CHAPTER XIII.

CONCLUSION.

On the sands at Boulogne-sur-mer. Time, a sunny afternoon. The persons are Mrs. Kelvin and her son. The lady is half sitting half reclining in the Bath chair in which she has been wheeled down to the sands. Matthew Kelvin is sitting on a camp stool close by his mother, smoking a cigarette, and dividing his attention between the bathers and a lazy skimming of the London papers, which have just come to hand. He is looking infinitely better than when we saw him last, and his mother thinks that if she can only persuade him to stay away from that odious business for another month, he will become as strong and hearty as ever he was. It is her fixed belief that Matthew cannot really be happy out of his office, and it is a belief that he had never cared to disturb.

Mrs. Kelvin's attention, like that of her son, is half distracted from the gay scene before her. The steamer has brought her several letters, which she is reading intermittently, smiling to herself now and then as she reads, and anon lifting her eyes to note the latest arrival on the sands, or to watch for a moment the kaleidoscopic changes in the ever-varying groups of loungers and bathers with which she is surrounded. There is one letter, however, that she has kept till the last. Her face clouds as she opens it. She glances at Matthew, and sees that he is still busy with his newspapers. The letter does not take her long to read, and, with a little sigh, she puts it back into its envelope. The sigh rouses Matthew--he looks up.

"What is it, mother?" he asks. "Have Mrs. Aylmer's preserves turned out badly? or has Miss Rainbow's ancient tabby given up the ghost at last?" He takes her hand, and squeezes it with a little affectionate gesture.

"Matthew," says the old lady very gravely, "I have had a letter this morning from Olive Deane."

He turns quickly round, and his face seems to harden as he turns.

"And has she really dared to write to you?" he says, sternly. "Does she think that the past can be so soon forgotten?"

"My dear, you are not like you talk in that way," answers Mrs. Kelvin, as she lays her hand caressingly on her son's shoulder. "I never rightly understood the reason of that terrible quarrel between you and Olive. You were too ill for me to question you much at the time, and since you have been better the mere mention of Olive's name has seemed so distasteful to you, that I have spoken of her as little as possible. But to say that I should not like to know how it happened that you fell out so strangely, would be to say that I am not a woman."

Under his breath Mr. Kelvin calls himself by a very strong name for having spoken so hastily. He has carefully concealed from his mother the fact of Olive Deane having been implicated in any way with regard to his long illness. He has dreaded the effect such a revelation might have upon her. He has allowed her to surmise and wonder as to the origin of their sudden estrangement, but he has never really enlightened her.

"Olive went off to Stammars one morning with a letter from you," resumes the old lady. "An hour later you rush off after her, although you have not been out of your room for two months. You come back after a time, but Olive does not. Next day she sends for her boxes, but from the hour when she set out for Stammars till now, I have never set eyes on Olive Deane."

"Yes, it must have seemed strange to you," says Mr. Kelvin, after a pause; "but the subject was such a very painful one that I always felt reluctant to mention it."

"You never thought, dear, how painful it must be to me to be left in such a state of doubt and uncertainty."

"I know that I ought to have told you long ago. I will tell you now." He pauses while he looks at his watch and folds up his newspaper. "The facts of the case can be told you in very few words," he says. "Olive Deane, during the time that I was ill, suppressed a very important private letter that had been sent to me through the post."

"That was wrong, very wrong indeed," says the old lady, gravely. "Had any other than you told me of it, I could not have believed them." "That morning when she went to Stammars it was with a letter from me addressed to Miss Lloyd. That letter she also suppressed, after having, I presume, opened it and read it. I was very angry with her indeed. I spoke my mind very strongly on the point, and we parted--never, I hope, to meet again."

Mrs. Kelvin does not speak, and Matthew, looking up, sees that her eyes are full of tears. "How would she feel, and what would she say, if she knew everything?" he asks himself. "But she must never be told."

"What you have just told me has pained me deeply," she says at last. "But what a strange thing to do! What could her motive possibly be? I believed in her as implicitly as if she had been my own child. And then how kind and attentive she was during your illness!" Matthew shudders. "She was simply invaluable to me at that time. And so fond of you, too! And now you tell me these strange things about her. I--I can't understand it at all."

"The subject is a very painful one to both of us. Suppose we say nothing more about it," says Matthew, speaking very gently.

"I thought it strange that she never once mentions your name in her letter," says Mrs. Kelvin, as she wipes her eyes. "It is just as well to know that the girl is not without a home. She writes me that she has accepted a situation with a family who are going out to the Hague in a couple of months; so that she is not likely to trouble any of us in time to come."

At this moment, who should march gravely up, and raise his hat with what he firmly believes to be an air of the most refined fashion, but Mr. Pod Piper? Mr. Piper wears a wideawake and a fashionable tweed suit. He has taken care to button up his coat two minutes ago, so as to hide from Mr. Kelvin's eyes the elaborate filigree chain, of Palais Royal workmanship, which is festooned across his waistcoat. But the huge pin in his scarf cannot be so easily kept out of sight, and all the time he is talking to Mr. Kelvin he feels--and the feeling gives him what he calls the "tingles"--that that gentleman is critically regarding it, and as he stands there he inwardly resolves that he will make a present of it to his bosom friend, Bob Tacket, the very day he gets back to Pembridge, and that he will never wear another pin in his scarf as long as he lives.

"Why, Piper, is that you?" says Mr. Kelvin, in his most pleasant voice. "Got back safe and sound, eh? How have you enjoyed yourself?"

"Oh, splendidly, sir!--thanks to you. Never had such a holiday before. Paris is a wonderful place, sir!"

"I suppose you speak French like a native by this time, eh?"

"Not quite that, sir. I know about fifty words, and I've got along famously. Fifty words are quite enough to go from one end of the country to the other with: a smile and a shrug go such a long way with the French."

"I think you had better not cross till to-morrow morning," says Mr. Kelvin. "You can then take over with you some papers for Mr. Bray. We dine at six, and you must dine with us to-day."

Pod stammers out something--he hardly knows what--and colours up to the roots of his hair. Dine with the governor! What will they say at Pembridge when he tells them? He feels himself grow an inch taller in two minutes. After a few kind words from Mrs. Kelvin, he is dismissed till six o'clock.

Pod's trip to Paris is accounted for by the fact of his employer having made him a present of a twenty-pound note and a week's holiday. Ten pounds out of the twenty Pod has given to his mother. With the remaining ten, and some previous savings, he has enjoyed himself for a week in Paris.

"You don't mean to say, Matthew, that that boy has been to Paris all alone?"

"I suppose he has. Why not?"

"Consider his age. Consider the temptations of such a place."

"Oh, I would trust Piper anywhere. He's got the head of a man of thirty on those boy's shoulders of his."

"He seems a shrewd boy, certainly. You appear to have taken a quite uncommon interest in him of late, Matthew."

"Yes, I do feel a great interest in him. It is not often I take a fancy, but I've taken a fancy to Piper, and I mean to put him in the way of making his fortune."

"As how?"

"By having him articled to a first-class legal firm, and afterwards by purchasing a partnership for him, or else by setting him up on his own account."

"But that will cost a great deal of money."

"Not so much, perhaps, as you imagine. But whatever the cost may be, I have made up my mind to do it, and do it I will."

Mrs. Kelvin knows nothing of the great service which Pod Piper has rendered her son. She does not know that but for Pod's shrewd thoughtfulness and presence of mind she might perhaps no longer have had a son. But Matthew Kelvin knows, and does not forget.

"But if you want to have young Piper articled, why not article him to yourself, Matthew?"

"Because I think we shall be better apart, and that it will be better for him to leave Pembridge for a few years. Because, too----"

"Because what, dear?"

"Because I have some serious thoughts of retiring from business before long."

A pause. Mrs. Kelvin tries to adjust her spectacles, but cannot, her hand trembles so much.

"The business, Matthew, that was built up by your father and grandfather, through so many years of industry and thrift?"

"Yes, the business that was built up by my father and grandfather, and that has been crowned by me with many years of quiet work. Mother, I am rich enough to give it up. I shall never marry and have children, and--I am ambitious.--Because my father and grandfather lived and died two quiet country lawyers, that is no reason why I should be content to do the same. To-day is not as yesterday. I have larger views and different aims than theirs. I am sick and tired to death of the petty drudgery necessitated by a business like mine. I want to get into Parliament, I want to----"

"Into Parliament, Matthew! How proud I should be to see you there!"

"Would you? Then I hope you will see me there before this time next year. I know for a fact that Sir Thomas means to give up his seat next spring. Some of his chief supporters have been coquetting with me already. But if I become M.P., I must give up my profession and devote the whole of my time to my new duties. I hope to make my mark yet before I die."

"You are right, and I was wrong," says Mrs. Kelvin. "Business must be given up. You have a career before you. After a time, perhaps, you will marry, and then----"

"Never, mother. I shall never marry," says Matthew very gravely.

The tide has been coming in very quickly, and a bigger wave than ordinary now comes creaming up nearly to their feet. They must move at once.

"It is time to go, the breeze is growing chilly," says Mrs. Kelvin. "You must tell me more of your plans and thoughts to-morrow."

As they turn the corner of the Etablissement, they meet and pass three people--a lady and two gentlemen--who are on their way to the sands.

"What a remarkably handsome woman!" says Mrs. Kelvin to her son.

"Just my thought, mother. I wonder what country woman she is--not English, certainly."

But in saying this, Matthew Kelvin is mistaken. The lady who has attracted the admiration of himself and his mother is, in fact, none other than our old acquaintance, Miriam Byrne--now Mrs. James Baron. The gentlemen with her are her father and her husband.

Mr. Kelvin and Peter Byrne have never met, and are unaware of each other's existence. They have both been prominent actors in that strange drama which has had Eleanor Lloyd and Gerald Warburton for its central figures--a drama which must of necessity have worked itself out in an altogether different manner had neither of them, or only one of them, played a part in it. Yet, to-day, they pass each other, knowing nothing of all this, each going his own road, never to meet again. So runs the world away.

Mr. Byrne looks younger and more jaunty than ever. His new set of teeth are marvels of dentistry and gleam whitely in the sun every time he smiles--and to-day he seems to be one perpetual smile. There is a fine bright colour on his cheeks, the origin of which it might not be wise to inquire too curiously into. His blue frock-coat is tightly buttoned, so as to show off the elegance of his figure. He wears lemon-coloured gloves and carries the slimmest of umbrellas.

Nearly everyone turns to look at Miriam. Various types of French and English beauty are by no means uncommon on the sands at Boulogne, but Miriam's peculiar style of face is very rarely seen in the north of Europe, and it strikes the gay crowd with all the freshness of novelty.

Miriam is dressed in the latest fashion of seaside extravagance. She is quite conscious of the sensation which she creates as she moves slowly along, but she has been used to be stared at from the time that she can remember at all. To be admired seems to her as natural as to breathe: admiration is her birthright, and she accepts it with the serene self-unconsciousness of a queen accepting the homage of her subjects.

Mr. James Baron is one of those fair-haired, blue-eyed young Saxons who seem all to have been cast in the same mould, and of whom there is little or nothing to be said. But he is Miriam's choice, and Miriam loves him, and that is enough.

The services rendered Ambrose Murray by Peter Byrne and his daughter have been most liberally rewarded. But, in addition to this, some old mining shares which Byrne had long looked upon as utterly worthless have--to use his own phrase--"turned up trumps" at last, and the old poverty-stricken days in Amelia Terrace are at an end for ever. Through Gerald's influence, a capital situation has been found for young Baron with a large wine firm at Bordeaux, so they are all keeping holiday together for a little while before the young couple set out for their new home.

"Papa," says Miriam with a smile, "if anyone had told you, three months ago, that you would be walking here with James and me, that you would call James 'my dear boy' a hundred times a day, and that you would have actually given me away--with your blessing--to the man whose name you could not bear to hear me mention, what would you have said?"

"I should have recommended the immediate application of a strait waistcoat. But circumstances alter cases, as we have all lived to prove, and it's only your narrow-minded people who will never admit that they are in the wrong."

"Do you remember how shocked you were when I told you to what use I should put Mr. Warburton's money if it ever came into my hands?"

"Ah, my dear, you never really understood the secret of my opposition to your little love affair. James, here, has a great deal to thank me for. I knew your disposition, dear, better than you knew it yourself. I knew that if your courtship were allowed to go on in a quiet, conventional, hum-drum sort of way, without any parental opposition to infuse a spice of romance and difficulty into the affair, you would never learn to care quite so much for James, or to value him so highly as you would do if your wishes were judiciously thwarted for a time. You like your husband all the better because you have had a difficulty in making him your husband. It is a sort of weakness by no means uncommon with your sex. As I said before, James has much to thank me for."

Mr. Baron and his wife both burst into laughter.

"Trust papa for never being without an excuse!" says Miriam.

The scene changes. The accident ward in a London hospital. Time, eight p.m.

On a pallet in one corner of the ward, between which and the long row of other pallets stands a big black screen, lies all that remains of Jonas Pringle. He has breathed his last but a few minutes ago. Kneeling on the floor, her face buried in her hands, is the dead man's daughter. Run over in the streets when drunk, he has been brought here early in the afternoon. He is just able to tell his daughter's address, and then he lapses into unconsciousness. He never opens his eyes or speaks again, but with his daughter's hand clasped in his, he sleeps himself away as gently as though he were a little child hushed on its mother's breast.

Jessie is roused at last by a hand laid gently on her shoulder. She looks up, and sees one of the visiting sisters of mercy. She rises to her feet, and the sister, who has thought she was crying, is surprised to see that her eyes are dry and tearless.

"He was your father," says the sister, with a slight touch of surprise in her voice.

"Yes, he was my father," says Jessie, gently.

Then she asks for a pair of scissors, and having cut off a lock of her father's hair, she wraps it in a piece of paper, and places it inside the bosom of her dress. Then, still with dry and tearless eyes, she kisses the dead man's cold forehead.

"I've got money at home," she says to the sister, who is standing quietly by. "The parish mustn't lay a finger on him. I'll bury him myself."

Then, with a muttered good night, she turns and goes. She stands for a moment at the hospital door, gazing up and down, the rainy, lamp-lit street, and shudders as she gazes. Then she draws her scanty shawl more closely round her, and stepping out into the rain, she hurries away--whither?

Again the scene changes. The great drawing-room at Stammars. Time, nine p.m. of a January evening.

It is Miss Sophy's birthday, and there is a large gathering of young people to celebrate the event. There are only five grown-up persons in the room, and all of them are known to us. First and foremost come Sir Thomas and Lady Dudgeon, looking exactly as they have looked any time these ten years. That thin, dreamy-looking, white-haired gentleman in the corner, with a very tiny young lady on his knee who is resting from her romps for a few minutes, is Mr. Ambrose Murray. That dark, foreign-looking gentleman, and that handsome lady, who are walking through a quadrille with two partners of the mature age of twelve, are Mr. and Mrs. Warburton. They two, together with Mr. Murray, having eaten their Christmas dinner with dear, kind-hearted Miss Bellamy, have come down for a month's visit to Stammars.

Mr. Murray can now bear his own name, and is as free to come and go as any one. Acting on the advice of friends, he went back to the asylum from which he had escaped, and gave himself up. A case was then prepared for the Home Secretary, and that high functionary, having considered the same at his leisure, has been graciously pleased to advise that Ambrose Murray be granted a free pardon, and that the conviction recorded against him be considered null and void.

Eleanor and Gerald have been married three months, and are as happy as they deserve to be. This morning they walked through the lanes and fields, as far as the little churchyard in which Jacob Lloyd sleeps his last. Eleanor always feels as if she must have had two fathers--one in the past and one in the present. With tears in her eyes, she talks to her husband of the dear father who lies here, and she kisses the wreath of everlastings she has brought with her before she lays it gently on his grave.

On their way back they call at the lodge to see "little Miss Waif," as Gerald calls the child whom, a year ago, he found so strangely in the hedge bottom. It has never been claimed, and probably never will be now. Eleanor has had it christened after herself, and is very fond of it. Gerald, too, has a sneaking sort of liking for the child. He cannot forget that it was while he was holding it in his arms, and blushing to the roots of his hair, that he first saw Eleanor, and first spoke to her. Many a laugh have they had about that incident since their marriage. That the child's future will be carefully looked after we may safely assume.

When ten o'clock strikes, the juveniles troop off to supper, and Sir Thomas buttonholes Gerald, and takes him off to the smoking-room. There is something on his mind which he is evidently bursting to confide to Gerald.

"Look here, Pomeroy," he says--he can't forget the old familiar name--"I'm going to tell you something that I've not told to anybody, and that I wouldn't have her ladyship know just yet for the world. What do you think? I've made up my mind to resign my seat!"

"You do indeed surprise me!" says Gerald.

"I mention this to you because I think it would be a good chance for you to try to get into parliament yourself. You know, Pomeroy, I always said you were cut out for an M.P."

"You flatter me, Sir Thomas. All the same, I'm greatly obliged to you for honouring me with your confidence in this matter, although I shall not be able to do what you have so kindly suggested. My wife and I have made up our minds to travel for a couple of years before I settle down to anything."

"Ah, that's a pity now! because I could have given you such a lot of support."

"May I ask what your motives are for resigning your seat?"

"I've found out, Pomeroy, that it was never intended by Nature that I should write M.P. after my name. And then I hate London. I'm never either well in health or happy in mind when I'm there. Give me, instead, what my wife calls 'the dull pursuits of country life.' Though why she should call them dull, I can't for the life of me see. What can be more exciting, for instance, than a show of prize bullocks, or a good ploughing match? And where is there anything in all London half as pretty as a field of wheat on a midsummer morning, especially when the crop's a good one, and the field happens to be your own?"

"It will be a great disappointment to her ladyship."

"That's the deuce of it," says Sir Thomas, with a dismal shake of the head. "Between you and me, I dread telling her. There will be an explosion, my boy--an explosion. But I've made up my mind to go through with it, and go through with it I will."

He jingles the loose change in his pocket and whistles under his breath, but is evidently far from easy in his mind.

It need hardly be said that Eleanor stands higher in the favour of Lady Dudgeon than ever she did before. If she is penniless herself, has she not a husband who is worth twenty thousand pounds? Her ladyship could afford to condone much in face of such a golden fact as that. Not that there is anything to condone in the case of Eleanor, as matters have turned out; but had it unhappily been the case that Gerald was not his uncle's heir, it may be feared that Eleanor's offences would have been altogether past condonation.

The evening wears on, and one after another the young people take their leave, till only a few are left, who are not going home till morning. These, tired out at last with dancing and romping, gather round Ambrose Murray, and beg of him to tell them a fairy tale. So he tells them a tale in which there is a giant and a dwarf, and a castle with walls of brass, and a magic horn that hangs by the gate, and a beautiful princess who is shut up in a dungeon, and a brave knight who has many wonderful adventures and hair-breadth escapes.

When the tale is done, being a little weary, he bids the children a kindly goodnight, then he shakes hands with Sir Thomas and Lady Dudgeon, and asks them to excuse his retiring. Eleanor goes with him to the foot of the stairs, where they kiss each other and say goodnight. Eleanor stands and watches him as he goes slowly up the wide staircase, looking very tired, she thinks. He turns when he reaches the landing, and smiles, and waves his hand to her. She blows him a last kiss. Next moment he is gone, and she hurries back to the drawing-room.

When Ambrose Murray reaches his room, he rakes the glowing embers together, and puts out his candle. He often sits in the dark for hours. Then he draws up one of the blinds, and looks out. The atmosphere is very clear, and the sky is brilliant with stars. He stands there for a long time, gazing up at the stars with rapt look on his face. His thoughts are evidently far away--far away, it may be, from earth and all its weariness and troubles. By-and-by he goes and kneels down by the side of his bed, and clasps his hands.

And there next morning they find him, still kneeling, still with clasped hands, and with a look of ineffable peace on his white, worn face--of that peace which passeth all understanding.

THE END.

______________________________________________ BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD, SURREY.