Τ

IT is a bright spring afternoon in

the first flush of the London season. The old story has begun over again with fresh hopes, fresh schemes, a few fresh faces-the old story of dining and driving and dressing, and pushing on with calm polite energy that

never

relaxes, as though it had some definite object for its goal. There are indeed a few blanks amongst the rank and file of the élite. The pale visitor who knocks at the door of lowly hut and regal palace, alike regardless of the hail-porter's 'notat-home' and the peasant-mother's imploring cry, has taken care of that. Certain Amphitryons will bow blandly to their guests no more; a joker or two has exchanged his thoughtless existence for something perhaps a little more like real earnest; Timon of Athens has left a hatchment on his four-storied house, and his affairs in a state of hopeless confusion; yet the ball goes round much the same. A few words of languid pity comprise Timon's epitaph. The fool of a doctor never bled him. How well his horses sold at Tattersall's; and who has got his cook? His very cab-horse stands opposite to them now as they sit in the bay-window of their club; but Landless, Flippant, and the like have already paid tribute to his memory, as recorded above, and are talking of something else.

Charley Wing has succeeded to a fortune. Charley Wing has become the unexpected possessor of docks in Liverpool, and acres in Buckinghamshire, and mines in Cornwall, and money in the funds. No longer a gay condottiere living from hand to mouth, looking perpetually over his shoulder for somebody who 'wants' him, reduced to his last shifts to obtain credit for his

gloves, Charley Wing has become a man of substance-a landholder, a capitalist. The change has had its usual effect. From a lighthearted, open-handed 'good for nothing,' he has become a morose, close-fisted curmudgeon. The cidevant dandy walks about now with thick soles and a cotton umbrella. Landless asked him last week to lend him a 'pony.'

'Only a pony, I give you my honour,' said that experienced bor rower, in a tone of injured feeling, 'and he has never spoken to me since, besides refusing point-blank. The infernal screw!'

The pony would have been useful to Landless, who owes money to everybody that will trust him. A year ago, if Charley Wing by rare accident had a five-pound note in his pocket, it was at the service of the first person who asked for it. The evergreen Flippant, settling his neckcloth and feeling the padding of his coat, opines that it's all up with a fellow when he gets into more than ten thousand a year,' and his auditors, having applauded Flippant's remark, as is their custom, the latter struts away with the happy persuasion that he has perpetrated a jest. Holyhead joins the group, and nods to a man in the street who walks moodily by, with his eyes fixed on the pavement, and who takes no notice of the salute nor of his friends in the window.

"Gad,' says Landless, 'there's a fellow that, according to Flippant, must have come in for a pot of money. It's all up with Orme since he went to that queer Australian climate. I never saw a man so changed in my life. He was never likely to set the Thames on fire; but still he used to be a cheery, amusing bird enough, and

them. Perhaps with touching helplessness they hover aimlessly about the spot where the wreck went to pieces when she came ashore. They would hide themselves and their woes from their fellow-men; they want no sympathy, no assistance; they only ask to be left unnoticed and alone. For such there is little hope. The wild animal carries his wound home to the solitude of his den, but he reaches it only to die.

Those few weeks were a blank in Gilbert's life. It is needless to say how he repented of his bitter words and violent reproaches in his last interview with Ada. How twentyfour hours had not elapsed ere he was willing to submit to anything, however humiliating, only to see her again. How he went back the following day to her house at the earliest hour decency would permit, and found that she was gone.

'Gone out of town,' the maid said, and given up her lodgings, and left no address. She was quite sure there was no address. Mrs. Latimer went away last night.'

Every word struck cold as ice to his heart. He went straight to his mother's. In the drawing-room was an open note to Gertrude in Ada's handwriting. The former lady was not yet dressed. It had evidently arrived the evening before, and been thrown carelessly aside after perusal. It contained only a few lines, stating that the writer was summoned into the country unexpectedly, and should be unable to attend her ladyship any more.' He crushed it up in his hand with a curse, and then he pressed it to his lips tenderly and with a ghastly smile. How many fond happy tears in former days had dropped on those delicate characters, and now it seemed a cruel mockery that they should record his sentence. He waited to see no one, but rushed incontinently from the house, and it was several weeks ere Lady Olivia or Lady Gertrude or any of them heard of him again.

Ada had indeed sought safety in flight. Enclosing a few hurried lines to her husband's agents, she

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informed them of her projected departure, and her intention of writing to them again with her new address, which she insisted must be communicated to no one but Mr. Latimer on his arrival.

From the uncertainty of his movements, she was spared the trial of having to answer her husband's letter. She was stern and pitiless. With that dogged resolution which sustains women in an effort of self-sacrifice, she stifled all the softer and kindlier feelings of her nature, forcing herself into what she deemed the performance of her duty with the savage energy of despair. And she thought, poor Ada! that she could sustain this high-wrought part-that her own heart would not soon smite her too keenly on his behalf whom she knew to be in sadness and loneliness and desolation-that the reaction would not come and leave her weaker, fonder, more helpless, more miserable than before.

However, she went out of town, and left no trace by which he could follow her or obtain information of her whereabout; and after a time Gilbert reappeared on that stage on which the characters wear their motley with such appropriate gestures, on which the performers are so well 'up' in their respective parts.

London, particularly in the season, is no place for the indulgence of solitary grief. A man cannot well sulk or mope by himself whose breakfast-table is covered with cards and invitations, whose leisure is continually broken in upon by acquaintances calling themselves friends, and who have a thousand schemes of pleasure and pastime, of which they have elected him a principal partaker. He allows himself to be carried away by the tide, and joins in amusements for which he has no zest from sheer want of energy to make head against the flood.

I am not sure but that the pale convive sitting at the board, clad in brave apparel, and crowned with the festive wreath, is not a drearier sight, as he quaff's his wine with ghastly smiles, than the cowering

wretch who shrinks from his fellows

in honest helplessness, neither afraid to bemoan his sorrow nor ashamed to confess his sufferings. As usual, the braver nature must take the deepest wounds the while it carries the highest crest, and the serge jerkin is opened at once to dress scars that must stiffen uncared for beneath a cloth of gold.

Gilbert could not refuse to acknowledge his acquaintances, because he no longer took the slightest interest in them and their doings, nor to dine with his former associates simply because he was himself restless and unhappy. Insensibly he glided into something of his previous life, kept the same hours, frequented the same clubs, cut off his beard, dressed like other men of his age, and went through the usual routine of what is termed 'good society.' But the zest was gone from everything he did there was the bitterness of gall in the cup, quaff it as bravely as he might, a sting in every pleasure rankling and probing to his heart's core. I heard a lad complaining once to a surgeon that he had run a thorn deep into his hand, and whenever he moved, whatever he touched, he was reminded of its presence by the pain. Cut it out, was the sage and medical advice given. 'Oh, doctor,' said the boy, 'it would hurt more to cut it out than to bear it as it is!' I have often thought of my young friend and his philosophy, not differing entirely from Hamlet's. How many of us have a thorn that we would fain be rid of, and yet that we go on enduring, afraid to face the pain of eradication. How many a burden would be thrown off, how many a chain broken, how many a complaint spared, could we but bring ourselves to contemplate unshrinkingly the possibility of 'cutting it out.' Every day it works deeper and deeper, burrowing through the flesh to incorporate itself with the bone-every day the difficulty of extraction becomes greater-more and more we wince from the probe. At last, we resign ourselves helplessly to our pain. Habit is second nature-it becomes

part and parcel of ourselves. Perhaps the boy was right, after all, and 'it would hurt more to cut it out than to bear it as it is!'

I do not think that at this time Gilbert was an agreeable companion. He took to drinking deeply, not with the jovial abandon that glosses over, if it cannot excuse, that vice, but with a morose determination anything but characteristic of a bon camarade. After these bouts he would go into society with a flushed brow and haggard eyes, to stand in silence contemplating the scene with indifference, or to whisper a few sardonic remarks to his next neighbour, who, if of the fair sex, was pretty sure to approve of his observations. The best and kindliest of women are not proof against well-directed satire aimed at their friends. His potations seemed to have no effect upon his demeanour, certainly not to raise his spirits the latter indeed were observed to sink lower and lower with the waning decanters. Gilbert seldom laughed now; when he did, those who heard his merriment cared little to have it repeated. It was not a healthy ebullition-not the least like a child's mirth. Altogether, he was strangely altered. Some of the ladies thought him improved, but these were chiefly dames who found themselves, to use their own jargon, considerably blasées, and who would have greeted Mephistopheles himself in a white neckcloth with the utmost cordiality if he promised to be different from the people they usually met. Mrs. Montpellier was quite concerned about him. She stood for an hour in a corner of the blue drawing-room at Ormolu House talking to Holyhead confidentially of his friend, regardless of the construction charitable observers might put on this long conversation.

"Get him out of London, I entreat you,' said she, with kindly sympathy melting in her dark eyes. "Get him to Bath, or Brighton, or abroad to drink the waters, or anywhere. I tell you he's killing himself here. Look at him! did you ever see anybody so altered? What

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are all his friends about?

Dear!

how I wish I was his mother! I should march him off with me down into the country, and nurse him till he got well. You know what a life he is leading. You men know everything, only you all screen one another. Up all night, and dissipating and gambling, I hear; and worse than all, losing his health and his looks day by day. And he used to be such a dear, bright, fresh-coloured boy. Now promise me, promise me, Lord Holyhead, that you'll try and do something to save him before it is too late!'

Good-hearted Holyhead strove to calm Mrs. Montpellier's anxieties, assuring her that they were entirely without foundation, that Gilbert's altered looks were but the effect of climate, and that his late hours and extravagances were but bad habits contracted in the colonies, which he would soon lose again now that he had returned to his former associates; but he succeeded neither in reassuring the lady nor himself. Mrs. Montpellier shook her glossy black head, vowing she would face the whole Visigoth set, and attack Lady Olivia herself on behalf of her son, rather than let things go on as they were; whilst Holyhead, who had his own reasons for knowing the truth of these reports about Orme's wild caprices and his late losses at play, determined to expostulate with him forthwith as to the imprudence and folly of the way in which he was going on.

He watched his opportunity accordingly, and regardless of entreating glances cast at him from many a shawled beauty and hooded chaperone, who wanted him to call up their carriages, he followed Gilbert down the steps of Ormolu House as the latter emerged with the obvious intention of departing alone and on foot; and taking his arm nolens volens, expressed his determination of walking home with him for a quiet chat. It is no easy matter to commence taking even the most intimate friend to task concerning his habits, demeanour, and general conduct, but Holyhead

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was not a man to beat about the bush when he knew where the game lay; and lighting a cigar, he plunged at once without hesitation in medias res.

'Gilbert,' said the peer, emitting the smoke from his mouth in short sharp puffs, as was his custom when peculiarly energetic, they tell me you are playing the devil. I'm the oldest friend you have, you know, and I don't care a straw whether I offend you or not. You're getting into the worst set in London. I haven't seen you at a respectable house till to-night for a week. You've lost no end of money-more than even you can afford-within the last few days; and everybody is talking about your altered manner and strange ways. One by one you're losing every friend you ever had. You must take a pull, old fellow, you must indeed. Hang it! You're not a fool, though you're behaving like one. You can't go on so.'

What do you wish me to do? said Gilbert, in such a quiet, hopeless tone as disappointed his friend sadly. Holyhead had almost wished he would quarrel with him, pull him up for his interference, give him an opportunity of saying a host of sharp things, and of rescuing his friend, so to speak, with the strong hand from himself; but this gentle unquestioning acquiescence disarmed the peer completely, upset his whole mode of attack, and confused all his operations.

'Do?' repeated he; 'why, come with me to Germany, or Switzerland, or Norway, or anywhere you like. Get out of London, and into fresh air and a quiet life. I'll go with you to-morrow, if you'll only say the word, and pitch every engagement I have to the devil. Hang it! old fellow, you're the dearest friend I have, or I wouldn't speak to you as I do.'

'You are a kind, good fellow,' answered Gilbert, and again the utter hopelessness of his tone sank into his friend's heart. 'But what is the use-what is the use?' He repeated the words vacantly, and, as it seemed, unconsciously.