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28 chapters
CHAPTER I.
CHAPTER I.
The Victoria Bank, Toronto, is on the corner of Bay and Front Streets, where it overlooks a part of the harbor large enough to gladden the eyes of the bank-clerks who are aquatic in their habits and have time to look out of the windows. Young gentlemen in tattered and ink-stained coats, but irreproachable in the matter of trousers and linen, had been known to gaze longingly and wearily down toward that strip of shining water when hard fate in the shape of bank duty apparently remained indifferen
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CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER II.
This fellow might be in's time a great buyer of land, with his statutes, his fines, his double vouchers, his recoveries.— Hamlet. As Jack expected, it did not take long for his friend Hampstead to show where the mistake about the three cents lay; and then they sallied forth for a little stroll on King Street before dinner. They lived in adjoining chambers in the Tremaine Buildings on King Street. The rooms had been intended for law offices, and were reached by a broad flight of stairs leading up
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CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER III.
At the opening of this story, about six months had elapsed since Rankin had been licensed to prey upon the public, and as yet he had not despoiled it to any great extent. If he had kept body and soul together, it was done in ways that are not enticing to young gentlemen who dream of attacking the law single-handed. An old lawyer named Bean had an office in the lower part of Tremaine Buildings, and Maurice arranged with him to occupy one of the ancient desks in his office, and, in consideration o
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CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER IV.
How can I tell the feelings in a young lady's mind; the thoughts in a young gentleman's bosom? As Professor Owen takes a fragment of bone and builds a forgotten monster out of it, so the novelist puts this and that together: from the foot-prints finds the foot; from the foot, the brute who trod on it; ... traces this slimy reptile through the mud; ... prods down this butterfly with a pin. — Thackeray ( The Newcomes ). Hampstead did not get to sleep, after Rankin had retired, as early as he expec
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CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER V.
Mr. Lindon did not remain long with his family on the trip which Mrs. Lindon thought was only to last a month or two. On arriving in England, he transacted his business in a short time, and then proposed a run on the Continent. By degrees he took the family on to Rome, where they made friends at the hotel and seemed contented to remain for a while. He then pretended to have received a cablegram, and came home by the quickest route, having got them fairly installed in a foreign country without le
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CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VI.
If anybody had stated that Geoffrey Hampstead was a scoundrel, he would have had grounds for his opinion. As he did not attempt to palliate his own misdeeds, nobody will do so for him. He repudiated the idea of being led into wrong-doing, or driven into it by outside circumstances. Whatever he did, he liked to do thoroughly, and of his own accord. When Nature lavishes her gifts, much ability for both good and evil is usually part of the general endowment; and, although, perhaps, if we knew more,
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CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VII.
Rosalind. Sir, you have wrestled well, and overthrown more than your enemies.— As You Like It. In the few weeks following the entertainment of the Dusenalls, Hampstead had not seen Nina. He felt he had been doing harm. The memory of that which had occurred and a twinge or two at his unfaithfulness to his friend Jack had made him avoid seeing her. But afterward, as fancy for seeing her again came to him more persistently, he gradually reverted to the old method of self-persuasion, that if she pre
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CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER VIII.
Mr. Maurice Rankin was enjoying his summer vacation. Although the courts were closed he still could be seen carrying his blue bag through the street on his way to and from the police court and other places. It is true that, for ordinary professional use, the bag might have been abandoned, but how was he to know when a sprat might catch a whale?—to say nothing of the bag's being so convenient for the secret and non-committal transportation of those various and delectable viands that found their w
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CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER IX.
Nothing tends to convince us of the element of chance in our lives more than noticing the consequences of whims. We act and react upon each other, after joining in a movement, till its origin is forgotten and lost. A politician conceives a whim to dazzle a fighting people with a war, and the circumstances of thousands are unexpectedly and irretrievably altered. We map out our lives for ourselves, and propose to adhere to the chart, but on considering the effects of chance, one's life often seems
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CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER X.
There is a want of primness in the manners and customs of my characters which a reviewer might take exception to. To be sure he might with effect criticise their making up a pool on Sunday. But the fact was that nobody remembered it to be Sunday until Jack wanted to collect his winnings after dinner. At this, Mrs. Dusenall held up her hands in high disapproval. While out in the lake, in the worst part of the sea, she had commenced to read her Bible, and had felt thankful to arrive in shelter. Co
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YACHTING ONLY.
YACHTING ONLY.
Some hearts might have yearned to have been on board during the fishing in Hay Bay, and to have enjoyed those evenings when the yacht anchored in the twilight calm, beside rocky shores, or near waving banks of sedge and rushes, where the whip-poor-will and bull frog supplied all the necessary music. I abandon all that occurred at pretty Picton and Belleville, but I must not forget the little episode that happened one evening near Indian Point as the yacht was on her way to Kingston. A fresh bree
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CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XII.
When approaching from the west among picturesque islands and past wooded points of land, our old city of Kingston affords the traveler a pleasant scene. Above the blue and green expanse of her spacious harbor, the penitentiary with its high wall and surrounding turrets suggests the Canadian justice we are proud of; and, further up, rises the asylum, suggestive only of Canadian lunacy, for which we do not claim pre-eminence, while beyond, some little spires and domes, sparkling in the sun, are se
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CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIII.
Mrs. Dusenall liked the visit to Kingston. She was proud of the appearance her guests and family made at the church, and she thought of going home and writing a book as prodigal of pretty woodcuts and fascinating price-lists as those published by other gilded ladies. True, she had with her no young children wherewith to awake interest in foreign places by detailing what occurred in the ship's nursery; and thus she might have been driven to say something about the foreign places themselves, which
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CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XIV.
The "old roadster" had a busy time of it the next morning preparing for the visit to the islands. She was steaming up and down the river for a long while before our friends knew it was time to get up. At eleven o'clock she took on board the Canadians, and away they went—not at "better" than twenty miles an hour, but pretty fast. Mr. Cowper's hint that the Ideal was magnificent in its fittings had pleased the Dusenalls. They thought he had been somewhat impressed by a swinging chandelier over the
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CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XV.
Next morning the deck of the Ideal was all activity. A strong northeasterly wind had sprung up, so that by a rare chance they were able to sail up the current instead of employing a tug. Only the paid hands and one or two others were on deck as they struggled up the stream till near Clayton. Here the channels opened out, the current seemed to ease up, and they got the wind continuously as she boiled up to Kingston. The steward went ashore at the city, and there was a delay while he was getting i
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CHAPTER XVI.
CHAPTER XVI.
A fine spring afternoon. A dark-eyed, well-dressed young lady with an attractive figure descends from a street car near the Don Bridge. She crosses the bridge leisurely and proceeds eastward along the Kingston Road toward Scarborough. Whatever her destination may be, the time at which she arrives is evidently of no consequence. She does "belong" down Kingston Roadway. The street car dropped her there, and one may come a long way for ten cents on street cars. From the uninterested way in which sh
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CHAPTER XVII.
CHAPTER XVII.
Consider the work of God: for who can make that straight, which he hath made crooked?— Ecclesiastes vii, 13. A few days after the disturbance in the dog-cart Geoffrey and Maurice Rankin were dining, on a Sunday, with the Mackintoshes. After dinner a walk was proposed, and Margaret went out with them, very spick-and-span and charming in an old black silk "made over," and with a bright bunch of common geraniums at her belt. She had invited the young lawyer partly because he had seemed so distrustf
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CHAPTER XVIII.
CHAPTER XVIII.
Those aggressive impulses inherited from the pre-social state—those tendencies to seek self-satisfaction regardless of injury to other beings, which are essential to a predatory life, constitute an anti-social force, tending ever to cause conflict and eventual separation of citizens.— Herbert Spencer , Synthetic Philosophy. Nina Lindon had by no means given up the pulse-stirring and secret drives with Geoffrey. The only thing she had given up was saying to herself that in the future she would no
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II.
II.
He wondered that the word "soul" had as yet no synonym to express what he meant without, as he said, "borrowing the language of superstition." For this he claimed poetical license. He was amused at the similarity of his verse to some kind of religious prayer or praise. "Perhaps," he said, "all loves, when sufficiently refined, have only one language—whether the aspirations be addressed to Chemosh or Dagon or Mary or Jahveh, or to the woman who embodies all one knows of good. But perhaps, more li
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CHAPTER XX.
CHAPTER XX.
After a prolonged visit in Montreal, Nina had been back in Toronto for a short time, during which she had seen no one except Jack, whose two visits she had rendered so unpleasant that he felt inclined to do anything from hara-kari to marrying somebody else. At this time Geoffrey received a note one morning, addressed in Nina's handwriting. He turned pale as he tore it open: " Dear Mr. Hampstead : I wish to see you for a moment this afternoon. If not too much trouble, would you call here at five
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CHAPTER XXI.
CHAPTER XXI.
Life is so complicated a game that the devices of skill are liable to be defeated at every turn by air-blown chances incalculable as the descent of thistledown.— George Eliot's Romola . During Jack's visit to her father's office, Nina passed the time in desultory shopping until she met him on King Street. "I need not ask what your success was," said she, smiling, as she joined him. "Your face shows that clearly enough." "Nothing less than a dook," groaned Jack, good-humoredly. "He seems to think
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CHAPTER XXII.
CHAPTER XXII.
Jack made another mistake in coming on to Toronto after finding out the disastrous failure of his supposed marriage. If he had gone to Lockport and found Nina at her friend's house, perhaps some arrangement could have been made for their marriage in Buffalo on the following day. Mr. Toxham, the clergyman on whom Jack called at the parsonage, had tried to get his ear for advice on this subject. But, as mentioned before, when Jack read the address of Matthew Simpson he immediately bolted out, with
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CHAPTER XXIII.
CHAPTER XXIII.
After leaving Nina, Jack went to the club, where he found Geoffrey playing pool with half a dozen others, whose demeanor well indicated the number of times the lamp had been rubbed for the genius with the tray to appear. Geoffrey seemed to be in good-humor, but he gave Jack the idea of playing against time. He strode around the table rapidly as he took his shots, as if not caring whether he won or lost. The only effect the liquor seemed to have upon him was to make him grow fierce. Every movemen
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CHAPTER XXIV.
CHAPTER XXIV.
Comprehensive talkers are apt to be tiresome when we are not athirst for information; but to be quite fair, we must admit that superior reticence is a good deal due to lack of matter. Speech is often barren; but silence also does not necessarily brood over a full nest.— George Eliot —( Felix Holt ). It did not take Detective Dearborn long to find out that Jack had engaged a cab early in the morning and had then removed some luggage from his rooms. This confirmed him in the idea that the crime ha
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CHAPTER XXV.
CHAPTER XXV.
When Jack got on board the North Star he found that, although he had shipped as working passenger, the wily mate had taken him as one of the crew, with the intention, doubtless, of pocketing the wages which otherwise would have gone to the sailor who would have been employed. Several of the sailors were rather intoxicated, and the rest were just getting over a spree. They came down into the forecastle just before leaving, and seeing Jack there, whom they did not know, were very silent. One of th
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CLEVER CAPTURE! JACK CRESSWELL, THE VICTORIA BANK ROBBER ARRESTED! THE STOLEN $50,000 SUPPOSED TO BE NOW RECOVERED! EXCITING CHASE AND EXTRAORDINARY DETECTIVE WORK! A BULL'S-EYE FOR DETECTIVE DEARBORN! PRISONER CAPTURED DURING A COLLISION BETWEEN TWO VESSELS! WRECK OF THE STEAMER ELEUSINIAN!! ALL ON BOARD LOST!! EXCEPT THE WILY DETECTIVE. GREAT EXCITEMENT!! FURTHER DISCLOSURES ABOUT THE BANK!!! THE BLOATED ARISTOCRACY SHAKEN TO ITS FOUNDATIONS!!!!
CLEVER CAPTURE! JACK CRESSWELL, THE VICTORIA BANK ROBBER ARRESTED! THE STOLEN $50,000 SUPPOSED TO BE NOW RECOVERED! EXCITING CHASE AND EXTRAORDINARY DETECTIVE WORK! A BULL'S-EYE FOR DETECTIVE DEARBORN! PRISONER CAPTURED DURING A COLLISION BETWEEN TWO VESSELS! WRECK OF THE STEAMER ELEUSINIAN!! ALL ON BOARD LOST!! EXCEPT THE WILY DETECTIVE. GREAT EXCITEMENT!! FURTHER DISCLOSURES ABOUT THE BANK!!! THE BLOATED ARISTOCRACY SHAKEN TO ITS FOUNDATIONS!!!!
Detective Dearborn, on his arrival in Toronto, was so certain of convicting his prisoner that he threw the hungry newspaper reporters some choice and tempting morceaux . And, from the little that he gave them, they built up such an interesting and imaginative article that one was forced to think of the scientific society described by Bret Harte, when Mr. Brown— Indeed, from the glowing colors in which the detective's chase was painted, from the many allusions to Jack's high standing in society a
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CHAPTER XXVII.
CHAPTER XXVII.
He who is false to present duty breaks a thread in the loom, and will find the flaw when he may have forgotten its cause.— Henry Ward Beecher. About two o'clock on this day of the trial, when Geoffrey and all the rest of the bank-clerks were hurrying through their work in order to get out to attend the police court, Mr. Dearborn came in unexpectedly, and talked to Hampstead for a while. He said that the prisoner Cresswell was very ill, perhaps dying, and had begged him to go and bring Geoffrey t
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CHAPTER XXVIII.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
As Rankin broke the news to Margaret—by degrees and very quietly—she showed but little sign of feeling. Her face whitened and she moved stiffly to the open window, where she could sit in the draught. As she made Rankin tell her the whole story she simply grew stony, while she sat with bloodless hands clinched together, as if she thus clutched at her soul to save it from the madness of a terrible grief. Suddenly she interrupted him. "Dismiss your cab," she said. "I will walk back with you part of
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