetuosity gone? You're afraid of me! I see it. You think I'm drunk?"

She shook her head, but her smile was somewhat wan.

"Here, I'll convince you. Take my hands, both of them. Both of them,
I say. At once, madam."

She did so and he drew her near, nearer, till their knees were touching.

"Now you answer me. Are they steady?"

"Yes."

"Very reluctantly given. Are they quite steady and firm like your own or like those of your parson friend?"

"Oh, don't, don't! Yes—quite firm, quite steady."

"You see! Now look at my eyes, look into them, lady dear. At once, madam. You find that trying, do you, but persevere. Well—what do you find? Are they wild, bloodshot, glazed, glaring? No? Only your image therein. And by God, Pauline, there never was and never will be any image half so beautiful, half so dear. That you must and will believe. Well, then—no, don't draw your hands away—about this money, for I'm perfectly sober and desirous of telling you the truth. You have the right to know. One thing led to another, but the first of it was like this. I've always been a scribbler in my lazy moments, as you know, but perhaps you can't be expected to know that I have put care and strong thought, art and heart both, into some verse that I occasionally would take out and look over, and then lock away again. How could I, forlorn and degraded, an outcast from society, hope to effect anything in literature! Yet I never destroyed any of these pet lucrubations of mine, and one day, a few months ago, I picked out a poem, copied it fair when my hand wasn't shaking, and sent it to a magazine in England. They took it—and I was so surprised that I went on a good long drunk. But when I got straight again I found a handsome cheque awaiting me and the hope, very warmly expressed by the way, that I would let him, the editor, have many more in the same vein. Many more, mind you, with cheques to match, so long as my industry holds out and I can find enough to say. Now consider for a moment what that signifies to a man like me, fallen so low, I confess it, ostracized and exiled, cut off from all old associations and without hope of overcoming my fault sufficiently to enable me to make a fresh start. It meant not only money, but employment, and congenial employment. It meant that after all, these years of leanness have not been wasted, that I have something to say if I can only retain the knack, the trick, of saying it in the way people will like, the public like. This alone would be much, but with it goes, you see, some money, so, as I said, one thing brings another; and money after all, Pauline, is what many a man as lost as I am mostly requires. It isn't as if I'd had money, squandered it and lost it; I never had it—I never had it."

He paused, and for a moment there had sounded that high dangerous ring in his voice she knew so well, and Miss Clairville drew her hands away.

"But that was not all," she said coldly. "You spoke of something else, of two things that had happened. What was the other?"

"The second grew out of the first, out of what I have told you. The poems—they were a couple of ranch episodes,—I'll let you see them presently—were signed by my full name, Edmund Crabbe Hawtree. I never supposed any one I knew would see them, or seeing them trouble their heads about the writer; in fact, I never thought about the matter. But somebody did see them and did remember me, and did take the trouble to find out who I was, and where I was, and I've had within the last fortnight two letters from a well known firm of lawyers in London informing me that I am without doubt the man they have been searching for during the past year, and that quite a respectable little fortune awaits me. There have been a few deaths in the family; I am next of kin and so that's all there is about it. Simple as you like, but true beyond a doubt, and so I thought I'd celebrate the event to-night with you, Pauline, and perhaps confer with you—you woman of the world, with your knowledge of life and of me—of me, alas! Me at my worst, Pauline, but let us hope really my worst."

He rose and walked around the room, unconscious of the dark shadow that also walked austerely outside the window. "This money—it is a great thing that has happened to me. It is difficult to realize. Don't mind my walking up and down; it soothes me and I'm excited too, I think."

Pauline seemed dazed.

"Is there a title? Is it much—the money that has been left you, I mean? Very much?"

"A good deal, but no title." And Crabbe could not and did not try to suppress the satisfied smile which told how he had gained in self-respect during the last few days.

"I expect you'll think it a good deal. Of course in England it will be different. There must be two houses with it; a town house—no, that was sold a long while ago, I believe; anyway, there would be more to do with it over there than on this side. I wonder how soon I ought to go."

"Go! You are going! But how much is it?"

"Oh! Didn't I say? About ten thousand; pounds you know, Pauline, pounds, not dollars."

"Ten thousand pounds!"

"A nice little sum, lady dear?"

"All that money yours?"

"Yes, and not a penny too much, not a penny too much. I have to revenge myself on fate, or Providence, or whatever you call it, for these years of misery. I have to think of what I might have done and lose no time in doing it. Pauline, I must think of you."

A softer mood held him now and he dropped upon his knee and laid his head upon her lap, but she could not follow his swift changes of emotion; the mention of the money had obliterated every other thought, and whether it was the woman in her or the potential miserliness of her race—the Clairvilles were traditionally stingy—she seemed unable to get away from the mere image of the ten thousand pounds.

"But, Mon Dieu, what a great change there will be! You will be everything and I shall be nothing! A poor actress, a doubtful lady! Oh! I shall be nothing to you, I can see, I can see! Mon Dieu, but this is only to bring more trouble upon me!"

Crabbe, as he will still be called, was at this much astonished. To do him justice he had for some time, ever since Ringfield's advent in the village in fact, found himself wishing that he might sincerely reform and offer Pauline the honour of marriage, and with it some hopes of a respectable competence.

"What nonsense are you saying?" he returned angrily. "Isn't money what we both require, what we have always required? And here it is now, as much as we want, and more, a great deal more, than we deserve or we expected! Why, I'll marry you now, Pauline, and you'll keep me steady; you and the travel and all the strangeness and the glory of it. You don't need any educating, any furbishing up—thank Heaven you were always a lady!—but we'll go abroad, of course, for a while and I'll show you Paris, Pauline, Paris, where you told Father Rielle you wanted to go and act; and you shall buy all you want at the shops, and I'll take you to the Louvre. Oh, yes, and you must go and see Mme. Bernhardt if she is acting; you might have been her rival if you'd begun earlier, with your moods and fancies and tempers. Then we'll come back to London, and I'll take you for a day to my old lodgings in Jermyn St., just to square up things. Then we'll progress quietly to the Towers, Langmere, Suffolk; that's the estate; not the most interesting of counties, but everything will be new and equally interesting to you, and thus we'll sober down to the regulation old English married couple. Dost like the picture, my lady of St. Ignace, my chÂtelaine of Clairville?"

"Always Clairville, always St. Ignace." She clasped her hands above her head in weariness. "If something could happen like what you describe, but no—it is impossible. They say that Henry's sight is going now, that very soon he will not be able to walk about by himself at all, that he is better in body but worse in mind, that he is forgetting all caution and speaking openly of the child—what is to be the end of it?"

"If anything could happen! Something has happened. What I am telling you is true. I am rich, able to take care of you, to put an end to this sordid existence; you shall be taken away from Henry and the child, and the old associations. Don't you believe me?"

"I should like to; but it's too much, too sudden, too good to be true."

"But it is true; here are the letters; here is money, a little of what is due, and here are the poems. You see, even if there were any mistake, any hitch about the estate, I still have a career open to me. There's an old manuscript novel of mine lying about somewhere; I believe I can get that taken; and I feel, I know there's something in it,—life, truth, suffering! But there's no hitch, no mistake, I swear it to you, Pauline; and whenever you're ready, I am; and we will, in melodramatic language, fly together from these dreary wilds. Fortunately residence at St. Ignace doesn't imply creditors. I've taken a room here at Poussette's, and I shall live in comfort for the short time that may elapse before we start. One thing, I hope, I hope, I shall keep sober. Would you take me if you thought I wouldn't, lady dear?"

He sat, stooping forward, his hair slightly disarranged, his blue eyes no longer choleric but gently smiling. She realized that he was still goodlooking, still a gentleman, a man of culture and even talent, young enough to move the world, and almost as young in appearance as herself; for mental anxiety and care of any kind always showed directly in her mobile features, and she was already beginning to track a few grey hairs and a few unbecoming wrinkles.

"There's another reason," she said evasively. "You have no idea how persistent this young man, the minister, has become. I have warned him, I have told him—not everything, of course, but a great deal—yet still he follows me, and to-day, I cannot remember what I said; but I have certainly led him to expect that I shall marry him."

"What! The parson! I thought you had more sense. Never do, never in the world. And now in the light of my proposals, see what you would be throwing away."

"But he is very earnest, very determined. He may keep me to my word. He may not get over it if I refuse, if I manage to leave St. Ignace with you."

Crabbe laughed and kissed her lightly on the ear. He said nothing, but produced first letters and papers from his pocket and then a small case. Pauline opened it; a pair of beautiful ear-rings flashed in the lamp light. In her ears were the imitation ones; she thought no longer of anything but whisking these out and putting on the others. Together they studied the papers and read the letters; and before they parted for the rest of the night she had promised to be ready in a month to marry him wherever he would prefer to have the ceremony performed, and to go abroad with him. She was to say that he had certainly come into some money but not to say how much; she was to busy herself with making arrangements for her brother's future comfort, as in all probability the pair would never revisit St. Ignace; and she was to make in particular a visit of a few days to Hawthorne on special and private business connected with the child Angeel.