The Strand 1912-12 Vol-XLIV № 264 December mich

: HUM AN MUSIC.\" 653 KXKRCISE AND MUSICAL EDUCATION—\"CHILDREN LOVE MOVEMENT, AND, PROPERLY DIRECTED, THE EXKRCISE OF THE BODY.\" from a Photogrttfik. stands above, can sing in choir the piece they are practising, reading from a giant fairy page of mufic which they themselves have set, and in which they have taken their stand from time to time. After the choir has finished each child can stand in front of the class and sing in solo the piece which is formed in huge characters on the floor. When\" sufficient children are available they can remain behind their respective notes, the piece being first made up of a combination of notes, each one sung by a different child, or they can sing their note and grace- fully but quickly place it in position while the next child is singing, giving a most pleasing effect, some- what resembling the move- ments of notes of an enormous piano. There are many variations that can be made under the system, which is capable of being used to add much to the rising generation which is lacking in this. Music should be bright and happy; song and sound are spontaneous expressions of the feelings, and the nearer the tuition can approach a light-hearted game the wider and more thorough will be the understanding of the subject, and the more likely the children are to jump that great dividing line which compresses so many players into a standard of mechanical correct- ness above which few rise to pour forth true music. Contrast this living class of happy children, alert and ready to understand, feeling within them the very subject they are learning, with a little one confined in a room vainly struggling to commit to memory all that this system can teach, and I venture to think that there can be no two opinions that it has at least merits which will appeal to all educationists, as surely as it does to all children. SCHOOLBOY HOLDING HIS NOTK AND SINGING IT PREPARATORY TO TAKING HIS PLACE ON THE STAVE.

Xne Beatus Page. By MORLEY ROBERTS. Illustrated by Frank ^^iles. HE REVEREND JOHN GLAZEBROOK, head of the Eppingdene Glazebrooks, was a \" sport.\" But he was one in the biological sense, and Darwin would have delighted in him. His ancestors had been fighting men, given to going berserk. They had been Mohawks, wild and wicked Corinthians, drinking, gambling, and duelling by turns or all at once. A gentle and mild Glazebrook had never been known till the appearance of John. He was, even as an infant, preposterously meek. His father, his uncles, and even his mother and his female cousins and his aunts regarded him with dis- approbation, mingled as the years went on with an odd feeling of surprise and pleasure in some that destiny had honoured their family with a saint. But the whole of the family did not take that view, and his cousin Tom Glazebrook absolutely hated him. For Tom said that John was an interloper and a changeling, and by no means fit to be the head of the family or to possess much more money than was ever likely to come Tom's way. John insisted on entering the Church, preached meek and mild sermons, and be- trayed a strong reluctance to read the minatory psalms with emphasis. He avoided the Athanasian Creed, and held out unorthodox hopes of universal perfectibility and ultimate salvation for everybody, even for his own family and his disagreeable cousin. And then suddenly his father died, in rage and apoplexy, and the Reverend John Glazebrook had to take up the burden of a considerable landowner. The new possessor of the property became a wonder and delight, for such a Glazebrook had not been known in the memory of man. He assaulted no one, behaved like a reason- able and kindly gentleman in bad seasons, and was generally beloved. But if at any time his tenants or the people of the village betrayed a tendency to forget what his fore- fathers had been, Tom Glazebrook continually reminded them of ancient history. For his estate bounded John's on the east side and took in part of the village. He kept up the Copyright, 1912, by traditions of his family with redoubled ardour to compensate for his cousin's deficiencies. The fact that the two houses were close to the boundaries and within three hundred yards of each other never permitted even a momentary forgetfulness of the hostility which had commenced in the nursery. If peace was kept it was due entirely to the efforts of their wives. \" Nevertheless, my dear,\" said John, \" I'm very sorry my cousin lives so close to us. It is very wrong of me, and I am loath to say so, but I actually hate Tom.\" It was as if a peculiarly meek-looking rabbit declared its hatred for a fox-terrier, for assuredly that seemed the relationship be- tween the two. Tom's view of John as a

THE BEATUS PAGE. 655 had even \" gone over him \" on one occasion some years ago, he took an odd interest in his general health and his mind. \" Ah,\" said the doctor, \" it was, after all, only an accident that made you what you are. I daresay if you were badly provoked you might be as violent as your father. I wonder if we shall ever see the real you ? \" \" I hope not, if Tom is about.\" said John, and the talk ran in other channels. Never- theless, the old doctor shook his head again when he got home, and, taking down his old case books, all of which he had kept as carefully as if they were precious MSS., he looked up what he had written about John when he was sixteen. \" I wonder ! \" said Fowler. \" And yet—it seems to have passed off all right.\" What had passed off he did not say, till he spoke to Jones, the young doctor practis- ing in Eppingdene. \" Ever seen anything odd in John Glaze- brook ? \" he asked. As they had once con- sulted together over John when he was very ill with influenza, they had the technical right to speak about him. \" Odd ? \" asked Jones. \" In what way ? \" Fowler was curiously reticent. \" Never mind. Have you ? \" he returned. \" No more than we have often remarked.\" said Jones. \" He's the oddest Glazebrook. Why, even the women of the family have more devil in them ! But what do you mean ? \" Fowler hesitated. \" Have you ever seen a case of petit mat, my boy ? \" he asked, at length. And Jones started. \" You don't think \" \" No,\" said Fowler, \" but I half suspect. In fact, I meant to tell you last year and didn't—perhaps I should have done. The fact is he was brought to me at sixteen for something else (I'll tell you everything some time), and I thought I noticed it then.\" \" What was it ? \" \" I'll tell you another time,\" said Fowler, and annoyed Jones very much by saying so. \" But it's a trick of the dear old chap,\" said Jones when he was alone. \" Anyhow, I guess he's wrong. These nerve specialists do get faddy and suspicious ! \" Nevertheless, he took every opportunity of talking with John Glazebrook, and watched him closely without any results, except once, when they spoke of the cousin, who had taken to being vilely annoying about letters. Naturally enough, the post-office sometimes made mistakes with these, as \" J \" and \" T \" are very alike in many scripts. When Tom got a letter of his cousin's he opened it and never apologized. After this became a scandal Jones asked the clergyman how things were going, and he noticed that while talking John Glazebrook once closed his eyes, and then opened them and said, \"Eh, what ? \" and after a little pause went on with what he was saying.

656 THE STRAND MAGAZINE. come upon a Beatus page which seemed with- out doubt to belong to the great manuscript in John Glazebrook's possession. It had been discovered framed in a cottage for long inhabited by an old curi who had lately died. He suggested that M. Glazebrook should come to Tours to decide if it was genuine, of which he himself had no doubt. Now if there had been any immediate means of sending this letter over to the Manor House Tom Glazebrook would probably have done his obvious duty. As it happened, however, it was not sent, and that night Tom, finding it still upon his desk, re-read it as he sat drinking after dinner. And suddenly a brilliant idea struck him. \" By the Lord, I'll do it! \" he said. And then he laughed so long and loud that his wife came out of the drawing-room and stood trembling at his door. She had long known that when her husband laughed like that there was the making of tears in it for someone else. And later he told her shortly that in the morning he was going over to France on business. \" I'll buy it,\" said he, \" and either keep it to annoy the little blighter, or sell it him at a price that will make him sit up and sing.\" In order to make things the bitterer for his cousin, he decided that if he sold it he would ask fifteen hundred pounds ten shillings and ninepence, the exact taxed costs of the action which he had lost on appeal when they fought out the matter of the disputed hedge. When he reached town he arranged, not without prodigious difficulty, for an over- draft of a thousand pounds, and the next day he left for Paris. The following morning he travelled to Tours. The very same evening he was back in Paris, having paid fourteen thousand francs (or five hundred and sixty pounds) for the page, on a written undertaking by the bookseller to refund the money if it was not the real thing. But he knew that it was. When he got to Eppingdene he took the letter which had put him on the scent, and, having written on it, \" Try Manor House,\" posted it himself. When John Glazebrook received the delayed letter he was, for him, really very angry. \" My dear,\" he said to his wife, \" that— that man has actually opened another of my letters.\" He laid it down with a slap before he read it, and looked over his glasses at the other end of the breakfast-table. Emily Glazebrook hoped fervently that ^om would get his neck broken next hunting season, and said so, just as John had begun to see what the letter was about. He jumped to his feet and upset his coffee. \" Hurrah ! \" he cried, totally oblivious of the damage he had caused. \" I've got the Beatus page at last ! I'm sure of it. It's Simon of Tours who writes. I know his name. The details he gives are convincing.\" And then suddenly John discovered that

THE BEATUS PAGE. 657 mild, but were, it seemed to the bookseller, a little vacant. And he said :— \" Why, what were you saying ? \" He spoke in English and appeared confused. And the old man pressed him to sit down, which he did at last, and then came back to himself, asking quietly for details of the other M. Glazebrook who had bought the Beatus page. Then John Glazebrook laughed, and the old bookseller looked at him doubtfully, for his merriment was not natural. John and his wife travelled homeward the next day, and once, in the train, before they reached Paris, it seemed to Mrs. Glazebrook that her hus- band was curiously dazed. He began to speak to her, saying, \" Tom is a— and then he stopped, looked straight in front of him as if he neither saw her nor anything else, and did not finish his sen- tence for what seemed a long minute. And when they reached home John took the Psalter, wrap- ped it in clean white paper, and put it into a big deed- box, which he placed in his safe; for he could not bear to look at it. HIS WIFE CAME OUT OF THE DRAWING-ROOM AND STOOD TREMBLING AT HIS DOOR.

658 THE STRA\\D MAGAZINE. He did not at once write to his cousin, for he thought it possible that Tom Glazebrook would himself open negotiations. Yet this did not happen, and, after waiting a day or so to make sure it was known that he, too, had been over to France, he sat to an unknown brother collector into whose hands something had come which could be of little interest so long as it was incomplete. ' ' HEAVENS ! SAID JOHN OI.AZEBROOK. AM) THEN HB MOVED HIS LIPS ODDLY AND HIS FACE CHANGED EVEN MORE.\" down and wrote. He expressed neither No answer came for days, and when one anger nor astonishment, but wrote exactly came at last it was eminently unsatisfactory, as he would have done had he been writing His cousin informed him that he was pr'e-

THE BEATI)'S PAGE. 659 pared to buy the Crowland Psalter as it stood. He had some idea of becoming a collector himself. \" It's a lie! a lie ! \" said John, in much agitation, and after showing the letter to his wife he went out into the park and, sitting in the woodland not far from his home, tried to think what he should do. He felt curious thrills go through him. It was as if things were discharged in his brain, dim suggestions of strange and powerful forces, such as his wild ancestors used in days when men wrote laws in blood and determined causes by the sword. But still he sat and thought. It was half-past ten when John Glazebrook left his house. At eleven he suddenly found himself staring at the clouded sun, which was right in front of him as he faced south-south- east. The bench on which he sat was made in the great roots of an old beech. When the sun made him close his eyes as it cleared a shining cloud he lay back against the great bole of the tree. And then it seemed to him that a miraculous thing happened. For when he opened his eyes the sun was no longer in front of him, but two or three hours farther to the west, and towards its setting. He drew out his watch and looked. It was two o'clock ! And then, looking down at his feet, he saw that his boots were wet and muddy with red clay. But here in this end of the park the clay was whitish or a pale yellow, and the only red clay was on the park's borders and on the farm called Redlands. And he felt very tired—as tired as if he had been running. He felt himself to see if he were awake, and said :— \" Why, I'm wet—I'm muddy ! Good heavens ! I wonder what it means. I—I think I'll see Prowler.\" So he sent a groom over to the doctor's, and soon Fowler came in his motor and found John pacing his library. He had some diffi- culty in saying what he wanted to say, but at last got it out. \" You see,\" said John Glazebrook, \" that it was a kind of lapse, so to speak—a lapse of memory. I've only lost, as one might say, two or three hours of my life.\" \" Yes,\" said Fowler, nodding. \" How do you account for it ? \" asked John Glazebrook. \" It's my belief you've been very much disturbed by something,\" said Fowler. \" You don't think it alarming ? \" asked Glazebrook. \" Certainly not,\" replied Fowler, without a minute's hesitation. \" But you don't answer my question. What has been troubling you ? \" \" You're right. It's all about my cousin.\" Then he told Fowler all about the Beatus page, and almost wept over it. Fowler snorted. \" You must take it calmly, or as calmly as you can. Offer him a price for it—any price rather than go on distressing yourself.

66o THE STRAND MAGAZINE. world. Looking across the park and the intervening road towards his cousin's home, John suddenly saw a bar of light from what Tom called his library—now that only by tradition. Such good books as their common ancestors had accumulated he had parted with to John years ago, when they were more friendly, taking a horse in exchange. \" A man like that to have what is of no use to him ! \" said John, with sudden bitter- ness. \" It's wicked ! it's cruel ! I can't believe it. I must be dreaming.\" The clock on the mantelshelf struck eleven with a deep, low boom. \" Eleven,\" said John Glazehrook, absently ; \" eleven ! \" He sat quietly, or so it seemed to him, and he stared through the lucid darkness of the night towards his cousin's house. An internal struggle seemed to go on within him ; he had a momentary odd feeling of something like unbearableness, impossible pain, terror. And then it seemed to him that there was some- thing wrong with the clock. It had only just now struck eleven, and yet he heard the preliminary motions of its mechanism pre- paring to strike again. He listened rigidly, and the clock struck two ! \" Two ! two ! \" said John Glazebrook. \" I —I must have been dreaming. Why—I'm standing by the table—by the table ! I've —been dreaming ! \" Hut his deep mind knew better. Some- thing, he knew, he felt, had happened—some- thing disturbing, strange, abnormal. And yet, with it all, John felt a strange relief, the relief of something pent within him, some discharge of painful nervous forces. And in him there was a blind feeling of triumph. \" What has happened ?\" he asked. \" What ? \" And suddenly he saw on the back of his right hand a spot of blood. It was smeared a little by the edge of his sleeve, but was hardly dry. He looked at it fixedly, and then said : \" I've hurt myself. How did I do it ? \" He took his handkerchief from his pocket and, moistening it with his tongue, wiped away the blood from the back of his hand. He thought to see a little scratch there, but there was no scratch. He stood still, staring at his hand and at the red smear on his hand- kerchief. And through the open window he heard the sound of voices approaching swiftly, and then the patter of quick steps upon the roadway to the house. He went swiftly to the window and saw two figures who came running to him across the lawn, and he knew they were Tom's groom and an under-gardener. But even before they said a word a powerful intuition, a presage of tragedy and disaster, worked in him and hinted at what they had to tell him. \" Oh, sir, Mr. Glazebrook's dead—mur- dered ! \" they cried together, eager in evil news, and with that passion for the com- munication of disaster that lives in man. They said the doctors were there, and that

THE BEATUS PAGE. 661 used as a paper-cutter. And the murderer had left nothing behind, apparently not so much as a finger-print. Even if he had done so it would have been obliterated by the number of other prints left by those who had handled everything connected with the case. Indeed, the clearest prints on the knife turned out to belong to Dr. Fowler and the dead room. For he said, with evident emotion, \" I am the more grieved at his death.\" The story of the Beatus page was not actually man's cousin. It came out, of course, that the cousins had been on anything but good terms, and when John gave evidence he received the sympathy of everyone in the \"OH, SIR, MR. C.LAZEBROOK S DEAD—MURDERED !\" mentioned, for it did not redound to the credit of the dead man. Reading between the lines of the comments in the local papers it would have seemed obvious to anyone that the latr

662 THE STRAND MAGAZINE. Mr. Glazebrook was a man of very violent temper, who must have made many enemies. On the day after the funeral John Glaze- brook said to his wife :— \" Upon my word, Emily, I don't really believe Tom had any particular enemy. He was on worse terms with me than with any- one, and, of course, I wouldn't have done him any harm, though he did treat me so un- bearably.\" \" You do him any harm ! \" said his wife. \" The idea's absurd. But now, of course, you will be able to get that page.\" \" As soon as things have settled down I'll speak to Mary about it,\" said John. \" There's no reason why I shouldn't speak about it at once,\" said his wife. \" I'm going over to see her to-day.\" \" Then tell her she can have any reasonable price for it,\" said John. But when it came to the point it appeared that the page was missing. It could not be found, hunt as they would. It seemed that Tom Glazebrook kept it in an old blotting- book, with the simpering portrait of some early Victorian beauty on the outside—for Mary Glazebrook said so. At her invitation John and Fowler went to the house to make a final search. \" It must be here,\" said John, anxiously. \" Who would murder him to steal it ? \" \" Who, indeed ? \" said Fowler, who followed John with his eyes as the clergyman searched. He hunted among the mass of papers, and even opened some of the bigger books, such as volumes of sporting prints and the like. There was a bookcase by the fireplace which held smaller books, in which a page measuring fourteen and three-quarter inches by nine and a quarter inches could not be hidden. So John did not look there. And at last he stood up and seemed very tired. \" I shall never see it again,\" he said, unhappily. But Fowler did not speak, for suddenly John Glazebrook bent forward a little and stayed in a bent position for some seconds. He was standing by the little bookcase. His eyes seemed fixed and vacant. Fowler rose from his seat. Then John walked straight to the untouched bookcase, and putting his hand behind the books on the third shelf, drew out the missing blotting-pad. But he said nothing. Then he blinked and turned his head and seemed confused. He looked down at what he held in his hand, and said to Fowler : \" Where did I get this ? \" \" There,\" said Fowler, with a white face. \" It's—it's gone,\" said John Glazebrook, miserably. \" I seemed to know the pad was there. But I shall never see the Beatus page now.\" Fowler choked a little. \" No, no; I suppose not,\" he said. \" Per- haps, after all, it was stolen that night.\" \" Who would steal it ? \" asked John Glaze- brook. \" It's a mystery.\" And after a pause Fowler spoke.

THE BEATUS PAGE. 663 From the safe he took the box in which the Psalter reposed and carried it to the library table. He unwrapped it from the soft white paper which protected its gorgeous binding and touched it lovingly. Sitting down, he with his head upon his hand, thinking of the artist-priest, rich in many gifts, who, hun- dreds of years ago, had devoted his life to this beautiful and pious labour. And then he thought of his cousin, who had wrought :k opened it at the first page of the Calendar, noticing with a deep melancholy pleasure the beauty of the letters, the admirable and clear colour of the painting, the masterly if con- ventional drawing, and the shining gold which gave relief and splendour to the delicate workmanship. He sat there for a long time ''IT'S—IT'S GONE,' SAID JOHN GI.AZEBROOK, MISERABLY.\" so evilly against its perfect resurrection. He said : \" Poor Tom ! I'm grieved we never made it up.\" And he turned the pages of the Calendar slowly till he came to cold December, and there stayed awhile, for he had in him a great reluctance to see its imperfection made manifest. But at last he looked. And the Crowland Psalter was perfect! The Beatus page was there!

Fountain of Youth. WHAT IS ITS SECRET? BY SOME OF THOSE WHO HAVE FOUND IT. MME. LINA CAVALIERI. OR a woman to defy success- fully the ravages of Time and to retain her beauty the cul- tivation of good health is absolutely essential. And although many people seem- ingly overlook this point, experience has taught me that good health or ease of the body is largely dependent on ease of the mind, for mental ease brings in its train good looks, freedom, and, within reason- able limitations, perpetual youth. Let me explain at once, therefore, that I have never sought to procure that ease by anodynes, drugs, or \" soothers\" of any kind. Here I cannot take credit to myself for more than faith in my doctor — one in a million—who utterly despised drugs. \" You are tired,\" he would say. \" Your body weighs upon you. Then take it off your mind. How can you do it ? Why, by exercise.\" Following his advice, I soon found that exercise was for me the secret of happiness. The body became so obedient to the mind that it ceased to hamper it. I became almost uncon- scious of it. The mind dictated and the body obeyed automatically. There would, I am convinced, be much less talk of \" tempera- ments \" if we all pursued this course. The multitude are dominated by the body, and what the body commands they call by this high-sounding name. There are, of course, idiosyncrasies in each individual. Some are temperamental, others arise simply from the work with which one is occupied. The manual worker who is toiling all the day spreads his energies over the whole period from his getting up to his lying down. The actress has to conserve her energies for her appear- ances before the public. But for both Nature adjusts the balance. There is always a period of least fatigue, and that is the best time to get the body into form. Thus, the labourer will probably find it when he rises after his night's rest. The writer, the thinker, the actor may vary, but all have to reckon with the body. The arms are tired, heavy, and weigh you down. The best way to remove this \" tired feeling \" is to swing them back- wards and forwards in a rotatory motion on a level with the shoulders, when the heaviness will vanish, for the arms will have become supple. So is it with all our ribs. \" Healthiness of limb \" is very largely a matter of will- power ; for ease of the mind brings ease of the body, and vice versa. Then, again, ease of the mind is the parent of happiness, and surely none will deny that happiness is father and mother in one of good looks and that ex- quisite joie de vivre which is the natural pro- duct of youth. You doubt this ? Let me then ask you to look in the mirror, and you will doubt my statement no longer. All you have to do to test its truth is to think of some- thing that brings you happiness and—\" Open Sesame!\"—once more your face curves in

THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH. 665 At first deep breathing may be found to create a slight, though withal particularly unpleasant, feeling of dizziness. In a few days, however, you will be able to hold your breath for longer inter- vals, and also to inhale more steadily, and after a month or so's practice you will find, too, that the bust has greatly developed, although by such slow degrees that you will probably not even have noticed its daily progress. There is still another rule to bear in mind in the cultivation of youth and beauty, and that is the ever-necessary cultivation of the mind. For mental cultivation one must read good books. Maybe you have not time to read much ? In this case even a page at a time of the work of somj leading author will provide ample food for thought, and will take the mind off the worries inseparable from every- day life. And in two years' time you will feel \" twenty years younger,\" for the mind most as- suredly develops more rapidly than the body. In fine, the Teal secret of happiness, youth, and beauty lies in preserving a healthy mind and a healthy body. If you will follow my advice on the matter you will soon prove this to your own satisfaction—and also to mine, for I desire nothing more than that my own experience may prove of value to others. MISS ELLALINE TERRISS. I believe that one of the great tragic writers Vol. xliv. - 58 MME. UNA CAVALIER!, from a Pkotoyrnph bit LaUU Charlt*.

666 THE STRAND MAGAZINE. of Greece—a Mr. /Eschylus, to wit—who lived some five hundred years before Christ, once wrote : \" Learning is ever in the freshness of its youth, even for the old.\" Obviously the writer in question lived a very long time ago. and I cannot help thinking that if he were with us to-day, and if, at the same time, he happened to be interested in the preservation or conservation of youth, which is to a very great extent synonymous with beauty, he might probably have written a great thought to the effect that \" Learning to keep young should ever be a fresh study—even for the old.\" Personally speaking, a very, very busy life has induced me to form the belief that a suc- cessful attempt to feel young and to retain the freshness of youth is largely a question of treatment—by which I mean to say that those who will follow out certain careful rules of life will retain their youth and beauty infinitely longer than the haphazard indi- vidual who \" goes as she pleases,\" and wil- fully overlooks the indisputable fact that \" Time can only be kept in his proper place by keeping him ' outside the door' \"—in other words, by exercising \" health-preserva- tion precautions.\" In my own case I found very early in my theatrical career that the spending of a con- siderable amount of my time behind the scenes of the theatre, with its confined space and heated atmosphere, tended to do anything but make me feel fit and well after a few weeks' hard work, and therefore, as we only live once, and as all sane people must certainly desire to enjoy that one existence as long as possible, I decided that I must do something to counter- act the drawbacks which go hand in hand with an exacting lile on the stage. \" Girls who lead a sedentary life in an office. and women who stop indoors too much, invariably begin to look prematurely tired and worn,\" I said to myself. \" But why should I ? Surely I can do something to counteract the devastating influences of long working hours indoors.\" And the moment that thought crossed my mind I commenced on my own account to try to find a daily regime which would enable me to counteract the effect of the exacting rules of life on the stage. If you've ever acted two performances on a sweltering hot summer's day you will under- stand what the word \" exacting \" means. If not, I hope you will believe me when I say that it describes one of the most trying and wearying happenings that can well be imagined. First and foremost I mapped out a regular programme of daily exercise. I started by cycling two hours a day—surely most women can snatch at intervals this short time, even if they have to build up the two hours by taking twenty minutes here, thirty minutes there, and so on. Then I turned my atten- tion to golf—a most invaluable exercise, in that it brings into play almost every muscle of the body. When golf began to pall I took

THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH. 667 MISS ELLALINE TERRISS. From a Photograph by Foulsham £ Batifield. impose. For my own part, I always have rested content, and always shall, with using a very good and pure face cream, which I find is the best possible preparation for the skin. A good complexion is dependent on good health, which comes from the interior and not the exterior. 1 am inclined to think, therefore, that two or three hours' a day regular exercise is likely to prove far more valuable as a \" beauty preserver \" than ihe contents of countless jars of so-called \" make- you-beautiful-in-a-week \" concoctions.

668 THE STRAND MAGAZINE. Even the most bigoted critics of the theatre and members of the theatrical profession will not, I think, deny that the conscientious actress crowds a great deal of really hard work into her dav. Neither. I think, will they deny that ac- tresses, as a general rule, certainly do succeed in re- taining their looks in a wonderfu1 w a y. How do they manage it ? Largely, I think, be- cause the actress who aspires to make a name for herself must i n- evitably be rea'.ly fond of her work. In my own case I love my p r o- fession for its own sake, and not for what it brings me, and to this I attribute the fact that I feel as young to-day as I did when first I went on the stage. Yes, beyond all manner of doubt, love of one's work is one of the great secrets of retaining health and looks—the one prac- tically includes the other, doesn't it ? At the same time all work and no play is, as I have frequently found, a ruinous policy, for which reason I invariably try to take as much exercise as possible. The choice of exercise, of course, must naturally be a matter of individual taste, although I think playing some such game as golf or tennis is better than merely taking walking exercise, which after a time is apt to become somewhat monotonous. Now let me say a few words about the Miss EVA worry and trouble inseparable from this dear old world of ours. \" Our days begin with trouble here,\" is a very, very true saying, for which reason it is absolutely essential foi all who aspire to retain their health and lookstomake it a rule of life to worry

THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH. 669 after more years than I care to remember of \" theatrical hours,\" my habits have become fixed. And as these habits leave me feeling as young as when I was a mere \" flapper,\" there cannot, I think, be anything radically wrong about them. Finally, the importance of \" thinking\" health should be particularly strongly em- phasized. A large section of the public in- variably imagine that they are suffering from all sorts and kinds of ills, which, however, never develop; the result is that they are always more or less unnecessarily unhappy. I invariably make a rule of trying to keep happy, to think healthy and bright thoughts, and so on, for, although not a Christian Scientist, I firmly believe in the idea that everything happens for the best, and that unhappiness is generally of our own making. One last word. I do not believe in laying down any hard and fast rules as to how I shall spend the day, for restrictions of this kind are apt to become particu- larly irksome, and irksome- ness is the half-sister to worry, which is the \" hang- man \" of health, the father of youth and beauty. MME. SARAH BERNHARDT. Someone once wrote a great thought to the effect that \"If she be not fair to me, what care I how fair she be?\" When I answer your query I am thinking of those MME. SARAH BERNHARDT. Prom a /'M-v\"r'i bg Dover Street .-lu-li

670 THE STRAND MAGAZINE. lines, and, as modesty is a gift of priceless value, I will try to tell you, not how I keep beautiful—I do not regard myself as beautiful in any sense of the word—but how I contrive to keep young, which, after all, seems to me a matter of far greater importance, for is it not true that \" a beautiful woman dies twice\" ? So a young woman, you must realize in any case, is at least spared the pain of twice quitting this old world. In the first place, let me say that it has always been my strong belief that we are all as old as we feel. And as I do not feel old at all, I take leave to state that I am not old. Moreover, as long as my work remains with me I shall continue to be young. Enjoyment of one's work is one of the greatest secrets of youth. STRAND MAGAZINE readers who wish to feel young should, therefore, continue to work as long as possible. Diet ? \" What is one woman's meat is another woman's poison.\" Diet, therefore, must obviously always be a matter of indi- vidual taste. At the same time a lengthy- experience of life has taught me that sim- plicity in food is a potent aid to youth and beauty. Be simple in diet at all times. Perhaps, however, the real secret of keeping young and retaining Nature's priceless endow- ment of beauty lies in taking plenty of regular daily exercise, and indulging daily in several hours' commune with fresh air. For the rest, I think I have little else to say, for really the secret of keeping young—yes, and, if you wish it, beautiful, too—lies in moderation in diet, regularity in exercise, enthusiasm over one's work, and the cultivation of never worrying over matters from which worry will not extricate one. As far as I am per- sonally concerned, Time has decreed that I must, on occasions, consult my doctor's advice with regard to my health, but as I never by any chance do what my doctor tells me, I do not regard this as a matter of real importance. But, between ourselves, im- policy of ignoring my doctor's advice with unerring consistency may, it seems to me, have a good deal to do with my close affinity to the famous Peter Pan, with whom, I think I may say. I share the secret of successfully never knowing how to grow old. MISS LILIAN BRAITHWAITE. Whenever I am working—and I am glad to say work with me has become second nature for many years past—I always make a point of taking as much fresh air as possible, for a lengthy experience of the exacting nature if life on the stage has taught me that fresh air is one of the most potent health-givers it is possible to find. Better still, it costs nothing, for fresh air is the birthday present of every human being, although I am bound to confess that many people seem to shelve this valuable gift and forget all about it. My daily schedule ? Well, I generally breakfast about nine or nine-thirty, and when- ever possible I take a five or six miles' walk in the morning, regardless of the weather.

THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH. 671 MISS LILIAN BRAITHWAITE. '• , Kita Martin.

THE STRAND MAGAZINE. L \"SMITH LOOKED AT IT ONCE, TWICE, THRICE, AND AT THE THIRD LOOK HE FELL IN LOVE.

SMITH AND THE PHARAOHS. By H. RIDER HAGGARD. Illustrated by Alec Ball. PART I. CIENTISTS, or some scien- tists—for occasionally one learned person differs from other learned persons—tell us they know all that is worth knowing about man, which, of course, includes woman. They trace him from his remotest origins ; they show us how his bones changed and his shape modified, also how, under the influence of his needs and passions, his intelligence developed from something very humble. They demonstrate conclusively that there is nothing in man which the dissecting-table will not explain ; that his aspirations towards another life have their root in the fear of death, or, say others of them, in that of earthquake or thunder ; that his affinities with the past are merely inherited from remote ancestors who lived in that past, perhaps a million years ago; and that everything noble about him is but the fruit of expediency or of a veneer of civilization, while everything base must be attributed to the instincts of his dominant and primeval nature. Man, in short, is an animal who, like every other animal, is finally subdued by his environment and takes his colour from his surroundings, as cattle do from the red soil of Devon. Such are the facts, they (or some of them) declare ; all the rest is rubbish. At times we are inclined to agree with these sages, especially after it has been our privilege to attend a course of lectures by one of them. Then perhaps something comes within the range of our experience which gives us pause and causes doubts, the old divine doubts, to arise again deep in our hearts, and with them a yet diviner hope. Vol. *liv. -68. Copyright, 1912, by H. Rider Haggard. Perchance when all is said, so we think to ourselves, man\" is .something more than an animal. Perchance he has known the past, the far past, and will know the future, the far, far future. Perchance the dream is true, and he does indeed possess what for con- venience is called an immortal soul, that may manifest itself in one shape or another ; that may sleep for ages, but, waking or sleeping, still remains itself, indestructible as the matter of the Universe. An incident in the career of Mr. James Ebenczer Smith might well occasion such reflections, were any acquainted with its details, which until this, its setting forth, was not the case. Mr. Smith is a person who knows when to be silent. Still, undoubtedly it gave cause for thought to one individual —namely, to him to whom it happened. Indeed. James Ebenczer Smith is still thinking over it, thinking very hard indeed. J. E. Smith was well-born and well- educated. When he was a good-looking and able young man at college, but before he had

674 THE STRAND MAGAZINE. died a year later, he lef i. him a hundred pounds lo be spent upon some souvenir. Smith, being of a practical turn of mind, instead of adorning himself with memorial jewellery for which he had no use, invested the hundred pounds in an exceedingly pro- mising speculation. As it happened, he was not misinformed, and his talent returned to him multiplied by ten. He repeated the experiment and, being in a position to know what he was doing, with considerable success. By the time that he was thirty he found himself possessed of a fortune of something over twenty-five thousand pounds. Then (and this shows the wise and practical nature of the man) he stopped speculating and put out his money in such a fashion that it brought him a safe and clear four per cent. By this time Smith, being an excellent man of business, was well up in the service of his bank—as yet only a clerk, it is true, but one who drew his four hundred pounds a year, with prospects. In short, he was in a position to marry had he wished to do so. As it happened, he did not wish—perhaps because, being very friendless, no lady who attracted him crossed his path; perhaps for other reasons. Shy and reserved in temperament, he con- fided only in himself. None, not even his superiors at the bank or the board of manage- ment, knew how well off he had become. No one visited him at the flat which he was understood to occupy somewhere in the neighbourhood of Putney ; he belonged to no club, and possessed not a single intimate. The blow which the world had dealt him in his early days, the harsh repulses and the rough treatment he had then experienced, sank so deep into his sensitive soul that never again did he seek close converse with his kind. In fact, while still young, he fell into a condition of old-bachelorhood of a refined type. Soon, however, Smith discovered—it was after he had given up speculating—that a man must have something to occupy his mind. He tried philanthropy, but found himself too sensitive for a business which so often resolves itself into rude inquiry as to the affairs of other people. After a struggle, therefore, he compromised with his conscience by setting aside a liberal portion^of his income for anonymous distribution among deserving persons and objects. While still in this vacant frame of mind Smith chanced one day, when the bank was closed, to drift into the British Museum, more to escape the vile weather that prevailed without than for any other reason. Wander- ing hither and thither at hazard, he found himself in the great gallery devoted to Egyptian stone objects and sculpture. The place bewildered him somewhat, for he knew nothing of Egyptology ; indeed, there re- mained upon his mind only a sense of wonder- ment not unmixed with awe. It must have been a great people, he thought to himself,

SMITH AND THE PHARAOHS. 675 Mariette found it, I believe at Karnac, and gave it a name after his fashion. Probably she was a queen—of the eighteenth dynasty, by the work. But you can see her rank for yourself from the broken vrceiis\" (Smith did not stop him to explain that he had not the faintest idea what a ur/.-n:* might be, seeing that he was utterly unfamiliar with the snake-headed crest of Egyptian royalty.) \" You should go to Egypt and study the head for yourself. It is one of the most beautiful things that ever was found. Well, I must be off. Good day.\" And he bustled down the long gallery. Smith found his way upstairs and looked at mummies and other things. Somehow it hurt him to reflect that the owner of yonder sweet, alluring face must have become a mummy long, long before the Christian era. Mummies did not strike him as attractive. He returned to the statuary and stared at his plaster cast till one of the workmen remarked to his fellow that if he were the gent he'd go and look at \" a live 'un \" for a change. Then Smith retired abashed. On his way home he called at his bookseller's and ordered \" all the best works on Egyptology.\" When, a day or two later, they arrived in a packing-case, together with a bill for thirty-eight pounds, he was somewhat dismayed. Still, he tackled those books like a man, and, being clever and industrious, within three months had a fair working knowledge of the subject, and had even picked up a smattering of hieroglyphics. In January—that was, at the end of those three months—Smith astonished his board of directors by applying for ten weeks' leave, he who had hitherto been content with a fort- night in the year. When questioned he explained that he had been suffering from bronchitis and was advised to take a change in Egypt. \" A very good idea,\" said the manager ; \" but I'm afraid you'll find it expensive. They fleece one in Egypt.\" \" I know,\" answered Smith; \" but I've saved a little, and have only myself to spend it upon.\" So Smith went to Egypt and ?aw the original of the beauteous head and a thousand other fascinating things. Indeed, he did more. Attaching himself to some excavators who were glad of his intelligent assistance, he actually dug for a month in the neighbour- hood of ancient Thebes, but without finding anything in particular. It was not till two years later that he made his great discovery, that which is known as Smith's Tomb. Here it may be explained that the state of his health had become such as to necessitate an annual visit to Egypt, or so his superiors understood. As he asked for no summer holiday, and was always ready to do another man's work or to stop over- time, however, he found it easy to arrange for these winter excursions.

6;6 THE STRAND MAGAZINE. on, sinking trial pits and trenches here and there, but still finding nothing. Two-thirds of his time and money had been spent when at last the luck turned. One day, towards evening, with some half-dozen of his best men he was returning after a fruitless morning of labour, when something seemed to attract him towards a little wadi, or bay, in the hillside that was filled with tumbled rocks and sand. There were scores of such places, and this one looked no more promising than any of the others had proved to be. Yet it attracted him. Thoroughly dispirited, he walked past it twenty paces or more, then turned. \" Where go you, sah ? \" asked his head-man, Mahomet. He pointed to the recess in the cliff. \" No good, sah,\" said Mahomet. \" No tomb there. Bed-rock too near top. Too much water run in there ; dead queen like keep dry ! \" But Smith went on, and the others followed obediently. He walked down the little slope of sand and boulders and examined the cliff. It was virgin rock; never a tool-mark was to be seen. Already the men were going when the same strange instinct which had drawn him to the spot caused him to take a spade from one of them and begin to shovel away the sand from the face of the cliff—for here, for some unexplained reason, were no boulders or dtbris. Seeing their master, to whom they were attached, at work, they began to work too, and for twenty minutes or more dug on cheerfully enough, just to humour him, since all were sure that here there was no tomb. At length Smith ordered them to desist, for, although now they were six feet down, the rock remained of the same virgin character. With an exclamation of disgust he threw out a last shovelful of sand. The edge of his spade struck on something that projected. He cleared away a little more sand, and there appeared a rounded ledge which seemed to be a cornice. Calling back the men, he pointed to it, and without a word all of them began to dig again. Five minutes more of work made it clear that it was a cornice, and half an hour later there appeared the top of the doorway of a tomb. \" Old people wall him up,\" said Mahomet, pointing to the flat stones set in mud for mortar with which the doorway had been closed, and to the undecipherable impress upon the mud of the scarab seals of the officials whose duty it had been to close the last resting-place of the royal dead for ever. \" Perhaps queen all right inside,\" he went on, receiving no answer to his remark. \" Perhaps,\" replied Smith, briefly. \" Dig, man. dig ! Don't waste time in talking.\" So they dug on furiously till at length Smith saw something which caused him to groan aloud. There was a hole in the masonry —the tomb had been broken into. Mahomet saw it too, and examined the top of the

SMITH. AND THE PHARAOHS. 677 and waited. Half an hour later he heard a sound of singing, and through the darkness, which was dense, saw lights coming up the valley. \" My brave men,\" he thought to himself, and scrambled up the slope to meet them. He was right. These were his men, no fewer than twenty of them, for with a less number they did not dare to face the ghosts which they believed haunted the valley after nightfall. Presently the light from the lantern which one of them carried (not Mahomet, whose sickness had increased too suddenly to enable him to come) fell upon the tall form of Smith, who, dressed in his white working clothes, was leaning against a rock. Down went the lantern, and with a howl of terror the brave company turned and fled. \" Sons of cowards ! \" roared Smith after them, in his most vigorous Arabic. \" It is I, your master, not an afreet.\" They heard, and by degrees crept back again. Then he perceived that in order to account for their number each of them carried some article. Thus one had the bread, another the lantern, another a tin of sardines, another the sardine-opener, another a box of matches, another a bottle of beer, and so on. As even thus there were not enough things to go round, two of them bore his big coat between them, the first holding it by the sleeves and the second by the tail, as though it were a stretcher. \" Put them down,\" said Smith, and they obeyed. \" Now,\" he added, \" run for your lives; I thought I heard two afreets talking up there just now of what they would do to any followers of the Prophet who mocked their gods, if perchance they should meet them in their holy place at night.\" This kindly counsel was accepted with much eagerness. In another minute Smith 'was alone with the stars and the dying desert wind. Collecting his goods, or as many of them as he wanted, he thrust them into the pockets of the great-coat and returned to the mouth of the tomb. Here he made his simple meal by the light of the lantern, and afterwards tried to go to sleep. But sleep he could not. Something always woke him. First it was a jackal howling amongst the rocks; next a sand-fly bit him on the ankle so sharply that he thought he must have been stung by a scorpion. Then, notwithstanding his warm coat, the cold got h jld of him, for the clothes beneath were wet through with perspiration, and it occurred to him that unless he did something he would probably contract an internal chill or perhaps fever. He rose and walked about. By now the moon was up, revealing all the sad, wild scene in its every detail. The mystery of Egypt entered his soul and oppressed him. How much dead majesty lay in the hill upon which he stood ? Were they all really dead, he wondered, or were

678 1HE STRAND MAGAZINE.

SMITH AND THE PHARAOHS. 679 tinkling earrings. Pharaoh, his head bowed, his feet travelling wearily, and in his heart— what thoughts ? Sorrow, perhaps, for her who had departed. Yet he had other queens and fair women without count. Doubtless she was sweet and beautiful, but sweetness and beauty- were not given to her alone. Moreover, was she not wont to cross his will and to question his divinity ? No, surely it is not only of her that he thinks, her for whom he had pre- pared this splendid tomb with all things needful to unite her with the gods. Surely he thinks also of himself and of that other tomb on the farther side of the hill whereat the artists labour day by day—yes, and have laboured these many years ; that tomb to which before so very long he too must travel in just this fashion, to seek his place beyond the doors of Death who lays his equal hand on king and queen and slave. The vision passed. It was so real that Smith thought he must have been dream- ing. Well, he was awake now, and colder than ever. Moreover, the jackals had mul- tiplied. There were a whole pack of them, and not far away. Look ! One crossed in the ring of the lamplight, a slinking, yellow beast that smelt the remains of dinner. Or perhaps it smelt himself. Moreover, there were bad characters who haunted these mountains, and he was alone and quite unarmed. Perhaps he ought to put out the light which advertised his whereabouts. ]t would be wise, and yet in this particular he rejected wisdom. After all, the light was some company. Since sleep seemed to be out of the question, he fell back upon poor humanity's other anodyne, work, which has the incidental advantage of generating warmth. Seizing a shovel, he began to dig at the doorway of the tomb, whilst the jackals howled louder than ever in astonishment. They were not used to such a sight. For thousands of years, as the old moon a.bo\\ e could have told, no man, or at least no solitary man, had dared to rob tombs at such an unnatural hour. When Smith had been digging for about twenty minutes something tinkled on his shovel with a noise which sounded loud in that silence. \" A stone which may come in handy for the jackals,''' he thought to himself, shaking the sand slowly off the spade until it appeared. There it was, and not large enough to be of much service. Still, he picked it up, and rubbed it in his hands to clear off the encrusting dirt. When he opened them he saw that it was no stone, but a bronze. \" Osiris,\" reflected Smith, \" buried in front of the tomb to hallow the ground. No, an Isis. No, the head of a statuette, and a jolly good one, too—at any rate, in moonlight. Seems to have been gilded.\" And, reaching out for the lamp, he held it over the object. Another minute, and he found himself sitting at the bottom of the hole, lamp in one hand and statuette, or rather head, in theother.

68o THE STRAND MAGAZINE. \"THE FUNERAL SLEDGE DRAWN BY OXEN, AND ON IT THE GREAT RECTANGULAR CASE THAT CONTAINED He stared at the beautiful portrait in his hand, as once he had stared at the cast on the Museum wall, and the beautiful portrait, emerging from the dust of ages, smiled back at him there in the solemn moonlight as once the cast had smiled from the Museum wall. Only that had been but a cast, whereas this was real. This had slept with the dead from whose features it had been fashioned, the dead who lay, or who had lain, within. A sudden resolution took hold of Smith. He would explore that tomb, at once and alone. No one should accompany him on this, his

SMITH AND THE PHARAOHS. 681 THE OUTER AND TUB IN.NliR COFFINS, AND WITHIN THEM THE MUMMY OF SOME DEPARTED MAJESTY. first visit; it would be a sacrilege that anyone save himself should set foot there until he had looked on what it might contain. Why should he not enter ? His lamp, of what is called the \" hurricane \" brand, was very good and bright, and would burn for many hours. Moreover, there had been time Vol. >iiv.-ea for the foul air to escape through the hole that they had cleared. Lastly, something seemed to call on him to come and see. He placed the bronze head in his breast-pocket over his heart, and, thrusting the lamp through the hole, looked down. Here there was no difficulty, since sand had drifted IP

682 THE STRAND MAGAZINE. to the level of the bottom of the aperture. Through it he struggled, to find himself upon a bed of sand that only just left him room to push himself along between it and the roof. A little farther on the passage was almost filled with mud. Mahomet had been right when, from his knowledge of the bed-rock, he said that any tomb made in this place must be flooded. It had been flooded by some ancient rain- storm, and Smith began to fear that he would find it quite filled with soil caked as hard as iron. So, indeed, it was to a certain depth, a result that apparently had been anticipated by those who hollowed it, for this entrance shaft was left quite undecorated. Indeed, as Smith found afterwards, a hole had been dug beneath the doorway to allow the mud to enter after the burial was completed. Only a miscalculation had been made. The natural level of the mud did not quite reach the roof of the tomb, and therefore still left it open. After crawling for forty feet or so over this caked mud, Smith suddenly found himself on a rising stair. Then he understood the plan ; the tomb itself was on a higher level. Here began the paintings. Here the Queen Ma-Mee, wearing her crowns and dressed in diaphanous .garments, was presented to god after god. Between her figures and those of the divinities the wall was covered with hieroglyphs as fresh to-day as on that when the artist had limned them. A glance told him that they were extracts from the Book of the Dead. When the thief of bygone ages had broken into the tomb, probably not very long after the interment, the mud over which Smith had just crawled was still wet. This he could tell, since the clay from the rascal's feet remained upon the stairs, and that upon his fingers had stained the paintings on the wall against which he had supported himself ; indeed, in one place was an exact impression of his hand, showing its shape and even the lines of the skin. At the top of the flight of steps ran another passage at a higher level, which the water had never reached, and to right and left were the beginnings of unfinished chambers. It was clear to him that this queen had died young. Her tomb, as she or the king had designed it, was never finished. A few more paces, and the passage enlarged itself into a hall about thirty feet square. The ceiling was decorated with vultures, their wings outspread, the looped Cross of Life hanging from their talons. On one wall her Majesty Ma-Mee stood expectant while Anubis weighed her heart against the feather of Truth, and Thoth, the Recorder, wrote down the verdict upon his tablets. All her titles were given to her here, such as—\" Great Royal Heiress, Royal Sister, Royal Wife, Royal Mother, Lady of the Two Lands, Palm-branch of Love, Beautiful-exceedingly.\" Smith read them hurriedly and noted that nowhere could he see the name of the king who had been her husband. It would almost

SMITH AND THE PHARAOHS. '\"THE QUEBN OF THE MASK !' HE GASI'RD. 'THE SAME—THE SAME ! BY HKAVBNS, THE VERY SAMB !'

684 THE STRAND MAGAZINE. what seemed to be the corner of a reed box or basket. To clear away the sandffivas easy, and — yes, it was a basket, a foot or so in length, such a baslcet as the old Egyp- tians used to contain the funeral figures which are called ushaptis, or other objects connected with the dead. It looked as though it had beendropped, for it lay upon its side. Smith opened it—not very hopefully, for surely no- thing of value would have been aban- doned thus. The first thing • that met his eyes was a mum- mied hand, broken off at the wrist, a woman's little hand, most deli- cately shaped. It was with- ered and paper-white, but the con- tours still re- mained ;. the long fingers were perfect, and the al- mond-shaped nailshad been \"HIS HEART SWELLED WITHIN HIM, FOR HKRB WAS THE HAND OF THAT ROYAL LADY OF HIS DREAMS.\" stained with henna, as was the embalm- ers' fashion. On the hand were two gold rings, and for

SMITH AND THE PHARAOHS. 685 not to be seen in the Gold Room of the Museum, labelled \" Bijouterie de la Reine Ma-Me, XVIIIeme Dynastic. Thebes (Smith's Tomb) \" ? It may be mentioned, however, that the set was incomplete. For instance, there was but one of the great gold cere- monial ear-rings fashioned like a group of pomegranate blooms, and the most beauti- ful of the necklaces had been torn in two- half of it was missing. It was clear to Smith that only a portion of the precious objects which were buried with the mummy had been placed in this basket. Why had these been left where he found them ? A little reflection made that clear also. Something had prompted the thief to destroy the desecrated body and its coffin with fire, probably in the hope of hiding his evil handiwork. Then he fled with his spoil. But he had forgotten how fiercely mummies and their trappings can burn. Or perhaps the thing was an accident. He must have had a lamp, and if its flame chanced to touch this bituminous tinder ! At any rate, the smoke overtook the man in that narrow place as he began to climb the slippery slope of clay. In his haste he dropped the basket, and dared not return to search for it. It could wait till the morrow, when the fire would be out and the air pure. Only for this desecrator of the royal dead that morrow never came, as was discovered after- wards. When at length Smith struggled into the open air the stars were paling before the dawn. An hour later, after the sun was well up, Mahomet (recovered from his sickness) and his myrmidons arrived. \" I have been busy while you slept,\" said Smith, showing them the mummied hand (but not the rings which he had removed from the shrunk fingers), and the broken bronze, but not the priceless jewellery which was hidden in his pockets. For the next ten days they dug till the tomb and its approach were quite clear. In the sand, at the head of a flight of steps which led down to the doorway, they found the skeleton of a man, who evidently had been buried there in a hurried fashion. His skull was shattered by the blow of an axe, and the shaven scalp that still clung to it suggested that he might have been a priest. Mahomet thought, and Smith agreed with him, that this was the person who had violated the tomb. As he was escaping from it the guards of the holy place surprised him after he had covered up the hole by which he entered and had purposed to return. There they executed him without trial and divided up the plunder, thinking that no more was to be found. Or perhaps his confederates had killed him. Such at least were the theories advanced by Mahomet. Whether they were right or wrong none will ever know. For instance, the skeleton may not have been that of

A CONJURER'S I'kato. lit Claude Harru. LU. REMINISCENCES By DAVID DEVANT. Illustrated by E. H. Shepard. HAVE often been asked whether a conjurer has to be born a conjurer, or whether a man, when he has arrived at years of discretion, can make himself a conjurer in the same way that another man can make himself a stockbroker, another a lawyer, and another an \" inspector of public buildings without salary\" — a description which I once heard one of the unemployed apply to himself. My answer to that inquiry is never quite satisfactory to the ques- tioner, for it invariably is, \" I don't know.\" I have been told, by those most likely to know anything about me,that I took no interest in the disappearance of anything, except food and drink, until I was a fairly large boy. I have always re- garded conjuring as a kind of fever. I suppose nine boys out of every ten catch it, but in most cases the attack is very mild and yields to treat- ment—a book on con- juring, followed by a box of tricks as a Christ- mas present. The boy dips into the first, breaks most of the second, and eventually decides that, as a hobby, conjuring is inferior to white mice. I caught the fever suddenly, but I did not get it from the first conjurer I ever saw. I remember that I enjoyed his performance, but when he had finished I did not go away and in secret try to imitate it. But one day, while strolling along Oxford Street, I saw an egg in a shop window, and above the egg was this notice : \" This egg will disappear. One shilling.\" •9tK \" I RESOLVED TO BUY THAT EGG. That did it. I resolved I would buy that egg ; but first, having Scottish blood in my veins, I determined I would make sure of getting my money's worth. In other words. I wanted to see the egg vanish before I parted with my shilling. I was satisfied, and left that shop with my first trick. Afterwards I used to haunt that shop.' When money was scarce I had to be content with studying the windows, and most fascinat- ing I found them. When I was able to go inside my happiness was complete. One day, after I had been into

A CONJURER'S REMINISCENCES. 687 I emphasized the \" yet\"—I could not. In the end he agreed to sell .ne the secret of the trick for fourpence. He declined to throw in the apparatus for that sum. I parted with my last penny, and learned that the mira- culous effect I had witnessed was produced \"THEN AND THKKK, ON IHK KKFUOK IN THK MIDI PRODUCED A GLASS OF WATER AND ASKED by the secret substitution of a little round piece of glass for the penny under the hand- kerchief. It was the glass which, all unknow- ing, I had dropped into the water, and so the penny had disappeared. After that, all my waking thoughts and most of my dreaming ones were of conjuring. One day I was taken to a bazaar, and a palmist told my fortune. She prophesied that I should become the proprietor of a theatre in the West-end—a place with a lot of lights in Trent of it. The theatre which she saw in the lines of my hand was not an ordinary theatre, where plays were performed; in short, she gave a rough description of St. George's Hall, as it now is. At that time I had not had one thought of ever earning my living as I do now. Let me add that the palmist did not quite hit the mark, for I am not the sole proprietor of St. George's Hall, but the managing director. I soon discovered that, in order to get complete satisfaction out of conjuring, one has to have audiences—the more the better. Having worn out the patience of the family circle, I looked about me for larger audiences. I found them at Sunday-school teas, bazaars, concerts, and other places, and I suppose I must have per- formed hundreds of times solely for the pleasure my own performance gave me. But there came a day when I resented being called an amateur. I did not know Ihen what I know now—that the per- formance of an amateur conjurer is not necessarily inferior to that of a professional, for some of the best tricks have been invented by ama- teurs, and some of the best conjurers are amateurs. However, I, a mere boy, wanted to be a professional conjurer, so I en- gaged a small hall and announced, by means of a written notice on the door, that I would give a reward of a thousand

688 THE STRAXD MAGAZINE. each Saturday, the programme was therefore changed. The reply was quite as unsatis- factory as the pudding to my audience—and then my troubles began. The truth was, as the audiences became thinner the number of plums in each pudding was diminished. Eventually, one Saturday night, my front seats discovered that, although the hot pudding was uneatable, it could be broken up into small pieces and used as ammunition. The first boy to receive a piece of my hot pudding on the bridge of his nose told the thrower that he was breaking the rules of the game by using stones. When the injured urchin found what damage could A 1'RL.li 1-IGH1 WITH Lin'LB I'lliCKS OF HOT I'l'DUINLi AS AMMUNITION.\" be inflicted by one small piece of my pudding he booked two seats for the following Satur- day's performance, and announced that he would bring his big brother with him. My first venture as a professional conjurer was coming to a close. On the following Saturday I was invited by the front seats to begin with the hot pudding trick and to leave out the rest. It seemed an inartistic thing to do—so suspiciously like being paid not to conjure. But numbers were too many for me, and I had to obey my audience. Every Saturday night after that those boys came to my little hall with the sole object of having a free fight with little pieces of hot ludding as ammunition. It was usually rather a sticky pudding, and therefore at the close of the performance the walls of the hall would be decorated with bits of pudding. These were so adhesive that the hall-keeper demanded an increase in his wages for the extra work involved in clearing up after my performance. After that my first season as a professional conjurer closed abruptly. My first professional engagement at a private house brought me half a guinea. I think I may be justly proud of the fact that I have since been offered a fee of eighteen thousand pounds for one year's work at music-halls. I did not accept the offer, partly because the audiences at St. George's Hall expect to see me there for part of the year. Being a very am- bitious conjurer, I resolved — long be- fore I had had suf- ficient experience foi the work — to pre- sent the vanishing lady illusion. I de- vised my own version of it, and employed two ladies exactly alike. They gave me a lot of trouble, be- cause sometimes an anonymous admirer would leave a box of chocolates at the stage-door for \" the

A CONJURER'S REMINISCENCES. 689 crowns were real half-crowns. I used to It is on an occasion like this that a conjurer makes up his mind that, after all. overhear whispers of this kind :— any other occupation in life would be easier. \" Can't be a good one.\" Five minutes afterwards, if he is a real con- jurer, he will determine that at any rate it shall never be possible for that mistake to occur again. Probably it is because no conjurer is expected to tell the truth—I mean, of course, when he is on the stage—that I have occasionally found a difficulty in getting people to take me seriously. Some years ago, when I used to perform the money-catching trick—in which the per- former \" finds \" money floating about in the air, or reposing in old men's beards or old ladies' bonnets, or other impossible places — I made a point of using real half-crowns. Sometimes — and always solely for the advantage of the advertise- ment that the action gave me—I would \" find \" a few half-crowns among the \" He said it was.\" \" Well, let's change it, anyhow.\" -.--^ \"THE FIRST LADY DID NOT VANISH.\" audience and \" return\" them to their \" owners.\" But I seldom succeeded at the first attempt in persuading the audience or the recipients of my money that the half- V91. xljv.— 91. 'THE SECOND LADY APPEARED IN THE GALLERY.'' \" It'll do for church.\" \" The bank will tell you.\" \" Try it at the booking-office when they're in a hurry.\" And so on. On the other hand, I have occa- sionally found a difficulty in mak- ing people understand that they should not take me at my word when, obviously to my mind, I am attempting a little joke. Thus, sometimes when I have wanted to borrow a watch from a member of the audience for the purpose of a trick, I have said, jokingly, to the owner :— \" Perhaps you wouldn't mind throwing it on the stage ; it will save you time.\" On more than one occasion the watch has been thrown on the stage, and it has come .down with a thud on the boards, and I have . -_-, been expected to restore it magic- ally at the end of the trick. I have often thought what a fine trick that would be, but I have not yet decided on the best way to do it. Sometimes, however, when a mistake is made at a performance the conjurer is the

6oo THE STRAND MAGAZIXE. \" CAN'T BE A I;OOD ONE. culprit. I believe that when I was engaged in the pleasant occupation known as \" obtain- ing experience \" I made most of the mistakes that a conjurer can make. Once I inadver- tently loaded a pistol with blasting powder in place of the ordinary gunpowder, and peppered the face of my volunteer assistant. He shrieked, and the audience thought that it was a good joke and all part of the per- formance, and they roared with laughter. But I didn't. Other mishaps occur to me. The bows of borrowed watches have come off while the watches have been passed by me through the various stages of a trick. Watches have been dropped by volunteer assistants, and I have been blamed for using such \" clumsy confederates.\" (I have never used a con- federate of any kind.) On one occasion a wedding-ring which I had borrowed fora trick from a dear old lady got lost in most mysterious fashion. It disappeared in the way I desired, at the commencement of the trick, but when I was about to bring the trick to a brilliant finish the ring was not there ! The lady—a widow—was painfully distressed. So was I. A friend with her assured her that it was only my joke, and that I should find the ring somewhere else presently. At that moment I had no idea where the ring could be, but I assured the old lady that it could not be far away, that it had probably fallen on the floor, and that if she would wait after the performance was over I would have the hall carefully searched. It was not a brilliant finish to a trick, but e\\xn now I know of no other ending that could have been used on the spur of the moment. Eventu- ally the ring was found wedged be- tween the boards of the hall. It was a very thin ring, and it had slipped out of the parcel in which I had secretly placed it. It has been truly said that the best test of a con- jurer is to be had when something has \"gone wrong\" in a trick and he has to bring it to an end different from the customary' one. A good, smooth performance is, to a certain s • \"THE WATCH HAS COMK HOWN WITH A THUD ON THE BOARDS,\"

A CONJURER'S REMINISCENCES. 691 \" I I'EPl'EKKI) THE FACK OF MY VOLUNTEER ASSISTANT.\" extent, a matter of habit, but when an \" accident\" happens the conjurer has to think quickly. Sometimes the conjurer can see the \" accident\" in the distance, in time to prevent the audience from noticing it, but sometimes the \" accident \" comes upon the performer very suddenly. For instance, once or twice, in the middle of a trick, I have been made suddenly aware of the fact that the two rabbits which my man has bought for my perform- ance have not been of the usual tame variety, but of the wild kind, with the homing instinct strongly developed ! In- deed, it has been the rabbits' evi- dent desire to return to their native haunts and to go there and then—and quickly —t hat has troubled me. Interruptions during a perform- ance help to sad- den the life of the young conjurer. As he gets on in his work he is not troubled much by interruptions,because public places of amusement are conducted in an orderly manner; but at Sunday schools, village halls, and such places, the number of young people prepared to interrupt the conjurer is usually out of all proportion to the number of people who have the unpleasant job of trying to keep order. When a young conjurer, performing at such & place, causes anything, from a sixpence to a cannon-ball, to vanish more or less mys- teriously, the cry is always, \" It's up his sleeve.\" The average boy believes that if a trick is not done in that way, then there are only two other possible explanations; one is \" wires,\" the other \" a secret spring.\" I remember once, when I was very young, being so nettled with the cry of \" Up his sleeve \" that I foolishly allowed myself to be drawn into an argument with my audience—a thing which no conjurer should ever dream of doing—and, to prove that the trick could not he done that way, I rolled up my sleeves. Hardly had I done so

692 THE STRAND MAGAZINE. The audience took up the cry of \" false arms ! \" —and I gave up the task of trying to con- vince them that the trick was a much better one than they considered it to be. But let us get away from mishaps and accidents and youthful mistakes. I suppose only a conjurer can really appre- ciate the fact that any performance is improved by a little music. Many years ago, at a Sunday-school, I was asked if I would like to have a little music between my tricks. I gladly accepted the offer, but. unfortunately, no one could play the village piano—or any other piano, for the matter of that. But a kindly old gentleman said that he would come to my assistance with a little music. At the per- formance he produced an instrument which he said was an \" organette.\" I have never seen one since ; it was a kind of automatic har- monium of a small size. The old gentleman started it after I had produced a large Union Jack, and I was somewhat surprised to hear the organette groan out a hymn—the \" Old Hundredth.\" It gave us two verses of that. 'A KABB1T WI11I THK HOMIM! INSTINCT.'' Then I did my watch and rabbit trick, and the organette played \" The March of the Men of Harlech.\" It seemed rather inappro- priate, but not more so than during the rest of my performance. It played the march half-a-dozen times afterwards during the evening. The hymn and the march were the only two tunes the organette could produce. Every conjurer knows that, in one sense, a trick may be too good ; I mean a trick in which the problem is so puzzling that the audience are left without the slightest clue to its solution. A trick of this kind never wins the loudest applause immediately it is over, because the audience are too puzzled to express their appreciation of what they have seen until they have had a moment or two in which to think it over. (I do not say that they always arrive at the right solution even then, but possibly they may think they do !) It is rather unusual, however, to have a trick which is far too good for one individual member of the audience. I recall such a trick. It was an average good trick with a slate and some numbered cards, and after I had performed it one night I was quite unconscious of the fact that the trick had been much too good for a lady in the audience. I discovered that fact two days afterwards. A man called on me in the morning and asked if 1 gave lessons in conjuring. At that time I did, but now, when I am asked that, I direct the questioner to an old pupil of mine who understands my methods and is very patient ! —, The man seemed pleased that I taught conjuring. He asked for particulars about my fee, the time it \\vould take to learn, and so on, and then finally stuttered out that he had been making all those in-

A CONJURER'S REMINISCENCES. 693 performance had a sequel. It took plaee on a Monday evening. On the following Friday there came an inquiry at St. George's Hall. I was requested to perform at Queen Alexandra's Garden Party at Marlborough House on the following day. Now, as it happened. I had decided to take a short holiday, and had inconsiderately not told anyone my address. The staff at St. George's Hall knew that I was \" some- • , where in Nor- folk,\" and so they set to work, with telegraph and telephone, to find me for the Royal garden party. Country policemen were \"called up.\" Telegrams were sent to hotels and garages. And all the time I was trundling about the coast of Norfolk in my car, and searching for the ideal cottage in which to spend a quiet holiday. I found it at last at.East Run- ton. In the evening, all un- conscious of the fact that during the day a shower of telegrams about me had descended on that part of the county, my wife went into the village shop to make some purchases. She loaded herself with small parcels, but there were some things which she could not carry, and she gave her name and address to the shopkeeper. He stepped back in astonishment. \" Mrs. Devant ? \" he asked. My wife spelt it out for him. \" Mrs. David Devant ? \" he repeated. My wife admitted it. \" Then,\" said he, \" I may tell you that the police are asking for your husband ! \" My wife, murmuring something about \" At last!\" and \"What I've always expected!\" dropped all her parcels (none of which was paid for), and sank back into a chair. At that moment I came in. A hurried explanation, and then I talked to St. George's Hall; but the staff had not found me in time, for the programmes had had to be printed that afternoon, and therefore without my name—to my great regret. But the incident rather spoilt my .quiet holiday by the sea. I was pointed at in the village. Children directed other children's THE POLICE ARE ASKING I OK YOUK HUSHAM) ! attention to the man who \" did things \" and received Royal commands to do them.

THE BOND. By E. M. JAMESON. Illustrated by Stanley Davis. I. HIRLSTONE opened the door with his latch-key and passed into the lighted hall. After the fog and sleet outside the warmth of his own house struck pleasantly. Removing his overcoat, he paused a moment to hold his hands to the fire. The light of the blazing logs dis- closed on his face overmuch stress and anxiety for so young a man. There were lines on the forehead and at the corners of the mouth that had no business to be there. The house seemed abnormally quiet. It was one of those well-regulated establishments where every sound is deadened with thick carpets and draperies—a house which anyone enter- ing for the first time would know instinctively contained no children. Thirlstone raised his head and listened. Then, his fingers pulling at his collar as if its pressure stifled him, he walked along the hall in the direction of his wife's sitting-room. There was no need to switch on the light. A bright fire burned in the grate, disclosing every corner of the quaintly-shaped white room. She was not there, but drawn up perilously near the hearth was her favourite chair, a low one covered with dull rose brocade, and lying on it the book she had been reading. He rolled the chair away, and as he did so saw beside it a wisp of cambric and lace—one of the tiny handkerchiefs women affect in these days of no pockets. Thirlstone stooped and picked it up, holding it between his fingers. The faint perfume of it stole towards him insidiously, seeming to bring her presence so 'near that involuntarily he turned to look at the door which stood ajar. He held the soft morsel for a moment longer, then placed it on a table close by, his fingers lingering on it as if loath to let it go. He glanced at himself in the mirror over the hearth, the light from below throwing into relief all the hollows in his face. Even to himself the melancholy and pain of it struck home. He straightened himself, walking towards the door ; then, returning, as if half ashamed, took up the fragment of cambric and put it in his breast pocket with a care that told its own story. As he went into the hall again a current of cold air came towards him. His wife stood there, searching in her wrist-bag for the cab-fare. \" Go in out of the cold,\" said Thirlstone ; \" I'll pay him.\" He did so, and found her preparing to go upstairs. Half-way she turned at the sound of the closing door, glancing back at him over her shoulder. Her beauty, as usual, arrested his attention, bringing in its train a tragedy of longing and heart-ache as he looked at the long, slim figure in its velvet gown, the soft black of the fox-furs outlining the lovely-

TEE BOND. \" I will not ring yet. Tell me what you want to say—only please be quick.\" Thirlstone, leaning against the mantel- piece, laughed under his breath, and she turned a surprised look on him. \" Does it ever occur to you that we hardly see one another—that all your friends have more intercourse with you than I ? You tell me to hurry when I ex- press a wish to have a few moments' talk with you.\" She drew her delicate brows together, faintly- protesting. \"If that is all \" Thirlstone pulled himself together with an effort, his face deadly pale. \" It is not all. I want to speak to you about our affairs.\" Her hands were at her hatpins. One she could not find. He stooped and put his fingers amongst the soft masses of feather and drew it out. Then, very care- fully, he removed the hat and laid it on the table near. It was the first time he had been permitted to do so intimate an act for her. His pulses beatheavily, and his anger died away, giving place to an intolerable and overmastering pain. His eyes lingered on the silken wonder of her hair ; he had fallen in love with that first, he remembered, and with her eyes, dark eyes, so capable of love, but always —to him, at least—so cold. She looked at the clock on the mantelpiece, and his glance followed. She was longing to be rid of him. \" I am sorry to have to tell you that we cannot go on living at the rate we are living now. I have made a few unfortunate investments lately, and we must retrench \" She gave a faint, incredulous smile. \" But all husbands say that to their wives from time to time, don't they ? My married friends tell me so.\" TEI.L ME WHAT YOU WANT TO SAY—ONLY 1'I.KASE UK i.H'ICK.\" He looked down at her, his face flushing a dull red.

696 THE STRAND MAGAZINE. be bought with jewels and laces and gewgaws. Love /\" He dropped suddenly into a big chair beside the hearth, his head lowered, his hands gripping the arms until they creaked under the strain. \" What do you know of love—its sacrifices, its longings, its intolerable blending of heaven and hell ? \" She gave a low sound of protest. \" You knew I did not care for you. You married with your eyes open. It was in the bond, remember ; you promised \" He raised his head, his face hardening. \" That cursed agreement ! You have held me to it, body and soul. All I can say, all I can do. is nothing to you. It can't go on. I thought at one time that, so long as I had you near me, simply and solely by giving you all you wanted, it would be enough ; but it is not. We have drifted farther apart each day. You hardly tolerate me. This house is no home for either of us—just an hotel where we sleep and dress and occa- sionally eat ! Why go through the farce of keeping it up ? \" Her eyes went round the room. There were rare things in it—things other people did not possess—and she had grown accus- tomed to them; they had become part of her existence. But pride kept her silent. \" I have been thinking things over for weeks,\" resumed Thirlstone. \" I might go on in the same way for a while, keep my remaining hold on you by getting money out of people ready and willing to be imposed upon ; there are thousands of such swindled every day—I could do it easily enough. But, anxious as I am to gain your good opinion, I don't mean to get it by cheating— She raised her head, eyes dilated. \" How dare you ? \" He laughed, the brute that is in most men uppermost. \" I've tried everything else to win you. Heavens, you'll never know what I've suffered in the last few weeks, fighting against the temptation to keep you at all costs ! \" He rose and turned to go—a tall man, not handsome, perhaps, but possessing a certain distinction and force. She leaned back in the shade of an old banner-screen hanging between her and the fire, where he could not see her face. \" Tell me a little more of your plans before you go.\" He came back a pace or two, looming over her. \" There is nothing, I think, that need touch you beyond the giving up of the house. In any case, you were going on a round of visits ; make them a little longer than you intended. The house and its contents can be put up for sale, if possible just as they stand. Mosenstein, I believe, would catch at the opportunity.\" \" Mosenstein! That man and his vulgar little wife! \" \" What difference does it make ? I shall put a reserve on the place and sell it, lock,

THE BOND. 697 heart. It might have melted under the love of the right man, but you've married the wrong one. All we can do is to make the best of our lives, and if we play our parts well, who is to know how far apart we are ? I could not bear to have you talked about in any way. You are to me, and always will be, the most wonderful woman in the world. Only I think God made you without a heart.\" The door swung open and closed again. She heard another door had given her most of her valuables. She had been poor when she married him, and the poverty that goes with good birth is hard to bear. She had soon learned to spend the money he lavished upon her with full hands. More than once she had exceeded her allow- ance, and he had signed cheques without demur. He had been at her feet, glad of a word, of a glance, of a cold cheek offered to him in salutation. Once he had lost his head —she remembered farther along the corridor shut very quietly, but still she sat there, motion- less. She had not imagined him cap- able of such ideas, such eloquence. He was a silent man for the most part, and she had never taken the trouble to probe the depths within, while he She started to her feet and began to dress, her fingers shaking a little as she unclasped her brooch. He had given it to her, as he Vol. xliv.-62. THE MIRROR REFLECTED A VERY BEAUTIFUL WOMAN. the fierceness of his kisses, the way his arms held her, the roughness of his embrace that yet was mingled with a curious, deep tenderness. But that was in the early days, long ago, before she had tired him out. She slipped from her frock and put on a silk wrapper, taking down her hair and beginning to brush and twist it up. She had never been one to cry—she did not cry now. But her eyes burned in hpr small,

698 THE STRAND MAGAZINE. pale face, and there was a dull ache at her throat. She had forgotten to ring, and was ready, with che exception of her gown, when the maid entered. The mirror, of which Mrs. Mosenstein was soon to be possessed, reflected a very beautiful woman. She was in black and white, for she never wore colours, and round her white neck and shoulders hung a rope of pearls, bought for her as the result of a boom in rubber, or cotton, or copper—she did not remember. The bandeau of pearls in her hair was the result of another boom in some- thing. She dismissed her maid and sat down before the mirror, her elbows among the littered extravagances, her chin on her palms. With an inarticulate sound she rose, putting her handkerchief to her eyes. Then, with a kind of quiet deliberation, she removed her pearls and the bandeau from her hair and, going across the room, unlocked a cupboard and took out a leather-covered case. In it were other results of fortunate speculations. She added them to the pearls, and, taking the case in her hand, went out of the room. Thirlstone generally dined at home, preferring it to his club, though more often than not he dined alone. He sat at one end of the table now in soli- tary state, rising as his wife came into the room, and telling the servant to go. \" I will not keep you a moment,\" she said, her voice, in the effort to control it, colder than usual; \" but I thought—I hoped \" \" Yes ? \" Then he realized that she was holding towards him her jewel-case. \" These are worth a great deal of money ; perhaps they would tide you over your diffi- culties. I shall be glad for you to sell them.\" She looked down as she spoke, wishing she could be more demonstrative. He shook his head. \" I quite appreciate your kindness, but I would not deprive you of them for the world. I know how great a love you have for jewels, and I—can manage.\" \" Nevertheless, I should like you to have them.\" He shook his head, with an air of finality. \" Impossible ! They are yours entirely.\" She looked up at him as if about to say more, then changed her mind and went out of the room. When she passed down the steps to the electric brougham she wore the pearls again in her hair and round her neck. And all that evening, through the laughter and music, when she danced and when she talked, the picture of that solitary figure sitting alone at the end of a vista of white tablecloth refused to be ousted from her mind. II. IT was between two visits that Christine came up to town in order to change stations. Her way took her near the house where she had spent her year of married life. When the cab was within a few yards of the house

THE BOND. 699 \" It was for- warded on to me yesterday. I came up this morning on purpose to see you.\" He drew a chair for her near the bureau, and she slipped the fur stole from her shoulders. He wondered if she was al- ways so pale. \"I happened to be passing through town the other day, and my way took me near the house. I see the boards are already up announcing the sale of it by private treaty, with all the contents.\" The old man bowed, his eyes on her face. \" I saw that you were the solicitors, and I remembered that you had knownmyhus- band for many years.\" \" His father and I were friends of long standing. I have a great regard and respect for John Thirlstone. He has fought his way through a good many odds, as no doubt you have heard.\" \" No,\" said Christine, quietly, \" I did not know.\" \" Is that so ? He has good fighting quali- ties, and I regret to hear that the home he took such pleasure in getting together has to go to the highest bidder. I had no idea that City affairs had touched John so closely.\" \" You are mistaken in supposing that he is sorry to dispose of the house,\" said Christine, \"SHE STOOD THERE FORLOR.NI.Y.\" in a low tone. \" I think he will be glad— entirely apart from the money value.\" The old man darted a glance at her from under his beetling white brows. He had not spent seventy years on earth, and almost half a century of them in law, without having experienced many family tragedies. \" On the contrary, Mrs. Thirlstone. he left

7<x> THE STRAND MAGAZINE. She let the remark pass. \" Has Mr. Mosenstein made a definite offer for the house ? \" Old Mr. Standish leaned hack in his chair. \" He has made an offer, but it by no means reaches the reserve price, and, though we might allow a slight reduction, Mosenstein wants to drive too hard a bargain. He knows the house is full value, and the sum asked would be a mere bagatelle to him. It is sheer love of bargaining that makes him hold out \"—the old man gave a contemptuous laugh. \" He comes here three or four times a week and haggles—not with me; I never see him—but with my partners.\" Christine sat with eyes lowered, listening. Suddenly she raised them and looked full at the speaker. \" Is Mr. Mosenstein's the only offer ? \" \" Unfortunately, yes. at the moment. The time of year is not good for disposing of house property. No doubt in the New- Year \" \" There is no necessity to wait even so short a time,\" said Christine, composedly. \" I have heard of another possible buyer.\" Old Mr. Standish struck his hand on the writing-table. \" Good ! I should be glad to sell from under Mosenstein's grip. Are you at liberty to tell us the probable purchaser's name ? \" \" Yes,\" replied Christine, quietly. \" It is myself, Mr. Standish.\" He twisted round in his chair to face her. \" You, Mrs. Thirlstone ! \" \" 7,\" said Christine. There was a pause ; then she leaned a degree nearer to the amazed old man, the coldness of her face giving way to warmth of feeling. It had the effect of making her look much younger—the girl she was in years. She fumbled in her leather bag and drew out a slip of paper. It was a cheque. \" Will that be enough to buy the house and all that is in it ? \" she asked. \" More than enough.\" She laughed. \" Then you may tell Mr. Mosenstein when next he calls that the house has found a purchaser.\" She put the cheque back into her bag. \" You are not bound to him in any way ? \" \" We have told him all along that the highest bidder gets the place. He was so sure of getting it that he has not even asked us to give him the first refusal at the reserve price.\" Christine paused in the act of drawing on her glove. Her eyes were reminiscent. \" I am on my way to pay this cheque into my bank, Mr. Standish, and then I will draw one out for you at the full reserve price. You will make all necessary arrangements for the transfer, and \"—she came nearer—\" you will keep my secret for a little while—just a few days ? More than you know depends on it.'' They were standing now facing one another. Christine suddenly extended her hand, and he took it and held it firmly. \" If I can be of any service to John Thirl-

THE BOND. 701 Mr. Standish nodded. \"That's well. I thought I could not be mistaken \" Thirlstone interrupted, speaking in a hurried tone, as if labouring under some embarrassment: \" To tell you the truth, Mr. Standish, I prefer to keep the house in my own possession. Since—since I put the matter into your hands \"—he paused, stam- mering a little, and manifestly averse to meeting the lawyer's eyes—\" I found I could not bear the thought of letting it go to strangers—the thought that they would inhabit the rooms where she—where we—I mean \" He took a rapid turn up and down the hearthrug. \" Financial matters are much better with me ; in short, I do not choose to let the house go.\" Mr. Standish lifted a marble paper-weight with some deliberation and put it down again. \" Ah, that is a pity. The matter of the house has been put through . the purchaser was very keen on getting it a once.\" \" Put through ? \" asked Thirlstone, his hands clenched suddenly. Then he recol- lected. \" I have not signed the deed yet, so that's all right, Mr. Standish.\" \" Our client will not think so,\" remarked the lawyer, dryly. \" We were to meet at the house this afternoon to get your signature to the deed, John; that's why I sent for you.\" \" Why not here ? \" asked Thirlstone, looking suddenly savage. \" He's not in- stalled there already, confound him ! \" \" It was the desire of the purchaser.\" Thirlstone looked into the fire. \" If I had been willing to keep to my original intention I should not have signed the place away—there,\" he said, and walked to the window. The lawyer looked at his watch. \" Better get it over, John. To tell you the truth, I rather shirk the job. Shall we send for a taxi ? \" Thirlstone came back from his reverie. \" By all means.\" Snow was falling as they went, melting where it touched the muddy streets, but powdering the trees and turf of the park with austere and delicate beauty. Back to Thirlstone's mind came the thought of the girl he had married. It was just such another day as this when they drove from the church together, united by one bond, but separated by another of their own making. She had seemed part of the snow and the frost, that beautiful bride of his, in her gleaming white satin and lace. He had hoped Ah ! what had he not hoped ? The whirling ice particles floated in at the half-lowered window of the cab and blurred his vision. It was a grey world within and without, but not so grey since he had decided to hold the place for his own. To lose it had seemed the one intolerable thing. A house filled with chairs and tables that had known her presence was preferable to one that held no such recollection of her. The cab drew up at the house. A faint

702 THE STRAND MAGAZINE. \" HK IMAU1NKU IIKR TO UK MANY MILKS AWAY ; IT COULL) NOT BE HH.RSELF.\" A sound broke the silence and he looked up. She was crying—Christine, who, in all his recollection of her, had never shed a tear. He sprang to his feet and took her in his arms, half-doubtfully, until he realized that she rested there content and drew more closely into their shelter. The wonderful hair he loved lay near his lips, her cheek was pressed to his shoulder. She sobbed under her breath like a child badly frightened. And, like a child, she presently raised her face towards him to be kissed. Afterwards Thirlstone held her away from him, speaking hurriedly. \"Christine, are you sure — guile sure? I can't believe it possible.\" She clung to him and, leaning nearer, kissed him of her own accord, touching very softly the lines that she had helped to bring to his face. The tears gathered again and brimmed over. He dried them very tenderly. \"What is it? Tell me.\" \"It's my heart of ice thawing, I suppose,\" said Christine, with a quivering laugh, \"and in a way— it hurts. It began a long time ago, but you did not seem to care. I had tired you out, and then that last evening, when I left you sitling there quite alone at the dining- tablc, and I knew I had helped to ruin you—I was wretched until I sold the jewels you had given me and bought the house for you with your own monev.\" Thirlstone looked around him in bewilder- ment. \" You! Then you are the purchaser! And I came to tell you that you should not have it, after all—that I could not bear to let it go.\" \"Did you? Oh, John, did you? The deed is over there. Shall we burn it and