The Guinea Stamp | Page 2

VAIN, 315
XXXIX. GONE, 323
XL. THE MATRONS ADVISE, 331
XLI. A GREAT RELIEF, 338
XLII. A DISCOVERY, 345

XLIII. A WOMAN'S HEART, 352
XLIV. THE MAGDALENE, 361
XLV. THE BOLT FALLS, 369
XLVI. THE WORLD WELL LOST, 377

[Illustration]
THE GUINEA STAMP
CHAPTER I.
FATHERLESS.
It was an artist's studio, a poor, shabby little place, with a latticed
window facing the north. There was nothing in the furnishing or
arrangement of the room to suggest successful work, or even artistic
taste. A few tarnished gold frames leaned against the gaudily-papered
wall, and the only picture stood on the dilapidated easel in the middle
of the floor, a small canvas of a woman's head, a gentle Madonna face,
with large supplicating eyes, and a sensitive, sad mouth, which seemed
to mourn over the desolation of the place. The palette and a few worn
brushes were scattered on the floor, where the artist had laid them down
for ever. There was one living creature in the room, a young girl, not
more than sixteen, sitting on a stool by the open window, looking out
listlessly on the stretch of dreary fenland, shrouded in the cold and
heavy mist. It was a day on which the scenery of the fen country looked
desolate, cheerless, and chill. These green meadows and flat stretches
have need of the sunshine to warm them always. Sitting there in the
soft grey light, Gladys Graham looked more of a woman than a child,
though her gown did not reach her ankles, and her hair hung in a thick
golden plait down her back. Her face was very careworn and very sad,
her eyes red and dim with long weeping. There was not on the face of
the earth a more desolate creature than the gentle, slender girl, the

orphan of a day. At an age when life should be a joyous and lovely
thing to the maiden child, Gladys Graham found herself face to face
with its grimmest reality, certain of only one thing, that somewhere and
somehow she must earn her bread. She was thinking of it at that
moment, with her white brows perplexedly knitted, her mouth made
stern by doubt and apprehension and despair; conning in her mind her
few meagre accomplishments, asking herself how much they were
likely to bring in the world's great mart. She could read and write and
add a simple sum, finger the keys of the piano and the violin strings
with a musicianly touch, draw a little, and dream a great deal. That was
the sum total of her acquirements, and she knew very well that the
value of such things was nil. What, then, must become of her? The
question had become a problem, and she was very far away yet from its
solution.
The house was a plain and primitive cottage in the narrow street of a
little Lincolnshire village--a village which was a relic of the old days,
before the drainage system was introduced, transforming the fens into a
fertile garden, which seems to bloom and blossom summer and winter
through. Its old houses reminded one of a Dutch picture, which the
quaint bridges across the waterways served to enhance. There are many
such in the fen country, dear to the artist's soul.
John Graham was not alone in his love for the wide reaches, level as
the sea, across which every village spire could be seen for many a mile.
Not very far away, in clear weather, the great tower of Boston, not
ungraceful, stood out in awe-inspiring grandeur against the sky, and
was pointed out with pride and pleasure by all who loved the fens and
rejoiced in the revived prosperity of their ancient capital. For ten years
John Graham had been painting pictures of these level and monotonous
plains, and of the bits to be found at every village corner, but somehow,
whether people had tired of them, or hesitated to give their money for
an unknown artist's work, the fortune he had dreamed of never came.
The most of the pictures found their way to the second-hand dealers,
and were there sold often for the merest trifle. He had somehow missed
his mark,--had proved himself a failure,--and the world has not much
patience or sympathy with failures. A great calamity, such as a colossal

bankruptcy, which proves the bankrupt to be more rogue than fool,
arouses in it a touch of admiration, and even a curious kind of respect;
but with the man out at elbows, who has striven vainly against fearful
odds, though he may have kept his integrity throughout, it will have
nothing to do; he will not be forgiven for having failed.
And now, when he lay dead, the victim of an ague contracted in his
endeavour to catch a