THE ELEVENTH HOUR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 12740, 17 December 1904, Page 3 (Supplement)

THE ELEVENTH HOUR.

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL;ABRAKGEMEXT.J

BY sir William: MAG NAY. am.,

Author of "The Red Chancellor." '.' The Fall of a Star.'* "The Heiress of the Season," r - " etc.. etc., etc. ■ CHAPTER T. k"'How shall a man escape from his ancestors, or draw oil' from his veins the black Iftrop winch he drew from his lather's 'or his mother » life?" ** Yes. The end has come at last. The glen- of the Fawonbergs' has' been growing dimmer. and dimmer, till no'* its last flicker is reached. And so—the end. Let us drink to King Finis. May lie crown the work, at least, pleasantry.'"

The gloom of the great mediaeval dining hall, with its shabby, faded curtains and furniture, aptly illustrated and emphasised the young man's words. Such light as was given by the few shaded candles at the end of the long table, where he and his companion sat, suggest eel the neglected, decayed state of the apartment: it showed the nearest of the dull portraits in the panels, the rest, stretching away into obscurity beyond, as their originals'"did into that of Stuart, if not Tudor, times; it showed the faded, threadbare tapestry of th© high-backed chairs, thai: lined the wall beneath the effigies of those whose weight in life perhaps they had often borne, standing like a tile of sentinels before the. bygone silent glories and traditions of the. house. The light fell, too, upon, the- young man, curiously I favouring by this feature or that more than one of the grim portraits which stared through dust and cobwebs down upon him. lounging back in his chair and raising the glass to his lips with a- touch of the mock heroic, half-humorous,, half-rueful. A good-looking face, marred only by a slight, a very slight, suggestion of the viveur. for the acid into which the sweets of pleasure turn had not yet had time to bite in deeply. The grey eyes were still, in spite of the world, frank and bright, the mouth cynical only by affectation, not by nature or even habit. For original good over fights long and stubbornly with acquired evil before she will haul down her flag and let the tunny's be run up. " You won't accept the toast. Paul?" he laughed, as he set down his glass. His companion kept silence for a moment longer, then, as though suddenly changing his intention, he answered with a. smile:

'" Yes. I drink, to the end of your mistaken life, my dear Jack, and to the new existence with which I hope King Finis •will crown it."

Ho just sipped his vine, then set down and pushed away the glass. His host laughed: not very happily: it ■eras the self-reproachful laugh of a man between the devil of ruin and dissipation and the sea of nothingness. "All very easy to say, my dear Paul; J>ut the doing ishard, an impossibility." "No, no.'* ■-.'.. '•1 say yes. You and I happily for Ton, no doubt—made of different stuff. You' don't realise how absurd it would be for me to try to start a new Hie—like your.*, for instance." Pan! Haseomhe's face had the look of a man's who braces himself to a desperate task with little hope of success, but strenuously front a sense of duty. "" Jack,'* he said, leaning forward and sneaking with great earnestness, " you know ■why I am here, to-night. Yen must listen to me—to me. the man whom you snatched from death in Thamesford Lasher this day seven years ago. I know yon think nothing of it: you were never an egoist, and you take it now, as you took it at the supreme moment, as tha must ordinary act of duty in the world. But you cant expect mo to look at it hi that way. What would vwi think of me if, now that you are struggling in the waters of perdition, I should calmly stand on the. bank and let vou drown""" ... - ':-■■■■?:,■ •■ ► , ' Fauconberg heard. him to the end,.smoking quietly as though in a reverie. ; "The cases are different,*' he Saul. "Yours was merely a question of a little dash, and nerve; to an athlete rke myself it was nothing. Now my state is hopeless. Mr own fault. I admit, my own madness', a 'marines > I run not wholly responsible for perhaps. But the strongest man can't help me. 1 am at the end of my tether. Persians it is as well. i nulled you out of the Lasher for good. If any. man could rescue me it- would only be to see me plunge again, and so <-o through the horror of .drowning twice." He nave a little shudder. "Once is enough. So the ..best' thing I can do is in cry lehabod! and then--' He finished the sentence with a shrug. "And -hen?" '•It does not bear contemplating.' The laugh jarred. Haseombe's gravity Deepened. ' \ , . - "At least." he said, "yon are 'generous to maintain that the greatest of all services .which you rendered me gives you the light to refuse to listen new." Fauconberg impulsively stretched" out Ins hand suiross the table. " My dear Paul ! he protested: "Should I he such a brute as to slnit up perhaps the one real friend I have in the world? Only, before we go any farther, it would be as well you should clearly realise the state to which my own follv 'has brought me." ""Yon are ruined—from a worldly point of view?" "*, i t i i. " 1 suppose," the other returned, _ • that doc; rid': seem much tc you who go in- for good works, and embrace poverty as a bride. . ' i don't understand it. only this much, that you are a good fellow, and - when. I look at you I have some faint idea of how virtue is its own reward. But I am bad. Hascombe, bad; ami a bad man. cant stand poverty. It' is simple torture to him. The best argument, I know in favour of good versus evil is that with the one poverty can scarcely make a man unhappy, with the other it drives him at heart* into a devil incarnate." Haseombe's face was brightening. "Is good out.of your reach?" he asked. "One would think the wine was out of yours/' Fauoonberg returned, evading the question. "You must keep me company. I'm afraid it is the last bottle we shall ever drink together under this roof." Something in hij host's voice made Hascombe reach forwaid and take the decanter to avoid looking' in hi* face. "You know I allow myself no strong drink, as a rule," he observed, as he poured a little into his {'lass- _ "Yes."- Fauconberg continued, filling his own ' "I tell you the end can be stretched no farther. By this day next week the old place will have pass-ed away from me, the fast of a line whose home it has been for centuries. You can give me a measure of "ood advice, Paul, no man better; but ° you can't give inc. back the acres that ' I. ami my fathers have squandered on our" pleasures; you cant soften the heart of the. Shy lock who is impatient for his pound of flesh. Ao: tolly must pay- The inherited strain of extravagance bequeathed by some fool of my line— that fine fellow, l fancy, began it —he kissed his hand towards one of the Georgia,', portraits—" Captain Alined Fauconberg, 1 hope, my gallant forebear, you see and appreciate your glorious work! Well there ft is" he added quickly, as though to dismiss a subject, he dared not speak of serious-, ly. "Men are like jewels ; most, of us are dependent upon our setting! "When that is gone, the stone is of little account, hardlv worthy considering.' .... "Yet really comprising the intrinsic •value." , . . w . "Ah ' It all depends on the stone. We Faoconbfl'sa were never diamonds or pearls; - ave roue of us ever made much stir in the VM-M Oil* our own park walls . Nome 5 these old fellows <!«} their duty, Mtl fOUght for their King and country, 1 ut th.J d Jn't uo tor much unless a mall lib lie self-advertising instinct and =an push him. self into notice. No. The |MgnlKJg just came back home when the fighting fl* prer." .-,,., *"" And played Cincinnatns." " Ye, P That's why we have always bee undistinguished, so far « rank goes. A the same, our family « « better one than half the bis names in Debrett. I hats t»c .in, of the business. Take the man at Sid;, Lord 'Davenham; who .is going to brio, die Grand Duke of Schwedburg-fcaJ kenstein hereon Monday. He owes Jns. pm g€ to his money, and his money to .he fact that his father** shop *«« on the li^'

side of Bond-street. Look at the pompous vulgarian, Mr. Samuel Rousfield, M.P., prospective peer, and tremendous art patron, before Whom, the whole Royal Academy grovels, although there is not on© of them' who. does not know that the fellow lias no more- real knowledge of art than the man who takes charge of your umbrella at the door of Burlington House. It is men such as these who oust us, and fling then vulgar trail over all we have held sacred. If only we might be succeeded, by gentlemen," ever so humble but; gentlemen," the wrench would net be so great." ,c Hascombe had risen. He took one of the caudles froinths table and held it so as to throw its light on the Keif-indulgent face of Captain Ahmed Fauconberg, As he stood there examining the portrait his host eat looking no less attentively at his friend's pale, strenuous face, framed in its setting of dark hair ; and ns he looked he told himself that when he took that desperate plunge info Thamestord Lasher he had done, the best day's work of his purposeless existence in saving that life, for the quiet nobility of hi.'» presence sr-emed to exhale goodness." "If only I could have left myself in his place!' 1 he murmured, with a fresh access of regret. At the sound of his voice Hascombe turned his head. .'.-..

" So it is at this man's doer yon lay the blame Of your present position T. he observed. i.-h "The scientific folk would say «>," Fauconberg replied. "He certainly was the first of .our dine who went the "pace, and slept with his fathers at forty-two. Since him we have been intermittently debauched, till at last— ':.;„,; "It is time'you pulled up." "Time!'; Fauconberg laughed. ''Yes; it is time to stop spending when the purse is empty and the credit gone. Time to give. up the pleasures of the wicked world when one has no longer the means to enjoy them, which means they give me rip.. Time—" "' Time to put on the new man." 'When the old is worn out? 1 can't afford it. my dear Paul." Hascombe passed on to another of the dusty portraits. " You can renounce your allegiance to Captain Alined, and take another of your ancestors as a guide. This man was all right?" " • " The old colonel. Rather. They called him old Fair-play. He was a splendid feli low; as brave and as straight.as any man 1 who ever breathed." i "What would he have done in your position:" "He would have taken care never to be in it. We were swells down here in his [day." . t Hascombe returned to his seat. '"Now, he said earnestly, with a touch of latent enI thusiasm. "think that your family boasts I of better, nobler men than Captain -Alined. Listen to their voices down through the i generations. Emulate them, not, him." "It is too late. Alured is in the blood." ,i- Then purge him out of the blood. It is but one black drop. A poor excuse. Look at him. Why should you be his slave? Ruined though you may lie, you have but I arrived at the gales of a nobler life. You ■have only to knock for them to bo.open." For a few moments? Fauconberg was silent. Then he asked suddenly: "What can 1 do?" , . ;i "Live for others," his friend answered, : "as you have hitherto lived for yourself. I It is the true happiness." '- "You believe in it? Honestly believe in. it? - ' ' Hascombe bent- forward. "' Fauconberg, I did not come down here to preach, but. accordingly my custom, to record my gratitude on this anniversary of the day on which you saved my life. Can you suppose I have, anything but the keenest desire to serve you, to repay you in kii:d? It was your' act that made lit* a. better man. since it led me to think what was meant' by the- mercy that decreed 1 should be snatched from death. I resolved that the life almost miraculously given back to me. should be devoted, unsparingly devoted, to good works ; to labour among those that heeded a friend, a friend from outside their own wretched, degraded circle, who could be- the true adviser without one thought of serif in any form, or of leadership, except so far as he might be permitted to lead them into the right path. My work has prospered ; I can say that without cant or brag, for it draws near its close. I mean," he went on in answer to Fauconbe-g's look of surprise, "my health is failing:. "Mv illness-.of two years ago has left me with heart trouble, and my doctor hints that my life, at any rate as I live it, will not be a" long one. But I must go on till I drop. My life, my second life, was a. loan for a, purpose. I am sure of that. Now. John, my dear friend"—he dwelt with almost tenderness upon the words—"to whom, after God, 1 owe the blessing of the work I'have done, do you not tee that, standing as I do. so near the brink of my •'rave. 1 must be honest with you? I must make an effort, be it ever so desperate, to save vou. as von once saved me? ' Fauconberg" shook his head despairingly. " Can vou save me from myself?" "My opinion of you is better than your own .""Hascombe returned hopefully. " You are clever; it is an absolute sin to waste o-ifts ami talents such as yours. Leave to Fools the weakness of thinking that loss_ of worldly possessions means annihilation. You arc no tool; vou have the grit in.you,, if vou will but call it up. to rise superior to "the inevitable, and at last spring .«gain a better man from the buried germ of your dead self. For the thought which I know vou have in your mind is hideous, it is too absurdly wicked to name. Now, will you cast vanity behind you, join me, and take mv place when I must leave it? ' 'Before Fauconberg could answer the door opened, and as he turned round in annoyance at the interruption the butler announced"Mr. Lvdford." '

CHAPTER 11. Sick, not of life's feast, but of steps to climb . *•„'.,♦'' To the house where life prepares her feastof means To the end. *.' A benighted traveller craves shelter under your hospitable roof!" a voice cried; then its owner followed. A man, good-look-ing, sleek, and fashionable to the finger-tips. One who displayed conspicuously the hallmark 'with which society is wont to stamp its approved goods without troubling to pierce beneath the outer casing to see whether they are genuine metal right through. " Lydford . Murray ! My dear Murray! "I'm in luck. When 1* wound my horn before your outer gate I had my doubts whether the lord of the castle was m residence. Your village inn leaves much to be desired." ■ . . " The inn? Mv dear fellow ! It is unmentionable. Why didn't you let me know, you were in the neighbourhood? Here! Tokelove!" , The newcomer stopped him by a casual gesture on his way to the bell. "1 have, dined— a, fashion—at the Pig and Artichoke, or whatever sign your hostelry hangs out. I'll join you in a glass of win© and an apple. Mine host of the Artichoke did his best, but he rather upset my nerves by opening a bottle of champagne with a corkscrew. Half the contents played a jet d'eau to the ceiling. It was perhaps just as well that I received the greater part of the wine as a douche instead of internally, or I might not be here now, for it seemed to have not even the most distant connection with the juice of the grape." " The same name, but no relation. Lome along and help us to perform the obsequies of my '51 port wine. You know my friend, Paul Hascombe?" - Lydford, after the manner of his kind, was able by his expression to indicate the exact amount ot familiarity he desired with the man brought to his notice. His easy greeting was pleasant enough, but his face, though not exactly sneering, was that of a man of tastes before the cage of a strange animal. - ... , •' I know Mr. Paul Hascombe very well by name," lie said, holding out a hand from a stiff elbow. "I was .at a concert the other (lav, got lip by Lady Charlotte Dynford for his hostel." • . He went round and seated himself at the oilier side of the table. Hascombe' Wits eyeing their host a little apprehensively. There was reason-for it. The newcomer's arrival had in a minute wrought a dangerous relapse in Fauconberg. " How on earth do yor suddenly appear in these parts at this time of night? ' Lydford laughed as he filled his glass. "'Never was curiosity more pardonable, my dear Fauconberg," he answered with the perfect assurance of a man accustomed to lay down the law on a foundation of more or less witty casuistry. "The reason of my eccentricity is this. I have been staying at Pardlease— kuogiX'

[ - : *' Lady Asgarby's." ', • : Yes poor dear old thing. Well, I was due to leave to-day and to arrive at Davenham's tomorrow for the Grand Duke's function. A provoking; misfit; hardly •worthwhile running up to town for," *though I thought of staying on at Pardlease, but some terrible people were arriving, whom 1 particularly don't want to know, the Ronsfields, the railway contractor, a bounder of colossal resilience; and as the silly, fussy old woman would not put them off, 1 baa my portmanteau packed. L won't ask a favour of the Davenhams, who have not yet get rid of commercial instinct, and would want a quid pro quo when it might be inconvenient to give it, so I bethought me of you. my friend.". "Then why on earth didn't you come to dinner':" Fauconberg cried reproachfully. "Because the gossips at the inn. ill-in-formed as most folk arc who mind other people's business, told me I should find the place deserted. I suggested that as the Royal party from Scotwiek Park was booked to be personally conducted over your house on Monday you were probably at home to see the red.cloth put down and the brown holland taken off." He gave as ho spoke a quizzical glance round the dreary room. " But no. They stuck mo out that I must not expect to find you here. It Avas nearly eight- o'clock, I was a mile away, and, I decided to risk poison rather than starvation. Oh, that atrocious soup! Shall I ever get its taste off my palate, its grease out of my system? Now, my dear Fauconberg, it is ages since we met. What is the news with you';" The inquiry, was thrown out carelessly enough; nevertheless Hascombe, watching the speaker, felt there was a touch of malignant curiosity behind it; that Lydford could, had he chosen, have answered his question himself.

"News?" Fauconberg cried with a little facing of bravado. " The news with me is that I have spun my last inch of thread in weaving the web of pleasure. I have had a

good tune, or, a** my friend Hascombe will tell you, a. bad time ; anyhow, it has come to an end." "Like most good things," Lydford commented, peeling an apple. . "It can be no news to you, Murray?" Lydford answered with 'the somewhat unsatisfying frankness of a cynical nature. " 1 heard you were rather in a* bad way, but one doesn't care to believe all one hears, especially about one's friend-. Topham Sitgrave told me you were finding the Jews oppressive, but then little Top. being the stingiest man in town, is always delighted when an open-handed fellow-creature comes to grief. Reneagle said something: he wondered whether the Grand Duke would be received by Fauconberg of (rains or Moses of Houndsditch." . . "Very kind of them,'' the host remarked a little tartly. "It so happens that though 1 am cleaned out and a. beggar (lams doesn't go to the Hebrews, at least not just yet." "'that's a comfort," Lydford remarked airily. "Well, my dear Fauconberg. what is the '-rouble?" "The trouble is that I am mined." "Got to pull up and.retrench, eh?" "No, no." Fauconberg insisted. •' Absolutely done for, Come to my last sovereign, if that is not already spent." "Nonsense!" "I tell you it i.s tine. Isn't it, Paul?" Hascombe nodded. "I have been making the pace so fast that my wind is quite gone." ."■You must get a second wind." 1 Fauconberg laughed. "It would take a cleverer man than anv of us three to raise it." Murray:. Lydfprd's fashionable mask assumed an expression of mingled incredulity and concern, the latter feeling being for himself rather than for his "host. He glanced inquiringly at. Hascombe. "I'm afraid it is too true," Paul observed in answer to the look. "From a worldly point of view our friend is in a bad way." For a few seconds there was silence, as Lydford rapidly reviewed the bearings and possibilities of the situation. It was well to make, sure "of tho thoroughness of the bad business. ■ ■■'"'"■•■':.• *

".But this place"?" he .demanded. ''What about- Gains?" '.

"It is mortgaged up to the tip. I can no longer pay the interest, and am expecting foreclosure one day next week." Lydford's face grew more thoughtful. "Then, my dear man," he at length exclaimed in a tone of unsympathetic reproach, "what are you going to do?" He glanced round the half-lighted room, melancholy in its faded magnificence, then coldly back to the man who was to be its owner for but, a few days longer. "What on earth are you going ft) do?" Fauconberg laughed a little uneasily under the unfriendly stare. "You are it man of the world. Murray: I want your advice. Hascombv has already given me his." . ■■'"■'■' The man of the world shot a glance of scarcely veiled contempt at his fcllowguest. "Well, ho replied, with careless deliberation as ho leisurely refilled his glass, " if, as you say, my dear Fauconberg, you are really and truly at the end of your resources, there are just two courses open to you and. no more." Faucouberg's lips were drawn back in a set muscular smile. " And they are?" " Marry a' fortune, or else throw your cards over your shoulder and go mil." He spoke curtly and with the decisiveness of eoiivictioi, raising with the.last word the glass to his lips in a manner that implied there was no more to be said.

Both men knew, -well enough what he meant by the figurative words of his latter alternative, but Fauconberg repeated them, hardly interrogatively, with a short, hard laugh, the affectation of devil-may-care that a man will show his company, where, alone, he would clench his hands, and smite with them, and bite his lips through in deadly wrestle with the late that has gripped him. ! "Go out of the hell where the game has gone against you," Lydford explained with tutting emphasis, speaking rather at Hascombe, who sat gravely silent. But lie roused himself at the suggested challenge. You think the exchange of hells, .supposing this life to be one, would be desirable?" he said with quiet sarcasm. Lydford gave a laugh, the laugh of contempt, as ready as uncalled for. " I forgot for the moment that 1 was trespassing upon debatable ground,'' he sneered. " But I always had an idea that such work as Mr. Hascombn is renowned for must tend to remove prejudices." '• Our endeavours,'' Hascombe returned quietly, "are to improve men's present conditions, not to abolish future ones." '" You mean that you try and persuade them that their wretched lot is in reality a pleasant one?" Lydford argued. •• VV;; endeavour to make it so, to brighten their 'Ives." "And tou succeed';'' "I hope— 1 think so." "Through their ignorance.'' '• No." '• I'm afraid one can hardly imagine your succeeding with an educated man. Here is an opportunity." He gave a cynical laugh, and indicated their host by ? careless gesture. " Can you improve our friend Failconberg'fi desperate position, or make it more bearable';"

"I have already proposed to do so." Lydford's smile deepened as lie looked inquiringly towards Fanconbeig. "A test case indeed," lie exclaimed with it curl of the lip. "And are you, my good Fauconberg, going" to submit yourself to this process of make-believe? Is it a counter-irritant which, is to make you torget your state by fixing your mind on something still more squalid? or perhaps the remedy is to consist of homoeopathic pilules of misery warranted if taken in a wineglassl'ul of faith to euro similia similibus." Fauconberg saw Hascombe's face flush with anger, and judged it expedient to check or at least divert the current of Lydford's cynicism. " Have you a letter remedy'/'' he. demanded, "Come! 1 won't have my friend Paul chaffed. Si (k,wu, oul fellow," lie added, lor Hascombe had risen. " You must not mind Lvdford; we all knew thai p pi city turn for cynicism is as the breath of Ins nostrils. -Now, Murray, what is.your allopathic remedy for my troubles?" Lydford gave-a shrug. "Judicious matrimony," he answered carelessly. Fauconberg laughed. "And you sneer at homoeopathic cures'" . - "Is it not rather a. surgical operation.' A transfusion of the blood of lite— money?" the cynic rejoined. ,» Fauconberg leaned hack in his chair. "Marriage!" I don't like the idea; when it is not. spontaneous, iliac is. On one's wav to propose to .Miss Dives one would he

sure to meet and fall; in 1 love with Miss Penniless." ''■"•'-• ■' :,: - , ' > "When a man rushes to a. forlorn hope ho must look neither to the right nor to the left. It is expediency, not love, that needs to be blind. All the same, there are rich girls- with whom a man' might hail fall iii love." . "The half, of which the whole is ten thousand, times greater," Hascombe observed with a smile. ■»' Lvdford unexpectedly accepted the comment."'" Perhaps," he assented, with, Ins shrug of indifference. " But what would you have? Pure silk is finest, no doubt; but silk mingled with wool wears better and keeps you warmer." j ; ,'* ,; "I have nothing now to offer,a rich girl. Fauconberg objected. "They know their values." . "Their price, you mean. At least, their parents do. It is they who write the ticket and stick it on their' daughter. You have an old name and"—he glanced round the room— old place to offer; a somewhat rare asset in these shoddy days, although hardly showy enough for modern vulgarity and pretentiousness. Still, with money and push, which comprise nowadays the shield, the sword, and the battle, you could practically command a title. There is Rousfield, the contractor, down in these parts now. He has got a. daughter." ■ ■ ( "You ran away from Lady Asgarbys because he was coming. You won't know him." . ■:•• :

" Certainly not—for nothing. lam not a marrying man, and have enough to live on, Moreover, 1 don't relish pretentious dinners modelled on the menu of a. hotel tabled'hote, and flavoured with the smell of varnish from ten thousand, pounds' worth of glaring canvases fresh from the Academy.: Still, the commercial instinct has made England what it is, and if only men of taste bought pictures our It.A.'s would he put to it to pay their framers' bills.'. If you are as desperate as you say you might do worse than swallow the ex-ganger, his dinners, and his best mastic, and bid yourself and Cains, while it is yours, for the fair and overdressed -Miss Rousfield. Only, as a preliminary, I should advise you to wire to Tottenham Court Road for a battalion ot painters and vamishers. and, above all, gilders. It Rousfield, M.P:, art patron, doesn't get his eye caught by the glint of his favourite burnish he won't think- much of vou. His good books are books of goldleaf." " And the daughter is fair?" T( was hard to say whether Fauconberg was taking the suggestion seriously or not. "Fair in complexion, with a tendency to brickdust and red ochre. Something the colour of the ballast under the paternal lines. Age' may tone her down, but she. certainly won't match your furniture at present.'' Fauconberg turned with a grimace to Hascombe. "What, do you say. Paul? Cull you advise me to try my luck with the Mammon oi fishplates?" Hascombe shook bis head. " Honestly. I can't advise you to approach marriage in (hat spirit. ' 'there are other and more honest means of gaining a livelihood." "A. livelihood!" Lvdford Echoed scornfully. "Thau in allying yourself,''. Hascombe went on calmly, "with a family whose ways are not as your ways, with whom you have no sympathy, and for whom your feeling would be one of hardly veiled contempt'. _ 1 think too well of vou, Fauconberg. to wish to see you playing that part." "What is the man to do?" Lydford demanded. ....

Hascombe rose with a smile. "We seem to look at the position from such diametrically opposite point,'- of view." lie said, " that I fear, we are not in the least likely to agree upon a modus vivendi. Fauconberg. as I have to be off early in the morning, you will let me say good-night. Don't trouble to gel up to send me off. but let me see or hear from you soon. Good-night, and on this night of all others in the year I need not assure you of my concern fur your welfare and happiness.'' He wrung Fauconbcre's hand, then turned to the other man. "When 1 tell you, Mr. Lydford, that on this day -seven years ago John Fauconberg saved my life at the risk of his own you will understand that I cannot so ill ■■ repay him as to bid him take a course which I do not believe to be in his best interests. Good-night.'V .•■ • ■'"•■■■' "'; "I shall certainly sec you before yon start.' my dear Paul," Fauconberg said. "Our friend is by way of being a Quixote," Lydford remarked" when he and his host were alone. . ~ "Paul Hascombe is a good fellow," 1 Faneonberg replied. "1 only wish I had half his grit." , "A very worthy fellow. And you pulled him out of the water; I recollect now that he mentioned it. I hope you got a medal. Personally, I rather believe in these Quixotes as having their uses in the scheme of society, in that they persuade the hoi po'loi into accepting their lot. They are. the salt which keeps falling into tlie seething cauldron of the lower humanity, thereby raising the boiling-point, and keeping it from bubbling over. Now. seriously, Fauconberg, what ate you going to do with yourself? You don't seem to fancy the contractor's plant twining round the old oak, eh?" "No, 1 don't." Fauconberg answered decidedly. "We have never had anything of that soil in, our family, and I should not care to introduce a purse-proud vulgarian to these gentlemen.'' With a sweep of his arm he indicated the row of portraits.

"You have no time to look round for anyone else—a girl with the gilding toned down?"

"By this day next week the mortgagee, one Grisedale, will be in possession." • "Grisedale sounds uncompromising." "A man," Faueonberg said with a touch of bitterness, " who, fifty years ago, was a servant of my father's: then his agent; always making money out of our follies, our thriftlessness and negligence; of late years a money-lender and speculator lim ruined estates'as they dropped into the market. An avaricious, miserly old scoundrel, worth, they tell mc, six figures if sixpence." " And he steps in here." • ■-~ Faueonberg drew in his breath, " Itdoes not bear thinking of. They say lie has always coveted the old place, and at last it is his— scheme* l and worked to buy the mortgage-." "Then he is not likely to grant.yort a few months' grace to go courting'!"' • " Not likely. Next week he will sit here in my place and the place of my father." " I would not live to see it."

Fauconberg looked at him quickly, as though the words were but the echo of a. thought that had already taken possession of his own mind.

"It is enough," he said, "more than enough, to make a man in my place inclined to take your advice." " Please, don't father me with the idea," Lydford protested with characteristic selfishness. "1 don't want anyone to take a practical view of my theories. Only '» in common with raauy men, hold that a fall from the possession of means to gratify one's tastes and provide one's luxuries into poverty—real, uncompromising, abject poverty with all its thousand evils and humiliations —is the worst stroke that can befall a man. To sink from a recognised social personage into a nobody, a mere human entity, one of the sordid, greasy crowd, to be elbowed and pushed and snubbed. ' To lose practically your identity, or at least the right to assert it, otto expect anyone to admit it. To be the pity and acorn of your old set, as you arc- despised and resented by the new. To be a mew wage-earner, under the thumb and -;all very likely of a man who in your palmy days you would not have allowed to sit down oi light a cigarette in your presence! In short, if you haven't the unscrupulous smartness to live by- your wits—and J acquit you ot that, my dear Jack—you drift perforce into one of the mid-dle-class herd who go through their monotonous, spirit-quenching routine of work day bv day without hope, without ambition. just I'oi the sake of existence, till trie end comes in a cheap funeral and 'i suburban _ grave. No. my dear follow, it" I am to' be driven there, lei me die on the threshold of poverty, not at its back door." Fauconberg' had sat moodily silent through his friend's glib special pleading. His mind, bitter and' despairing, was just then utterly unfitted to look upon the other, the brighter and manlier side of the question, -'••'■' ■' "I don'! know what .1 am to do," he exclaimed, a*- length, rousing himself from- a reverie or unpleasant anticipations. f 'l have no' profession. I* never occurred to anyone, that I should ever have to turn my hand to earning my own living. I can do nothing." ' . ,

"And everybody can do so much nowadays," his comforter added. "It is an era. of cutting prices, and the only thing that pays is advertisement:" ' " I have plenty of friends"■' • . ■ " Who are, however, not employers of labour upon uncommercial principles. Put nob your trust in any man's interest extending beyond? his own skin. What does your.friend, Mr. Hascombe, propose*/" . "That I should join his work." ; "How are you going to live?" . "I suppose as he does." "Ugh!" Lydford made a wry face. "The cult of the slop-shop. A clever fellow/*to put a beaten racehorse into a dustcart. My poor Jack, you couldn't stand it for a week. What do you say to going to Samuel Rousfield and asking him for a. berth? '' Yon need not. mention the decision you have come to about his daughter." :",_ ■

Fauconberg answered by an impatient shake of tho head. "It is not very inviting," he, observed despondently. "No," Lydford absented : "not if I knowMr. Rousfield by reputation. I'm sorry not to have more comfort to give you, but it seems to me you have only one-chance, one plank to clutch at to 'save yourself from going under. ."Marriage?" Lydford nodded. '"And no time for that, as you will be so particular. Now I, in your place, should try my luck with Miss Rousfield."

"It would mean forfeiting your acquaintance, my dear Murray," Fauconberg objected with half playful sarcasm. "Oh," rejoined the other imperturbably, "I'd dine with you occasionally on the understanding that lc perc terrible was not invited. No. Well, it's a pity, m just the right girl, with looks, breeding and coin, is not to be picked up on short notice. I do know a girl with the first and perhaps ' the second qualification who would marry you to-morrow, but, alas for

the third '. , She hasn't five hundred a year," -.'. • ri ' "Who i» that?"

Lydford smiled knowingly. " She is not a hundred miles away, either, or won't be by to-morrow. There is no point in discussing her, as she can do you no good and might keep you from someone who could." He rose." "Sleep on it, my dear Jack. In the cold light of morning one sees things in their true colours. Don't let this fellow Hascombe make a fool of you. Each man to his own bias. Recollect naturam cxp'ellas. As a man lives so must he die. Let us be consistent even in wrung. You led your life, it is too late to change now. You chose an eagle's flight, don't end up by playing the owl. You've taken your shot and missed, and now it is Fate's turn to have a shot at you. I'm ever *<> sorry; lint, the world's cake .is not large enough to go round, and it does not give a. second slice to the man who eats his too fast. Hood night. I hope you don't breakfast very early. I have no Hascombian virtues. I need not get to the Davetiham's gang before luncheon. Of course you are asked to the affair in the afternoon?" "Yes; bid I was not. going." "Oh, come," Lydford urged with the easy air of one who gives an. invitation to another man's house. "If will do you good. You may as well go out merry* as moping, and if the end is at hand you should die like a standing." '; " Well, it is a little better than the inn," Lydford said to hiinselt as' he surveyed his bedroom with its low-pitched ceiling and archaic furniture. " I don't know that I'd have come, though, had I known he was in such a bad way. What a fool the man is! ,To throw away a place like this! That was a rattling bottle of wine andwell, I hope he won't assume the right to borrow money on the strength of all this. Yes : the best thin? lie can do is to put a bullet, through his brain; his usefulness is over, and shabby acquaintances are my horror." \ With which noble sentiment's the fashionable Mr. Murray Lydford settled himself comfortably in bed, and dozed off into a slumber which an archbishop might have envied. It was hours before Fauconberg slept: not, indeed until he had, through it review of his miserable position, come vaguely to a certain dire resolve—a resolve which made him break his promise to see Paul -jltascomba off in the morning. . ::i " (To be continued). , [Another instalment of this very interesting story will be given in these columns on Monday next, and continued": daily until its completion.]

[PUBLISHED lit SPECIAL ABBAKGEiIEXT.]