'But why?' said I.  'I demand to see Sir George.'

'Madam,' returned Mr. Kentish, looking suddenly as black as
thunder, 'to drop all fence, I know neither who nor what you are;
beyond the fact that you are not the person whose name you have
assumed.  But be what you please, spy, ghost, devil, or most ill-
judging jester, if you do not immediately enter that house, I will
cut you to the earth.'  And even as he spoke, he threw an uneasy
glance behind him at the following crowd of blacks.

I did not wait to be twice threatened; I obeyed at once, and with a
palpitating heart; and the next moment, the door was locked from
the outside and the key withdrawn.  The interior was long, low, and
quite unfurnished, but filled, almost from end to end, with sugar-
cane, tar-barrels, old tarry rope, and other incongruous and highly
inflammable material; and not only was the door locked, but the
solitary window barred with iron.

I was by this time so exceedingly bewildered and afraid, that I
would have given years of my life to be once more the slave of Mr.
Caulder.  I still stood, with my hands clasped, the image of
despair, looking about me on the lumber of the room or raising my
eyes to heaven; when there appeared outside the window bars, the
face of a very black negro, who signed to me imperiously to draw
near.  I did so, and he instantly, and with every mark of fervour,
addressed me a long speech in some unknown and barbarous tongue.

'I declare,' I cried, clasping my brow, 'I do not understand one
syllable.'

'Not?' he said in Spanish.  'Great, great, are the powers of
Hoodoo!  Her very mind is changed!  But, O chief priestess, why
have you suffered yourself to be shut into this cage? why did you
not call your slaves at once to your defence?  Do you not see that
all has been prepared to murder you? at a spark, this flimsy house
will go in flames; and alas! who shall then be the chief priestess?
and what shall be the profit of the miracle?'

'Heavens!' cried I, 'can I not see Sir George?  I must, I must,
come by speech of him.  Oh, bring me to Sir George!'  And, my
terror fairly mastering my courage, I fell upon my knees and began
to pray to all the saints.

'Lordy!' cried the negro, 'here they come!'  And his black head was
instantly withdrawn from the window.

'I never heard such nonsense in my life,' exclaimed a voice.

'Why, so we all say, Sir George,' replied the voice of Mr. Kentish.
'But put yourself in our place.  The niggers were near two to one.
And upon my word, if you'll excuse me, sir, considering the notion
they have taken in their heads, I regard it as precious fortunate
for all of us that the mistake occurred.'

'This is no question of fortune, sir,' returned Sir George.  'It is
a question of my orders, and you may take my word for it, Kentish,
either Harland, or yourself, or Parker--or, by George, all three of
you!--shall swing for this affair.  These are my sentiments.  Give
me the key and be off.'

Immediately after, the key turned in the lock; and there appeared
upon the threshold a gentleman, between forty and fifty, with a
very open countenance, and of a stout and personable figure.

'My dear young lady,' said he, 'who the devil may you be?'

I told him all my story in one rush of words.  He heard me, from
the first, with an amazement you can scarcely picture, but when I
came to the death of the Senora Mendizabal in the tornado, he
fairly leaped into the air.

'My dear child,' he cried, clasping me in his arms, 'excuse a man
who might be your father!  This is the best news I ever had since I
was born; for that hag of a mulatto was no less a person than my
wife.'  He sat down upon a tar-barrel, as if unmanned by joy.
'Dear me,' said he, 'I declare this tempts me to believe in
Providence.  And what,' he added, 'can I do for you?'

'Sir George,' said I, 'I am already rich:  all that I ask is your
protection.'

'Understand one thing,' he said, with great energy.  'I will never
marry.'

'I had not ventured to propose it,' I exclaimed, unable to restrain
my mirth; 'I only seek to be conveyed to England, the natural home
of the escaped slave.'

'Well,' returned Sir George, 'frankly I owe you something for this
exhilarating news; besides, your father was of use to me.  Now, I
have made a small competence in business--a jewel mine, a sort of
naval agency, et caetera, and I am on the point of breaking up my
company, and retiring to my place in Devonshire to pass a plain old
age, unmarried.  One good turn deserves another:  if you swear to
hold your tongue about this island, these little bonfire
arrangements, and the whole episode of my unfortunate marriage,
why, I'll carry you home aboard the Nemorosa.'  I eagerly accepted
his conditions.

'One thing more,' said he.  'My late wife was some sort of a
sorceress among the blacks; and they are all persuaded she has come
alive again in your agreeable person.  Now, you will have the
goodness to keep up that fancy, if you please; and to swear to
them, on the authority of Hoodoo or whatever his name may be, that
I am from this moment quite a sacred character.'

'I swear it,' said I, 'by my father's memory; and that is a vow
that I will never break.'

'I have considerably better hold on you than any oath,' returned
Sir George, with a chuckle; 'for you are not only an escaped slave,
but have, by your own account, a considerable amount of stolen
property.'

I was struck dumb; I saw it was too true; in a glance, I recognised
that these jewels were no longer mine; with similar quickness, I
decided they should be restored, ay, if it cost me the liberty that
I had just regained.  Forgetful of all else, forgetful of Sir
George, who sat and watched me with a smile, I drew out Mr.
Caulder's pocket-book and turned to the page on which the dying man
had scrawled his testament.  How shall I describe the agony of
happiness and remorse with which I read it! for my victim had not
only set me free, but bequeathed to me the bag of jewels.

My plain tale draws towards a close.  Sir George and I, in my
character of his rejuvenated wife, displayed ourselves arm-in-arm
among the negroes, and were cheered and followed to the place of
embarkation.  There, Sir George, turning about, made a speech to
his old companions, in which he thanked and bade them farewell with
a very manly spirit; and towards the end of which he fell on some
expressions which I still remember.  'If any of you gentry lose
your money,' he said, 'take care you do not come to me; for in the
first place, I shall do my best to have you murdered; and if that
fails, I hand you over to the law.  Blackmail won't do for me.
I'll rather risk all upon a cast, than be pulled to pieces by
degrees.  I'll rather be found out and hang, than give a doit to
one man-jack of you.'  That same night we got under way and crossed
to the port of New Orleans, whence, as a sacred trust, I sent the
pocket-book to Mr. Caulder's son.  In a week's time, the men were
all paid off; new hands were shipped; and the Nemorosa weighed her
anchor for Old England.

A more delightful voyage it were hard to fancy.  Sir George, of
course, was not a conscientious man; but he had an unaffected
gaiety of character that naturally endeared him to the young; and
it was interesting to hear him lay out his projects for the future,
when he should be returned to Parliament, and place at the service
of the nation his experience of marine affairs.  I asked him, if
his notion of piracy upon a private yacht were not original.  But
he told me, no.  'A yacht, Miss Valdevia,' he observed, 'is a
chartered nuisance.  Who smuggles?  Who robs the salmon rivers of
the West of Scotland?  Who cruelly beats the keepers if they dare
to intervene?  The crews and the proprietors of yachts.  All I have
done is to extend the line a trifle, and if you ask me for my
unbiassed opinion, I do not suppose that I am in the least alone.'

In short, we were the best of friends, and lived like father and
daughter; though I still withheld from him, of course, that respect
which is only due to moral excellence.

We were still some days' sail from England, when Sir George
obtained, from an outward-bound ship, a packet of newspapers; and
from that fatal hour my misfortunes recommenced.  He sat, the same
evening, in the cabin, reading the news, and making savoury
comments on the decline of England and the poor condition of the
navy, when I suddenly observed him to change countenance.

'Hullo!' said he, 'this is bad; this is deuced bad, Miss Valdevia.
You would not listen to sound sense, you would send that pocket-
book to that man Caulder's son.'

'Sir George,' said I, 'it was my duty.'

'You are prettily paid for it, at least,' says he; 'and much as I
regret it, I, for one, am done with you.  This fellow Caulder
demands your extradition.'

'But a slave,' I returned, 'is safe in England.'

'Yes, by George!' replied the baronet; 'but it's not a slave, Miss
Valdevia, it's a thief that he demands.  He has quietly destroyed
the will; and now accuses you of robbing your father's bankrupt
estate of jewels to the value of a hundred thousand pounds.'

I was so much overcome by indignation at this hateful charge and
concern for my unhappy fate that the genial baronet made haste to
put me more at ease.

'Do not be cast down,' said he.  'Of course, I wash my hands of you
myself.  A man in my position--baronet, old family, and all that--
cannot possibly be too particular about the company he keeps.  But
I am a deuced good-humoured old boy, let me tell you, when not
ruffled; and I will do the best I can to put you right.  I will
lend you a trifle of ready money, give you the address of an
excellent lawyer in London, and find a way to set you on shore
unsuspected.'

He was in every particular as good as his word.  Four days later,
the Nemorosa sounded her way, under the cloak of a dark night, into
a certain haven of the coast of England; and a boat, rowing with
muffled oars, set me ashore upon the beach within a stone's throw
of a railway station.  Thither, guided by Sir George's directions,
I groped a devious way; and finding a bench upon the platform, sat
me down, wrapped in a man's fur great-coat, to await the coming of
the day.  It was still dark when a light was struck behind one of
the windows of the building; nor had the east begun to kindle to
the warmer colours of the dawn, before a porter carrying a lantern,
issued from the door and found himself face to face with the
unfortunate Teresa.  He looked all about him; in the grey twilight
of the dawn, the haven was seen to lie deserted, and the yacht had
long since disappeared.

'Who are you?' he cried.

'I am a traveller,' said I.

'And where do you come from?' he asked.

'I am going by the first train to London,' I replied.

In such manner, like a ghost or a new creation, was Teresa with her
bag of jewels landed on the shores of England; in this silent
fashion, without history or name, she took her place among the
millions of a new country.

Since then, I have lived by the expedients of my lawyer, lying
concealed in quiet lodgings, dogged by the spies of Cuba, and not
knowing at what hour my liberty and honour may be lost.



THE BROWN BOX (Concluded)



The effect of this tale on the mind of Harry Desborough was instant
and convincing.  The Fair Cuban had been already the loveliest, she
now became, in his eyes, the most romantic, the most innocent, and
the most unhappy of her sex.  He was bereft of words to utter what
he felt:  what pity, what admiration, what youthful envy of a
career so vivid and adventurous.  'O madam!' he began; and finding
no language adequate to that apostrophe, caught up her hand and
wrung it in his own.  'Count upon me,' he added, with bewildered
fervour; and getting somehow or other out of the apartment and from
the circle of that radiant sorceress, he found himself in the
strange out-of-doors, beholding dull houses, wondering at dull
passers-by, a fallen angel.  She had smiled upon him as he left,
and with how significant, how beautiful a smile!  The memory
lingered in his heart; and when he found his way to a certain
restaurant where music was performed, flutes (as it were of
Paradise) accompanied his meal.  The strings went to the melody of
that parting smile; they paraphrased and glossed it in the sense
that he desired; and for the first time in his plain and somewhat
dreary life, he perceived himself to have a taste for music.

The next day, and the next, his meditations moved to that
delectable air.  Now he saw her, and was favoured; now saw her not
at all; now saw her and was put by.  The fall of her foot upon the
stair entranced him; the books that he sought out and read were
books on Cuba, and spoke of her indirectly; nay, and in the very
landlady's parlour, he found one that told of precisely such a
hurricane, and, down to the smallest detail, confirmed (had
confirmation been required) the truth of her recital.  Presently he
began to fall into that prettiest mood of a young love, in which
the lover scorns himself for his presumption.  Who was he, the dull
one, the commonplace unemployed, the man without adventure, the
impure, the untruthful, to aspire to such a creature made of fire
and air, and hallowed and adorned by such incomparable passages of
life?  What should he do, to be more worthy? by what devotion, call
down the notice of these eyes to so terrene a being as himself?

He betook himself, thereupon, to the rural privacy of the square,
where, being a lad of a kind heart, he had made himself a circle of
acquaintances among its shy frequenters, the half-domestic cats and
the visitors that hung before the windows of the Children's
Hospital.  There he walked, considering the depth of his demerit
and the height of the adored one's super-excellence; now lighting
upon earth to say a pleasant word to the brother of some infant
invalid; now, with a great heave of breath, remembering the queen
of women, and the sunshine of his life.

What was he to do?  Teresa, he had observed, was in the habit of
leaving the house towards afternoon:  she might, perchance, run
danger from some Cuban emissary, when the presence of a friend
might turn the balance in her favour:  how, then, if he should
follow her?  To offer his company would seem like an intrusion; to
dog her openly were a manifest impertinence; he saw himself reduced
to a more stealthy part, which, though in some ways distasteful to
his mind, he did not doubt that he could practise with the skill of
a detective.

The next day he proceeded to put his plan in action.  At the corner
of Tottenham Court Road, however, the Senorita suddenly turned
back, and met him face to face, with every mark of pleasure and
surprise.

'Ah, Senor, I am sometimes fortunate!' she cried.  'I was looking
for a messenger;' and with the sweetest of smiles, she despatched
him to the East End of London, to an address which he was unable to
find.  This was a bitter pill to the knight-errant; but when he
returned at night, worn out with fruitless wandering and dismayed
by his fiasco, the lady received him with a friendly gaiety,
protesting that all was for the best, since she had changed her
mind and long since repented of her message.

Next day he resumed his labours, glowing with pity and courage, and
determined to protect Teresa with his life.  But a painful shock
awaited him.  In the narrow and silent Hanway Street, she turned
suddenly about and addressed him with a manner and a light in her
eyes that were new to the young man's experience.

'Do I understand that you follow me, Senor?' she cried.  'Are these
the manners of the English gentleman?'

Harry confounded himself in the most abject apologies and prayers
to be forgiven, vowed to offend no more, and was at length
dismissed, crestfallen and heavy of heart.  The check was final; he
gave up that road to service; and began once more to hang about the
square or on the terrace, filled with remorse and love, admirable
and idiotic, a fit object for the scorn and envy of older men.  In
these idle hours, while he was courting fortune for a sight of the
beloved, it fell out naturally that he should observe the manners
and appearance of such as came about the house.  One person alone
was the occasional visitor of the young lady:  a man of
considerable stature, and distinguished only by the doubtful
ornament of a chin-beard in the style of an American deacon.
Something in his appearance grated upon Harry; this distaste grew
upon him in the course of days; and when at length he mustered
courage to inquire of the Fair Cuban who this was, he was yet more
dismayed by her reply.

'That gentleman,' said she, a smile struggling to her face, 'that
gentleman, I will not attempt to conceal from you, desires my hand
in marriage, and presses me with the most respectful ardour.  Alas,
what am I to say?  I, the forlorn Teresa, how shall I refuse or
accept such protestations?'

Harry feared to say more; a horrid pang of jealousy transfixed him;
and he had scarce the strength of mind to take his leave with
decency.  In the solitude of his own chamber, he gave way to every
manifestation of despair.  He passionately adored the Senorita; but
it was not only the thought of her possible union with another that
distressed his soul, it was the indefeasible conviction that her
suitor was unworthy.  To a duke, a bishop, a victorious general, or
any man adorned with obvious qualities, he had resigned her with a
sort of bitter joy; he saw himself follow the wedding party from a
great way off; he saw himself return to the poor house, then robbed
of its jewel; and while he could have wept for his despair, he felt
he could support it nobly.  But this affair looked otherwise.  The
man was patently no gentleman; he had a startled, skulking, guilty
bearing; his nails were black, his eyes evasive; his love perhaps
was a pretext; he was perhaps, under this deep disguise, a Cuban
emissary!

Harry swore that he would satisfy these doubts; and the next
evening, about the hour of the usual visit, he posted himself at a
spot whence his eye commanded the three issues of the square.

Presently after, a four-wheeler rumbled to the door, and the man
with the chin-beard alighted, paid off the cabman, and was seen by
Harry to enter the house with a brown box hoisted on his back.
Half an hour later, he came forth again without the box, and struck
eastward at a rapid walk; and Desborough, with the same skill and
caution that he had displayed in following Teresa, proceeded to dog
the steps of her admirer.  The man began to loiter, studying with
apparent interest the wares of the small fruiterer or tobacconist;
twice he returned hurriedly upon his former course; and then, as
though he had suddenly conquered a moment's hesitation, once more
set forth with resolute and swift steps in the direction of
Lincoln's Inn.  At length, in a deserted by-street, he turned; and
coming up to Harry with a countenance which seemed to have become
older and whiter, inquired with some severity of speech if he had
not had the pleasure of seeing the gentleman before.

'You have, sir,' said Harry, somewhat abashed, but with a good show
of stoutness; 'and I will not deny that I was following you on
purpose.  Doubtless,' he added, for he supposed that all men's
minds must still be running on Teresa, 'you can divine my reason.'

At these words, the man with the chin-beard was seized with a
palsied tremor.  He seemed, for some seconds, to seek the utterance
which his fear denied him; and then whipping sharply about, he took
to his heels at the most furious speed of running.

Harry was at first so taken aback that he neglected to pursue; and
by the time he had recovered his wits, his best expedition was only
rewarded by a glimpse of the man with the chin-beard mounting into
a hansom, which immediately after disappeared into the moving
crowds of Holborn.

Puzzled and dismayed by this unusual behaviour, Harry returned to
the house in Queen Square, and ventured for the first time to knock
at the fair Cuban's door.  She bade him enter, and he found her
kneeling with rather a disconsolate air beside a brown wooden
trunk.

'Senorita,' he broke out, 'I doubt whether that man's character is
what he wishes you to believe.  His manner, when he found, and
indeed when I admitted that I was following him, was not the manner
of an honest man.'

'Oh!' she cried, throwing up her hands as in desperation, 'Don
Quixote, Don Quixote, have you again been tilting against
windmills?'  And then, with a laugh, 'Poor soul!' she added, 'how
you must have terrified him!  For know that the Cuban authorities
are here, and your poor Teresa may soon be hunted down.  Even yon
humble clerk from my solicitor's office may find himself at any
moment the quarry of armed spies.'

'A humble clerk!' cried Harry, 'why, you told me yourself that he
wished to marry you!'

'I thought you English like what you call a joke,' replied the lady
calmly.  'As a matter of fact, he is my lawyer's clerk, and has
been here to-night charged with disastrous news.  I am in sore
straits, Senor Harry.  Will you help me?'

At this most welcome word, the young man's heart exulted; and in
the hope, pride, and self-esteem that kindled with the very thought
of service, he forgot to dwell upon the lady's jest.  'Can you
ask?' he cried.  'What is there that I can do?  Only tell me that.'

With signs of an emotion that was certainly unfeigned, the fair
Cuban laid her hand upon the box.  'This box,' she said, 'contains
my jewels, papers, and clothes; all, in a word, that still connects
me with Cuba and my dreadful past.  They must now be smuggled out
of England; or, by the opinion of my lawyer, I am lost beyond
remedy.  To-morrow, on board the Irish packet, a sure hand awaits
the box:  the problem still unsolved, is to find some one to carry
it as far as Holyhead, to see it placed on board the steamer, and
instantly return to town.  Will you be he?  Will you leave to-
morrow by the first train, punctually obey orders, bear still in
mind that you are surrounded by Cuban spies; and without so much as
a look behind you, or a single movement to betray your interest,
leave the box where you have put it and come straight on shore?
Will you do this, and so save your friend?'

'I do not clearly understand . . .' began Harry.

'No more do I,' replied the Cuban.  'It is not necessary that we
should, so long as we obey the lawyer's orders.'

'Senorita,' returned Harry gravely, 'I think this, of course, a
very little thing to do for you, when I would willingly do all.
But suffer me to say one word.  If London is unsafe for your
treasures, it cannot long be safe for you; and indeed, if I at all
fathom the plan of your solicitor, I fear I may find you already
fled on my return.  I am not considered clever, and can only speak
out plainly what is in my heart:  that I love you, and that I
cannot bear to lose all knowledge of you.  I hope no more than to
be your servant; I ask no more than just that I shall hear of you.
Oh, promise me so much!'

'You shall,' she said, after a pause.  'I promise you, you shall.'
But though she spoke with earnestness, the marks of great
embarrassment and a strong conflict of emotions appeared upon her
face.

'I wish to tell you,' resumed Desborough, 'in case of accidents. .
. .'

'Accidents!' she cried:  'why do you say that?'

'I do not know,' said he, 'you may be gone before my return, and we
may not meet again for long.  And so I wished you to know this:
That since the day you gave me the cigarette, you have never once,
not once, been absent from my mind; and if it will in any way serve
you, you may crumple me up like that piece of paper, and throw me
on the fire.  I would love to die for you.'

'Go!' she said.  'Go now at once.  My brain is in a whirl.  I
scarce know what we are talking.  Go; and good-night; and oh, may
you come safe!'

Once back in his own room a fearful joy possessed the young man's
mind; and as he recalled her face struck suddenly white and the
broken utterance of her last words, his heart at once exulted and
misgave him.  Love had indeed looked upon him with a tragic mask;
and yet what mattered, since at least it was love--since at least
she was commoved at their division?  He got to bed with these
parti-coloured thoughts; passed from one dream to another all night
long, the white face of Teresa still haunting him, wrung with
unspoken thoughts; and in the grey of the dawn, leaped suddenly out
of bed, in a kind of horror.  It was already time for him to rise.
He dressed, made his breakfast on cold food that had been laid for
him the night before; and went down to the room of his idol for the
box.  The door was open; a strange disorder reigned within; the
furniture all pushed aside, and the centre of the room left bare of
impediment, as though for the pacing of a creature with a tortured
mind.  There lay the box, however, and upon the lid a paper with
these words:  'Harry, I hope to be back before you go.  Teresa.'

He sat down to wait, laying his watch before him on the table.  She
had called him Harry:  that should be enough, he thought, to fill
the day with sunshine; and yet somehow the sight of that disordered
room still poisoned his enjoyment.  The door of the bed-chamber
stood gaping open; and though he turned aside his eyes as from a
sacrilege, he could not but observe the bed had not been slept in.
He was still pondering what this should mean, still trying to
convince himself that all was well, when the moving needle of his
watch summoned him to set forth without delay.  He was before all
things a man of his word; ran round to Southampton Row to fetch a
cab; and taking the box on the front seat, drove off towards the
terminus.

The streets were scarcely awake; there was little to amuse the eye;
and the young man's attention centred on the dumb companion of his
drive.  A card was nailed upon one side, bearing the
superscription:  'Miss Doolan, passenger to Dublin.  Glass.  With
care.'  He thought with a sentimental shock that the fair idol of
his heart was perhaps driven to adopt the name of Doolan; and as he
still studied the card, he was aware of a deadly, black depression
settling steadily upon his spirits.  It was in vain for him to
contend against the tide; in vain that he shook himself or tried to
whistle:  the sense of some impending blow was not to be averted.
He looked out; in the long, empty streets, the cab pursued its way
without a trace of any follower.  He gave ear; and over and above
the jolting of the wheels upon the road, he was conscious of a
certain regular and quiet sound that seemed to issue from the box.
He put his ear to the cover; at one moment, he seemed to perceive a
delicate ticking:  the next, the sound was gone, nor could his
closest hearkening recapture it.  He laughed at himself; but still
the gloom continued; and it was with more than the common relief of
an arrival, that he leaped from the cab before the station.

Probably enough on purpose, Teresa had named an hour some thirty
minutes earlier than needful; and when Harry had given the box into
the charge of a porter, who sat it on a truck, he proceeded briskly
to pace the platform.  Presently the bookstall opened; and the
young man was looking at the books when he was seized by the arm.
He turned, and, though she was closely veiled, at once recognised
the Fair Cuban.

'Where is it?' she asked; and the sound of her voice surprised him.

'It?' he said.  'What?'

'The box.  Have it put on a cab instantly.  I am in fearful haste.'

He hurried to obey, marvelling at these changes, but not daring to
trouble her with questions; and when the cab had been brought
round, and the box mounted on the front, she passed a little way
off upon the pavement and beckoned him to follow.

'Now,' said she, still in those mechanical and hushed tones that
had at first affected him, 'you must go on to Holyhead alone; go on
board the steamer; and if you see a man in tartan trousers and a
pink scarf, say to him that all has been put off:  if not,' she
added, with a sobbing sigh, 'it does not matter.  So, good-bye.'

'Teresa,' said Harry, 'get into your cab, and I will go along with
you.  You are in some distress, perhaps some danger; and till I
know the whole, not even you can make me leave you.'

'You will not?' she asked.  'O Harry, it were better!'

'I will not,' said Harry stoutly.

She looked at him for a moment through her veil; took his hand
suddenly and sharply, but more as if in fear than tenderness; and
still holding him, walked to the cab-door.

'Where are we to drive?' asked Harry.

'Home, quickly,' she answered; 'double fare!'  And as soon as they
had both mounted to their places, the vehicle crazily trundled from
the station.

Teresa leaned back in a corner.  The whole way Harry could perceive
her tears to flow under her veil; but she vouchsafed no
explanation.  At the door of the house in Queen Square, both
alighted; and the cabman lowered the box, which Harry, glad to
display his strength, received upon his shoulders.

'Let the man take it,' she whispered.  'Let the man take it.'

'I will do no such thing,' said Harry cheerfully; and having paid
the fare, he followed Teresa through the door which she had opened
with her key.  The landlady and maid were gone upon their morning
errands; the house was empty and still; and as the rattling of the
cab died away down Gloucester Street, and Harry continued to ascend
the stair with his burthen, he heard close against his shoulders
the same faint and muffled ticking as before.  The lady, still
preceding him, opened the door of her room, and helped him to lower
the box tenderly in the corner by the window.

'And now,' said Harry, 'what is wrong?'

'You will not go away?' she cried, with a sudden break in her voice
and beating her hands together in the very agony of impatience.  'O
Harry, Harry, go away!  Oh, go, and leave me to the fate that I
deserve!'

'The fate?' repeated Harry.  'What is this?'

'No fate,' she resumed.  'I do not know what I am saying.  But I
wish to be alone.  You may come back this evening, Harry; come
again when you like; but leave me now, only leave me now!'  And
then suddenly, 'I have an errand,' she exclaimed; 'you cannot
refuse me that!'

'No,' replied Harry, 'you have no errand.  You are in grief or
danger.  Lift your veil and tell me what it is.'

'Then,' she said, with a sudden composure, 'you leave but one
course open to me.'  And raising the veil, she showed him a
countenance from which every trace of colour had fled, eyes marred
with weeping, and a brow on which resolve had conquered fear.
'Harry,' she began, 'I am not what I seem.'

'You have told me that before,' said Harry, 'several times.'

'O Harry, Harry,' she cried, 'how you shame me!  But this is the
God's truth.  I am a dangerous and wicked girl.  My name is Clara
Luxmore.  I was never nearer Cuba than Penzance.  From first to
last I have cheated and played with you.  And what I am I dare not
even name to you in words.  Indeed, until to-day, until the
sleepless watches of last night, I never grasped the depth and
foulness of my guilt.'

The young man looked upon her aghast.  Then a generous current
poured along his veins.  'That is all one,' he said.  'If you be
all you say, you have the greater need of me.'

'Is it possible,' she exclaimed, 'that I have schemed in vain?  And
will nothing drive you from this house of death?'

'Of death?' he echoed.

'Death!' she cried:  'death!  In that box that you have dragged
about London and carried on your defenceless shoulders, sleep, at
the trigger's mercy, the destroying energies of dynamite.'

'My God!' cried Harry.

'Ah!' she continued wildly, 'will you flee now?  At any moment you
may hear the click that sounds the ruin of this building.  I was
sure M'Guire was wrong; this morning, before day, I flew to Zero;
he confirmed my fears; I beheld you, my beloved Harry, fall a
victim to my own contrivances.  I knew then I loved you--Harry,
will you go now?  Will you not spare me this unwilling crime?'

Harry remained speechless, his eyes fixed upon the box:  at last he
turned to her.

'Is it,' he asked hoarsely, 'an infernal machine?'

Her lips formed the word 'Yes,' which her voice refused to utter.

With fearful curiosity, he drew near and bent above the box; in
that still chamber, the ticking was distinctly audible; and at the
measured sound, the blood flowed back upon his heart.

'For whom?' he asked.

'What matters it,' she cried, seizing him by the arm.  'If you may
still be saved, what matter questions?'

'God in heaven!' cried Harry.  'And the Children's Hospital!  At
whatever cost, this damned contrivance must be stopped!'

'It cannot,' she gasped.  'The power of man cannot avert the blow.
But you, Harry--you, my beloved--you may still--'

And then from the box that lay so quietly in the corner, a sudden
catch was audible, like the catch of a clock before it strikes the
hour.  For one second the two stared at each other with lifted
brows and stony eyes.  Then Harry, throwing one arm over his face,
with the other clutched the girl to his breast and staggered
against the wall.

A dull and startling thud resounded through the room; their eyes
blinked against the coming horror; and still clinging together like
drowning people, they fell to the floor.  Then followed a prolonged
and strident hissing as from the indignant pit; an offensive stench
seized them by the throat; the room was filled with dense and
choking fumes.

Presently these began a little to disperse:  and when at length
they drew themselves, all limp and shaken, to a sitting posture,
the first object that greeted their vision was the box reposing
uninjured in its corner, but still leaking little wreaths of vapour
round the lid.

'Oh, poor Zero!' cried the girl, with a strange sobbing laugh.
'Alas, poor Zero!  This will break his heart!'



THE SUPERFLUOUS MANSION (Concluded)



Somerset ran straight upstairs; the door of the drawing-room,
contrary to all custom, was unlocked; and bursting in, the young
man found Zero seated on a sofa in an attitude of singular
dejection.  Close beside him stood an untasted grog, the mark of
strong preoccupation.  The room besides was in confusion:  boxes
had been tumbled to and fro; the floor was strewn with keys and
other implements; and in the midst of this disorder lay a lady's
glove.

'I have come,' cried Somerset, 'to make an end of this.  Either you
will instantly abandon all your schemes, or (cost what it may) I
will denounce you to the police.'

'Ah!' replied Zero, slowly shaking his head.  'You are too late,
dear fellow!  I am already at the end of all my hopes, and fallen
to be a laughing-stock and mockery.  My reading,' he added, with a
gentle despondency of manner, 'has not been much among romances;
yet I recall from one a phrase that depicts my present state with
critical exactitude; and you behold me sitting here "like a burst
drum."'

'What has befallen you?' cried Somerset.

'My last batch,' returned the plotter wearily, 'like all the
others, is a hollow mockery and a fraud.  In vain do I combine the
elements; in vain adjust the springs; and I have now arrived at
such a pitch of disconsideration that (except yourself, dear
fellow) I do not know a soul that I can face.  My subordinates
themselves have turned upon me.  What language have I heard to-day,
what illiberality of sentiment, what pungency of expression!  She
came once; I could have pardoned that, for she was moved; but she
returned, returned to announce to me this crushing blow; and,
Somerset, she was very inhumane.  Yes, dear fellow, I have drunk a
bitter cup; the speech of females is remarkable for . . . well,
well!  Denounce me, if you will; you but denounce the dead.  I am
extinct.  It is strange how, at this supreme crisis of my life, I
should be haunted by quotations from works of an inexact and even
fanciful description; but here,' he added, 'is another:  "Othello's
occupation's gone."  Yes, dear Somerset, it is gone; I am no more a
dynamiter; and how, I ask you, after having tasted of these joys,
am I to condescend to a less glorious life?'

'I cannot describe how you relieve me,' returned Somerset, sitting
down on one of several boxes that had been drawn out into the
middle of the floor.  'I had conceived a sort of maudlin toleration
for your character; I have a great distaste, besides, for anything
in the nature of a duty; and upon both grounds, your news delights
me.  But I seem to perceive,' he added, 'a certain sound of ticking
in this box.'

'Yes,' replied Zero, with the same slow weariness of manner, 'I
have set several of them going.'

'My God!' cried Somerset, bounding to his feet.

'Machines?'

'Machines!' returned the plotter bitterly.  'Machines indeed!  I
blush to be their author.  Alas!' he said, burying his face in his
hands, 'that I should live to say it!'

'Madman!' cried Somerset, shaking him by the arm.  'What am I to
understand?  Have you, indeed, set these diabolical contrivances in
motion? and do we stay here to be blown up?'

'"Hoist with his own petard?"' returned the plotter musingly.  'One
more quotation:  strange!  But indeed my brain is struck with
numbness.  Yes, dear boy, I have, as you say, put my contrivance in
motion.  The one on which you are sitting, I have timed for half an
hour.  Yon other--'

'Half an hour!--' echoed Somerset, dancing with trepidation.
'Merciful Heavens, in half an hour?'

'Dear fellow, why so much excitement?' inquired Zero.  'My dynamite
is not more dangerous than toffy; had I an only child, I would give
it him to play with.  You see this brick?' he continued, lifting a
cake of the infernal compound from the laboratory-table.  'At a
touch it should explode, and that with such unconquerable energy as
should bestrew the square with ruins.  Well now, behold!  I dash it
on the floor.'

Somerset sprang forward, and with the strength of the very ecstasy
of terror, wrested the brick from his possession.  'Heavens!' he
cried, wiping his brow; and then with more care than ever mother
handled her first-born withal, gingerly transported the explosive
to the far end of the apartment:  the plotter, his arms once more
fallen to his side, dispiritedly watching him.

'It was entirely harmless,' he sighed.  'They describe it as
burning like tobacco.'

'In the name of fortune,' cried Somerset, 'what have I done to you,
or what have you done to yourself, that you should persist in this
insane behaviour?  If not for your own sake, then for mine, let us
depart from this doomed house, where I profess I have not the heart
to leave you; and then, if you will take my advice, and if your
determination be sincere, you will instantly quit this city, where
no further occupation can detain you.'

'Such, dear fellow, was my own design,' replied the plotter.  'I
have, as you observe, no further business here; and once I have
packed a little bag, I shall ask you to share a frugal meal, to go
with me as far as to the station, and see the last of a broken-
hearted man.  And yet,' he added, looking on the boxes with a
lingering regret, 'I should have liked to make quite certain.  I
cannot but suspect my underlings of some mismanagement; it may be
fond, but yet I cherish that idea:  it may be the weakness of a man
of science, but yet,' he cried, rising into some energy, 'I will
never, I cannot if I try, believe that my poor dynamite has had
fair usage!'

'Five minutes!' said Somerset, glancing with horror at the
timepiece.  'If you do not instantly buckle to your bag, I leave
you.'

'A few necessaries,' returned Zero, 'only a few necessaries, dear
Somerset, and you behold me ready.'

He passed into the bedroom, and after an interval which seemed to
draw out into eternity for his unfortunate companion, he returned,
bearing in his hand an open Gladstone bag.  His movements were
still horribly deliberate, and his eyes lingered gloatingly on his
dear boxes, as he moved to and fro about the drawing-room,
gathering a few small trifles.  Last of all, he lifted one of the
squares of dynamite.

'Put that down!' cried Somerset.  'If what you say be true, you
have no call to load yourself with that ungodly contraband.'

'Merely a curiosity, dear boy,' he said persuasively, and slipped
the brick into his bag; 'merely a memento of the past--ah, happy
past, bright past!  You will not take a touch of spirits? no?  I
find you very abstemious.  Well,' he added, 'if you have really no
curiosity to await the event--'

'I!' cried Somerset.  'My blood boils to get away.'

'Well, then,' said Zero, 'I am ready; I would I could say, willing;
but thus to leave the scene of my sublime endeavours--'

Without further parley, Somerset seized him by the arm, and dragged
him downstairs; the hall-door shut with a clang on the deserted
mansion; and still towing his laggardly companion, the young man
sped across the square in the Oxford Street direction.  They had
not yet passed the corner of the garden, when they were arrested by
a dull thud of an extraordinary amplitude of sound, accompanied and
followed by a shattering fracas.  Somerset turned in time to see
the mansion rend in twain, vomit forth flames and smoke, and
instantly collapse into its cellars.  At the same moment, he was
thrown violently to the ground.  His first glance was towards Zero.
The plotter had but reeled against the garden rail; he stood there,
the Gladstone bag clasped tight upon his heart, his whole face
radiant with relief and gratitude; and the young man heard him
murmur to himself:  'Nunc dimittis, nunc dimittis!'

The consternation of the populace was indescribable; the whole of
Golden Square was alive with men, women, and children, running
wildly to and fro, and like rabbits in a warren, dashing in and out
of the house doors.  And under favour of this confusion, Somerset
dragged away the lingering plotter.

'It was grand,' he continued to murmur:  'it was indescribably
grand.  Ah, green Erin, green Erin, what a day of glory! and oh, my
calumniated dynamite, how triumphantly hast thou prevailed!'

Suddenly a shade crossed his face; and pausing in the middle of the
footway, he consulted the dial of his watch.

'Good God!' he cried, 'how mortifying! seven minutes too early!
The dynamite surpassed my hopes; but the clockwork, fickle
clockwork, has once more betrayed me.  Alas, can there be no
success unmixed with failure? and must even this red-letter day be
chequered by a shadow?'

'Incomparable ass!' said Somerset, 'what have you done?  Blown up
the house of an unoffending old lady, and the whole earthly
property of the only person who is fool enough to befriend you!'

'You do not understand these matters,' replied Zero, with an air of
great dignity.  'This will shake England to the heart.  Gladstone,
the truculent old man, will quail before the pointing finger of
revenge.  And now that my dynamite is proved effective--'

'Heavens, you remind me!' ejaculated Somerset.  'That brick in your
bag must be instantly disposed of.  But how?  If we could throw it
in the river--'

'A torpedo,' cried Zero, brightening, 'a torpedo in the Thames!
Superb, dear fellow!  I recognise in you the marks of an
accomplished anarch.'

'True!' returned Somerset.  'It cannot so be done; and there is no
help but you must carry it away with you.  Come on, then, and let
me at once consign you to a train.'

'Nay, nay, dear boy,' protested Zero.  'There is now no call for me
to leave.  My character is now reinstated; my fame brightens; this
is the best thing I have done yet; and I see from here the ovations
that await the author of the Golden Square Atrocity.'

'My young friend,' returned the other, 'I give you your choice.  I
will either see you safe on board a train or safe in gaol.'

'Somerset, this is unlike you!' said the chymist.  'You surprise
me, Somerset.'

'I shall considerably more surprise you at the next police office,'
returned Somerset, with something bordering on rage.  'For on one
point my mind is settled:  either I see you packed off to America,
brick and all, or else you dine in prison.'

'You have perhaps neglected one point,' returned the unoffended
Zero:  'for, speaking as a philosopher, I fail to see what means
you can employ to force me.  The will, my dear fellow--'

'Now, see here,' interrupted Somerset.  'You are ignorant of
anything but science, which I can never regard as being truly
knowledge; I, sir, have studied life; and allow me to inform you
that I have but to raise my hand and voice--here in this street--
and the mob--'

'Good God in heaven, Somerset,' cried Zero, turning deadly white
and stopping in his walk, 'great God in heaven, what words are
these?  Oh, not in jest, not even in jest, should they be used!
The brutal mob, the savage passions . . . . Somerset, for God's
sake, a public-house!'

Somerset considered him with freshly awakened curiosity.  'This is
very interesting,' said he.  'You recoil from such a death?'

'Who would not?' asked the plotter.

'And to be blown up by dynamite,' inquired the young man,
'doubtless strikes you as a form of euthanasia?'

'Pardon me,' returned Zero:  'I own, and since I have braved it
daily in my professional career, I own it even with pride:  it is a
death unusually distasteful to the mind of man.'

'One more question,' said Somerset:  'you object to Lynch Law?
why?'

'It is assassination,' said the plotter calmly, but with eyebrows a
little lifted, as in wonder at the question.

'Shake hands with me,' cried Somerset.  'Thank God, I have now no
ill-feeling left; and though you cannot conceive how I burn to see
you on the gallows, I can quite contentedly assist at your
departure.'

'I do not very clearly take your meaning,' said Zero, 'but I am
sure you mean kindly.  As to my departure, there is another point
to be considered.  I have neglected to supply myself with funds; my
little all has perished in what history will love to relate under
the name of the Golden Square Atrocity; and without what is
coarsely if vigorously called stamps, you must be well aware it is
impossible for me to pass the ocean.'

'For me,' said Somerset, 'you have now ceased to be a man.  You
have no more claim upon me than a door scraper; but the touching
confusion of your mind disarms me from extremities.  Until to-day,
I always thought stupidity was funny; I now know otherwise; and
when I look upon your idiot face, laughter rises within me like a
deadly sickness, and the tears spring up into my eyes as bitter as
blood.  What should this portend?  I begin to doubt; I am losing
faith in scepticism.  Is it possible,' he cried, in a kind of
horror of himself--'is it conceivable that I believe in right and
wrong?  Already I have found myself, with incredulous surprise, to
be the victim of a prejudice of personal honour.  And must this
change proceed?  Have you robbed me of my youth?  Must I fall, at
my time of life, into the Common Banker?  But why should I address
that head of wood?  Let this suffice.  I dare not let you stay
among women and children; I lack the courage to denounce you, if by
any means I may avoid it; you have no money:  well then, take mine,
and go; and if ever I behold your face after to-day, that day will
be your last.'

'Under the circumstances,' replied Zero, 'I scarce see my way to
refuse your offer.  Your expressions may pain, they cannot surprise
me; I am aware our point of view requires a little training, a
little moral hygiene, if I may so express it; and one of the points
that has always charmed me in your character is this delightful
frankness.  As for the small advance, it shall be remitted you from
Philadelphia.'

'It shall not,' said Somerset.

'Dear fellow, you do not understand,' returned the plotter.  'I
shall now be received with fresh confidence by my superiors; and my
experiments will be no longer hampered by pitiful conditions of the
purse.'

'What I am now about, sir, is a crime,' replied Somerset; 'and were
you to roll in wealth like Vanderbilt, I should scorn to be
reimbursed of money I had so scandalously misapplied.  Take it, and
keep it.  By George, sir, three days of you have transformed me to
an ancient Roman.'

With these words, Somerset hailed a passing hansom; and the pair
were driven rapidly to the railway terminus.  There, an oath having
been exacted, the money changed hands.

'And now,' said Somerset, 'I have bought back my honour with every
penny I possess.  And I thank God, though there is nothing before
me but starvation, I am free from all entanglement with Mr. Zero
Pumpernickel Jones.'

'To starve?' cried Zero.  'Dear fellow, I cannot endure the
thought.'

'Take your ticket!' returned Somerset.

'I think you display temper,' said Zero.

'Take your ticket,' reiterated the young man.

'Well,' said the plotter, as he returned, ticket in hand, 'your
attitude is so strange and painful, that I scarce know if I should
ask you to shake hands.'

'As a man, no,' replied Somerset; 'but I have no objection to shake
hands with you, as I might with a pump-well that ran poison or
bell-fire.'

'This is a very cold parting,' sighed the dynamiter; and still
followed by Somerset, he began to descend the platform.  This was
now bustling with passengers; the train for Liverpool was just
about to start, another had but recently arrived; and the double
tide made movement difficult.  As the pair reached the
neighbourhood of the bookstall, however, they came into an open
space; and here the attention of the plotter was attracted by a
Standard broadside bearing the words:  'Second Edition:  Explosion
in Golden Square.'  His eye lighted; groping in his pocket for the
necessary coin, he sprang forward--his bag knocked sharply on the
corner of the stall--and instantly, with a formidable report, the
dynamite exploded.  When the smoke cleared away the stall was seen
much shattered, and the stall keeper running forth in terror from
the ruins; but of the Irish patriot or the Gladstone bag no
adequate remains were to be found.