[p 482]
On reaching London, I interviewed the police concerning the thieves and forgers, Bentham and Ellis, and stopped all proceedings against them.

“Call me mad if you like,”—I said to the utterly confounded chief of the detective force—“I do not mind! But let these rascals keep the trash they have stolen. It will be a curse to them, as it has been to me! It is devil’s money! Half of it was already gone, being settled on my late wife,—at her death, it reverted by the same deed of settlement, to any living members of her family, and it now belongs to Lord Elton. I have lived to make a noble Earl rich, who was once bankrupt,—and I doubt if he would lend me a ten-pound-note for the asking! However, I shall not ask him. The rest has gone into the universal waste of corruption and sham—let it stay there! I shall never bother myself to get it back. I prefer to be a free man.”

“But the bank,—the principle of the thing!” exclaimed the detective with indignation.

I smiled.

“Exactly! The principle of the thing has been perfectly carried out. A man who has too much money creates forgers and thieves about him,—he cannot expect to meet with honesty. Let the bank prosecute if it likes,—I shall not. I am free!—free to work for my living. What I earn I shall enjoy,—what I inherited, I have learnt to loathe!”

With that I left him, puzzled and irate,—and in a day or two the papers were full of strange stories concerning me, and numerous lies as well. I was called ‘mad,’ ‘unprincipled,’ ‘thwarting the ends of justice,’—and sundry other names, while scurrilous civilities known only to the penny paragraphist were heaped upon me by the score. To complete my entire satisfaction, a man on the staff of one of the leading journals, dug out my book from Mudie’s underground cellar, and ‘slashed’ it with a bitterness and venom only excelled by my own violence when anonymously libelling the work of Mavis Clare! And the result was remarkable,—for in a sudden wind of caprice, the public made a rush for my neglected literary offspring,—they [p 483] took it up, handled it tenderly, read it lingeringly, found something in it that pleased them, and finally bought it by thousands! ... whereat the astute Morgeson, as virtuous publisher, wrote to me in wonder and congratulation, enclosing a cheque for a hundred pounds on ‘royalties,’ and promising more in due course, should the ‘run’ continue. Ah, the sweetness of that earned hundred pounds! I felt a King of independence!—realms of ambition and attainment opened out before me,—life smiled upon me as it had never smiled before. Talk of poverty! I was rich!——rich with a hundred pounds made out of my own brain-labour,—and I envied no millionaire that ever flaunted his gold beneath the sun! I thought of Mavis Clare, ... but dared not dwell too long upon her gentle image. In time perhaps, ... when I had settled down to fresh work, ... when I had formed my life as I meant to form it, in the habits of faith, firmness and unselfishness, I would write to her and tell her all,—all, even to that dread insight into worlds unseen, beyond the boundaries of an unknown region of everlasting frozen snow! But now,——now I resolved to stand alone,—fighting my battle as a man should fight, seeking for neither help nor sympathy, and trusting not in Self, but God only. Moreover I could not induce myself yet to look again upon Willowsmere. The place was terror-haunted for me; and though Lord Elton with a curious condescension, (seeing that it was to me he owed the free gift of his former property) invited me to stay there, and professed a certain lame regret for the ‘heavy financial losses’ I had sustained, I saw in the tone of his epistle that he looked upon me somewhat in the light of a madman after my refusal to take up the matter of my absconding solicitors, and that he would rather I stayed away. And I did stay away;—and even when his marriage with Diana Chesney took place with great pomp and splendour, I refused his invitation to be present. In the published list of guests, however which appeared in the principal papers, I was scarcely surprised to read the name of ‘Prince Lucio Rimânez.’

I now took a humble room and set to work on a new [p 484] literary enterprise, avoiding everyone I had hitherto known, for being now almost a poor man, I was aware that ‘swagger society’ wished to blot me from its visiting-list. I lived with my own sorrowful thoughts,—musing on many things, training myself to humility, obedience, and faith with fortitude,—and day by day I did battle with the monster, Egotism, that presented itself in a thousand disguises at every turn in my own life as well as in the lives of others. I had to re-form my character,—to mould the obstinate nature that rebelled, and make its obstinacy serve for the attainment of higher objects than world’s renown,—the task was difficult,—but I gained ground a little with every fresh effort.

I had lived for some months like this in bitter self-abasement, when all the reading world was suddenly electrified by another book of Mavis Clare’s. My lately favoured first work was again forgotten and thrust aside,—hers, slated and screamed at as usual by the criticasters, was borne along to fame by a great wave of honest public praise and enthusiasm. And I? I rejoiced!—no longer grudging or envious of her sweet fame, I stood apart in spirit as it were, while the bright car of her triumph went by, decked, not only with laurels, but with roses,—the blossoms of a people’s love and honour. With all my soul I reverenced her genius,—with all my heart I honoured her pure womanliness! And in the very midst of her brilliant success, when all the world was talking of her, she wrote to me, a simple little letter, as gracious as her own fair name.

Dear Mr Tempest,

I heard by chance the other day that you had returned to England. I therefore send this note to the care of your publisher to express my sincere delight in the success your clever book has now attained after its interval of probation. I fancy the public appreciation of your work must go far to console you for the great losses you have had both in life and fortune, of which I will not here speak. When you feel that you can bear to look again upon scenes which I know [p 485] will be sure to rouse in your mind many sad and poignant memories, will you come and see me?