Table Talk-continued. Actors' Blunders-The Tower and its Visitors-Mr. Dobson's Westminster, From Cremorne to. By PERCY FITZGERALD Wodan, the Wild Huntsman, and the Wandering Jew. By KARL PAGE 637 757 • 330 287 84 580 203 32 THE GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE. JULY 1880. QUEEN COPHETUA. BY R. E. FRANCILLON. H CHAPTER XVI'. I am the Knight of Malavis : And all my comfort keeps therein- I am the Knight of Malavis. No lore have I of maiden's kiss,— And I will keep her, when I find A maid whose lips may mate my mind: I am the Knight of Malavis. ER son robbed of the love which was his true chance of manhood, and driven to do what was not his duty in a sphere of life to which he had not been called-her daughter driven among the rocks and shoals of concealment, deceit, and unscrupulous scheming a well-intentioned clergyman frightened out of his witsan innocent man tricked by the phantom of a fortune-these were what Mrs. Reid's plan for the correction of Providence had to show for itself hitherto. And these were all, if we omit its probable result in its advantage to Gideon Skull; for in so far as it was likely to be of some sort of good to somebody, it cannot be looked upon as VOL. CCXLVII. NO. 1795. B wholly in vain. If Mrs. Reid could have lifted the least corner of the cloth that hid from her eyes everything that was going on just under them, and seen the maze of loss, corruption, and peril that was growing from the seed she had sown with such good intentions, she would have been horrified at what she had been the means of doing; she certainly would not have let Helen go out alone the next morning. Helen did not feel good as she left the house to keep her appointment with Gideon Skull. It felt like doing a great thinglike visibly and consciously cutting her life in two. It had been easy enough, in solitude, to dream of rising to great, vague crimes, and of descending to the meanest depths, and to triumph in them beforehand because they would be all for Alan. But none of her enthusiasm helped her when the time came for action, and when she found herself obliged, not to plunge a dagger into somebody's heart, but only to hide from her mother the real object of her walk that morning. Her imagination had never led her to the point of having to do anything so wretchedly small-so small that not even its being for Alan's sake could give it dignity. She was only a sly girl, with a lie in her heart and almost on her lips, creeping out to meet a man whom her mother had forbidden her to know; and it was all the worse because there was no hint or dream of love in the affair, and because it was for a brother who would have given up even his dreams of Bertha rather than believe his sister capable of anything so un-Reid-like and so mean. But what could she do-being she? She had committed herself to this appointment, or thought so; and supposing that she lost a chance for Alan by not keeping it, how would she ever forgive herself all her days? Her mother's daughter, who grew more and more like her mother every day, was not likely to give up any sort of design which might lead to a good end, through whatever rocks and bogs the road to that end might lead her. She did not doubt or waver in the depth of herself even in such a miserably little matter as keeping a secret tryst with Gideon. She felt, in her extreme way, that she was closing the street-door upon her ladyhood; and she felt, too, that she was making the first step down that road of which the first step alone is hard. Butwell, it might prove better for Alan, in the long-run, that she should teach herself as soon as possible not to be ashamed of little things. She had no doubt of being able to trust herself in great ones. What lay before her, whatever course it might take, was not to be work for a lady's hand. It could only have been a very invisible and deeplying instinct indeed which told her how much a first secret meeting with Gideon must needs be indeed the last thing which one who prided herself on her ladyhood would dream of doing. But it was all for Alan. In one great thing she and her mother were one. It is not far, as all the world knows, to Fleet Street from the Strand, so that she could keep her interview easily without being long away from home, and to meet on the way anybody who knew her was happily impossible. Since she had been in London she had been out by herself on common errands dozens of times; but, naturally, never to the eastward of Temple Bar, though it was not many stones' throw. The city gate was standing in those days, and its arch, as she passed under it, seemed to her mind the symbol of another gateway on the road along which her mind was passing. She half lingered, as if the presence of a visible gateway warned her that another road than the street changed its name beyond, and that it divided two cities which were not merely London and Westminster. That is to say, her pace slackened, for she could not really linger; and she breathed more freely when she had once passed through. It was as if Helen Reid had entered the archway, and had never come out again; and as if she who left its shadow was either not Helen Reid, or else had left a burdensome and troublesome part of herself on the other side. She felt quite certain that henceforthfor Alan's sake-she would never be troubled with scruples again about such a trumpery matter as going out without saying why or where. She must have been terribly frank and open-once-to feel so changed and hardened by what very few would regard as being so much as a mere common, every-day lie. No--she had already done enough to know that she could never feel like Alan's sister, or old Harry Reid's daughter, any more. She had little difficulty in finding the outside of the office of the Argus, and was too well provided with an excuse for calling to feel over-shy about entering. She had absolutely no views about what sort of place a newspaper office was likely to prove. Strange as such an idea may seem to some, she would not have been astonished to find the Times itself issued from some small news-shop, so that she drew no moral from the contrast between the surroundings of the Argus and the tremendous character of the organ by means of which Spraggville ruled the world. She tapped gently at the door to which she had been guided, and was answered by a "Come in!" in an accent which reminded her a little of the voice of her enemy, Victor Waldron. She looked round for Gideon, but she found nobody but Mr. Crowder and Mr. Sims, whom she knew neither by sight nor by name. The face of neither moved a muscle at the unexpected appearance of a young lady in the rooms of the Argus, except for a slight frown which passed over that of Mr. Sims. His once immaculate chief, he could not help thinking, was going a great deal too far— neglecting duty to dine with lords, showing unmistakable signs of it the next morning, and now visited by young women. It was becoming a case for watching in the interests of the Argus, if not for the serious consideration of the Platonic Institute of Spraggville, to which they both belonged, where young men and young women of an intellectual turn met to discuss social philosophy from a purely spiritual and sympathetic point of view, and never made love except in spectacles. Well, the blight of the aristocratic upas must produce its natural poison. From dining with lords to drinking champagne, from champagne to whisky, from whisky to assignations, were but steps in a chain which might lead at last even to smoking cigars, before it had run out to the bitter end. One can hardly tell why Helen's visit should instantly, and without the faintest evidence, have presented itself in this light to Mr. Sims. But so it was, and he wavered between waiting and watching on the one hand, and pointedly rising and leaving the office on the other, to show his colleague that he understood the situation perfectly. "Is this the office of the Argus?" asked Helen. "I am Miss Reid. I came to ask if-if you had heard from my brother." Perhaps Gideon would not come, after all. "Be seated, Madam," said Mr. Crowder. "I hope you are very well. Let me see-Reid-Reid. Yes; our correspondent at the siege. You will pardon me-with so many names to think of, and with such a war on my hands, it is not easy to keep my mind upon individuals. Have we heard from Reid, Mr. Sims? " "Wired it yourself to Spraggville yesterday," said Mr. Sims bluntly. He was beginning to suspect his chief of being a little of an impostor, and of giving himself lordly airs, and it galled him. "That is so," said Mr. Crowder. "It was a good letter. I am happy to tell you, Miss Reid, that your brother, under careful editing, is likely to give satisfaction to the city of Spraggville. He is the first English literary man I have happened on who seems to understand what we want and the way to put things. There were some touches in his last letter that were worthy of an American." "I am very glad indeed," said Helen, too indifferent to wonder at her brother's sudden success in so unlikely a direction, and by no |