Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories by Oscar Wilde

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Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories

by Oscar Wilde

Contents

Lord Arthur Savile's Crime

The Canterville Ghost

The Sphinx Without a Secret

The Model Millionaire

The Portrait of Mr. W. H.

LORD ARTHUR SAVILE'S CRIME

CHAPTER I

IT was Lady Windermere's last reception before Easter, and Bentinck

House was even more crowded than usual.  Six Cabinet Ministers had

come on from the Speaker's Levee in their stars and ribands, all

the pretty women wore their smartest dresses, and at the end of the

picture-gallery stood the Princess Sophia of Carlsruhe, a heavy

Tartar-looking lady, with tiny black eyes and wonderful emeralds,

talking bad French at the top of her voice, and laughing

immoderately at everything that was said to her.  It was certainly

a wonderful medley of people.  Gorgeous peeresses chatted affably

to violent Radicals, popular preachers brushed coat-tails with

eminent sceptics, a perfect bevy of bishops kept following a stout

prima-donna from room to room, on the staircase stood several Royal

Academicians, disguised as artists, and it was said that at one

time the supper-room was absolutely crammed with geniuses.  In

fact, it was one of Lady Windermere's best nights, and the Princess

stayed till nearly half-past eleven.

---

As soon as she had gone, Lady Windermere returned to the picture-

gallery, where a celebrated political economist was solemnly

explaining the scientific theory of music to an indignant virtuoso

from Hungary, and began to talk to the Duchess of Paisley.  She

looked wonderfully beautiful with her grand ivory throat, her large

blue forget-me-not eyes, and her heavy coils of golden hair.  OR

PUR they were - not that pale straw colour that nowadays usurps the

gracious name of gold, but such gold as is woven into sunbeams or

hidden in strange amber; and they gave to her face something of the

frame of a saint, with not a little of the fascination of a sinner.

She was a curious psychological study.  Early in life she had

discovered the important truth that nothing looks so like innocence

as an indiscretion; and by a series of reckless escapades, half of

them quite harmless, she had acquired all the privileges of a

personality.  She had more than once changed her husband; indeed,

Debrett credits her with three marriages; but as she had never

changed her lover, the world had long ago ceased to talk scandal

about her.  She was now forty years of age, childless, and with

that inordinate passion for pleasure which is the secret of

remaining young.

Suddenly she looked eagerly round the room, and said, in her clear

contralto voice, 'Where is my cheiromantist?'

'Your what, Gladys?' exclaimed the Duchess, giving an involuntary

start.

'My cheiromantist, Duchess; I can't live without him at present.'

'Dear Gladys! you are always so original,' murmured the Duchess,

trying to remember what a cheiromantist really was, and hoping it

was not the same as a cheiropodist.

'He comes to see my hand twice a week regularly,' continued Lady

Windermere, 'and is most interesting about it.'

'Good heavens!' said the Duchess to herself, 'he is a sort of

cheiropodist after all.  How very dreadful.  I hope he is a

foreigner at any rate.  It wouldn't be quite so bad then.'

'I must certainly introduce him to you.'

'Introduce him!' cried the Duchess; 'you don't mean to say he is

here?' and she began looking about for a small tortoise-shell fan

---

and a very tattered lace shawl, so as to be ready to go at a

moment's notice.

'Of course he is here; I would not dream of giving a party without

him.  He tells me I have a pure psychic hand, and that if my thumb

had been the least little bit shorter, I should have been a

confirmed pessimist, and gone into a convent.'

'Oh, I see!' said the Duchess, feeling very much relieved; 'he

tells fortunes, I suppose?'

'And misfortunes, too,' answered Lady Windermere, 'any amount of

them.  Next year, for instance, I am in great danger, both by land

and sea, so I am going to live in a balloon, and draw up my dinner

in a basket every evening.  It is all written down on my little

finger, or on the palm of my hand, I forget which.'

'But surely that is tempting Providence, Gladys.'

'My dear Duchess, surely Providence can resist temptation by this

time.  I think every one should have their hands told once a month,

so as to know what not to do.  Of course, one does it all the same,

but it is so pleasant to be warned.  Now if some one doesn't go and

fetch Mr. Podgers at once, I shall have to go myself.'

'Let me go, Lady Windermere,' said a tall handsome young man, who

was standing by, listening to the conversation with an amused

smile.

'Thanks so much, Lord Arthur; but I am afraid you wouldn't

recognise him.'

'If he is as wonderful as you say, Lady Windermere, I couldn't well

miss him.  Tell me what he is like, and I'll bring him to you at

once.'

'Well, he is not a bit like a cheiromantist.  I mean he is not

mysterious, or esoteric, or romantic-looking.  He is a little,

stout man, with a funny, bald head, and great gold-rimmed

spectacles; something between a family doctor and a country

attorney.  I'm really very sorry, but it is not my fault.  People

are so annoying.  All my pianists look exactly like poets, and all

my poets look exactly like pianists; and I remember last season

asking a most dreadful conspirator to dinner, a man who had blown

up ever so many people, and always wore a coat of mail, and carried

---

a dagger up his shirt-sleeve; and do you know that when he came he

looked just like a nice old clergyman, and cracked jokes all the

evening?  Of course, he was very amusing, and all that, but I was

awfully disappointed; and when I asked him about the coat of mail,

he only laughed, and said it was far too cold to wear in England.

Ah, here is Mr. Podgers!  Now, Mr. Podgers, I want you to tell the

Duchess of Paisley's hand.  Duchess, you must take your glove off.

No, not the left hand, the other.'

'Dear Gladys, I really don't think it is quite right,' said the

Duchess, feebly unbuttoning a rather soiled kid glove.

'Nothing interesting ever is,' said Lady Windermere:  'ON A FAIT LE

MONDE AINSI.  But I must introduce you.  Duchess, this is Mr.

Podgers, my pet cheiromantist.  Mr. Podgers, this is the Duchess of

Paisley, and if you say that she has a larger mountain of the moon

than I have, I will never believe in you again.'

'I am sure, Gladys, there is nothing of the kind in my hand,' said

the Duchess gravely.

'Your Grace is quite right,' said Mr. Podgers, glancing at the

little fat hand with its short square fingers, 'the mountain of the

moon is not developed.  The line of life, however, is excellent.

Kindly bend the wrist.  Thank you.  Three distinct lines on the

RASCETTE!  You will live to a great age, Duchess, and be extremely

happy.  Ambition - very moderate, line of intellect not

exaggerated, line of heart - '

'Now, do be indiscreet, Mr. Podgers,' cried Lady Windermere.

'Nothing would give me greater pleasure,' said Mr. Podgers, bowing,

'if the Duchess ever had been, but I am sorry to say that I see

great permanence of affection, combined with a strong sense of

duty.'

'Pray go on, Mr. Podgers,' said the Duchess, looking quite pleased.

'Economy is not the least of your Grace's virtues,' continued Mr.

Podgers, and Lady Windermere went off into fits of laughter.

'Economy is a very good thing,' remarked the Duchess complacently;

'when I married Paisley he had eleven castles, and not a single

house fit to live in.'

---

'And now he has twelve houses, and not a single castle,' cried Lady

Windermere.

'Well, my dear,' said the Duchess, 'I like - '

'Comfort,' said Mr. Podgers, 'and modern improvements, and hot

water laid on in every bedroom.  Your Grace is quite right.

Comfort is the only thing our civilisation can give us.

'You have told the Duchess's character admirably, Mr. Podgers, and

now you must tell Lady Flora's'; and in answer to a nod from the

smiling hostess, a tall girl, with sandy Scotch hair, and high

shoulder-blades, stepped awkwardly from behind the sofa, and held

out a long, bony hand with spatulate fingers.

'Ah, a pianist! I see,' said Mr. Podgers, 'an excellent pianist,

but perhaps hardly a musician.  Very reserved, very honest, and

with a great love of animals.'

'Quite true!' exclaimed the Duchess, turning to Lady Windermere,

'absolutely true!  Flora keeps two dozen collie dogs at Macloskie,

and would turn our town house into a menagerie if her father would

let her.'

'Well, that is just what I do with my house every Thursday

evening,' cried Lady Windermere, laughing, 'only I like lions

better than collie dogs.'

'Your one mistake, Lady Windermere,' said Mr. Podgers, with a

pompous bow.

'If a woman can't make her mistakes charming, she is only a

female,' was the answer.  'But you must read some more hands for

us.  Come, Sir Thomas, show Mr. Podgers yours'; and a genial-

looking old gentleman, in a white waistcoat, came forward, and held

out a thick rugged hand, with a very long third finger.

'An adventurous nature; four long voyages in the past, and one to

come.  Been ship-wrecked three times.  No, only twice, but in

danger of a shipwreck your next journey.  A strong Conservative,

very punctual, and with a passion for collecting curiosities.  Had

a severe illness between the ages sixteen and eighteen.  Was left a

fortune when about thirty.  Great aversion to cats and Radicals.'

'Extraordinary!' exclaimed Sir Thomas; 'you must really tell my

---

wife's hand, too.'

'Your second wife's,' said Mr. Podgers quietly, still keeping Sir

Thomas's hand in his.  'Your second wife's.  I shall be charmed';

but Lady Marvel, a melancholy-looking woman, with brown hair and

sentimental eyelashes, entirely declined to have her past or her

future exposed; and nothing that Lady Windermere could do would

induce Monsieur de Koloff, the Russian Ambassador, even to take his

gloves off.  In fact, many people seemed afraid to face the odd

little man with his stereotyped smile, his gold spectacles, and his

bright, beady eyes; and when he told poor Lady Fermor, right out

before every one, that she did not care a bit for music, but was

extremely fond of musicians, it was generally felt that cheiromancy

was a most dangerous science, and one that ought not to be

encouraged, except in a TETE-A-TETE.

Lord Arthur Savile, however, who did not know anything about Lady

Fermor's unfortunate story, and who had been watching Mr. Podgers

with a great deal of interest, was filled with an immense curiosity

to have his own hand read, and feeling somewhat shy about putting

himself forward, crossed over the room to where Lady Windermere was

sitting, and, with a charming blush, asked her if she thought Mr.

Podgers would mind.

'Of course, he won't mind,' said Lady Windermere, 'that is what he

is here for.  All my lions, Lord Arthur, are performing lions, and

jump through hoops whenever I ask them.  But I must warn you

beforehand that I shall tell Sybil everything.  She is coming to

lunch with me to-morrow, to talk about bonnets, and if Mr. Podgers

finds out that you have a bad temper, or a tendency to gout, or a

wife living in Bayswater, I shall certainly let her know all about

it.'

Lord Arthur smiled, and shook his head.  'I am not afraid,' he

answered.  'Sybil knows me as well as I know her.'

'Ah!  I am a little sorry to hear you say that.  The proper basis

for marriage is a mutual misunderstanding.  No, I am not at all

cynical, I have merely got experience, which, however, is very much

the same thing.  Mr. Podgers, Lord Arthur Savile is dying to have

his hand read.  Don't tell him that he is engaged to one of the

most beautiful girls in London, because that appeared in the

MORNING POST a month ago.

'Dear Lady Windermere,' cried the Marchioness of Jedburgh, 'do let

---

Mr. Podgers stay here a little longer.  He has just told me I

should go on the stage, and I am so interested.'

'If he has told you that, Lady Jedburgh, I shall certainly take him

away.  Come over at once, Mr. Podgers, and read Lord Arthur's

hand.'

'Well,' said Lady Jedburgh, making a little MOUE as she rose from

the sofa, 'if I am not to be allowed to go on the stage, I must be

allowed to be part of the audience at any rate.'

'Of course; we are all going to be part of the audience,' said Lady

Windermere; 'and now, Mr. Podgers, be sure and tell us something

nice.  Lord Arthur is one of my special favourites.'

But when Mr. Podgers saw Lord Arthur's hand he grew curiously pale,

and said nothing.  A shudder seemed to pass through him, and his

great bushy eyebrows twitched convulsively, in an odd, irritating

way they had when he was puzzled.  Then some huge beads of

perspiration broke out on his yellow forehead, like a poisonous

dew, and his fat fingers grew cold and clammy.

Lord Arthur did not fail to notice these strange signs of

agitation, and, for the first time in his life, he himself felt

fear.  His impulse was to rush from the room, but he restrained

himself.  It was better to know the worst, whatever it was, than to

be left in this hideous uncertainty.

'I am waiting, Mr. Podgers,' he said.

'We are all waiting,' cried Lady Windermere, in her quick,

impatient manner, but the cheiromantist made no reply.

'I believe Arthur is going on the stage,' said Lady Jedburgh, 'and

that, after your scolding, Mr. Podgers is afraid to tell him so.'

Suddenly Mr. Podgers dropped Lord Arthur's right hand, and seized

hold of his left, bending down so low to examine it that the gold

rims of his spectacles seemed almost to touch the palm.  For a

moment his face became a white mask of horror, but he soon

recovered his SANG-FROID, and looking up at Lady Windermere, said

with a forced smile, 'It is the hand of a charming young man.

'Of course it is!' answered Lady Windermere, 'but will he be a

charming husband?  That is what I want to know.'

---

'All charming young men are,' said Mr. Podgers.

'I don't think a husband should be too fascinating,' murmured Lady

Jedburgh pensively, 'it is so dangerous.'

'My dear child, they never are too fascinating,' cried Lady

Windermere.  'But what I want are details.  Details are the only

things that interest.  What is going to happen to Lord Arthur?'

'Well, within the next few months Lord Arthur will go a voyage - '

'Oh yes, his honeymoon, of course!'

'And lose a relative.'

'Not his sister, I hope?' said Lady Jedburgh, in a piteous tone of

voice.

'Certainly not his sister,' answered Mr. Podgers, with a

deprecating wave of the hand, 'a distant relative merely.'

'Well, I am dreadfully disappointed,' said Lady Windermere.  'I

have absolutely nothing to tell Sybil to-morrow.  No one cares

about distant relatives nowadays.  They went out of fashion years

ago.  However, I suppose she had better have a black silk by her;

it always does for church, you know.  And now let us go to supper.

They are sure to have eaten everything up, but we may find some hot

soup.  Francois used to make excellent soup once, but he is so

agitated about politics at present, that I never feel quite certain

about him.  I do wish General Boulanger would keep quiet.  Duchess,

I am sure you are tired?'

'Not at all, dear Gladys,' answered the Duchess, waddling towards

the door.  'I have enjoyed myself immensely, and the cheiropodist,

I mean the cheiromantist, is most interesting.  Flora, where can my

tortoise-shell fan be?  Oh, thank you, Sir Thomas, so much.  And my

lace shawl, Flora?  Oh, thank you, Sir Thomas, very kind, I'm

sure'; and the worthy creature finally managed to get downstairs

without dropping her scent-bottle more than twice.

All this time Lord Arthur Savile had remained standing by the

fireplace, with the same feeling of dread over him, the same

sickening sense of coming evil.  He smiled sadly at his sister, as

she swept past him on Lord Plymdale's arm, looking lovely in her

---

pink brocade and pearls, and he hardly heard Lady Windermere when

she called to him to follow her.  He thought of Sybil Merton, and

the idea that anything could come between them made his eyes dim

with tears.

Looking at him, one would have said that Nemesis had stolen the

shield of Pallas, and shown him the Gorgon's head.  He seemed

turned to stone, and his face was like marble in its melancholy.

He had lived the delicate and luxurious life of a young man of

birth and fortune, a life exquisite in its freedom from sordid

care, its beautiful boyish insouciance; and now for the first time

he became conscious of the terrible mystery of Destiny, of the

awful meaning of Doom.

How mad and monstrous it all seemed!  Could it be that written on

his hand, in characters that he could not read himself, but that

another could decipher, was some fearful secret of sin, some blood-

red sign of crime?  Was there no escape possible?  Were we no

better than chessmen, moved by an unseen power, vessels the potter

fashions at his fancy, for honour or for shame?  His reason

revolted against it, and yet he felt that some tragedy was hanging

over him, and that he had been suddenly called upon to bear an

intolerable burden.  Actors are so fortunate.  They can choose

whether they will appear in tragedy or in comedy, whether they will

suffer or make merry, laugh or shed tears.  But in real life it is

different.  Most men and women are forced to perform parts for

which they have no qualifications.  Our Guildensterns play Hamlet

for us, and our Hamlets have to jest like Prince Hal.  The world is

a stage, but the play is badly cast.

Suddenly Mr. Podgers entered the room.  When he saw Lord Arthur he

started, and his coarse, fat face became a sort of greenish-yellow

colour.  The two men's eyes met, and for a moment there was

silence.

'The Duchess has left one of her gloves here, Lord Arthur, and has

asked me to bring it to her,' said Mr. Podgers finally.  'Ah, I see

it on the sofa!  Good evening.'

'Mr. Podgers, I must insist on your giving me a straightforward

answer to a question I am going to put to you.'

'Another time, Lord Arthur, but the Duchess is anxious.  I am

afraid I must go.'

---

'You shall not go.  The Duchess is in no hurry.'

'Ladies should not be kept waiting, Lord Arthur,' said Mr. Podgers,

with his sickly smile.  'The fair sex is apt to be impatient.'

Lord Arthur's finely-chiselled lips curled in petulant disdain.

The poor Duchess seemed to him of very little importance at that

moment.  He walked across the room to where Mr. Podgers was

standing, and held his hand out.

'Tell me what you saw there,' he said.  'Tell me the truth.  I must

know it.  I am not a child.'

Mr. Podgers's eyes blinked behind his gold-rimmed spectacles, and

he moved uneasily from one foot to the other, while his fingers

played nervously with a flash watch-chain.

'What makes you think that I saw anything in your hand, Lord

Arthur, more than I told you?'

'I know you did, and I insist on your telling me what it was.  I

will pay you.  I will give you a cheque for a hundred pounds.'

The green eyes flashed for a moment, and then became dull again.

'Guineas?' said Mr. Podgers at last, in a low voice.

'Certainly.  I will send you a cheque to-morrow.  What is your

club?'

'I have no club.  That is to say, not just at present.  My address

is -, but allow me to give you my card'; and producing a bit of

gilt-edge pasteboard from his waistcoat pocket, Mr. Podgers handed

it, with a low bow, to Lord Arthur, who read on it,

MR.  SEPTIMUS R. PODGERS

PROFESSIONAL CHEIROMANTIST

103A WEST MOON STREET

'My hours are from ten to four,' murmured Mr. Podgers mechanically,

'and I make a reduction for families.'

'Be quick,' cried Lord Arthur, looking very pale, and holding his

---

hand out.

Mr. Podgers glanced nervously round, and drew the heavy PORTIERE

across the door.

'It will take a little time, Lord Arthur, you had better sit down.'

'Be quick, sir,' cried Lord Arthur again, stamping his foot angrily

on the polished floor.

Mr. Podgers smiled, drew from his breast-pocket a small magnifying

glass, and wiped it carefully with his handkerchief

'I am quite ready,' he said.

CHAPTER II

TEN minutes later, with face blanched by terror, and eyes wild with

grief, Lord Arthur Savile rushed from Bentinck House, crushing his

way through the crowd of fur-coated footmen that stood round the

large striped awning, and seeming not to see or hear anything.  The

night was bitter cold, and the gas-lamps round the square flared

and flickered in the keen wind; but his hands were hot with fever,

and his forehead burned like fire.  On and on he went, almost with

the gait of a drunken man.  A policeman looked curiously at him as

he passed, and a beggar, who slouched from an archway to ask for

alms, grew frightened, seeing misery greater than his own.  Once he

stopped under a lamp, and looked at his hands.  He thought he could

detect the stain of blood already upon them, and a faint cry broke

from his trembling lips.

Murder! that is what the cheiromantist had seen there.  Murder!

The very night seemed to know it, and the desolate wind to howl it

in his ear.  The dark corners of the streets were full of it.  It

grinned at him from the roofs of the houses.

First he came to the Park, whose sombre woodland seemed to

fascinate him.  He leaned wearily up against the railings, cooling

his brow against the wet metal, and listening to the tremulous

silence of the trees.  'Murder! murder!' he kept repeating, as

though iteration could dim the horror of the word.  The sound of

---

his own voice made him shudder, yet he almost hoped that Echo might

hear him, and wake the slumbering city from its dreams.  He felt a

mad desire to stop the casual passer-by, and tell him everything.

Then he wandered across Oxford Street into narrow, shameful alleys.

Two women with painted faces mocked at him as he went by.  From a

dark courtyard came a sound of oaths and blows, followed by shrill

screams, and, huddled upon a damp door-step, he saw the crook-

backed forms of poverty and eld.  A strange pity came over him.

Were these children of sin and misery predestined to their end, as

he to his?  Were they, like him, merely the puppets of a monstrous

show?

And yet it was not the mystery, but the comedy of suffering that

struck him; its absolute uselessness, its grotesque want of

meaning.  How incoherent everything seemed!  How lacking in all

harmony!  He was amazed at the discord between the shallow optimism

of the day, and the real facts of existence.  He was still very

young.

After a time he found himself in front of Marylebone Church.  The

silent roadway looked like a long riband of polished silver,

flecked here and there by the dark arabesques of waving shadows.

Far into the distance curved the line of flickering gas-lamps, and

outside a little walled-in house stood a solitary hansom, the

driver asleep inside.  He walked hastily in the direction of

Portland Place, now and then looking round, as though he feared

that he was being followed.  At the corner of Rich Street stood two

men, reading a small bill upon a hoarding.  An odd feeling of

curiosity stirred him, and he crossed over.  As he came near, the

word 'Murder,' printed in black letters, met his eye.  He started,

and a deep flush came into his cheek.  It was an advertisement

offering a reward for any information leading to the arrest of a

man of medium height, between thirty and forty years of age,

wearing a billy-cock hat, a black coat, and check trousers, and

with a scar upon his right cheek.  He read it over and over again,

and wondered if the wretched man would be caught, and how he had

been scarred.  Perhaps, some day, his own name might be placarded

on the walls of London.  Some day, perhaps, a price would be set on

his head also.

The thought made him sick with horror.  He turned on his heel, and

hurried on into the night.

Where he went he hardly knew.  He had a dim memory of wandering

---

through a labyrinth of sordid houses, of being lost in a giant web

of sombre streets, and it was bright dawn when he found himself at

last in Piccadilly Circus.  As he strolled home towards Belgrave

Square, he met the great waggons on their way to Covent Garden.

The white-smocked carters, with their pleasant sunburnt faces and

coarse curly hair, strode sturdily on, cracking their whips, and

calling out now and then to each other; on the back of a huge grey

horse, the leader of a jangling team, sat a chubby boy, with a

bunch of primroses in his battered hat, keeping tight hold of the

mane with his little hands, and laughing; and the great piles of

vegetables looked like masses of jade against the morning sky, like

masses of green jade against the pink petals of some marvellous

rose.  Lord Arthur felt curiously affected, he could not tell why.

There was something in the dawn's delicate loveliness that seemed

to him inexpressibly pathetic, and he thought of all the days that

break in beauty, and that set in storm.  These rustics, too, with

their rough, good-humoured voices, and their nonchalant ways, what

a strange London they saw!  A London free from the sin of night and

the smoke of day, a pallid, ghost-like city, a desolate town of

tombs!  He wondered what they thought of it, and whether they knew

anything of its splendour and its shame, of its fierce, fiery-

coloured joys, and its horrible hunger, of all it makes and mars

from morn to eve.  Probably it was to them merely a mart where they

brought their fruits to sell, and where they tarried for a few

hours at most, leaving the streets still silent, the houses still

asleep.  It gave him pleasure to watch them as they went by.  Rude

as they were, with their heavy, hob-nailed shoes, and their awkward

gait, they brought a little of a ready with them.  He felt that

they had lived with Nature, and that she had taught them peace.  He

envied them all that they did not know.

By the time he had reached Belgrave Square the sky was a faint

blue, and the birds were beginning to twitter in the gardens.

CHAPTER III

WHEN Lord Arthur woke it was twelve o'clock, and the midday sun was

streaming through the ivory-silk curtains of his room.  He got up

and looked out of the window.  A dim haze of heat was hanging over

the great city, and the roofs of the houses were like dull silver.

In the flickering green of the square below some children were

---

flitting about like white butterflies, and the pavement was crowded

with people on their way to the Park.  Never had life seemed

lovelier to him, never had the things of evil seemed more remote.

Then his valet brought him a cup of chocolate on a tray.  After he

had drunk it, he drew aside a heavy PORTIERE of peach-coloured

plush, and passed into the bathroom.  The light stole softly from

above, through thin slabs of transparent onyx, and the water in the

marble tank glimmered like a moonstone.  He plunged hastily in,

till the cool ripples touched throat and hair, and then dipped his

head right under, as though he would have wiped away the stain of

some shameful memory.  When he stepped out he felt almost at peace.

The exquisite physical conditions of the moment had dominated him,

as indeed often happens in the case of very finely-wrought natures,

for the senses, like fire, can purify as well as destroy.

After breakfast, he flung himself down on a divan, and lit a

cigarette.  On the mantel-shelf, framed in dainty old brocade,

stood a large photograph of Sybil Merton, as he had seen her first

at Lady Noel's ball.  The small, exquisitely-shaped head drooped

slightly to one side, as though the thin, reed-like throat could

hardly bear the burden of so much beauty; the lips were slightly

parted, and seemed made for sweet music; and all the tender purity

of girlhood looked out in wonder from the dreaming eyes.  With her

soft, clinging dress of CREPE-DE-CHINE, and her large leaf-shaped

fan, she looked like one of those delicate little figures men find

in the olive-woods near Tanagra; and there was a touch of Greek

grace in her pose and attitude.  Yet she was not PETITE.  She was

simply perfectly proportioned - a rare thing in an age when so many

women are either over life-size or insignificant.

Now as Lord Arthur looked at her, he was filled with the terrible

pity that is born of love.  He felt that to marry her, with the

doom of murder hanging over his head, would be a betrayal like that

of Judas, a sin worse than any the Borgia had ever dreamed of.

What happiness could there be for them, when at any moment he might

be called upon to carry out the awful prophecy written in his hand?

What manner of life would be theirs while Fate still held this

fearful fortune in the scales?  The marriage must be postponed, at

all costs.  Of this he was quite resolved.  Ardently though he

loved the girl, and the mere touch of her fingers, when they sat

together, made each nerve of his body thrill with exquisite joy, he

recognised none the less clearly where his duty lay, and was fully

conscious of the fact that he had no right to marry until he had

committed the murder.  This done, he could stand before the altar

---

with Sybil Merton, and give his life into her hands without terror

of wrongdoing.  This done, he could take her to his arms, knowing

that she would never have to blush for him, never have to hang her

head in shame.  But done it must be first; and the sooner the

better for both.

Many men in his position would have preferred the primrose path of

dalliance to the steep heights of duty; but Lord Arthur was too

conscientious to set pleasure above principle.  There was more than

mere passion in his love; and Sybil was to him a symbol of all that

is good and noble.  For a moment he had a natural repugnance

against what he was asked to do, but it soon passed away.  His

heart told him that it was not a sin, but a sacrifice; his reason

reminded him that there was no other course open.  He had to choose

between living for himself and living for others, and terrible

though the task laid upon him undoubtedly was, yet he knew that he

must not suffer selfishness to triumph over love.  Sooner or later

we are all called upon to decide on the same issue - of us all, the

same question is asked.  To Lord Arthur it came early in life -

before his nature had been spoiled by the calculating cynicism of

middle-age, or his heart corroded by the shallow, fashionable

egotism of our day, and he felt no hesitation about doing his duty.

Fortunately also, for him, he was no mere dreamer, or idle

dilettante.  Had he been so, he would have hesitated, like Hamlet,

and let irresolution mar his purpose.  But he was essentially

practical.  Life to him meant action, rather than thought.  He had

that rarest of all things, common sense.

The wild, turbid feelings of the previous night had by this time

completely passed away, and it was almost with a sense of shame

that he looked back upon his mad wanderings from street to street,

his fierce emotional agony.  The very sincerity of his sufferings

made them seem unreal to him now.  He wondered how he could have

been so foolish as to rant and rave about the inevitable.  The only

question that seemed to trouble him was, whom to make away with;

for he was not blind to the fact that murder, like the religions of

the Pagan world, requires a victim as well as a priest.  Not being

a genius, he had no enemies, and indeed he felt that this was not

the time for the gratification of any personal pique or dislike,

the mission in which he was engaged being one of great and grave

solemnity.  He accordingly made out a list of his friends and

relatives on a sheet of notepaper, and after careful consideration,

decided in favour of Lady Clementina Beauchamp, a dear old lady who

lived in Curzon Street, and was his own second cousin by his

mother's side.  He had always been very fond of Lady Clem, as every

---

one called her, and as he was very wealthy himself, having come

into all Lord Rugby's property when he came of age, there was no

possibility of his deriving any vulgar monetary advantage by her

death.  In fact, the more he thought over the matter, the more she

seemed to him to be just the right person, and, feeling that any

delay would be unfair to Sybil, he determined to make his

arrangements at once.

The first thing to be done was, of course, to settle with the

cheiromantist; so he sat down at a small Sheraton writing-table

that stood near the window, drew a cheque for 105 pounds, payable

to the order of Mr. Septimus Podgers, and, enclosing it in an

envelope, told his valet to take it to West Moon Street.  He then

telephoned to the stables for his hansom, and dressed to go out.

As he was leaving the room he looked back at Sybil Merton's

photograph, and swore that, come what may, he would never let her

know what he was doing for her sake, but would keep the secret of

his self-sacrifice hidden always in his heart.

On his way to the Buckingham, he stopped at a florist's, and sent

Sybil a beautiful basket of narcissus, with lovely white petals and

staring pheasants' eyes, and on arriving at the club, went straight

to the library, rang the bell, and ordered the waiter to bring him

a lemon-and-soda, and a book on Toxicology.  He had fully decided

that poison was the best means to adopt in this troublesome

business.  Anything like personal violence was extremely

distasteful to him, and besides, he was very anxious not to murder

Lady Clementina in any way that might attract public attention, as

he hated the idea of being lionised at Lady Windermere's, or seeing

his name figuring in the paragraphs of vulgar society - newspapers.

He had also to think of Sybil's father and mother, who were rather

old-fashioned people, and might possibly object to the marriage if

there was anything like a scandal, though he felt certain that if

he told them the whole facts of the case they would be the very

first to appreciate the motives that had actuated him.  He had

every reason, then, to decide in favour of poison.  It was safe,

sure, and quiet, and did away with any necessity for painful

scenes, to which, like most Englishmen, he had a rooted objection.

Of the science of poisons, however, he knew absolutely nothing, and

as the waiter seemed quite unable to find anything in the library

but RUFF'S GUIDE and BAILEY'S MAGAZINE, he examined the book-

shelves himself, and finally came across a handsomely-bound edition

of the PHARMACOPOEIA, and a copy of Erskine's TOXICOLOGY, edited by

Sir Mathew Reid, the President of the Royal College of Physicians,

---

and one of the oldest members of the Buckingham, having been

elected in mistake for somebody else; a CONTRETEMPS that so enraged

the Committee, that when the real man came up they black-balled him

unanimously.  Lord Arthur was a good deal puzzled at the technical

terms used in both books, and had begun to regret that he had not

paid more attention to his classics at Oxford, when in the second

volume of Erskine, he found a very interesting and complete account

of the properties of aconitine, written in fairly clear English.

It seemed to him to be exactly the poison he wanted.  It was swift

- indeed, almost immediate, in its effect - perfectly painless, and

when taken in the form of a gelatine capsule, the mode recommended

by Sir Mathew, not by any means unpalatable.  He accordingly made a

note, upon his shirt-cuff, of the amount necessary for a fatal

dose, put the books back in their places, and strolled up St.

James's Street, to Pestle and Humbey's, the great chemists.  Mr.

Pestle, who always attended personally on the aristocracy, was a

good deal surprised at the order, and in a very deferential manner

murmured something about a medical certificate being necessary.

However, as soon as Lord Arthur explained to him that it was for a

large Norwegian mastiff that he was obliged to get rid of, as it

showed signs of incipient rabies, and had already bitten the

coachman twice in the calf of the leg, he expressed himself as

being perfectly satisfied, complimented Lord Arthur on his

wonderful knowledge of Toxicology, and had the prescription made up

immediately.

Lord Arthur put the capsule into a pretty little silver BONBONNIERE

that he saw in a shop window in Bond Street, threw away Pestle and

Hambey's ugly pill-box, and drove off at once to Lady Clementina's.

'Well, MONSIEUR LE MAUVAIS SUJET,' cried the old lady, as he

entered the room, 'why haven't you been to see me all this time?'

'My dear Lady Clem, I never have a moment to myself,' said Lord

Arthur, smiling.

'I suppose you mean that you go about all day long with Miss Sybil

Merton, buying CHIFFONS and talking nonsense?  I cannot understand

why people make such a fuss about being married.  In my day we

never dreamed of billing and cooing in public, or in private for

that matter.'

'I assure you I have not seen Sybil for twenty-four hours, Lady

Clem.  As far as I can make out, she belongs entirely to her

milliners.'

---

'Of course; that is the only reason you come to see an ugly old

woman like myself.  I wonder you men don't take warning.  ON A FAIT

DES FOLIES POUR MOI, and here I am, a poor rheumatic creature, with

a false front and a bad temper.  Why, if it were not for dear Lady

Jansen, who sends me all the worst French novels she can find, I

don't think I could get through the day.  Doctors are no use at

all, except to get fees out of one.  They can't even cure my

heartburn.'

'I have brought you a cure for that, Lady Clem,' said Lord Arthur

gravely.  'It is a wonderful thing, invented by an American.'

'I don't think I like American inventions, Arthur.  I am quite sure

I don't.  I read some American novels lately, and they were quite

nonsensical.'

'Oh, but there is no nonsense at all about this, Lady Clem!  I

assure you it is a perfect cure.  You must promise to try it'; and

Lord Arthur brought the little box out of his pocket, and handed it

to her.

'Well, the box is charming, Arthur.  Is it really a present?  That

is very sweet of you.  And is this the wonderful medicine?  It

looks like a BONBON.  I'll take it at once.'

'Good heavens!  Lady Clem,' cried Lord Arthur, catching hold of her

hand, 'you mustn't do anything of the kind.  It is a homoeopathic

medicine, and if you take it without having heartburn, it might do

you no end of harm.  Wait till you have an attack, and take it

then.  You will be astonished at the result.'

'I should like to take it now,' said Lady Clementina, holding up to

the light the little transparent capsule, with its floating bubble

of liquid aconitine.  I am sure it is delicious.  The fact is that,

though I hate doctors, I love medicines.  However, I'll keep it

till my next attack.'

'And when will that be?' asked Lord Arthur eagerly.  'Will it be

soon?'

'I hope not for a week.  I had a very bad time yesterday morning

with it.  But one never knows.'

'You are sure to have one before the end of the month then, Lady

---

Clem?'

'I am afraid so.  But how sympathetic you are to-day, Arthur!

Really, Sybil has done you a great deal of good.  And now you must

run away, for I am dining with some very dull people, who won't

talk scandal, and I know that if I don't get my sleep now I shall

never be able to keep awake during dinner.  Good-bye, Arthur, give

my love to Sybil, and thank you so much for the American medicine.'

'You won't forget to take it, Lady Clem, will you?' said Lord

Arthur, rising from his seat.

'Of course I won't, you silly boy.  I think it is most kind of you

to think of me, and I shall write and tell you if I want any more.'

Lord Arthur left the house in high spirits, and with a feeling of

immense relief.

That night he had an interview with Sybil Merton.  He told her how

he had been suddenly placed in a position of terrible difficulty,

from which neither honour nor duty would allow him to recede.  He

told her that the marriage must be put off for the present, as

until he had got rid of his fearful entanglements, he was not a

free man.  He implored her to trust him, and not to have any doubts

about the future.  Everything would come right, but patience was

necessary.

The scene took place in the conservatory of Mr. Merton's house, in

Park Lane, where Lord Arthur had dined as usual.  Sybil had never

seemed more happy, and for a moment Lord Arthur had been tempted to

play the coward's part, to write to Lady Clementina for the pill,

and to let the marriage go on as if there was no such person as Mr.

Podgers in the world.  His better nature, however, soon asserted

itself, and even when Sybil flung herself weeping into his arms, he

did not falter.  The beauty that stirred his senses had touched his

conscience also.  He felt that to wreck so fair a life for the sake

of a few months' pleasure would be a wrong thing to do.

He stayed with Sybil till nearly midnight, comforting her and being

comforted in turn, and early the next morning he left for Venice,

after writing a manly, firm letter to Mr. Merton about the

necessary postponement of the marriage.

---

CHAPTER IV

IN Venice he met his brother, Lord Surbiton, who happened to have

come over from Corfu in his yacht.  The two young men spent a

delightful fortnight together.  In the morning they rode on the

Lido, or glided up and down the green canals in their long black

gondola; in the afternoon they usually entertained visitors on the

yacht; and in the evening they dined at Florian's, and smoked

innumerable cigarettes on the Piazza.  Yet somehow Lord Arthur was

not happy.  Every day he studied the obituary column in the TIMES,

expecting to see a notice of Lady Clementina's death, but every day

he was disappointed.  He began to be afraid that some accident had

happened to her, and often regretted that he had prevented her

taking the aconitine when she had been so anxious to try its

effect.  Sybil's letters, too, though full of love, and trust, and

tenderness, were often very sad in their tone, and sometimes he

used to think that he was parted from her for ever.

After a fortnight Lord Surbiton got bored with Venice, and

determined to run down the coast to Ravenna, as he heard that there

was some capital cock-shooting in the Pinetum.  Lord Arthur at

first refused absolutely to come, but Surbiton, of whom he was

extremely fond, finally persuaded him that if he stayed at

Danieli's by himself he would be moped to death, and on the morning

of the 15th they started, with a strong nor'-east wind blowing, and

a rather choppy sea.  The sport was excellent, and the free, open-

air life brought the colour back to Lord Arthur's cheek, but about

the 22nd he became anxious about Lady Clementina, and, in spite of

Surbiton's remonstrances, came back to Venice by train.

As he stepped out of his gondola on to the hotel steps, the

proprietor came forward to meet him with a sheaf of telegrams.

Lord Arthur snatched them out of his hand, and tore them open.

Everything had been successful.  Lady Clementina had died quite

suddenly on the night of the 17th!

His first thought was for Sybil, and he sent her off a telegram

announcing his immediate return to London.  He then ordered his

valet to pack his things for the night mail, sent his gondoliers

about five times their proper fare, and ran up to his sitting-room

with a light step and a buoyant heart.  There he found three

letters waiting for him.  One was from Sybil herself, full of

sympathy and condolence.  The others were from his mother, and from

---

Lady Clementina's solicitor.  It seemed that the old lady had dined

with the Duchess that very night, had delighted every one by her

wit and ESPRIT, but had gone home somewhat early, complaining of

heartburn.  In the morning she was found dead in her bed, having

apparently suffered no pain.  Sir Mathew Reid had been sent for at

once, but, of course, there was nothing to be done, and she was to

be buried on the 22nd at Beauchamp Chalcote.  A few days before she

died she had made her will, and left Lord Arthur her little house

in Curzon Street, and all her furniture, personal effects, and

pictures, with the exception of her collection of miniatures, which

was to go to her sister, Lady Margaret Rufford, and her amethyst

necklace, which Sybil Merton was to have.  The property was not of

much value; but Mr. Mansfield, the solicitor, was extremely anxious

for Lord Arthur to return at once, if possible, as there were a

great many bills to be paid, and Lady Clementina had never kept any

regular accounts.

Lord Arthur was very much touched by Lady Clementina's kind

remembrance of him, and felt that Mr. Podgers had a great deal to

answer for.  His love of Sybil, however, dominated every other

emotion, and the consciousness that he had done his duty gave him

peace and comfort.  When he arrived at Charing Cross, he felt

perfectly happy.

The Mertons received him very kindly.  Sybil made him promise that

he would never again allow anything to come between them, and the

marriage was fixed for the 7th June.  Life seemed to him once more

bright and beautiful, and all his old gladness came back to him

again.

One day, however, as he was going over the house in Curzon Street,

in company with Lady Clementina's solicitor and Sybil herself,

burning packages of faded letters, and turning out drawers of odd

rubbish, the young girl suddenly gave a little cry of delight.

'What have you found, Sybil?' said Lord Arthur, looking up from his

work, and smiling.

'This lovely little silver BONBONNIERE, Arthur.  Isn't it quaint

and Dutch?  Do give it to me!  I know amethysts won't become me

till I am over eighty.'

It was the box that had held the aconitine.

Lord Arthur started, and a faint blush came into his cheek.  He had

---

almost entirely forgotten what he had done, and it seemed to him a

curious coincidence that Sybil, for whose sake he had gone through

all that terrible anxiety, should have been the first to remind him

of it.

'Of course you can have it, Sybil.  I gave it to poor Lady Clem

myself.'

'Oh! thank you, Arthur; and may I have the BONBON too?  I had no

notion that Lady Clementina liked sweets.  I thought she was far

too intellectual.'

Lord Arthur grew deadly pale, and a horrible idea crossed his mind.

'BONBON, Sybil?  What do you mean?' he said in a slow, hoarse

voice.

'There is one in it, that is all.  It looks quite old and dusty,

and I have not the slightest intention of eating it.  What is the

matter, Arthur?  How white you look!'

Lord Arthur rushed across the room, and seized the box.  Inside it

was the amber-coloured capsule, with its poison-bubble.  Lady

Clementina had died a natural death after all!

The shock of the discovery was almost too much for him.  He flung

the capsule into the fire, and sank on the sofa with a cry of

despair.

CHAPTER V

MR. MERTON was a good deal distressed at the second postponement of

the marriage, and Lady Julia, who had already ordered her dress for

the wedding, did all in her power to make Sybil break off the

match.  Dearly, however, as Sybil loved her mother, she had given

her whole life into Lord Arthur's hands, and nothing that Lady

Julia could say could make her waver in her faith.  As for Lord

Arthur himself, it took him days to get over his terrible

disappointment, and for a time his nerves were completely unstrung.

His excellent common sense, however, soon asserted itself, and his

sound, practical mind did not leave him long in doubt about what to

---

do.  Poison having proved a complete failure, dynamite, or some

other form of explosive, was obviously the proper thing to try.

He accordingly looked again over the list of his friends and

relatives, and, after careful consideration, determined to blow up

his uncle, the Dean of Chichester.  The Dean, who was a man of

great culture and learning, was extremely fond of clocks, and had a

wonderful collection of timepieces, ranging from the fifteenth

century to the present day, and it seemed to Lord Arthur that this

hobby of the good Dean's offered him an excellent opportunity for

carrying out his scheme.  Where to procure an explosive machine

was, of course, quite another matter.  The London Directory gave

him no information on the point, and he felt that there was very

little use in going to Scotland Yard about it, as they never seemed

to know anything about the movements of the dynamite faction till

after an explosion had taken place, and not much even then.

Suddenly he thought of his friend Rouvaloff, a young Russian of

very revolutionary tendencies, whom he had met at Lady Windermere's

in the winter.  Count Rouvaloff was supposed to be writing a life

of Peter the Great, and to have come over to England for the

purpose of studying the documents relating to that Tsar's residence

in this country as a ship carpenter; but it was generally suspected

that he was a Nihilist agent, and there was no doubt that the

Russian Embassy did not look with any favour upon his presence in

London.  Lord Arthur felt that he was just the man for his purpose,

and drove down one morning to his lodgings in Bloomsbury, to ask

his advice and assistance.

'So you are taking up politics seriously?' said Count Rouvaloff,

when Lord Arthur had told him the object of his mission; but Lord

Arthur, who hated swagger of any kind, felt bound to admit to him

that he had not the slightest interest in social questions, and

simply wanted the explosive machine for a purely family matter, in

which no one was concerned but himself.

Count Rouvaloff looked at him for some moments in amazement, and

then seeing that he was quite serious, wrote an address on a piece

of paper, initialled it, and handed it to him across the table.

'Scotland Yard would give a good deal to know this address, my dear

fellow.'

'They shan't have it,' cried Lord Arthur, laughing; and after

shaking the young Russian warmly by the hand he ran downstairs,

---

examined the paper, and told the coachman to drive to Soho Square.

There he dismissed him, and strolled down Greek Street, till he

came to a place called Bayle's Court.  He passed under the archway,

and found himself in a curious CUL-DE-SAC, that was apparently

occupied by a French Laundry, as a perfect network of clothes-lines

was stretched across from house to house, and there was a flutter

of white linen in the morning air.  He walked right to the end, and

knocked at a little green house.  After some delay, during which

every window in the court became a blurred mass of peering faces,

the door was opened by a rather rough-looking foreigner, who asked

him in very bad English what his business was.  Lord Arthur handed

him the paper Count Rouvaloff had given him.  When the man saw it

he bowed, and invited Lord Arthur into a very shabby front parlour

on the ground floor, and in a few moments Herr Winckelkopf, as he

was called in England, bustled into the room, with a very wine-

stained napkin round his neck, and a fork in his left hand.

'Count Rouvaloff has given me an introduction to you,' said Lord

Arthur, bowing, 'and I am anxious to have a short interview with

you on a matter of business.  My name is Smith, Mr. Robert Smith,

and I want you to supply me with an explosive clock.'

'Charmed to meet you, Lord Arthur,' said the genial little German,

laughing.  'Don't look so alarmed, it is my duty to know everybody,

and I remember seeing you one evening at Lady Windermere's.  I hope

her ladyship is quite well.  Do you mind sitting with me while I

finish my breakfast?  There is an excellent PATE, and my friends

are kind enough to say that my Rhine wine is better than any they

get at the German Embassy,' and before Lord Arthur had got over his

surprise at being recognised, he found himself seated in the back-

room, sipping the most delicious Marcobrunner out of a pale yellow

hock-glass marked with the Imperial monogram, and chatting in the

friendliest manner possible to the famous conspirator.

'Explosive clocks,' said Herr Winckelkopf, 'are not very good

things for foreign exportation, as, even if they succeed in passing

the Custom House, the train service is so irregular, that they

usually go off before they have reached their proper destination.

If, however, you want one for home use, I can supply you with an

excellent article, and guarantee that you will he satisfied with

the result.  May I ask for whom it is intended?  If it is for the

police, or for any one connected with Scotland Yard, I am afraid I

cannot do anything for you.  The English detectives are really our

best friends, and I have always found that by relying on their

---

stupidity, we can do exactly what we like.  I could not spare one

of them.'

'I assure you,' said Lord Arthur, 'that it has nothing to do with

the police at all.  In fact, the clock is intended for the Dean of

Chichester.'

'Dear me!  I had no idea that you felt so strongly about religion,

Lord Arthur.  Few young men do nowadays.'

'I am afraid you overrate me, Herr Winckelkopf,' said Lord Arthur,

blushing.  'The fact is, I really know nothing about theology.'

'It is a purely private matter then?'

'Purely private.'

Herr Winckelkopf shrugged his shoulders, and left the room,

returning in a few minutes with a round cake of dynamite about the

size of a penny, and a pretty little French clock, surmounted by an

ormolu figure of Liberty trampling on the hydra of Despotism.

Lord Arthur's face brightened up when he saw it.  'That is just

what I want,' he cried, 'and now tell me how it goes off.'

'Ah! there is my secret,' answered Herr Winckelkopf, contemplating

his invention with a justifiable look of pride; 'let me know when

you wish it to explode, and I will set the machine to the moment.'

'Well, to-day is Tuesday, and if you could send it off at once - '

'That is impossible; I have a great deal of important work on hand

for some friends of mine in Moscow.  Still, I might send it off to-

morrow.'

'Oh, it will be quite time enough!' said Lord Arthur politely, 'if

it is delivered to-morrow night or Thursday morning.  For the

moment of the explosion, say Friday at noon exactly.  The Dean is

always at home at that hour.'

'Friday, at noon,' repeated Herr Winckelkopf, and he made a note to

that effect in a large ledger that was lying on a bureau near the

fireplace.

'And now,' said Lord Arthur, rising from his seat, 'pray let me

---

know how much I am in your debt.'

'It is such a small matter, Lord Arthur, that I do not care to make

any charge.  The dynamite comes to seven and sixpence, the clock

will be three pounds ten, and the carriage about five shillings.  I

am only too pleased to oblige any friend of Count Rouvaloff's.'

'But your trouble, Herr Winckelkopf?'

'Oh, that is nothing!  It is a pleasure to me.  I do not work for

money; I live entirely for my art.'

Lord Arthur laid down 4 pounds, 2s. 6d. on the table, thanked the

little German for his kindness, and, having succeeded in declining

an invitation to meet some Anarchists at a meat-tea on the

following Saturday, left the house and went off to the Park.

For the next two days he was in a state of the greatest excitement,

and on Friday at twelve o'clock he drove down to the Buckingham to

wait for news.  All the afternoon the stolid hall-porter kept

posting up telegrams from various parts of the country giving the

results of horse-races, the verdicts in divorce suits, the state of

the weather, and the like, while the tape ticked out wearisome

details about an all-night sitting in the House of Commons, and a

small panic on the Stock Exchange.  At four o'clock the evening

papers came in, and Lord Arthur disappeared into the library with

the PALL MALL, the ST. JAMES'S, the GLOBE, and the ECHO, to the

immense indignation of Colonel Goodchild, who wanted to read the

reports of a speech he had delivered that morning at the Mansion

House, on the subject of South African Missions, and the

advisability of having black Bishops in every province, and for

some reason or other had a strong prejudice against the EVENING

NEWS.  None of the papers, however, contained even the slightest

allusion to Chichester, and Lord Arthur felt that the attempt must

have failed.  It was a terrible blow to him, and for a time he was

quite unnerved.  Herr Winckelkopf, whom he went to see the next day

was full of elaborate apologies, and offered to supply him with

another clock free of charge, or with a case of nitro-glycerine

bombs at cost price.  But he had lost all faith in explosives, and

Herr Winckelkopf himself acknowledged that everything is so

adulterated nowadays, that even dynamite can hardly be got in a

pure condition.  The little German, however, while admitting that

something must have gone wrong with the machinery, was not without

hope that the clock might still go off, and instanced the case of a

barometer that he had once sent to the military Governor at Odessa,

---

which, though timed to explode in ten days, had not done so for

something like three months.  It was quite true that when it did go

off, it merely succeeded in blowing a housemaid to atoms, the

Governor having gone out of town six weeks before, but at least it

showed that dynamite, as a destructive force, was, when under the

control of machinery, a powerful, though a somewhat unpunctual

agent.  Lord Arthur was a little consoled by this reflection, but

even here he was destined to disappointment, for two days

afterwards, as he was going upstairs, the Duchess called him into

her boudoir, and showed him a letter she had just received from the

Deanery.

'Jane writes charming letters,' said the Duchess; 'you must really

read her last.  It is quite as good as the novels Mudie sends us.'

Lord Arthur seized the letter from her hand.  It ran as follows:-

THE DEANERY, CHICHESTER,

27TH MAY.

My Dearest Aunt,

Thank you so much for the flannel for the Dorcas Society, and also

for the gingham.  I quite agree with you that it is nonsense their

wanting to wear pretty things, but everybody is so Radical and

irreligious nowadays, that it is difficult to make them see that

they should not try and dress like the upper classes.  I am sure I

don't know what we are coming to.  As papa has often said in his

sermons, we live in an age of unbelief.

We have had great fun over a clock that an unknown admirer sent

papa last Thursday.  It arrived in a wooden box from London,

carriage paid, and papa feels it must have been sent by some one

who had read his remarkable sermon, 'Is Licence Liberty?' for on

the top of the clock was a figure of a woman, with what papa said

was the cap of Liberty on her head.  I didn't think it very

becoming myself, but papa said it was historical, so I suppose it

is all right.  Parker unpacked it, and papa put it on the

mantelpiece in the library, and we were all sitting there on Friday

morning, when just as the clock struck twelve, we heard a whirring

noise, a little puff of smoke came from the pedestal of the figure,

and the goddess of Liberty fell off, and broke her nose on the

fender!  Maria was quite alarmed, but it looked so ridiculous, that

James and I went off into fits of laughter, and even papa was

---

amused.  When we examined it, we found it was a sort of alarum

clock, and that, if you set it to a particular hour, and put some

gunpowder and a cap under a little hammer, it went off whenever you

wanted.  Papa said it must not remain in the library, as it made a

noise, so Reggie carried it away to the schoolroom, and does

nothing but have small explosions all day long.  Do you think

Arthur would like one for a wedding present?  I suppose they are

quite fashionable in London.  Papa says they should do a great deal

of good, as they show that Liberty can't last, but must fall down.

Papa says Liberty was invented at the time of the French

Revolution.  How awful it seems!

I have now to go to the Dorcas, where I will read them your most

instructive letter.  How true, dear aunt, your idea is, that in

their rank of life they should wear what is unbecoming.  I must say

it is absurd, their anxiety about dress, when there are so many

more important things in this world, and in the next.  I am so glad

your flowered poplin turned out so well, and that your lace was not

torn.  I am wearing my yellow satin, that you so kindly gave me, at

the Bishop's on Wednesday, and think it will look all right.  Would

you have bows or not?  Jennings says that every one wears bows now,

and that the underskirt should be frilled.  Reggie has just had

another explosion, and papa has ordered the clock to be sent to the

stables.  I don't think papa likes it so much as he did at first,

though he is very flattered at being sent such a pretty and

ingenious toy.  It shows that people read his sermons, and profit

by them.

Papa sends his love, in which James, and Reggie, and Maria all

unite, and, hoping that Uncle Cecil's gout is better, believe me,

dear aunt, ever your affectionate niece,

JANE PERCY.

PS. - Do tell me about the bows.  Jennings insists they are the

fashion.

Lord Arthur looked so serious and unhappy over the letter, that the

Duchess went into fits of laughter.

'My dear Arthur,' she cried, 'I shall never show you a young lady's

letter again!  But what shall I say about the clock?  I think it is

a capital invention, and I should like to have one myself.'

---

'I don't think much of them,' said Lord Arthur, with a sad smile,

and, after kissing his mother, he left the room.

When he got upstairs, he flung himself on a sofa, and his eyes

filled with tears.  He had done his best to commit this murder, but

on both occasions he had failed, and through no fault of his own.

He had tried to do his duty, but it seemed as if Destiny herself

had turned traitor.  He was oppressed with the sense of the

barrenness of good intentions, of the futility of trying to be

fine.  Perhaps, it would be better to break off the marriage

altogether.  Sybil would suffer, it is true, but suffering could

not really mar a nature so noble as hers.  As for himself, what did

it matter?  There is always some war in which a man can die, some

cause to which a man can give his life, and as life had no pleasure

for him, so death had no terror.  Let Destiny work out his doom.

He would not stir to help her.

At half-past seven he dressed, and went down to the club.  Surbiton

was there with a party of young men, and he was obliged to dine

with them.  Their trivial conversation and idle jests did not

interest him, and as soon as coffee was brought he left them,

inventing some engagement in order to get away.  As he was going

out of the club, the hall-porter handed him a letter.  It was from

Herr Winckelkopf, asking him to call down the next evening, and

look at an explosive umbrella, that went off as soon as it was

opened.  It was the very latest invention, and had just arrived

from Geneva.  He tore the letter up into fragments.  He had made up

his mind not to try any more experiments.  Then he wandered down to

the Thames Embankment, and sat for hours by the river.  The moon

peered through a mane of tawny clouds, as if it were a lion's eye,

and innumerable stars spangled the hollow vault, like gold dust

powdered on a purple dome.  Now and then a barge swung out into the

turbid stream, and floated away with the tide, and the railway

signals changed from green to scarlet as the trains ran shrieking

across the bridge.  After some time, twelve o'clock boomed from the

tall tower at Westminster, and at each stroke of the sonorous bell

the night seemed to tremble.  Then the railway lights went out, one

solitary lamp left gleaming like a large ruby on a giant mast, and

the roar of the city became fainter.

At two o'clock he got up, and strolled towards Blackfriars.  How

unreal everything looked!  How like a strange dream!  The houses on

the other side of the river seemed built out of darkness.  One

would have said that silver and shadow had fashioned the world

anew.  The huge dome of St. Paul's loomed like a bubble through the

---

dusky air.

As he approached Cleopatra's Needle he saw a man leaning over the

parapet, and as he came nearer the man looked up, the gas-light

falling full upon his face.

It was Mr. Podgers, the cheiromantist!  No one could mistake the

fat, flabby face, the gold-rimmed spectacles, the sickly feeble

smile, the sensual mouth.

Lord Arthur stopped.  A brilliant idea flashed across him, and he

stole softly up behind.  In a moment he had seized Mr. Podgers by

the legs, and flung him into the Thames.  There was a coarse oath,

a heavy splash, and all was still.  Lord Arthur looked anxiously

over, but could see nothing of the cheiromantist but a tall hat,

pirouetting in an eddy of moonlit water.  After a time it also

sank, and no trace of Mr. Podgers was visible.  Once he thought

that he caught sight of the bulky misshapen figure striking out for

the staircase by the bridge, and a horrible feeling of failure came

over him, but it turned out to be merely a reflection, and when the

moon shone out from behind a cloud it passed away.  At last he

seemed to have realised the decree of destiny.  He heaved a deep

sigh of relief, and Sybil's name came to his lips.

'Have you dropped anything, sir?' said a voice behind him suddenly.

He turned round, and saw a policeman with a bull's-eye lantern.

'Nothing of importance, sergeant,' he answered, smiling, and

hailing a passing hansom, he jumped in, and told the man to drive

to Belgrave Square.

For the next few days he alternated between hope and fear.  There

were moments when he almost expected Mr. Podgers to walk into the

room, and yet at other times he felt that Fate could not be so

unjust to him.  Twice he went to the cheiromantist's address in

West Moon Street, but he could not bring himself to ring the bell.

He longed for certainty, and was afraid of it.

Finally it came.  He was sitting in the smoking-room of the club

having tea, and listening rather wearily to Surbiton's account of

the last comic song at the Gaiety, when the waiter came in with the

evening papers.  He took up the ST. JAMES'S, and was listlessly

turning over its pages, when this strange heading caught his eye:

---

SUICIDE OF A CHEIROMANTIST.

He turned pale with excitement, and began to read.  The paragraph

ran as follows:

Yesterday morning, at seven o'clock, the body of Mr. Septimus R.

Podgers, the eminent cheiromantist, was washed on shore at

Greenwich, just in front of the Ship Hotel.  The unfortunate

gentleman had been missing for some days, and considerable anxiety

for his safety had been felt in cheiromantic circles.  It is

supposed that he committed suicide under the influence of a

temporary mental derangement, caused by overwork, and a verdict to

that effect was returned this afternoon by the coroner's jury.  Mr.

Podgers had just completed an elaborate treatise on the subject of

the Human Hand, that will shortly be published, when it will no

doubt attract much attention.  The deceased was sixty-five years of

age, and does not seem to have left any relations.

Lord Arthur rushed out of the club with the paper still in his

hand, to the immense amazement of the hall-porter, who tried in

vain to stop him, and drove at once to Park Lane.  Sybil saw him

from the window, and something told her that he was the bearer of

good news.  She ran down to meet him, and, when she saw his face,

she knew that all was well.

'My dear Sybil,' cried Lord Arthur, 'let us be married to-morrow!'

'You foolish boy!  Why, the cake is not even ordered!' said Sybil,

laughing through her tears.

CHAPTER VI

WHEN the wedding took place, some three weeks later, St. Peter's

was crowded with a perfect mob of smart people.  The service was

read in the most impressive manner by the Dean of Chichester, and

everybody agreed that they had never seen a handsomer couple than

the bride and bridegroom.  They were more than handsome, however -

they were happy.  Never for a single moment did Lord Arthur regret

all that he had suffered for Sybil's sake, while she, on her side,

---

gave him the best things a woman can give to any man - worship,

tenderness, and love.  For them romance was not killed by reality.

They always felt young.

Some years afterwards, when two beautiful children had been born to

them, Lady Windermere came down on a visit to Alton Priory, a

lovely old place, that had been the Duke's wedding present to his

son; and one afternoon as she was sitting with Lady Arthur under a

lime-tree in the garden, watching the little boy and girl as they

played up and down the rose-walk, like fitful sunbeams, she

suddenly took her hostess's hand in hers, and said, 'Are you happy,

Sybil?'

'Dear Lady Windermere, of course I am happy.  Aren't you?'

'I have no time to be happy, Sybil.  I always like the last person

who is introduced to me; but, as a rule, as soon as I know people I

get tired of them.'

'Don't your lions satisfy you, Lady Windermere?'

'Oh dear, no! lions are only good for one season.  As soon as their

manes are cut, they are the dullest creatures going.  Besides, they

behave very badly, if you are really nice to them.  Do you remember

that horrid Mr. Podgers?  He was a dreadful impostor.  Of course, I

didn't mind that at all, and even when he wanted to borrow money I

forgave him, but I could not stand his making love to me.  He has

really made me hate cheiromancy.  I go in for telepathy now.  It is

much more amusing.'

'You mustn't say anything against cheiromancy here, Lady

Windermere; it is the only subject that Arthur does not like people

to chaff about.  I assure you he is quite serious over it.'

'You don't mean to say that he believes in it, Sybil?'

'Ask him, Lady Windermere, here he is'; and Lord Arthur came up the

garden with a large bunch of yellow roses in his hand, and his two

children dancing round him.

'Lord Arthur?'

'Yes, Lady Windermere.'

'You don't mean to say that you believe in cheiromancy?'

---

'Of course I do,' said the young man, smiling.

'But why?'

'Because I owe to it all the happiness of my life,' he murmured,

throwing himself into a wicker chair.

'My dear Lord Arthur, what do you owe to it?'

'Sybil,' he answered, handing his wife the roses, and looking into

her violet eyes.

'What nonsense!' cried Lady Windermere.  'I never heard such

nonsense in all my life.'

THE CANTERVILLE GHOST

CHAPTER I

WHEN Mr. Hiram B. Otis, the American Minister, bought Canterville

Chase, every one told him he was doing a very foolish thing, as

there was no doubt at all that the place was haunted.  Indeed, Lord

Canterville himself, who was a man of the most punctilious honour,

had felt it his duty to mention the fact to Mr. Otis when they came

to discuss terms.

'We have not cared to live in the place ourselves,' said Lord

Canterville, 'since my grandaunt, the Dowager Duchess of Bolton,

was frightened into a fit, from which she never really recovered,

by two skeleton hands being placed on her shoulders as she was

dressing for dinner, and I feel bound to tell you, Mr. Otis, that

the ghost has been seen by several living members of my family, as

well as by the rector of the parish, the Rev. Augustus Dampier, who

is a Fellow of King's College, Cambridge.  After the unfortunate

accident to the Duchess, none of our younger servants would stay

with us, and Lady Canterville often got very little sleep at night,

---

in consequence of the mysterious noises that came from the corridor

and the library.'

'My Lord,' answered the Minister, 'I will take the furniture and

the ghost at a valuation.  I come from a modern country, where we

have everything that money can buy; and with all our spry young

fellows painting the Old World red, and carrying off your best

actresses and prima-donnas, I reckon that if there were such a

thing as a ghost in Europe, we'd have it at home in a very short

time in one of our public museums, or on the road as a show.'

'I fear that the ghost exists,' said Lord Canterville, smiling,

'though it may have resisted the overtures of your enterprising

impresarios.  It has been well known for three centuries, since

1584 in fact, and always makes its appearance before the death of

any member of our family.'

'Well, so does the family doctor for that matter, Lord Canterville.

But there is no such thing, sir, as a ghost, and I guess the laws

of Nature are not going to be suspended for the British

aristocracy.'

'You are certainly very natural in America,' answered Lord

Canterville, who did not quite understand Mr. Otis's last

observation, 'and if you don't mind a ghost in the house, it is all

right.  Only you must remember I warned you.'

A few weeks after this, the purchase was completed, and at the

close of the season the Minister and his family went down to

Canterville Chase.  Mrs. Otis, who, as Miss Lucretia R. Tappan, of

West 53rd Street, had been a celebrated New York belle, was now a

very handsome, middle-aged woman, with fine eyes, and a superb

profile.  Many American ladies on leaving their native land adopt

an appearance of chronic ill-health, under the impression that it

is a form of European refinement, but Mrs. Otis had never fallen

into this error.  She had a magnificent constitution, and a really

wonderful amount of animal spirits.  Indeed, in many respects, she

was quite English, and was an excellent example of the fact that we

have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of

course, language.  Her eldest son, christened Washington by his

parents in a moment of patriotism, which he never ceased to regret,

was a fair-haired, rather good-looking young man, who had qualified

himself for American diplomacy by leading the German at the Newport

Casino for three successive seasons, and even in London was well

known as an excellent dancer.  Gardenias and the peerage were his

---

only weaknesses.  Otherwise he was extremely sensible.  Miss

Virginia E. Otis was a little girl of fifteen, lithe and lovely as

a fawn, and with a fine freedom in her large blue eyes.  She was a

wonderful amazon, and had once raced old Lord Bilton on her pony

twice round the park, winning by a length and a half, just in front

of the Achilles statue, to the huge delight of the young Duke of

Cheshire, who proposed for her on the spot, and was sent back to

Eton that very night by his guardians, in floods of tears.  After

Virginia came the twins, who were usually called 'The Stars and

Stripes,' as they were always getting swished.  They were

delightful boys, and with the exception of the worthy Minister the

only true republicans of the family.

As Canterville Chase is seven miles from Ascot, the nearest railway

station, Mr. Otis had telegraphed for a waggonette to meet them,

and they started on their drive in high spirits.  It was a lovely

July evening, and the air was delicate with the scent of the pine-

woods.  Now and then they heard a wood pigeon brooding over its own

sweet voice, or saw, deep in the rustling fern, the burnished

breast of the pheasant.  Little squirrels peered at them from the

beech-trees as they went by, and the rabbits scudded away through

the brushwood and over the mossy knolls, with their white tails in

the air.  As they entered the avenue of Canterville Chase, however,

the sky became suddenly overcast with clouds, a curious stillness

seemed to hold the atmosphere, a great flight of rooks passed

silently over their heads, and, before they reached the house, some

big drops of rain had fallen.

Standing on the steps to receive them was an old woman, neatly

dressed in black silk, with a white cap and apron.  This was Mrs.

Umney, the housekeeper, whom Mrs. Otis, at Lady Canterville's

earnest request, had consented to keep on in her former position.

She made them each a low curtsey as they alighted, and said in a

quaint, old-fashioned manner, 'I bid you welcome to Canterville

Chase.'  Following her, they passed through the fine Tudor hall

into the library, a long, low room, panelled in black oak, at the

end of which was a large stained-glass window.  Here they found tea

laid out for them, and, after taking off their wraps, they sat down

and began to look round, while Mrs. Umney waited on them.

Suddenly Mrs. Otis caught sight of a dull red stain on the floor

just by the fireplace and, quite unconscious of what it really

signified, said to Mrs. Umney, 'I am afraid something has been

spilt there.'

---

'Yes, madam,' replied the old housekeeper in a low voice, 'blood

has been spilt on that spot.'

'How horrid,' cried Mrs. Otis; 'I don't at all care for blood-

stains in a sitting-room.  It must be removed at once.'

The old woman smiled, and answered in the same low, mysterious

voice, 'It is the blood of Lady Eleanore de Canterville, who was

murdered on that very spot by her own husband, Sir Simon de

Canterville, in 1575.  Sir Simon survived her nine years, and

disappeared suddenly under very mysterious circumstances.  His body

has never been discovered, but his guilty spirit still haunts the

Chase.  The blood-stain has been much admired by tourists and

others, and cannot be removed.'

'That is all nonsense,' cried Washington Otis; 'Pinkerton's

Champion Stain Remover and Paragon Detergent will clean it up in no

time,' and before the terrified housekeeper could interfere he had

fallen upon his knees, and was rapidly scouring the floor with a

small stick of what looked like a black cosmetic.  In a few moments

no trace of the blood-stain could be seen.

'I knew Pinkerton would do it,' he exclaimed triumphantly, as he

looked round at his admiring family; but no sooner had he said

these words than a terrible flash of lightning lit up the sombre

room, a fearful peal of thunder made them all start to their feet,

and Mrs. Umney fainted.

'What a monstrous climate!' said the American Minister calmly, as

he lit a long cheroot.  'I guess the old country is so

overpopulated that they have not enough decent weather for

everybody.  I have always been of opinion that emigration is the

only thing for England.'

'My dear Hiram,' cried Mrs. Otis, 'what can we do with a woman who

faints?'

'Charge it to her like breakages,' answered the Minister; 'she

won't faint after that'; and in a few moments Mrs. Umney certainly

came to.  There was no doubt, however, that she was extremely

upset, and she sternly warned Mr. Otis to beware of some trouble

coming to the house.

'I have seen things with my own eyes, sir,' she said, 'that would

make any Christian's hair stand on end, and many and many a night I

---

have not closed my eyes in sleep for the awful things that are done

here.'  Mr. Otis, however, and his wife warmly assured the honest

soul that they were not afraid of ghosts, and, after invoking the

blessings of Providence on her new master and mistress, and making

arrangements for an increase of salary, the old housekeeper

tottered off to her own room.

CHAPTER II

THE storm raged fiercely all that night, but nothing of particular

note occurred.  The next morning, however, when they came down to

breakfast, they found the terrible stain of blood once again on the

floor.  'I don't think it can be the fault of the Paragon

Detergent,' said Washington, 'for I have tried it with everything.

It must be the ghost.'  He accordingly rubbed out the stain a

second time, but the second morning it appeared again.  The third

morning also it was there, though the library had been locked up at

night by Mr. Otis himself, and the key carried upstairs.  The whole

family were now quite interested; Mr. Otis began to suspect that he

had been too dogmatic in his denial of the existence of ghosts,

Mrs. Otis expressed her intention of joining the Psychical Society,

and Washington prepared a long letter to Messrs. Myers and Podmore

on the subject of the Permanence of Sanguineous Stains when

connected with Crime.  That night all doubts about the objective

existence of phantasmata were removed for ever.

The day had been warm and sunny; and, in the cool of the evening,

the whole family went out for a drive.  They did not return home

till nine o'clock, when they had a light supper.  The conversation

in no way turned upon ghosts, so there were not even those primary

conditions of receptive expectation which so often precede the

presentation of psychical phenomena.  The subjects discussed, as I

have since learned from Mr. Otis, were merely such as form the

ordinary conversation of cultured Americans of the better class,

such as the immense superiority of Miss Fanny Davenport over Sarah

Bernhardt as an actress; the difficulty of obtaining green corn,

buckwheat cakes, and hominy, even in the best English houses; the

importance of Boston in the development of the world-soul; the

advantages of the baggage check system in railway travelling; and

the sweetness of the New York accent as compared to the London

drawl.  No mention at all was made of the supernatural, nor was Sir

---

Simon de Canterville alluded to in any way.  At eleven o'clock the

family retired, and by half-past all the lights were out.  Some

time after, Mr. Otis was awakened by a curious noise in the

corridor, outside his room.  It sounded like the clank of metal,

and seemed to be coming nearer every moment.  He got up at once,

struck a match, and looked at the time.  It was exactly one

o'clock.  He was quite calm, and felt his pulse, which was not at

all feverish.  The strange noise still continued, and with it he

heard distinctly the sound of footsteps.  He put on his slippers,

took a small oblong phial out of his dressing-case, and opened the

door.  Right in front of him he saw, in the wan moonlight, an old

man of terrible aspect.  His eyes were as red burning coals; long

grey hair fell over his shoulders in matted coils; his garments,

which were of antique cut, were soiled and ragged, and from his

wrists and ankles hung heavy manacles and rusty gyves.

'My dear sir,' said Mr. Otis, 'I really must insist on your oiling

those chains, and have brought you for that purpose a small bottle

of the Tammany Rising Sun Lubricator.  It is said to be completely

efficacious upon one application, and there are several

testimonials to that effect on the wrapper from some of our most

eminent native divines.  I shall leave it here for you by the

bedroom candles, and will be happy to supply you with more should

you require it.'  With these words the United States Minister laid

the bottle down on a marble table, and, closing his door, retired

to rest.

For a moment the Canterville ghost stood quite motionless in

natural indignation; then, dashing the bottle violently upon the

polished floor, he fled down the corridor, uttering hollow groans,

and emitting a ghastly green light.  Just, however, as he reached

the top of the great oak staircase, a door was flung open, two

little white-robed figures appeared, and a large pillow whizzed

past his head!  There was evidently no time to be lost, so, hastily

adopting the Fourth Dimension of Space as a means of escape, he

vanished through the wainscoting, and the house became quite quiet.

On reaching a small secret chamber in the left wing, he leaned up

against a moonbeam to recover his breath, and began to try and

realise his position.  Never, in a brilliant and uninterrupted

career of three hundred years, had he been so grossly insulted.  He

thought of the Dowager Duchess, whom he had frightened into a fit

as she stood before the glass in her lace and diamonds; of the four

housemaids, who had gone off into hysterics when he merely grinned

at them through the curtains of one of the spare bedrooms; of the

---

rector of the parish, whose candle he had blown out as he was

coming late one night from the library, and who had been under the

care of Sir William Gull ever since, a perfect martyr to nervous

disorders; and of old Madame de Tremouillac, who, having wakened up

one morning early and seen a skeleton seated in an arm-chair by the

fire reading her diary, had been confined to her bed for six weeks

with an attack of brain fever, and, on her recovery, had become

reconciled to the Church, and broken off her connection with that

notorious sceptic Monsieur de Voltaire.  He remembered the terrible

night when the wicked Lord Canterville was found choking in his

dressing-room, with the knave of diamonds half-way down his throat,

and confessed, just before he died, that he had cheated Charles

James Fox out of 50,000 pounds at Crockford's by means of that very

card, and swore that the ghost had made him swallow it.  All his

great achievements came back to him again, from the butler who had

shot himself in the pantry because he had seen a green hand tapping

at the window pane, to the beautiful Lady Stutfield, who was always

obliged to wear a black velvet band round her throat to hide the

mark of five fingers burnt upon her white skin, and who drowned

herself at last in the carp-pond at the end of the King's Walk.

With the enthusiastic egotism of the true artist he went over his

most celebrated performances, and smiled bitterly to himself as he

recalled to mind his last appearance as 'Red Ruben, or the

Strangled Babe,' his DEBUT as 'Gaunt Gibeon, the Blood-sucker of

Bexley Moor,' and the FURORE he had excited one lovely June evening

by merely playing ninepins with his own bones upon the lawn-tennis

ground.  And after all this, some wretched modern Americans were to

come and offer him the Rising Sun Lubricator, and throw pillows at

his head!  It was quite unbearable.  Besides, no ghosts in history

had ever been treated in this manner.  Accordingly, he determined

to have vengeance, and remained till daylight in an attitude of

deep thought.

CHAPTER III

THE next morning when the Otis family met at breakfast, they

discussed the ghost at some length.  The United States Minister was

naturally a little annoyed to find that his present had not been

accepted.  'I have no wish,' he said, 'to do the ghost any personal

injury, and I must say that, considering the length of time he has

been in the house, I don't think it is at all polite to throw

---

pillows at him' - a very just remark, at which, I am sorry to say,

the twins burst into shouts of laughter.  'Upon the other hand,' he

continued, 'if he really declines to use the Rising Sun Lubricator,

we shall have to take his chains from him.  It would be quite

impossible to sleep, with such a noise going on outside the

bedrooms.'

For the rest of the week, however, they were undisturbed, the only

thing that excited any attention being the continual renewal of the

blood-stain on the library floor.  This certainly was very strange,

as the door was always locked at night by Mr. Otis, and the windows

kept closely barred.  The chameleon-like colour, also, of the stain

excited a good deal of comment.  Some mornings it was a dull

(almost Indian) red, then it would be vermilion, then a rich

purple, and once when they came down for family prayers, according

to the simple rites of the Free American Reformed Episcopalian

Church, they found it a bright emerald-green.  These kaleidoscopic

changes naturally amused the party very much, and bets on the

subject were freely made every evening.  The only person who did

not enter into the joke was little Virginia, who, for some

unexplained reason, was always a good deal distressed at the sight

of the blood-stain, and very nearly cried the morning it was

emerald-green.

The second appearance of the ghost was on Sunday night.  Shortly

after they had gone to bed they were suddenly alarmed by a fearful

crash in the hall.  Rushing downstairs, they found that a large

suit of old armour had become detached from its stand, and had

fallen on the stone floor, while, seated in a high-backed chair,

was the Canterville ghost, rubbing his knees with an expression of

acute agony on his face.  The twins, having brought their pea-

shooters with them, at once discharged two pellets on him, with

that accuracy of aim which can only be attained by long and careful

practice on a writing-master, while the United States Minister

covered him with his revolver, and called upon him, in accordance

with Californian etiquette, to hold up his hands!  The ghost

started up with a wild shriek of rage, and swept through them like

a mist, extinguishing Washington Otis's candle as he passed, and so

leaving them all in total darkness.  On reaching the top of the

staircase he recovered himself, and determined to give his

celebrated peal of demoniac laughter.  This he had on more than one

occasion found extremely useful.  It was said to have turned Lord

Raker's wig grey in a single night, and had certainly made three of

Lady Canterville's French governesses give warning before their

month was up.  He accordingly laughed his most horrible laugh, till

---

the old vaulted roof rang and rang again, but hardly had the

fearful echo died away when a door opened, and Mrs. Otis came out

in a light blue dressing-gown.  'I am afraid you are far from

well,' she said, 'and have brought you a bottle of Dr. Dobell's

tincture.  If it is indigestion, you will find it a most excellent

remedy.'  The ghost glared at her in fury, and began at once to

make preparations for turning himself into a large black dog, an

accomplishment for which he was justly renowned, and to which the

family doctor always attributed the permanent idiocy of Lord

Canterville's uncle, the Hon. Thomas Horton.  The sound of

approaching footsteps, however, made him hesitate in his fell

purpose, so he contented himself with becoming faintly

phosphorescent, and vanished with a deep churchyard groan, just as

the twins had come up to him.

On reaching his room he entirely broke down, and became a prey to

the most violent agitation.  The vulgarity of the twins, and the

gross materialism of Mrs. Otis, were naturally extremely annoying,

but what really distressed him most was, that he had been unable to

wear the suit of mail.  He had hoped that even modern Americans

would be thrilled by the sight of a Spectre In Armour, if for no

more sensible reason, at least out of respect for their national

poet Longfellow, over whose graceful and attractive poetry he

himself had whiled away many a weary hour when the Cantervilles

were up in town.  Besides, it was his own suit.  He had worn it

with great success at the Kenilworth tournament, and had been

highly complimented on it by no less a person than the Virgin Queen

herself.  Yet when he had put it on, he had been completely

overpowered by the weight of the huge breastplate and steel casque,

and had fallen heavily on the stone pavement, barking both his

knees severely, and bruising the knuckles of his right hand.

For some days after this he was extremely ill, and hardly stirred

out of his room at all, except to keep the blood-stain in proper

repair.  However, by taking great care of himself, he recovered,

and resolved to make a third attempt to frighten the United States

Minister and his family.  He selected Friday, the 17th of August,

for his appearance, and spent most of that day in looking over his

wardrobe, ultimately deciding in favour of a large slouched hat

with a red feather, a winding-sheet frilled at the wrists and neck,

and a rusty dagger.  Towards evening a violent storm of rain came

on, and the wind was so high that all the windows and doors in the

old house shook and rattled.  In fact, it was just such weather as

he loved.  His plan of action was this.  He was to make his way

quietly to Washington Otis's room, gibber at him from the foot of

---

the bed, and stab himself three times in the throat to the sound of

slow music.  He bore Washington a special grudge, being quite aware

that it was he who was in the habit of removing the famous

Canterville blood-stain, by means of Pinkerton's Paragon Detergent.

Having reduced the reckless and foolhardy youth to a condition of

abject terror, he was then to proceed to the room occupied by the

United States Minister and his wife, and there to place a clammy

hand on Mrs. Otis's forehead, while he hissed into her trembling

husband's ear the awful secrets of the charnel-house.  With regard

to little Virginia, he had not quite made up his mind.  She had

never insulted him in any way, and was pretty and gentle.  A few

hollow groans from the wardrobe, he thought, would be more than

sufficient, or, if that failed to wake her, he might grabble at the

counterpane with palsy-twitching fingers.  As for the twins, he was

quite determined to teach them a lesson.  The first thing to be

done was, of course, to sit upon their chests, so as to produce the

stifling sensation of nightmare.  Then, as their beds were quite

close to each other, to stand between them in the form of a green,

icy-cold corpse, till they became paralysed with fear, and finally,

to throw off the winding-sheet, and crawl round the room, with

white bleached bones and one rolling eye-ball, in the character of

'Dumb Daniel, or the Suicide's Skeleton,' a ROLE in which he had on

more than one occasion produced a great effect, and which he

considered quite equal to his famous part of 'Martin the Maniac, or

the Masked Mystery.'

At half-past ten he heard the family going to bed.  For some time

he was disturbed by wild shrieks of laughter from the twins, who,

with the light-hearted gaiety of schoolboys, were evidently amusing

themselves before they retired to rest, but at a quarter past

eleven all was still, and, as midnight sounded, he sallied forth.

The owl beat against the window panes, the raven croaked from the

old yew-tree, and the wind wandered moaning round the house like a

lost soul; but the Otis family slept unconscious of their doom, and

high above the rain and storm he could hear the steady snoring of

the Minister for the United States.  He stepped stealthily out of

the wainscoting, with an evil smile on his cruel, wrinkled mouth,

and the moon hid her face in a cloud as he stole past the great

oriel window, where his own arms and those of his murdered wife

were blazoned in azure and gold.  On and on he glided, like an evil

shadow, the very darkness seeming to loathe him as he passed.  Once

he thought he heard something call, and stopped; but it was only

the baying of a dog from the Red Farm, and he went on, muttering

strange sixteenth-century curses, and ever and anon brandishing the

rusty dagger in the midnight air.  Finally he reached the corner of

---

the passage that led to luckless Washington's room.  For a moment

he paused there, the wind blowing his long grey locks about his

head, and twisting into grotesque and fantastic folds the nameless

horror of the dead man's shroud.  Then the clock struck the

quarter, and he felt the time was come.  He chuckled to himself,

and turned the corner; but no sooner had he done so, than, with a

piteous wail of terror, he fell back, and hid his blanched face in

his long, bony hands.  Right in front of him was standing a

horrible spectre, motionless as a carven image, and monstrous as a

madman's dream!  Its head was bald and burnished; its face round,

and fat, and white; and hideous laughter seemed to have writhed its

features into an eternal grin.  From the eyes streamed rays of

scarlet light, the mouth was a wide well of fire, and a hideous

garment, like to his own, swathed with its silent snows the Titan

form.  On its breast was a placard with strange writing in antique

characters, some scroll of shame it seemed, some record of wild

sins, some awful calendar of crime, and, with its right hand, it

bore aloft a falchion of gleaming steel.

Never having seen a ghost before, he naturally was terribly

frightened, and, after a second hasty glance at the awful phantom,

he fled back to his room, tripping up in his long winding-sheet as

he sped down the corridor, and finally dropping the rusty dagger

into the Minister's jack-boots, where it was found in the morning

by the butler.  Once in the privacy of his own apartment, he flung

himself down on a small pallet-bed, and hid his face under the

clothes.  After a time, however, the brave old Canterville spirit

asserted itself, and he determined to go and speak to the other

ghost as soon as it was daylight.  Accordingly, just as the dawn

was touching the hills with silver, he returned towards the spot

where he had first laid eyes on the grisly phantom, feeling that,

after all, two ghosts were better than one, and that, by the aid of

his new friend, he might safely grapple with the twins.  On

reaching the spot, however, a terrible sight met his gaze.

Something had evidently happened to the spectre, for the light had

entirely faded from its hollow eyes, the gleaming falchion had

fallen from its hand, and it was leaning up against the wall in a

strained and uncomfortable attitude.  He rushed forward and seized

it in his arms, when, to his horror, the head slipped off and

rolled on the floor, the body assumed a recumbent posture, and he

found himself clasping a white dimity bed-curtain, with a sweeping-

brush, a kitchen cleaver, and a hollow turnip lying at his feet!

Unable to understand this curious transformation, he clutched the

placard with feverish haste, and there, in the grey morning light,

he read these fearful words:-

---

YE OLDE GHOSTE

Ye Onlie True and Originale Spook.

Beware of Ye Imitationes.

All others are Counterfeite.

The whole thing flashed across him.  He had been tricked, foiled,

and outwitted!  The old Canterville look came into his eyes; he

ground his toothless gums together; and, raising his withered hands

high above his head, swore, according to the picturesque

phraseology of the antique school, that when Chanticleer had

sounded twice his merry horn, deeds of blood would be wrought, and

Murder walk abroad with silent feet.

Hardly had he finished this awful oath when, from the red-tiled

roof of a distant homestead, a cock crew.  He laughed a long, low,

bitter laugh, and waited.  Hour after hour he waited, but the cock,

for some strange reason, did not crow again.  Finally, at half-past

seven, the arrival of the housemaids made him give up his fearful

vigil, and he stalked back to his room, thinking of his vain hope

and baffled purpose.  There he consulted several books of ancient

chivalry, of which he was exceedingly fond, and found that, on

every occasion on which his oath had been used, Chanticleer had

always crowed a second time.  'Perdition seize the naughty fowl,'

he muttered, 'I have seen the day when, with my stout spear, I

would have run him through the gorge, and made him crow for me an

'twere in death!'  He then retired to a comfortable lead coffin,

and stayed there till evening.

CHAPTER IV

THE next day the ghost was very weak and tired.  The terrible

excitement of the last four weeks was beginning to have its effect.

His nerves were completely shattered, and he started at the

slightest noise.  For five days he kept his room, and at last made

up his mind to give up the point of the blood-stain on the library

floor.  If the Otis family did not want it, they clearly did not

deserve it.  They were evidently people on a low, material plane of

---

existence, and quite incapable of appreciating the symbolic value

of sensuous phenomena.  The question of phantasmic apparitions, and

the development of astral bodies, was of course quite a different

matter, and really not under his control.  It was his solemn duty

to appear in the corridor once a week, and to gibber from the large

oriel window on the first and third Wednesday in every month, and

he did not see how he could honourably escape from his obligations.

It is quite true that his life had been very evil, but, upon the

other hand, he was most conscientious in all things connected with

the supernatural.  For the next three Saturdays, accordingly, he

traversed the corridor as usual between midnight and three o'clock,

taking every possible precaution against being either heard or

seen.  He removed his boots, trod as lightly as possible on the old

worm-eaten boards, wore a large black velvet cloak, and was careful

to use the Rising Sun Lubricator for oiling his chains.  I am bound

to acknowledge that it was with a good deal of difficulty that he

brought himself to adopt this last mode of protection.  However,

one night, while the family were at dinner, he slipped into Mr.

Otis's bedroom and carried off the bottle.  He felt a little

humiliated at first, but afterwards was sensible enough to see that

there was a great deal to be said for the invention, and, to a

certain degree, it served his purpose.  Still, in spite of

everything, he was not left unmolested.  Strings were continually

being stretched across the corridor, over which he tripped in the

dark, and on one occasion, while dressed for the part of 'Black

Isaac, or the Huntsman of Hogley Woods,' he met with a severe fall,

through treading on a butter-slide, which the twins had constructed

from the entrance of the Tapestry Chamber to the top of the oak

staircase.  This last insult so enraged him, that he resolved to

make one final effort to assert his dignity and social position,

and determined to visit the insolent young Etonians the next night

in his celebrated character of 'Reckless Rupert, or the Headless

Earl.'

He had not appeared in this disguise for more than seventy years;

in fact, not since he had so frightened pretty Lady Barbara Modish

by means of it, that she suddenly broke off her engagement with the

present Lord Canterville's grandfather, and ran away to Gretna

Green with handsome Jack Castleton, declaring that nothing in the

world would induce her to marry into a family that allowed such a

horrible phantom to walk up and down the terrace at twilight.  Poor

Jack was afterwards shot in a duel by Lord Canterville on

Wandsworth Common, and Lady Barbara died of a broken heart at

Tunbridge Wells before the year was out, so, in every way, it had

been a great success.  It was, however, an extremely difficult

---

'make-up,' if I may use such a theatrical expression in connection

with one of the greatest mysteries of the supernatural, or, to

employ a more scientific term, the higher-natural world, and it

took him fully three hours to make his preparations.  At last

everything was ready, and he was very pleased with his appearance.

The big leather riding-boots that went with the dress were just a

little too large for him, and he could only find one of the two

horse-pistols, but, on the whole, he was quite satisfied, and at a

quarter past one he glided out of the wainscoting and crept down

the corridor.  On reaching the room occupied by the twins, which I

should mention was called the Blue Bed Chamber, on account of the

colour of its hangings, he found the door just ajar.  Wishing to

make an effective entrance, he flung it wide open, when a heavy jug

of water fell right down on him, wetting him to the skin, and just

missing his left shoulder by a couple of inches.  At the same

moment he heard stifled shrieks of laughter proceeding from the

four-post bed.  The shock to his nervous system was so great that

he fled back to his room as hard as he could go, and the next day

he was laid up with a severe cold.  The only thing that at all

consoled him in the whole affair was the fact that he had not

brought his head with him, for, had he done so, the consequences

might have been very serious.

He now gave up all hope of ever frightening this rude American

family, and contented himself, as a rule, with creeping about the

passages in list slippers, with a thick red muffler round his

throat for fear of draughts, and a small arquebuse, in case he

should be attacked by the twins.  The final blow he received

occurred on the 19th of September.  He had gone downstairs to the

great entrance-hall, feeling sure that there, at any rate, he would

be quite unmolested, and was amusing himself by making satirical

remarks on the large Saroni photographs of the United States

Minister and his wife, which had now taken the place of the

Canterville family pictures.  He was simply but neatly clad in a

long shroud, spotted with churchyard mould, had tied up his jaw

with a strip of yellow linen, and carried a small lantern and a

sexton's spade.  In fact, he was dressed for the character of

'Jonas the Graveless, or the Corpse-Snatcher of Chertsey Barn,' one

of his most remarkable impersonations, and one which the

Cantervilles had every reason to remember, as it was the real

origin of their quarrel with their neighbour, Lord Rufford.  It was

about a quarter past two o'clock in the morning, and, as far as he

could ascertain, no one was stirring.  As he was strolling towards

the library, however, to see if there were any traces left of the

blood-stain, suddenly there leaped out on him from a dark corner

---

two figures, who waved their arms wildly above their heads, and

shrieked out 'BOO!' in his ear.

Seized with a panic, which, under the circumstances, was only

natural, he rushed for the staircase, but found Washington Otis

waiting for him there with the big garden-syringe; and being thus

hemmed in by his enemies on every side, and driven almost to bay,

he vanished into the great iron stove, which, fortunately for him,

was not lit, and had to make his way home through the flues and

chimneys, arriving at his own room in a terrible state of dirt,

disorder, and despair.

After this he was not seen again on any nocturnal expedition.  The

twins lay in wait for him on several occasions, and strewed the

passages with nutshells every night to the great annoyance of their

parents and the servants, but it was of no avail.  It was quite

evident that his feelings were so wounded that he would not appear.

Mr. Otis consequently resumed his great work on the history of the

Democratic Party, on which he had been engaged for some years; Mrs.

Otis organised a wonderful clam-bake, which amazed the whole

county; the boys took to lacrosse, euchre, poker, and other

American national games; and Virginia rode about the lanes on her

pony, accompanied by the young Duke of Cheshire, who had come to

spend the last week of his holidays at Canterville Chase.  It was

generally assumed that the ghost had gone away, and, in fact, Mr.

Otis wrote a letter to that effect to Lord Canterville, who, in

reply, expressed his great pleasure at the news, and sent his best

congratulations to the Minister's worthy wife.

The Otises, however, were deceived, for the ghost was still in the

house, and though now almost an invalid, was by no means ready to

let matters rest, particularly as he heard that among the guests

was the young Duke of Cheshire, whose grand-uncle, Lord Francis

Stilton, had once bet a hundred guineas with Colonel Carbury that

he would play dice with the Canterville ghost, and was found the

next morning lying on the floor of the card-room in such a helpless

paralytic state, that though he lived on to a great age, he was

never able to say anything again but 'Double Sixes.'  The story was

well known at the time, though, of course, out of respect to the

feelings of the two noble families, every attempt was made to hush

it up; and a full account of all the circumstances connected with

it will be found in the third volume of Lord Tattle's RECOLLECTIONS

OF THE PRINCE REGENT AND HIS FRIENDS.  The ghost, then, was

naturally very anxious to show that he had not lost his influence

over the Stiltons, with whom, indeed, he was distantly connected,

---

his own first cousin having been married EN SECONDES NOCES to the

Sieur de Bulkeley, from whom, as every one knows, the Dukes of

Cheshire are lineally descended.  Accordingly, he made arrangements

for appearing to Virginia's little lover in his celebrated

impersonation of 'The Vampire Monk, or, the Bloodless Benedictine,'

a performance so horrible that when old Lady Startup saw it, which

she did on one fatal New Year's Eve, in the year 1764, she went off

into the most piercing shrieks, which culminated in violent

apoplexy, and died in three days, after disinheriting the

Cantervilles, who were her nearest relations, and leaving all her

money to her London apothecary.  At the last moment, however, his

terror of the twins prevented his leaving his room, and the little

Duke slept in peace under the great feathered canopy in the Royal

Bedchamber, and dreamed of Virginia.

CHAPTER V

A FEW days after this, Virginia and her curly-haired cavalier went

out riding on Brockley meadows, where she tore her habit so badly

in getting through a hedge, that, on her return home, she made up

her mind to go up by the back staircase so as not to be seen.  As

she was running past the Tapestry Chamber, the door of which

happened to be open, she fancied she saw some one inside, and

thinking it was her mother's maid, who sometimes used to bring her

work there, looked in to ask her to mend her habit.  To her immense

surprise, however, it was the Canterville Ghost himself!  He was

sitting by the window, watching the ruined gold of the yellowing

trees fly through the air, and the red leaves dancing madly down

the long avenue.  His head was leaning on his hand, and his whole

attitude was one of extreme depression.  Indeed, so forlorn, and so

much out of repair did he look, that little Virginia, whose first

idea had been to run away and lock herself in her room, was filled

with pity, and determined to try and comfort him.  So light was her

footfall, and so deep his melancholy, that he was not aware of her

presence till she spoke to him.

'I am so sorry for you,' she said, 'but my brothers are going back

to Eton to-morrow, and then, if you behave yourself, no one will

annoy you.'

'It is absurd asking me to behave myself,' he answered, looking

---

round in astonishment at the pretty little girl who had ventured to

address him, 'quite absurd.  I must rattle my chains, and groan

through keyholes, and walk about at night, if that is what you

mean.  It is my only reason for existing.'

'It is no reason at all for existing, and you know you have been

very wicked.  Mrs. Umney told us, the first day we arrived here,

that you had killed your wife.'

'Well, I quite admit it,' said the Ghost petulantly, 'but it was a

purely family matter, and concerned no one else.'

'It is very wrong to kill any one,' said Virginia, who at times had

a sweet Puritan gravity, caught from some old New England ancestor.

'Oh, I hate the cheap severity of abstract ethics!  My wife was

very plain, never had my ruffs properly starched, and knew nothing

about cookery.  Why, there was a buck I had shot in Hogley Woods, a

magnificent pricket, and do you know how she had it sent up to

table?  However, it is no matter now, for it is all over, and I

don't think it was very nice of her brothers to starve me to death,

though I did kill her.'

'Starve you to death?  Oh, Mr. Ghost, I mean Sir Simon, are you

hungry?  I have a sandwich in my case.  Would you like it?'

'No, thank you, I never eat anything now; but it is very kind of

you, all the same, and you are much nicer than the rest of your

horrid, rude, vulgar, dishonest family.'

'Stop!' cried Virginia, stamping her foot, 'it is you who are rude,

and horrid, and vulgar, and as for dishonesty, you know you stole

the paints out of my box to try and furbish up that ridiculous

blood-stain in the library.  First you took all my reds, including

the vermilion, and I couldn't do any more sunsets, then you took

the emerald-green and the chrome-yellow, and finally I had nothing

left but indigo and Chinese white, and could only do moonlight

scenes, which are always depressing to look at, and not at all easy

to paint.  I never told on you, though I was very much annoyed, and

it was most ridiculous, the whole thing; for who ever heard of

emerald-green blood?'

'Well, really,' said the Ghost, rather meekly, 'what was I to do?

It is a very difficult thing to get real blood nowadays, and, as

your brother began it all with his Paragon Detergent, I certainly

---

saw no reason why I should not have your paints.  As for colour,

that is always a matter of taste:  the Cantervilles have blue

blood, for instance, the very bluest in England; but I know you

Americans don't care for things of this kind.'

'You know nothing about it, and the best thing you can do is to

emigrate and improve your mind.  My father will be only too happy

to give you a free passage, and though there is a heavy duty on

spirits of every kind, there will be no difficulty about the Custom

House, as the officers are all Democrats.  Once in New York, you

are sure to be a great success.  I know lots of people there who

would give a hundred thousand dollars to have a grandfather, and

much more than that to have a family Ghost.'

'I don't think I should like America.'

'I suppose because we have no ruins and no curiosities,' said

Virginia satirically.

'No ruins! no curiosities!' answered the Ghost; 'you have your navy

and your manners.'

'Good evening; I will go and ask papa to get the twins an extra

week's holiday.'

'Please don't go, Miss Virginia,' he cried; 'I am so lonely and so

unhappy, and I really don't know what to do.  I want to go to sleep

and I cannot.'

'That's quite absurd!  You have merely to go to bed and blow out

the candle.  It is very difficult sometimes to keep awake,

especially at church, but there is no difficulty at all about

sleeping.  Why, even babies know how to do that, and they are not

very clever.'

'I have not slept for three hundred years,' he said sadly, and

Virginia's beautiful blue eyes opened in wonder; 'for three hundred

years I have not slept, and I am so tired.'

Virginia grew quite grave, and her little lips trembled like rose-

leaves.  She came towards him, and kneeling down at his side,

looked up into his old withered face.

'Poor, poor Ghost,' she murmured; 'have you no place where you can

sleep?'

---

'Far away beyond the pine-woods,' he answered, in a low dreamy

voice, 'there is a little garden.  There the grass grows long and

deep, there are the great white stars of the hemlock flower, there

the nightingale sings all night long.  All night long he sings, and

the cold, crystal moon looks down, and the yew-tree spreads out its

giant arms over the sleepers.'

Virginia's eyes grew dim with tears, and she hid her face in her

hands.

'You mean the Garden of Death,' she whispered.

'Yes, Death.  Death must be so beautiful.  To lie in the soft brown

earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to

silence.  To have no yesterday, and no to-morrow.  To forget time,

to forgive life, to be at peace.  You can help me.  You can open

for me the portals of Death's house, for Love is always with you,

and Love is stronger than Death is.'

Virginia trembled, a cold shudder ran through her, and for a few

moments there was silence.  She felt as if she was in a terrible

dream.

Then the Ghost spoke again, and his voice sounded like the sighing

of the wind.

'Have you ever read the old prophecy on the library window?'

'Oh, often,' cried the little girl, looking up; 'I know it quite

well.  It is painted in curious black letters, and it is difficult

to read.  There are only six lines:

When a golden girl can win

Prayer from out the lips of sin,

When the barren almond bears,

And a little child gives away its tears,

Then shall all the house be still

And peace come to Canterville.

But I don't know what they mean.'

'They mean,' he said sadly, 'that you must weep for me for my sins,

---

because I have no tears, and pray with me for my soul, because I

have no faith, and then, if you have always been sweet, and good,

and gentle, the Angel of Death will have mercy on me.  You will see

fearful shapes in darkness, and wicked voices will whisper in your

ear, but they will not harm you, for against the purity of a little

child the powers of Hell cannot prevail.'

Virginia made no answer, and the Ghost wrung his hands in wild

despair as he looked down at her bowed golden head.  Suddenly she

stood up, very pale, and with a strange light in her eyes.  'I am

not afraid,' she said firmly, 'and I will ask the Angel to have

mercy on you.'

He rose from his seat with a faint cry of joy, and taking her hand

bent over it with old-fashioned grace and kissed it.  His fingers

were as cold as ice, and his lips burned like fire, but Virginia

did not falter, as he led her across the dusky room.  On the faded

green tapestry were broidered little huntsmen.  They blew their

tasselled horns and with their tiny hands waved to her to go back.

'Go back! little Virginia,' they cried, 'go back!' but the Ghost

clutched her hand more tightly, and she shut her eyes against them.

Horrible animals with lizard tails, and goggle eyes, blinked at her

from the carven chimney-piece, and murmured 'Beware! little

Virginia, beware! we may never see you again,' but the Ghost glided

on more swiftly, and Virginia did not listen.  When they reached

the end of the room he stopped, and muttered some words she could

not understand.  She opened her eyes, and saw the wall slowly

fading away like a mist, and a great black cavern in front of her.

A bitter cold wind swept round them, and she felt something pulling

at her dress.  'Quick, quick,' cried the Ghost, 'or it will be too

late,' and, in a moment, the wainscoting had closed behind them,

and the Tapestry Chamber was empty.

CHAPTER VI

ABOUT ten minutes later, the bell rang for tea, and, as Virginia

did not come down, Mrs. Otis sent up one of the footmen to tell

her.  After a little time he returned and said that he could not

find Miss Virginia anywhere.  As she was in the habit of going out

to the garden every evening to get flowers for the dinner-table,

Mrs. Otis was not at all alarmed at first, but when six o'clock

---

struck, and Virginia did not appear, she became really agitated,

and sent the boys out to look for her, while she herself and Mr.

Otis searched every room in the house.  At half-past six the boys

came back and said that they could find no trace of their sister

anywhere.  They were all now in the greatest state of excitement,

and did not know what to do, when Mr. Otis suddenly remembered

that, some few days before, he had given a band of gypsies

permission to camp in the park.  He accordingly at once set off for

Blackfell Hollow, where he knew they were, accompanied by his

eldest son and two of the farm-servants.  The little Duke of

Cheshire, who was perfectly frantic with anxiety, begged hard to be

allowed to go too, but Mr. Otis would not allow him, as he was

afraid there might be a scuffle.  On arriving at the spot, however,

he found that the gypsies had gone, and it was evident that their

departure had been rather sudden, as the fire was still burning,

and some plates were lying on the grass.  Having sent off

Washington and the two men to scour the district, he ran home, and

despatched telegrams to all the police inspectors in the county,

telling them to look out for a little girl who had been kidnapped

by tramps or gypsies.  He then ordered his horse to be brought

round, and, after insisting on his wife and the three boys sitting

down to dinner, rode off down the Ascot Road with a groom.  He had

hardly, however, gone a couple of miles when he heard somebody

galloping after him, and, looking round, saw the little Duke coming

up on his pony, with his face very flushed and no hat.  'I'm

awfully sorry, Mr. Otis,' gasped out the boy, 'but I can't eat any

dinner as long as Virginia is lost.  Please, don't be angry with

me; if you had let us be engaged last year, there would never have

been all this trouble.  You won't send me back, will you?  I can't

go!  I won't go!'

The Minister could not help smiling at the handsome young

scapegrace, and was a good deal touched at his devotion to

Virginia, so leaning down from his horse, he patted him kindly on

the shoulders, and said, 'Well, Cecil, if you won't go back I

suppose you must come with me, but I must get you a hat at Ascot.'

'Oh, bother my hat!  I want Virginia!' cried the little Duke,

laughing, and they galloped on to the railway station.  There Mr.

Otis inquired of the station-master if any one answering the

description of Virginia had been seen on the platform, but could

get no news of her.  The station-master, however, wired up and down

the line, and assured him that a strict watch would be kept for

her, and, after having bought a hat for the little Duke from a

linen-draper, who was just putting up his shutters, Mr. Otis rode

---

off to Bexley, a village about four miles away, which he was told

was a well-known haunt of the gypsies, as there was a large common

next to it.  Here they roused up the rural policeman, but could get

no information from him, and, after riding all over the common,

they turned their horses' heads homewards, and reached the Chase

about eleven o'clock, dead-tired and almost heart-broken.  They

found Washington and the twins waiting for them at the gate-house

with lanterns, as the avenue was very dark.  Not the slightest

trace of Virginia had been discovered.  The gypsies had been caught

on Brockley meadows, but she was not with them, and they had

explained their sudden departure by saying that they had mistaken

the date of Chorton Fair, and had gone off in a hurry for fear they

might be late.  Indeed, they had been quite distressed at hearing

of Virginia's disappearance, as they were very grateful to Mr. Otis

for having allowed them to camp in his park, and four of their

number had stayed behind to help in the search.  The carp-pond had

been dragged, and the whole Chase thoroughly gone over, but without

any result.  It was evident that, for that night at any rate,

Virginia was lost to them; and it was in a state of the deepest

depression that Mr Otis and the boys walked up to the house, the

groom following behind with the two horses and the pony.  In the

hall they found a group of frightened servants, and lying on a sofa

in the library was poor Mrs. Otis, almost out of her mind with

terror and anxiety, and having her forehead bathed with eau-de-

cologne by the old housekeeper.  Mr. Otis at once insisted on her

having something to eat, and ordered up supper for the whole party.

It was a melancholy meal, as hardly any one spoke, and even the

twins were awestruck and subdued, as they were very fond of their

sister.  When they had finished, Mr. Otis, in spite of the

entreaties of the little Duke, ordered them all to bed, saying that

nothing more could be done that night, and that he would telegraph

in the morning to Scotland Yard for some detectives to be sent down

immediately.  Just as they were passing out of the dining-room,

midnight began to boom from the clock tower, and when the last

stroke sounded they heard a crash and a sudden shrill cry; a

dreadful peal of thunder shook the house, a strain of unearthly

music floated through the air, a panel at the top of the staircase

flew back with a loud noise, and out on the landing, looking very

pale and white, with a little casket in her hand, stepped Virginia.

In a moment they had all rushed up to her.  Mrs. Otis clasped her

passionately in her arms, the Duke smothered her with violent

kisses, and the twins executed a wild war-dance round the group.

'Good heavens! child, where have you been?' said Mr. Otis, rather

angrily, thinking that she had been playing some foolish trick on

---

them.  'Cecil and I have been riding all over the country looking

for you, and your mother has been frightened to death.  You must

never play these practical jokes any more.'

'Except on the Ghost! except on the Ghost!' shrieked the twins, as

they capered about.

'My own darling, thank God you are found; you must never leave my

side again,' murmured Mrs. Otis, as she kissed the trembling child,

and smoothed the tangled gold of her hair.

'Papa,' said Virginia quietly, 'I have been with the Ghost.  He is

dead, and you must come and see him.  He had been very wicked, but

he was really sorry for all that he had done, and he gave me this

box of beautiful jewels before he died.'

The whole family gazed at her in mute amazement, but she was quite

grave and serious; and, turning round, she led them through the

opening in the wainscoting down a narrow secret corridor,

Washington following with a lighted candle, which he had caught up

from the table.  Finally, they came to a great oak door, studded

with rusty nails.  When Virginia touched it, it swung back on its

heavy hinges, and they found themselves in a little low room, with

a vaulted ceiling, and one tiny grated window.  Imbedded in the

wall was a huge iron ring, and chained to it was a gaunt skeleton,

that was stretched out at full length on the stone floor, and

seemed to be trying to grasp with its long fleshless fingers an

old-fashioned trencher and ewer, that were placed just out of its

reach.  The jug had evidently been once filled with water, as it

was covered inside with green mould.  There was nothing on the

trencher but a pile of dust.  Virginia knelt down beside the

skeleton, and, folding her little hands together, began to pray

silently, while the rest of the party looked on in wonder at the

terrible tragedy whose secret was now disclosed to them.

'Hallo!' suddenly exclaimed one of the twins, who had been looking

out of the window to try and discover in what wing of the house the

room was situated.  'Hallo! the old withered almond-tree has

blossomed.  I can see the flowers quite plainly in the moonlight.'

'God has forgiven him,' said Virginia gravely, as she rose to her

feet, and a beautiful light seemed to illumine her face.

'What an angel you are!' cried the young Duke, and he put his arm

round her neck and kissed her.

---

CHAPTER VII

FOUR days after these curious incidents a funeral started from

Canterville Chase at about eleven o'clock at night.  The hearse was

drawn by eight black horses, each of which carried on its head a

great tuft of nodding ostrich-plumes, and the leaden coffin was

covered by a rich purple pall, on which was embroidered in gold the

Canterville coat-of-arms.  By the side of the hearse and the

coaches walked the servants with lighted torches, and the whole

procession was wonderfully impressive.  Lord Canterville was the

chief mourner, having come up specially from Wales to attend the

funeral, and sat in the first carriage along with little Virginia.

Then came the United States Minister and his wife, then Washington

and the three boys, and in the last carriage was Mrs. Umney.  It

was generally felt that, as she had been frightened by the ghost

for more than fifty years of her life, she had a right to see the

last of him.  A deep grave had been dug in the corner of the

churchyard, just under the old yew-tree, and the service was read

in the most impressive manner by the Rev. Augustus Dampier.  When

the ceremony was over, the servants, according to an old custom

observed in the Canterville family, extinguished their torches,

and, as the coffin was being lowered into the grave, Virginia

stepped forward and laid on it a large cross made of white and pink

almond-blossoms.  As she did so, the moon came out from behind a

cloud, and flooded with its silent silver the little churchyard,

and from a distant copse a nightingale began to sing.  She thought

of the ghost's description of the Garden of Death, her eyes became

dim with tears, and she hardly spoke a word during the drive home.

The next morning, before Lord Canterville went up to town, Mr. Otis

had an interview with him on the subject of the jewels the ghost

had given to Virginia.  They were perfectly magnificent, especially

a certain ruby necklace with old Venetian setting, which was really

a superb specimen of sixteenth-century work, and their value was so

great that Mr. Otis felt considerable scruples about allowing his

daughter to accept them.

'My lord,' he said, 'I know that in this country mortmain is held

to apply to trinkets as well as to land, and it is quite clear to

me that these jewels are, or should be, heirlooms in your family.

---

I must beg you, accordingly, to take them to London with you, and

to regard them simply as a portion of your property which has been

restored to you under certain strange conditions.  As for my

daughter, she is merely a child, and has as yet, I am glad to say,

but little interest in such appurtenances of idle luxury.  I am

also informed by Mrs. Otis, who, I may say, is no mean authority

upon Art - having had the privilege of spending several winters in

Boston when she was a girl - that these gems are of great monetary

worth, and if offered for sale would fetch a tall price.  Under

these circumstances, Lord Canterville, I feel sure that you will

recognise how impossible it would be for me to allow them to remain

in the possession of any member of my family; and, indeed, all such

vain gauds and toys, however suitable or necessary to the dignity

of the British aristocracy, would be completely out of place among

those who have been brought up on the severe, and I believe

immortal, principles of republican simplicity.  Perhaps I should

mention that Virginia is very anxious that you should allow her to

retain the box as a memento of your unfortunate but misguided

ancestor.  As it is extremely old, and consequently a good deal out

of repair, you may perhaps think fit to comply with her request.

For my own part, I confess I am a good deal surprised to find a

child of mine expressing sympathy with mediaevalism in any form,

and can only account for it by the fact that Virginia was born in

one of your London suburbs shortly after Mrs. Otis had returned

from a trip to Athens.'

Lord Canterville listened very gravely to the worthy Minister's

speech, pulling his grey moustache now and then to hide an

involuntary smile, and when Mr. Otis had ended, he shook him

cordially by the hand, and said, 'My dear sir, your charming little

daughter rendered my unlucky ancestor, Sir Simon, a very important

service, and I and my family are much indebted to her for her

marvellous courage and pluck.  The jewels are clearly hers, and,

egad, I believe that if I were heartless enough to take them from

her, the wicked old fellow would be out of his grave in a

fortnight, leading me the devil of a life.  As for their being

heirlooms, nothing is an heirloom that is not so mentioned in a

will or legal document, and the existence of these jewels has been

quite unknown.  I assure you I have no more claim on them than your

butler, and when Miss Virginia grows up I daresay she will be

pleased to have pretty things to wear.  Besides, you forget, Mr.

Otis, that you took the furniture and the ghost at a valuation, and

anything that belonged to the ghost passed at once into your

possession, as, whatever activity Sir Simon may have shown in the

corridor at night, in point of law he was really dead, and you

---

acquired his property by purchase.'

Mr. Otis was a good deal distressed at Lord Canterville's refusal,

and begged him to reconsider his decision, but the good-natured

peer was quite firm, and finally induced the Minister to allow his

daughter to retain the present the ghost had given her, and when,

in the spring of 1890, the young Duchess of Cheshire was presented

at the Queen's first drawing-room on the occasion of her marriage,

her jewels were the universal theme of admiration.  For Virginia

received the coronet, which is the reward of all good little

American girls, and was married to her boy-lover as soon as he came

of age.  They were both so charming, and they loved each other so

much, that every one was delighted at the match, except the old

Marchioness of Dumbleton, who had tried to catch the Duke for one

of her seven unmarried daughters, and had given no less than three

expensive dinner-parties for that purpose, and, strange to say, Mr.

Otis himself.  Mr. Otis was extremely fond of the young Duke

personally, but, theoretically, he objected to titles, and, to use

his own words, 'was not without apprehension lest, amid the

enervating influences of a pleasure-loving aristocracy, the true

principles of republican simplicity should be forgotten.'  His

objections, however, were completely overruled, and I believe that

when he walked up the aisle of St. George's, Hanover Square, with

his daughter leaning on his arm, there was not a prouder man in the

whole length and breadth of England.

The Duke and Duchess, after the honeymoon was over, went down to

Canterville Chase, and on the day after their arrival they walked

over in the afternoon to the lonely churchyard by the pine-woods.

There had been a great deal of difficulty at first about the

inscription on Sir Simon's tombstone, but finally it had been

decided to engrave on it simply the initials of the old gentleman's

name, and the verse from the library window.  The Duchess had

brought with her some lovely roses, which she strewed upon the

grave, and after they had stood by it for some time they strolled

into the ruined chancel of the old abbey.  There the Duchess sat

down on a fallen pillar, while her husband lay at her feet smoking

a cigarette and looking up at her beautiful eyes.  Suddenly he

threw his cigarette away, took hold of her hand, and said to her,

'Virginia, a wife should have no secrets from her husband.'

'Dear Cecil!  I have no secrets from you.'

'Yes, you have,' he answered, smiling, 'you have never told me what

happened to you when you were locked up with the ghost.'

---

'I have never told any one, Cecil,' said Virginia gravely.

'I know that, but you might tell me.'

'Please don't ask me, Cecil, I cannot tell you.  Poor Sir Simon!  I

owe him a great deal.  Yes, don't laugh, Cecil, I really do.  He

made me see what Life is, and what Death signifies, and why Love is

stronger than both.'

The Duke rose and kissed his wife lovingly.

'You can have your secret as long as I have your heart,' he

murmured.

'You have always had that, Cecil.'

'And you will tell our children some day, won't you?'

Virginia blushed.

THE SPHINX WITHOUT A SECRET

ONE afternoon I was sitting outside the Cafe de la Paix, watching

the splendour and shabbiness of Parisian life, and wondering over

my vermouth at the strange panorama of pride and poverty that was

passing before me, when I heard some one call my name.  I turned

round, and saw Lord Murchison.  We had not met since we had been at

college together, nearly ten years before, so I was delighted to

come across him again, and we shook hands warmly.  At Oxford we had

been great friends.  I had liked him immensely, he was so handsome,

so high-spirited, and so honourable.  We used to say of him that he

would be the best of fellows, if he did not always speak the truth,

but I think we really admired him all the more for his frankness.

I found him a good deal changed.  He looked anxious and puzzled,

and seemed to be in doubt about something.  I felt it could not be

modern scepticism, for Murchison was the stoutest of Tories, and

believed in the Pentateuch as firmly as he believed in the House of

Peers; so I concluded that it was a woman, and asked him if he was

---

married yet.

'I don't understand women well enough,' he answered.

'My dear Gerald,' I said, 'women are meant to be loved, not to be

understood.'

'I cannot love where I cannot trust,' he replied.

'I believe you have a mystery in your life, Gerald,' I exclaimed;

'tell me about it.'

'Let us go for a drive,' he answered, 'it is too crowded here.  No,

not a yellow carriage, any other colour - there, that dark green

one will do'; and in a few moments we were trotting down the

boulevard in the direction of the Madeleine.

'Where shall we go to?' I said.

'Oh, anywhere you like!' he answered - 'to the restaurant in the

Bois; we will dine there, and you shall tell me all about

yourself.'

'I want to hear about you first,' I said.  'Tell me your mystery.'

He took from his pocket a little silver-clasped morocco case, and

handed it to me.  I opened it.  Inside there was the photograph of

a woman.  She was tall and slight, and strangely picturesque with

her large vague eyes and loosened hair.  She looked like a

CLAIRVOYANTE, and was wrapped in rich furs.

'What do you think of that face?' he said; 'is it truthful?'

I examined it carefully.  It seemed to me the face of some one who

had a secret, but whether that secret was good or evil I could not

say.  Its beauty was a beauty moulded out of many mysteries - the

beauty, in fact, which is psychological, not plastic - and the

faint smile that just played across the lips was far too subtle to

be really sweet.

'Well,' he cried impatiently, 'what do you say?'

'She is the Gioconda in sables,' I answered.  'Let me know all

about her.'

---

'Not now,' he said; 'after dinner,' and began to talk of other

things.

When the waiter brought us our coffee and cigarettes I reminded

Gerald of his promise.  He rose from his seat, walked two or three

times up and down the room, and, sinking into an armchair, told me

the following story:-

'One evening,' he said, 'I was walking down Bond Street about five

o'clock.  There was a terrific crush of carriages, and the traffic

was almost stopped.  Close to the pavement was standing a little

yellow brougham, which, for some reason or other, attracted my

attention.  As I passed by there looked out from it the face I

showed you this afternoon.  It fascinated me immediately.  All that

night I kept thinking of it, and all the next day.  I wandered up

and down that wretched Row, peering into every carriage, and

waiting for the yellow brougham; but I could not find MA BELLE

INCONNUE, and at last I began to think she was merely a dream.

About a week afterwards I was dining with Madame de Rastail.

Dinner was for eight o'clock; but at half-past eight we were still

waiting in the drawing-room.  Finally the servant threw open the

door, and announced Lady Alroy.  It was the woman I had been

looking for.  She came in very slowly, looking like a moonbeam in

grey lace, and, to my intense delight, I was asked to take her in

to dinner.  After we had sat down, I remarked quite innocently, "I

think I caught sight of you in Bond Street some time ago, Lady

Alroy."  She grew very pale, and said to me in a low voice, "Pray

do not talk so loud; you may be overheard."  I felt miserable at

having made such a bad beginning, and plunged recklessly into the

subject of the French plays.  She spoke very little, always in the

same low musical voice, and seemed as if she was afraid of some one

listening.  I fell passionately, stupidly in love, and the

indefinable atmosphere of mystery that surrounded her excited my

most ardent curiosity.  When she was going away, which she did very

soon after dinner, I asked her if I might call and see her.  She

hesitated for a moment, glanced round to see if any one was near

us, and then said, "Yes; to-morrow at a quarter to five."  I begged

Madame de Rastail to tell me about her; but all that I could learn

was that she was a widow with a beautiful house in Park Lane, and

as some scientific bore began a dissertation on widows, as

exemplifying the survival of the matrimonially fittest, I left and

went home.

'The next day I arrived at Park Lane punctual to the moment, but

was told by the butler that Lady Alroy had just gone out.  I went

---

down to the club quite unhappy and very much puzzled, and after

long consideration wrote her a letter, asking if I might be allowed

to try my chance some other afternoon.  I had no answer for several

days, but at last I got a little note saying she would be at home

on Sunday at four and with this extraordinary postscript:  "Please

do not write to me here again; I will explain when I see you."  On

Sunday she received me, and was perfectly charming; but when I was

going away she begged of me, if I ever had occasion to write to her

again, to address my letter to "Mrs. Knox, care of Whittaker's

Library, Green Street."  "There are reasons," she said, "why I

cannot receive letters in my own house."

'All through the season I saw a great deal of her, and the

atmosphere of mystery never left her.  Sometimes I thought that she

was in the power of some man, but she looked so unapproachable,

that I could not believe it.  It was really very difficult for me

to come to any conclusion, for she was like one of those strange

crystals that one sees in museums, which are at one moment clear,

and at another clouded.  At last I determined to ask her to be my

wife:  I was sick and tired of the incessant secrecy that she

imposed on all my visits, and on the few letters I sent her.  I

wrote to her at the library to ask her if she could see me the

following Monday at six.  She answered yes, and I was in the

seventh heaven of delight.  I was infatuated with her:  in spite of

the mystery, I thought then - in consequence of it, I see now.  No;

it was the woman herself I loved.  The mystery troubled me,

maddened me.  Why did chance put me in its track?'

'You discovered it, then?' I cried.

'I fear so,' he answered.  'You can judge for yourself.'

'When Monday came round I went to lunch with my uncle, and about

four o'clock found myself in the Marylebone Road.  My uncle, you

know, lives in Regent's Park.  I wanted to get to Piccadilly, and

took a short cut through a lot of shabby little streets.  Suddenly

I saw in front of me Lady Alroy, deeply veiled and walking very

fast.  On coming to the last house in the street, she went up the

steps, took out a latch-key, and let herself in.  "Here is the

mystery," I said to myself; and I hurried on and examined the

house.  It seemed a sort of place for letting lodgings.  On the

doorstep lay her handkerchief, which she had dropped.  I picked it

up and put it in my pocket.  Then I began to consider what I should

do.  I came to the conclusion that I had no right to spy on her,

and I drove down to the club.  At six I called to see her.  She was

---

lying on a sofa, in a tea-gown of silver tissue looped up by some

strange moonstones that she always wore.  She was looking quite

lovely.  "I am so glad to see you," she said; "I have not been out

all day."  I stared at her in amazement, and pulling the

handkerchief out of my pocket, handed it to her.  "You dropped this

in Cumnor Street this afternoon, Lady Alroy,"  I said very calmly.

She looked at me in terror but made no attempt to take the

handkerchief.  "What were you doing there?" I asked.  "What right

have you to question me?" she answered.  "The right of a man who

loves you," I replied; "I came here to ask you to be my wife."  She

hid her face in her hands, and burst into floods of tears.  "You

must tell me," I continued.  She stood up, and, looking me straight

in the face, said, "Lord Murchison, there is nothing to tell you."

- "You went to meet some one," I cried; "this is your mystery."

She grew dreadfully white, and said, "I went to meet no one." -

"Can't you tell the truth?" I exclaimed.  "I have told it," she

replied.  I was mad, frantic; I don't know what I said, but I said

terrible things to her.  Finally I rushed out of the house.  She

wrote me a letter the next day; I sent it back unopened, and

started for Norway with Alan Colville.  After a month I came back,

and the first thing I saw in the MORNING POST was the death of Lady

Alroy.  She had caught a chill at the Opera, and had died in five

days of congestion of the lungs.  I shut myself up and saw no one.

I had loved her so much, I had loved her so madly.  Good God! how I

had loved that woman!'

'You went to the street, to the house in it?' I said.

'Yes,' he answered.

'One day I went to Cumnor Street.  I could not help it; I was

tortured with doubt.  I knocked at the door, and a respectable-

looking woman opened it to me.  I asked her if she had any rooms to

let.  "Well, sir," she replied, "the drawing-rooms are supposed to

be let; but I have not seen the lady for three months, and as rent

is owing on them, you can have them." - "Is this the lady?" I said,

showing the photograph.  "That's her, sure enough," she exclaimed;

"and when is she coming back, sir?" - "The lady is dead," I

replied.  "Oh sir, I hope not!" said the woman; "she was my best

lodger.  She paid me three guineas a week merely to sit in my

drawing-rooms now and then."  "She met some one here?" I said; but

the woman assured me that it was not so, that she always came

alone, and saw no one.  "What on earth did she do here?" I cried.

"She simply sat in the drawing-room, sir, reading books, and

sometimes had tea," the woman answered.  I did not know what to

---

say, so I gave her a sovereign and went away.  Now, what do you

think it all meant?  You don't believe the woman was telling the

truth?'

'I do.'

'Then why did Lady Alroy go there?'

'My dear Gerald,' I answered, 'Lady Alroy was simply a woman with a

mania for mystery.  She took these rooms for the pleasure of going

there with her veil down, and imagining she was a heroine.  She had

a passion for secrecy, but she herself was merely a Sphinx without

a secret.'

'Do you really think so?'

'I am sure of it,' I replied.

He took out the morocco case, opened it, and looked at the

photograph.  'I wonder?' he said at last.

THE MODEL MILLIONAIRE

UNLESS one is wealthy there is no use in being a charming fellow.

Romance is the privilege of the rich, not the profession of the

unemployed.  The poor should be practical and prosaic.  It is

better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.  These

are the great truths of modern life which Hughie Erskine never

realised.  Poor Hughie!  Intellectually, we must admit, he was not

of much importance.  He never said a brilliant or even an ill-

natured thing in his life.  But then he was wonderfully good-

looking, with his crisp brown hair, his clear-cut profile, and his

grey eyes.  He was as popular with men as he was with women and he

had every accomplishment except that of making money.  His father

had bequeathed him his cavalry sword and a HISTORY OF THE

PENINSULAR WAR in fifteen volumes.  Hughie hung the first over his

looking-glass, put the second on a shelf between RUFF'S GUIDE and

BAILEY'S MAGAZINE, and lived on two hundred a year that an old aunt

allowed him.  He had tried everything.  He had gone on the Stock

---

Exchange for six months; but what was a butterfly to do among bulls

and bears?  He had been a tea-merchant for a little longer, but had

soon tired of pekoe and souchong.  Then he had tried selling dry

sherry.  That did not answer; the sherry was a little too dry.

Ultimately he became nothing, a delightful, ineffectual young man

with a perfect profile and no profession.

To make matters worse, he was in love.  The girl he loved was Laura

Merton, the daughter of a retired Colonel who had lost his temper

and his digestion in India, and had never found either of them

again.  Laura adored him, and he was ready to kiss her shoe-

strings.  They were the handsomest couple in London, and had not a

penny-piece between them.  The Colonel was very fond of Hughie, but

would not hear of any engagement.

'Come to me, my boy, when you have got ten thousand pounds of your

own, and we will see about it,' he used to say; and Hughie looked

very glum in those days, and had to go to Laura for consolation.

One morning, as he was on his way to Holland Park, where the

Mertons lived, he dropped in to see a great friend of his, Alan

Trevor.  Trevor was a painter.  Indeed, few people escape that

nowadays.  But he was also an artist, and artists are rather rare.

Personally he was a strange rough fellow, with a freckled face and

a red ragged beard.  However, when he took up the brush he was a

real master, and his pictures were eagerly sought after.  He had

been very much attracted by Hughie at first, it must be

acknowledged, entirely on account of his personal charm.  'The only

people a painter should know,' he used to say, 'are people who are

BETE and beautiful, people who are an artistic pleasure to look at

and an intellectual repose to talk to.  Men who are dandies and

women who are darlings rule the world, at least they should do so.'

However, after he got to know Hughie better, he liked him quite as

much for his bright, buoyant spirits and his generous, reckless

nature, and had given him the permanent ENTREE to his studio.

When Hughie came in he found Trevor putting the finishing touches

to a wonderful life-size picture of a beggar-man.  The beggar

himself was standing on a raised platform in a corner of the

studio.  He was a wizened old man, with a face like wrinkled

parchment, and a most piteous expression.  Over his shoulders was

flung a coarse brown cloak, all tears and tatters; his thick boots

were patched and cobbled, and with one hand he leant on a rough

stick, while with the other he held out his battered hat for alms.

---

'What an amazing model!' whispered Hughie, as he shook hands with

his friend.

'An amazing model?' shouted Trevor at the top of his voice; 'I

should think so!  Such beggars as he are not to be met with every

day.  A TROUVAILLE, MON CHER; a living Velasquez!  My stars! what

an etching Rembrandt would have made of him!'

'Poor old chap!' said Hughie, 'how miserable he looks!  But I

suppose, to you painters, his face is his fortune?'

'Certainly,' replied Trevor, 'you don't want a beggar to look

happy, do you?'

'How much does a model get for sitting?' asked Hughie, as he found

himself a comfortable seat on a divan.

'A shilling an hour.'

'And how much do you get for your picture, Alan?'

'Oh, for this I get two thousand!'

'Pounds?'

'Guineas.  Painters, poets, and physicians always get guineas.'

'Well, I think the model should have a percentage,' cried Hughie,

laughing; 'they work quite as hard as you do.'

'Nonsense, nonsense!  Why, look at the trouble of laying on the

paint alone, and standing all day long at one's easel!  It's all

very well, Hughie, for you to talk, but I assure you that there are

moments when Art almost attains to the dignity of manual labour.

But you mustn't chatter; I'm very busy.  Smoke a cigarette, and

keep quiet.'

After some time the servant came in, and told Trevor that the

framemaker wanted to speak to him.

'Don't run away, Hughie,' he said, as he went out, 'I will be back

in a moment.'

The old beggar-man took advantage of Trevor's absence to rest for a

moment on a wooden bench that was behind him.  He looked so forlorn

---

and wretched that Hughie could not help pitying him, and felt in

his pockets to see what money he had.  All he could find was a

sovereign and some coppers.  'Poor old fellow,' he thought to

himself, 'he wants it more than I do, but it means no hansoms for a

fortnight'; and he walked across the studio and slipped the

sovereign into the beggar's hand.

The old man started, and a faint smile flitted across his withered

lips.  'Thank you, sir,' he said, 'thank you.'

Then Trevor arrived, and Hughie took his leave, blushing a little

at what he had done.  He spent the day with Laura, got a charming

scolding for his extravagance, and had to walk home.

That night he strolled into the Palette Club about eleven o'clock,

and found Trevor sitting by himself in the smoking-room drinking

hock and seltzer.

'Well, Alan, did you get the picture finished all right?' he said,

as he lit his cigarette.

'Finished and framed, my boy!' answered Trevor; 'and, by the bye,

you have made a conquest.  That old model you saw is quite devoted

to you.  I had to tell him all about you - who you are, where you

live, what your income is, what prospects you have - '

'My dear Alan,' cried Hughie, 'I shall probably find him waiting

for me when I go home.  But of course you are only joking.  Poor

old wretch!  I wish I could do something for him.  I think it is

dreadful that any one should be so miserable.  I have got heaps of

old clothes at home - do you think he would care for any of them?

Why, his rags were falling to bits.'

'But he looks splendid in them,' said Trevor.  'I wouldn't paint

him in a frock coat for anything.  What you call rags I call

romance.  What seems poverty to you is picturesqueness to me.

However, I'll tell him of your offer.'

'Alan,' said Hughie seriously, 'you painters are a heartless lot.'

'An artist's heart is his head,' replied Trevor; 'and besides, our

business is to realise the world as we see it, not to reform it as

we know it.  A CHACUN SON METIER.  And now tell me how Laura is.

The old model was quite interested in her.'

---

'You don't mean to say you talked to him about her?' said Hughie.

'Certainly I did.  He knows all about the relentless colonel, the

lovely Laura, and the 10,000 pounds.'

'You told that old beggar all my private affairs?' cried Hughie,

looking very red and angry.

'My dear boy,' said Trevor, smiling, 'that old beggar, as you call

him, is one of the richest men in Europe.  He could buy all London

to-morrow without overdrawing his account.  He has a house in every

capital, dines off gold plate, and can prevent Russia going to war

when he chooses.'

'What on earth do you mean?' exclaimed Hughie.

'What I say,' said Trevor.  'The old man you saw to-day in the

studio was Baron Hausberg.  He is a great friend of mine, buys all

my pictures and that sort of thing, and gave me a commission a

month ago to paint him as a beggar.  QUE VOULEZ-VOUS?  LA FANTAISIE

D'UN MILLIONNAIRE!  And I must say he made a magnificent figure in

his rags, or perhaps I should say in my rags; they are an old suit

I got in Spain.'

'Baron Hausberg!' cried Hughie.  'Good heavens!  I gave him a

sovereign!' and he sank into an armchair the picture of dismay.

'Gave him a sovereign!' shouted Trevor, and he burst into a roar of

laughter.  'My dear boy, you'll never see it again.  SON AFFAIRE

C'EST L'ARGENT DES AUTRES.'

'I think you might have told me, Alan,' said Hughie sulkily, 'and

not have let me make such a fool of myself.'

'Well, to begin with, Hughie,' said Trevor, 'it never entered my

mind that you went about distributing alms in that reckless way.  I

can understand your kissing a pretty model, but your giving a

sovereign to an ugly one - by Jove, no!  Besides, the fact is that

I really was not at home to-day to any one; and when you came in I

didn't know whether Hausberg would like his name mentioned.  You

know he wasn't in full dress.'

'What a duffer he must think me!' said Hughie.

'Not at all.  He was in the highest spirits after you left; kept

---

chuckling to himself and rubbing his old wrinkled hands together.

I couldn't make out why he was so interested to know all about you;

but I see it all now.  He'll invest your sovereign for you, Hughie,

pay you the interest every six months, and have a capital story to

tell after dinner.'

'I am an unlucky devil,' growled Hughie.  'The best thing I can do

is to go to bed; and, my dear Alan, you mustn't tell any one.  I

shouldn't dare show my face in the Row.'

'Nonsense!  It reflects the highest credit on your philanthropic

spirit, Hughie.  And don't run away.  Have another cigarette, and

you can talk about Laura as much as you like.'

However, Hughie wouldn't stop, but walked home, feeling very

unhappy, and leaving Alan Trevor in fits of laughter.

The next morning, as he was at breakfast, the servant brought him

up a card on which was written, 'Monsieur Gustave Naudin, DE LA

PART DE M. le Baron Hausberg.'  'I suppose he has come for an

apology,' said Hughie to himself; and he told the servant to show

the visitor up.

An old gentleman with gold spectacles and grey hair came into the

room, and said, in a slight French accent, 'Have I the honour of

addressing Monsieur Erskine?'

Hughie bowed.

'I have come from Baron Hausberg,' he continued.  'The Baron - '

'I beg, sir, that you will offer him my sincerest apologies,'

stammered Hughie.

'The Baron,' said the old gentleman with a smile, 'has commissioned

me to bring you this letter'; and he extended a sealed envelope.

On the outside was written, 'A wedding present to Hugh Erskine and

Laura Merton, from an old beggar,' and inside was a cheque for

10,000 pounds.

When they were married Alan Trevor was the best man, and the Baron

made a speech at the wedding breakfast.

'Millionaire models,' remarked Alan, 'are rare enough; but, by

---

Jove, model millionaires are rarer still!'

THE PORTRAIT OF MR. W. H.

CHAPTER I

I HAD been dining with Erskine in his pretty little house in

Birdcage Walk, and we were sitting in the library over our coffee

and cigarettes, when the question of literary forgeries happened to

turn up in conversation.  I cannot at present remember how it was

that we struck upon this somewhat curious topic, as it was at that

time, but I know that we had a long discussion about Macpherson,

Ireland, and Chatterton, and that with regard to the last I

insisted that his so-called forgeries were merely the result of an

artistic desire for perfect representation; that we had no right to

quarrel with an artist for the conditions under which he chooses to

present his work; and that all Art being to a certain degree a mode

of acting, an attempt to realise one's own personality on some

imaginative plane out of reach of the trammelling accidents and

limitations of real life, to censure an artist for a forgery was to

confuse an ethical with an aesthetical problem.

Erskine, who was a good deal older than I was, and had been

listening to me with the amused deference of a man of forty,

suddenly put his hand upon my shoulder and said to me, 'What would

you say about a young man who had a strange theory about a certain

work of art, believed in his theory, and committed a forgery in

order to prove it?'

'Ah! that is quite a different matter,' I answered.

Erskine remained silent for a few moments, looking at the thin grey

threads of smoke that were rising from his cigarette.  'Yes,' he

said, after a pause, 'quite different.'

There was something in the tone of his voice, a slight touch of

bitterness perhaps, that excited my curiosity.  'Did you ever know

---

anybody who did that?' I cried.

'Yes,' he answered, throwing his cigarette into the fire, - 'a

great friend of mine, Cyril Graham.  He was very fascinating, and

very foolish, and very heartless.  However, he left me the only

legacy I ever received in my life.'

'What was that?' I exclaimed.  Erskine rose from his seat, and

going over to a tall inlaid cabinet that stood between the two

windows, unlocked it, and came back to where I was sitting, holding

in his hand a small panel picture set in an old and somewhat

tarnished Elizabethan frame.

It was a full-length portrait of a young man in late sixteenth-

century costume, standing by a table, with his right hand resting

on an open book.  He seemed about seventeen years of age, and was

of quite extraordinary personal beauty, though evidently somewhat

effeminate.  Indeed, had it not been for the dress and the closely

cropped hair, one would have said that the face with its dreamy

wistful eyes, and its delicate scarlet lips, was the face of a

girl.  In manner, and especially in the treatment of the hands, the

picture reminded one of Francois Clouet's later work.  The black

velvet doublet with its fantastically gilded points, and the

peacock-blue background against which it showed up so pleasantly,

and from which it gained such luminous value of colour, were quite

in Clouet's style; and the two masks of Tragedy and Comedy that

hung somewhat formally from the marble pedestal had that hard

severity of touch - so different from the facile grace of the

Italians - which even at the Court of France the great Flemish

master never completely lost, and which in itself has always been a

characteristic of the northern temper.

'It is a charming thing,' I cried, 'but who is this wonderful young

man, whose beauty Art has so happily preserved for us?'

'This is the portrait of Mr. W. H.,' said Erskine, with a sad

smile.  It might have been a chance effect of light, but it seemed

to me that his eyes were quite bright with tears.

'Mr. W. H.!' I exclaimed; 'who was Mr. W. H.?'

'Don't you remember?' he answered; 'look at the book on which his

hand is resting.'

'I see there is some writing there, but I cannot make it out,' I

---

replied.

'Take this magnifying-glass and try,' said Erskine, with the same

sad smile still playing about his mouth.

I took the glass, and moving the lamp a little nearer, I began to

spell out the crabbed sixteenth-century handwriting.  'To the onlie

begetter of these insuing sonnets.' . . . 'Good heavens!' I cried,

'is this Shakespeare's Mr. W. H.?'

'Cyril Graham used to say so,' muttered Erskine.

'But it is not a bit like Lord Pembroke,' I answered.  'I know the

Penshurst portraits very well.  I was staying near there a few

weeks ago.'

'Do you really believe then that the sonnets are addressed to Lord

Pembroke?' he asked.

'I am sure of it,' I answered.  'Pembroke, Shakespeare, and Mrs.

Mary Fitton are the three personages of the Sonnets; there is no

doubt at all about it.'

'Well, I agree with you,' said Erskine, 'but I did not always think

so.  I used to believe - well, I suppose I used to believe in Cyril

Graham and his theory.'

'And what was that?' I asked, looking at the wonderful portrait,

which had already begun to have a strange fascination for me.

'It is a long story,' said Erskine, taking the picture away from me

- rather abruptly I thought at the time - 'a very long story; but

if you care to hear it, I will tell it to you.'

'I love theories about the Sonnets,' I cried; 'but I don't think I

am likely to be converted to any new idea.  The matter has ceased

to be a mystery to any one.  Indeed, I wonder that it ever was a

mystery.'

'As I don't believe in the theory, I am not likely to convert you

to it,' said Erskine, laughing; 'but it may interest you.'

'Tell it to me, of course,' I answered.  'If it is half as

delightful as the picture, I shall be more than satisfied.'

---

'Well,' said Erskine, lighting a cigarette, 'I must begin by

telling you about Cyril Graham himself.  He and I were at the same

house at Eton.  I was a year or two older than he was, but we were

immense friends, and did all our work and all our play together.

There was, of course, a good deal more play than work, but I cannot

say that I am sorry for that.  It is always an advantage not to

have received a sound commercial education, and what I learned in

the playing fields at Eton has been quite as useful to me as

anything I was taught at Cambridge.  I should tell you that Cyril's

father and mother were both dead.  They had been drowned in a

horrible yachting accident off the Isle of Wight.  His father had

been in the diplomatic service, and had married a daughter, the

only daughter, in fact, of old Lord Crediton, who became Cyril's

guardian after the death of his parents.  I don't think that Lord

Crediton cared very much for Cyril.  He had never really forgiven

his daughter for marrying a man who had not a title.  He was an

extraordinary old aristocrat, who swore like a costermonger, and

had the manners of a farmer.  I remember seeing him once on Speech-

day.  He growled at me, gave me a sovereign, and told me not to

grow up "a damned Radical" like my father.  Cyril had very little

affection for him, and was only too glad to spend most of his

holidays with us in Scotland.  They never really got on together at

all.  Cyril thought him a bear, and he thought Cyril effeminate.

He was effeminate, I suppose, in some things, though he was a very

good rider and a capital fencer.  In fact he got the foils before

he left Eton.  But he was very languid in his manner, and not a

little vain of his good looks, and had a strong objection to

football.  The two things that really gave him pleasure were poetry

and acting.  At Eton he was always dressing up and reciting

Shakespeare, and when we went up to Trinity he became a member of

the A.D.C. his first term.  I remember I was always very jealous of

his acting.  I was absurdly devoted to him; I suppose because we

were so different in some things.  I was a rather awkward, weakly

lad, with huge feet, and horribly freckled.  Freckles run in Scotch

families just as gout does in English families.  Cyril used to say

that of the two he preferred the gout; but he always set an

absurdly high value on personal appearance, and once read a paper

before our debating society to prove that it was better to be good-

looking than to be good.  He certainly was wonderfully handsome.

People who did not like him, Philistines and college tutors, and

young men reading for the Church, used to say that he was merely

pretty; but there was a great deal more in his face than mere

prettiness.  I think he was the most splendid creature I ever saw,

and nothing could exceed the grace of his movements, the charm of

his manner.  He fascinated everybody who was worth fascinating, and

---

a great many people who were not.  He was often wilful and

petulant, and I used to think him dreadfully insincere.  It was

due, I think, chiefly to his inordinate desire to please.  Poor

Cyril!  I told him once that he was contented with very cheap

triumphs, but he only laughed.  He was horribly spoiled.  All

charming people, I fancy, are spoiled.  It is the secret of their

attraction.

'However, I must tell you about Cyril's acting.  You know that no

actresses are allowed to play at the A.D.C.  At least they were not

in my time.  I don't know how it is now.  Well, of course, Cyril

was always cast for the girls' parts, and when AS YOU LIKE IT was

produced he played Rosalind.  It was a marvellous performance.  In

fact, Cyril Graham was the only perfect Rosalind I have ever seen.

It would be impossible to describe to you the beauty, the delicacy,

the refinement of the whole thing.  It made an immense sensation,

and the horrid little theatre, as it was then, was crowded every

night.  Even when I read the play now I can't help thinking of

Cyril.  It might have been written for him.  The next term he took

his degree, and came to London to read for the diplomatic.  But he

never did any work.  He spent his days in reading Shakespeare's

Sonnets, and his evenings at the theatre.  He was, of course, wild

to go on the stage.  It was all that I and Lord Crediton could do

to prevent him.  Perhaps if he had gone on the stage he would be

alive now.  It is always a silly thing to give advice, but to give

good advice is absolutely fatal.  I hope you will never fall into

that error.  If you do, you will be sorry for it.

'Well, to come to the real point of the story, one day I got a

letter from Cyril asking me to come round to his rooms that

evening.  He had charming chambers in Piccadilly overlooking the

Green Park, and as I used to go to see him every day, I was rather

surprised at his taking the trouble to write.  Of course I went,

and when I arrived I found him in a state of great excitement.  He

told me that he had at last discovered the true secret of

Shakespeare's Sonnets; that all the scholars and critics had been

entirely on the wrong tack; and that he was the first who, working

purely by internal evidence, had found out who Mr. W. H. really

was.  He was perfectly wild with delight, and for a long time would

not tell me his theory.  Finally, he produced a bundle of notes,

took his copy of the Sonnets off the mantelpiece, and sat down and

gave me a long lecture on the whole subject.

'He began by pointing out that the young man to whom Shakespeare

addressed these strangely passionate poems must have been somebody

---

who was a really vital factor in the development of his dramatic

art, and that this could not be said either of Lord Pembroke or

Lord Southampton.  Indeed, whoever he was, he could not have been

anybody of high birth, as was shown very clearly by the 25th

Sonnet, in which Shakespeare contrasting himself with those who are

"great princes' favourites," says quite frankly -

Let those who are in favour with their stars

Of public honour and proud titles boast,

Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars,

Unlook'd for joy in that I honour most.

And ends the sonnet by congratulating himself on the mean state of

him he so adored.

Then happy I, that love and am beloved

Where I may not remove nor be removed.

This sonnet Cyril declared would be quite unintelligible if we

fancied that it was addressed to either the Earl of Pembroke or the

Earl of Southampton, both of whom were men of the highest position

in England and fully entitled to be called "great princes"; and he

in corroboration of his view read me Sonnets CXXIV. and CXXV., in

which Shakespeare tells us that his love is not "the child of

state," that it "suffers not in smiling pomp," but is "builded far

from accident."  I listened with a good deal of interest, for I

don't think the point had ever been made before; but what followed

was still more curious, and seemed to me at the time to dispose

entirely of Pembroke's claim.  We know from Meres that the Sonnets

had been written before 1598, and Sonnet CIV. informs us that

Shakespeare's friendship for Mr. W. H. had been already in

existence for three years.  Now Lord Pembroke, who was born in

1580, did not come to London till he was eighteen years of age,

that is to say till 1598, and Shakespeare's acquaintance with Mr.

W. H. must have begun in 1594, or at the latest in 1595.

Shakespeare, accordingly, could not have known Lord Pembroke till

after the Sonnets had been written.

'Cyril pointed out also that Pembroke's father did not die till

1601; whereas it was evident from the line,

---

You had a father; let your son say so,

that the father of Mr. W. H. was dead in 1598.  Besides, it was

absurd to imagine that any publisher of the time, and the preface

is from the publisher's hand, would have ventured to address

William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, as Mr. W. H.; the case of Lord

Buckhurst being spoken of as Mr. Sackville being not really a

parallel instance, as Lord Buckhurst was not a peer, but merely the

younger son of a peer, with a courtesy title, and the passage in

ENGLAND'S PARNASSUS, where he is so spoken of, is not a formal and

stately dedication, but simply a casual allusion.  So far for Lord

Pembroke, whose supposed claims Cyril easily demolished while I sat

by in wonder.  With Lord Southampton Cyril had even less

difficulty.  Southampton became at a very early age the lover of

Elizabeth Vernon, so he needed no entreaties to marry; he was not

beautiful; he did not resemble his mother, as Mr. W. H. did -

Thou art thy mother's glass, and she in thee

Calls back the lovely April of her prime;

and, above all, his Christian name was Henry, whereas the punning

sonnets (CXXXV. and CXLIII.) show that the Christian name of

Shakespeare's friend was the same as his own - WILL.

'As for the other suggestions of unfortunate commentators, that Mr.

W. H. is a misprint for Mr. W. S., meaning Mr. William Shakespeare;

that "Mr. W. H. all" should be read "Mr. W. Hall"; that Mr. W. H.

is Mr. William Hathaway; and that a full stop should be placed

after "wisheth," making Mr. W. H. the writer and not the subject of

the dedication, - Cyril got rid of them in a very short time; and

it is not worth while to mention his reasons, though I remember he

sent me off into a fit of laughter by reading to me, I am glad to

say not in the original, some extracts from a German commentator

called Barnstorff, who insisted that Mr. W. H. was no less a person

than "Mr. William Himself."  Nor would he allow for a moment that

the Sonnets are mere satires on the work of Drayton and John Davies

of Hereford.  To him, as indeed to me, they were poems of serious

and tragic import, wrung out of the bitterness of Shakespeare's

heart, and made sweet by the honey of his lips.  Still less would

he admit that they were merely a philosophical allegory, and that

in them Shakespeare is addressing his Ideal Self, or Ideal Manhood,

---

or the Spirit of Beauty, or the Reason, or the Divine Logos, or the

Catholic Church.  He felt, as indeed I think we all must feel, that

the Sonnets are addressed to an individual, - to a particular young

man whose personality for some reason seems to have filled the soul

of Shakespeare with terrible joy and no less terrible despair.

'Having in this manner cleared the way as it were, Cyril asked me

to dismiss from my mind any preconceived ideas I might have formed

on the subject, and to give a fair and unbiassed hearing to his own

theory.  The problem he pointed out was this:  Who was that young

man of Shakespeare's day who, without being of noble birth or even

of noble nature, was addressed by him in terms of such passionate

adoration that we can but wonder at the strange worship, and are

almost afraid to turn the key that unlocks the mystery of the

poet's heart?  Who was he whose physical beauty was such that it

became the very corner-stone of Shakespeare's art; the very source

of Shakespeare's inspiration; the very incarnation of Shakespeare's

dreams?  To look upon him as simply the object of certain love-

poems is to miss the whole meaning of the poems:  for the art of

which Shakespeare talks in the Sonnets is not the art of the

Sonnets themselves, which indeed were to him but slight and secret

things - it is the art of the dramatist to which he is always

alluding; and he to whom Shakespeare said -

Thou art all my art, and dost advance

As high as learning my rude ignorance,

he to whom he promised immortality,

Where breath most breathes, even in the mouths of men, -

was surely none other than the boy-actor for whom he created Viola

and Imogen, Juliet and Rosalind, Portia and Desdemona, and

Cleopatra herself.  This was Cyril Graham's theory, evolved as you

see purely from the Sonnets themselves, and depending for its

acceptance not so much on demonstrable proof or formal evidence,

but on a kind of spiritual and artistic sense, by which alone he

claimed could the true meaning of the poems be discerned.  I

remember his reading to me that fine sonnet -

---

How can my Muse want subject to invent,

While thou dost breathe, that pour'st into my verse

Thine own sweet argument, too excellent

For every vulgar paper to rehearse?

O, give thyself the thanks, if aught in me

Worthy perusal stand against thy sight;

For who's so dumb that cannot write to thee,

When thou thyself dost give invention light?

Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth

Than those old nine which rhymers invocate;

And he that calls on thee, let him bring forth

Eternal numbers to outlive long date -

and pointing out how completely it corroborated his theory; and

indeed he went through all the Sonnets carefully, and showed, or

fancied that he showed, that, according to his new explanation of

their meaning, things that had seemed obscure, or evil, or

exaggerated, became clear and rational, and of high artistic

import, illustrating Shakespeare's conception of the true relations

between the art of the actor and the art of the dramatist.

'It is of course evident that there must have been in Shakespeare's

company some wonderful boy-actor of great beauty, to whom he

intrusted the presentation of his noble heroines; for Shakespeare

was a practical theatrical manager as well as an imaginative poet,

and Cyril Graham had actually discovered the boy-actor's name.  He

was Will, or, as he preferred to call him, Willie Hughes.  The

Christian name he found of course in the punning sonnets, CXXXV.

and CXLIII.; the surname was, according to him, hidden in the

seventh line of the 20th Sonnet, where Mr. W. H. is described as -

A man in hew, all HEWS in his controwling.

'In the original edition of the Sonnets "Hews" is printed with a

capital letter and in italics, and this, he claimed, showed clearly

that a play on words was intended, his view receiving a good deal

of corroboration from those sonnets in which curious puns are made

on the words "use" and "usury."  Of course I was converted at once,

and Willie Hughes became to me as real a person as Shakespeare.

The only objection I made to the theory was that the name of Willie

Hughes does not occur in the list of the actors of Shakespeare's

company as it is printed in the first folio.  Cyril, however,

---

pointed out that the absence of Willie Hughes's name from this list

really corroborated the theory, as it was evident from Sonnet

LXXXVI. that Willie Hughes had abandoned Shakespeare's company to

play at a rival theatre, probably in some of Chapman's plays.  It

is in reference to this that in the great sonnet on Chapman,

Shakespeare said to Willie Hughes -

But when your countenance fill'd up his line,

Then lack'd I matter; that enfeebled mine -

the expression "when your countenance filled up his line" referring

obviously to the beauty of the young actor giving life and reality

and added charm to Chapman's verse, the same idea being also put

forward in the 79th Sonnet -

Whilst I alone did call upon thy aid,

My verse alone had all thy gentle grace;

But now my gracious numbers are decay'd,

And my sick Muse doth give another place;

and in the immediately preceding sonnet, where Shakespeare says -

Every alien pen has got my USE

And under thee their poesy disperse,

the play upon words (use=Hughes) being of course obvious, and the

phrase "under thee their poesy disperse," meaning "by your

assistance as an actor bring their plays before the people."

'It was a wonderful evening, and we sat up almost till dawn reading

and re-reading the Sonnets.  After some time, however, I began to

see that before the theory could be placed before the world in a

really perfected form, it was necessary to get some independent

evidence about the existence of this young actor, Willie Hughes.

If this could be once established, there could be no possible doubt

about his identity with Mr. W. H.; but otherwise the theory would

fall to the ground.  I put this forward very strongly to Cyril, who

was a good deal annoyed at what he called my Philistine tone of

mind, and indeed was rather bitter upon the subject.  However, I

---

made him promise that in his own interest he would not publish his

discovery till he had put the whole matter beyond the reach of

doubt; and for weeks and weeks we searched the registers of City

churches, the Alleyn MSS. at Dulwich, the Record Office, the papers

of the Lord Chamberlain - everything, in fact, that we thought

might contain some allusion to Willie Hughes.  We discovered

nothing, of course, and every day the existence of Willie Hughes

seemed to me to become more problematical.  Cyril was in a dreadful

state, and used to go over the whole question day after day,

entreating me to believe; but I saw the one flaw in the theory, and

I refused to be convinced till the actual existence of Willie

Hughes, a boy-actor of Elizabethan days, had been placed beyond the

reach of doubt or cavil.

'One day Cyril left town to stay with his grandfather, I thought at

the time, but I afterwards heard from Lord Crediton that this was

not the case; and about a fortnight afterwards I received a

telegram from him, handed in at Warwick, asking me to be sure to

come and dine with him that evening at eight o'clock.  When I

arrived, he said to me, "The only apostle who did not deserve proof

was St. Thomas, and St. Thomas was the only apostle who got it."  I

asked him what he meant.  He answered that he had not merely been

able to establish the existence in the sixteenth century of a boy-

actor of the name of Willie Hughes, but to prove by the most

conclusive evidence that he was the Mr. W. H. of the Sonnets.  He

would not tell me anything more at the time; but after dinner he

solemnly produced the picture I showed you, and told me that he had

discovered it by the merest chance nailed to the side of an old

chest that he had bought at a farmhouse in Warwickshire.  The chest

itself, which was a very fine example of Elizabethan work, he had,

of course, brought with him, and in the centre of the front panel

the initials W. H. were undoubtedly carved.  It was this monogram

that had attracted his attention, and he told me that it was not

till he had had the chest in his possession for several days that

he had thought of making any careful examination of the inside.

One morning, however, he saw that one of the sides of the chest was

much thicker than the other, and looking more closely, he

discovered that a framed panel picture was clamped against it.  On

taking it out, he found it was the picture that is now lying on the

sofa.  It was very dirty, and covered with mould; but he managed to

clean it, and, to his great joy, saw that he had fallen by mere

chance on the one thing for which he had been looking.  Here was an

authentic portrait of Mr. W. H., with his hand resting on the

dedicatory page of the Sonnets, and on the frame itself could be

faintly seen the name of the young man written in black uncial

---

letters on a faded gold ground, "Master Will. Hews."

'Well, what was I to say?  It never occurred to me for a moment

that Cyril Graham was playing a trick on me, or that he was trying

to prove his theory by means of a forgery.'

'But is it a forgery?' I asked.

'Of course it is,' said Erskine.  'It is a very good forgery; but

it is a forgery none the less.  I thought at the time that Cyril

was rather calm about the whole matter; but I remember he more than

once told me that he himself required no proof of the kind, and

that he thought the theory complete without it.  I laughed at him,

and told him that without it the theory would fall to the ground,

and I warmly congratulated him on the marvellous discovery.  We

then arranged that the picture should be etched or facsimiled, and

placed as the frontispiece to Cyril's edition of the Sonnets; and

for three months we did nothing but go over each poem line by line,

till we had settled every difficulty of text or meaning.  One

unlucky day I was in a print-shop in Holborn, when I saw upon the

counter some extremely beautiful drawings in silver-point.  I was

so attracted by them that I bought them; and the proprietor of the

place, a man called Rawlings, told me that they were done by a

young painter of the name of Edward Merton, who was very clever,

but as poor as a church mouse.  I went to see Merton some days

afterwards, having got his address from the printseller, and found

a pale, interesting young man, with a rather common-looking wife -

his model, as I subsequently learned.  I told him how much I

admired his drawings, at which he seemed very pleased, and I asked

him if he would show me some of his other work.  As we were looking

over a portfolio, full of really very lovely things, - for Merton

had a most delicate and delightful touch, - I suddenly caught sight

of a drawing of the picture of Mr. W. H.  There was no doubt

whatever about it.  It was almost a FACSIMILE - the only difference

being that the two masks of Tragedy and Comedy were not suspended

from the marble table as they are in the picture, but were lying on

the floor at the young man's feet.  "Where on earth did you get

that?" I said.  He grew rather confused, and said - "Oh, that is

nothing.  I did not know it was in this portfolio.  It is not a

thing of any value."  "It is what you did for Mr. Cyril Graham,"

exclaimed his wife; "and if this gentleman wishes to buy it, let

him have it."  "For Mr. Cyril Graham?" I repeated.  "Did you paint

the picture of Mr. W. H.?"  "I don't understand what you mean," he

answered, growing very red.  Well, the whole thing was quite

dreadful.  The wife let it all out.  I gave her five pounds when I

---

was going away.  I can't bear to think of it now; but of course I

was furious.  I went off at once to Cyril's chambers, waited there

for three hours before he came in, with that horrid lie staring me

in the face, and told him I had discovered his forgery.  He grew

very pale and said - "I did it purely for your sake.  You would not

be convinced in any other way.  It does not affect the truth of the

theory."  "The truth of the theory!" I exclaimed; "the less we talk

about that the better.  You never even believed in it yourself.  If

you had, you would not have committed a forgery to prove it."  High

words passed between us; we had a fearful quarrel.  I dare say I

was unjust.  The next morning he was dead.'

'Dead!' I cried,

'Yes; he shot himself with a revolver.  Some of the blood splashed

upon the frame of the picture, just where the name had been

painted.  By the time I arrived - his servant had sent for me at

once - the police were already there.  He had left a letter for me,

evidently written in the greatest agitation and distress of mind.'

'What was in it?' I asked.

'Oh, that he believed absolutely in Willie Hughes; that the forgery

of the picture had been done simply as a concession to me, and did

not in the slightest degree invalidate the truth of the theory;

and, that in order to show me how firm and flawless his faith in

the whole thing was, he was going to offer his life as a sacrifice

to the secret of the Sonnets.  It was a foolish, mad letter.  I

remember he ended by saying that he intrusted to me the Willie

Hughes theory, and that it was for me to present it to the world,

and to unlock the secret of Shakespeare's heart.'

'It is a most tragic story,' I cried; 'but why have you not carried

out his wishes?'

Erskine shrugged his shoulders.  'Because it is a perfectly unsound

theory from beginning to end,' he answered.

'My dear Erskine,' I said, getting up from my seat, 'you are

entirely wrong about the whole matter.  It is the only perfect key

to Shakespeare's Sonnets that has ever been made.  It is complete

in every detail.  I believe in Willie Hughes.'

'Don't say that,' said Erskine gravely; 'I believe there is

something fatal about the idea, and intellectually there is nothing

---

to be said for it.  I have gone into the whole matter, and I assure

you the theory is entirely fallacious.  It is plausible up to a

certain point.  Then it stops.  For heaven's sake, my dear boy,

don't take up the subject of Willie Hughes.  You will break your

heart over it.'

'Erskine,' I answered, 'it is your duty to give this theory to the

world.  If you will not do it, I will.  By keeping it back you

wrong the memory of Cyril Graham, the youngest and the most

splendid of all the martyrs of literature.  I entreat you to do him

justice.  He died for this thing, - don't let his death be in

vain.'

Erskine looked at me in amazement.  'You are carried away by the

sentiment of the whole story,' he said.  'You forget that a thing

is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.  I was devoted

to Cyril Graham.  His death was a horrible blow to me.  I did not

recover it for years.  I don't think I have ever recovered it.  But

Willie Hughes?  There is nothing in the idea of Willie Hughes.  No

such person ever existed.  As for bringing the whole thing before

the world - the world thinks that Cyril Graham shot himself by

accident.  The only proof of his suicide was contained in the

letter to me, and of this letter the public never heard anything.

To the present day Lord Crediton thinks that the whole thing was

accidental.'

'Cyril Graham sacrificed his life to a great Idea,' I answered;

'and if you will not tell of his martyrdom, tell at least of his

faith.'

'His faith,' said Erskine, 'was fixed in a thing that was false, in

a thing that was unsound, in a thing that no Shakespearean scholar

would accept for a moment.  The theory would be laughed at.  Don't

make a fool of yourself, and don't follow a trail that leads

nowhere.  You start by assuming the existence of the very person

whose existence is the thing to be proved.  Besides, everybody

knows that the Sonnets were addressed to Lord Pembroke.  The matter

is settled once for all.'

'The matter is not settled!' I exclaimed.  'I will take up the

theory where Cyril Graham left it, and I will prove to the world

that he was right.'

'Silly boy!' said Erskine.  'Go home:  it is after two, and don't

think about Willie Hughes any more.  I am sorry I told you anything

---

about it, and very sorry indeed that I should have converted you to

a thing in which I don't believe.'

'You have given me the key to the greatest mystery of modern

literature,' I answered; 'and I shall not rest till I have made you

recognise, till I have made everybody recognise, that Cyril Graham

was the most subtle Shakespearean critic of our day.'

As I walked home through St. James's Park the dawn was just

breaking over London.  The white swans were lying asleep on the

polished lake, and the gaunt Palace looked purple against the pale-

green sky.  I thought of Cyril Graham, and my eyes filled with

tears.

CHAPTER II

IT was past twelve o'clock when I awoke, and the sun was streaming

in through the curtains of my room in long slanting beams of dusty

gold.  I told my servant that I would be at home to no one; and

after I had had a cup of chocolate and a PETIT-PAIN, I took down

from the book-shelf my copy of Shakespeare's Sonnets, and began to

go carefully through them.  Every poem seemed to me to corroborate

Cyril Graham's theory.  I felt as if I had my hand upon

Shakespeare's heart, and was counting each separate throb and pulse

of passion.  I thought of the wonderful boy-actor, and saw his face

in every line.

Two sonnets, I remember, struck me particularly:  they were the

53rd and the 67th.  In the first of these, Shakespeare,

complimenting Willie Hughes on the versatility of his acting, on

his wide range of parts, a range extending from Rosalind to Juliet,

and from Beatrice to Ophelia, says to him -

What is your substance, whereof are you made,

That millions of strange shadows on you tend?

Since every one hath, every one, one shade,

And you, but one, can every shadow lend -

lines that would be unintelligible if they were not addressed to an

---

actor, for the word 'shadow' had in Shakespeare's day a technical

meaning connected with the stage.  'The best in this kind are but

shadows,' says Theseus of the actors in the MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S

DREAM, and there are many similar allusions in the literature of

the day.  These sonnets evidently belonged to the series in which

Shakespeare discusses the nature of the actor's art, and of the

strange and rare temperament that is essential to the perfect

stage-player.  'How is it,' says Shakespeare to Willie Hughes,

'that you have so many personalities?' and then he goes on to point

out that his beauty is such that it seems to realise every form and

phase of fancy, to embody each dream of the creative imagination -

an idea that is still further expanded in the sonnet that

immediately follows, where, beginning with the fine thought,

O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem

By that sweet ornament which TRUTH doth give!

Shakespeare invites us to notice how the truth of acting, the truth

of visible presentation on the stage, adds to the wonder of poetry,

giving life to its loveliness, and actual reality to its ideal

form.  And yet, in the 67th Sonnet, Shakespeare calls upon Willie

Hughes to abandon the stage with its artificiality, its false mimic

life of painted face and unreal costume, its immoral influences and

suggestions, its remoteness from the true world of noble action and

sincere utterance.

Ah, wherefore with infection should he live

And with his presence grace impiety,

That sin by him advantage should achieve

And lace itself with his society?

Why should false painting imitate his cheek,

And steal dead seeming of his living hue?

Why should poor beauty indirectly seek

Roses of shadow, since his rose is true?

It may seem strange that so great a dramatist as Shakespeare, who

realised his own perfection as an artist and his humanity as a man

on the ideal plane of stage-writing and stage-playing, should have

written in these terms about the theatre; but we must remember that

in Sonnets CX. and CXI. Shakespeare shows us that he too was

wearied of the world of puppets, and full of shame at having made

---

himself 'a motley to the view.'  The 111th Sonnet is especially

bitter:-

O, for my sake do you with Fortune chide,

The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,

That did not better for my life provide

Than public means which public manners breeds.

Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,

And almost thence my nature is subdued

To what it works in, like the dyer's hand:

Pity me then and wish I were renew'd -

and there are many signs elsewhere of the same feeling, signs

familiar to all real students of Shakespeare.

One point puzzled me immensely as I read the Sonnets, and it was

days before I struck on the true interpretation, which indeed Cyril

Graham himself seems to have missed.  I could not understand how it

was that Shakespeare set so high a value on his young friend

marrying.  He himself had married young, and the result had been

unhappiness, and it was not likely that he would have asked Willie

Hughes to commit the same error.  The boy-player of Rosalind had

nothing to gain from marriage, or from the passions of real life.

The early sonnets, with their strange entreaties to have children,

seemed to me a jarring note.  The explanation of the mystery came

on me quite suddenly, and I found it in the curious dedication.  It

will be remembered that the dedication runs as follows:-

 TO THE ONLIE BEGETTER OF

 THESE INSUING SONNETS

 MR. W. H. ALL HAPPINESSE

AND THAT ETERNITIE

PROMISED

BY

OUR EVER-LIVING POET

---

WISHETH

THE WELL-WISHING

ADVENTURER IN

SETTING

FORTH.

T. T.

Some scholars have supposed that the word 'begetter' in this

dedication means simply the procurer of the Sonnets for Thomas

Thorpe the publisher; but this view is now generally abandoned, and

the highest authorities are quite agreed that it is to be taken in

the sense of inspirer, the metaphor being drawn from the analogy of

physical life.  Now I saw that the same metaphor was used by

Shakespeare himself all through the poems, and this set me on the

right track.  Finally I made my great discovery.  The marriage that

Shakespeare proposes for Willie Hughes is the marriage with his

Muse, an expression which is definitely put forward in the 82nd

Sonnet, where, in the bitterness of his heart at the defection of

the boy-actor for whom he had written his greatest parts, and whose

beauty had indeed suggested them, he opens his complaint by saying

-

I grant thou wert not married to my Muse.

The children he begs him to beget are no children of flesh and

blood, but more immortal children of undying fame.  The whole cycle

of the early sonnets is simply Shakespeare's invitation to Willie

Hughes to go upon the stage and become a player.  How barren and

profitless a thing, he says, is this beauty of yours if it be not

used:-

When forty winters shall besiege thy brow

And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,

Thy youth's proud livery, so gazed on now,

Will be a tatter'd weed, of small worth held:

Then being ask'd where all thy beauty lies,

---

Where all the treasure of thy lusty days,

To say, within thine own deep-sunken eyes,

Were an all-eating shame and thriftless praise.

You must create something in art:  my verse 'is thine, and BORN of

thee'; only listen to me, and I will 'BRING FORTH eternal numbers

to outlive long date,' and you shall people with forms of your own

image the imaginary world of the stage.  These children that you

beget, he continues, will not wither away, as mortal children do,

but you shall live in them and in my plays:  do but -

Make thee another self, for love of me,

That beauty still may live in thine or thee.

I collected all the passages that seemed to me to corroborate this

view, and they produced a strong impression on me, and showed me

how complete Cyril Graham's theory really was.  I also saw that it

was quite easy to separate those lines in which he speaks of the

Sonnets themselves from those in which he speaks of his great

dramatic work.  This was a point that had been entirely overlooked

by all critics up to Cyril Graham's day.  And yet it was one of the

most important points in the whole series of poems.  To the Sonnets

Shakespeare was more or less indifferent.  He did not wish to rest

his fame on them.  They were to him his 'slight Muse,' as he calls

them, and intended, as Meres tells us, for private circulation only

among a few, a very few, friends.  Upon the other hand he was

extremely conscious of the high artistic value of his plays, and

shows a noble self-reliance upon his dramatic genius.  When he says

to Willie Hughes:

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;

Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

When in ETERNAL LINES to time thou grow'st:

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee; -

the expression 'eternal lines' clearly alludes to one of his plays

that he was sending him at the time, just as the concluding couplet

points to his confidence in the probability of his plays being

---

always acted.  In his address to the Dramatic Muse (Sonnets C. and

CI.), we find the same feeling.

Where art thou, Muse, that thou forget'st so long

To speak of that which gives thee all thy might?

Spend'st thou thy fury on some worthless song,

Darkening thy power to lend base subjects light?

he cries, and he then proceeds to reproach the Mistress of Tragedy

and Comedy for her 'neglect of Truth in Beauty dyed,' and says -

Because he needs no praise, wilt thou be dumb?

Excuse not silence so, for 't lies in thee

To make him much outlive a gilded tomb

And to be praised of ages yet to be.

Then do thy office, Muse; I teach thee how

To make him seem long hence as he shows now.

It is, however, perhaps in the 55th Sonnet that Shakespeare gives

to this idea its fullest expression.  To imagine that the 'powerful

rhyme' of the second line refers to the sonnet itself, is to

mistake Shakespeare's meaning entirely.  It seemed to me that it

was extremely likely, from the general character of the sonnet,

that a particular play was meant, and that the play was none other

but ROMEO AND JULIET.

Not marble, nor the gilded monuments

Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme;

But you shall shine more bright in these contents

Than unswept stone besmear'd with sluttish time.

When wasteful wars shall statues overturn,

And broils root out the work of masonry,

Nor Mars his sword nor war's quick fire shall burn

The living record of your memory.

'Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity

Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room

Even in the eyes of all posterity

That wear this world out to the ending doom.

So, till the judgement that yourself arise,

You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes.

---

It was also extremely suggestive to note how here as elsewhere

Shakespeare promised Willie Hughes immortality in a form that

appealed to men's eyes - that is to say, in a spectacular form, in

a play that is to be looked at.

For two weeks I worked hard at the Sonnets, hardly ever going out,

and refusing all invitations.  Every day I seemed to be discovering

something new, and Willie Hughes became to me a kind of spiritual

presence, an ever-dominant personality.  I could almost fancy that

I saw him standing in the shadow of my room, so well had

Shakespeare drawn him, with his golden hair, his tender flower-like

grace, his dreamy deep-sunken eyes, his delicate mobile limbs, and

his white lily hands.  His very name fascinated me.  Willie Hughes!

Willie Hughes!  How musically it sounded!  Yes; who else but he

could have been the master-mistress of Shakespeare's passion, (1)

the lord of his love to whom he was bound in vassalage, (2) the

delicate minion of pleasure, (3) the rose of the whole world, (4)

the herald of the spring (5) decked in the proud livery of youth,

(6) the lovely boy whom it was sweet music to hear, (7) and whose

beauty was the very raiment of Shakespeare's heart, (8) as it was

the keystone of his dramatic power?  How bitter now seemed the

whole tragedy of his desertion and his shame! - shame that he made

sweet and lovely (9) by the mere magic of his personality, but that

was none the less shame.  Yet as Shakespeare forgave him, should

not we forgive him also?  I did not care to pry into the mystery of

his sin.

His abandonment of Shakespeare's theatre was a different matter,

and I investigated it at great length.  Finally I came to the

conclusion that Cyril Graham had been wrong in regarding the rival

dramatist of the 80th Sonnet as Chapman.  It was obviously Marlowe

who was alluded to.  At the time the Sonnets were written, such an

expression as 'the proud full sail of his great verse' could not

have been used of Chapman's work, however applicable it might have

been to the style of his later Jacobean plays.  No:  Marlowe was

clearly the rival dramatist of whom Shakespeare spoke in such

laudatory terms; and that

Affable familiar ghost

Which nightly gulls him with intelligence,

---

was the Mephistopheles of his DOCTOR FAUSTUS.  No doubt, Marlowe

was fascinated by the beauty and grace of the boy-actor, and lured

him away from the Blackfriars Theatre, that he might play the

Gaveston of his EDWARD II.  That Shakespeare had the legal right to

retain Willie Hughes in his own company is evident from Sonnet

LXXXVII., where he says:-

Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,

And like enough thou know'st thy estimate:

The CHARTER OF THY WORTH gives thee releasing;

My BONDS in thee are all determinate.

For how do I hold thee but by thy granting?

And for that riches where is my deserving?

The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,

AND SO MY PATENT BACK AGAIN IS SWERVING.

Thyself thou gayest, thy own worth then not knowing,

Or me, to whom thou gavest it, else mistaking;

So thy great gift, upon misprision growing,

Comes home again, on better judgement making.

Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter,

In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.

But him whom he could not hold by love, he would not hold by force.

Willie Hughes became a member of Lord Pembroke's company, and,

perhaps in the open yard of the Red Bull Tavern, played the part of

King Edward's delicate minion.  On Marlowe's death, he seems to

have returned to Shakespeare, who, whatever his fellow-partners may

have thought of the matter, was not slow to forgive the wilfulness

and treachery of the young actor.

How well, too, had Shakespeare drawn the temperament of the stage-

player!  Willie Hughes was one of those

That do not do the thing they most do show,

Who, moving others, are themselves as stone.

He could act love, but could not feel it, could mimic passion

without realising it.

In many's looks the false heart's history

---

Is writ in moods and frowns and wrinkles strange,

but with Willie Hughes it was not so.  'Heaven,' says Shakespeare,

in a sonnet of mad idolatry -

Heaven in thy creation did decree

That in thy face sweet love should ever dwell;

Whate'er thy thoughts or thy heart's workings be,

Thy looks should nothing thence but sweetness tell.

In his 'inconstant mind' and his 'false heart,' it was easy to

recognise the insincerity and treachery that somehow seem

inseparable from the artistic nature, as in his love of praise that

desire for immediate recognition that characterises all actors.

And yet, more fortunate in this than other actors, Willie Hughes

was to know something of immortality.  Inseparably connected with

Shakespeare's plays, he was to live in them.

Your name from hence immortal life shall have,

Though I, once gone, to all the world must die:

The earth can yield me but a common grave,

When you entombed in men's eyes shall lie.

Your monument shall be my gentle verse,

Which eyes not yet created shall o'er-read,

And tongues to be your being shall rehearse,

When all the breathers of this world are dead.

There were endless allusions, also, to Willie Hughes's power over

his audience - the 'gazers,' as Shakespeare calls them; but perhaps

the most perfect description of his wonderful mastery over dramatic

art was in A LOVER'S COMPLAINT, where Shakespeare says of him:-

In him a plenitude of subtle matter,

Applied to cautels, all strange forms receives,

Of burning blushes, or of weeping water,

Or swooning paleness; and he takes and leaves,

In either's aptness, as it best deceives,

To blush at speeches rank, to weep at woes,

Or to turn white and swoon at tragic shows.

---

* * * * * * * *

So on the tip of his subduing tongue,

All kind of arguments and questions deep,

All replication prompt and reason strong,

For his advantage still did wake and sleep,

To make the weeper laugh, the laugher weep.

He had the dialect and the different skill,

Catching all passions in his craft of will.

Once I thought that I had really found Willie Hughes in Elizabethan

literature.  In a wonderfully graphic account of the last days of

the great Earl of Essex, his chaplain, Thomas Knell, tells us that

the night before the Earl died, 'he called William Hewes, which was

his musician, to play upon the virginals and to sing.  "Play," said

he, "my song, Will Hewes, and I will sing it to myself."  So he did

it most joyfully, not as the howling swan, which, still looking

down, waileth her end, but as a sweet lark, lifting up his hands

and casting up his eyes to his God, with this mounted the crystal

skies, and reached with his unwearied tongue the top of highest

heavens.'  Surely the boy who played on the virginals to the dying

father of Sidney's Stella was none other but the Will Hews to whom

Shakespeare dedicated the Sonnets, and who he tells us was himself

sweet 'music to hear.'  Yet Lord Essex died in 1576, when

Shakespeare himself was but twelve years of age.  It was impossible

that his musician could have been the Mr. W. H. of the Sonnets.

Perhaps Shakespeare's young friend was the son of the player upon

the virginals?  It was at least something to have discovered that

Will Hews was an Elizabethan name.  Indeed the name Hews seemed to

have been closely connected with music and the stage.  The first

English actress was the lovely Margaret Hews, whom Prince Rupert so

madly loved.  What more probable than that between her and Lord

Essex's musician had come the boy-actor of Shakespeare's plays?

But the proofs, the links - where were they?  Alas! I could not

find them.  It seemed to me that I was always on the brink of

absolute verification, but that I could never really attain to it.

From Willie Hughes's life I soon passed to thoughts of his death.

I used to wonder what had been his end.

Perhaps he had been one of those English actors who in 1604 went

across sea to Germany and played before the great Duke Henry Julius

of Brunswick, himself a dramatist of no mean order, and at the

Court of that strange Elector of Brandenburg, who was so enamoured

---

of beauty that he was said to have bought for his weight in amber

the young son of a travelling Greek merchant, and to have given

pageants in honour of his slave all through that dreadful famine

year of 1606-7, when the people died of hunger in the very streets

of the town, and for the space of seven months there was no rain.

We know at any rate that ROMEO AND JULIET was brought out at

Dresden in 1613, along with HAMLET and KING LEAR, and it was surely

to none other than Willie Hughes that in 1615 the death-mask of

Shakespeare was brought by the hand of one of the suite of the

English ambassador, pale token of the passing away of the great

poet who had so dearly loved him.  Indeed there would have been

something peculiarly fitting in the idea that the boy-actor, whose

beauty had been so vital an element in the realism and romance of

Shakespeare's art, should have been the first to have brought to

Germany the seed of the new culture, and was in his way the

precursor of that AUFKLARUNG or Illumination of the eighteenth

century, that splendid movement which, though begun by Lessing and

Herder, and brought to its full and perfect issue by Goethe, was in

no small part helped on by another actor - Friedrich Schroeder -

who awoke the popular consciousness, and by means of the feigned

passions and mimetic methods of the stage showed the intimate, the

vital, connection between life and literature.  If this was so -

and there was certainly no evidence against it - it was not

improbable that Willie Hughes was one of those English comedians

(MIMAE QUIDAM EX BRITANNIA, as the old chronicle calls them), who

were slain at Nuremberg in a sudden uprising of the people, and

were secretly buried in a little vineyard outside the city by some

young men 'who had found pleasure in their performances, and of

whom some had sought to be instructed in the mysteries of the new

art.'  Certainly no more fitting place could there be for him to

whom Shakespeare said, 'thou art all my art,' than this little

vineyard outside the city walls.  For was it not from the sorrows

of Dionysos that Tragedy sprang?  Was not the light laughter of

Comedy, with its careless merriment and quick replies, first heard

on the lips of the Sicilian vine-dressers?  Nay, did not the purple

and red stain of the wine-froth on face and limbs give the first

suggestion of the charm and fascination of disguise - the desire

for self-concealment, the sense of the value of objectivity thus

showing itself in the rude beginnings of the art?  At any rate,

wherever he lay - whether in the little vineyard at the gate of the

Gothic town, or in some dim London churchyard amidst the roar and

bustle of our great city - no gorgeous monument marked his resting-

place.  His true tomb, as Shakespeare saw, was the poet's verse,

his true monument the permanence of the drama.  So had it been with

others whose beauty had given a new creative impulse to their age.

---

The ivory body of the Bithynian slave rots in the green ooze of the

Nile, and on the yellow hills of the Cerameicus is strewn the dust

of the young Athenian; but Antinous lives in sculpture, and

Charmides in philosophy.

CHAPTER III

AFTER three weeks had elapsed, I determined to make a strong appeal

to Erskine to do justice to the memory of Cyril Graham, and to give

to the world his marvellous interpretation of the Sonnets - the

only interpretation that thoroughly explained the problem.  I have

not any copy of my letter, I regret to say, nor have I been able to

lay my hand upon the original; but I remember that I went over the

whole ground, and covered sheets of paper with passionate

reiteration of the arguments and proofs that my study had suggested

to me.  It seemed to me that I was not merely restoring Cyril

Graham to his proper place in literary history, but rescuing the

honour of Shakespeare himself from the tedious memory of a

commonplace intrigue.  I put into the letter all my enthusiasm.  I

put into the letter all my faith.

No sooner, in fact, had I sent it off than a curious reaction came

over me.  It seemed to me that I had given away my capacity for

belief in the Willie Hughes theory of the Sonnets, that something

had gone out of me, as it were, and that I was perfectly

indifferent to the whole subject.  What was it that had happened?

It is difficult to say.  Perhaps, by finding perfect expression for

a passion, I had exhausted the passion itself.  Emotional forces,

like the forces of physical life, have their positive limitations.

Perhaps the mere effort to convert any one to a theory involves

some form of renunciation of the power of credence.  Perhaps I was

simply tired of the whole thing, and, my enthusiasm having burnt

out, my reason was left to its own unimpassioned judgment.  However

it came about, and I cannot pretend to explain it, there was no

doubt that Willie Hughes suddenly became to me a mere myth, an idle

dream, the boyish fancy of a young man who, like most ardent

spirits, was more anxious to convince others than to be himself

convinced.

As I had said some very unjust and bitter things to Erskine in my

letter, I determined to go and see him at once, and to make my

---

apologies to him for my behaviour.  Accordingly, the next morning I

drove down to Birdcage Walk, and found Erskine sitting in his

library, with the forged picture of Willie Hughes in front of him.

'My dear Erskine!' I cried, 'I have come to apologise to you.'

'To apologise to me?' he said.  'What for?'

'For my letter,' I answered.

'You have nothing to regret in your letter,' he said.  'On the

contrary, you have done me the greatest service in your power.  You

have shown me that Cyril Graham's theory is perfectly sound.'

'You don't mean to say that you believe in Willie Hughes?' I

exclaimed.

'Why not?' he rejoined.  'You have proved the thing to me.  Do you

think I cannot estimate the value of evidence?'

'But there is no evidence at all,' I groaned, sinking into a chair.

'When I wrote to you I was under the influence of a perfectly silly

enthusiasm.  I had been touched by the story of Cyril Graham's

death, fascinated by his romantic theory, enthralled by the wonder

and novelty of the whole idea.  I see now that the theory is based

on a delusion.  The only evidence for the existence of Willie

Hughes is that picture in front of you, and the picture is a

forgery.  Don't be carried away by mere sentiment in this matter.

Whatever romance may have to say about the Willie Hughes theory,

reason is dead against it.'

'I don't understand you,' said Erskine, looking at me in amazement.

'Why, you yourself have convinced me by your letter that Willie

Hughes is an absolute reality.  Why have you changed your mind?  Or

is all that you have been saying to me merely a joke?'

'I cannot explain it to you,' I rejoined, 'but I see now that there

is really nothing to be said in favour of Cyril Graham's

interpretation.  The Sonnets are addressed to Lord Pembroke.  For

heaven's sake don't waste your time in a foolish attempt to

discover a young Elizabethan actor who never existed, and to make a

phantom puppet the centre of the great cycle of Shakespeare's

Sonnets.'

'I see that you don't understand the theory,' he replied.

---

'My dear Erskine,' I cried, 'not understand it!  Why, I feel as if

I had invented it.  Surely my letter shows you that I not merely

went into the whole matter, but that I contributed proofs of every

kind.  The one flaw in the theory is that it presupposes the

existence of the person whose existence is the subject of dispute.

If we grant that there was in Shakespeare's company a young actor

of the name of Willie Hughes, it is not difficult to make him the

object of the Sonnets.  But as we know that there was no actor of

this name in the company of the Globe Theatre, it is idle to pursue

the investigation further.'

'But that is exactly what we don't know,' said Erskine.  'It is

quite true that his name does not occur in the list given in the

first folio; but, as Cyril pointed out, that is rather a proof in

favour of the existence of Willie Hughes than against it, if we

remember his treacherous desertion of Shakespeare for a rival

dramatist.'

We argued the matter over for hours, but nothing that I could say

could make Erskine surrender his faith in Cyril Graham's

interpretation.  He told me that he intended to devote his life to

proving the theory, and that he was determined to do justice to

Cyril Graham's memory.  I entreated him, laughed at him, begged of

him, but it was of no use.  Finally we parted, not exactly in

anger, but certainly with a shadow between us.  He thought me

shallow, I thought him foolish.  When I called on him again his

servant told me that he had gone to Germany.

Two years afterwards, as I was going into my club, the hall-porter

handed me a letter with a foreign postmark.  It was from Erskine,

and written at the Hotel d'Angleterre, Cannes.  When I had read it

I was filled with horror, though I did not quite believe that he

would be so mad as to carry his resolve into execution.  The gist

of the letter was that he had tried in every way to verify the

Willie Hughes theory, and had failed, and that as Cyril Graham had

given his life for this theory, he himself had determined to give

his own life also to the same cause.  The concluding words of the

letter were these:  'I still believe in Willie Hughes; and by the

time you receive this, I shall have died by my own hand for Willie

Hughes's sake:  for his sake, and for the sake of Cyril Graham,

whom I drove to his death by my shallow scepticism and ignorant

lack of faith.  The truth was once revealed to you, and you

rejected it.  It comes to you now stained with the blood of two

lives, - do not turn away from it.'

---

It was a horrible moment.  I felt sick with misery, and yet I could

not believe it.  To die for one's theological beliefs is the worst

use a man can make of his life, but to die for a literary theory!

It seemed impossible.

I looked at the date.  The letter was a week old.  Some unfortunate

chance had prevented my going to the club for several days, or I

might have got it in time to save him.  Perhaps it was not too

late.  I drove off to my rooms, packed up my things, and started by

the night-mail from Charing Cross.  The journey was intolerable.  I

thought I would never arrive.  As soon as I did I drove to the

Hotel l'Angleterre.  They told me that Erskine had been buried two

days before in the English cemetery.  There was something horribly

grotesque about the whole tragedy.  I said all kinds of wild

things, and the people in the hall looked curiously at me.

Suddenly Lady Erskine, in deep mourning, passed across the

vestibule.  When she saw me she came up to me, murmured something

about her poor son, and burst into tears.  I led her into her

sitting-room.  An elderly gentleman was there waiting for her.  It

was the English doctor.

We talked a great deal about Erskine, but I said nothing about his

motive for committing suicide.  It was evident that he had not told

his mother anything about the reason that had driven him to so

fatal, so mad an act.  Finally Lady Erskine rose and said, George

left you something as a memento.  It was a thing he prized very

much.  I will get it for you.

As soon as she had left the room I turned to the doctor and said,

'What a dreadful shock it must have been to Lady Erskine!  I wonder

that she bears it as well as she does.'

'Oh, she knew for months past that it was coming,' he answered.

'Knew it for months past!' I cried.  'But why didn't she stop him?

Why didn't she have him watched?  He must have been mad.'

The doctor stared at me. 'I don't know what you mean,' he said.

'Well,' I cried, 'if a mother knows that her son is going to commit

suicide - '

'Suicide!' he answered.  'Poor Erskine did not commit suicide.  He

---

died of consumption.  He came here to die.  The moment I saw him I

knew that there was no hope.  One lung was almost gone, and the

other was very much affected.  Three days before he died he asked

me was there any hope.  I told him frankly that there was none, and

that he had only a few days to live.  He wrote some letters, and

was quite resigned, retaining his senses to the last.'

At that moment Lady Erskine entered the room with the fatal picture

of Willie Hughes in her hand.  'When George was dying he begged me

to give you this,' she said.  As I took it from her, her tears fell

on my hand.

The picture hangs now in my library, where it is very much admired

by my artistic friends.  They have decided that it is not a Clouet,

but an Oudry.  I have never cared to tell them its true history.

But sometimes, when I look at it, I think that there is really a

great deal to be said for the Willie Hughes theory of Shakespeare's

Sonnets.

Footnotes:

(1) Sonnet xx. 2.

(2) Sonnet xxvi. 1.

(3) Sonnet cxxvi. 9.

(4) Sonnet cix. 14.

(5) Sonnet i. 10.

(6) Sonnet ii. 3.

(7) Sonnet viii. 1.

(8) Sonnet xxii. 6.

(9) Sonnet xcv. 1.