Jezebel's Daughter

CHAPTER III

In the gloom thrown over the household by Mr. Engelman's death, Mrs. Wagner, with characteristic energy and good sense, had kept her mind closely occupied. During the office hours, she studied those details of the business at Frankfort which differed from the details of the business in London; and soon mastered them sufficiently to be able to fill the vacancy which Mr. Engelman had left. The position that he had held became, with all its privileges and responsibilities, Mrs. Wagner's position—claimed, not in virtue of her rank as directress of the London house, but in recognition of the knowledge that she had specially acquired to fit her for the post.

Out of office-hours, she corresponded with the English writer on the treatment of insane persons, whose work she had discovered in her late husband's library, and assisted him in attracting public attention to the humane system which he advocated. Even the plan for the employment of respectable girls, in suitable departments of the office, was not left neglected by this indefatigable woman. The same friendly consideration which had induced her to spare Mr. Keller any allusion to the subject, while his health was not yet completely restored, still kept her silent until time had reconciled him to the calamity of his partner's death. Privately, however, she had caused inquiries to be made in Frankfort, which would assist her in choosing worthy candidates for employment, when the favorable time came—probably after the celebration of Fritz's marriage—for acting in the interests of the proposed reform.

"Pray send me away, if I interrupt you," said Madame Fontaine, pausing modestly on the threshold before she entered the room. She spoke English admirably, and made a point of ignoring Mrs. Wagner's equally perfect knowledge of German, by addressing her always in the English language.

"Come in by all means," Mrs. Wagner answered. "I am only writing to David Glenney, to tell him (at Minna's request) that the wedding-day is fixed."

"Give your nephew my kind regards, Mrs. Wagner. He will be one of the party at the wedding, of course?"

"Yes—if he can be spared from his duties in London. Is there anything I can do for you, Madame Fontaine?"

"Nothing, thank you—except to excuse my intrusion. I am afraid I have offended our little friend there, with the pretty straw hat in his hand, and I want to make my peace with him."

Jack looked up from his work with an air of lofty disdain. "Oh, dear me, it doesn't matter," he said, in his most magnificent manner.

"I was dressing when he knocked at my door," pursued Madame Fontaine; "and I asked him to come back, and show me his keys in half an hour. Why didn't you return, Jack? Won't you show me the keys now?"

"You see it's a matter of business," Jack replied as loftily as ever. "I am in the business—Keeper of the Keys. Mistress is in the business; Mr. Keller is in the business. You are not in the business. It doesn't matter. Upon my soul, it doesn't matter."

Mrs. Wagner held up her forefinger reprovingly. "Jack! don't forget you are speaking to a lady."

Jack audaciously put his hand to his head, as if this was an effort of memory which was a little too much to expect of him.

"Anything to please you, Mistress," he said. "I'll show her the bag."

He exhibited to Madame Fontaine a leather bag, with a strap fastened round it. "The keys are inside," he explained. "I wore them loose this morning: and they made a fine jingle. Quite musical to my ear. But Mistress thought the noise likely to be a nuisance in the long run. So I strapped them up in a bag to keep them quiet. And when I move about, the bag hangs from my shoulder, like this, by another strap. When the keys are wanted, I open the bag. You don't want them—you're not in the business. Besides, I'm thinking of going out, and showing myself and my bag in the fashionable quarter of the town. On such an occasion, I think I ought to present the appearance of a gentleman—I ought to wear gloves. Oh, it doesn't matter! I needn't detain you any longer. Good morning."

He made one of his fantastic bows, and waved his hand, dismissing Madame Fontaine from further attendance on him. Secretly, he was as eager as ever to show the keys. But the inordinate vanity which was still the mad side of him and the incurable side of him, shrank from opening the leather bag unless the widow first made a special request and a special favor of it. Feeling no sort of interest in the subject, she took the shorter way of making her peace with him. She took out her purse.

"Let me make you a present of the gloves," she said, with her irresistible smile.

Jack lost all his dignity in an instant.

He leapt off the window seat and snatched at the money, like a famished animal snatching at a piece of meat. Mrs. Wagner caught him by the arm, and looked at him. He lifted his eyes to hers, then lowered them again as if he was ashamed of himself.

"Oh, to be sure!" he said, "I have forgotten my manners, I haven't said Thank you. A lapse of memory, I suppose. Thank you, Mrs. Housekeeper." In a moment more, he and his bag were on their way to the fashionable quarter of the town.

"You will make allowances for my poor little Jack, I am sure," said Mrs. Wagner.

"My dear madam, Jack amuses me!"

Mrs. Wagner winced a little at the tone of the widow's reply. "I have cured him of all the worst results of his cruel imprisonment in the mad-house," she went on. "But his harmless vanity seems to be inbred; I can do nothing with him on that side of his character. He is proud of being trusted with anything, especially with keys; and he has been kept waiting for them, while I had far more important matters to occupy me. In a day or two he will be more accustomed to his great responsibility, as he calls it."

"Of course you don't trust him," said Madame Fontaine, "with keys that are of any importance; like the key of your desk there, for instance."

Mrs. Wagner's steady gray eyes began to brighten. "I can trust him with anything," she answered emphatically.

Madame Fontaine arched her handsome brows in a mutely polite expression of extreme surprise.

"In my experience of the world," Mrs. Wagner went on, "I have found that the rarest of all human virtues is the virtue of gratitude. In a hundred little ways my poor friendless Jack has shown me that he is grateful. To my mind that is reason enough for trusting him."

"With money?" the widow inquired.

"Certainly. In London I trusted him with money—with the happiest results. I quieted his mind by an appeal to his sense of trust and self-respect, which he thoroughly appreciated. As yet I have not given him the key of my desk here, because I reserve it as a special reward for good conduct. In a few days more I have no doubt he will add it to the collection in his bag."

"Ah," said Madame Fontaine, with the humility which no living woman knew better when and how to assume, "you understand these difficult questions—you have your grand national common-sense. I am only a poor limited German woman. But, as you say in England, 'Live and learn.' You have indescribably interested me. Good morning."

She left the room. "Hateful woman!" she said in her own language, on the outer side of the door.

"Humbug!" said Mrs. Wagner in her language, on the inner side of the door.

If there had been more sympathy between the two ladies, or if Madame Fontaine had felt a little curiosity on the subject of crazy Jack's keys, she might have taken away with her some valuable materials for future consideration. As it was, Mrs. Wagner had not troubled her with any detailed narrative of the manner in which she had contrived to fill Jack's leather bag.

In London, she had begun cautiously by only giving him some of the useless old keys which accumulate about a house in course of years. When the novelty of merely keeping them had worn off, and when he wanted to see them put to some positive use, she had added one or two keys of her own, and had flattered his pride by asking him to open the box or the desk for her, as the case might be. Proceeding on the same wisely gradual plan at Frankfort, she had asked Mr. Keller to help her, and had been taken by him (while Jack was out of the way) to a lumber-room in the basement of the house, on the floor of which several old keys were lying about. "Take as many as you like," he had said; "they have been here, for all I know, ever since the house was repaired and refurnished in my grandfather's time, and they might be sold for old iron, if there were only enough of them." Mrs. Wagner had picked up the first six keys that presented themselves, and had made Jack Straw the happiest of men. He found no fault with them for being rusty. On the contrary, he looked forward with delight to the enjoyment of cleaning away the rust. "They shall be as bright as diamonds," he had said to his mistress, "before I have done with them."

And what did Madame Fontaine lose, by failing to inform herself of such trifles as these? She never discovered what she had lost. But she had not done with Jack Straw yet.

CHAPTER IV

After leaving Mrs. Wagner, the widow considered with herself, and then turned away from the commercial regions of the house, in search of her daughter.

She opened the dining-room door, and found the bagatelle-board on the table. Fritz and Minna were playing a game of the desultory sort—with the inevitable interruptions appropriate to courtship.

"Are you coming to join us, mamma? Fritz is playing very badly."

"This sort of thing requires mathematical calculation," Fritz remarked; "and Minna distracts my attention."

Madame Fontaine listened with a smile of maternal indulgence. "I am on my way back to my room," she said. "If either of you happen to see Jack Straw——"

"He has gone out," Fritz interposed. "I saw him through the window. He started at a run—and then remembered his dignity, and slackened his pace to a walk. How will he come back, I wonder?"

"He will come back with greater dignity than ever, Fritz. I have given him the money to buy himself a pair of gloves. If you or Minna happen to meet with him before I do, tell him he may come upstairs and show me his new gloves. I like to indulge the poor imbecile creature. You mustn't laugh at him—he is to be pitied."

Expressing these humane sentiments, she left the lovers to their game. While Jack was still pleasurably excited by the new gift, he would be in the right frame of mind to feel her influence. Now or never (if the thing could be done) was the time to provide against the danger of chance-allusions to what had happened at Wurzburg. It was well known in the house that Mrs. Wagner wished to return to London, as soon after the marriage as certain important considerations connected with the management of the office would permit. By Madame Fontaine's calculations, Jack would be happily out of the way of doing mischief (if she could keep him quiet in the meanwhile) in a month or six weeks' time.

The game went on in the dining-room—with the inevitable intervals. Beyond reproach as a lover, Fritz showed no signs of improvement as a bagatelle-player. In a longer pause than usual, during which the persons concerned happened to have their backs turned to the door, a disagreeable interruption occurred. At a moment of absolute silence an intruding voice made itself heard, inviting immediate attention in these words:—

"I say, you two! If you want to see the finest pair of gloves in Frankfort, just look here."

There he stood with outstretched hands, exhibiting a pair of bright green gloves, and standing higher in his own estimation than ever.

"Why do you always come in without knocking?" Fritz asked, with excusable indignation.

"Why have you always got your arm round her waist?" Jack retorted. "I say, Miss Minna (I only offer a remark), the more he kisses you the more you seem to like it."

"Send him away, for Heaven's sake!" Minna whispered.

"Go upstairs!" cried Fritz.

"What! do you want to be at it again?" asked Jack.

"Go and show your new gloves to Madame Fontaine," said Minna.

The girl's quick wit had discovered the right way to get rid of Jack. He accepted the suggestion with enthusiasm. "Ah!" he exclaimed, "that's a good idea! It would never have entered your head, Fritz, would it?"

Before Fritz could reply, Jack was out of his reach.

The widow sat in her room, innocently reading the newspaper. A cake happened to be on the table at her side; and a bottle of sparkling lemonade, by the merest coincidence, was in the near neighborhood of the cake. Jack's eyes brightened, as they turned towards the table when he entered the room.

"And those are the gloves!" said Madame Fontaine, with her head held critically a little on one side, as if she was a connoisseur enjoying a fine picture. "How very pretty! And what good taste you have!"

Jack (with his eyes still on the cake) accepted these flattering expressions as no more than his due. "I am pleased with my walk," he remarked. "I have made a successful appearance in public. When the general attention was not occupied with my bag of keys, it was absorbed in my gloves. I showed a becoming modesty—I took no notice of anybody."

"Perhaps your walk has given you a little appetite?" the widow suggested.

"What did you say?" cried Jack. "Appetite! Upon my soul, I could eat—— No, that's not gentleman-like. Mistress gave me one of her looks when I said 'Upon my soul' down in the office. Thank you. Yes; I like cake. Excuse me—I hope it has got plums in it?"

"Plums and other fine things besides. Taste!"

Jack tried hard to preserve his good manners, and only taste as he was told. But the laws of Nature were too much for him. He was as fond of sweet things as a child—he gobbled. "I say, you're uncommonly good to me all of a sudden," he exclaimed between the bites. "You didn't make much of me like this at Wurzburg!"

He had given Madame Fontaine her opportunity. She was not the woman to let it slip. "Oh, Jack!" she said, in tones of gentle reproach, "didn't I nurse you at Wurzburg?"

"Well," Jack admitted, "you did something of the sort."

"What do you mean?"

He had finished his first slice of cake; his politeness began to show signs of wearing out.

"You did what my master the Doctor told you to do," he said. "But I don't believe you cared whether I lived or died. When you had to tuck me up in bed, for instance, you did it with the grossest indifference. Ha! you have improved since that time. Give me some more cake. Never mind cutting it thick. Is that bottle of lemonade for me?"

"You hardly deserve it, Jack, after the way you have spoken of me. Don't you remember," she added, cautiously leading him back to the point, "I used to make your lemonade when you were ill?"

Jack persisted in wandering away from the point. "You are so hungry for compliments," he objected. "Haven't I told you that you have improved? Only go on as you are going on now, and I dare say I shall put you next to Mistress in my estimation, one of these days. Let the cork go out with a pop; I like noises of all kinds. Your good health! Is it manners to smack one's lips after lemonade?—it is such good stuff, and there's such pleasure in feeling it sting one's throat as it goes down. You didn't give me such lemonade as this, when I was ill—Oh! that reminds me."

"Reminds you of something that happened at Wurzburg?" Madame Fontaine inquired.

"Yes. Wait a bit. I'm going to try how the cake tastes dipped in lemonade. Ha! ha! how it fizzes as I stir it round! Yes; something that happened at Wurzburg, as you say. I asked David about it, the morning he went away. But the coach was waiting for him; and he ran off without saying a word. I call that rude."

He was still stirring his lemonade with his bit of cake—or he might have seen something in the widow's face that would have startled him. He did look up, when she spoke to him. His sense of hearing was his quickest sense; and he was struck by the sudden change in her voice.

"What did you ask David?"—was all she ventured to say.

Jack still looked at her. "Anything the matter with you?" he inquired.

"Nothing. What did you ask David?"

"Something I wanted to know."

"Perhaps I can tell you what you want to know?"

"I shouldn't wonder. No: dipping the cake in lemonade doesn't improve it, and it leaves crumbs in the drink."

"Throw away that bit of cake, Jack, and have some more.

"May I help myself?"

"Certainly. But you haven't told me yet what you want to know."

At last he answered directly. "What I want to know is this," he said. "Who poisoned Mr. Keller?"

He was cutting the cake as he spoke, and extracted a piece of candied orange peel with the point of the knife. Once more, the widow's face had escaped observation. She turned away quickly, and occupied herself in mending the fire. In this position, her back was turned towards the table—she could trust herself to speak.

"You are talking nonsense!" she said.

Jack stopped—with the cake half-way to his mouth. Here was a direct attack on his dignity, and he was not disposed to put up with it. "I never talk nonsense," he answered sharply.

"You do," Madame Fontaine rejoined, just as sharply on her side. "Mr. Keller fell ill, as anyone else might fall ill. Nobody poisoned him."

Jack got on his legs. For the moment he actually forgot the cake. "Nobody?" he repeated. "Tell me this, if you please: Wasn't Mr. Keller cured out of the blue-glass bottle—like me?"

(Who had told him this? Joseph might have told him; Minna might have told him. It was no time for inquiry; the one thing needful was to eradicate the idea from his mind. She answered boldly, "Quite right, so far"—and waited to see what came of it.)

"Very well," said Jack, "Mr. Keller was cured out of the blue-glass bottle, like me. And I was poisoned. Now?"

She flatly contradicted him again. "You were not poisoned!"

Jack crossed the room, with a flash of the old Bedlam light in his eyes, and confronted her at the fire place. "The devil is the father of lies," he said, lifting his hand solemnly. "No lies! I heard my master the Doctor say I was poisoned."

She was ready with her answer. "Your master the Doctor said that to frighten you. He didn't want you to taste his medicines in his absence again. You drank double what any person ought to have drunk, you greedy Jack, when you tasted that pretty violet-colored medicine in your master's workshop. And you had yourself to thank—not poison, when you fell ill."

Jack looked hard at her. He could reason so far as that he and Mr. Keller must have taken the same poison, because he and Mr. Keller had been cured out of the same bottle. But to premise that he had been made ill by an overdose of medicine, and that Mr. Keller had been made ill in some other way, and then to ask, how two different illnesses could both have been cured by the same remedy—was an effort utterly beyond him. He hung his head sadly, and went back to the table.

"I wish I hadn't asked you about it," he said. "You puzzle me horribly." But for that unendurable sense of perplexity, he would still have doubted and distrusted her as resolutely as ever. As it was, his bewildered mind unconsciously took its refuge in belief. "If it was medicine," asked the poor creature vacantly, "what is the medicine good for?"

At those words, an idea of the devil's own prompting entered Madame Fontaine's mind. Still standing at the fireplace, she turned her head slowly, and looked at the cupboard.

"It's a better remedy even than the blue-glass bottle," she said; "it cures you so soon when you are tired, or troubled in your mind, that I have brought it away with me from Wurzburg, to use it for myself."

Jack's face brightened with a new interest. "Oh," he said eagerly, "do let me see it again!"

She put her hand in her pocket, took out the key, and hesitated at the last moment.

"Just one look at it," Jack pleaded, "to see if it's the same."

She unlocked the cupboard.

CHAPTER V

Jack attempted to follow her, and look in. She waved him back with her hand.

"Wait at the window," she said, "where you can see the medicine in the light." She took the bottle of "Alexander's Wine" from the chest, and having locked the cupboard again, replaced the key in her pocket. "Do you remember it?" she asked, showing him the bottle.

He shuddered as he recognized the color. "Medicine?" he said to himself—troubled anew by doubts which he was not able to realize. "I don't remember how much I took when I tasted it. Do you?"

"I have told you already. You took twice the proper dose."

"Did my master the Doctor say that?"

"Yes."

"And did he tell you what the proper dose was?"

"Yes."

Jack was not able to resist this. "I should like to see it!" he said eagerly. "My master was a wonderful man—my master knew everything."

Madame Fontaine looked at him. He waited to see his request granted, like a child waiting to see a promised toy. "Shall I measure it out, and show you?" she said. "I suppose you don't know what two drachms mean?"

"No, no! Let me see it."

She looked at him again and hesitated. With a certain reluctance of manner, she opened her dressing-case. As she took out a medicine-measuring-glass, her hand began to tremble. A faint perspiration showed itself on her forehead. She put the glass on the table, and spoke to Jack.

"What makes you so curious to see what the dose is?" she said. "Do you think you are likely to want some of it yourself?"

His eyes looked longingly at the poison. "It cures you when you are tired or troubled in your mind," he answered, repeating her own words. "I am but a little fellow—and I'm more easily tired sometimes than you would think."

She passed her handkerchief over her forehead. "The fire makes the room rather warm," she said.

Jack took no notice of the remark; he had not done yet with the confession of his little infirmities. He went on proving his claim to be favored with some of the wonderful remedy.

"And as for being troubled in my mind," he said, "you haven't a notion how bad I am sometimes. If I'm kept away from Mistress for a whole day—when I say or do something wrong, you know—I tell you this, I'm fit to hang myself! If you were to see me, I do think your heart would be touched; I do indeed!"

Instead of answering him, she rose abruptly, and hurried to the door.

"Surely there's somebody outside," she exclaimed—"somebody wanting to speak to me!"

"I don't hear it," said Jack; "and mine are the quickest ears in the house."

"Wait a minute, and let me see."

She opened the door: closed it again behind her; and hurried along the lonely corridor. Throwing up the window at the end, she put her head out into the keen wintry air, with a wild sense of relief. She was almost beside herself, without knowing why. Poor Jack's innocent attempts to persuade her to his destruction had, in their pitiable simplicity, laid a hold on that complex and terrible nature which shook it to its center. The woman stood face to face with her own contemplated crime, and trembled at the diabolical treachery of it. "What's the matter with me?" she wondered inwardly. "I feel as if I could destroy every poison in the chest with my own hands."

Slowly she returned along the corridor, to her room. The refreshing air had strung up her nerves again! she began to recover herself. The strengthened body reacted on the wavering mind. She smiled as she recalled her own weakness, looking at the bottle of poison which she had mechanically kept in her hand. "That feeble little creature might do some serious mischief, between this and the wedding-day," she thought; "and yet——and yet——"

"Well, was there anybody outside?" Jack asked.

"Nothing to matter," she said. The answer was spoken mechanically. Something in him or something in herself, it was impossible to say which, had suddenly set her thinking of the day when her husband had dragged him out of the jaws of death. It seemed strange that the memory of the dead Doctor should come between them in that way, and at that time.

Jack recalled her to the passing moment. He offered her the medicine-measuring-glass left on the table. "It frightens me, when I think of what I did," he said. "And yet it's such a pretty color—I want to see it again."

In silence, she took the glass; in silence, she measured out the fatal two drachms of the poison, and showed it to him.

"Do put it in something," he pleaded, "and let me have it to keep: I know I shall want it."

Still in silence, she turned to the table, and searching again in her dressing-case, found a little empty bottle. She filled it and carefully fitted in the glass stopper. Jack held out his hand. She suddenly drew her own hand back. "No," she said. "On second thoughts, I won't let you have it."

"Why not?"

"Because you can't govern your tongue, and can't keep anything to yourself. You will tell everybody in the house that I have given you my wonderful medicine. They will all be wanting some—and I shall have none left for myself."

"Isn't that rather selfish?" said Jack. "I suppose it's natural, though. Never mind, I'll do anything to please you; I'll keep it in my pocket and not say a word to anybody. Now?"

Once more, he held out his hand. Once more Madame Fontaine checked herself in the act of yielding to him. Her dead husband had got between them again. The wild words he had spoken to her, in the first horror of the discovery that his poor imbecile servant had found and tasted the fatal drug, came back to her memory—"If he dies I shall not survive him. And I firmly believe I shall not rest in my grave." She had never been, like her husband, a believer in ghosts: superstitions of all sorts were to her mind unworthy of a reasonable being. And yet at that moment, she was so completely unnerved that she looked round the old Gothic room, with a nameless fear throbbing at her heart.

It was enough—though nothing appeared: it was enough—though superstitions of all sorts were unworthy of a reasonable being—to shake her fell purpose, for the time. Nothing that Jack could say had the least effect on her. Having arrived at a determination, she was mistress of herself again. "Not yet," she resolved; "there may be consequences that I haven't calculated on. I'll take the night to think of it." Jack tried a last entreaty as she put her hand into her pocket, searching for the cupboard key, and tried it in vain. "No," she said; "I will keep it for you. Come to me when you are really ill, and want it."

Her pocket proved to be entangled for the moment in the skirt of her dress. In irritably trying to disengage it, she threw out the key on the floor. Jack picked the key up and noticed the inscription on the handle. "Pink-Room Cupboard," he read. "Why do they call it by that name?"

In her over-wrought state of mind, she had even felt the small irritating influence of an entangled pocket. She was in no temper to endure simple questions patiently. "Look at the pink curtains, you fool!" she said—and snatched the key out of his hand.

Jack instantly resented the language and the action. "I didn't come here to be insulted," he declared in his loftiest manner.

Madame Fontaine secured the poison in the cupboard without noticing him, and made him more angry than ever.

"Take back your new gloves," he cried, "I don't want them!" He rolled up his gloves, and threw them at her. "I wish I could throw all the cake I've eaten after them!" he burst out fervently.

He delivered this aspiration with an emphatic stamp of his foot. The hysterical excitement in Madame Fontaine forced its way outwards under a new form. She burst into a frantic fit of laughter. "You curious little creature," she said; "I didn't mean to offend you. Don't you know that women will lose their patience sometimes? There! Shake hands and make it up. And take away the rest of the cake, if you like it." Jack looked at her in speechless surprise. "Leave me to myself!" she cried, relapsing into irritability. "Do you hear? Go! go! go!"

Jack left the room without a word of protest. The rapid changes in her, the bewildering diversity of looks and tones that accompanied them, completely cowed him. It was only when he was safe outside in the corridor, that he sufficiently recovered himself to put his own interpretation on what had happened. He looked back at the door of Madame Fontaine's room, and shook his little gray head solemnly.

"Now I understand it," he thought to himself "Mrs. Housekeeper is mad. Oh, dear, dear me—Bedlam is the only place for her!"

He descended the first flight of stairs, and stopped again to draw the moral suggested by his own clever discovery. "I must speak to Mistress about this," he concluded. "The sooner we are back in London, the safer I shall feel."

CHAPTER VI

Mrs. Wagner was still hard at work at her desk, when Jack Straw made his appearance again in the private office.

"Where have you been all this time?" she asked. "And what have you done with your new gloves?"

"I threw them at Madame Fontaine," Jack answered. "Don't alarm yourself. I didn't hit her."

Mrs. Wagner laid down her pen, smiling. "Even business must give way to such an extraordinary event as this," she said. "What has gone wrong between you and Madame Fontaine?"

Jack entered into a long rambling narrative of what he had heard on the subject of the wonderful remedy, and of the capricious manner in which a supply of it had been first offered to him, and then taken away again. "Turn it over in your own mind," he said grandly, "and tell me what your opinion is, so far."

"I think you had better let Madame Fontaine keep her medicine in the cupboard," Mrs. Wagner answered; "and when you want anything of that sort, mention it to me." The piece of cake which Jack had brought away with him attracted her attention, as she spoke. Had he bought it himself? or had he carried it off from the housekeeper's room? "Does that belong to you, or to Madame Fontaine?" she asked. "Anything that belongs to Madame Fontaine must be taken back to her."

"Do you think I would condescend to take anything that didn't belong to me?" said Jack indignantly. He entered into another confused narrative, which brought him, in due course of time, to the dropping of the key and the picking of it up. "I happened to read 'Pink-Room Cupboard' on the handle," he proceeded; "and when I asked what it meant she called me a fool, and snatched the key out of my hand. Do you suppose I was going to wear her gloves after that? No! I am as capable of self-sacrifice as any of you—I acted nobly—I threw them at her. Wait a bit! You may laugh at that, but there's something terrible to come. What do you think of a furious person who insults me, suddenly turning into a funny person who shakes hands with me and bursts out laughing? She did that. On the honor of a gentleman, she did that. Follow my wise example; keep out of her way—and let's get back to London as soon as we can. Oh, I have got a reason for what I say. Just let me look through the keyhole before I mention it. All right; there's nobody at the keyhole; I may say it safely. It's a dreadful secret to reveal—Mrs. Housekeeper is mad! No, no; there can be no possible mistake about it. If there's a creature living who thoroughly understands madness when he sees it—by Heaven, I'm that man!"

Watching Jack attentively while he was speaking. Mrs. Wagner beckoned to him to come nearer, and took him by the hand.

"No more now," she said quietly; "you are beginning to get a little excited."

"Who says that?" cried Jack.

"Your eyes say it. Come here to your place."

She rose, and led him to his customary seat in the recess of the old-fashioned window. "Sit down," she said.

"I don't want to sit down."

"Not if I ask you?"

He instantly sat down. Mrs. Wagner produced her pocket-book, and made a mark in it with her pencil. "One good conduct-mark already for Jack," she said. "Now I must go on with my work; and you must occupy yourself quietly, in some way that will amuse you. What will you do?"

Jack, steadily restraining himself under the firm kind eyes that rested on him, was not in the right frame of mind for discovering a suitable employment. "You tell me," he said.

Mrs. Wagner pointed to the bag of keys, hanging over his shoulder. "Have you cleaned them yet?" she asked.

His attention was instantly diverted to the keys; he was astonished at having forgotten them. Mrs. Wagner rang the bell, and supplied him with sandpaper, leather, and whiting. "Now then," she said, pointing to the clock, "for another hour at least—silence and work!"

She returned to her desk; and Jack opened his bag.

He spread out the rusty keys in a row, on the seat at his side. Looking from one to the other before he began the cleansing operations, he started, picked out one key, and held it up to the light. There was something inscribed on the handle, under a layer of rust and dirt. He snatched up his materials, and set to work with such good will that the inscription became visible in a few minutes. He could read it plainly—"Pink-Room Cupboard." A word followed which was not quite so intelligible to him—the word "Duplicate." But he had no need to trouble himself about this. "Pink-Room Cupboard," on a second key, told him all he wanted to know.

His eyes sparkled—he opened his lips—looked at Mrs. Wagner, busily engaged with her pen—and restrained himself within the hard limits of silence. "Aha! I can take Mrs. Housekeeper's medicine whenever I like," he thought slily.

His faith in the remedy was not at all shaken by his conviction that Madame Fontaine was mad. It was the Doctor who had made the remedy—and the Doctor could not commit a mistake. "She's not fit to have the keeping of such a precious thing," he concluded. "I'll take the whole of it under my own charge. Shall I tell Mistress, when we have done work?"

He considered this question, cleaning his keys, and looking furtively from time to time at Mrs. Wagner. The cunning which is almost invariably well developed in a feeble intelligence, decided him on keeping his discovery to himself. "Anything that belongs to Madame Fontaine must be taken back to her"—was what the Mistress had just said to him. He would certainly be ordered to give up the duplicate key (which meant giving up the wonderful remedy) if he took Mrs. Wagner into his confidence. "When I have got what I want," he thought, "I can throw away the key—and there will be an end of it."

The minutes followed each other, the quarters struck—and still the two strangely associated companions went on silently with their strangely dissimilar work. It was close on the time for the striking of the hour, when a third person interrupted the proceedings—that person being no other than Madame Fontaine again.

"A thousand pardons, Mrs. Wagner! At what time can I say two words to you in confidence?"

"You could not have chosen your time better, Madame Fontaine. My work is done for to-day." She paused, and looked at Jack, ostentatiously busy with his keys. The wisest course would be to leave him in the window-seat, harmlessly employed. "Shall we step into the dining-room?" she suggested, leading the way out. "Wait there, Jack, till I return; I may have another good mark to put in my pocket-book."

The two ladies held their conference, with closed doors, in the empty dining-room.

"My only excuse for troubling you, madam," the widow began, "is that I speak in the interest of that poor little Jack, whom we have just left in the office. May I ask if you have lately observed any signs of excitement in him?"

"Certainly!" Mrs. Wagner answered, with her customary frankness of reply; "I found it necessary to compose him, when he came to me about an hour ago—and you have just seen that he is as quiet again as a man can be. I am afraid you have had reason to complain of his conduct yourself?"

Madame Fontaine lifted her hands in gently-expressed protest. "Oh, dear, no—not to complain! To pity our afflicted Jack, and to feel, perhaps, that your irresistible influence over him might be required—no more."

"You are very good," said Mrs. Wagner dryly. "At the same time, I beg you to accept my excuses—not only for Jack, but for myself. I found him so well behaved, and so capable of restraining himself in London, that I thought I was running no risk in bringing him with me to Frankfort."

"Pray say no more, dear madam—you really confuse me. I am the innocent cause of his little outbreak. I most unfortunately reminded him of the time when he lived with us at Wurzburg—and in that way I revived one of his old delusions, which even your admirable treatment has failed to remove from his mind."

"May I ask what the delusion is, Madame Fontaine?"

"One of the commonest delusions among insane persons, Mrs. Wagner—the delusion that he has been poisoned. Has he ever betrayed it in your presence?"

"I heard something of it," Mrs. Wagner answered, "from the superintendent at the madhouse in London."

"Ah, indeed? The superintendent merely repeated, I suppose, what Jack had told him?"

"Exactly. I was careful not to excite him, by referring to it myself, when I took him under my charge. At the same time, it is impossible to look at his hair and his complexion, without seeing that some serious accident must have befallen him."

"Most unquestionably! He is the victim, poor creature—not of poison—but of his own foolish curiosity, in my husband's surgery, and you see the result. Alas! I cannot give you the scientific reasons for it."

"I shouldn't understand them, Madame Fontaine, if you could."

"Ah, dear lady, you kindly say so, because you are unwilling to humiliate me. Is there anything Jack may have said to you about me, which seems to require an explanation—if I can give it?"

She slipped in this question, concealing perfectly the anxiety that suggested it, so far as her voice and her eyes were concerned. But the inner agitation rose to the surface in a momentary trembling of her lips.

Slight as it was, that sign of self-betrayal did not escape Mrs. Wagner's keen observation. She made a cautious reply. "On the contrary," she said, "from what Jack has told me, the conclusion is plain that you have really done him a service. You have succeeded in curing that delusion you spoke of—and I applaud your good sense in refusing to trust him with the medicine."

Madame Fontaine made a low curtsey. "I shall remember those kind words, among the happy events of my life," she said, with her best grace. "Permit me to take your hand." She pressed Mrs. Wagner's hand gratefully—and made an exit which was a triumph of art. Even a French actress might have envied the manner in which she left the room.

But, when she ascended the stairs, with no further necessity for keeping up appearances, her step was as slow and as weary as the step of an old woman. "Oh, my child," she thought sadly, with her mind dwelling again on Minna, "shall I see the end of all these sacrifices, when your wedding-day comes with the end of the year?" She sat down by the fire in her room, and for the first time in her life, the harmless existence of one of those domestic drudges whom she despised began to seem enviable to her. There were merits visible now, in the narrow social horizon that is bounded by gossip, knitting, and tea.

Left by herself in the dining-room, Mrs. Wagner took a turn up and down, with her mind bent on penetrating Madame Fontaine's motives.

There were difficulties in her way. It was easy to arrive at the conclusion that there was something under the surface; but the obstacles to advancing beyond this point of discovery seemed to defy removal. To distrust the graceful widow more resolutely than ever, and to lament that she had not got wise David Glenney to consult with, were the principal results of Mrs. Wagner's reflections when she returned to the office.

There was Jack—in the nursery phrase, as good as gold—still in his place on the window seat, devoted to his keys. His first words related entirely to himself.

"If this isn't good conduct," he said, "I should like to know what is. Give me my other mark."

Mrs. Wagner took out her pocket-book and made the new mark.

"Thank you," said Jack. "Now I want something else. I want to know what Mrs. Housekeeper has been saying. I have been seriously alarmed about you."

"Why, Jack?"

"She hasn't bitten you, has she? Oh, they do it sometimes! What lies has she been telling you of me? Oh, they lie in the most abominable manner! What? She has been talking of me in the kindest terms? Then why did she want to get out of my hearing? Ah, they're so infernally deceitful! I do hate mad people."

Mrs. Wagner produced her pocket-book again. "I shall scratch out your mark," she said sternly, "if I hear any more talk of that sort."

Jack gathered his keys together with a strong sense of injury, and put them back in his leather bag. "You're a little hard on me," he said, "when I'm only warning you for your own good. I don't know why it is, you're not as kind to me here, as you used to be in London. And I feel it, I do!" He laid himself down on the window seat, and began to cry.

Mrs. Wagner was not the woman to resist this expression of the poor little man's feeling. In a moment she was at the window comforting him and drying his eyes, as if he had been a child. And, like a child, Jack took advantage of the impression that he had made. "Look at your desk," he said piteously; "there's another proof how hard you are on me. I used to keep the key of your desk in London. You won't trust it to me here."

Mrs. Wagner went to the desk, locked it, and returned to Jack. Few people know how immensely an act of kindness gains in effect, by being performed in silence. Mrs. Wagner was one of the few. Without a word, she opened the leather bag and dropped the key into it. Jack's gratitude rushed innocently to an extreme which it had never reached yet. "Oh!" he cried, "would you mind letting me kiss you?"

Mrs. Wagner drew back, and held up a warning hand. Before she could express herself in words, Jack's quick ear caught the sound of footsteps approaching the door. "Is she coming back?" he cried, still suspicious of Madame Fontaine. Mrs. Wagner instantly opened the door, and found herself face to face with Joseph the footman.

"Do you know, ma'am, when Mr. Keller will be back?" he asked.

"I didn't even know that he was out, Joseph. Who wants him?"

"A gentleman, ma'am, who says he comes from Munich."

CHAPTER VII

On further inquiry, it turned out that "the gentleman from Munich" had no time to spare. In the absence of Mr. Keller, he had asked if he could see "one of the other partners." This seemed to imply that commercial interests were in some way connected with the stranger's visit—in which case, Mrs. Wagner was perfectly competent to hear what he had to say.

"Where is the gentleman?" she asked.

"In the drawing-room," Joseph answered.

Mrs. Wagner at once left the office. She found herself in the presence of a dignified elderly gentleman, dressed entirely in black, and having the ribbon of some order of merit attached to the buttonhole of his long frock-coat. His eyes opened wide in surprise, behind his gold spectacles, when he found himself face to face with a lady. "I fear there is some mistake," he said, in the smoothest of voices, and with the politest of bows; "I asked to see one of the partners."

Mrs. Wagner added largely to his amazement, by informing him of the position that she held in the firm. "If you come on a matter of business," she proceeded, "you may trust me to understand you, sir, though I am only a woman. If your visit relates to private affairs, I beg to suggest that you should write to Mr. Keller—I will take care that he receives your letter the moment he returns."

"There is not the least necessity for my troubling you," the stranger replied. "I am a physician; and I have been summoned to Frankfort to consult with my colleagues here, on a serious case of illness. Mr. Keller's sister is one of my patients in Munich. I thought I would take the present opportunity of speaking to him about the state of her health."

He had just introduced himself in those words, when Mr. Keller entered the room. The merchant and the physician shook hands like old friends.

"No alarming news of my sister, I hope?" said Mr. Keller.

"Only the old trouble, my good friend. Another attack of asthma."

Mrs. Wagner rose to leave the room. Mr. Keller stopped her. "There is not the least necessity for you to leave us," he said. "Unless my presentiments deceive me, we may even have occasion to ask your advice.—Is there any hope, doctor, of her being well enough to leave Munich, towards the end of the month?"

"I am sorry to say it," answered the physician—"having heard of the interesting occasion on which she had engaged to be one of your guests—but, at her age, I must ask for a little more time."

"In other words, it is impossible for my sister to be with us, on the day of my son's marriage?"

"Quite impossible. She has so few pleasures, poor soul, and she is so bitterly disappointed, that I volunteered to take advantage of my professional errand here, to make a very bold request. Let me first do your excellent sister justice. She will not hear of the young people being disappointed by any postponement of the wedding, on her account. And here is the famous necklace, committed to my care, to prove that she is sincere."

He took his little traveling-bag from the chair on which he had placed it, and produced the case containing the necklace. No woman—not even a head-partner in a great house of business—could have looked at those pearls, and preserved her composure. Mrs. Wagner burst out with a cry of admiration.

Mr. Keller passed the necklace over without notice; his sister was the one object of interest to him. "Would she be fit to travel," he asked, "if we put off the marriage for a month?"

"She shall be fit to travel, barring accidents," said the physician, "if you can put off the marriage for a fortnight. I start this evening on my return to Munich, and not a day shall pass without my seeing her."

Mr. Keller appealed to Mrs. Wagner. "Surely, we might make this trifling sacrifice?" he said. "The pleasure of seeing her nephew married is likely to be the last pleasure of my sister's life."

"In your place," said Mrs. Wagner, "I should not hesitate for an instant to grant the fortnight's delay. But the bride and bridegroom must be consulted, of course."

"And the bride's parents," suggested the discreet physician, "if they are still living."

"There is only her mother living," said Mr. Keller. "She is too high-minded a person to raise any objection, I am sure." He paused, and reflected for awhile. "Fritz counts for nothing," he went on. "I think we ought to put the question, in the first instance, to the bride?" He rang the bell, and then took the necklace out of Mrs. Wagner's hands. "I have a very high opinion of little Minna," he resumed. "We will see what the child's own kind heart says—undisturbed by the influence of the pearls, and without any prompting on the part of her mother."

He closed the jewel case, and put it into a cabinet that stood near him. Joseph was sent upstairs, with the necessary message. "Don't make any mistake," said his master; "I wish to see Miss Minna, alone."

The physician took a pinch of snuff while they were waiting. "The test is hardly conclusive," he remarked slily; "women are always capable of sacrificing themselves. What will the bridegroom say?"

"My good sir," Mr. Keller rejoined a little impatiently, "I have mentioned already that Fritz counts for nothing."

Minna came in. Her color rose when she found herself unexpectedly in the presence of a dignified and decorated stranger. The physician tapped his snuff-box, with the air of a man who thoroughly understood young women. "Charming indeed!" he said confidentially to Mrs. Wagner; "I am young enough (at heart, madam) to wish I was Fritz."

Mr. Keller advanced to meet Minna, and took her hand.

"My dear," he said, "what would you think of me, if I requested you to put off your marriage for two whole weeks—and all on account of an old woman?"

"I should think you had surely some reason, sir, for asking me to do that," Minna replied; "and I confess I should be curious to know who the old woman was."

In the fewest and plainest words, Mr. Keller repeated what the physician had told him. "Take your own time to think of it," he added; "and consult your mother first, if you like."

Minna's sweet face looked lovelier than ever, glowing with the heavenly light of true and generous feeling. "Oh, Mr. Keller!" she exclaimed, "do you really suppose I am cold-hearted enough to want time to think of it? I am sure I may speak for my mother, as well as for myself. Fraulein Keller's time shall be our time. Please tell her so, with my duty—or, may I be bold enough to say already, with my love?"

Mr. Keller kissed her forehead with a fervor of feeling that was rare with him. "You are well worthy of my sister's bridal gift," he said—and took the necklace out of the cabinet, and gave it to her.

For some moments Minna stood looking at the magnificent pearls, in a state of speechless enchantment. When she did speak, her first delightful ardor of admiration had cooled under the chilling perception of a want of proper harmony between her pearls and herself. "They are too grand for me," she said sadly; "I ought to be a great lady, with a wardrobe full of magnificent dresses, to wear such pearls as these!" She looked at them again, with the natural longing of her sex and age. "May I take the necklace upstairs," she asked, with the most charming inconsistency, "and see how it looks when I put it on?"

Mr. Keller smiled and waved his hand. "You can do what you like with your own necklace, my dear," he said. "When I have written a line to my sister, perhaps I may follow you, and admire my daughter-in-law in all her grandeur."

The physician looked at his watch. "If you can write your letter in five minutes," he suggested, "I can take it with me to Munich."

Mrs. Wagner and Minna left the room together. "Come and see how it looks," said Minna; "I should so like to have your opinion."

"I will follow you directly, my dear. There is something I have forgotten in the office."

The events of the day had ended in making Jack drowsy; he was half-asleep on the window-seat. Mrs. Wagner effectually roused him.

"Mr. Keeper of the Keys," she said; "I want my desk opened."

Jack was on his legs in an instant. "Ha, Mistress, it's jolly to hear you say that—it's like being in London again."

The desk was of the spacious commercial sort, with a heavy mahogany lid. Everything inside was in the most perfect order. A row of "pigeon-holes" at the back had their contents specified by printed tickets. "Abstracts of correspondence, A to Z;" "Terms for commission agency;" "Key of the iron safe." "Key of the private ledger"—and so on. The ledger—a stout volume with a brass lock, like a private diary—was placed near the pigeon-holes. On the top of it rested a smaller book, of the pocket—size, entitled "Private Accounts." Mrs. Wagner laid both books open before her, at the pages containing the most recent entries, and compared them. "I felt sure I had forgotten it!" she said to herself—and transferred an entry in the ledger to the private account-book. After replacing the ledger, she locked the desk, and returned the key to Jack.

"Remember," she said, "the rule in London is the rule here. My desk is never to be opened, except when I ask you to do it. And if you allow the key to pass out of your own possession, you cease to be Keeper."

"Did I ever do either of those two things in London?" Jack asked.

"Never."

"Then don't be afraid of my doing them here. I say! you haven't put back the little book." He produced the key again, and put it into the lock—while Mrs. Wagner was occupied in placing her account-book in her pocket.

"Its proper place is not in the desk," she explained; "I usually keep it about me."

Jack's ready suspicion was excited. "Ah," he cried, with an outburst of indignation, "you won't trust it to me!"

"Take care I don't set a bad-conduct mark against you!" said Mrs. Wagner. "You foolish fellow, the little book is a copy of what is in the big book—and I trust you with the big book."

She knew Jack thoroughly well. His irritable dignity was at once appeased when he heard that the biggest of the duplicate books was in his keeping. He took the key out of the lock again. At the same moment, Mr. Keller entered the office. Jack possessed the dog's enviable faculty of distinguishing correctly between the people who are, and the people who are not, their true friends. Mr. Keller privately disliked the idea of having a person about him who had come out of a madhouse. Jack's instincts warned him to leave a room when Mr. Keller entered it. He left the office now.

"Is it possible that you trust that crazy creature with the key of your desk?" said Mr. Keller. "Even your bitterest enemy, Mrs. Wagner, would not believe you could be guilty of such an act of rashness."

"Pardon me, sir, it is you who are guilty of an act of rashness in forming your judgment. 'Fancy a woman in her senses trusting her keys to a man who was once in Bedlam!' Everybody said that of me, when I put Jack to the proof in my own house."

"Aha! there are other people then who agree with me?" said Mr. Keller.

"There are other people, sir (I say it with all needful respect), who know no more of the subject than you do. The most certain curative influence that can be exercised over the poor martyrs of the madhouse, is to appeal to their self-respect. From first to last, Jack has never been unworthy of the trust that I have placed in him. Do you think my friends owned they had been mistaken? No more than you will own it! Make your mind easy. I will be personally answerable for anything that is lost, while I am rash enough to trust my crazy creature with my key."

Mr. Keller's opinion was not in the least shaken; he merely checked any further expression of it, in deference to an angry lady. "I dare say you know best," he remarked politely. "Let me mention the little matter that has brought me here. David Glenney is, no doubt, closely occupied in London. He ought to know at once that the wedding-day is deferred. Will you write to him, or shall I?"

Mrs. Wagner began to recover her temper.

"I will write with pleasure, Mr. Keller. We have half an hour yet before post-time. I have promised Minna to see how the wonderful necklace looks on her. Will you excuse me for a few minutes? Or will you go upstairs with me?—I think you said something about it in the drawing-room."

"Certainly," said Mr. Keller, "if the ladies will let me in."

They ascended the stairs together. On the landing outside the drawing-room, they encountered Fritz and Minna—one out of temper, and the other in tears.

"What's wrong now?" Mr. Keller asked sharply. "Fritz! what does that sulky face mean?"

"I consider myself very badly used," Fritz answered. "I say there's a great want of proper consideration for Me, in putting off our marriage. And Madame Fontaine agrees with me."

"Madame Fontaine?" He looked at Minna, as he repeated the name. "Is this really true?"

Minna trembled at the bare recollection of what had passed. "Oh, don't ask me!" she pleaded piteously; "I can't tell what has come to my mother—she is so changed, she frightens me. And as for Fritz," she said, rousing herself, "if he is to be a selfish tyrant, I can tell him this—I won't marry him at all!"

Mr. Keller turned to Fritz, and pointed contemptuously down the stairs.

"Leave us!" he said. Fritz opened his lips to protest. Mr. Keller interposed, with a protest of his own. "One of these days," he went on, "you may possibly have a son. You will not find his society agreeable to you, when he happens to have made a fool of himself." He pointed down the stairs for the second time. Fritz retired, frowning portentously. His father addressed Minna with marked gentleness of manner. "Rest and recover yourself, my child. I will see your mother, and set things right."

"Don't go away by yourself, my dear," Mrs. Wagner added kindly; "come with me to my room."

Mr. Keller entered the drawing-room, and sent Joseph with another message. "Go up to Madame Fontaine, and say I wish to see her here immediately."

CHAPTER VIII

The widow presented herself, with a dogged resignation singularly unlike her customary manner. Her eyes had a set look of hardness; her lips were fast closed; her usually colorless complexion had faded to a strange grayish pallor. If her dead husband could have risen from the grave, and warned Mr. Keller, he would have said, "Once or twice in my life, I have seen her like that—mind what you are about!"

She puzzled Mr. Keller. He tried to gain time—he bowed and pointed to a chair. Madame Fontaine took the chair in silence. Her hard eyes looked straight at the master of the house, overhung more heavily than usual by their drooping lids. Her thin lips never opened. The whole expression of the woman said plainly, "You speak first!"

Mr. Keller spoke. His kindly instinct warned him not to refer to Minna, in alluding to the persons from whom he had derived his information. "I hear from my son," he said, "that you do not approve of our putting off the wedding-day, though it is only for a fortnight. Are you aware of the circumstances?"

"I am aware of the circumstances."

"Your daughter informed you of my sister's illness, I suppose?"

At that first reference to Minna, some inner agitation faintly stirred the still surface of Madame Fontaine's face.

"Yes," she said. "My thoughtless daughter informed me."

The epithet applied to Minna, aggravated by the deliberate emphasis laid on it, jarred on Mr. Keller's sense of justice. "It appears to me," he said, "that your daughter acted in this matter, not only with the truest kindness, but with the utmost good sense. Mrs. Wagner and my sister's physician were both present at the time, and both agreed with me in admiring her conduct. What has she done to deserve that you should call her thoughtless?"

"She ought to have remembered her duty to her mother. She ought to have consulted me, before she presumed to decide for herself."

"In that case, Madame Fontaine, would you have objected to change the day of the marriage?"

"I am well aware, sir, that your sister has honored my daughter by making her a magnificent present——"

Mr. Keller's face began to harden. "May I beg you to be so good as answer my question plainly?" he said, in tones which were peremptory for the first time. "Would you have objected to grant the fortnight's delay?"

She answered him, on the bare chance that a strong expression of her opinion, as the bride's mother, might, even now, induce him to revert to the date originally chosen for the wedding. "I should certainly have objected," she said firmly.

"What difference could it possibly make to you?" There was suspicion in his manner, as well as surprise, when he put that question. "For what reason would you have objected?"

"Is my objection, as Minna's mother, not worthy of some consideration, sir, without any needless inquiry into motives?"

"Your daughter's objection—as the bride—would have been a final objection, to my mind," Mr. Keller answered. "But your objection is simply unaccountable; and I press you for your motives, having this good reason for doing so on my side. If I am to disappoint my sister—cruelly to disappoint her—it must be for some better cause than a mere caprice."

It was strongly put, and not easily answered. Madame Fontaine made a last effort—she invented the likeliest motives she could think of. "I object, sir, in the first place, to putting off the most important event in my daughter's life, and in my life, as if it was some trifling engagement. Besides, how do I know that some other unlucky circumstance may not cause more delays; and perhaps prevent the marriage from taking place at all?"

Mr. Keller rose from his chair. Whatever her true motives might be, it was now perfectly plain that she was concealing them from him. "If you have any more serious reasons to give me than these," he said quietly and coldly, "let me hear them between this and post-time tomorrow. In the meanwhile, I need not detain you any longer."

Madame Fontaine rose also—but she was not quite defeated yet.

"As things are, then," she resumed, "I am to understand, sir, that the marriage is put off to the thirteenth of January next?"

"Yes, with your daughter's consent."

"Suppose my daughter changes her mind, in the interval?"

"Under your influence?"

"Mr. Keller! you insult me."

"I should insult your daughter, Madame Fontaine—after what she said in this room before me and before other witnesses—if I supposed her to be capable of changing her mind, except under your influence.

"Good evening, sir."

"Good evening, madam."

She went back to her room.

The vacant spaces on the walls were prettily filled up with prints and water-color drawings. Among these last was a little portrait of Mr. Keller, in a glazed frame. She approached it—looked at it—and, suddenly tearing it from the wall, threw it on the floor. It happened to fall with the glass uppermost. She stamped on it, in a perfect frenzy of rage; not only crushing the glass, but even breaking the frame, and completely destroying the portrait as a work of art. "There! that has done me good," she said to herself—and kicked the fragments into a corner of the room.

She was now able to take a chair at the fireside, and shape out for herself the course which it was safest to follow.

Minna was first in her thoughts. She could bend the girl to her will, and send her to Mr. Keller. But he would certainly ask, under what influence she was acting, in terms which would place the alternative between a downright falsehood, or a truthful answer. Minna was truth itself; in her youngest days, she had been one of those rare children who never take their easy refuge in a lie. What influence would be most likely to persuade her to deceive Fritz's father? The widow gave up the idea, in the moment when it occurred to her. Once again, "Jezebel's Daughter" unconsciously touched Jezebel's heart with the light of her purity and her goodness. The mother shrank from deliberately degrading the nature of her own child.

The horrid question of the money followed. On the thirty-first of the month, the promissory note would be presented for payment. Where was the money to be found?

Some little time since, having the prospect of Minna's marriage on the thirtieth of December before her, she had boldly resolved on referring the holder of the note to Mr. Keller. Did it matter to her what the sordid old merchant said or thought, after Minna had become his son's wife? She would coolly say to him, "The general body of the creditors harassed me. I preferred having one creditor to deal with, who had no objection to grant me time. His debt has fallen due; and I have no money to pay it. Choose between paying it yourself, and the disgrace of letting your son's mother-in-law be publicly arrested in Frankfort for debt."

So she might have spoken, if her daughter had been a member of Mr. Keller's family. With floods of tears, with eloquent protestations, with threats even of self-destruction, could she venture on making the confession now?

She remembered how solemnly she had assured Mr. Keller that her debts were really and truly paid. She remembered the inhuman scorn with which he had spoken of persons who failed to meet their pecuniary engagements honestly. Even if he forgave her for deceiving him—which was in the last degree improbable—he was the sort of man who would suspect her of other deceptions. He would inquire if she had been quite disinterested in attending at his bedside, and saving his life. He might take counsel privately with his only surviving partner, Mrs. Wagner. Mrs. Wagner might recall the interview in the drawing-room, and the conversation about Jack; and might see her way to consulting Jack's recollections of his illness at Wurzburg. The risk to herself of encountering these dangers was trifling. But the risk to Minna involved nothing less than the breaking off of the marriage. She decided on keeping up appearances, at any sacrifice, until the marriage released her from the necessities of disguise.

So it came back again to the question of how the money was to be found.

Had she any reasonable hope of success, if she asked for a few days' leave of absence, and went to Wurzburg? Would the holder of the bill allow her to renew it for a fortnight?

She got up, and consulted her glass—and turned away from it again, with a sigh. "If I was only ten years younger!" she thought.

The letter which she received from Wurzburg had informed her that the present holder of the bill was "a middle-aged man." If he had been very young, or very old, she would have trusted in the autumn of her beauty, backed by her ready wit. But experience had taught her that the fascinations of a middle-aged woman are, in the vast majority of cases, fascinations thrown away on a middle-aged man. Even if she could hope to be one of the exceptions that prove the rule, the middle-aged man was an especially inaccessible person, in this case. He had lost money by her already—money either paid, or owing, to the spy whom he had set to watch her. Was this the sort of man who would postpone the payment of his just dues?

She opened one of the drawers in the toilette table, and took out the pearl necklace. "I thought it would come to this," she said quietly. "Instead of paying the promissory note, Mr. Keller will have to take the necklace out of pledge."

The early evening darkness of winter had set in. She dressed herself for going out, and left her room, with the necklace in its case, concealed under her shawl.

Poor puzzled Minna was waiting timidly to speak to her in the corridor. "Oh mamma, do forgive me! I meant it for the best."

The widow put one arm (the other was not at liberty) round her daughter's waist. "You foolish child," she said, "will you never understand that your poor mother is getting old and irritable? I may think you have made a great mistake, in sacrificing yourself to the infirmities of an asthmatic stranger at Munich; but as to being ever really angry with you——! Kiss me, my love; I never was fonder of you than I am now. Lift my veil. Oh, my darling, I don't like giving you to anybody, even to Fritz."