CHAPTER XXXV.

LIGHT AT LAST.

Some weeks later, in an obscure room of a low and dilapidated lodging-house, in a low and dilapidated neighbourhood, there sat a man one evening in the coming twilight: a towering, gaunt skeleton, whose remarkably long arms and legs looked little more than skin and bone. The arms were fully exposed to view, since their owner, though he possessed and wore a waistcoat, dispensed with the use of a shirt. An article, once a coat, lay on the floor, to be donned at will--if it could be got into for the holes. The man sat on the floor in a corner, his head finding a resting-place against the wall, and he had dropped into a light sleep; but if ever famine was depicted in a face, it was in his. Unwashed, unshaven, with matted hair and feverish lips: the cheeks were hollow, the nostrils white and pinched. Some one tried, and shook the door; it aroused him, and he started up, but only to cower in a bending attitude, and listen.

"I hear you," cried a voice. "How are you tonight, Joe? Open the door."

The voice was not one he knew; consequently not one that might be responded to.

"Do you call this politeness, Joe Nicholls? If you don't open the door, I shall take the liberty of opening it for myself: which will put you to the trouble of mending the fastenings afterwards."

"Who are you?" cried Nicholls, reading determination in the voice. "I'm gone to bed, and I can't admit folks tonight."

"Gone to bed at eight o'clock?"

"Yes: I am ill."

"I give you one minute, and then I come in. You will open it, if you wish to save trouble."

Nicholls yielded to his fate: and opened the door.

The gentleman--he looked like one--cast his keen eyes round the room. There was not a vestige of furniture in it; nothing but the bare dirty walls, from which the mortar crumbled, and the bare dirty boards.

"What did you mean by saying you were gone to bed, eh?"

"So I was. I was asleep there," pointing to the corner, "and that's my bed. What do you want?" added Nicholls, peering at the stranger's face in the gloom of the evening, but seeing it imperfectly, for his hat was drawn low over it.

"A little talk with you. That last sweepstake you put into----"

The man lifted his face, and burst forth with such eagerness that the stranger could only arrest his own words and listen.

"It was a swindle from beginning to end. I had scraped together the ten shillings to put in it; and I drew the right horse, and was shuffled out of the gains, and I have never had my dues; not a farthing of 'em. Since then I've been ill, and I can't get about to better myself. Are you come, sir, to make it right?"

"Some"--the stranger coughed--"friends of mine were in it also," said he: "and they lost their money."

"Everybody lost it; the getters-up bolted with all they had drawn into their fingers. Have they been took, do you know?"

"All in good time; they have left their trail. So you have been ill, have you?"

"Ill! just take a sight at me! There's a arm for a big man."

He stretched out his naked arm for inspection: it appeared as if a touch would snap it. The stranger laid his hand upon its fingers, and his other hand appeared to be stealing furtively towards his own pocket.

"I should say this looks like starvation, Joe."

"Some'at akin to it."

A pause of unsuspicion, and the handcuffs were clapped on the astonished man. He started up with an oath.

"No need to make a noise, Nicholls," said the detective, with a careless air, as he lifted off his hat: "I have two men waiting outside. Do you know me?"

The prisoner gave a gasp. "Why, it's Mr. Pullet!"

"Yes; it's Mr. Pullet, Joe."

"I swear I wasn't in the plate robbery," passionately uttered the man. "I knew of it, but I didn't join 'em, and I never had the worth of as much as a saltspoon, after it was melted down. And they call me a coward, and they leave me here to starve and die! Sir, I swear I wasn't in it."

"We'll talk of the plate robbery another time," said the officer; "you have got these bracelets on, my man, for another sort of bracelet. A diamond one. Don't you remember it?"

The prisoner's mouth fell. "I thought that was over and done with, all this time---- I don't know what you mean," he added, correcting himself.

"No," said the officer, "it is just beginning. The bracelet is found, and has been traced to you. You were a clever fellow, Joe, and I had my doubts of you at the time, you know. I thought then you were too clever to go on long."

"I should be ashamed to play the sneak, and catch a fellow in this way," cried Joe, driven to exasperation. "Why couldn't you come openly, in your proper clothes--not playing the spy in the garb of a friendly civilian?"

"My men are in their proper clothes,'" was the equable answer, "and you will have the honour of their escort presently. I came in because they did not know you, and I did. You might have had a host of friends around you here."

"Three officers to take a single man, and he a skeleton!" retorted Nicholls, with a great show of indignation.

"Ay; but you were powerful once, and ferocious too. The skeleton aspect is a recent one."

"And to be took for nothing! I know naught of any bracelet."

"Don't trouble yourself with inventions, Nicholls. Your friend is safe in our hands, and has made a full confession."

"What friend?" asked Nicholls, too eagerly.

"The lady you got to dispose of it for you."

Nicholls was startled to incaution. "She hasn't split, has she?"

"Every particular she knew or guessed at. Split to save herself."

"Then there's no faith in woman."

"There never was yet," returned Mr. Pullet. "If they are not at the top and bottom of every mischief, Joe, they are sure to be in the middle. Is this your coat?" touching it gingerly.

"She's a disgrace to the female sex, she is!" raved Nicholls, disregarding the question as to his coat. "But it's a relief now I'm took: it's a weight off my mind. I was always expecting it: and I shall, at any rate, get food in the Old Bailey."

"Ah," said the officer, "you were in good service as a respectable servant, Nicholls: you had better have stuck to your duties."

"The temptation was so great," returned the man, who had evidently abandoned all idea of denial; and, now that he had done so, was ready to be voluble with remembrances and particulars.

"Don't say anything to me. It will be used against you."

"It all came of my long legs," cried Nicholls, ignoring the friendly injunction, and proceeding to enlarge on the feat he had performed. And it may as well be observed that legs so long as his are rarely seen. "I have never had a happy hour since; it's true, sir. I was second footman there, and a good place I had: and I have wished, thousands of times, that the bracelet had been at the bottom of the sea. Our folks had took a house in the neighbourhood of Ascot for the race-week; they had left me at home to take care of the kitchen-maid and another inferior or two, carrying the rest of the servants with them. I had to clean the winders before they returned, and I had druv it off till the Thursday evening, when out I got on the balqueny, intending to begin with the back drawing-room----"

"What do you say you got out on?"

"The balqueny. The thing with the green rails round it, that encloses the winder. While I was leaning over the rails sorting my wash-leathers, I heard something like click, click, click, going on in the fellow-room next door--which was Colonel Hope's--just as if light articles of some sort were being laid sharp on a table. Presently two voices began to talk, a lady's and a gentleman's, and I listened----"

"No good ever comes of listening, Joe," interrupted the officer.

"I didn't listen for the sake of listening; but it was awful hot, standing outside there in the sun, and listening was better than working. I didn't want to hear, neither, for I was thinking of my own concerns, and what a fool I was to have idled away my time all day till the sun come on the back winders. Bit by bit, I heard what they were talking of--that it was jewels they had got there, and that one of 'em was worth two hundred guineas. Thinks I, if that was mine, I'd do no more work. After a while, I heard them go out of the room, and I thought I'd have a look at the rich things, so I stepped over slant-ways on to the little ledge running along the houses, holding on by our balqueny, and then I passed my hands along the wall till I got hold of their balqueny--but one with ordinary legs and arms couldn't have done it. You couldn't, sir."

"Perhaps not," remarked the officer.

"There wasn't fur to fall, if I had fell, only on to the kitchen leads underneath: leastways not fur enough to kill one, and the leads was flat. But I didn't fall, and I raised myself on to their balqueny, and looked in. My! what a show it was! stunning jewels, all laid out there: so close, that if I had put my hand inside, it must have struck all among 'em: and the fiend prompted me to take one. I didn't stop to look, I didn't stop to think: the one that twinkled the brightest and had the most stones in it was the nearest to me, and I clutched it, and slipped it into my footman's undress jacket, and stepped back again."

"And got safe into your balcony?"

"Yes, and inside the room. I didn't clean the winder that night. I was upset like, by what I had done; and, if I could have put it back again, I think I should; but there was no opportunity. I wrapped it in my winder-leather, and then in a sheet of brown paper, and then I put it up the chimbley in one of the spare bedrooms. I was up the next morning afore five, and I cleaned my winders: I'd no trouble to awake myself, for I had never slept. The same day, towards evening--or the next was it? I forget--you called, sir, and asked me some questions--whether we had seen any one on the leads at the back, and such like. I said that master was just come home from Ascot, and would you be pleased to speak to him."

"Ah!" again remarked the officer, "you were a clever fellow that day. But if my suspicions had not been strongly directed to another quarter, I might have looked you up more sharply."

"I kep' it by me for a month or two, and then I gave warning to leave. I thought I'd have my fling, and I had made acquaintance with her--that lady you've just spoke of--and somehow she wormed out of me that I had got it, and I let her dispose of it for me, for she said she knew how to do it without danger."

"What did you get for it?"

The skeleton shook his head. "Thirty-four pounds, and I had counted on a hundred and fifty. She took her oath she had not helped herself to a sixpence."

"Oaths are plentiful with some ladies," remarked Mr. Pullet.

"She stood to it she hadn't kep' a farthing, and she stopped and helped me to spend the change. After that was done she went over to stop with somebody else who was in luck. And I have tried to go on, and I can't: honestly or dishonestly, it seems all one: nothing prospers, and I'm naked and famishing. I wish I was dying."

"Evil courses rarely do prosper, Nicholls," said the officer, as he called in the policemen and consigned the gentleman to their care.

So Gerard Hope was innocent!

"But how was it you skilful detectives could not be on this man's scent?" asked Colonel Hope of Mr. Pullet, when he heard the tale.

"Colonel, I was thrown off it. Your positive belief in your nephew's guilt infected me; appearances were certainly very strong against him. Neither was his own manner altogether satisfactory to my mind. He treated the obvious suspicion of him more as a jest than in earnest; never, so far as I heard, giving a downright hearty denial to it."

"He was a fool," interjected the colonel.

"Also," continued Mr. Pullet, "Miss Dalrymple's evidence served to throw me off other suspicion. She said, if you remember, sir, that she did not leave the room; but it now appears that she did leave it when your nephew did, though only for a few moments. Those few moments sufficed to do the job."

"It is strange she could not tell the exact truth," growled the colonel.

"She probably thought she was exact enough, since she remained outside the door, and could answer for it that no one entered by it. She forgot the window. I thought of the window the instant the loss was mentioned to me; but Miss Dalrymple's assertion, that she never had the window out of her view, prevented my dwelling on it. I did go to the next door, and saw this very fellow who committed the robbery, but his manner was sufficiently satisfactory. He talked too freely; I did not like that; but I found he had been in the same service fifteen months; and, as I must repeat, in my mind the guilt lay with another."

"It is a confoundedly unpleasant affair for me," cried the colonel. "I have published my nephew's disgrace all over London."

"It is more unpleasant for him, colonel," was the rejoinder of Mr. Pullet.

"And I have kept him short of money, and suffered him to be sued for debt; and I have let him go and live among the runaway scamps over the water; and now he is working as a merchant's clerk! In short, I have played the very deuce with him."

"But reparation lies, doubtless, in your own heart and hands, colonel."

"I don't know that, sir," testily concluded the colonel.

Once more Gerard Hope entered his uncle's house; not as an interloper, stealing into it in secret; but as an honoured guest, to whom reparation was due, and must be made. Alice Dalrymple chanced to be alone. She was leaning back in her invalid-chair, a joyous flush on her wasted cheek, a joyous happiness in her eye. Still the shadow of coming death was there, and Mr. Hope was shocked to see her--more shocked and startled than he had expected, or chose to express.

"Oh, Alice! what has done this?"

"That has helped it on," she answered, pointing to the bracelet; which, returned to its true owner, lay on the table. "I should not have lived very many years; of that I am convinced: but I think this has taken a little from my life. The bracelet has been the cause of misery to many of us. Lady Sarah says she shall never regard it but as an ill-starred trinket, or wear it with any pleasure."

"But, Alice, why should you have suffered it thus to affect you?" he remonstrated. "You knew your own innocence, and you say you believed and trusted in mine: what did you fear?

"I will tell you, Gerard," she whispered, a deeper hectic rising to her cheeks. "I could not have confessed my fear, even in dying; it was too distressing, too terrible; but now that it is all clear, I will tell it. _I believed my sister had taken the bracelet_."

"Ah," said Gerard, carelessly.

"Selina called to see me that evening, as you saw, and she was for a minute or two in the room alone with the trinkets: I went upstairs to get a letter. She wanted money badly at the time, as you cannot fail to remember, and I feared she had been tempted to take the bracelet--just as this unfortunate man was tempted. Oh, Gerard! the dread of it has been upon me night and day, preying upon my fears, weighing down my spirits, wearing away my health and my life. Now hope would be in the ascendant, now fear. And I had to bear it all in silence. It is that enforced, dreadful silence that has so tried me."

"Why did you not question Selina?"

"I did. She denied it. As good as laughed at me. But you know how light-headed and careless her nature is; and the fear remained with me."

"It must have been a morbid fear, Alice."

"Not so--if you knew all. But it is at an end, and I am very thankful. I have only one hope now," she added, looking up at him with a sunny smile. "Ah, Gerard, can you not guess it?"

"No," he answered, in a stifled voice. "I can only guess that you are lost to me."

"Lost to all here. Have you forgotten our brief conversation, the night you went into exile? I told you then there was one far more worthy of you than I could have ever been."

"None will ever be half so worthy; or--I will say it, Alice, in spite of your warning hand--half so loved."

"Gerard," sinking her voice, "she has waited for you."

"Nonsense," he rejoined.

"She has. When she shall be your wife, you may tell her that I saw it and said it. She might have had John Cust."

"My darling----"

"Stay, Gerard," she gravely interrupted; "those words of endearment are not for me. Can you deny that you love her?"

"Perhaps I do--in a degree. Next to yourself----"

"Put me out of your thoughts whilst we speak. If I were--where I may perhaps soon be, would she not be dearer to you than any one on earth? Would you not be well pleased to make her your wife?"

"Yes, I might be."

"That is enough, Gerard. Frances----"

"Wait a bit," interrupted Gerard. "Don't you think, Alice, that you have the morbid feeling on you yet? With this dread removed--which, as you truly express it, must have been to you a very nightmare--you may, nay, I think you will, regain health and strength, and be a comfort to us all for years."

"I may regain it in a measure. It is simply impossible that in any case my life will be a long one. Let me--dear Gerard!--let me make some one happy while I may! Hark! that's the door--and this is her light step on the stairs!"

Frances Chenevix came in. "Good gracious, is it you, Gerard!" she exclaimed. "You and Alice look as if you had been talking secrets."

"So we have been," said Alice. "Frances, what can we do to keep him amongst us? Do you know what Colonel Hope has told him?"

"No. What?"

"That though he shall be reinstated in favour as to money matters, he shall not be in his affection or his home, unless he prove sorry for that past rebellion of his."

"When did the colonel tell him? When did he see him?"

"This morning: before Gerard came here. I think Gerard _is_ sorry for it: you must help him to be more so."

"Fanny," said Gerard, while a damask flush mantled in her cheeks, deeper than the hectic making havoc with those of Alice, "_will_ you help me?"

"As if I could make head or tail of what you two are rambling about!" cried she, as she attempted to turn away; but Gerard caught her to his side.

"Fanny--will you drive me again from the house?"

She lifted her eyes, twinkling with a little spice of mischief. "I did not drive you before."

"In a manner, yes. Do you know what did drive me?" She had known it at the time; and Gerard read it in her face.

"I see it all," he murmured; "you have been far kinder to me than I deserved. Fanny, let me try and repay you for it."

"Are you sure you would not rather have Alice?" she asked, in her clear-sighted independence.

He shook his head sorrowfully. Alice caught their hands together, and held them between her own, with a mental aspiration for their life's future happiness. Some time back she could not have breathed it in so fervent a spirit: but--as she had said--the present world and its hopes were closing to her.

"But you know, Gerard," cried Lady Frances, in a saucy tone, "if you ever do help yourself to somebody's bracelet in reality, you must not expect me to go to prison with you."

"Yes, I shall," he answered promptly. "A wife must share the fortunes of her husband. She takes him for better--or for worse."

He sealed the compact with a kiss. And there was much rejoicing that day in the house of Colonel Hope.