“It seems indeed one of the deepest of moral laws, that under the stress of trial men will strongly tend at least to be whatever in quieter hours they have made themselves.”—“The Spirit of Discipline.”

Dean Paget.

December was now half over and Macneillie’s company had got as far as Southampton in their progress along the south coast. It was no slight pleasure to Ralph to find himself back in his old neighbourhood, and to act in the very theatre where long ago his father had taken him to see Washington in “The Bells.” He had heard nothing more from Mr. Marriott, and Evereld’s letters contained no reference to business matters, but were taken up with descriptions of life in the French country house, and of the happy time she was having with Bride O’Ryan.

It happened one day that as there was no rehearsal Ralph was able to walk over to Whinhaven. There were however very few of his old friends left in the neighbourhood.

Sir John and Lady Tresidder were in India, pretty Mabel Tresidder had married an officer and he had no idea of her present whereabouts, while even in the village there were many changes. Langston his coast-guard friend had got promotion and others had left the place or had died. He felt like a returned ghost as he wandered about the well-known lanes, and glanced at the familiar garden and at the unchanged outlines of the Rectory. A little child was playing with a pet rabbit on the lawn just as he had played in old times. He stood for a minute at the gate watching it with a strange feeling at his heart which was not all pain, but rather a sort of tender regret and a glad sense of gratitude for a happy childhood of which no one could ever rob him. For the rest his return was like all such returns. He found the church unaltered, the houses bereft of some of their old inhabitants and the church-yard more full.

Ralph however was not a man who liked to linger among graves, he stood only for a minute by the tomb of his father and mother, and passed on to that little nook in the park which they had always called the “goodly heritage.” It was as beautiful as ever, even in leafless December. The robins were singing blithely, the little brook rippled at the foot of the steep descent, and an adventurous squirrel had stolen out of his sleeping place to investigate his secret stores and to take a brief scamper among the branches. Some day, Ralph thought to himself, he would bring Evereld to see it all, and with that his thoughts travelled away into a happy future, and as he walked back to the nearest station regrets for the past were merged in the realisation that the best part of his life was still before him, and that many of his dark days had been lived through.

He was only just in time to catch the train and was hurriedly searching for a place when he was startled to hear himself called by his Christian name, and glancing round he saw someone beckoning to him from a carriage at a little distance. The door was opened for him, he stepped in, and to his amazement recognised in the dim light the well-known features of his Godfather. There was no other occupant of the carriage and Ralph remembering how they had parted at Rilchester would fain have beat a retreat.

“You are going to Southampton?” asked Sir Matthew. “I heard Macneillie’s company was there and I came partly for the sake of seeing you.”

“Do you bring news of Evereld?” asked Ralph eagerly.

“No,” said Sir Matthew, “she has succeeded in baffling me, you were right there. It is to her wilfulness that all my misfortunes are due.”

Ralph bit his lip to keep back the retort that occurred to him. For a minute the two looked at each other searchingly. Sir Matthew felt a sinking of the heart as he noticed the angry light in his companion’s eyes. Ralph on the other hand was perplexed by the pallor and dejection of hiss Godfather’s face. The Company promoter seemed quite another man, he looked old and broken, all his suavity of manner, his business-like, capable air had vanished.

“I am ruined,” he said; “worse than ruined—I am disgraced. At any moment I may be arrested unless I can succeed in leaving the country unnoticed.”

Ralph listened to this startling announcement with an impassive face. He hardened his heart against the man who had dealt harshly with him.

“I suppose it means,” he said, “that another of your Companies has failed and that this time you have suffered yourself, besides ruining hundreds as you ruined my father.”

“God knows how I regretted his losses,” said Sir Matthew and for the time there was a ring of genuine feeling in his voice. “It was for that reason I adopted you, that I educated you, that I took you straight to my own home. Have you forgotten that?”

“Sir, you never gave me a chance of forgetting it,” said Ralph bitterly, all his worst self called out by contact with this man whom he detested. “Had I listened to your temptation I should now have been pledged to become a money-grubbing priest, a trader in holy things, a disgrace to the church.”

He pulled himself up, recollecting that he was not much to boast of as it was—but a faulty, irritable mortal, full now of resentment, and hatred and contemptuous anger.

“Perhaps you were right,” said Sir Matthew with a sigh. “I admit that I was harsh with you that day, and you have a right to hit me now that I am down.”

Ralph instantly responded to this appeal as the astute Sir Matthew had calculated.

“Don’t let us speak of the past,” he said in an altered tone, “I owe you my education and I try to be grateful for that. Why did you wish to see me? What do you want with me?”

“We are almost at Southampton,” said Sir Matthew glancing at the lights of the town. “Let me come to your rooms with you and I will there explain matters. Is this St. Denys? They stop for tickets here I suppose; have the goodness to give mine to the collector.”

He moved to the further end of the carriage and began to unstrap some rugs from which he took a highland maud. He was still stooping over the straps when the tickets wore collected. Then as soon as they moved on once more he began to swathe himself elaborately in his tartan.

“Can I see you alone?” he inquired.

“Yes,” said Ralph, “I am usually with Mr. Macneillie, but he has friends in Southampton and is staying with them, so I happen to be quite alone.”

“All the better” said Sir Matthew a touch of his old manner returning to him. “We will take a cab. I have only this gladstone with me.”

And accepting Ralph’s offer to carry his bag, he drew the tartan carefully over the lower part of his face and crossed the platform swiftly to the cabstand.

Ralph felt like one in a dream as they drove through the town to his lodgings, and several times he recalled the day when as a child he had last left Whinhaven, and Sir Matthew and he had sat thus side by side driving through the crowded London streets to Queen Anne’s Gate.

The tables were turned indeed! It occurred to him even more strikingly as he took Sir Matthew into his snug little sitting-room in Portland Street and saw him warming his hands at the fire. Recollecting that his Godfather was a great tea-drinker, he rang at once and ordered the landlady to make some ready.

“That will be coals of fire on his head,” he thought to himself with a smile as he recalled the afternoon when he had sat hungrily in Lady Mactavish’s great drawing-room privileged only to hand cups to other people.

Sir Matthew was curiously silent, and as he sat by the fire seemed to care for nothing but the warmth and the food. By and bye, however, glancing at his watch he seemed to remember that his time was limited.

“You are acting this evening?” he inquired.

“Yes,” said Ralph, “in the ‘Rivals.’ I must be at the theatre in three quarters of an hour. Can you tell me now what you want with me?”

“I want your help,” said Sir Matthew. “At any moment I may be traced. Though I hope I have eluded pursuit and set them on a wrong track one can never tell in these days of telegrams and espionage. I don’t ask much of you. All I want is this; go down to the agents’ and take a place on board the Havre boat for to-night; let me shelter here until the passengers are allowed to go on to the steamer and, since you are a practised hand in making up, help me to disguise myself. I ask nothing but this.”

The audacity of the request roused all Ralph’s angry resentment again. He clenched his hands fiercely and began to pace up and down the room.

“You ask me to help you to escape,” he said indignantly, “when I am certain that you richly deserve to be brought to justice!”

“I ask you,” replied Sir Matthew, “to help your Godfather in his great need. To show a kindness to your father’s old friend.”

“You had no kindness for him,” said Ralph. “How can you—how dare you come to me. You who have desolated homes and broken hearts! Why there are few things I should like better than to see you arrested and properly punished.”

Sir Matthew’s face grew whiter.

“Would you betray me?” he said, “after I have trusted you?”

“No,” said Ralph indignantly, “certainly not. But I will not stir a finger to help you. How can you expect me to forget the way in which you have wronged Evereld?”

Sir Matthew’s keen eyes scrutinised him closely for a minute; he was puzzled to know how much Ralph had learnt of the truth.

“Wronged her?” he said questioningly, “what do you mean?”

“I mean that you traded on her innocence and ignorance of the world; that you tried by the most foul means to force her and frighten her into marrying Bruce Wylie. That you drove her to escape from you, and that but for the care and kindness of others she might have got into great difficulties.”

A look of relief crossed Sir Matthew’s face. Ralph certainly did not know that he had speculated with Evereld’s fortune and lost almost the whole of it.

“You misjudge me,” he said assuming a tone of some dignity. “I cannot explain matters to you, but I had the best intentions in desiring to see Evereld safely married to Bruce Wylie. For the rest, it is highly probable that you will have your wish. You may even see me arrested to-night in Southampton. However I shall take good care not to remain long in custody. It will be merely the change of foregoing the journey to Havre and instead taking a much less costly ticket for a journey to the undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller returns.”

He stood up and began slowly to button his overcoat. The easy tone in which he had made the quotation, and the look of quiet determination on his set face made a very painful impression on Ralph. His anger died away. Horror and perplexity suddenly overwhelmed him.

“What am I to do?” he thought desperately. “What would my father have done? If it were possible to imagine a man like Macneillie coming with such a request why I would shelter him and help him. Must I do as much for a man I loathe. It would be more just to let him be arrested? Why should I aid a guilty man to escape? It’s conniving at his wickedness. But then again it’s true that I ate his bread for years. If he should indeed take his own life I shall certainly wish I had helped him. Good Heavens! how is a fellow to see the right and wrong of such a case?” He looked round; Sir Matthew had folded his plaid about him and now moved towards the door.

“Good-bye Ralph,” he said, “many thanks for your hospitality.” But Ralph though he mechanically took the proffered hand spoke no farewell, merely held the hand in his grasp while over his curiously mobile face a hundred lights and shades succeeded one another.

“Wait,” he said at length, “I cannot let you go like that, Sir Matthew.” His perplexity and distress were so genuine that for the first time in all their intercourse the Company Promoter felt a sort of liking for this boy whom he had wronged and patronised, snubbed and educated, scolded and secretly hated. He saw that Ralph had all his father’s gentleness and generosity, but a good deal more strength and warmth of temperament than the Rector had ever possessed.

In dire suspense he waited to know his fate. There was a silence of some minutes; then Ralph, who had moved across to the fireplace and had wrestled out his problem with arms propped on the mantelpiece and face hidden, lifted up his head and once more met the gaze of his father’s old friend. Sir Matthew was astonished to see that he looked pale and haggard with the struggle he had passed through.

“I will try to help you,” he said simply.

“Then,” said Sir Matthew with warmth, “I am justified in having come to you. You are—as I thought—your father’s son. You are a true Denmead.”

Ralph for the life of him could not help laughing at the words. “You told me that in a different tone at Rilchester,” he remarked. “The Denmeads, I think you were good enough to say, were always unpractical fools, aiming at impossible ideals. I was angry then, but after all perhaps you are right. I believe I am a fool to help you, but just because you have so wronged us in the past I am afraid to refuse lest there should be anything of private spite or revenge in the refusal. What class do you wish to travel? I will go at once for your ticket.”

“Take a second return to Havre, it may be a precaution,” said Sir Matthew. “The steamer does not leave I think till 11.45. I did not come down by the boat train for that might very probably have been watched. How about disguise?”

“I will go to the theatre on my way back to you,” said Ralph, “and bring a grey beard which I think is all that will be needed.”

He hurried off, for there was not very much time to spare. Now that his decision was made he was comparatively at rest, and as he sped along the dark streets his thoughts went back to Whinhaven and all the quiet familiar scenes he had just visited. It was strange that Sir Matthew should have encountered him just as he returned from his old home, and perhaps, if the truth were known, the Company Promoter might never have gained his help had it not been for the softening influence of that visit to the old Rectory and the “goodly heritage.”

Having secured the ticket, he made his way to the theatre, where, early though it was, Macneillie had already arrived and was discussing some knotty question with the assistant stage manager and the master carpenter. Ralph slipped by them and ran up to his dressing-room, unearthed the beard he wanted from his dress-basket, tucked his make-up box under his arm and hastened away.

“Where are you off to?” said Macneillie.

“Back again in ten minutes, Governor,” he replied.

It was no use now to reflect how little he liked doing the work he had undertaken, and indeed when he was again in his own room a sort of pity for his godfather stirred once more in his heart. Sir Matthew was so broken down, so aged by all that he had gone through! The nervous haste with which he took the ticket, the hurried questions he put, were so unlike the hard business man of old times, that it was impossible not to feel some compassion for one who was the mere wreck of his former self.

Utterly exhausted by the high pressure at which he had lately been living, the sham philanthropist sat by the fire and allowed himself to be done for like a child, watching with a strange sort of admiration Ralph’s intent face as with deft touches to the eyebrows and accentuating of certain wrinkles, he entirely transformed him. When the process of fixing on the beard with spirit-gum was over and he looked at himself in the glass Sir Matthew hardly recognised his own features, and saw before him a man at least twenty years his senior.

“Stoop a little more,” said Ralph. “That is better. Now I don’t think even Lady Mactavish would know you.”

Sir Matthew sighed heavily.

“It’s mostly for her sake that I care to escape to-night,” he said with a touch of real feeling in his manner. “She will always be grateful to you, Ralph, for helping me.”

“I will order them to bring you some dinner at eight,” said Ralph, “and if you like I can drive down to the docks with you at eleven or a little after.”

Sir Matthew caught at this suggestion, and Ralph having finished his work at the theatre, refused two or three invitations to supper and hurried back to wind up the most curious service he had yet been called upon to render to any man.

“Don’t think too harshly of me,” said Sir Matthew as they drove down to the starting-place of the Havre steamer. “Remember that I always expected the speculation to succeed, that I still think I could have recovered myself if only things had not all conspired against me at the same time. You Denmeads can’t understand the temptations that assail an average man in the city. You were born without the love of money in you, and whatever happens you are always strictly honourable. Some men are made so. Had I not felt implicit trust in you how should I dare have put myself now in your power? You own that you would like to see me arrested and punished, but I know that you won’t betray me for all that.”

“I don’t wish to see you punished now,” said Ralph, “and of course I can’t betray you. But perhaps the best way after all would be for you to give yourself up to justice.”

Sir Matthew broke into a laugh.

“You might be your father sitting there and talking! It’s exactly what he would have said. My dear fellow your ideals are above me, and they are about as little likely to be adopted by ordinary men of the world as the ideals in Plato’s republic. I shall certainly not give myself up. I shall instead try my very best, for the sake of others, to recoup my losses and to start afresh.”

A curiously sanguine look crept over his worn face, and Ralph felt certain that like a gambler he would return as soon as possible to his great game of speculation, very likely persuading himself, with the ease of one who has posed hypocritically for many years, that he did it all from the purest philanthropic motives.

“You had better not come on board with me,” he said as they drew near to the docks. “And on the whole perhaps I had better not take this tartan with me, it is too marked. I will bequeath it to you. Good-bye Ralph. Many thanks to you for what you have done for me.”

With the first hearty grip of the hand he had ever given his godson he bade him farewell and passing up the gangway on board the steamer disappeared from view. The cold wintry wind came sweeping over the water; Ralph shivered and was glad enough to wrap the highland maud about him as he paced up and down watching to see the actual start of the Havre boat.

There was a bustle of arrival as the passengers were transferred from the boat train; he stood in the shadow watching them, and apparently another man, unobtrusively dressed, was engaged in the same occupation. Ralph felt sure that the fellow was a detective; he folded the plaid more closely about his mouth and pulled his hat over his eyes; the man furtively glanced at him and drew a few steps nearer, whereupon the spirit of mischief and love of acting overcame all other recollections, and Ralph as though most desirous of eluding pursuit, slipped quietly away into the darkness and vanished in the crowd. The detective, with all his suspicions aroused, gave chase, but presently coming to a place where two streets branched off, was baffled for a moment.

In a deep porch of one of the houses close by, a young man stood bareheaded, sheltering a flickering fusee with his hat while he tried to light his pipe.

“Seen a man wrapped in a plaid go by this way?” asked the detective panting.

“He has not gone past here,” said Ralph coolly.

The man took the other street and just at that moment the sounding of a steam whistle and the chiming of a clock in a neighbouring house told Ralph that it was a quarter to twelve and that the boat for Havre was safely underweigh.

He quietly picked up the highland maud from the well shaded corner of the porch where it had been snugly tucked behind a pillar, and then walked back to Portland Street musing over Sir Matthew’s fate and wondering what news the morning would bring.