"Yes, I came to have a talk with you on that subject, and unfortunately I met with Mrs. Mortomley on my way here; unfortunately for her, I mean, for I am afraid I have, most unintentionally, caused her great distress.

I dare say you know my name as a colour manufacturer, Mr. Mortomley. I have long known yours, and I am very happy to make your acquaintance."

And so saying he held out his hand, and thus this man--good, generous, and rich--this man so wealthy that he could at the time of Mortomley's greatest prosperity have bought up everything he owned in the world, and scarcely have missed the amount, came unexpectedly into the lives of Dolly and her husband.

He had meant to curse, and behold he remained to bless altogether.

From the moment his eyes fell on Mortomley, he "took to him," as the homely phrase expresses that fancy at first sight some men experience for each other, and some women too; and when from Dolly, at a subsequent period, he heard the particulars of that story I have tried in these pages to tell, his heart sank when he contrasted all he might and would have done for husband and wife with all he might ever do now, when it was too late to do much for one of them, at all events.

Fain would Mortomley with his wide charity, which, as Dolly declared, amounted in some cases to weakness, have excused and softened Rupert's perfidy; but Mr. Douglas said, and truly, that the offence was one which admitted of no gentle shading--which was beyond excuse, "though," he added with a kindly smile at Mortomley's troubled face, "I see, not beyond your powers of forgiveness."

"I think forgiveness of injuries an entire mistake," said Dolly from the depths of her arm-chair.

"If so it is a divine one," remarked Mr. Douglas. And then Mrs.

Mortomley understood their visitor, who by that time had become their guest,--for all this conversation took place after dinner--and the sister, of whom he had spoken more than once, were what she called, and often herself wished to be, "good."

Nevertheless, she said subsequently to her husband, "I shall tell Rupert what I think of his conduct the very first time I see him. You may forgive if you like, but I will reprove; it only encourages people to be wicked to be tender with their faults, and I do not mean to be tender with him."

But when the time came she was not very hard; she said to him as they stood at the gate of the cottage together, the last time he ever saw her alive, "Rupert, I want you to know we are not ignorant of how, when we were so poor, you sold Archie's secret to Mr. Douglas. Now, there are some things I can understand; I can under pressure imagine Lazarus robbing Dives, and a man in extremity forging and telling falsehoods to save his credit, but I cannot understand the nature of the person who shall steal twopence-halfpenny from the pocket of a blind old widow, or who, when the man who befriended him is sick and incompetent, takes that opportunity to rob him of the only possession left. You need not try to defend yourself, Rupert, because your conduct is indefensible."

"I shall not try," he said huskily; "I was wrong."

"That is enough; do not vex yourself about the matter now," she answered, "for, Rupert, unintentionally when you took Archie's ewe lamb, you gave him that which will turn eventually into a great flock of sheep."

CHAPTER XV.

MR. ASHERILL IS PERSUADED.

There could be no doubt but that Mortomley and Mr. Douglas were two men who ought, according to human wisdom, to have met earlier. Though a colour manufacturer, the latter had, through want of the inventive or combinative quality, been compelled to run in old grooves, while the former lacked precisely that firmness of character and mastery of detail which had made the northern merchant's fortune.

Mr. Douglas was one of those men who feel they cannot stand still and let the world get in advance of them, even though their pockets do chance to be stuffed with gold, and almost at the first glance, certainly after half an hour's conversation, he knew Mortomley was that other business half which himself required and for which he had been vainly seeking through years among all sorts and conditions of men.

As has been said in an early chapter of this story, Mortomley's genius was essentially imaginative.

"Give him a laboratory and ease of mind, and there is scarcely a difficulty in our trade he could not overcome," thought Mr. Douglas. "If he can make a purely vegetable green, as he says he can, and I believe he says only what is literally true, he ought to make his fortune, and I should feel very much inclined to help him to do it." But when, subsequently, he broached this idea, Mortomley shook his head.

"I can never make a fortune unless I am able to procure my discharge, and if I live to be as old as Methuselah I shall never obtain that."

It was on this occasion that he gave Mr. Douglas a slight sketch of his experiences of liquidation. All the deeper tints, all the darker shadows, all the lurid colouring, Dolly added at a later period in the garden at Homewood, a place, Mr. Douglas said, he particularly wished to see.

Unknown to Mortomley, his wife and his new friend travelled from a little country station, then newly set up among the green Hertfordshire fields, to Stratford, which Mrs. Mortomley described in a brief sentence as the "dirtiest place on earth," then they changed carriages for Leytonstone, whence they drove along the road Dolly remembered so well to Homewood.

The hinges of the front gate were broken, and they entered the grounds without let or hindrance. Everything had been permitted to go to wreck; the red-thorn-trees had been cut down for fuel, the rare shrubs were hacked and hewn to pieces, the great evergreens were torn about or dead, the clematis and the honeysuckle trailed along the ground over part of the verandah, which had been dragged down by the boys climbing over it; the laurel walk was almost completely destroyed, and upon the lawn, where beds filled with flowers made the summer ever beautiful, a stray horse grazed peacefully.

Within, the same tale of ruin was to be read as they had found written outside. The children who squinted and the mother that bore them still were in residence, and there was not a paper on the walls, not an inch of paint, upon which defacing fingers had omitted to leave a mark.

The kitchen-garden was a mass of weeds and the drive knee deep in grass.

Where those children ought to have walked, they had refrained from treading, but through the shrubberies they had made a path, marking their route, Indian fashion, on the trees.

In the remembered summer-house, where so many a pleasant group had in the old times collected, Dolly sat down to await the return of their new friend.

He wanted to look at the "works" now bare of plant, at the great yards once filled with casks and carboys, alive with the stir of workmen and the clamour of trade,--all silent now, silent as the grave. At the time of Mortomley's commercial death came the sleek undertaker from Salisbury House, and took away all they could bury of the man and his surroundings.

Empty were the stalls of Homewood, bare of oats the mangers, falling to decay the pigeon-houses, tenantless the byres and styes, denuded the barns, but in fancy Mr. Douglas filled them all again with plenty and to spare. Yes, he would buy the lease of Homewood, and once again it should blossom as the rose.

He opened his project cautiously to Mrs. Mortomley. The prospect of returning to the beloved home might, he thought, prove too much for her if the idea were broached without due preparation, so he tried, sitting in the summer-house to lead up to it, but found his auditor unsympathetic.

"She had loved Homewood dearly."

"Did she not love it now?"

"Yes, as one loves the dead."

"Should not she like to live there once more?"

"No; she could never forget, never while life lasted, what she had suffered there."

And then she told her tale--told it looking with dry eyes over the desolate wilderness which had once been so fair a home--told it all, simply and without colouring, as a Frenchman might--supposing a Frenchman capable of telling an unvarnished narrative--relate how the Uhlans entered his modest habitation, and, not without insult, stripped it bare.

"But do not you think your husband would like to come back here?" he inquired after a long pause.

"Back here?" she repeated, "I think I understand now your intention; but do not try to carry it out; Archie would never be happy here without me."

"Is your objection to Homewood, then, so rooted?" he inquired, with a disappointed smile.

For answer she only turned away her head, and he repeated his question.

Then she said, "I should not like my poor husband to arrange his future with any reference to me."

She had been so bright, so cheerful, so eager about Mortomley's prosperity, so reticent concerning her own ailments, that Mr. Douglas had learned to think he must have erred in imagining that when first he looked in her face he looked in the face of a woman for whom the fiat had gone forth, but now, by her forced silence, by the unshed tears in her voice when she finally answered, he understood.

He knew that she had faced her danger, and that to the last she was keeping a bold front to the enemy, for the sake of another; aye! ever and always, Dolly was faithful to that trust.

Without another word of explanation they left Homewood.

Tenderly, as she passed one special spot, Dolly gathered a sprig of myrtle, and kissing it, would have placed it in her purse, but, thinking twice about the matter, she held it in her hand till they were near the front gate, when she cast it from her.

Strong to the last, brave as tender, was it any marvel this man who had never called any woman wife, never held a child of his own to his heart, felt that had Mrs. Mortomley been his wife or his daughter, he could sooner have parted with life than with her.

"There is only one thing you can do for me," she observed as she lay back in the railway carriage on their way home. "Get my husband's discharge and that will be worth more than gold and silver to me."

"I will do my best, my dear," he answered; "but I fear the difficulties are almost insurmountable."

In truth he had been interesting himself greatly about this very matter, and he did not see, unless a useless expense were incurred, how the desire of Dolly's heart was to be compassed.

That fatal clause rendering the concurrence of the whole of the committee necessary had been paraded ostentatiously before his face by Mr. Swanland.