It was now March 5th, and how the widow and her son had lived during the past two months the doctor could only guess from the gradual depletion of their little store of furniture.
It was odd that such an intelligent and well-bred woman should be so completely shut off from the rest of the world, and his first question to Phil sought to determine this mystery.
"Surely," he said, "there is some one to whom you can appeal for help. Your father and mother must have had some relatives – even distant cousins – and, if they are written to, a friendly hand may be forthcoming."
Philip shook his head. The mere taste of food had provoked a ravenous appetite. He could not eat fast enough. The doctor stayed him.
"Better wait a couple of hours, Phil, and then you can tackle a hearty meal. That's the thing. I like to see such prompt obedience, but you certainly have wonderful self-control for one so young. I may tell you, to relieve present anxieties, that a few employees of your father's firm have guaranteed the expenses of your mother's funeral, and they also gave me a sovereign to tide you over the next few days."
Funeral! The word struck with sledge-hammer force. Phil had not thought of that. He remembered the dismal pomp of such events in this squalid locality, the loud sobbing of women, the hard-faced agony of men, the frightened curiosity of children. His mother, so dear, so tender, so soft-cheeked – the bright, beautiful, laughing woman of their life in Dieppe – to be taken away from him forever, and permitted to fade slowly into nothingness in some dreadful place, hidden from the sunshine and the flowers she loved! For the first time he understood death. When his father was killed his mother was left. Anxious tending on her dispelled the horror of the greater tragedy. Now all was lost. The tears that he hated were welling forth again, and he savagely bit his lip.
"You have been – very good – to us, doctor," he forced himself to say. "If ever – I can repay you – "
"There, there, not a word! Bless my soul, yours is a difficult case."
Again the doctor tackled his glove. He glanced at his watch.
"Four o'clock! I am an hour late on my rounds. No, Phil. Don't go upstairs. There are some women coming. Wait until they have tended your mother. And – one last word. It will do you no good to keep vigil by her side. Best think of her as living, not dead. You will be grateful for my advice in after life."
The women arrived, coarse but kindly-hearted creatures. One of them gave the boy a packet of letters.
"I found 'em under the dear lydy's pillow," she said. Neither poverty nor death robbed Mrs. Anson of the respect paid to her by all who came in contact with her.
He sat down, untied a string which bound the letters together, and looked at the address on the first envelope. It bore his mother's name and a recent postmark. Wondering dolefully what correspondence she could have had during these later months that demanded such careful preservation, he took out the letter. Suddenly he hesitated. Perhaps these documents alluded to something which his mother did not wish him to know. For an instant his impulse was to consign the packet to the fire. No; that might be wrong. He would glance at their general purport and then commit them to the flames if he thought fit.
The letter in his hand was headed: "The Hall, Beltham, Devon," and dated about a month earlier. It read:
"Dear Madam: I am requested by Sir Philip Morland to ask you not to trouble him with further correspondence. This is the fourth time I have been desired by him to write in these terms, so please note that your letters will in future remain unanswered.
The curt incivility of the note brought an angry flush to the boy's face. Who was Sir Philip Morland that he should dare to offer this insult to a lady? Evidently a relative, and a near one, for Morland was his mother's name, and his own Christian name suggested a family connection. Yet she had never spoken of any such person.
Three other letters, of preceding dates, showed that "Louisa Morland" kept accurate reckoning. There were half a dozen more, from a firm of solicitors. Some of these were merely formal acknowledgments of letters received and forwarded, but one stated that they "were instructed by Lady Morland to inform Mrs. Anson that Sir Philip Morland declined either to see or hear from her."
That was all. Philip sprang up with face aflame. He was alone in the house now, alone with his dead mother.
He went upstairs, with the letters crushed in his right hand as though he would choke a reptile which had stung the only being he loved. He bent over the shrunken form, so placid, so resigned, so angelic in the peace of death, and his hot tears fell unchecked.
"You poor darling," he murmured, "I believe you humbled yourself even to beg from these people for my sake. What can I do to show my love for you?"
CHAPTER II
On the Edge of the Precipice
On Friday evening, March 19th, a thunderstorm of unusual violence broke over London. It was notably peculiar in certain of its aspects. The weather was cold and showery, a typical day of the March equinox. Under such conditions barometric pressure remains fixed rather than variable, yet many whose business or hobby it is to record such facts observed a rapid shrinkage of the mercury column between the hours of six and seven. A deluge of rain fell for many minutes, and was followed, about 7.30 P. M., by a mad turmoil of thunder and an astounding electrical display not often witnessed beyond the confines of the giant mountain ranges of the world.
So violent and unnerving was the outburst that the social life of London was paralyzed for the hour. Theater parties, diners in the fashionable restaurants, the greater millions anxious to get away from offices and shops, those eager alike to enter and leave the charmed circle of the four-mile radius, were ruthlessly bidden to wait while the awesome forces of nature made mad racket in the streets. All horseflesh was afraid. The drivers of cabs and omnibuses were unable to make progress. They had sufficient ado to restrain their maddened animals from adding the havoc of blind charges through the streets to the general confusion caused by the warring elements. Telegraph and telephone wires became not only useless but dangerous, and the suburban train service was consequently plunged into a tangle from which it was not extricated until midnight.
So general was the confusion, so widespread the public alarm, that the sudden cessation of the uproar at eight o'clock caused more prayers of thankfulness to be uttered in the metropolis than had been heard for many a day. But worse remained. Thus far the lightning had been appalling, brilliantly lurid, but harmless. At ten o'clock the storm raged again, this time without the preliminary downfall of rain, and the lightning, though less sensational in appearance, was demoniac in effect, levying a toll on human lives, causing fires and general damage to property, accounts of which filled many columns of the newspapers next morning. This second outburst was succeeded by heavy and continuous rain. At the hour when the theaters emptied their diminishing audiences into the streets London wore its normal rain-sodden aspect. It was not until the following day that people fully understood the magnitude and terrifying results of the later display.
About a quarter to eight, while the first storm was at its height, a carriage and pair dashed into a fashionable West End square and pulled up outside a mansion cast in the stereotyped mold of the early Victorian period. The horses, overfed and underworked, had been rendered frantic by the drive through the park from the further west. Fortunately, they knew this halting place, or the coachman would never have succeeded in stopping them. As it was, they sweated white with fear, and the footman, shouting to the occupants of the carriage that he could not attend to the door, ran to their heads after giving a vigorous tug at the house bell.
A boy, tall and thin, and scantily attired for such weather,
