Sir George Tressady, vol 2 | Page 9

die. She--Madeleine--was his friend, his good angel. Would she go
to his mother and break it to her? Would she understand, and forgive
him? There must be no opposition, or he would shoot himself. And so
on, till the poor girl, worn out with excitement and grief, tottered into
Mrs. Allison's room more dead than alive.
But at that point Fontenoy stopped abruptly.
George agreed that the story was almost incredible, and added the
inward and natural comment of the public-school man--that if people
will keep their boys at home, and defraud them of the kickings that are
their due, they may look out for something unwholesome in the
finished product. Then, aloud, he said:
"I should imagine that Ancoats was acting through the greater part of
that. He had said to himself that such a scene would be effective--and
would be new."
"Good heavens!--why, that makes it ten thousand times more

abominable than before!"
"I daresay," said George, coolly. "But it also makes the future, perhaps,
a little more hopeful--throws some light on the passion or pose
alternative. My impression is, that if we can only find an effective exit
for Ancoats,--a last act that he would consider worthy of him,--he will
bow himself out of the business willingly enough."
Fontenoy smiled rather gloomily, and the two walked on in silence.
Once or twice, as they paced the Terrace, George glanced sidelong at
his leader. A corner of Fontenoy's nightly letter to Mrs. Allison was, he
saw, sticking out of the great man's coat-pocket. Every night he wrote a
crowded sheet upon his knee, under the shelter of a Blue Book, and on
one or two nights George's quick eyes had not been able to escape from
the pencilled address on the envelope to which it was ultimately
consigned. The sheet was written with the regularity and devotion of a
Prime Minister reporting to the Sovereign.
Well! it was all very touching and very remarkable. But George had
some sympathy with Ancoats. To be virtually saddled with a stepfather,
with whom your minutest affairs are confidentially discussed, and yet
to have it said by all the world that your poor mother is too unselfish
and too devoted to her son to marry again--the situation is not without
its pricks. And that Ancoats was acutely conscious of them George had
good reason to know.
"I say, Tressady, will you pair till eleven?" cried a man, swinging
bareheaded along the Terrace with his hat in his hand. "I want an hour
or two off badly, and there will be no big guns on till eleven or so."
George exchanged a word or two with Fontenoy, then stood still, and
thought a moment. A sudden animation flushed into his face. Why not?
"All right!" he said; "till eleven."
Then he and Fontenoy went back to dine. As they mounted the dark
staircase leading from the Terrace another man caught Tressady by the

arm.
"The strike notices are out," he said. "I have just had a wire. Everyone
leaves work to-night."
George shrugged his shoulders. He had been expecting the news at any
moment, and was glad that the long shilly-shallying on both sides was
at last over.
"Good luck to them!" he said. "I'm glad. The fight had to come."
"Oh! we shall be in the middle of arbitration before a fortnight's up.
The men won't stand."
George shook his head. He himself believed that the struggle would last
on through the autumn.
"Well, to be sure, there's Burrows," said his informant, himself a large
coal-owner in the Ferth district; "if Burrows keeps sober, and if
somebody doesn't buy him, Burrows will do his worst."
"That we always knew," said George, laughing, and passed on. He had
but just time to catch his train.
He walked across to the Underground station, and by the time he
reached it he had clean forgotten his pits and the strike, though as he
passed the post-office in the House a sheaf of letters and telegrams had
been put into his hands. Rather, he was full of a boy's eagerness and
exultation. He had never supposed he could be let off to-night, till the
offer of Dudley's pair tempted him. And now, in half an hour he would
be in that queer Mile End room, watching her--quarrelling with her.
A little later, however, as he was sitting quietly in the train, quick
composite thoughts of Letty, of his miners, and his money difficulties
began to clutch at him again. Perhaps, now that the strike was a reality,
it might even be a help to him and a bridle to his wife. Preposterous,
what she was doing and planning at Perth! His face flushed and
hardened as he thought of their many wrangles during the past fortnight,

her constant drag