Laid up in Lavender

"That photograph!" – with withering contempt-"I do not mean that! Do you think I suspect him of that?" She stepped forward as though to go to him, and her face altered wonderfully. Then she recollected herself and fell back. "No," she said coldly, "to what woman, sir, did you give your photograph at Frome?"

"To no woman at all," he said emphatically.

"Then look at this!" she retorted. She held out as she spoke a photograph, which I identified at once as the portrait we had seen at Gold's, or a copy of that one. I snatched it from Jim. "Where did you get this, my girl?" I asked briskly.

"It came this morning-with another letter from that woman," she murmured.

I think she began to feel ashamed of herself; and in two minutes I got the letter from her. It was written by the same hand as the letter of the day before, and was, like it, unsigned. It merely said that the writer, in proof of her good faith, enclosed a photograph which Master Jim-that gay Lothario! – had given her. We were still looking at the letter, when the Colonel came in. I explained the matter to him, and I will answer for it, before he understood it, Kitty was more ashamed of herself than ever.

"This photograph and the one at Gold's are facsimiles," said he thoughtfully. "That is certain. And both come from Frome. Doesn't it seem probable that the gentleman who obtained Jim's photograph for his own purpose last year-to send to Gold-printed off more than one copy? And having this one by him, and wishing to cause mischief between Kitty and Jim, thought of this and used it? The sender is, therefore, some one who passed his examination last year and is still at Frome."

Jim shook his head.

"If he passed, sir, he would not be at Bulcher's now," he said.

"On second thoughts he may not be," the Colonel replied. "He may have sent the two letters to Frome to a confidential friend with orders to post them. Wait-wait a minute," my old chum added, looking at me with a new light in his eyes. "Where have I seen a letter addressed to Frome-within the last day or two? Eh? Wait a bit."

We did wait; and presently the Colonel announced his discovery in a grim voice.

"I have it," he said. "It is that scoundrel, Farquhar!"

"Farquhar!" I said. "What do you mean, Colonel?"

"Just that, Major, just that. Do you remember him knocking against you in the hall at the club the day before yesterday? He dropped a letter, and I picked it up. It was addressed-I could not help seeing so much-to Frome."

"Well," Jim said slowly, "he was at Bulcher's, and he passed last year."

"And the letter," continued the Colonel in his turn, "was in a large envelope-an envelope large enough to contain a cabinet photograph."

There was silence in the room. Kitty's face was hidden. Jim moved at last-towards her? No, towards the door. He had his hand on it when the Colonel observed him.

"Stop!" he said sharply. "Come back, my boy. None of that. The Major and I will deal with him."

Jim lingered with his hand on the door.

"Well, sir," he said, "I will only-"

"Come back!" roared the Colonel, but with a smile in his eyes as he looked at his boy. "You will stop here, you lucky dog, you. And I hope this will be a lesson to you not to give your photograph to young ladies at Frome!"

If Kitty squirmed a little at that, she deserved it. I said before that a woman's faith is a wonderful thing. But when there is another woman in the case-umph!

* * * * *

"Mr. Farquhar, sir? Yes, sir, he is in the house," the club porter said, turning in his glass case to consult his book. "I believe he went upstairs to the drawing-room, sir."

"Thank you," the Colonel replied, and he glanced at me and I at him; and then, fixing our hats on tightly, and grasping our sticks, we went upstairs.

We were in luck, as it turned out, for not only was Farquhar in the drawing-room, but there was no one else in the long, stiff, splendid room. He looked up from his writing, and saw us piloting our way towards him between the chairs and tables. And I think he turned green. At any rate, my last doubt left me at the sight of his face.

"A word with you, Mr. Farquhar," the Colonel said grimly, keeping a tight hand on my arm, for I confess I had been in favour of more drastic measures. "It is about a photograph."

"A photograph?" the startled wretch exclaimed, his mouth ajar.

"Well, perhaps I should have said two photographs," the Colonel replied gravely; "photographs of my son which are lying, one in the possession of Major Bratton, and one in the album of a friend of yours, Mr. Isaac Gold."

He tried to frame the words, "A friend of mine!" and to feign astonishment and stare us down. But it was a pitiable attempt, and his eyes sank. He could only mutter, "I do not know-any Gold. There is some mistake."

"Perhaps so," the Colonel answered smoothly. "I hope there is some mistake. But let me tell you this, Mr. Farquhar. Unless you apply within a week for leave to resign your commission, I shall lay certain facts concerning these photographs before the Commander-in-Chief and before the mess of your regiment. You understand me, I am sure. Very well. That is all I wish to say to you."

Apparently he had nothing to say to us in return. And we were both glad to turn our backs on that baffled, spiteful face, in which the horror of discovery strove with the fear of ruin. It is ill striking a man when he is down, and I was glad to get out of the house and breathe a purer air.

We had no need to go to the Commander-in-Chief. Lieutenant Farquhar applied for leave to resign within the week, and Her Majesty obtained, I think, a better bargain in Private Isaac Gold, who, following the Colonel's advice, enlisted about this time. He is already a corporal, and, aided by an education rare in the ranks, bids fair to earn a sergeant's stripes at an early date. He has turned over a new leaf-the Colonel always maintained that he had a keen sense of honour; and I feel little doubt that if he ever has the luck to rise to Farquhar's grade, and bear the Queen's commission, he will be a credit to it and to his friend and brother officer-the Colonel's boy. Not, mind you, that I think he will ever be as good a fellow as Jim! No, no.

A GOOD MAN'S DILEMMA

The clock of St. Martin's was striking ten as Archdeacon Yale, of Studbury, in Gloucestershire, who had taken breakfast at the Athenæum, walked down the club steps, eastward bound. He was a man of fresh complexion and good presence; of tolerable means and some reputation as the author of a curiously morbid book, "Timon Defended." As he walked the pavement briskly, an unopened letter which peeped from his pocket seemed-and rightly-to indicate a man free from anxieties: a man without a care.

Before he left the dignified stillness of Pall Mall, however, he found leisure to read the note. "I enclose," wrote his wife, "a letter which came for you this morning. I trust, Cyprian, that you are not fretting about the visitation question and that you get your meals fairly well cooked." The Archdeacon paused at this point and smiled as at some pleasant reminiscence. "Give my love to dear Jack. Oh-h'm-I do not recognise your correspondent's handwriting."

"Nor do I!" the Archdeacon said aloud; and he opened the enclosure with a curiosity that had in it no fear of trouble. After glancing at the signature, however, he turned into a side street and read the letter to the end. He sighed. "Oh dear, dear!" he muttered. "What can I do? I must go! There is no room for refusal. And yet-oh dear! – after all these years. Number 14, Sidmouth Street, Gray's Inn Road? What a place!"

It was a shabby third-rate lodging-house place, as perhaps he knew. But he called a cab and had himself driven thither forthwith. At the corner of the street he dismissed the cab and looked about him furtively. For a man who had left his club so free from care, and whose wife at Studbury and son at Lincoln's Inn were well, he wore an anxious face. It could not be-for he was an Archdeacon-that he was about to do anything of which he was ashamed. Bishops, and others of that class, may be open to temptations, or have pages of their lives folded down, which they would not wish turned. But an Archdeacon?

Yet when he was distant a house or so from No. 14 he started guiltily at a very ordinary occurrence; at nothing more than the arrival of a hansom cab at the door. True, a young woman descended from it, and let herself into the house with a latchkey. But young women and latchkeys are common in London, as common as-as dirt. It could hardly be that which darkened his face as he rang the bell.

In the hall, where a dun was sitting, there was little to remove the prejudice he may have conceived; little, too, in the dingy staircase, cumbered with plates and stale food; or in the first-floor rooms, from which some one peeped and another whispered, and both giggled; or in that second-floor room, at once smart and shabby, and remarkable for many photographs of one young girl, where he was bidden to wait-little or nothing. But when he had pished and pshawed at the tenth photograph, he was called into an inner room, where a strange silence prevailed. Involuntarily he stepped softly. "It was kind of you to come," some one said-some one who was lying in a great chair brought very near to the open window that the speaker might breathe more easily-"very kind. And you have come so quickly."

"I have been in London some days," he answered gently, the fastidious expression gone from his face. "Your daughter's letter followed me from the country and reached me an hour ago. It has been no trouble to me to come. I am only pained at finding you so ill."

"Ah!" she answered. Doubtless her thoughts were busy; while his flew back nearly thirty years to a summer evening, when he had walked with her under the trees in Chelsea Gardens and heard her pour into his ear-she was a young actress in the first blush of success-her hopes and ambitions. There was nothing in the memory of which he had need to be ashamed. In those days he had been reading for orders, and, having lodgings in a respectable street, had come by chance to know two of his neighbours-her mother and herself. The two were living a quiet domestic life, which surprised and impressed him. The girl's talent and the contrast between her notoriety and her simple ways had had a charm for him. For some months the neophyte and the actress were as brother and sister. But there the feeling had stopped; and when his appointment to a country curacy had closed this pretty episode in his life, the exchange of a few letters had but added grace to its ending.

Now old feelings rose to swell his pity as he traced the girl's features in the woman's face. "You have a daughter. You have been married since we parted," he said.

"Yes. It is for her sake I have troubled you," was her answer. "She is a good girl-oh, so good! But she has no one in the world except me, and I am leaving her. Poor Grissel!"

"She is on the stage?" he inquired gravely.

"Yes; and she has succeeded young, as I did. We have not been unhappy together. You remember the life my mother and I had? I think it has been the same over again."

She smiled ever so little. He remembered something of the quiet pathos of that life. "Your husband is dead?" he asked.

"Dead! I wish he were!" she answered bitterly, the smile passing from her face. "My girl had better be alone than with her father. Ah, you do not know! When he went to America years ago-with another woman-I thanked God for it. Dead? Oh, no! There is no chance that he is dead."

Mr. Yale was shocked. "You have not got a divorce?" he said.

"No. After he left me I fell ill, and there were expenses. We were very poor until last year, when Grissel made a good engagement. That is why we are here. Now that her name is known he will come back and find her out. She plays as Kittie Latouche, but the profession know who she is, and-and what can I do? Oh, Mr. Yale! tell me what I can do for her."

Her anxiety unnerved him. Her terror of the future, not her own, but her child's, wrung his heart. He had a presentiment whither she was leading him; and he tried to escape, he tried to murmur some commonplace of encouragement.