Rebekah, having excused herself from three ladies, her guests, alone in her room opened her letter.

Glanced first at the "R. H.", and was not surprised. He had "escaped", had "come into great power": that seemed natural; but he "summoned" her to meet him, and she saw no connection between his "great power" and his right to summon her.

She held the paper to a fire, and, as it began to burn, in a panic of flurry extinguished the edge, and hustled it into her bosom; then perambulated; then fell to a chair-edge with staring gaze; then, rocking her head which she had dropped upon a little table, moaned: "He is mad…."

"My flames of fire! Rebekah! I am dying…."

He suffered; and a pussy's wail mewed from her; but with a gasp of anger which said "Ho!" she sprang straight, and went ranging, with a stamping gait, through the chamber, filling it with passion. "I won't go !" she went with fixed lips, as something within her whispered: "You must".

To escape herself, she went again to see what had happened with regard to the convict, whose face would carry to the grave the scars of her nails.

There were no signs of any disturbance; and she asked a footman:
"Where is the man who was here?"

"With your father in the study".

That seemed a strange proceeding: she felt a touch of alarm for her father, and, passing again by the study, peeped; could see nothing for the key, but heard voices.

This messenger of Hogarth, she next thought, was a criminal: he might betray…so she stole into an adjacent room, to peep by a side door of the study, and though a key projecting toward her barred her vision, the talkers were near this point, and she could hear.

"The diamond block", O'Hara said, "is the same which he rolled across the bridge this morning; to that I'll swear".

"Then it must be the very same block he showed me", Frankl said in a whisper; "that thing was worth millions….!"

"Undoubtedly it was the same".

"Oh, but Lord", groaned the Jew in an anguish of self-deprecation, "where were my eyes ? where were my wits ? I must have been dreaming ! No, that's hard!"

"Well— nil desperandum ! Let us be acting, sir!"

"My own land—!"

"They are still safe enough: come—"

"He may have lost one or two—in his excitement. Thousands gone! He may have hidden some!"

"Tut, he has hidden none", said O'Hara; "we may have all. Let us make a move".

"But he is a strong man, this Hogarth. Why do you object to the assistance of the police?"

"What have the police to do with such a matter? Hogarth would simply bribe. And there are three of us—"

"Who is this Harris?"

"He is a Cockney—assassin".

Frankl took snuff, with busy pats at alternate nostrils.

"What will you tell him is in the bag?"

"Anything—rings—something prized by you for sentimental reasons.
We offer him a thousand—two thousand pounds. And he will not fail.
He strikes like lightning".

"And we share—how?"

"Come—let us not talk of that again, sir. What could be more generous than my offer? You divide the diamonds into two heaps, and I choose one; or I divide, you choose; and, before I leave you, you give me a declaration that it was by your contrivance that I escaped prison, and that the gems which I have, once yours, are duly made over to me".

"And you collar half!" gibed the Jew with an ogle of guile; "that's about as cool a stroke of business as I've come across. You don't take into account that the whole is mine, if the concern fell, as you confess, on my own land! And just ask yourself the question: what is to prevent me handing you over this minute to the police, and grabbing the lot? Only I'm not that sort of man—"

O'Hara drew a revolver.

"You talk to me as though I was a schoolboy, sir", said he sternly. "Be good enough to learn to respect me. I am not less a man of the world than you are, and quite competent to safeguard my own interests. Supposing I was weak enough to permit you to send for the police, the moment they had me I should tell of Hogarth in hiding; they would go for him, and he, after bribing, may be trusted to take wing with the stones, leaving you whistling. Or perhaps you would care to tackle him in person? He would wheel you by the beard round his arm like a Catherine-wheel, I do assure you. All this you see well, and pretend not to. Do let us be honest with each other!"

"Well, I don't want to be hard", said Frankl, looking sideward and downward, plotting behind an unwrinkled brow, intending to have every one of the diamonds; so did O'Hara, who already had his plot.

"No, don't be hard", said O'Hara: " I am not. I give you an incalculable fortune; I take the same. Live and let live! Why should two shrewd old fellows like you and me be like the dog which, wanting two bones, lost the one he had? Come, now—give me your hand on it".

"Well, I'm hanged if you are not right!" cried Frankl, looking up with discovery: "Share and share alike, and shame the devil! That's the kind of little man I am, frank, bluff, and stalwart—Ha! ha! Give me your hand on it, sir!"

"Ha! ha! you are very kind. That is the only way—absolute sincerity—" and they shook hands, hob-nobbing and fraternizing, with laughs and little nods, like cronies.

"Stop—I'll just ring for a drop of brandy—" said Frankl.

"No! no ringing!—thanks, thanks, no brandy—"

"Well, you are as cautious as they make them. Oh, perfectly right, you know—perfectly right"—he touched O'Hara's chest—"not a word to say against that. I am the same kind of man myself—"

"Come; are you for making a move?"

"Agreed. Where is my hat? I suppose a man may get his hat!—ha! ha!—
I can't very well go in this cap—-"

"You use mine—with the greatest pleasure. I do not need—Ah? quite the fit, quite the fit".

"Why, so it is. Ha! ha! why, it's a curate's hat, and—
I'm a Jew !"

"Excellent, excellent, ha! ha!"

So they made merry, and, with the bitter lip-corners of forced merriment, went out, while Rebekah, who had caught a great deal of that dialogue, crouched a long time there, agitated, uncertain what to do.

That her father should coolly look on at an assassination for a fortune was no revelation to her: she had long despised, yet, with an inconsistency due to the tenderness of Jewish family ties, still loved him; the notion of appealing to the police, therefore, who might ruin Hogarth, too, did not enter her head.

She ran and wrote: "Your life and bag of gems are at this moment in danger"; and sent it by a mounted messenger addressed to "The Guest at the Paper Shop".

But in twenty minutes the messenger returned to her with it, Hogarth having gone to the rendezvous at the elm—long before the appointed time.

When, accordingly, Frankl, O'Hara, and Harris arrived at the paper- shop back yard, and Harris had stolen up the back stairs, he presently, to the alarm and delight of the others, sent a whisper from the window: "No one 'ere as I can see!"

And the search for the diamonds was short: for Hogarth had actually left the bag containing them on the trunk, and Frankl and O'Hara returned with it to Westring, holding it out at arm's length, one with the right, one with the left hand, like standard-bearers.

Hogarth, meantime, was striding about the elm, and once fell to his knees, adoring a vision, and once, at a fancied step, his teeth- edges chattered.

Rebekah! He called, groaned, hissed that name, while his to-and-fro ranging quickened to a trot.

And now, fancying that he heard a call " Come ! " he stood startled, struck into a twisting enquiry to the four winds; but could not locate the call, ran hither and thither, saw no one.

"Come to me, little sister", he wailed tenderly, while to swallow was a doubtful spasm for him, her name a mountain in his bosom.

When he was certain that it must be nearer ten than "nine", he set out in the sway of a turbulent impulse to spurt for the Hall: but as he reached the point of proximity between path and park, just there where her father had stood that morning he saw her patiently waiting—ever since that " Come! "

He flew, and was about to skip up the bank, when, with forbidding arm, she cried: "Don't you approach me!"—and he stood checked and abject, one foot planted on the bank, looking up, ready to dart for her in her Oriental dress, flimsy, baggy at the girdle, her arms bare, her fingers clasped before her, making convex the two tassels of the girdle, from her ears depending circles of gold large enough to hoop with, a saffron headdress, stuck backward, showing her hair in front, falling upon a shawl which sheltered her frank recumbent shoulders. She did not see Hogarth at all, but stood averted, implacable, unapproachable, looking across the park, while Hogarth occupied a long silence in gazing up to where, like a show, she stood, illumined by the moon.

At last he sent to her the whisper, "Did you call just now? Did you say ' Come '?"

"What is it you want with me, Hogarth? You have ' summoned ' me: but be very quick".

"I told you: I am wealthier than all the princes—"

"Well, let me inform you that your life is in danger here; if you are a wise man, you will not fail to leave this neighbourhood this night".

"But no one knows—"

"It is known, Hogarth: your friends are false, and your enemies crafty. You will have to walk with your eyes open, my friend. What will you do with all the money?"

"I will buy the world, because you are in it".

Now she flashed upon him one glance, in which there was astonishment, and judgment.

"You said that so like my father! Hogarth among the dealers? I thought you would be more squeamish, and arduous, and complex".

"But if a man is famished, he is not complex, he runs to the baker's. You can have no conception how I perish! And I cannot be contradicted-I claim you-I have the right-I am the lord of this lower world—"

"But you do not see the effect of your words: you disappoint me
Richard. How of what the poet sings:

…this is my favoured lot,
My exaltation to afflictions high?

That is more in your line, you know, but you are dazzled, Hogarth- fie. To buy me ! And how would you like me afterwards, having renounced my obligations? And how would I like you -I whose name is Rebekah, who will mate with none but a wrestler, a fellow of heroic muscle? I feel certain that you are dazzled. It is natural, I suppose—But are all the people in the world so happy, that you too, can find nothing to occupy you but the market-place, with its buying and selling? And to buy me ? I am not for sale! How dare you, Hogarth?"

With this she walked off; but, having a creepy instinct in her back that he was on the point to follow, catch, and snatch her away, she span round again, crying: "Do not follow me! Mind you! If you like, be at the elm-tree again at half-past ten-and I will communicate with you. Goodbye—"

Now she did not once look back; and he had not heard that fainting
"Good-bye", it had fainted so.

He found himself presently in his room at the paper-shop, and lay biting the bed-clothes, spasm after spasm traversing his body.

Then, turning on his back, he lay with his face now toward the trunk, and a little clock ticked ten more minutes before the fact stole into his consciousness that the bag was not on the trunk.

For some time the disappearance was too stupendous to find room in his brain. He got up and paced, stunned, just conscious of a feeling of unease.

Now he was searching the room mechanically. It was not there….

And again he paced, tapping his top teeth with a finger-nail; and now he called down the stair: "Have you seen, Mrs. Sturgess, the calico bag you gave me to-day?"

"Why, no".

"Has anyone been in my room?"

"Why, no , sir! Only myself".

Again he began to pace, and suddenly the grand reality stabbed his brain like a dagger: he was poor….

O'Hara! Where was he….?

His forehead dropped upon the mantel-board, and he leant staring downward there, a miserable man.

But suddenly the man said quietly aloud, raising himself: "All right: better so. O, I have not been myself—virtue has gone out of me—!"

Presently he noticed that it was near the hour of her unexpected rendezvous under the elm….

And nearly all the way he ran—wild to see her again—until he neared the tree, when, descrying a female form, he came stooping with humility, but soon saw that it was a girl, her head in a shawl, whom he did not know.

And she, coming to meet him, said: "What is your name, sir?"

"Why?"

"I am Miss Frankl's messenger".

"My name is Hogarth".

"Will you turn this way that I may see your eyes?…All right:
Miss Frankl directs me to give you these".

The girl, who had been weighted down toward the left, handed him an envelope, and a steel box.

Never was he so bewildered! On the way home, he observed that the box had three knobs of gold, surrounded by rays, and, inlaid in the top, the letters "R. F."; when he tore open the envelope in his room he found in pencil on one half-sheet:

"Turn the 10 of the right knob to the ray 5; the 5 of the middle knob to the ray 0; the 15 of the left knob to the ray 10: and the box will open".

No more. When he had set wildly to work, and the lid turned back, his eyes beheld the calico bag.

Rebekah had, in fact, before setting out to the rendezvous at nine, seen her father and O'Hara return to the Hall, bearing the bag between them; and, she, crouching at the side door, as before, had heard them talk, arranging details. Her father had then said that before he could write any document, he must either ring or go search for paper: and suddenly she had heard an oath, a thud, a scuffle, had turned the key, softly entered, seen the men struggling against the other door, a revolver, held by the muzzle, in O'Hara's hand; and before she had been sighted by the two desperate men, had had the bag, lying near on an escritoire, and was gone. She had then sent some servants to the scene, and hurried to her chamber.

Later she had heard that O'Hara had escaped through a window, and that her father was raving below in a sort of fit: for Frankl supposed that O'Hara had the jewels, as O'Hara that Frankl had them; and after tending her father, she had dashed out to the rendezvous , the jewels then in her room.

As for Hogarth, he did not neglect her warning: and, having left a note for O'Hara, telling him where to find him, at Loveday's, took a late train southwards.

By what marvel Rebekah had become possessed of the jewels he did not even seek to fathom; but one of his uppermost feelings was shame for having suspected O'Hara of stealing them: and for years could never be got to believe in the bad faith of the prelate, his tutor.

Near midnight, on reaching the obscure townlet of Hadston, he there took a bed—not to sleep.

At the tiny inn-window he made periodic arrivals, looked out unseeing at a cart, a wall of flint and Flemish brick, and a moonlit country, then weighed anchor, and swerved away on another voyage; then arrived anew, looked out, saw nothing, and weighed.

He walked now in the dark of the valley of humiliation, with those words written in flame in his brain: "This is my favoured lot—my exaltation to afflictions high": he had allowed a woman to say them to him, and he went " I! "

He, the richest of men, was, therefore, that night poorer than any wretch, brought right down, naked, exposed to death, and he filled that chamber with his moans: "God have mercy upon me! a vulgar rich man…a dreadful contented clown…."

But toward morning he lay calmer, weeping like Peter, and at peace.

Being without money, he sent the next day a small stone to Loveday, asking him to sell it; also to meet old Tom Bates on the night appointed, and keep him till he, Hogarth, came to London.

Four days later he received the money in the name of "Mr. Beech", but the old Bates had not kept the rendezvous ; and a month later a detective agency discovered that the fisher was dead.

At Hadston Hogarth remained two months, the most occupied man anywhere, yet passing for a lounger in the townlet.

Here and now he was descended deep into himself, aspiring to greatness, set on high designs; and, as the days passed, his thoughts more and more took form, though sometimes, with a sudden heart-pang, he would flinch and shrink, pierced by a consciousness of the unwieldy thing which he was at; and he would mutter: "I must be mad". Anon he would start and cower at a distinct sound of cannon in his ears.

Usually, during the day, he had with him an atlas, a pair of compasses.

One day he took train, to see the sea.

Another day, happening to look into the goat-hair trunk, he saw that account-book, containing the addresses of the signatories to his old "association", and was overjoyed. "Quite a little army", he tenderly said: "I won't forget them".

After two months he left Hadston for London, having in his head a new age hatched. 9Bi4rzX+MmzqNYhWkDUyxiGqhCQd5gu2H3ZKMdvMFZEBwNGQYee3MZHNhKxLD0YM