Wayfaring Men. Lyall Edna

she was slipping from him. “Together, darling, we should be happy, we should be strong to work for art’s sake and for truth’s sake—strong to fight all that is evil.”

      They had paused, and were standing now beside the railing that fenced off the grass and bushes, and within a stone’s throw of Ralph and Evereld; half unconsciously Macneillie watched the progress of the toy boat as the soft summer wind filled its white sails. At a little distance the ducks swam about the wooded island, and in the golden haze Queen Anne’s Mansions loomed up impressively like some great fortress.

      “But I don’t want to toil and to struggle like that,” said his companion, petulantly. “Every word you say only proves to me how far we have drifted apart, Hugh. You have a sort of ideal of me in your mind not in the least like the true Christine. I tell you I am tired of all your ideals and aims and dreams of raising the drama. That is not what I care for. I care for success and applause—yes I do, don’t interrupt me. I care for them, and I must have them. And I want a better position, and I want much, much more money. I want other things, too, which you can never give me. You’ll never be a rich man, Hugh, it’s somehow not in you; you’ll never push your way to the very front of the profession. But I must do that, nothing but the very first place will satisfy me. I have ten times your ambition.”

      “By that sin fell the angels,” said Macneillie.

      “Don’t quote Shakspere, we have enough of him every evening,” she said, forcing a laugh. “And for me, I am not an angel as you very well know. Come, let us make an end of this useless talk. My father is at this moment discussing settlements with Sir Roderick, and in a day or two all the world will know that the marriage is arranged.”

      Macneillie’s lips moved but no words would come—he breathed hard.

      “Don’t look like that, Hugh,” she exclaimed. “We shall often see each other; we shall be the best of friends; and when I have my own theatre, why you shall be the first to find a place in the company.”

      A look of hot anger flashed across Macneillie’s haggard face.

      “Do you think I would accept such a post?” he said, indignantly. “For what do you take me?” Then, his tone softening to tender reproach, “You don’t understand a man’s love—you don’t understand!”

      “Perhaps I don’t understand it,” she said, looking rather nettled; “but I have met plenty of men who were dying for love of me one month and raving about some one else the next. There, I must go home. Talking only makes matters worse. Go and take a good walk, Hugh, or you will act abominably to-night. Au revoir!”

      She beckoned to her maid and turned away abruptly, anxious to put an end to an interview which had been trying to both of them. Her face was grave and down-cast as she walked, and more than once she sighed heavily. She had never been formally betrothed to Macneillie, but there had been a private engagement between them, and she had spoken quite truly when she said that his care during her girlhood had shielded her from many perils. Her love for him had been very real; she had struggled long against the opposition of her parents, but at last her strength had failed, and little by little she had yielded to the influence which by degrees had paralysed her powers of loving.

      “Poor Hugh,” she thought to herself, remorsefully. “He is terribly cut up. But I was never good enough for him. Sir Roderick and the low level will suit me much better.”

      After he was left alone, Macneillie did not move for some minutes. He just leant on the iron fence with clenched hands and set face, despair in his heart. The voices of the two children to the right fell on his ear, mingling strangely with his miserable thoughts.

      “I shall lose her! I shall lose her!” cried the boy in a tragic voice.

      “How came you to let go of the string?” asked his small companion.

      “I had forgotten all about it; I was thinking of those people. Hurrah! the wind is shifting; she is coming nearer. I do believe I could reach her with my stick.”

      Macneillie watched the boy’s strenuous efforts to recapture the tiny craft, which seemed almost within his reach, yet somehow always eluded him. Suddenly, at the very moment when his stick had touched the boat, he lost his balance and fell headlong over the low foot-rail into the water.

      Macneillie had hurried to the rescue before Evereld’s cry of terror had reached Fraulein Ellerbeck. He lifted out the dripping boy and laid him on the path, and Ralph, recovering from the shock and rubbing his wet eyelashes, looked up to find a grave face bending over him and to meet the inquiry of the kindest blue-grey eyes he had ever seen.

      “None the worse for your bath, I hope?” said Macneillie, smiling a little.

      “No, thank you,” said Ralph, struggling to his feet and looking very much like Johnnie Head-in-air when “with hooks the two strong men hooked poor Johnnie out again.”

      “It was awfully good of you to help me,” he added, gratefully.

      “And now let us rescue the boat,” said Macneillie, winning golden opinions from the children by the real pains he took to capture the Rob Roy, and the same from Fraulein Ellerbeck by his courteous farewell.

      “So few Englishmen,” she remarked, “know how to bow. You must take a lesson from him, Ralph.”

      “And, oh, Fraulein,” said Evereld, as they walked briskly home, that Ralph might change his clothes, “did you see what a long time Miss Christine Greville stayed talking to him? And part of the time they were quite close to us, and we heard her say that soon every one would know she was to be married—I think, to some very rich man—and she would have a theatre of her own, and Mr. Macneillie should act there.”

      “You should not have listened, my dears,” said Fraulein Ellerbeck, uneasily.

      “But, indeed, Fraulein, we couldn’t help it; her voice was so very, very clear, it reached us every word just like raindrops pattering on leaves.”

      “And so did his voice too,” said Ralph. “He seemed quite angry when she said that. He said he would never accept such a post, and that she didn’t a bit understand how he loved her.”

      “Well, well,” said Fraulein, “let us say no more about it now; and be sure you never repeat what you accidentally overheard. It may be a secret from people in general, and it would be more honourable if you treated it as a secret.”

      The children promised that they would do so, but, like the celebrated parrot, though they said nothing, they thought the more, and Macneillie became their great hero. Through him they had both received their first glimpse into the unknown region where men and women loved and suffered; and, since they both were missing the familiar home life and the close companionship of parents, they seized eagerly on this new outlet for certain feelings of reverence and hero-worship which they both possessed.

      Could the actor have known what sympathy and devotion these two felt for him, or how real was their childish love and admiration, he would have felt, even at that bitter time in his life, a touch of amused gratitude and wonder. Wholly unknown to himself he was filling the minds of two somewhat desolate little mortals, brightening their tedious days, and drawing them out of themselves and their own troubles.

      Often, in after years, they would laugh to think what pleasure they had found in running downstairs before the breakfast gong had sounded, that they might get possession of the Times and see the announcement of “Hamlet,” in which Macneillie was appearing. And one morning it chanced that their two smiling faces were still bent over the paper when Sir Matthew came into the room.

      “Well,” he said, kindly, “what good news have you found?”

      For once Ralph forgot the shy stiffness of manner which usually crept over him at his guardian’s approach.

      “Oh,” he said, in an eager boyish way, “We were just looking at the cast for ‘Hamlet.’”

      “To be sure. I had