The Golden Butterfly

Jack deftly bent round it again the golden wire which held it to the golden flower. Singular to relate, the wire fitted like the wings just the same as before, and the Butterfly vibrated on its perch again.

"It's wonderful!" cried Gilead Beck. "It's the Luck I've given away. It's gone to you, Miss Fleming. But it won't take the form of Ile."

"Then take it back, Mr. Beck," cried Phillis.

"No, young lady. The Luck left me of its own accord. That was shown when the Butterfly fell off the wires. It is yours now, yours; and you will make a better use of it.

"I think," he went on, with his hand upon the golden case, – "I think there's a Luck in the world which I never dreamed of, a better Luck than Ile. Mrs. L'Estrange, you know what sort of Luck I mean?"

"Yes, Mr. Beck, I know," she replied.

Phillis laid her hands on Jack's shoulder, while his arm stole round her waist.

"It is Love. Mr. Beck," said the girl. "Yes; that is the best Luck in all the world, and I am sure of it."

Jack stooped and kissed her. The simplicity and innocence of this maiden went to Gilead Beck's heart. They were a religion to him, an education. In the presence of that guileless heart all earthly thoughts dropped from his soul, and he was, like the girl before him, pure in heart and clean in memory. That is indeed the sweet enchantment of innocence; a bewitchment out of which we need never awake unless we like.

"Take the case and all, Miss Fleming," said Gilead Beck.

But she would not have the splendid case with its thick plate glass and solid gold pillars.

Then Gilead Beck brought out the little wooden box, the same in which the Golden Butterfly lay when he ran from the Bear on the slopes of the Sierra Nevada. And Phillis laid her new treasure in the cotton-wool and slung the box by its steel chain round his neck, laughing in a solemn fashion.

While they talked thus sadly, the door opened, and Lawrence Colquhoun stood before them.

Agatha cried out when she saw him, because he was transformed. The lazy insouciant look was gone; a troubled look was in its place. Worse than a troubled look – a look of misery; a look of self-reproach; a look as of a criminal brought to the bar and convicted.

"Lawrence!" cried Mrs. L'Estrange.

He came into the room in a helpless sort of way, his hands shaking before him like those of some half-blind old man.

"Phillis," he said, in hoarse voice, "forgive me!"

"What have I to forgive, Lawrence?"

"Forgive me!" he repeated humbly. "Nay, you do not understand. Dunquerque, it is for you to speak – for all of you – you all love Phillis. Agatha – you love her – you used to love me too. How shall I tell you?"

"I think we guess," said Gilead.

"I did it for the best, Phillis. I thought to double your fortune. Cassilis said I should double it. I thought to double my own. I put all your money, child, every farthing of your money, in Eldorado Stock by his advice, and all my own too. And it is all gone – every penny of it gone."

Jack Dunquerque clasped Phillis tighter by the hand.

She only laughed.

"Why, Lawrence," she said, "what if you have lost all my money? Jack doesn't care. Do you Jack?"

"No, darling, no," said Jack. And at the moment – such was the infatuation of this young man – he really did not care.

"Lawrence," said Agatha, "you acted for the best. Don't dear Lawrence, don't trouble too much. Captain Ladds has lost all his fortune, too – and Mr. Beck has lost all his – and we are all ruined together."

"All ruined together!" echoed Gilead Beck, looking at Mrs. L'Estrange. "Gabriel Cassilis is a wonderful man. I always said he was a wonderful man."

In the evening the three ruined men sat together in Gilead's room.

"Nothing saved, Colquhoun?" asked Ladds, after a long pause.

"Nothing, The stock was 70 when I bought in: 70 at 10 percent. It is now anything you like – 4, 6, 8, 16 – what you please – because no one will buy it."

"Wal," said Gilead Beck, "it does seem rough on us all, and perhaps it's rougher on you two than it is on me. But to think, only to think, that such an almighty Pile should be fooled away on a darned half-caste State like Eldorado! And for all of us to believe Mr. Gabriel Cassilis a whole-souled, high toned speculator.

"Once I thought," he continued, "that we Amer'cans must be the Ten Tribes; because, I said, nobody but one out of the Ten Tribes would get such a providential lift as the Golden Butterfly. Gentlemen, my opinions are changed since this morning. I believe we're nothing better, not a single cent better, than one of the kicked-out Tribes. I may be an Amalekite, or I may be a Hivite; but I'm darned if I ever call myself again one of the children of Abraham."

CHAPTER THE LAST

"Whisper Love, ye breezes; sigh
In Love's content, soft air of morn;
Let eve in brighter sunsets die,
And day with brighter dawn be born."

It is a week since the disastrous day. Gilead Beck has sold the works of art with which he intended to found his Grand National Collection; he has torn up his great schemes for a National Theatre, a Grand National Paper; he has ceased to think, for the delectation of the Golden Butterfly, about improving the human race. His gratitude to that prodigy of Nature has so far cooled that he now considers it more in the light of a capricious sprite, a sort of Robin Good-fellow, than as a benefactor. He has also changed his views as to the construction of the round earth, and all that is therein. Ile, he says, may be found by other lucky adventures; but Ile is not to be depended on for a permanence. He would now recommend those who strike Ile to make their Pile as quickly as may be, and devote all their energies to the safety of that pile. And as to the human race, it may slide.

"What's the good," he says to Jack Dunquerque, "of helpin' up those that are bound to climb? Let them climb. And what's the good of tryin' to save those that are bound to fall? Let them fall. I'm down myself; but I mean to get up again."

It is sad to record that Mr. Burls, the picture-dealer, refused to buy back again the great picture of "Sisera and Jael." No one would purchase the work at all. Mr. Beck offered it to the Langham Hotel as a gift. The directors firmly declined to accept it. When it was evident that this remarkable effort of genius was appreciated by no one, Gilead Beck resolved on leaving it where it was. It is rumoured that the manager of the hotel bribed the owner of a certain Regent Street restaurant to take it away; and I have heard that it now hangs, having been greatly cut down, on the wall of that establishment, getting its tones mellowed day by day with the steam of roast and boiled. As for the other pictures, Mr. Burls expressed his extreme sorrow that temporary embarrassment prevented him purchasing them back at the price given for them. He afterwards told Mr. Beck that the unprincipled picture-dealer who did ultimately buy them, at the price of so much a square foot, and as second-rate copies, was a disgrace to his honourable profession. He, he said, stood high in public estimation for truth, generosity, and fair dealing. None but genuine works came from his own establishment; and what he called a Grooze was a Grooze, and nothing but a Grooze.

As for the Pile, Gilead's power of attorney had effectually destroyed that. There was not a cent left; not one single coin to rub against another. All was gone in that great crash.

He called upon Gabriel Cassilis. The financier smiled upon him with his newly-born air of sweetness and trust; but, as we have seen, he could no longer speak, and there was nothing in his face to express sorrow or repentance.

Gilead found himself, when all was wound up, the possessor of that single cheque which Joseph Jagenal had placed in his hands, and which, most fortunately for himself, he had not paid into the bank.

Four hundred pounds. With that, at forty-five, he was to begin the world again. After all, the majority of mankind at forty five have much less than four hundred pounds.

He heard from Canada that the town he had built, the whole of which belonged to him, was deserted again. There was a quicker rush out of it than into it. It stands there now, more lonely than Empire City – its derricks and machinery rusting and dropping to pieces, the houses empty and neglected, the land relapsing into its old condition of bog and marsh. But Gilead Beck will never see it again.

He kept away from Twickenham during this winding-up and settlement of affairs. It was a week later when, his mind at rest and his conscience clear of bills and doubts, because now there was nothing more to lose, he called at the house where he had spent so many pleasant hours.

Mrs. L'Estrange received him. She was troubled in look, and the traces of tears were on her face.

"It is a most onfortunate time," Gilead said sympathetically; "a most onfortunate time."

"Blow after blow, Mr. Beck," Agatha sobbed. "Stroke upon stroke."

"That is so, madam. They've got the knife well in, this time, and when they give it a twist we're bound to cry out. You've thought me selfish, I know, not to inquire before."

"No, Mr. Beck; no. It is only too kind of you to think of us in your overwhelming disaster. I have never spent so wretched a week. Poor Lawrence has literally not a penny left, except what he gets from the sale of his horses, pictures and things. Captain Ladds is the same; Phillis has no longer a farthing; and now, Oh dear, Oh dear. I am going to lose her altogether!"

"But when she marries Mr. Dunquerque you will see her often."