“How dare you dictate to me what I shall do, galley-slave?”
There was an angry murmur at the word, and Ernest Adair, more incensed, repeated it, and looking savagely round, declared all present, except himself, to be convicts escaped from the galleys.
“Brave talk,” said Haureau, repressing his companions, who rose in wrath, and whom he compelled to seat themselves. “Brave talk. But, my friend, you dare no more stay away to-night from your lodgings than you dare throw yourself into the river that keeps lapping and plashing there.”
“I dare not? I will not return to my lodgings, galley-slave, and if I do not throw myself into the river, it is because I am dressed like a gentleman, and do not choose to spoil my clothes, for fear I should look like you and your gaol-birds here.”
“You dare not remain out. Else I would row you over to my lodgings, and we would make a night of it. But go home, and obey orders.”
“Row me to your lodgings. Do you live on the river Styx, or the river Acheron?”
“No matter—you dare not come.”
“Dare not, and with rowers like you and your friends, who learned to row in the galleys—classical ruffians as you are. Styx or Acheron, I ask you.”
They all went out soon afterwards, Haureau walking beside Ernest Adair, who had now worked himself into the phase of intoxication in which one is perfectly, subtly, conscious of all that goes on or is said around, but supposes oneself to be reserving all comment for another occasion. He walked uprightly, repulsing the arm of Haureau, and the party, turning down a narrow lane proceeded along a small wharf, and stopped at a tall gate, partially latticed.
“Are these your lodgings, Haureau?” said Adair. “That is very like a prison window—you must feel quite at home.”
He spoke distinctly, yet without the intonation that used to give point to his speeches of other days.
“No, this is my carriage house,” said Haureau, opening the door.
Looking in, Adair perceived water. The place was an old boat-house, but there was no boat there. The tide was high, and the gloomy space within resembled a tank, only that under the eaves there came a gleam from a distant lamp.
Adair was sobered into self-possession in a moment. The next, his hand was upon his breast. But Haureau’s iron clutch was upon the wrist of Ernest, who at the same instant felt his other arm seized by two of his companions.
Even at that instant, and with the conviction that came upon him, the courage of Ernest Adair did not forsake him.
“Listen, Haureau!” he said.
“We have listened to you enough to-night, my friend. It is your turn to be silent for a long time.”
“I understand.”
“All that was wanted has been learned without your help, and you are dismissed.”
“Bertha!” cried Ernest, with a bitter cry.
It was a dastard blow, but which of the ruffians around him struck it will never be known till the judgment. Then the senseless body was thrust through the door, and into the dark water.
It must have lingered in that shed, and have been fetched away by another tide. For it was on the following night, and very late into that night that some men who were on their way to a barge upon the river came upon the body as it lay at the foot of a little causeway. Scarcely paler than in life, and with the peace of death on the brow beneath which throbbed no longer that once busy brain—parted in death the lips whose words had been sin, and whose kiss had been shame—so lay Ernest Adair. The secret of his death has been well kept, and he lies in a nameless grave.
CHAPTER THE LAST.
We were to have had but one chapter more, and indeed there is little else to tell, and yet one would not willingly bring down our curtain upon a mournful tableau. Of some thirty persons who have more or less actively aided in our story, two have died by violence, and the hand of death was upon the third, when her connection with the narrative ceased. She is gone, and Mr. Berry has disposed of his Lipthwaite property to Sir Frederic Charrington, and upon the site of Cromwell Lodge a school for girls now flourishes, under the patronage, and what is better, under the vigilance of Lady Charrington. It is a school where the girls are taught more cookery than catechism.
In strictness, Bertha Urquhart ought to have made a sorrowful end, upon which (to preserve the theatrical image) the rose-coloured light of a sentimental repentance should have been thrown. But, weak in all else, she was too weak to offer an example of poetical justice. The property left by Robert Urquhart was realised, and it afforded her a comfortable income, upon which she lived for some months at Cheltenham, where she married a gentleman who had been an officer in her Majesty’s service. He had been an exceedingly fast man, but having spent all his money, and a good deal more, had to sell out, and look out. He looked out well, and wooed as fast as he had lived. He is kind to Bertha, and she understands him—the severest thing one can say of him, for he is a very goodnatured Gorilla. Bertha has taken to distributing tracts, and in a season or two, unless she runs away again, will possibly have a private evening service for herself and select friends, at the St. James’s Hall.
Alphonse Silvain has, of course, married Mary Henderson, and will exhibit perfumery at the International Exhibition next year. Meantime his wife exhibits, with intense pride, an international baby, which has been christened Laura.
Archibald Vernon continues to live at Canonbury, and to retain the conviction that he is an ill-used man, whom the world has never comprehended. It is reported that he, also, has thought of coming before that world, next year, and has gone to the extent of promising to write to Charles Hawkesley, to get him to ascertain whether any kind of lecture-room is likely to be vacant in the middle of the approaching summer.
