no longer any doubt or hesitation possible, and that for me there was only one man in the world whom I could love, as Will wished me to love him.

Had he taken me in his arms that moment I should have told him all; but he did not. He only held my hands for a minute and let me go.

66

Come, Will," I said," and see my father." "I have not seen my own yet," he replied. "I came here straight from the station, where I have left everything till to-morrow. But you have a party, Claire."

"It is only my evening. Come, Will, I Come, Will, I have told you about my evenings." "One moment, Claire. You are well? Let me look at you."

We were on the lawn, and by the light of the room he looked in my face, and I in his. My heart sank, and I felt humbled and ashamed because of the great love which I saw in those brave eyes of his. Never girl had braver lover.

Then I turned away, confused, and led him by the hand into the room; and my father sprang to his feet and cried, "Will!" and the dancers stopped, and Allen left Isabel, and the girls of the village all ran to shake him by the hand; and the school-girls caught hold of each other and looked at me, because they knew-dear me! everybody knew my love-story, and gazed upon the suitor whom they had never seen, and whispered to each other that he was the tallest and properest of the three. Isabel stood by Gertrude's chair watching him curiously.

He was only a handsome lad when he went away; he returned to us a handsome man now, firm and well set up, his cheek a little bronzed with the sea-breezes; a strong man, his head erect, his bearing confident, his voice firm. He shook hands with all the girls, laughing, and then with my father, and, last of all, with Allen.

"I knew, Allen," he said, "what would happen. Tell me, Claire, does he know how proud we are of him ?"

There was always a great contrast between the two; the one so eager, restless, and nervous, and the other so self-reliant, so calm and strong; but it seemed intensified. Allen's eyes had, more than ever, the far-off, expectant look of one who lives in imagination. Will's more than ever the steady, watchful look of one who works. His eyes were like the eyes of a pilot for trusty watch and ward. For him, the world was full of work to be done, and it was no place for

dreams. To Allen, the only work was in dreams. Then I led him to Gertrude. "Gertrude," I said, "this is Will; he landed this very day, and has come straight to see Will, this is Miss Gertrude Holt, and this is Miss Isabel Holt. They are Allen's very best and dearest friends, and have helped him to make the splendid beginning of which we are all so proud."

us.

Gertrude shook hands with him, saying something kind. After that, the evening was broken up. Everybody felt that we should like to be left alone, and they kindly went away. away. But the eldest Miss Gallaway whispered to me, with meaning, that Olinthus would be jealous if it was not for the fact that there were only three days left. She also said that Allen's disappointment would be easily consoled, and that something must be done in the village for the consolation of Will. Olinthus, she said, was talking of a house in Kensington Palace Gardens; of course, it mattered nothing to him what the rent would be ; and he had let fall something about a carriage and pair; but that his wife would have every reason to expect, and it was, in fact, due to his position. Then she went her way. Poor girls! They little knew that the greatness they thought so much of was destroyed already irrecoverably.

So they were all gone and we were left to talk.

At midnight Gertrude left us, and soon after my father. I made Isabel stay; I wanted to make her feel, somehow, as if Will belonged to her as well, already, because. he would in a way belong to her in the future. One could not look forward to any severance of the sweet ties of love and friendship between us all. We went into the garden and sat with shawls about our heads talking through the short summer night.

First we made Will tell us all his adventures, or as many of them as he could think of, because it was absurd to suppose that a man had been away for three long years, and among Chinamen with pigtails and Chinawomen with flat faces and pinched-up feet, without having more adventures than he could tell in a summer night. Ridiculous to tell us that residence in Shanghai is as dull almost as residence in our village by the Forest.

'It is, indeed," he said, "as monotonous as life in the City but for the people you meet, the people from all over the world, the people with stories of adventure to tell. You come across them on board the steamers; they are going no one knows whither and

coming no one knows whence, and they live no one knows how. They are always ready to go on to Fiji, or to land on Borneo, or to take a place at Shanghai; only to talk with these men is worth going all the way to China."

"And no adventures, Will, among the Chinese?"

"None at all, Claire. But a good many talks among them. Never believe that the Chinese are a worn-out race or the Chinese Empire rotten. They are as vigorous a people as any in the world. Wait till the tug comes of Cossack versus China."

We all agreed that we would wait, and presently he began to tell us long stories of the places he had seen, the narrow seas, the beautiful islands of the Malay Archipelago, Singapore upon its hills, and green Penang. "You have heard enough about myself," he said.

Just then the church clock struck one, but nobody took any notice. As if we were going to be ruled by clocks on the night when Will came home!

"Come, Allen, you have done something for yourself worth doing. Tell me about yourself and how you have got on ?"

Then Allen with much hesitation began to tell his story, all of which you know perfectly well already, and how he had made no money yet but plenty of hope, that is to say, no longer the vague hope of a boy, but the hope grounded on work done and praise gained. Isabel helped him with a word or two. All the night she was considering Will curiously, as if wondering how such a splendid man could come from so mean a place. Why, it was all my father's doing. He made a man of action and ambition out of Will and a poet out of Allen, and both by the same method; but then there could never be another man like my father.

And then we had to tell about Olinthus and his surprising rise, so that he alone, out of the three who went into the City resolved to emulate Whittington, seemed to have succceded. I, for my own part, felt horribly, dreadfully guilty, because I knew the shameful, foolish secret of it all, and could have foretold the conclusion. If a man has been away for three years, there is so much to be told that can never be told by letter. We had become rich, Will had been told that by letter, and he rejoiced; we had left our little cottage and taken a large house, Will was told that; we got together the people of the place and had a weekly evening, he was told that; he was told everything, and yet until

he saw for himself, he did not understand the difference all these things made.

"When I went away," he explained to Isabel, "nobody ever met; there was no dancing or singing or any pleasant things at all, only talk about money and the horrible stories about the bankruptcies." Allen shuddered. "And Claire lived in a pretty little cottage with rooms about as big as cupboards like a doll's doll's house, didn't you,

Claire ?"

"I have shown Isabel the furniture we had," I said. "We have kept it all and put it into the smallest room of the house."

"And then I come home and find a dance, actually a dance going on, in the village, and the girls looking as if they enjoyed it, and my dear old friend like a nobleman of the ancien régime. To be sure, he always had that air, but not so much."

"And yet a Republican, Will."

"I know, or rather a man filled with the enthusiasm of humanity."

"Oh! the dream-the dream," Allen said impatiently. "It was fortunate for me that I never knew, until too late, about that dream."

"A noble dream," Will said, "the noblest of all dreams. Yet, Allen, you always longed for what you have. Are you happy at last, Allen ?"

He laid his hand on Allen's shoulder in the old familiar way. When girls kiss each other, young men lay heavy hands on each other's shoulders.

"I am as happy as I can be," Allen replied. "Am I not, Isabel?"

"How can I tell?" she replied quickly. Then she added gently, "If to have suc ceeded in what you most desired makes one happy, you ought to be happy, Allen. For you have already succeeded."

Will looked at his old friend with a quick, involuntary glance of surprise, first at him and then at Isabel. I knew, very well, what he meant. Could Allen be happy, he thought, with that question still to be answered? And who was this girl who sat with us as if she were one of us, one of the little band of friends? Why did Allen turn to her? Next day, when an opportunity came, he asked me what these things meant. I told him

well, the convenient half truth which left him even more puzzled than before. In no society of which he had any experience did the young men and the maidens, who were neither brothers and sisters nor cousins nor lovers, call each other by the Christian name and talk with an absence of reserve so com

plete. "Can a man be in love with two girls at once?" he asked.

"I think not, Will. Perhaps these are the manners and customs of the literary world of which, you see, you know nothing. It is a pretty custom, is it not?"

"For a girl to be called by her Christian name by all the men? I am only a Chinaman, Claire, and know nothing, but I shouldn't like to see you, for example, called by your name."

He shook his head and laughed. "Perhaps it is only Allen's playful way," he said. "Poets must do what they please. They are privileged. What does it matter if Allen is happy?"

Why, here was Will, like all the rest, falling into the universal plot and conspiracy to make Allen happy!

So we talked, and the short night drew on to daylight. It was nearly three o'clock in the morning and the sun rises, in June, before four.

"No one wants to go to bed," I said. "Let us all go into the Forest and see the sun rise."

Isabel and I changed our dresses for short walking frocks and stout boots and we sallied forth into the still and quiet morning. We crossed the dewy meadow and plunged into the Forest, where beneath the trees there were hanging about some shadows of twilight. I told Will to lead the way, if he remembered.

"As if I could forget!" he said, and led the way.

it very often found me sleeping in the chair. But it is best to see it in the Forest with the trees behind you, the grand old trees which seem like yourself to be waiting for the sunrise, and trees beside you and trees sloping away before you, and far away in the distance the country dark, silent and mysterious. But in the trees there is the twitter of the birds, they are only half awake and they are dreaming. And in the branches there is the rustling of the leaves, as if the morning breeze was waking them from their slumbers. Then in the east the grey light which lies all round the horizon on a summer night begins to put on colour; and faint beautiful shades of opal, sapphire, and colours which have no name and have never yet been caught by painter lie in broad belts one above the other, each for a few moments only, and then long fingers of light shoot upwards into the sky and the belts of colour melt and blend together, and all the birds wake up together and break into the morning hymn of praise and the sun rolls upwards and warms the cold bosom of the earth. And who am I, that I should try in feeble words to speak of this grand pageant of the dawn?

Suddenly a lark began to sing high over our heads and we started and looked at each other.

"Claire," whispered Isabel, catching my hand, her eyes filling with tears, "I shall never forget this night, never-never. Oh! my dear. I know not what to think or say." "It is a fitting end to our talk," I said. "Will has come back and Allen has succeeded, and we are at another dawn, of a better day. Come, Isabel, let us go home." We left the boys and went back together, hand in hand, but silent.

"I have suffered, dear Isabel," I said,

Did you ever see the sun rise? You may see it, if you are awake, on an average, I suppose, about one day in six, and in June when the mornings are mostly fine, about every other day. In order to see it in the summer you must sit up all night, as we did; or you must get up very early indeed when you are in the middle of your sleep. I had seen it from my bed-room window in the old days, and especially those sad days when the boys first went away and I used to lie awake at night wondering how one could live three years without them. Then I used to sit at the window and watch the east for the first streak of day, though when it came

and I am happy. It is the dawn of a happy day for you, dear Isabel, who love one of the two so much, and for me, because I love— the other. Kiss me, dear. Let us always be sisters. You have taken Allen's heart from me and you have only made me happier for the loss. Remember what you said, 'Above all things we must make him happy.'

"Oh, Claire!" the tears came again into her eyes. "Can you, can any girl, give up Allen? And besides, you do not know

"Hush! Isabel. I know very well; but let us keep our secret."

It was half-past four by this time. I suppose we ought to have gone to bed and lain awake thinking of our lovers. Alas! we were both outrageously hungry, and we went

to the supper-room and ate cold chicken and drank claret-cup, and went to bed laughing as if there were no such thing as love in the world.

As for our lovers, I believe they had cigars and did not go to bed at all. And I know for certain that temper was exhibited in certain quarters when it became known that Will, after three years' absence, actually went first of all to see Claire, with whom and Allen Engledew he sat up all the night, only calling upon his own mother in the morning. I went to bed and to sleep, and perhaps I dreamed the thing and perhaps I heard it, but when I awoke a voice was in my ears-the voice of my father-and words saying, "She will choose between the two, the man who acts and the man who writes, and I think that she will surprise us both. But let us wait, and find consolation for the others."

Could Gertrude and my father have talked together in the garden while I was still asleep? and could I, in half-waking dreams, have heard them?

The man who acts. Surely it is best for a man to act. Men have to do the work of the world. That man who does it carries out the purpose for which he was born better than the man who talks about the worker. My choice? Why I never had any choice. Although I thought I was going to sit down and exercise a deliberate judgment, I could not do otherwise, when the time should come, but hold out both my hands and say, "Take me, Will, I am your own." I believe, if you rightly consider it, that this is the case with every woman. She does not choose, but she gives her love-because she cannot choose but give it.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.-THE OPINIONS OF A

CHINAMAN.

THE return of one native is, I suppose, a great event in a quiet village, and here were two natives returned-one, at least, carrying his sheaves with him, although to the general eye he seemed as if he was laden with straw and chaff and stubble and tares, instead of golden grain. So that the return of Will, who had certainly "got on" in a material way, created more general interest. Besides, Allen had never been really away, and rumours were always afloat of his starving agonies and mad ambitions. Most of the residents pictured him as sitting with a tight belt round his waist, to keep down the pangs of hunger while he wrote poems which nobody would buy, or paragraphs for daily papers at a penny a line-they were very eloquent on

that penny a line-Mr. Skantlebury especially, knew all about it; or else he was imagined as forming one of a mad-cap crowd of roysterers, singing and drinking with the accompaniment of tobacco. Mr. Massey it was who knew how literary men always sit up o' nights together, and get drunk and sing and smoke pipes. It was, I think, rather a disappointment to most of us when Allen came back, certainly well fed, well dressed, and not, so far as could be seen, greatly given to drink.

"I have been talking to Sir Charles, Claire," said Will to me, "and I have been having it out with my father. I have received the congratulations of Mr. Skantlebury on my arrival. I have been wept over by Allen's mother, who said that I was the supplanter of her son; but she did not blame me. I have been warned by Mrs. Gallaway "—here I believe I blushed-" and I have been to town and called upon Tommy - Tommy the Great-Trismegistus - thrice greatest Tommy !"

"Did you call at his office?"

"Yes, I did, at eleven in the morning. Claire, there is something wrong with His Greatness. He looks pale. He pulled out a pint of champagne while I was with him, and because I would have none he drank it all himself. He grinned in a ghastly way when I congratulated him on his success. There is something wrong with Olinthus."

I knew very well indeed what was wrong with him, but I would not tell him.

"Tommy did not pretend the ordinary polite rejoicing at my return; did not say he was glad to see me; did not ask me to dine with him at his club or anywhere else; did not show, or pretend, the least interest in my movements, and he seemed mightily relieved when I came away. But perhaps he had his work upon his mind—another fortune to make before noon, I dare say."

This was just what one would have expected of the poor man. With ruin staring him in the face, the visit of his old schoolfellow would only distract him.

"His cheeks are flabby and his hand shakes, and his eyes are blood-shot. On the whole, Claire, I would rather not be in poor old Tommy's shoes. But what a fellow he is! Fancy his hiding away those wonderful powers of his! And fancy ourselves being such donkeys as to call him stupid! We used to laugh at him, Allen and I, because he couldn't understand things at school. He was stupid, was he? Why, this finance business, which I take to be pure plundering and robbery, is a thing which wants a quicker

brain and wider knowledge than any other trade in the world. Where did he pick up his knowledge?"

I knew that as well, but I could not tell him.

"When I asked him he sighed and said that he didn't know whether the thing was worth the trouble it had cost him. Trouble! it must have been downright, resolute work of the hardest kind, coupled with the most extraordinary sagacity. You see it means nothing more or less than to find out for certainty the things which are kept in the background. You must know all the secrets and all the motives. Perhaps he kept a detective branch in his own service. I asked him what he had made in the three years; but he refused to tell me, and altogether looked so glum that I came away. I expected to find him swaggering over his money after the old fashion. What does it mean?"

It meant that the great financier was going to be horribly punished, and perhaps held up to ridicule. But that I could not reveal. Will went on.

"Coming home in the train I heard some talk which adds to my presentiments about him. There were two men talking about some company or other. I heard the name of Gallaway mentioned, and one of them began to tell a long story about the way in which Mr. Olinthus Gallaway has been making money. I partly suspected it before. It seems that he has been following the same game as that carried on ten years ago or so by Colliber. This man seemed to know something about it. There is a row impending, it appears. They are going to make an attempt at fixing a certain prospectus on Olinthus. If he can be proved to have framed this prospectus, an action will be brought against him. It is quite certain that he took up and sold the shares. I wonder if that is the reason why Tommy looked so glum. The man in the train said that if such an action could be brought, and was successful, the result would make one of the richest men in the City a bankrupt. Another man, who seemed vindictive, remarked that for his own part he should like nothing better than to see him and all such fellows on the treadmill. I suppose he was a shareholder in one of the illustrious Tommy's companies."

no longer feel lost in it, and he has ceased to feel any awe for the glorious bankrupts."

"I do not find the place any other than it used to be, but the people are changed. Mr. Colliber is gone, which seems a good thing for everybody. The man used to remind me of a hawk, with his hooked nose and sharp eyes and quick savage manner. I never think of a financier without supposing him greatly to resemble Mr. Colliber; when I called upon Tommy I fully expected to find that his features were changed, and I am disappointed. He might be thought to look a little like an owl, with his fat cheeks, but not at all a hawk."

"Yes, Mr. Colliber went away without telling any one he was going."

"As for the Gallaways, I suppose it is quite natural that they should be proud of their brother; but perhaps they are a little more inflated than one would like to see. And they did dwell upon the contrast between my position and Tommy's. I wonder if they understand at all what it means. Do you think they can understand? Why, if they could, the reading of the eighth commandment every Sunday would strike them dumb with terror and shame."

He could not forget the story of the company which he had heard in the train.

"And I've been to see Allen's mother. The poor lady told her tale of woe; her son is no richer, she says, and has no prospect whatever before him of making any money. It is a dreadful thing to her. She looks upon these ladies as his most mischievous friends. As for his book it is only a proof and visible sign of degradation. How can a book make money, or even a bare living? Only one thing would reconcile her."

"What thing?"

"If they were to elect Allen, Lord Mayor of London, and she were to see him in his coach of state with chaplain and swordbearer."

"Poor Mrs. Engledew! And the rest, Will?"

"I found Sir Charles as well as ever. He flourished about Olinthus, of course, and regrets that he is not likely to live long enough to see his failure. This, he says, is sure to be colossal. He also expressed his hope that I had brought back from China the true spirit of British enterprise, for which my father is so distinguished."

"Oh, Will! but you know-- ” "Yes, Claire, I know." His face fell. "I know, and I am ashamed. My father, at the age of sixty-five, has gone back to the City