on his first leave, he went to see his father in an asylum; who did not know him and called him "my lord," and asked him to "bring his case before the house." Then of a marriage, like a dream now, with a wife who left him and a child that died; and then of many colourless years of mere official routine, which might have gone on till he fell down in harness, but for the chance that threw in his way the daughter of an old friend in sore trouble and alone. Not until her loneliness and want of a protector on her voyage home suggested it did the harness come off the old horse. And then, as we have seen, followed the happiest fourth part of his life, as he accounted it, throughout which he had never felt so willing to die as he had done before. Rosalind Graythorpe grew into it as a kind of adopted daughter, and brought with her the morsel of new humanity that had become Sally—that would be back in an hour from "Charley's Aunt."
And now Rosey had found a guardian, and was provided for. It would be no way amiss now for the Major to take advantage of death. There is so much to be said for it when the world has left one aching!
His confidence that his protégée had really found a haven was no small compliment to Fenwick. For the latter, with his strange unknown past, had nothing but his personality to rely on; and the verdict of the Major, after knowing him twelve months, was as decisive on this point as if he had known him twelve years. "He may be a bit hot-tempered and impulsive," said he to Sally. "But I really couldn't say, if I were asked, why I think so. It's a mere idea. Otherwise, it's simply impossible to help liking him." To which Sally replied, borrowing an expression from Ann the housemaid, that Fenwick was a cup of tea. It was metaphorical and descriptive of invigoration.
But the Major's feeling that he was now at liberty to try Death after Life, to make for port after stormy seas, had scarcely a trace in it of dethronement or exclusion from privileges once possessed. It was not his smallest tribute to Fenwick that he should admit the idea to his mind at all—that he might have gained a son rather than lost a daughter. At least, he need not reject that view of the case, but it would not do to build on it. Unberufen!
The Major tapped three times on the little table where the lamp stood and "Harry Lorrequer" lay neglected. He pulled out his watch, and decided that they would not be very long now. He would not go to bed till he had seen the kitten—he usually spoke of her so to her mother. He had to disturb the kitten's cat, who was asleep on him, to get at the watch; who, being selfish, made a grievance of it, and went away piqued after stretching. Well, he was sorry of course, but it would have had to come, some time. And he hadn't moved for ever so long!
"I wonder," half said, half thought he to himself, "I wonder who or what he really is?... If only we could have known!... Was I right not to urge delay?... Only Rosey was so confident.... Could a woman of her age feel so sure and be misled?"
It was her certainty that had dragged his judgment along a path it might otherwise have shrunk from. He could not know her reasons, but he felt their force in her presence. Now she was gone, he doubted. Had he been a fool after all?
"Well—well; it can't be altered now. And she would have done it just the same whatever I said.... I suppose she was like that when she was a girl.... I wish I had even seen that husband of hers.... So odd they should both be Algernon! Does he know, I wonder, that the other was Algernon?" For the Major had religiously adhered to his promise not to say anything to Fenwick about the old story. He knew she had told it, or would tell it in her own time.
Then his thoughts turned to revival of how and where he found her first, and, as it all came back to him, you could have guessed, had you seen his face, that they had lighted on the man who was the evil cause of all, and the woman who had abetted him. The old hand on the table that had little more strength in it than when it wore a hedger's glove near eighty years ago, closed with the grip of all the force it had, and the lamp-globe rang as the tremor of his arm shook the table.
"Oh, I pray God there is a hell," came audibly from as kind a heart as ever beat. "How I pray God there is a hell!" Then the stress of his anger seemed to have exhausted him, for he lay back in his armchair with his eyes closed. In a few moments he