At His Gates: A Novel. Vol. 1 (of 3)

CHAPTER VII. CHAPTER VII. Nothing happened, however, to justify Drummond's fears. The success of Rivers's in its new form was as great and as steady to all appearance as that of its ancient phase. People vied with each other in rushing into it, in crowding its coffers and its share lists. Stephen Haldane, 'left to himself,' according to Mr Burton's instructions, had long since deposited all he had in its hands; and almost all of Robert's professional friends who had any money to invest, invested it in the bank which had an R.A. upon the roll of directors. People came to him to ask his advice who in other times would have given him theirs freely, with no such respect for his judgment. But though this was the case, and though ignorant persons in society sometimes wondered how he could make the two occupations compatible, and carry on business and art together, yet the fact was that business and Robert had very little to do with each other. He went to the meetings of the directors now and then. He was blandly present sometimes at an auditing of accounts. He listened at times to the explanations given by Mr Golden, the manager, and found them everything that was reasonable and wise. But beyond that he cannot be said to have taken much part in the management. For this mild part he was abundantly rewarded—so abundantly that he sometimes felt half ashamed, reflecting that the clerks in the offices actually contributed more to the success of the place than he did, though they did not profit half so much. He felt himself justified in taking a nice house in the country, though not at Dura, at the end of the first season, and he gave his wife a pretty little carriage with two ponies on her birthday, in which she drove about with a pleasure perhaps more real than that which any other circumstance of their prosperity gave her. They did not leave their house in St Mary's Road, for it was dear to them in many ways, and still satisfied all their wants; and Robert could not tolerate the idea of another painter using the studio he had built, or another woman enjoying the conservatory which had been made for Helen. 'However rich we may grow—even if we should ever be able to afford that house in Park Lane—we must keep this,' he said; 'no profane foot must come in, no stranger intrude upon our household gods; and Norah must have it after us, the house she was born in.' Thus they planned their gentle romance, though they had been a dozen years married and more, and bought the house they loved with their first disposable money. And Robert still loved his work and kept to it, though he did not need now to trouble about the exhibitions and push on his picture, working from the early morning down to twilight to get it ready. He got a little lazy about finished pictures, to tell the truth. Even Francesca, though he loved her, had been put aside on the spare easel, and never completed. 'I will get up early and set to work in earnest to-morrow,' he always said; but to-morrow generally found him like the day before, making a study of something—sketching in now one subject, now another—tormenting his wife with questions as to which was best. She had a good deal to put up with in this period; but she kept up under it and bore it all smilingly. And Robert, like so many more, made his sketches much better than his pictures, and put ideas upon his canvas which, if he could but have carried them out, might have been great. Thus two years passed over the pair; and there were times when Helen thought, with a leap of her heart, that ease and leisure had done what care and toil could not do—had roused a spark of divine genius in her husband's breast. Now and then he drew something that went right to her heart, and it was she who had always been his harshest critic. When she said to him one day suddenly, without purpose or meaning, 'I like that, Robert,' he turned round upon her all flushed and glowing, more radiant than when he was made an R.A. It was not that he had supreme confidence in her knowledge of art, but that her backing of him, the support which he had longed for all these years, was more than the highest applause, and invigorated his very soul. But he was so pleased to have pleased her, that he set up his sketch upon a bigger canvas, and worked at it and improved it till he had improved the soul out of it, and Helen applauded no more. He was much mortified and disappointed at this failure; but then in his humility he said to himself, 'What does it matter now? I am an R.A., which is the best I could be in my profession, so far as the world is concerned, and we have something else to stand upon besides the pictures.' Thus he consoled himself, and so did she. And, in the mean time, Norah kept growing, and became a more distinct feature in the household. She was a feature more than an agent still; though she was nearly twelve, not much was heard of her except the scales, which she still rattled over dutifully every morning, and the snatches of songs she would sing in the lightness of her heart as she went or came. On most ordinary occasions she simply composed such a foreground to the family picture as Maurice had seen that October night. She sat on a stool or on the floor somewhere, with a book clasped in her arms, reading; in summer she and her book together crouched themselves against the window in the room, getting the last gleam of daylight, and in winter she read by the firelight, which crimsoned her all over with a ruddy glow, and scorched her cheeks. Perhaps it was because she was kept conscientiously at work all day that Norah thus devoured all the books she could lay hands on in the evenings. She sat in her corner and read, and heard what was going on all the same, and took no notice. She read everything, from Grimm's Tales and the Arabian Nights to Shakspere, and from Shakspere to Tennyson, with an undiscriminating, all-devouring appetite; and as she sat in a dream, lost in one volume after another, the current of life flowed past, and she was aware of it, and heard a hundred things she was unconscious of hearing, yet remembered years after. She heard discussions between her father and mother which she was supposed to pay no attention to. And she did not pay any attention to them: but only innocently—an unconscious eavesdropper—heard everything, and received it into her mind. This was the child's position in the house; she was the centre of the picture—everything somehow bore a reference to her; she alone was silent in the midst. The other two—who loved her, talked of her, planned for her, contrived that everything that was pretty and pleasant and sweet should surround her waking and sleeping—had yet no immediate need of Norah. They were each other's companions, and she was the third—the one left out. But she was too young to feel any jealousy, or to struggle for a place between them. She had her natural place, always in the foreground, a silent creature, unconsciously observing, laying up provision for her life. 'Are you not afraid to talk of everything before your daughter?' Mr Golden said one day when she had left the room. 'You know the old proverb, "Little pitchers have long ears."' 'Afraid of—Norah?' said Robert. The idea was so extraordinary that he laughed first, though the moment after he felt disposed to be angry. 'My child understands what honour is, though she is so young,' he said with paternal pride, and then laughed, and added, 'That is high-flown of course, but you don't understand her, Golden; how should you? She is a thousand times too deeply occupied to care for what we are saying. Pardon me, but the suggestion, to one who knows her, is so very absurd.' 'Ah, you never know where simplicity ends and sense begins,' said the bank manager. He had become a frequent guest at St Mary's Road. He was a man of Mr Burton's type, but younger, slightly bald, perfectly brushed, clean, and perfumed, and decorous. He was a little too heavy for the rôle of a young man in society: and yet he danced and flirted with the best when an opportunity offered. He never spoke of the City when he could help it: but he spoke a great deal about Lady So-and-so's party, and the fine people he knew. It was difficult to make out how he knew them; but yet he visited, or professed to visit, at a great many of what are called 'good houses.' As manager of the bank he had every man's good opinion—he was at once so enterprising and so prudent, with the most wonderful head for business. There was no one like him for interpreting the 'movements' on the Stock Exchange, or the fluctuations of the Funds. He explained business matters so lucidly that even Drummond understood them, or at least thought he did. But there were a good many people who did not like Mr Golden. Helen for one had a natural antipathy to the man. She allowed that she had no reason for it; that he was very civil, sometimes amusing, and had never done anything she could find fault with. But she disliked him all the same. Norah was more decided in her sentiments, and had a clearer foundation for them. He had insisted on disturbing her from her book one afternoon to shake hands with her; on another he had offered to kiss her, as a child, and she nearly twelve! 'But then you are so little of your age, Miss Norah. I dare say the gentleman took you for nine,' said the maid—an explanation which did not render Norah more favourably inclined towards the manager. And now he was trying to libel her, to traduce her to her father! Even Robert himself was moved by this enormity; it shook his opinion of his counsellor. 'That is all he knows,' Drummond said to himself; and he resumed his conversation more distinctly than ever when Norah came back. In the mean time the Haldanes had thriven too, in their way. Stephen was as helpless, as far from any hope of moving, as ever; but he was well off, which alleviates much suffering. The walls of his room were hung with Drummond's sketches, half a dozen of them, among which were two pictures of Norah. He lived in an arm-chair elaborately fitted with every possible contrivance, with a reading-desk attached to its arm, and a table close by, which could be raised to any height: and his helpless limbs were covered with a silken quilt of Mrs Haldane's own working. There he passed the day and night without change: but thanks to Miss Jane and her mother, no strange eye had looked upon the helpless man's humiliation; they moved him from his chair to his bed, and did everything for him. The bed was closed up by day, so that no stranger might suspect its existence; and the room was kept airy and bright by the same unwearied watchers. Here he lived, making no complaint. Whatever his feelings might be, whatever the repinings in his mind, he said nothing of them to mortal ear. A shade of weariness the more upon his face, a deeper line than usual between his eyes, were the only tokens that now and then the deep waters overflowed his soul. And as for the mother and sister, who were his slaves and attendants, they had forgotten that there was anything unusual in his condition—they had become accustomed to it. It seemed to them in some sort the course of nature. And God knows whether unconsciously a feeling that it was 'for the best' might not sometimes steal into their minds. He was theirs for ever; no one could step in between them, or draw his heart from their love. Had it been suggested to Miss Jane that such a sentiment was possible, she would have rejected it with horror; and yet in the depths of her heart it was there, out of her own sight. And he had an occupation in his seclusion which was a blessing to him. He had become the editor of a little magazine, which belonged to his 'denomination,' before he fell ill, and he had been allowed to retain the post. This was the refuge of his mind in his trouble. Poor Stephen, he pleased himself with the idea of still influencing somebody, of preserving his intercourse with the outer world. It had been a very homely little publication when it came into his hands—a record of what the 'denomination' was doing; the new chapels it was building; the prayer-meetings gathered here and there, which might grow into congregations; and the tea-parties, which furnished at once intellectual and social enjoyment for the people. But Stephen had changed that; he had put his mind into it, and worked it into a sort of literary organ. There were reviews in it, and essays, and a great deal of discussion of the questions of the day. These were approached from the standing-ground of the denomination, it is true, but the discussions were often far from being denominational. Up to this time, however, the community gave no signs of disapproval. Mr Baldwin favoured the magazine, and the writer of it was still popular, and not yet forgotten. They gave him some fifty pounds a year for this hard though blessed work which kept his mind alive; and his late congregation gave him fifty pounds; and the money in Rivers's bank had last quarter paid ten per cent. of profit. He was well off, he was indeed rich for his wants, though he was not rolling in wealth like Drummond. Money makes no man happy, but how much good it does! Nothing could make this poor man happy, rooted thus in his immovable calm; but his ten per cent. kept him in comfort, it gave him worship in the eyes of his people, who were not fond of poverty; it procured to him his only consolation. He had no need to be indebted to any one; he could even help the poor people of his former flock, and feel himself independent. He could buy books, and give such quiet comforts and pleasures as they could enjoy to the women who were so good to him. All these were great alleviations of the sick man's lot. But for Rivers's how different would his position have been! He would have been subject to the constant inspection of deacons and brethren; he would have been interfered with in respect to his magazine. All the comfort and freedom which remained to him were the result of the little more which made him independent and put him above criticism. What a poor thing money is, which cannot buy either health or happiness! and yet what a great thing! only the poor know how great. This time of prosperity had lasted for two years, when Mr Burton withdrew from the direction of the bank. He had enlarged his business greatly in another way, and had no longer time to bestow upon this; and, indeed, he had professed all along his desire to be free. This had been the object of the old company in taking in 'new blood,' and now the new company was able to proceed alone upon its triumphant way. 'It is your turn to get into harness, Drummond,' he said, with a glance in which there was some contempt. Robert did not see the scorn, but he laughed with perhaps a little gentle confidence in his own power to be of use if he should choose to exert himself. 'I must put myself into training first,' he said. 'Golden will do that for you. Golden is the best coach for business I have ever come across,' said Mr Burton. 'He will put you up to everything, good and bad—the dodges as well as the legitimate line. Golden is not a common man of business—he is a great artist in trade.' There was a certain elation in his air and words. Was he glad to have shaken off the bonds of Rivers's, though they were golden bonds? This was the question which Helen asked herself with a little surprise. The two men were dining at St Mary's Road on the night after Burton's withdrawal, and she was still at table, though they had begun to talk of business. As usual, she who took no part was the one most instructed by the conversation. But she was bewildered, not instructed, by this. She could not make out what it meant. She knew by the best of all proofs that the bank was profitable and flourishing. Why, then, did her cousin show such high spirits? What was his elation about? Long after, she remembered that she had noted this, and then was able to divine the mystery. But now it only surprised her vaguely, like a foreign phrase in the midst of the language she knew. 'The dodges are amusing,' said Mr Golden. 'The legitimate drama is more dignified and imposing, but I rather think there is more fun in the work when you are living on the very edge of ruin. The hairbreadth escapes one has—the sense that it is one's own cleverness that carries one through—the delight of escaping from the destruction that seemed down upon you! There is nothing like that,' he said with a laugh, 'in the steady platitudes of ordinary trade.' And Mr Burton laughed too, and a glance passed between them, such as might have passed between two old soldiers who had gone many a campaign together. There was a twinkle in their eyes, and the 'Do you remember?' seemed to be on their very lips. But then they stopped short, and went no further. Helen, still vaguely surprised, had to get up and go away to the drawing-room; and what more experiences these two might exchange, or whether her husband would be any the wiser for them, she was no longer able to see. Norah waited her in the other room. She had just come to the end of a book, and, putting it down with a sigh, came and sat by her mother's side. They were alike in general features and complexion, though not in the character of their faces. Norah's hair was brighter, and her expression less stately and graceful than Helen's—she had not so much distinction , but she had more life. Such a woman as her mother she was never likely to be, but her attractions would be great in her own way. 'How nice your velvet gown is, mamma!' said Norah, who was given to long monologues when she spoke at all. 'I like to put my cheek upon it. When I am grown up, I will always wear black velvet in winter, and white muslin in summer. They are the nicest of all. I do not think that you are too old for white. I like you in white, with red-ribbons. When I am a little bigger I should like to dress the same as you, as if we were two sisters. Mayn't we? Everybody says you look so young. But, mamma, ain't you glad to get away from those men, and come in here to me?' 'You vain child!' said Helen. 'I can see you whenever I like, so it is no novelty to me; while papa's friends—' 'Do you think they are papa's friends? I suppose there are no villains now-a-days, like what there are in books?' said Norah. 'The world is rather different from books somehow. There you can always see how everything happens; and there is always somebody clever enough to find out the villains. Villains themselves are not very clever, they always let themselves be found out.' 'But, my dear, we are not talking of villains,' said Helen. 'No, mamma, only of that Mr Golden. I hate him! If you and I were awfully clever, and could see into him, what he means—' 'You silly little girl! You have read too many novels,' said Helen. 'In the world people are often selfish, and think of their own advantage first; but they don't try to ruin others out of pure malice, as they do in stories. Even Norah Drummond sometimes thinks of herself first. I don't know if she is aware of it, but still it happens; and though it is not always a sin to do that, still it is the way that most sins come about.' This purely maternal and moral turn of the conversation did not amuse Norah. She put her arm round her mother's waist, and laid her cheek against the warm velvet of Helen's gown. 'Mamma, it is not fair to preach when no one is expecting it,' she said in an injured tone; 'and just when I have you all to myself! I don't often have you to myself. Papa thinks you belong to him most. Often and often I want to come and talk, but papa is so greedy: you ought to think you belong to me too.' 'But, my darling, you have always a book,' said Helen, not insensible to the sweet flattery. 'When I can't have you, what else am I to do?' said crafty Norah; and when the gentlemen came into the drawing-room, the two were still sitting together, talking of a hundred things. Mr Golden came up, and tried very hard to be admitted into the conversation, but Norah walked away altogether, and went into her favourite corner, and Mrs Drummond did not encourage his talk. She looked at him with a certain flutter of excited curiosity, wondering if there was anything under that smooth exterior which was dangerous and meant harm; and smiled at herself and said, No, no; enemies and villains exist only in books. The worst of this man would be that he would pursue his own ends, let them suffer who might; and his own ends could not harm Drummond—or so at least Helen thought. CHAPTER VIII. It was in the summer of the third year of his bank directorship that Robert made his first personal entry into business. The occasion of it was this. One of his early friends who had been at school with him, and with whom he had kept up a precarious and often interrupted intercourse, came to him one morning with an anxious face. He was in business himself, with a little office in one of the dreary lanes in the City, a single clerk, and very limited occupation. He had married young, and had a large family; and Drummond was already aware that while the lines had fallen to himself in pleasant places, poor Markham's lot had been hard and full of thorns. He was now at the very crisis of his troubles. He gave a glance round the painter's handsome studio when he entered, at the pictures on the walls and the costly things about, and the air of evident luxury that pervaded everything, and sighed. His own surroundings were poor and scant enough. And yet he could and did remember that Drummond had started in life a poorer man, with less hopeful prospects than himself. Such a contrast is not lively or inspiriting, and it requires a generous mind to take it kindly, and refrain from a passing grudge at the old companion who has done so much better for himself. Poor Markham had come with a petition, on which, he said, all his future life depended. He had made a speculation which would pay him largely could he only hold out for three months; but without help from his friends this was impossible. It was a large sum that he wanted—more than any private friend would be likely to give him—something between two and three thousand pounds. The welfare of his family, his very existence in a business point of view, and the hopes of his children depended on his ability to tide those three months over. For old friendship's sake, for all the associations of their youth, would Drummond help him? Robert listened with his kindly heart full of sympathy. Long before the story was done, he began to calculate what he had at his disposal, how much he could give; but the sum startled him. He could not produce at a moment's notice a sum of nearly three thousand pounds. With a troubled heart he shook his head and said it was impossible—he had not so much money at his disposal—he could not do it. Then Markham eagerly explained. It was not from his friend's own purse that he had hoped for it; but the bank! On Drummond's introduction, the bank would do it. Rivers's could save him. No such request had ever been made to Robert before. Very few of his friends were business men. Their needs were private needs, and not the spasmodic wants of trade. There were people who had borrowed from himself personally, and some who had been helped by him in other ways; but this was the first appeal made to his influence in the bank. He was startled by it in his innocence of business habits. It seemed to him as if it was like asking a private favour, turning over his own petitioner to a third person. 'He is my friend, give him three thousand pounds.' It seemed to him the strangest way of being serviceable to his neighbour. But poor Markham had all the eloquence of a partially ruined man. He made it clear to Robert, not only that such things were, but they happened continually, and were in the most ordinary course of nature. The end was that they went out together, and had an interview with Mr Golden at the bank. And then Robert found that his acquaintance had not exaggerated, that the matter was even easier than he had represented it, and that there would not be the slightest difficulty in 'accommodating' the man who was Mr Drummond's friend. Markham and he parted at the door of the bank, the one with tears of gratitude in his eyes, blessing God and Robert for saving him, and the other with a bewildered sense of power which he had not realised. He had not known before how much he could do, nor what privileges his directorship put in his hands, and he was confused by the discovery. It bewildered him, as a man might be bewildered to know that he could bestow fertility or barrenness on his fields by a glance: how strange the power was, how sweet in this instance, how—dangerous! Yes, that was the word. He felt afraid of himself as he went home. If such plaints came to him often, it would be so difficult to resist them; and then a kind of horrible dread came over his mind. Would the money ever be paid back that he had got so easily? The thought made his hand shake when he went back to the peaceable work at which no such bewildering risks were run. When the three months were over, Markham's money was not paid; on the contrary he had fled to Australia, he and all his children, leaving nothing but some wretched old furniture behind him. Poor Drummond was nearly beside himself. He rushed to the bank when he heard the news, and protested that the loss must be his. It was his fault, and of course he must repay it. Mr Golden smiled at him with a genuine admiration of his simplicity. He told him in a fatherly way of a speculation which had been very successful, which had cleared nearly the same sum of money. 'Putting the one to the other, we are none the worse,' he said; 'every commercial concern must make some bad debts.' Drummond went away with more bewilderment still, with many new thoughts buzzing in his head, thoughts which troubled the composure of his life. He himself being but an artist, and not a merchant, was afraid of money. He touched it warily, trafficked in it with a certain awe. He knew how much labour it required to earn it, and how hard it was to be without it. He could not understand the levity with which Burton and Golden treated that potent thing. To them it was like common merchandise, sugar or salt. A heap of it, as much as would make a poor man's fortune, melted away in a moment, and the bland manager thought nothing of it—it was a bad debt. All this was so strange to him, that he did not know what to make of it. He himself was guilty, he felt, of having thrown away so much which belonged to other people. And every other director on the board had the same power which he had with a painful pleasure discovered himself to have. And they knew better about it than he did; and what check could there be upon them? If every other man among them had been art and part in losing three thousand pounds, what could Robert say? It would not be for him to throw the first stone. He felt like Christian in the story, when, upon the calm hill-side, he suddenly saw a door through which there appeared, open and visible, the mouth of hell. It occurred to Robert to go down to the next meeting of directors, to tell them his own story, and beg that the money lost through his means should be subtracted from his private share of the capital, and to beg all of them to do likewise. He quite made up his mind to this in the first tumult of his thoughts. But before the time for that meeting came, a sense of painful ridicule, that bugbear of the Englishman, had daunted him. They would call him a fool, they would think he was 'canting,' or taking an opportunity to display his own disinterestedness. And accordingly he accepted the misfortune, and was content to permit it to be called a bad debt. But the enlightenment which it threw on the business altogether gave Robert a shock which he did not easily recover. It seemed to show him a possible chasm opening at his very feet, and not at his only, but at the feet of all the ignorant simple people, the poor painters, the poor women, the sick men like Haldane, who had placed their little seed-corn of money in Rivers's bank. These thoughts were hot in his heart at the time of this misadventure with Markham; and then there came a lull, and he partially forgot them. When no harm is visible, when the tranquil ordinary course of affairs seems to close over a wrong or a blunder, it is so difficult to imagine that everything will not go well. He said as little as possible to Helen on the subject, and she did not take fright fortunately, having many things to occupy her now-a-days. There was her own enlarged and fuller household; the duties of society; her charities, for she was very good to the poor people near Southlees, their house in the country, and kept watch over them even from St Mary's Road. And she had now many friends who came and occupied her time, and carried her off from her husband; so that he had not that resource of talking about it which so often lightens our anxiety, and so often deepens it. In this instance, perhaps, it was as well that he could not awaken her fears to increase and stimulate his own. And thus everything fell into its usual quietness. Life was so pleasant for them. They had so much real happiness to cushion the angles of the world, and make them believe that all would always be well. Those who have been experienced in pain are apt to tremble and doubt the continuance of happiness when they attain it; but to those who have had no real sorrows it seems eternal. Why should it ever come to an end? This the Drummonds felt with an instinctive confidence. It was easier to believe in any miracle of good than in the least prognostic of evil. The sun was shining upon them; summer was sweet and winter pleasant. They had love, they had ease, they had wealth, as much as they desired, and they believed in it. The passing cloud rolled away from Robert's mind. He reflected that if there was danger there, there was danger in everything; every day, he said to himself, every man may be in some deadly peril without knowing it. We pass beneath the arch that falls next moment; we touch against some one's shoulder unaware, whose touch of infection might be death; we walk over the mined earth, and breathe air which might breed a pestilence, and yet nothing happens to us. Human nature is against everything violent. Somehow she holds a balance, which no one breaks down, though it is possible to be broken down at any moment. The directors might ruin the bank in a week, but they would not, any more than the elements, which are ever ready for mischief, would clash together and produce an earthquake. Such things might be: but never—or so seldom as to be next to never—are. In the early autumn of that year, however, another shock came upon the ignorant painter. His wife and Norah were at Southlees, where he himself had been. Business had brought him up against his will, business of the gentler kind, concerning art and the Academy, not the bank. He was alone at St Mary's Road, chafing a little over his solitude, and longing for home and the pleasant fields. London, the London he knew and cared for, had gone out of town. August was blazing upon the parks and streets; the grass was the colour of mud, and the trees like untanned leather. The great people were all away in their great houses, and among his own profession those who could afford it had started for Switzerland or some other holiday region, and those who could not had gone for their annual whiff of sea-air. Robert was seated by himself at breakfast, mournfully considering how another day had to be got over, before he could go home, when a hansom dashed up to the door, and Mr Golden, bland and clean as ever, but yet with a certain agitation in his face, came in. He explained eagerly that he had come to Drummond only because the other directors were out of town. 'The fact is,' he said, 'I want you to come with me, not to give you much trouble or detain you long, but to stand by me, if you will, in a crisis. We have had some losses. Those people in Calcutta who chose to stop payment, like fools, and the Sullivans' house at Liverpool.—It is only temporary.—But the Bank of England has made itself disagreeable about an advance, and I want you to come with me and see the governor.' 'An advance! Is Rivers's in difficulties? is there anything wrong? You take away my breath.' 'There is no occasion for taking away your breath,' said Mr Golden; 'it is only for the moment. But it is an awkward time of the year, for everybody is out of town. I should not have troubled you, knowing you were not a business man, but of course the presence of a director gives authority. Don't be alarmed, I beg. I will tell you all about it as we drive along.' But what Mr Golden told was very inarticulate to Robert, what with the wild confusion produced in his own mind, and the noise and dust of the sultry streets. It was the most temporary difficulty; it was not worth speaking of; it was a simple misunderstanding on the part of the authorities of the Bank of England. 'Why we are worth twenty times the money, and everybody knows it,' said Mr Golden. His words, instead of making Robert confident, made him sick. His sin in that matter of Markham came darkly before him; and, worse even than that, the manager's words recalled Markham's to him. In his case, too, it was to have been merely a temporary difficulty. Drummond's imaginative mind rushed at once to the final catastrophe. He saw ruin staring him in the face—and not only him. The interview with the authorities of the Bank of England did not make things much clearer to the amateur. They talked of previous advances; of their regret that the sacred name of 'Rivers's' should be falling into mist and darkness; of their desire to have better securities, and a guarantee which would be more satisfactory: to all of which Robert listened with consternation in his soul. But at last the object was attained. Mr Golden wiped the moisture from his forehead as they left the place. 'That has been a tough battle,' he said, 'but thank Heaven! it is done, and we are tided over. I knew they would not be such fools as to refuse.' 'But, good God!' said Robert, 'what have you been doing? What is the meaning of it? Why do you require to go hat in hand to any governor? Is Rivers's losing its position? What has happened? Why don't you call the shareholders together and tell them if anything is wrong?' 'My dear Mr Drummond!' said Mr Golden. He could scarcely do more than smile and say the words. 'Don't smile at me,' said Drummond in the ardour of his heart. 'Do you consider that you have the very lives of hundreds of people in your hands? Call them together, and let them know what remains, for God's sake! I will make good what was lost through me.' 'You are mad,' said Golden, when he saw that his gentle sneer had failed; 'such a step would be ruin. Call together the shareholders! Why, the shareholders—Mr Drummond, for heaven's sake, let people manage it who know what they are about.' 'For heaven's sake! for hell's sake, you mean,' said Robert in his despair. And the words reverberated in his ears, rang out of all the echoes, sounded through the very streets, 'It would be ruin!' Ruin! that was the word. It deafened him, muttering and ringing in his ears. And yet even after this outburst he was calmed down. Mr Golden explained it to him. It was business; it was the common course of affairs, and only his own entire inexperience made it so terrible to him. To the others it was not in the least terrible, and yet he had no right to conclude that his colleagues were indifferent either to their own danger, or to the danger of the shareholders of whom he thought so much. 'The shareholders of course know the risks of business as well as we do,' Mr Golden said. 'We must act for the best, both for them and for ourselves.' And the painter was silenced if not convinced. This was in the autumn, and during the entire winter which followed the bank went on like a ship in a troubled sea. After a while such a crisis as the one which had so infinitely alarmed him became the commonest of incidents even to Drummond. Now that his eyes had been once enlightened, it was vain to attempt any further concealment. One desperate struggle he did indeed make, when in the very midst of all this anxiety a larger dividend than usual was declared. The innocent man fought wildly against this practical lie, but his resistance was treated as utter folly by the business board, who were, as they said, 'fighting the ship.' 'Do you want to create a panic and a run upon us?' they asked him. He had to be silent, overpowered by the judgment of men who knew better than himself. And then something of the excitement involved in that process of 'fighting the ship' stole into his veins. Somehow by degrees, nobody had been quite aware how, the old partners of Rivers's had gone out of the concern. It was true there had been but three or four to start with; now there was but one left—Lord Rivers, the head of the house, who never took any share in the business, and was as ignorant as the smallest shareholder. The new directors, the fighting directors, were men of a very different class. As the winter went on the ship laboured more and more. Sometimes it seemed to go down altogether, and then rose again with a buoyancy which almost seemed to justify hope. ' Tout peut se rétablir ,' they said to each other. 'After all we shall tide it over.' And even Robert began to feel that thrill of delight and relief when a danger was 'tided over,' that admiration, not of his own cleverness, but of the cleverness of others, which Golden had once described. Golden came out now in his true colours; his resources were infinite, his pluck extraordinary. But he enjoyed the struggle in the midst of his excitement and exertion, and Drummond did not enjoy it, which made an immense difference between them. Things became worse and worse as spring came on. By that time, so far as Drummond was concerned, all hope was over. He felt himself sucked into the terrible whirlpool whence nothing but destruction could come. With a heart unmanned by anxiety, and a hand shaking with suppressed excitement, how could he go into his peaceable studio and work at that calmest work, of art? That phase of his existence seemed to have been over for years. When he went into the room he loved it looked to him like some place he had known in his youth—it was fifty years off or more, though the colour was scarcely dry on the picture which stood idly on the easel. When he was called to Academy meetings, to consultations over an old master, or a new rule, a kind of dull amazement filled his soul. Did people still care for such things—was it still possible that beauty and pleasantness remained in life? There were people in these days who felt even that the painter had fallen into bad ways. They saw his eyes bloodshot and his hand trembling. He was never seen with his wife now when she drove her ponies through the park—even in society Helen went sometimes out alone. And they had been so united, so happy a pair. 'Drummond will have nothing ready in April,' the painters said to each other—'even his diploma picture has never been finished—prosperity has not agreed with him .' When he was visible at all, his vacant air, his tremulous look, the deep lines under his eyes, frightened all his friends. Dr Maurice had spoken to him very seriously, begging that he would be candid and tell his ailments. 'You cannot go on like this,' he said. 'You are killing yourself, Drummond.' 'How much can a man go through without being killed, I wonder?' poor Robert asked, with an unsteady smile, and even his friend stopped short in dismay and perplexity. Was it dissipation? Was it some concealed misery? Could his wife have anything to do with it? These suggestions flitted vaguely through the doctor's mind without bringing any certainty with them. Once he seemed to be getting a clue to the mystery, when Robert rushed in upon him one day, and with a show of levity suggested that Haldane's money should be taken out of the bank. 'I know a better investment, and he should have the very best that is going,' said Drummond. Dr Maurice was somewhat startled, for he had money in Rivers's too. 'Where is there a better investment?' he asked. 'In the Three per Cents.,' said Robert, with a hoarse laugh. Was he mad? Was he —— drunk? The doctor took a day to consider it, to think whether there could be anything in it. But he looked at the dividend papers, showing that Rivers's that year had paid ten per cent. And he called upon Dr Bradcliffe, and asked him to go with him privately, accidentally , one of these days, to see a friend whose brain was going, he feared. The two physicians shook their heads, and said to each other mournfully how common that was becoming. But Fate moved faster than Dr Maurice, and the accidental call was never made. CHAPTER IX. The life which Helen Drummond lived during this winter would be very hard to describe. Something wrong had happened, she saw, on that rapid visit to town which Robert had made on Academical business in October, leaving her at Southlees. No anxiety about business matters connected with the bank had ever been suggested to her mind. She had long ago accepted, as a matter of course, the fact that wealth was to come from that source, with an ease and regularity very different from the toilsome and slow bread-winning which was done by means of art. She was not surprised by it as Robert was; and enough of the bourgeois breeding was left in her to make her pleased that her husband should see the difference between the possibilities of his profession and of the commerce which she had been wont to hear lauded in her youth. She was almost proud that Trade had done so much for him. Trade came from her side, it was she who had the hereditary connection with it; and the innate idealism of her mind was able to cling to the old-fashioned fanciful conception of beneficent commerce, such as we have all heard of in our educational days. But her pride was not sensitive on this point. What really touched her was the praise or the blame which fell upon him as a painter, and the dread that instantly sprang into her mind was that he had met with something painful to him in this respect—that his opinion had not been received as of weight in the deliberations of the Academy, or his works been spoken of with less respect than they ought to have secured. This was the foolish fancy that took hold of her mind. She questioned him about the Academy meeting till poor Robert—his thoughts occupied about things so very different—grew sick of the subject. Yet he was almost glad of some subject on which to vent a little of his excitement. Yes, they were a set of old fogies, he said, with audacious freedom. They pottered about things they did not understand. They puzzled and hesitated over that Rembrandt, which any one with half an eye could see had been worked at by some inferior hand. They threw cold water upon that loveliest Francia which nobody could see without recognising. They did what they ought not to do, and neglected what was their duty. 'We all do that every day of our lives,' said Helen; 'but what was there that specially vexed you, Robert?' 'Nothing,' he said, looking up at her with eyes full of astonishment; but there was more than astonishment in them. There was pain, dread, anxiety—a wistful, restless look of suffering. He will not tell me: he will keep it to himself and suffer by himself, not to vex me, Helen said in her own thoughts. And though the autumn was lovely, Robert could not be happy at Southlees that year. He had been very happy the two previous summers. The house was situated on the Thames beyond Teddington. It was rustic and old, with various additions built to it; a red-brick house, grown over with all manner of lichens, irregular in form and harmonious with its position, a house which had grown—which had not been artificially made. The family had lived on the lawn, or on the river, in those halcyon days that were past. There was a fringe of trees at every side except that, shutting in the painter's retirement; but on the river side nothing but a few bright flower-beds, and the green velvet lawn, sloping towards the softly flowing water. One long-leaved willow drooped over the stone steps at which the boat was lying. It was a place where a pair of lovers might have spent their honeymoon, or where the weary and sick might have come to get healing. It was not out of character either with the joy or the grief. Nature was so sweet, so silent, so meditative and calm. The river ran softly, brooding over its own low liquid gurgle. The stately swans sailed up and down. The little fishes darted about in the clear water, and myriads of flying atoms, nameless insect existences, fluttered above. Boating parties going down the stream would pause, with a sigh of gentle envy, to look at the group upon the lawn; the table with books and work on it, with sometimes a small easel beside it or big drawing pad supported on a stand; a low chair with Helen's red shawl thrown over it, and Norah, with her red ribbons, nestled on the sunny turf. They sat there, and worked, and talked, or were silent, with an expansion of their hearts towards everything that breathed and moved; or they spent long days on the river, catching the morning lights upon those nooks which are only known to dwellers on the stream; or pursuing water-lilies through all the golden afternoon in the back-waters which these retired flowers love. The river was their life, and carried them along, day after day. Such a scene could not but be sweet to every lover of nature; but it is doubly sweet when the dumb poetic imagination has by its side that eye of art which sees everything. The painter is a better companion even than the poet—just as seeing is better than saying that you see. Robert was not a genius in art; but he had the artist's animated, all-perceiving eye. Nothing escaped him—he saw a hundred beautiful things which would have been imperceptible to ordinary men—a dew-drop on a blade of grass at his feet charmed him as much as a rainbow—his 'Look, Helen!' was more than volumes of descriptive poetry. They were out and about at all times, 'watching the lights,' as he said in his pleasant professional jargon: in the early mornings, when all was silvery softness and clearness, and the birds were trying over their choicest trills before men woke to hear; in the evening when twilight came gently on, insinuating her filmy impenetrable veil between them and the sunset; and even at full noon, when day is languid at the height of perfection, knowing that perfectness is brother to decadence. The painter and his wife lived in the middle of all these changes, and took them in, every one, to the firmament in their hearts. Why do we stop in this record of trouble to babble about sunset skies and running waters? Is it not natural? The 'sound as of a hidden brook in the leafy month of June' comes in, by right, among all weird, mysterious harmonies of every tragical fate. 'The oaten pipe and pastoral reed' have their share even in the hurly-burly of cities and noisy discord of modern existence. Robert Drummond had his good things as well as his evil things. For these two summers never man had been more happy—and it is but few who can say so much. His wife was happy with him, her old ghosts exorcised, and a new light suffusing her life. It seemed a new life altogether, a life without discontents, full of happiness, and tranquillity, and hope. But this autumn Robert was not happy at Southlees. He could not stay there peaceably as he had done before. He had to go to town 'on business,' he said, sometimes twice a week. He took no pleasure in his old delights. Though he could not help seeing still, his 'Look, Helen!' was no longer said in a tone of enthusiasm; and when he had uttered the familiar exclamation he would turn away and sigh. Sometimes she found him with his face hidden in his hands, and pressed against the warm greensward. It was as if he were knocking for admission at the gates of the grave, Helen thought, in that fancifulness which comes of fear as much as of hope. When she questioned him he would deny everything, and work with pretended gaiety. Every time he went to town it seemed to her that five years additional of line and cloud had been added to the lines on his forehead. His hair began to get grey; perhaps that was no wonder, for he was forty, a pilgrim already in the sober paths of middle age, but Helen was nearly ten years younger, and this sign of advancing years seemed unnatural to her. Besides, he was a young man in his heart, a man who would be always young; yet he was growing old before his time. But notwithstanding his want of enjoyment in it he was reluctant that his wife should leave Southlees sooner than usual. He would go into town himself, he declared. He would do well enough—what did it matter for a few weeks? 'For the sake of business it is better that I should go—but the winter is long enough if you come in the end of the month. No, Helen, take the good of it as long as you can—this year.' 'What good shall I get of it alone, and how can I let you live for weeks by yourself?' said Helen. 'You may think it is fine to be independent; but you could not get on without Norah and me.' 'No,' he said, with a shudder. 'God knows life would be a poor thing without Norah and you! but when it is a question of three weeks—I'll go and see my friends; I'll live a jovial bachelor life —— ' 'Did you see the Haldanes,' she asked, 'when you were in town last?' It was the most innocent, unmeaning question; but it made him grow pale to the very lips. Did he tremble? Helen was so startled that she did not even realise how it was he looked. 'How cold the wind blows,' he said, with a shiver. 'I must have caught cold, I suppose, last night. The Haldanes? No; I had no time.' 'Robert, something worries you,' she said earnestly. 'Tell me what it is. Whatever it is, it will not be so heavy when you have told me. You have always said so—since ever we have been together.' 'And truly, my darling,' he said. He took her hand and held it tenderly, but he did not look at her. 'I cannot tell you of worries that don't exist, can I?' he added, with an exaggerated cheerfulness. 'I have to pay a little attention to business now the other men are out of town. And business bores me. I don't understand it. I am not clever at it. But it is not worth while to call it a worry. By-and-by they will come back, and I shall be free.' When he said this he really believed it, not being then fully aware of the tormenting power of the destruction which was about to overwhelm him. He thought the other directors would come back from their holidays, and that he himself would be able to plunge back into that abyss of ignorance which was bliss. But Helen did not believe it: not from any true perception of the state of affairs, but because she could not believe it was business at all that troubled him. Was Robert the kind of man to be disturbed about business? He who cared nothing for it but as a means, who liked money's worth, not money, whose mind was diametrically opposite to all the habits and traditions of trade? She would as soon have believed that her cousin Reginald Burton would be disturbed by a criticism or troubled to get a true balance of light and shade. No, it was not that. It was some real trouble which she did not know of, something that struck deeper than business, and was more important than anything that belonged to bank or market. Such were Helen's thoughts,—they are the thoughts that come most natural to a woman,—that he had been betrayed into some wrong-doing or inadvertent vice—that he had been tempted, and somehow gone astray. This, because it was so much more terrible than anything about business, was the bugbear that haunted her. It was to save her pain, as he thought, that poor Robert kept his secret from her. He did as so many men do, thinking it kindness; and thus left her with a host of horrible surmises to fight against, any one of which was (to her) harder than the truth. There is no way in which men, in their ignorance, inflict more harm upon women than this way. Helen watched in her fear and ignorance with a zealous eagerness that never lost a word, and gave exaggerated importance to many an idle incident. She was doubly roused by her fear of the something coming, against which her defences would not stand, and by her absolute uncertainty what this something was. The three weeks her husband was in town by himself were like three years to her. Not that a shade of jealousy or doubt of his love to herself ever crossed her mind. She was too pure-minded, too proud, to be jealous. But something had come on him, some old trouble out of the past—some sudden horrible temptation; something, in short, which he feared to tell her. That money could be the cause of it, never crossed her thoughts. And when she went home, things were no better; the house looked bare to her—she could not tell why. It was more than a month before she found out that the Botticelli was gone, which was the light of her husband's eyes; and that little Madonna of the Umbrian school, which he delighted to think Raphael must have had some hand in, in his youth. This discovery startled her much; but worse had come before she made sure of that. The absence of the pictures was bewildering, but still more so was the change in her husband's habits. He would get up early, breakfast hurriedly before she had come down, and go out, leaving a message with the servants. Sometimes he went without breakfast. He avoided her, avoided the long evening talks they had loved, and even avoided her eye, lest she should read more in his face than he meant her to see. All this was terrible to Helen. The fears that overwhelmed her were ridiculous, no doubt; but amid the darkness and tragic gloom which surrounded her, what was she to think? Things she had read in books haunted her; fictitious visions which at this touch of personal alarm began to look real. She thought he might have to bribe some one who knew some early secret in his life, or some secret that was not his—something that belonged to his friends. Oh, if he would but tell her! She could bear anything—she could forgive the past, whatever it might be. She had no bitterness in her feelings towards her husband. She used to sit for hours together in his deserted studio, imagining scenes in which she found out, or he was driven to confide to her, this mystery; scenes of anguish, yet consolation. The studio became her favourite haunt. Was it possible that she had once entered it with languid interest, and been sensible of nothing but disappointment when she saw him working with his heart in his work? She would go all round it now, making her little comment upon every picture. She would have given everything she had in the world to see him back there, painting those pictures with which she had been so dissatisfied—the Francesca, which still stood on its easel unfinished; the sketches of herself which she had once been so impatient of. The Francesca still stood there behind backs; but most of the others had been cleared away, and stood in little stacks against the walls. The place was so orderly that it went to her heart to see it; nothing had been done, nothing disturbed, for weeks, perhaps months; the housemaid was free to go and come as if it had been a common parlour. All this was terribly sad to the painter's wife. The spring was coming on before she found the two sketches which afterwards she held so dearly. They bewildered her still more, and filled her with a thousand fears. One represented a pilgrim on a hilly road, in the twilight of a spring evening. Everything was soft in this picture, clear sky and twinkling stars above; a quiet rural path over the grass; but just in front of the pilgrim, and revealing his uplifted hands and horror-stricken countenance, the opening of a glowing horrible cavern—the mouth of Hell. The other was more mysterious still. It was a face full of anguish and love, with two clasped hands, looking up from the depths of a cave or well, to one blue spot of sky, one star that shone far above. Helen did not know what these sketches meant; but they made her shiver with wonder and apprehension. They were all that he had done this year. And then something else, of a different kind, came in to bewilder her. Robert, who avoided her, who of evenings no longer talked over his affairs with her, and who probably had forgotten all her wants, let the quarter-day pass without supplying her, as he was in the habit of doing. So great a host of fears and doubts were between the two, that Helen did not remind him of his negligence. It pained her, but in a degree so different. What did that matter? But time went on, and it began to matter. She took her own little dividends, and kept silence; making what use of them she could to fill up the larger wants. She was as timid of speaking to him on this subject as if she had been a young girl. He had never obliged her to do so. She had been the general treasurer of the household in the old days; and even in recent times, he, who was so proud of his wife, had taken care to keep her always supplied with what she wanted. She never had needed to go to him to ask money, and she did not know how to begin. Thus they both went their different way; suffering, perhaps, about equally. His time seemed to himself to be spent in a feverish round of interviews with people who could supply money, or wildly signing his name to papers which he scarcely understood—to bills which he could never dream of paying; they would be paid somehow when the time came, or they could be renewed, or something would be done, he was told. He had carried everything he could make money by away before this time; the title-deeds of his house, his pictures, even, and—this was done with a very heavy heart—his policies of life insurance. Everything was gone. Events went faster as the crisis approached, and Drummond became conscious of little more than his wife's pale face wondering at him, with questioning eyes more pathetic than words, and Golden's face encouraging, or trying to encourage. Between the two was a wild abyss of work, of despair, of tiding over. Every escape more hairbreadth than the last! The wild whirl growing wilder! the awful end, ruin and fell destruction, coming nearer and more near! It happened at length that Helen one day, in desperation, broke the silence. She came before him when he was on his way out, and asked him to wait, in a hollow voice. 'I don't want to trouble you,' she said, 'since you will not trust me, Robert. I have been trying not to harass you more; but—I have no money left—I am getting into debt—the servants want their wages. Robert—I thought you had forgotten—perhaps —— ' He stood and looked at her for a moment, with his hat in his hand, ready to go out. How pale he was! How the lines had contracted in his face! He looked at her, trying to be calm. And then, as he stood, suddenly burst, without warning, into momentary terrible tears, of a passion she could not understand. 'Robert! oh, what is the matter?' she cried, throwing her arms round him. He put his head down on her shoulder, and held her fast, and regained control over himself, holding her to him as if she had been something healing. In her great wonder and pity she raised his head with her hands, and gazed wistfully into his face through her tears. 'Is it money?' she cried, with a great load taken off her heart. 'Oh, Robert, tell me! Is that all?' 'All!' he said: 'my God!' and then kissed her passionately, and put her away from him. 'To-morrow,' he said hoarsely, 'perhaps—I hope—I will tell you everything to-morrow.' He did not venture to look at her again. He went out straight, without turning to the right or left. 'The end must be near now,' he said to himself audibly, as he went out like a blind man. To-morrow! Would to-morrow ever come? 'The end must be near now.' The end was nearer than he thought. When he reached the bank he found everything in disorder. Mr Golden was not there, nor any one who could give information to the panic-stricken inquirers who were pouring in. It was said the manager had absconded. Rivers's was at an end. For the first ten minutes after Drummond heard the news that awaited him, it was almost a relief to know that the worst had come. CHAPTER X. It was a relief for ten minutes, as every catastrophe is; the terrible suspense is cut short—the worst at least is known. But after those ten minutes are over, when the reality suddenly seizes upon the sufferer—when all the vague speechless terrors which he had pushed off from him, with the hope that they might never come, arrive in a flood, and place themselves in one frightful circle round him, like furies, only not merciful enough to have a Medusa among them to freeze him into stone; when every shadowy, gloomy prevision of evil which ever flashed across his mind, to be put away with a shudder, returns with the right of fact, to remain; when not only that thing has happened which has been his dread by day and the horror of his dreams, but a host of other things, circumstances which penetrate to every detail of his life, and affect every creature and every thing he loves, have followed in its train—when all this rushes upon a man after the first tranquillising stupor of despair, who or what is there that can console him? Poor Drummond was helpless in the midst of this great crash of ruin; he was so helpless that the thunder-stricken shareholders and excited clerks who had fallen upon him at first as the only authority to be found, let him slip from among them, hopeless of any help from him. They had driven him wild with questions and appeals—him, a poor fellow who could explain nothing, who had never been of much use except to denude himself of everything he possessed, and pledge his humble name, and be swept into ruin; but they soon saw the uselessness of the appeal. As soon as he could disengage himself he stole away, drawing his hat over his eyes, feeling as if he were a criminal, with the sensation as of a hot fire burning in his heart, and buzzing and crackling in his ears. Was he a criminal? was it his doing? He was stunned by this terrible calamity; and yet, now that it had come, he felt that he had known it was coming, and everything about it, all his life. His whole existence had tended to this point since he was a boy; he knew it, he felt it, he even seemed to remember premonitions of it, which had come to him in his dreams from his earliest days. He went out into the streets in that dumb quiescent state which is so often the first consequence of a great calamity. He offered no remonstrance against his fate. He did not even say to himself that it was hard. He said nothing to himself, indeed, except to croon over, like a chorus, one endless refrain, 'I knew this was how it would be!' He wandered along, not knowing where he went, till he came to the river, and paused there, looking over the bridge. He did not even know what made him pause, until all at once the fancy jumped into his brain that it would be best to stop there, and cut in one moment the knotted, tangled thread which it was certain no effort of his could ever unravel. He stopped, and the suggestion flashed across him (whether out of his own mind, whether thrown at him by some mocking demon, who could tell?), and then shook his head sadly. No; it was broad day, and there would be a commotion, and he would be rescued—or if not, he, at least his body, would be rescued and carried to Helen, giving her a last association with him which it was insupportable to think of. No, no, he said to himself with a shudder, not now. Just then a hand was laid upon his shoulder; he turned round with the start of a man who feels that nothing is impossible, that everything that is terrible has become likely. Had it been a policeman to arrest him for having murdered somebody he would scarcely have been surprised. But it was not a policeman: it was Mr Burton, fresh and clean and nicely dressed, newly come up from the country, in his light summer clothes, the image of prosperity, and comfort, and cleanliness, and self-satisfaction. A certain golden atmosphere surrounded the man of wealth, like the background on which early painters set a saint; but there was nothing saintly about that apparition. Poor Drummond fell back more than he would have done had it been an arrest for murder. He gave an involuntary glance at himself, feeling in contrast with Mr Burton, as if he must look to the external eye the beggar he was, as if he must be dirty, tattered, miserable, with holes in his shoes and rags at his elbows. Perhaps his woebegone, excited face startled the smooth Philistine at his side as much as if those outward signs of wretchedness had been there. 'Good God, what have you been doing with yourself?' he cried. 'Nothing,' said Drummond vaguely, and then by degrees his senses returned to him. 'If you had been in town yesterday you might have helped us; but it does not matter. Shenken in Liverpool stopped payment yesterday,' he went on, repeating drearily the dreary legend which he had heard at the bank. 'And Rivers's—has stopped payment too.' 'Good God!' said Mr Burton again. It was a shock to him, as every event is when it comes. But he was not surprised. As for Robert, it did not occur to him to consider whether the other was surprised or not, or to be curious how it affected him. He turned his head away and looked at the river again. What attraction there remained for him in this world seemed to lie there. 'Drummond,' said the merchant, looking at him with a certain alarm, 'are you sure you know what you are saying? My God! Rivers's stopped payment! if you had said there had been an earthquake in London it would scarcely be as bad as that.' Robert did not make any reply. He nodded his head without looking round. What interested him was something black which kept appearing and disappearing in the middle of the turbid muddy stream. It was like a man's head, he thought, and almost felt that he might have taken the plunge without knowing it, and that it might be himself. 'I have felt this was coming,' said Burton. 'I warned Golden you were going on in the wildest way. What could be expected when you fellows who know nothing about money would interfere? Good heavens! to think what a business that was; and all ruined in three years! Drummond! are you mad? Can't you turn round and speak to me? I am one of the shareholders, and I have a right to be answered how it was.' 'Shall you lose much?' said Drummond dreamily, and he turned round without meaning anything and looked in his companion's face. His action was simply fantastical, one of those motiveless movements which the sick soul so often makes; but it was quite unexpected by the other, who fell a step back, and grew red all over, and faltered in his reply. 'Much? I—I—don't know—what you call much. Good heavens, Drummond! are you mad? have you been drinking? Where is Golden?—he at least must know what he is about!' 'Yes,' said the painter fiercely, 'Golden knows what he is about—he has gone off, out of reach of questions—and you—oh—hound!' He gave a sudden cry and made a step forward. A sudden light seemed to burst upon him. He gazed with his dilated bloodshot eyes at the flushed countenance which could not face him. The attitude of the two men was such that the bystanders took note of it; two or three lingered and looked round holding themselves in readiness to interfere. The slight figure of the painter, his ghastly pale face and trembling hand, made him no antagonist for the burly well-to-do merchant; but English sentiment is always on the side of the portly and respectable, and Mr Burton had an unmistakable air of fright upon his face. 'Now, Drummond!—now, Drummond!' he said, with a certain pleading tone. The painter stood still, feeling as if a horrible illumination had suddenly flashed upon the man before him, and the history of their intercourse. He did in that moment of his despair what he could not have done with his ordinary intelligence. He made a rapid summary of the whole and saw how it was. Had he been happy, he would have been too friendly, too charitable, too kind in his thoughts to have drawn such a conclusion. But at this moment he had no time for anything but the terrible truth. 'I see it all,' he said. 'I see it all! It was ruined when you gave it over to us. I see it in every line of your face. Oh, hound! hounds all of you! skulking, dastardly demons, that kill a crowd of honest men to save yourselves—your miserable selves. I see it all!' 'Drummond! I tell you you are mad!' 'Hound!' said Robert again between his clenched teeth. He stood looking at him for a moment with his hands clenched too, and a sombre fire in his eyes. Whether he might have been led into violence had he stood there a moment longer it would be impossible to say. But all the habits of his life were against it, and his very despair restrained him. When he had stood there for a second, he turned round suddenly on his heel without any warning, and almost knocking down a man who was keeping warily behind him ready for any emergency, went away in the opposite direction without saying a word. Burton stood still gazing after him with a mixture of consternation and concern, and something very like hatred. But his face changed when the spectators drew round him to wonder and question. 'Something wrong with that poor gentleman, I fear, sir,' said one. Mr Burton put on a look of regret, sighed deeply, put his hand to his forehead, shook his head, murmured—'Poor fellow!' and—walked away. What could he do? He was not his brother's keeper, much less was he responsible for his cousin's husband—the paltry painter-fellow she had preferred to him . What would Helen think of her bargain now? Mad or drunk, it did not matter which—a pleasant companion for a woman. He preferred to think of this for the moment, rather than of the other question, which was in reality so much more important. Rivers's! Thank heaven he was no money loser, no more than was respectable. He had seen what was coming. Even to himself, this was all that Mr Burton said. He hurried on, however, to learn what people were saying of it, with more anxiety in his mind than seemed necessary. He went to the bank itself with the air of a man going to a funeral. 'The place I have known so long!' he said to another mournful victim who had appeared on the field of the lost battle, but who was not mad like Robert. 'And to think that Golden should have betrayed your confidence! A man I have known since he was that height—a man I could have answered for with my life!' Meanwhile Drummond strayed on he knew not where. He went back into the City, into the depths of those lanes and narrow streets which he had left so lately, losing himself in a bewildering maze of warehouse walls and echoing traffic. Great waggons jammed him up against the side, loads dangled over his head that would have crushed him in a moment, open cellars yawned for his unsteady feet; but he walked as safe through all those perils as if he had borne a charmed life, though he neither looked nor cared where he was going. His meeting with Burton was forced out of his mind in a few minutes as if it had not been. For the moment it had startled him into mad excitement; but so strong was the stupor of his despair, that in five minutes it was as if it had never been. For hours he kept wandering round and round the scene of his ruin, coming and going in a circle, as if his feet were fast and he could not escape. It had been morning when he left his house. It was late afternoon when he got back. Oh why was it summer and the days so long? if only that scorching sun would have set and darkness fallen over the place. He stole in under cover of the lilac trees, which had grown so big and leafy, and managed to glide down the side-way to the garden and get to the studio door, which he could open with his key. He had been doing nothing but think—think—all the time; but 'now, at least, I shall have time to think,' he said to himself, as he threw himself down on a chair close to the door—the nearest seat—it no longer mattered where he placed himself or how. He sat huddled up against the wall as sometimes a poor model did, waiting wistfully to know if he was wanted,—some poor wretch to whom a shilling was salvation. This fancy, with a thousand others equally inappropriate, flashed across his mind as he sat there, still with his hat pulled down on his brows in the sunny luxurious warmth of the afternoon. The mere atmosphere, air, and sky, and sunshine would have been paradise to the artist in the poorest time he had ever known before, but they did not affect him now. He sat there in his stupor for perhaps an hour, not even able to rouse himself so far as to shut the door of communication into the conservatory, through which he heard now and then the softened stir of the household. He might have been restored to the sense of life and its necessities, might have been brought back out of the delirium of his ruin at that moment, had any one in the house known he was there. Helen was in the drawing-room, separated from him only by that flowery passage which he had made for her, to tempt her to visit him at his work. She was writing notes, inviting some half-dozen people to dinner, as had been arranged between them, but with a heavy and anxious heart, full of misgiving. She had risen from her writing table three or four times to go to the window and look out for her husband, wondering why he should be so long of coming—while he sat so near her. Mrs Drummond's heart was very heavy. She did not understand what he said to her in the morning—could not imagine how it could be. It must be a temporary cloud, a failure of some speculation, something unconnected with the ordinary course of life, she said to herself. Money!—he was not a business man—it could not be money. If it was only money, why that was nothing. Such was the course of her thoughts. And she paused over her invitations, wondering was it right to give them if Robert had been losing money. But they were old friends whom she was inviting—only half a dozen people—and it was for his birthday. She had just finished the last note, when Norah came dancing into the room, claiming her mother's promise to go out with her; and after another long gaze from her window, Helen made up her mind to go. It was her voice speaking to the maid which roused Robert. 'If Mr Drummond comes in before I return,' he heard her say, 'tell him I shall not be long. I am going with Miss Norah to the gardens for an hour, and then to ask for Mr Haldane; but I shall be back by half-past six.' He heard the message—he for whom it was intended—and rose up softly and went to his studio window, and peeped stealthily out to watch them as they went away. Norah came first, with a skip and gambol, and then Helen. His wife gave a wistful look back at the house as she opened the little gate under the leafy dusty lilacs. Was it with some premonition of what she should find when she came back? He hid himself so that he could not be seen, and gazed at the two, feeling as if that moment was all that life had yet to give him. It was his farewell look. His wife and child disappeared, and he could hear their footsteps outside on the pavement going farther and farther away on their harmless, unimportant walk, while he —— He woke up as if it had been out of sleep or out of a trance. She would return by half-past six, and it was now approaching five. For all he had to do there was so little, so very little time.

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