Dolly Longestaffe had found himself compelled to go to Fetter Lane immediately after that meeting in Bruton Street at which he had consented to wait two days longer for the payment of his money. This was on a Wednesday, the day appointed for the payment being Friday. He had undertaken that, on his part, Squercum should be made to desist from further immediate proceedings, and he could only carry out his word by visiting Squercum. The trouble to him was very great, but he began to feel that he almost liked it. The excitement was nearly as good as that of loo. Of course it was a "horrid bore,"--this having to go about in cabs under the sweltering sun of a London July day. Of course it was a "horrid bore,"--this doubt about his money. And it went altogether against the grain with him that he should be engaged in any matter respecting the family property in agreement with his father and Mr. Bideawhile. But there was an importance in it that sustained him amidst his troubles. It is said that if you were to take a man of moderate parts and make him Prime Minister out of hand, he might probably do as well as other Prime Ministers, the greatness of the work elevating the man to its own level. In that way Dolly was elevated to the level of a man of business, and felt and enjoyed his own capacity. "By George!" It depended chiefly upon him whether such a man as Melmotte should or should not be charged before the Lord Mayor. "Perhaps I oughtn't to have promised," he said to Squercum, sitting in the lawyer's office on a high-legged stool with a cigar in his mouth. He preferred Squercum to any other lawyer he had met because Squercum's room was untidy and homely, because there was nothing awful about it, and because he could sit in what position he pleased, and smoke all the time.
"Well; I don't think you ought, if you ask me," said Squercum.
"You weren't there to be asked, old fellow."
"Bideawhile shouldn't have asked you to agree to anything in my absence," said Squercum indignantly. "It was a very unprofessional thing on his part, and so I shall take an opportunity of telling him."
"It was you told me to go."
"Well;--yes. I wanted you to see what they were at in that room; but I told you to look on and say nothing."
"I didn't speak half-a-dozen words."
"You shouldn't have spoken those words. Your father then is quite clear that you did not sign the letter?"
"Oh, yes;--the governor is pig-headed, you know, but he's honest."
"That's a matter of course," said the lawyer. "All men are honest; but they are generally specially honest to their own side. Bideawhile's honest; but you've got to fight him deuced close to prevent his getting the better of you. Melmotte has promised to pay the money on Friday, has he?"
"He's to bring it with him to Bruton Street."
"I don't believe a word of it;--and I'm sure Bideawhile doesn't. In what shape will he bring it? He'll give you a cheque dated on Monday, and that'll give him two days more, and then on Monday there'll be a note to say the money can't be lodged till Wednesday. There should be no compromising with such a man. You only get from one mess into another. I told you neither to do anything or to say anything."
"I suppose we can't help ourselves now. You're to be there on Friday. I particularly bargained for that. If you're there, there won't be any more compromising."
Squercum made one or two further remarks to his client, not at all flattering to Dolly's vanity,--which might have caused offence had not there been such perfectly good feeling between the attorney and the young man. As it was Dolly replied to everything that was said with increased flattery. "If I was a sharp fellow like you, you know," said Dolly, "of course I should get along better; but I ain't, you know." It was then settled that they should meet each other, and also meet Mr. Longestaffe senior, Bideawhile, and Melmotte, at twelve o'clock on Friday morning in Bruton Street.
Squercum was by no means satisfied. He had busied himself in this matter, and had ferreted things out, till he had pretty nearly got to the bottom of that affair about the houses in the East, and had managed to induce the heirs of the old man who had died to employ him. As to the Pickering property he had not a doubt on the subject. Old Longestaffe had been induced by promises of wonderful aid and by the bribe of a seat at the Board of the South Central Pacific and Mexican Railway to give up the title-deeds of the property,--as far as it was in his power to give them up; and had endeavoured to induce Dolly to do so also. As he had failed, Melmotte had supplemented his work by ingenuity, with which the reader is acquainted. All this was perfectly clear to Squercum, who thought that he saw before him a most attractive course of proceeding against the Great Financier. It was pure ambition rather than any hope of lucre that urged him on. He regarded Melmotte as a grand swindler,--perhaps the grandest that the world had ever known,--and he could conceive no greater honour than the detection, successful prosecution, and ultimate destroying of so great a man. To have hunted down Melmotte would make Squercum as great almost as Melmotte himself. But he felt himself to have been unfairly hampered by his own client. He did not believe that the money would be paid; but delay might rob him of his Melmotte. He had heard a good many things in the City, and believed it to be quite out of the question that Melmotte should raise the money,--but there were various ways in which a man might escape.
It may be remembered that Croll, the German clerk, preceded Melmotte into the City on Wednesday after Marie's refusal to sign the deeds. He, too, had his eyes open, and had perceived that things were not looking as well as they used to look. Croll had for many years been true to his patron, having been, upon the whole, very well paid for such truth. There had been times when things had gone badly with him, but he had believed in Melmotte, and, when Melmotte rose, had been rewarded for his faith. Mr. Croll at the present time had little investments of his own, not made under his employer's auspices, which would leave him not absolutely without bread for his family should the Melmotte affairs at any time take an awkward turn. Melmotte had never required from him service that was actually fraudulent,--had at any rate never required it by spoken words. Mr. Croll had not been over-scrupulous, and had occasionally been very useful to Mr. Melmotte. But there must be a limit to all things; and why should any man sacrifice himself beneath the ruins of a falling house,--when convinced that nothing he can do can prevent the fall? Mr. Croll would have been of course happy to witness Miss Melmotte's signature; but as for that other kind of witnessing,--this clearly to his thinking was not the time for such good-nature on his part.
"You know what's up now;--don't you?" said one of the junior clerks to Mr. Croll when he entered the office in Abchurch Lane.
"A good deal will be up soon," said the German.
"Cohenlupe has gone!"
"And to vere has Mr. Cohenlupe gone?"
"He hasn't been civil enough to leave his address. I fancy he don't want his friends to have to trouble themselves by writing to him. Nobody seems to know what's become of him."
"New York," suggested Mr. Croll.
"They seem to think not. They're too hospitable in New York for Mr. Cohenlupe just at present. He's travelling private. He's on the continent somewhere,--half across France by this time; but nobody knows what route he has taken. That'll be a poke in the ribs for the old boy;--eh, Croll?" Croll merely shook his head. "I wonder what has become of Miles Grendall," continued the clerk.
"Ven de rats is going avay it is bad for de house. I like de rats to stay."
"There seems to have been a regular manufactory of Mexican Railway scrip."
"Our governor knew noding about dat," said Croll.
"He has a hat full of them at any rate. If they could have been kept up another fortnight they say Cohenlupe would have been worth nearly a million of money, and the governor would have been as good as the bank. Is it true they are going to have him before the Lord Mayor about the Pickering title-deeds?" Croll declared that he knew nothing about the matter, and settled himself down to his work.
In little more than two hours he was followed by Melmotte, who thus reached the City late in the afternoon. It was he knew too late to raise the money on that day, but he hoped that he might pave the way for getting it on the next day, which would be Thursday. Of course the first news which he heard was of the defection of Mr. Cohenlupe. It was Croll who told him. He turned back, and his jaw fell, but at first he said nothing. "It's a bad thing," said Mr. Croll.
"Yes;--it is bad. He had a vast amount of my property in his hands. Where has he gone?" Croll shook his head. "It never rains but it pours," said Melmotte. "Well; I'll weather it all yet. I've been worse than I am now, Croll, as you know, and have had a hundred thousand pounds at my banker's,--loose cash,--before the month was out."
"Yes, indeed," said Croll.
"But the worst of it is that every one around me is so damnably jealous. It isn't what I've lost that will crush me, but what men will say that I've lost. Ever since I began to stand for Westminster there has been a dead set against me in the City. The whole of that affair of the dinner was planned,--planned by G----, that it might ruin me. It was all laid out just as you would lay the foundation of a building. It is hard for one man to stand against all that when he has dealings so large as mine."
"Very hard, Mr. Melmotte."
"But they'll find they're mistaken yet. There's too much of the real stuff, Croll, for them to crush me. Property's a kind of thing that comes out right at last. It's cut and come again, you know, if the stuff is really there. But I mustn't stop talking here. I suppose I shall find Brehgert in Cuthbert's Court."
"I should say so, Mr. Melmotte. Mr. Brehgert never leaves much before six."
Then Mr. Melmotte took his hat and gloves, and the stick that he usually carried, and went out with his face carefully dressed in its usually jaunty air. But Croll as he went heard him mutter the name of Cohenlupe between his teeth. The part which he had to act is one very difficult to any actor. The carrying an external look of indifference when the heart is sinking within,--or has sunk almost to the very ground,--is more than difficult; it is an agonizing task. In all mental suffering the sufferer longs for solitude,--for permission to cast himself loose along the ground, so that every limb and every feature of his person may faint in sympathy with his heart. A grandly urbane deportment over a crushed spirit and ruined hopes is beyond the physical strength of most men;--but there have been men so strong. Melmotte very nearly accomplished it. It was only to the eyes of such a one as Herr Croll that the failure was perceptible.
Melmotte did find Mr. Brehgert. At this time Mr. Brehgert had completed his correspondence with Miss Longestaffe, in which he had mentioned the probability of great losses from the anticipated commercial failure in Mr. Melmotte's affairs. He had now heard that Mr. Cohenlupe had gone upon his travels, and was therefore nearly sure that his anticipation would be correct. Nevertheless, he received his old friend with a smile. When large sums of money are concerned there is seldom much of personal indignation between man and man. The loss of fifty pounds or of a few hundreds may create personal wrath;--but fifty thousand require equanimity. "So Cohenlupe hasn't been seen in the City to-day," said Brehgert.
"He has gone," said Melmotte hoarsely.
"I think I once told you that Cohenlupe was not the man for large dealings."
"Yes, you did," said Melmotte.
"Well;--it can't be helped; can it? And what is it now?" Then Melmotte explained to Mr. Brehgert what it was that he wanted then, taking the various documents out of the bag which throughout the afternoon he had carried in his hand. Mr. Brehgert understood enough of his friend's affairs, and enough of affairs in general, to understand readily all that was required. He examined the documents, declaring as he did so that he did not know how the thing could be arranged by Friday. Melmotte replied that 50,000 was not a very large sum of money, that the security offered was worth twice as much as that. "You will leave them with me this evening," said Brehgert. Melmotte paused for a moment, and said that he would of course do so. He would have given much, very much, to have been sufficiently master of himself to have assented without hesitation;--but then the weight within was so very heavy!
Having left the papers and the bag with Mr. Brehgert, he walked westwards to the House of Commons. He was accustomed to remain in the City later than this, often not leaving it till seven,--though during the last week or ten days he had occasionally gone down to the House in the afternoon. It was now Wednesday, and there was no evening sitting;--but his mind was too full of other things to allow him to remember this. As he walked along the Embankment, his thoughts were very heavy. How would things go with him?--What would be the end of it? Ruin;--yes, but there were worse things than ruin. And a short time since he had been so fortunate;--had made himself so safe! As he looked back at it, he could hardly say how it had come to pass that he had been driven out of the track that he had laid down for himself. He had known that ruin would come, and had made himself so comfortably safe, so brilliantly safe, in spite of ruin. But insane ambition had driven him away from his anchorage. He told himself over and over again that the fault had been not in circumstances,--not in that which men call Fortune,--but in his own incapacity to bear his position. He saw it now. He felt it now. If he could only begin again, how different would his conduct be!
But of what avail were such regrets as these? He must take things as they were now, and see that, in dealing with them, he allowed himself to be carried away neither by pride nor cowardice. And if the worst should come to the worst, then let him face it like a man! There was a certain manliness about him which showed itself perhaps as strongly in his own self-condemnation as in any other part of his conduct at this time. Judging of himself, as though he were standing outside himself and looking on to another man's work, he pointed out to himself his own shortcomings. If it were all to be done again he thought that he could avoid this bump against the rocks on one side, and that terribly shattering blow on the other. There was much that he was ashamed of,--many a little act which recurred to him vividly in this solitary hour as a thing to be repented of with inner sackcloth and ashes. But never once, not for a moment, did it occur to him that he should repent of the fraud in which his whole life had been passed. No idea ever crossed his mind of what might have been the result had he lived the life of an honest man. Though he was inquiring into himself as closely as he could, he never even told himself that he had been dishonest. Fraud and dishonesty had been the very principle of his life, and had so become a part of his blood and bones that even in this extremity of his misery he made no question within himself as to his right judgment in regard to them. Not to cheat, not to be a scoundrel, not to live more luxuriously than others by cheating more brilliantly, was a condition of things to which his mind had never turned itself. In that respect he accused himself of no want of judgment. But why had he, so unrighteous himself, not made friends to himself of the Mammon of unrighteousness? Why had he not conciliated Lord Mayors? Why had he trod upon all the corns of all his neighbours? Why had he been insolent at the India Office? Why had he trusted any man as he had trusted Cohenlupe? Why had he not stuck to Abchurch Lane instead of going into Parliament? Why had he called down unnecessary notice on his head by entertaining the Emperor of China? It was too late now, and he must bear it; but these were the things that had ruined him.
He walked into Palace Yard and across it, to the door of Westminster Abbey, before he found out that Parliament was not sitting. "Oh, Wednesday! Of course it is," he said, turning round and directing his steps towards Grosvenor Square. Then he remembered that in the morning he had declared his purpose of dining at home, and now he did not know what better use to make of the present evening. His house could hardly be very comfortable to him. Marie no doubt would keep out of his way, and he did not habitually receive much pleasure from his wife's company. But in his own house he could at least be alone. Then, as he walked slowly across the park, thinking so intently on matters as hardly to observe whether he himself were observed or no, he asked himself whether it still might not be best for him to keep the money which was settled on his daughter, to tell the Longestaffes that he could make no payment, and to face the worst that Mr. Squercum could do to him,--for he knew already how busy Mr. Squercum was in the matter. Though they should put him on his trial for forgery, what of that? He had heard of trials in which the accused criminals had been heroes to the multitude while their cases were in progress,--who had been fted from the beginning to the end though no one had doubted their guilt,--and who had come out unscathed at the last. What evidence had they against him? It might be that the Longestaffes and Bideawhiles and Squercums should know that he was a forger, but their knowledge would not produce a verdict. He, as member for Westminster, as the man who had entertained the Emperor, as the owner of one of the most gorgeous houses in London, as the great Melmotte, could certainly command the best half of the bar. He already felt what popular support might do for him. Surely there need be no despondency while so good a hope remained to him! He did tremble as he remembered Dolly Longestaffe's letter, and the letter of the old man who was dead. And he knew that it was possible that other things might be adduced; but would it not be better to face it all than surrender his money and become a pauper, seeing, as he did very clearly, that even by such surrender he could not cleanse his character?
But he had given those forged documents into the hands of Mr. Brehgert! Again he had acted in a hurry,--without giving sufficient thought to the matter in hand. He was angry with himself for that also. But how is a man to give sufficient thought to his affairs when no step that he takes can be other than ruinous? Yes;--he had certainly put into Brehgert's hands means of proving him to have been absolutely guilty of forgery. He did not think that Marie would disclaim the signatures, even though she had refused to sign the deeds, when she should understand that her father had written her name; nor did he think that his clerk would be urgent against him, as the forgery of Croll's name could not injure Croll. But Brehgert, should he discover what had been done, would certainly not permit him to escape. And now he had put these forgeries without any guard into Brehgert's hands.
He would tell Brehgert in the morning that he had changed his mind. He would see Brehgert before any action could have been taken on the documents, and Brehgert would no doubt restore them to him. Then he would instruct his daughter to hold the money fast, to sign no paper that should be put before her, and to draw the income herself. Having done that, he would let his foes do their worst. They might drag him to gaol. They probably would do so. He had an idea that he could not be admitted to bail if accused of forgery. But he would bear all that. If convicted he would bear the punishment, still hoping that an end might come. But how great was the chance that they might fail to convict him! As to the dead man's letter, and as to Dolly Longestaffe's letter, he did not think that any sufficient evidence could be found. The evidence as to the deeds by which Marie was to have released the property was indeed conclusive; but he believed that he might still recover those documents. For the present it must be his duty to do nothing,--when he should have recovered and destroyed those documents,--and to live before the eyes of men as though he feared nothing.
He dined at home alone, in the study, and after dinner carefully went through various bundles of papers, preparing them for the eyes of those ministers of the law who would probably before long have the privilege of searching them. At dinner, and while he was thus employed, he drank a bottle of champagne,--feeling himself greatly comforted by the process. If he could only hold up his head and look men in the face, he thought that he might still live through it all. How much had he done by his own unassisted powers! He had once been imprisoned for fraud at Hamburgh, and had come out of gaol a pauper; friendless, with all his wretched antecedents against him. Now he was a member of the British House of Parliament, the undoubted owner of perhaps the most gorgeously furnished house in London, a man with an established character for high finance,--a commercial giant whose name was a familiar word on all the exchanges of the two hemispheres. Even though he should be condemned to penal servitude for life, he would not all die. He rang the bell and desired that Madame Melmotte might be sent to him, and bade the servant bring him brandy.
In ten minutes his poor wife came crawling into the room. Every one connected with Melmotte regarded the man with a certain amount of awe,--every one except Marie, to whom alone he had at times been himself almost gentle. The servants all feared him, and his wife obeyed him implicitly when she could not keep away from him. She came in now and stood opposite to him, while he spoke to her. She never sat in his presence in that room. He asked her where she and Marie kept their jewelry;--for during the last twelvemonths rich trinkets had been supplied to both of them. Of course she answered by another question. "Is anything going to happen, Melmotte?"
"A good deal is going to happen. Are they here in this house, or in Grosvenor Square?"
"They are here."
"Then have them all packed up,--as small as you can; never mind about wool and cases and all that. Have them close to your hand so that if you have to move you can take them with you. Do you understand?"
"Yes; I understand."
"Why don't you speak, then?"
"What is going to happen, Melmotte?"
"How can I tell? You ought to know by this time that when a man's work is such as mine, things will happen. You'll be safe enough. Nothing can hurt you."
"Can they hurt you, Melmotte?"
"Hurt me! I don't know what you call hurting. Whatever there is to be borne, I suppose it is I must bear it. I have not had it very soft all my life hitherto, and I don't think it's going to be very soft now."
"Shall we have to move?"
"Very likely. Move! What's the harm of moving? You talk of moving as though that were the worst thing that could happen. How would you like to be in some place where they wouldn't let you move?"
"Are they going to send you to prison?"
"Hold your tongue."
"Tell me, Melmotte;--are they going to?" Then the poor woman did sit down, overcome by her feelings.
"I didn't ask you to come here for a scene," said Melmotte. "Do as I bid you about your own jewels, and Marie's. The thing is to have them in small compass, and that you should not have it to do at the last moment, when you will be flurried and incapable. Now you needn't stay any longer, and it's no good asking any questions because I shan't answer them." So dismissed, the poor woman crept out again, and immediately, after her own slow fashion, went to work with her ornaments.
Melmotte sat up during the greater part of the night, sometimes sipping brandy and water, and sometimes smoking. But he did no work, and hardly touched a paper after his wife left him.

Dolly Longestaffe was promised his money on a Wednesday; the payment to be made on Friday. He had agreed that Squercum should be made to desist from further proceedings. The bother of visiting Squercum was very great, but he began to feel that he almost liked it. The excitement was nearly as good as that of loo. Of course it was a "horrid bore," this doubt about his money. But there was an importance in it that sustained him amidst his troubles. Dolly was elevated to the level of a man of business, and enjoyed his own capacity. Why, it depended chiefly upon him whether Melmotte should or should not be charged before the Lord Mayor.
"Perhaps I oughtn't to have promised," he said to Squercum, sitting in the lawyer's office with a cigar in his mouth. He preferred Squercum to any other lawyer he had met because Squercum's room was untidy, and he could sit where he pleased, and smoke all the time.
"Well; I don't think you ought. Bideawhile shouldn't have asked you to agree to anything in my absence," said Squercum indignantly. "It was very unprofessional on his part."
"It was you told me to go."
"I wanted you to see what they were at in that room. Your father then is quite clear that you did not sign the letter?"
"Oh, yes; the governor is pig-headed, you know, but he's honest."
"All men are honest," said the lawyer, "but they are generally specially honest to their own side. Melmotte has promised to pay the money on Friday, has he?"
"He's to bring it to Bruton Street."
"I don't believe a word of it. How will he bring it? He'll give you a cheque dated for Monday, and that'll give him two days more, and then on Monday there'll be a note to say the money can't be lodged till Wednesday. There should be no compromising with such a man. You only get from one mess into another. I told you not to say anything."
"I suppose we can't help it now. You're to be there on Friday. If you're there, there won't be any more compromising."
Squercum made one or two further unflattering remarks which might have caused offence had there not been such perfectly good feeling between the attorney and the young man.
"If I was a sharp fellow like you, you know," said Dolly, "of course I should get along better; but I ain't, you know." It was settled that they should meet each other, and Mr. Longestaffe senior, Bideawhile, and Melmotte, at twelve o'clock on Friday in Bruton Street.
Squercum was by no means satisfied. He had ferreted things out, till he had pretty nearly got to the bottom of that affair about the houses in the East End, and he had managed to induce the heirs of the old man who had died to employ him. As to Pickering, he had not a doubt about it. Old Longestaffe had been bribed with a seat at the Railway Board to give up the title-deeds; and when he had failed to induce Dolly to do the same, Melmotte had used his ingenuity.
All this was perfectly clear to Squercum. He regarded Melmotte as a grand swindler - perhaps the grandest that the world had ever known; and he could conceive no greater honour than the detection, successful prosecution, and ultimate destroying of so great a man. But he felt himself to have been unfairly hampered by his own client. He did not believe that the money would be paid; but delay might rob him of his Melmotte. He considered it to be out of the question that Melmotte should raise the money - but there were various ways in which a man might escape.
It may be remembered that Croll, the German clerk, preceded Melmotte into the City on Wednesday after Marie's refusal to sign the deeds. He, too, had his eyes open, and had perceived that things were not looking as well as they used to look. Croll had for many years been true to his patron, having been well paid for such truth. When things had gone badly, he had believed in Melmotte, and had been rewarded for his faith.
Mr. Croll had little investments of his own, which would leave him some money should the Melmotte affairs take an awkward turn. Melmotte had never required him to do anything that was actually fraudulent, although Mr. Croll had not been over-scrupulous. But there must be a limit to all things; and why should any man sacrifice himself beneath the ruins of a falling house? Mr. Croll would have been happy to witness Miss Melmotte's signature; but as for that other kind of witnessing, he was unwilling.
"You know what's up now, don't you?" said one of the junior clerks to Mr. Croll when he entered the office in Abchurch Lane.
"A good deal will be up soon," said the German.
"Cohenlupe has gone! He's left no address. Nobody seems to know what's become of him."
"New York," suggested Mr. Croll.
"They seem to think not. He's on the continent somewhere, half across France by this time; but nobody knows what route he has taken. That'll be a poke in the ribs for the old boy; eh, Croll?" Croll merely shook his head. "I wonder what has become of Miles Grendall," continued the clerk.
"Ven de rats is going avay it is bad for de house."
"There seems to have been a regular manufactory of Mexican Railway scrip."
"Our governor knew noding about dat," said Croll.
"If they could have been kept up another fortnight they say Cohenlupe would have been worth nearly a million, and the governor would have been as good as the bank. Is it true they are going to have him before the Lord Mayor?"
Croll declared that he knew nothing about it, and settled down to his work.
In two hours he was followed by Melmotte, who knew it was too late that day to raise the money, but hoped to pave the way for getting it the next day, the Thursday. Of course the first news he heard was of the defection of Mr. Cohenlupe. It was Croll who told him. His jaw fell, but he said nothing.
"It's a bad thing," said Mr. Croll.
"Yes. Where has he gone?" Croll shook his head. "It never rains but it pours," said Melmotte. "Well; I'll weather it all yet. I've been worse than I am now, Croll, as you know, and have had a hundred thousand pounds before the month was out."
"Yes, indeed," said Croll.
"But the worst of it is that everyone around me is so damnably jealous. Ever since I stood for Westminster there has been a dead set against me in the City. That affair of the dinner was planned so that it might ruin me. It is hard for one man to stand against all that when he has dealings so large as mine."
"Very hard, Mr. Melmotte."
"But they'll find they're mistaken yet. I suppose I shall find Brehgert in Cuthbert's Court."
"I should say so, Mr. Melmotte."
Then Mr. Melmotte took his hat and gloves and stick, and went out with his face carefully dressed in its usually jaunty air. But Croll heard him mutter the name of Cohenlupe between his teeth.
Melmotte had a difficult part to act. To look indifferent when the heart is sinking - or has sunk to the very ground - is an agonizing task. A grandly urbane appearance over ruined hopes is beyond the strength of most men. Melmotte very nearly accomplished it. It was only to the eyes of such a one as Herr Croll that the failure was perceptible.
Melmotte found Mr. Brehgert, who at this time had completed his correspondence with Miss Longestaffe, in which he had mentioned the probability of great losses. He had now heard that Mr. Cohenlupe had gone upon his travels, and was therefore sure that his anticipation would be correct.
Nevertheless, he received his old friend with a smile. When large sums of money are concerned there is seldom personal indignation between man and man. The loss of fifty pounds may create personal wrath; but fifty thousand require equanimity.
"So Cohenlupe hasn't been seen in the City today," said Brehgert.
"He has gone," said Melmotte hoarsely.
"I think I once told you that Cohenlupe was not the man for large dealings."
"Yes, you did," said Melmotte.
"Well; it can't be helped. And what is it now?" Then Melmotte explained to Mr. Brehgert what he wanted, taking the various documents out of his bag. Mr. Brehgert understood readily all that was required. He examined the documents, declaring that he did not know how the thing could be arranged by Friday. Melmotte replied that 50,000 was not a very large sum, and the security offered was worth twice that.
"You will leave them with me this evening," said Brehgert. Melmotte paused for a moment, and said that he would of course do so. He would have given much to have been sufficiently master of himself to have assented without hesitation; but the weight within him was so very heavy!
Having left the papers and the bag with Mr. Brehgert, he walked westwards to the House of Commons. During the last week he had occasionally gone down to the House in the afternoon. Today there was no evening sitting; but his mind was too full of other things to allow him to remember this. As he walked along the Embankment, his thoughts were very heavy. What would be the end of it? Ruin; yes, but there were worse things than ruin. And a short time ago, he had made himself so safe!
As he looked back at it, he could hardly say how he had been driven out of the track that he had laid down for himself. Insane ambition had tempted him away from his anchorage. He blamed himself, not his circumstances. If he could only begin again, how different would his conduct be!
But of what use were such regrets as these? He must take things as they were now, and not allow himself to be carried away by pride or cowardice. And if the worst should come to the worst, then let him face it like a man! There was a certain manliness about him which showed itself in his self-condemnation. Judging himself, he pointed out to himself his own shortcomings. There was much that he was ashamed of; many a little act which recurred to him vividly in this solitary hour as a thing to be repented of.
Yet never for a moment did it occur to him to repent of the fraud in which his whole life had been passed. Though he was inquiring into himself as closely as he could, he never even told himself that he had been dishonest. Fraud and dishonesty had been the very principle of his life, and had so become a part of his blood and bones that even in this extremity of misery he did not question them. Not to cheat, not to be a scoundrel, was a condition of things to which his mind had never turned itself.
But why had he not conciliated Lord Mayors? Why had he been insolent at the India Office? Why had he trusted Cohenlupe? Why had he not stuck to Abchurch Lane instead of going into Parliament? Why had he called down unnecessary notice on his head by entertaining the Emperor of China? It was too late now, and he must bear it; but these were the things that had ruined him.
He walked into Palace Yard and across it, to the door of Westminster Abbey, before he found out that Parliament was not sitting.
"Oh, Wednesday! Of course," he said, turning round. Now he did not know what use to make of the evening. His house could hardly be very comfortable to him. But in his own house he could at least be alone.
Then, as he walked slowly across the park, thinking intently, he asked himself whether it still might not be best for him to keep the money which was settled on his daughter, to tell the Longestaffes that he could make no payment, and to face the worst that Mr. Squercum could do. Though they should put him on trial for forgery, what of that? He had heard of trials in which the accused criminals had been heroes - had been fted though no one had doubted their guilt - and had come out unscathed at last. What evidence had they against him? He, the great Melmotte, could certainly command a better lawyer. Surely there need be no despondency while so good a hope remained to him!
He did tremble as he remembered Dolly Longestaffe's letter, and the letter of the old man who was dead. But would it not be better to face it all than to surrender his money and become a pauper?
But he had given those forged documents into the hands of Mr. Brehgert! Again he had acted in a hurry, without sufficient thought. He was angry with himself for that. But how is a man to give sufficient thought to his affairs when every step is ruinous? Yes - he had certainly put into Brehgert's hands means of proving him to be absolutely guilty of forgery. He did not think that Marie would disclaim the signatures; nor did he think that his clerk Croll would be urgent against him. But Brehgert, should he discover what had been done, would certainly not permit him to escape.
He would tell Brehgert in the morning that he had changed his mind. He would see him before any action could have been taken on the documents, and Brehgert would restore them to him. Then he would instruct his daughter to hold the money fast, to sign no paper, and to draw the income herself. Having done that, he would let his foes do their worst. They might drag him to jail. But they might fail to convict him! For the present he must do nothing - once he had recovered and destroyed those documents - and would live as though he feared nothing.
He dined at home alone, in the study, and after dinner carefully went through various bundles of papers, preparing them for the eyes of those lawyers who would probably before long be searching them. While he was doing this, he drank a bottle of champagne, and felt greatly comforted by the process. If he could only hold up his head, he might still live through it all. How much had he done by his own unassisted powers! He had once been imprisoned for fraud at Hamburg, and had come out of jail a friendless pauper; now he was a member of the British House of Parliament, the owner of perhaps the most gorgeously furnished house in London, and commercial giant. He rang the bell and desired that Madame Melmotte might be sent to him, and bade the servant bring him brandy.
In ten minutes his poor wife came crawling into the room. She stood opposite him while he spoke. She never sat in his presence in that room. He asked her where she and Marie kept their jewellery.
"Is anything going to happen, Melmotte?"
"A good deal is going to happen. Are the jewels here in this house, or in Grosvenor Square?"
"They are here."
"Then have them all packed up, as small as you can. Have them close to hand so that if you have to move you can take them with you. Do you understand?"
"Yes; I understand. What is going to happen, Melmotte?"
"How can I tell? You ought to know by this time that when a man's work is such as mine, things will happen. You'll be safe enough. Nothing can hurt you."
"Shall we have to move?"
"Very likely. What's the harm of moving?"
"Are they going to send you to prison?"
"Hold your tongue."
"Tell me, Melmotte." The poor woman sat down, overcome by her feelings.
"I didn't ask you to come here for a scene," said Melmotte. "Do as I bid you about your jewels, and Marie's. The thing is not to have it to do at the last moment, when you will be flurried. Now you needn't stay any longer, and it's no good asking any questions because I shan't answer them." So dismissed, the poor woman crept out again, and went to work with her ornaments.
Melmotte sat up most of the night, sipping brandy and water, and sometimes smoking. But he hardly touched a paper after his wife left him.


Miss Ruby Ruggles, the granddaughter of old Daniel Ruggles, of Sheep's Acre, in the parish of Sheepstone, close to Bungay, received the following letter from the hands of the rural post letter-carrier on that Sunday morning;--"A friend will be somewhere near Sheepstone Birches between four and five o'clock on Sunday afternoon." There was not another word in the letter, but Miss Ruby Ruggles knew well from whom it came.
Daniel Ruggles was a farmer, who had the reputation of considerable wealth, but who was not very well looked on in the neighbourhood as being somewhat of a curmudgeon and a miser. His wife was dead;--he had quarrelled with his only son, whose wife was also dead, and had banished him from his home;--his daughters were married and away; and the only member of his family who lived with him was his granddaughter Ruby. And this granddaughter was a great trouble to the old man. She was twenty-three years old, and had been engaged to a prosperous young man at Bungay in the meal and pollard line, to whom old Ruggles had promised to give 500 on their marriage. But Ruby had taken it into her foolish young head that she did not like meal and pollard, and now she had received the above very dangerous letter. Though the writer had not dared to sign his name she knew well that it came from Sir Felix Carbury,--the most beautiful gentleman she had ever set her eyes upon. Poor Ruby Ruggles! Living down at Sheep's Acre, on the Waveney, she had heard both too much and too little of the great world beyond her ken. There were, she thought, many glorious things to be seen which she would never see were she in these her early years to become the wife of John Crumb, the dealer in meal and pollard at Bungay. Therefore she was full of a wild joy, half joy half fear, when she got her letter; and, therefore, punctually at four o'clock on that Sunday she was ensconced among the Sheepstone Birches, so that she might see without much danger of being seen. Poor Ruby Ruggles, who was left to be so much mistress of herself at the time of her life in which she most required the kindness of a controlling hand!
Mr. Ruggles held his land, or the greater part of it, on what is called a bishop's lease, Sheep's Acre Farm being a part of the property which did belong to the bishopric of Elmham, and which was still set apart for its sustentation;--but he also held a small extent of outlying meadow which belonged to the Carbury estate, so that he was one of the tenants of Roger Carbury. Those Sheepstone Birches, at which Felix made his appointment, belonged to Roger. On a former occasion, when the feeling between the two cousins was kinder than that which now existed, Felix had ridden over with the landlord to call on the old man, and had then first seen Ruby;--and had heard from Roger something of Ruby's history up to that date. It had then been just made known that she was to marry John Crumb. Since that time not a word had been spoken between the men respecting the girl. Mr. Carbury had heard, with sorrow, that the marriage was either postponed or abandoned,--but his growing dislike to the baronet had made it very improbable that there should be any conversation between them on the subject. Sir Felix, however, had probably heard more of Ruby Ruggles than her grandfather's landlord.
There is, perhaps, no condition of mind more difficult for the ordinarily well-instructed inhabitant of a city to realise than that of such a girl as Ruby Ruggles. The rural day labourer and his wife live on a level surface which is comparatively open to the eye. Their aspirations, whether for good or evil,--whether for food and drink to be honestly earned for themselves and children, or for drink first, to be come by either honestly or dishonestly,--are, if looked at at all, fairly visible. And with the men of the Ruggles class one can generally find out what they would be at, and in what direction their minds are at work. But the Ruggles woman,--especially the Ruggles young woman,--is better educated, has higher aspirations and a brighter imagination, and is infinitely more cunning than the man. If she be good-looking and relieved from the pressure of want, her thoughts soar into a world which is as unknown to her as heaven is to us, and in regard to which her longings are apt to be infinitely stronger than are ours for heaven. Her education has been much better than that of the man. She can read, whereas he can only spell words from a book. She can write a letter after her fashion, whereas he can barely spell words out on a paper. Her tongue is more glib, and her intellect sharper. But her ignorance as to the reality of things is much more gross than his. By such contact as he has with men in markets, in the streets of the towns he frequents, and even in the fields, he learns something unconsciously of the relative condition of his countrymen,--and, as to that which he does not learn, his imagination is obtuse. But the woman builds castles in the air, and wonders, and longs. To the young farmer the squire's daughter is a superior being very much out of his way. To the farmer's daughter the young squire is an Apollo, whom to look at is a pleasure,--by whom to be looked at is a delight. The danger for the most part is soon over. The girl marries after her kind, and then husband and children put the matter at rest for ever.
A mind more absolutely uninstructed than that of Ruby Ruggles as to the world beyond Suffolk and Norfolk it would be impossible to find. But her thoughts were as wide as they were vague, and as active as they were erroneous. Why should she with all her prettiness, and all her cleverness,--with all her fortune to boot,--marry that dustiest of all men, John Crumb, before she had seen something of the beauties of the things of which she had read in the books which came in her way? John Crumb was not bad-looking. He was a sturdy, honest fellow, too,--slow of speech but sure of his points when he had got them within his grip,--fond of his beer but not often drunk, and the very soul of industry at his work. But though she had known him all her life she had never known him otherwise than dusty. The meal had so gotten within his hair, and skin, and raiment, that it never came out altogether even on Sundays. His normal complexion was a healthy pallor, through which indeed some records of hidden ruddiness would make themselves visible, but which was so judiciously assimilated to his hat and coat and waistcoat, that he was more like a stout ghost than a healthy young man. Nevertheless it was said of him that he could thrash any man in Bungay, and carry two hundred weight of flour upon his back. And Ruby also knew this of him,--that he worshipped the very ground on which she trod.
But, alas, she thought there might be something better than such worship; and, therefore, when Felix Carbury came in her way, with his beautiful oval face, and his rich brown colour, and his bright hair and lovely moustache, she was lost in a feeling which she mistook for love; and when he sneaked over to her a second and a third time, she thought more of his listless praise than ever she had thought of John Crumb's honest promises. But, though she was an utter fool, she was not a fool without a principle. She was miserably ignorant; but she did understand that there was a degradation which it behoved her to avoid. She thought, as the moths seem to think, that she might fly into the flame and not burn her wings. After her fashion she was pretty, with long glossy ringlets, which those about the farm on week days would see confined in curl-papers, and large round dark eyes, and a clear dark complexion, in which the blood showed itself plainly beneath the soft brown skin. She was strong, and healthy, and tall,--and had a will of her own which gave infinite trouble to old Daniel Ruggles, her grandfather.
Felix Carbury took himself two miles out of his way in order that he might return by Sheepstone Birches, which was a little copse distant not above half a mile from Sheep's Acre farmhouse. A narrow angle of the little wood came up to the road, by which there was a gate leading into a grass meadow, which Sir Felix had remembered when he made his appointment. The road was no more than a country lane, unfrequented at all times, and almost sure to be deserted on Sundays. He approached the gate in a walk, and then stood awhile looking into the wood. He had not stood long before he saw the girl's bonnet beneath a tree standing just outside the wood, in the meadow, but on the bank of the ditch. Thinking for a moment what he would do about his horse, he rode him into the field, and then, dismounting, fastened him to a rail which ran down the side of the copse. Then he sauntered on till he stood looking down upon Ruby Ruggles as she sat beneath the tree. "I like your impudence," she said, "in calling yourself a friend."
"Ain't I a friend, Ruby?"
"A pretty sort of friend, you! When you was going away, you was to be back at Carbury in a fortnight; and that is,--oh, ever so long ago now."
"But I wrote to you, Ruby."
"What's letters? And the postman to know all as in 'em for anything anybody knows, and grandfather to be almost sure to see 'em. I don't call letters no good at all, and I beg you won't write 'em any more."
"Did he see them?"
"No thanks to you if he didn't. I don't know why you are come here, Sir Felix,--nor yet I don't know why I should come and meet you. It's all just folly like."
"Because I love you;--that's why I come; eh, Ruby? And you have come because you love me; eh, Ruby? Is not that about it?" Then he threw himself on the ground beside her, and got his arm round her waist.
It would boot little to tell here all that they said to each other. The happiness of Ruby Ruggles for that half hour was no doubt complete. She had her London lover beside her; and though in every word he spoke there was a tone of contempt, still he talked of love, and made her promises, and told her that she was pretty. He probably did not enjoy it much; he cared very little about her, and carried on the liaison simply because it was the proper sort of thing for a young man to do. He had begun to think that the odour of patchouli was unpleasant, and that the flies were troublesome, and the ground hard, before the half hour was over. She felt that she could be content to sit there for ever and to listen to him. This was a realisation of those delights of life of which she had read in the thrice-thumbed old novels which she had gotten from the little circulating library at Bungay.
But what was to come next? She had not dared to ask him to marry her,--had not dared to say those very words; and he had not dared to ask her to be his mistress. There was an animal courage about her, and an amount of strength also, and a fire in her eye, of which he had learned to be aware. Before the half hour was over I think that he wished himself away;--but when he did go, he made a promise to see her again on the Tuesday morning. Her grandfather would be at Harlestone market, and she would meet him at about noon at the bottom of the kitchen garden belonging to the farm. As he made the promise he resolved that he would not keep it. He would write to her again, and bid her come to him in London, and would send her money for the journey.
"I suppose I am to be his wedded wife," said Ruby to herself, as she crept away down from the road, away also from her own home;--so that on her return her presence should not be associated with that of the young man, should any one chance to see the young man on the road. "I'll never be nothing unless I'm that," she said to herself. Then she allowed her mind to lose itself in expatiating on the difference between John Crumb and Sir Felix Carbury.

Miss Ruby Ruggles, the granddaughter of old Daniel Ruggles, of Sheep's Acre, near Bungay, received the following letter from the rural postman that Sunday morning:
"A friend will be near Sheepstone Birches between four and five on Sunday afternoon." There was not another word in the letter, but Miss Ruby Ruggles knew from whom it came.
Daniel Ruggles was a farmer, who had the reputation of wealth, but also the reputation of being a curmudgeon and a miser. His wife was dead; he had quarrelled with his only son, and had banished him from his home; his daughters were married and had moved away; and the only member of his family who lived with him was his granddaughter Ruby.
This granddaughter was twenty-three, and had been engaged to a prosperous young man at Bungay in the corn-meal and bran line, to whom old Ruggles had promised to give 500 on their marriage. But Ruby had taken it into her foolish young head that she did not like meal and bran, and now she had received the above very dangerous letter. She knew well that it came from Sir Felix Carbury - the most beautiful gentleman she had ever set her eyes upon.
Poor Ruby Ruggles! Living down at Sheep's Acre, she had heard both too much and too little of the great world. There were, she thought, many glorious things which she would never see if she were to become the wife of John Crumb, the meal and bran dealer. Therefore she was full of a wild joy - half joy, half fear - when she got her letter. At four o'clock on that Sunday she was at Sheepstone Birches.
Mr. Ruggles's land at Sheep's Acre Farm belonged to the bishopric of Elmham; but he also held an outlying meadow which belonged to the Carbury estate. Sheepstone Birches, at which Felix made his appointment, belonged to Roger. Once Felix had ridden over with Roger to call on the old man, and had then first seen Ruby; and had heard from Roger that she was to marry John Crumb. Since then Roger had heard, with sorrow, that the marriage was either postponed or abandoned - but he had not spoken to Felix on the subject. Sir Felix, however, had probably heard more of Ruby Ruggles than he had.
There is, perhaps, no condition of mind more difficult for the educated city-dweller to imagine than that of such a girl as Ruby Ruggles. The rural labourer and his wife live a life that seems open to the eye. With the men of the Ruggles class one can generally find out what they want, and how their minds work. But the Ruggles woman - especially the Ruggles young woman - has higher aspirations and a brighter imagination, and is infinitely more cunning than the man. Her education has been much better than his: she can read, whereas he can only spell words from a book. She can write a letter after her fashion, whereas he can barely form words on paper. Her tongue is more glib, and her intellect sharper.
But her ignorance about real life is much greater than his. He learns from the markets, the streets and the fields of the condition of his countrymen. The woman builds castles in the air, and wonders, and longs. To the farmer's daughter the young squire is an Apollo, whom to look at is a pleasure - by whom to be looked at is a delight. The danger for the most part is soon over: the girl marries one of her own kind, and the matter is at rest.
A mind more absolutely ignorant than that of Ruby Ruggles about the world beyond Suffolk it would be impossible to find. But her thoughts were as wide as they were vague, and as active as they were mistaken. Why should she, with all her prettiness and cleverness, marry that dusty John Crumb, before she had seen any of the beauties of the world? John Crumb was not bad-looking. He was a sturdy, honest fellow, slow of speech but sure of his points, fond of his beer but not often drunk, and the very soul of industry at his work. But he was always dusty. The meal had got within his hair, and skin, and clothes, so that he looked more like a stout ghost than a healthy young man. Nevertheless it was said that he could thrash any man in Bungay, and carry two hundred weight of flour upon his back. And Ruby also knew that he worshipped the very ground on which she trod.
But, alas, she thought there might be something better than such worship; and when Felix Carbury came in her way, with his beautiful face, she was lost in a feeling which she mistook for love; and when he sneaked over to her a second and a third time, she thought more of his listless praise than ever she had thought of John Crumb's honest promises.
But though she was an utter fool, and miserably ignorant, she did understand that there was a degradation which she needed to avoid. She thought, as moths seem to think, that she might fly into the flame and not burn her wings. She was pretty, with long glossy ringlets, large round dark eyes, and a clear complexion. She was strong, healthy, and tall - and had a will of her own which gave infinite trouble to old Daniel Ruggles, her grandfather.
Felix Carbury took himself two miles out of his way in order that he might return by Sheepstone Birches. The road leading to it was a quiet country lane, almost sure to be deserted on Sundays. He approached the gate, and stood awhile looking into the wood. When he saw the girl's bonnet, he dismounted, fastened his horse to a rail, and sauntered on till he stood looking down upon Ruby Ruggles as she sat beneath the tree.
"I like your impudence," she said, "in calling yourself a friend."
"Ain't I a friend, Ruby?"
"A pretty sort of friend! You said you was to be back at Carbury in a fortnight; and that is ever so long ago now."
"But I wrote to you, Ruby."
"What's letters? And grandfather is almost sure to see 'em. I beg you won't write any more."
"Did he see them?"
"No thanks to you if he didn't. I don't know why you are come here, Sir Felix, - nor why I should come and meet you. It's all just folly like."
"Because I love you; that's why I come, Ruby. And you have come because you love me; eh, Ruby? Is not that about it?" Then he threw himself on the ground beside her, and got his arm round her waist.
There is no need to tell here all that they said to each other. The happiness of Ruby Ruggles for that half hour was complete. She had her London lover beside her; and though in every word he spoke there was a tone of contempt, still he talked of love, and made her promises, and told her she was pretty. He probably did not enjoy it much; he cared very little about her, and carried on the liaison simply because it was the proper sort of thing for a young man to do. He had begun to think that the odour of patchouli was unpleasant, and that the flies were troublesome, and the ground hard, before the half hour was over.
She felt that she could sit there for ever and listen to him. But what was to come next? She had not dared to ask him to marry her; and he had not dared to ask her to be his mistress. There was an animal courage about her, and a strength, and a fire in her eye, of which he had learned to be wary.
Before the half hour was over he wished himself away; but when he did go, he promised to see her again on the Tuesday morning. Her grandfather would be at Harlestone market, and she would meet him at noon at the bottom of the farm's kitchen garden. As he made the promise he resolved that he would not keep it. He would write to her, and bid her come to him in London, and would send her money for the journey.
"I suppose I am to be his wedded wife," thought Ruby, as she crept away. "I'll never be nothing unless I'm that." Then she allowed her mind to lose itself in thinking of the difference between John Crumb and Sir Felix Carbury.

Chapter 18: Ruby Ruggles Hears a Love Tale


Paul Montague reached London on his return from Suffolk early on the Monday morning, and on the following day he wrote to Mrs. Hurtle. As he sat in his lodgings, thinking of his condition, he almost wished that he had taken Melmotte's offer and gone to Mexico. He might at any rate have endeavoured to promote the railway earnestly, and then have abandoned it if he found the whole thing false. In such case of course he would never have seen Hetta Carbury again; but, as things were, of what use to him was his love,--of what use to him or to her? The kind of life of which he dreamed, such a life in England as was that of Roger Carbury, or, as such life would be, if Roger had a wife whom he loved, seemed to be far beyond his reach. Nobody was like Roger Carbury! Would it not be well that he should go away, and, as he went, write to Hetta and bid her marry the best man that ever lived in the world?
But the journey to Mexico was no longer open to him. He had repudiated the proposition and had quarrelled with Melmotte. It was necessary that he should immediately take some further step in regard to Mrs. Hurtle. Twice lately he had gone to Islington determined that he would see that lady for the last time. Then he had taken her to Lowestoft, and had been equally firm in his resolution that he would there put an end to his present bonds. Now he had promised to go again to Islington;--and was aware that if he failed to keep his promise, she would come to him. In this way there would never be an end to it.
He would certainly go again, as he had promised,--if she should still require it; but he would first try what a letter would do,--a plain unvarnished tale. Might it still be possible that a plain tale sent by post should have sufficient efficacy? This was his plain tale as he now told it.
Tuesday, 2nd July, 1873.
MY DEAR MRS. HURTLE,--
I promised that I would go to you again in Islington, and so I will, if you still require it. But I think that such a meeting can be of no service to either of us. What is to be gained? I do not for a moment mean to justify my own conduct. It is not to be justified. When I met you on our journey hither from San Francisco, I was charmed with your genius, your beauty, and your character. They are now what I found them to be then. But circumstances have made our lives and temperaments so far different, that I am certain that, were we married, we should not make each other happy. Of course the fault was mine; but it is better to own that fault, and to take all the blame,--and the evil consequences, let them be what they may,--
to be shot, for instance, like the gentleman in Oregon,--
than to be married with the consciousness that even at the very moment of the ceremony, such marriage will be a matter of sorrow and repentance. As soon as my mind was made up on this I wrote to you. I can not,--I dare not,--blame you for the step you have since taken. But I can only adhere to the resolution I then expressed.
The first day I saw you here in London you asked me whether I was attached to another woman. I could answer you only by the truth. But I should not of my own accord have spoken to you of altered affections. It was after I had resolved to break my engagement with you that I first knew this girl. It was not because I had come to love her that I broke it. I have no grounds whatever for hoping that my love will lead to any results.
I have now told you as exactly as I can the condition of my mind. If it were possible for me in any way to compensate the injury I have done you,--or even to undergo retribution for it,--I would do so. But what compensation can be given, or what retribution can you exact? I think that our further meeting can avail nothing. But if, after this, you wish me to come again, I will come for the last time,--because I have promised.
Your most sincere friend,
PAUL MONTAGUE.
Mrs. Hurtle, as she read this, was torn in two ways. All that Paul had written was in accordance with the words written by herself on a scrap of paper which she still kept in her own pocket. Those words, fairly transcribed on a sheet of note-paper, would be the most generous and the fittest answer she could give. And she longed to be generous. She had all a woman's natural desire to sacrifice herself. But the sacrifice which would have been most to her taste would have been of another kind. Had she found him ruined and penniless she would have delighted to share with him all that she possessed. Had she found him a cripple, or blind, or miserably struck with some disease, she would have stayed by him and have nursed him and given him comfort. Even had he been disgraced she would have fled with him to some far country and have pardoned all his faults. No sacrifice would have been too much for her that would have been accompanied by a feeling that he appreciated all that she was doing for him, and that she was loved in return. But to sacrifice herself by going away and never more being heard of, was too much for her! What woman can endure such sacrifice as that? To give up not only her love, but her wrath also;--that was too much for her! The idea of being tame was terrible to her. Her life had not been very prosperous, but she was what she was because she had dared to protect herself by her own spirit. Now, at last, should she succumb and be trodden on like a worm? Should she be weaker even than an English girl? Should she allow him to have amused himself with her love, to have had "a good time," and then to roam away like a bee, while she was so dreadfully scorched, so mutilated and punished! Had not her whole life been opposed to the theory of such passive endurance? She took out the scrap of paper and read it; and, in spite of all, she felt that there was a feminine softness in it that gratified her.
But no;--she could not send it. She could not even copy the words. And so she gave play to all her strongest feelings on the other side,--being in truth torn in two directions. Then she sat herself down to her desk, and with rapid words, and flashing thoughts, wrote as follows:--
PAUL MONTAGUE,--
I have suffered many injuries, but of all injuries this is the worst and most unpardonable,--and the most unmanly. Surely there never was such a coward, never so false a liar. The poor wretch that I destroyed was mad with liquor and was only acting after his kind. Even Caradoc Hurtle never premeditated such wrong as this. What;--you are to bind yourself to me by the most solemn obligation that can join a man and a woman together, and then tell me,--when they have affected my whole life,--that they are to go for nothing, because they do not suit your view of things? On thinking over it, you find that an American wife would not make you so comfortable as some English girl;--and therefore it is all to go for nothing! I have no brother, no man near me;--or you would not dare to do this. You can not but be a coward.
You talk of compensation! Do you mean money? You do not dare to say so, but you must mean it. It is an insult the more. But as to retribution; yes. You shall suffer retribution. I desire you to come to me,--according to your promise,--and you will find me with a horsewhip in my hand. I will whip you till I have not a breath in my body. And then I will see what you will dare to do;--whether you will drag me into a court of law for the assault.
Yes; come. You shall come. And now you know the welcome you shall find. I will buy the whip while this is reaching you, and you shall find that I know how to choose such a weapon. I call upon you to come. But should you be afraid and break your promise, I will come to you. I will make London too hot to hold you;--and if I do not find you I will go with my story to every friend you have.
I have now told you as exactly as I can the condition of my mind.
WINIFRID HURTLE.
Having written this she again read the short note, and again gave way to violent tears. But on that day she sent no letter. On the following morning she wrote a third, and sent that. This was the third letter:--
Yes. Come.
W. H.
This letter duly reached Paul Montague at his lodgings. He started immediately for Islington. He had now no desire to delay the meeting. He had at any rate taught her that his gentleness towards her, his going to the play with her, and drinking tea with her at Mrs. Pipkin's, and his journey with her to the sea, were not to be taken as evidence that he was gradually being conquered. He had declared his purpose plainly enough at Lowestoft,--and plainly enough in his last letter. She had told him down at the hotel, that had she by chance have been armed at the moment, she would have shot him. She could arm herself now if she pleased;--but his real fear had not lain in that direction. The pang consisted in having to assure her that he was resolved to do her wrong. The worst of that was now over.
The door was opened for him by Ruby, who by no means greeted him with a happy countenance. It was the second morning after the night of her imprisonment; and nothing had occurred to alleviate her woe. At this very moment her lover should have been in Liverpool, but he was, in fact, abed in Welbeck Street. "Yes, sir; she's at home," said Ruby, with a baby in her arms and a little child hanging on to her dress. "Don't pull so, Sally. Please, sir, is Sir Felix still in London?" Ruby had written to Sir Felix the very night of her imprisonment, but had not as yet received any reply. Paul, whose mind was altogether intent on his own troubles, declared that at present he knew nothing about Sir Felix, and was then shown into Mrs. Hurtle's room.
[Illustration: The door was opened for him by Ruby.]
"So you have come," she said, without rising from her chair.
"Of course I came, when you desired it."
"I don't know why you should. My wishes do not seem to affect you much. Will you sit down there," she said, pointing to a seat at some distance from herself. "So you think it would be best that you and I should never see each other again?" She was very calm; but it seemed to him that the quietness was assumed, and that at any moment it might be converted into violence. He thought that there was that in her eye which seemed to foretell the spring of the wild-cat.
"I did think so certainly. What more can I say?"
"Oh, nothing; clearly nothing." Her voice was very low. "Why should a gentleman trouble himself to say any more,--than that he has changed his mind? Why make a fuss about such little things as a woman's life, or a woman's heart?" Then she paused. "And having come, in consequence of my unreasonable request, of course you are wise to hold your peace."
"I came because I promised."
"But you did not promise to speak;--did you?"
"What would you have me say?"
"Ah what! Am I to be so weak as to tell you now what I would have you say? Suppose you were to say, 'I am a gentleman, and a man of my word, and I repent me of my intended perfidy,' do you not think you might get your release that way? Might it not be possible that I should reply that as your heart was gone from me, your hand might go after it;--that I scorned to be the wife of a man who did not want me?" As she asked this she gradually raised her voice, and half lifted herself in her seat, stretching herself towards him.
"You might indeed," he replied, not well knowing what to say.
"But I should not. I at least will be true. I should take you, Paul,--still take you; with a confidence that I should yet win you to me by my devotion. I have still some kindness of feeling towards you,--none to that woman who is I suppose younger than I, and gentler, and a maid." She still looked as though she expected a reply, but there was nothing to be said in answer to this. "Now that you are going to leave me, Paul, is there any advice you can give me, as to what I shall do next? I have given up every friend in the world for you. I have no home. Mrs. Pipkin's room here is more my home than any other spot on the earth. I have all the world to choose from, but no reason whatever for a choice. I have my property. What shall I do with it, Paul? If I could die and be no more heard of, you should be welcome to it." There was no answer possible to all this. The questions were asked because there was no answer possible. "You might at any rate advise me. Paul, you are in some degree responsible,--are you not,--for my loneliness?"
"I am. But you know that I cannot answer your questions."
"You cannot wonder that I should be somewhat in doubt as to my future life. As far as I can see, I had better remain here. I do good at any rate to Mrs. Pipkin. She went into hysterics yesterday when I spoke of leaving her. That woman, Paul, would starve in our country, and I shall be desolate in this." Then she paused, and there was absolute silence for a minute. "You thought my letter very short; did you not?"
"It said, I suppose, all you had to say."
"No, indeed. I did have much more to say. That was the third letter I wrote. Now you shall see the other two. I wrote three, and had to choose which I would send you. I fancy that yours to me was easier written than either one of mine. You had no doubts, you know. I had many doubts. I could not send them all by post, together. But you may see them all now. There is one. You may read that first. While I was writing it, I was determined that that should go." Then she handed him the sheet of paper which contained the threat of the horsewhip.
"I am glad you did not send that," he said.
"I meant it."
"But you have changed your mind?"
"Is there anything in it that seems to you to be unreasonable? Speak out and tell me."
"I am thinking of you, not of myself."
"Think of me, then. Is there anything said there which the usage to which I have been subjected does not justify?"
"You ask me questions which I cannot answer. I do not think that under any provocation a woman should use a horsewhip."
"It is certainly more comfortable for gentlemen,--who amuse themselves,--that women should have that opinion. But, upon my word, I don't know what to say about that. As long as there are men to fight for women, it may be well to leave the fighting to the men. But when a woman has no one to help her, is she to bear everything without turning upon those who ill-use her? Shall a woman be flayed alive because it is unfeminine in her to fight for her own skin? What is the good of being--feminine, as you call it? Have you asked yourself that? That men may be attracted, I should say. But if a woman finds that men only take advantage of her assumed weakness, shall she not throw it off? If she be treated as prey, shall she not fight as a beast of prey? Oh, no;--it is so unfeminine! I also, Paul, had thought of that. The charm of womanly weakness presented itself to my mind in a soft moment,--and then I wrote this other letter. You may as well see them all." And so she handed him the scrap which had been written at Lowestoft, and he read that also.
He could hardly finish it, because of the tears which filled his eyes. But, having mastered its contents, he came across the room and threw himself on his knees at her feet, sobbing. "I have not sent it, you know," she said. "I only show it you that you may see how my mind has been at work."
"It hurts me more than the other," he replied.
"Nay, I would not hurt you,--not at this moment. Sometimes I feel that I could tear you limb from limb, so great is my disappointment, so ungovernable my rage! Why,--why should I be such a victim? Why should life be an utter blank to me, while you have everything before you? There, you have seen them all. Which will you have?"
"I cannot now take that other as the expression of your mind."
"But it will be when you have left me;--and was when you were with me at the sea-side. And it was so I felt when I got your first letter in San Francisco. Why should you kneel there? You do not love me. A man should kneel to a woman for love, not for pardon." But though she spoke thus, she put her hand upon his forehead, and pushed back his hair, and looked into his face. "I wonder whether that other woman loves you. I do not want an answer, Paul. I suppose you had better go." She took his hand and pressed it to her breast. "Tell me one thing. When you spoke of--compensation, did you mean--money?"
"No; indeed no."
"I hope not;--I hope not that. Well, there;--go. You shall be troubled no more with Winifrid Hurtle." She took the sheet of paper which contained the threat of the horsewhip and tore it into scraps.
"And am I to keep the other?" he asked.
"No. For what purpose would you have it? To prove my weakness? That also shall be destroyed." But she took it and restored it to her pocket-book.
"Good-bye, my friend," he said.
"Nay! This parting will not bear a farewell. Go, and let there be no other word spoken." And so he went.
As soon as the front door was closed behind him she rang the bell and begged Ruby to ask Mrs. Pipkin to come to her. "Mrs. Pipkin," she said, as soon as the woman had entered the room; "everything is over between me and Mr. Montague." She was standing upright in the middle of the room, and as she spoke there was a smile on her face.
"Lord a' mercy," said Mrs. Pipkin, holding up both her hands.
"As I have told you that I was to be married to him, I think it right now to tell you that I'm not going to be married to him."
"And why not?--and he such a nice young man,--and quiet too."
"As to the why not, I don't know that I am prepared to speak about that. But it is so. I was engaged to him."
"I'm well sure of that, Mrs. Hurtle."
"And now I'm no longer engaged to him. That's all."
"Dearie me! and you going down to Lowestoft with him, and all." Mrs. Pipkin could not bear to think that she should hear no more of such an interesting story.
"We did go down to Lowestoft together, and we both came back,--not together. And there's an end of it."
"I'm sure it's not your fault, Mrs. Hurtle. When a marriage is to be, and doesn't come off, it never is the lady's fault."
"There's an end of it, Mrs. Pipkin. If you please, we won't say anything more about it."
"And are you going to leave, ma'am?" said Mrs. Pipkin, prepared to have her apron up to her eyes at a moment's notice. Where should she get such another lodger as Mrs. Hurtle,--a lady who not only did not inquire about victuals, but who was always suggesting that the children should eat this pudding or finish that pie, and who had never questioned an item in a bill since she had been in the house!
"We'll say nothing about that yet, Mrs. Pipkin." Then Mrs. Pipkin gave utterance to so many assurances of sympathy and help that it almost seemed that she was prepared to guarantee to her lodger another lover in lieu of the one who was now dismissed.

Paul Montague reached London from Suffolk early on the Monday morning, and the following day he wrote to Mrs. Hurtle. He almost wished that he had taken Melmotte's offer and gone to Mexico. In that case he would never have seen Hetta Carbury again; but, as things were, of what use was his love? The kind of life of which he dreamed seemed to be far beyond his reach. Perhaps he should go away, and write to Hetta and bid her marry Roger Carbury - the best man that ever lived.
But the journey to Mexico was no longer open to him. He had quarrelled with Melmotte. And as to Mrs. Hurtle, he had promised to go again to Islington. He knew that if he failed to keep his promise, she would come to him.
So he would go there; but first he would try what a letter would do - a plain unvarnished tale. This was his plain tale as he now told it.
My Dear Mrs. Hurtle,
I promised that I would come to you again in Islington, and so I will, if you still require it. But I think that such a meeting can be of no use to either of us. What is to be gained? I do not mean to justify my own conduct. It is not to be justified. When I met you on our journey from San Francisco, I was charmed with your genius, your beauty, and your character. But circumstances have made our lives and temperaments so different, that I am certain that, were we married, we should not make each other happy. Of course the fault was mine; but it is better to own that fault, and to take all the blame, and any evil consequences
(-to be shot, for instance, like the gentleman in Oregon-)
than to be married knowing that such marriage will be a matter of sorrow and repentance. I cannot blame you for the step you have taken. But I can only adhere to my resolution.
The first day I saw you here in London you asked me whether I was attached to another woman. I could answer you only by the truth. But it was after I had resolved to break my engagement with you that I first knew this girl. It was not because I had come to love her that I broke it. I have no grounds whatever for hoping that my love will lead to any results.
I have now told you as exactly as I can the condition of my mind. If it were possible for me in any way to compensate the injury I have done you, or to suffer retribution, I would do so. I think that our further meeting can avail nothing. But if you wish me to come again, I will come for the last time - because I have promised.
Your most sincere friend,
Paul Montague.
Mrs. Hurtle, as she read this, was torn. All that Paul had written was in accordance with the words written by herself on a scrap of paper which she still kept in her pocket. Those words would be the most generous and the fittest answer she could give. And she longed to be generous. She had all a woman's natural desire to sacrifice herself. Had he been ruined, or blind, or crippled, she would have stayed by him and have given him comfort. No sacrifice would have been too much for her if she was appreciated and loved in return.
But to sacrifice herself by going away was too much. What woman can endure such sacrifice as that? To give up not only her love, but her anger also! The idea of being tame was terrible to her. She had always protected herself by her own spirit. Now, at last, should she succumb and be trodden on like a worm?
She took out the scrap of paper and read it; the softness in it gratified her. But no, she could not send it. And so she sat down, and wrote rapidly as follows:
Paul Montague,-
I have suffered many injuries, but of all injuries this is the worst and most unmanly. Surely there never was such a coward, never so false a liar. Even poor Caradoc Hurtle never premeditated such wrong as this. What; you are to bind yourself to me by the most solemn promises that can join a man and a woman together, and then tell me - when they have affected my whole life - that they are to go for nothing, because they do not suit your view of things? I have no brother, no man near me; or you would not dare to do this.
You talk of compensation! Do you mean money? It is an insult. But as to retribution; yes. You shall suffer retribution. I desire you to come to me - according to your promise - and you will find me with a horsewhip in my hand. I will whip you till I have not a breath in my body. And then I will see whether you will dare to drag me into a court of law for the assault.
Yes; come. Now you know the welcome you shall find. But should you be afraid and break your promise, I will come to you. I will make London too hot to hold you; and if I do not find you I will go with my story to every friend you have.
I have now told you as exactly as I can the condition of my mind.
Winifred Hurtle.
Having written this she again read the short note, and again gave way to violent tears. But on that day she sent no letter. On the following morning she wrote a third, and sent that. This was the third letter:
Yes. Come.
W. H.
This letter reached Paul Montague at his lodgings. He started immediately for Islington, having no desire to delay the meeting. He had declared his purpose plainly, and she could arm herself if she pleased; but he had now told her that he was resolved to do her wrong. The worst of that was over.
The door was opened for him by Ruby, who looked unhappy. It was the second morning after the night of her imprisonment; and nothing had occurred to alleviate her woe. At this very moment her lover was in bed in Welbeck Street.
"Yes, sir; she's at home," said Ruby, with a baby in her arms and a little child hanging on to her dress. "Please, sir, is Sir Felix still in London?" Ruby had written to Sir Felix, but had not received any reply. Paul declared that he knew nothing about Sir Felix, and was shown into Mrs. Hurtle's room.
"So you have come," she said, without rising from her chair.
"Of course I came, when you desired it."
"I don't know why you should. My wishes do not seem to affect you much. Sit down. So you think it would be best that you and I should never see each other again?" She was very calm; but it seemed to him that the quietness might at any moment change to violence. He thought that her eye seemed to foretell the spring of the wild-cat.
"I did think so. What more can I say?"
"Oh, clearly nothing." Her voice was very low. "Why should a gentleman trouble himself to say any more than that he has changed his mind? Why make a fuss about such little things as a woman's life, or a woman's heart?"
"What would you have me say?"
"Ah! Suppose you were to say, 'I am a gentleman, and a man of my word, and I repent of my intended perfidy,' do you not think you might get your release that way? Might it not be possible that I should reply that I scorned to be the wife of a man who did not want me?" As she asked this she gradually raised her voice, and half lifted herself in her seat.
"You might indeed."
"But I at least will be true. I should still take you, Paul; with a confidence that I should yet win you by my devotion. I have still some kindness towards you - none to that woman who is I suppose younger and gentler than I." There was nothing to be said in answer to this. "Now that you are going to leave me, Paul, is there any advice you can give me, as to what I shall do next? I have given up every friend in the world for you. I have no home but this room. I have all the world to choose from, but no reason whatever for a choice. I have my property. What shall I do with it, Paul? You might at any rate advise me. You are in some degree responsible, are you not, for my loneliness?"
"I am. But you know that I cannot answer your questions."
"As far as I can see, I had better remain here. I do good at any rate to Mrs. Pipkin. She went into hysterics yesterday when I spoke of leaving her." She paused for a minute. "You thought my letter very short; did you not?"
"It said, I suppose, all you had to say."
"No, indeed. I had much more to say. That was the third letter I wrote. Now you shall see the other two. There is one. You may read that first." Then she handed him the sheet of paper which contained the threat of the horsewhip.
"I am glad you did not send that," he said.
"I meant it."
"But you have changed your mind?"
"Is there anything in it that seems to you to be unreasonable?"
"I am thinking of you, not of myself. I do not think that under any provocation a woman should use a horsewhip."
"Upon my word, I don't know what to say about that. When a woman has no one to help her, is she to bear everything without turning upon those who ill-use her? Shall a woman be flayed alive because it is unfeminine to fight for her own skin? If she is treated as prey, shall she not fight as a beast of prey? Oh, no; it is so unfeminine! Paul, the charm of womanly weakness entered my mind in a soft moment, and then I wrote this other letter." She handed him the scrap which had been written at Lowestoft.
He could hardly finish it because of the tears which filled his eyes. Then he came across the room and threw himself on his knees at her feet, sobbing.
"I have not sent it, you know," she said.
"It hurts me more than the other."
"Nay, I would not hurt you - not at this moment. Sometimes I feel that I could tear you limb from limb, so great is my disappointment and my rage! Why should I be such a victim? Why should life be an utter blank to me, while you have everything before you? There, you have seen them all. Which will you have?"
"I cannot now take that other as the expression of your mind."
"But it will be my feeling when you have left me - and was when you were with me at the sea-side. And it was so I felt when I got your first letter in San Francisco. Why should you kneel there? You do not love me." She put her hand upon his forehead, and pushed back his hair, and looked into his face. "I wonder whether that other woman loves you. I do not want an answer, Paul. I suppose you had better go." She took his hand and pressed it to her breast. "Tell me one thing. When you spoke of compensation, did you mean - money?"
"No; indeed no."
"I hope not. Well, go. You shall be troubled no more with Winifrid Hurtle." She took the sheet of paper which contained the threat of the horsewhip and tore it into scraps.
"Am I to keep the other?" he asked.
"No. Why? To prove my weakness? That also shall be destroyed." But she took it and restored it to her pocket-book.
"Good-bye, my friend," he said.
"No farewells. Go, and let there be no other word spoken." So he went.
As soon as the front door was closed behind him she rang the bell and begged Ruby to ask Mrs. Pipkin to come to her.
"Mrs. Pipkin," she said, as soon as the woman had entered the room; "everything is over between me and Mr. Montague." She was standing upright in the middle of the room, and as she spoke there was a smile on her face.
"Lord a' mercy," said Mrs. Pipkin, holding up both her hands.
"As I have told you that I was to be married to him, I think it right now to tell you that I'm not going to be married to him."
"Why not? and he such a nice young man, and quiet too."
"As to the why not, I don't know that I am prepared to speak about that. But I'm no longer engaged to him. That's all."
"Dearie me! and you going down to Lowestoft with him, and all." Mrs. Pipkin could not bear to think that she should hear no more of such an interesting story.
"We did go down to Lowestoft together, and we came back - not together. And there's an end of it."
"I'm sure it's not your fault, Mrs. Hurtle. When a marriage doesn't come off, it never is the lady's fault."
"If you please, Mrs. Pipkin, we won't say anything more about it."
"Are you going to leave, ma'am?" said Mrs. Pipkin, alarmed. Where should she get such another lodger as Mrs. Hurtle, who had never questioned an item in a bill since she had been in the house!
"We'll say nothing about that yet, Mrs. Pipkin."
Then Mrs. Pipkin gave her so many assurances of sympathy and help that it almost seemed that she would guarantee her lodger another lover, in place of the one who was now dismissed.