I had hoped that they would soon get over the first bitterness of their loss, and that Bingo would be first replaced and then forgotten in the usual way; but there seemed no signs of this coming to pa.s.s.

The poor Colonel was too plainly fretting himself ill about it; he went pottering about forlornly--advertising, searching, and seeing people, but all of course to no purpose, and it told upon him. He was more like a man whose only son and heir had been stolen, than an Anglo-Indian officer who had lost a poodle. I had to affect the liveliest interest in all his inquiries and expeditions, and to listen to, and echo, the most extravagant eulogies of the departed, and the wear and tear of so much duplicity made me at last almost as ill as the Colonel himself.

I could not help seeing that Lilian was not nearly so much impressed by my elaborate concern as her relatives; and sometimes I detected an incredulous look in her frank brown eyes that made me very uneasy.

Little by little, a rift widened between us, until at last in despair I determined to know the worst before the time came when it would be hopeless to speak at all. I chose a Sunday evening as we were walking across the green from church in the golden dusk, and then I ventured to speak to her of my love. She heard me to the end, and was evidently very much agitated. At last she murmured that it could not be, unless--no, it never could be now.

"Unless what?" I asked. "Lilian--Miss Roseblade, something has come between us lately: you will tell me what that something is, won"t you?"

"Do you want to know _really_?" she said, looking up at me through her tears. "Then I"ll tell you: it--it"s Bingo!"

I started back overwhelmed. Did she know all? If not, how much did she suspect? I must find out that at once! "What about Bingo?" I managed to p.r.o.nounce, with a dry tongue.

"You never l-loved him when he was here," she sobbed; "you know you didn"t!"

I was relieved to find it was no worse than this.

"No," I said candidly; "I did not love Bingo. Bingo didn"t love _me_, Lilian; he was always looking out for a chance of nipping me somewhere.

Surely you won"t quarrel with me for that!"

"Not for that," she said; "only, why do you pretend to be so fond of him now, and so anxious to get him back again? Uncle John believes you, but _I_ don"t. I can see quite well that you wouldn"t be glad to find him.

You could find him easily if you wanted to!"

"What do you mean, Lilian?" I said hoa.r.s.ely. "_How_ could I find him?"

Again I feared the worst.

"You"re in a Government office," cried Lilian and if you only chose, you could easily g-get G-Government to find Bingo! What"s the use of Government if it can"t do that? Mr. Travers would have found him long ago if I"d asked him!"

Lilian had never been so childishly unreasonable as this before, and yet I loved her more madly than ever; but I did not like this allusion to Travers, a rising barrister, who lived with his sister in a pretty cottage near the station, and had shown symptoms of being attracted by Lilian.

He was away on circuit just then, luckily, but at least even he would have found it a hard task to find Bingo--there was comfort in that.

"You know that isn"t just, Lilian," I observed "But only tell me what you want me to do?"

"Bub--bub--bring back Bingo!" she said.

"Bring back Bingo!" I cried in horror. "But suppose I _can"t_--suppose he"s out of the country, or--dead, what then, Lilian?"

"I can"t help it," she said; "but I don"t believe he _is_ out of the country or dead. And while I see you pretending to Uncle that you cared awfully about him, and going on doing nothing at all, it makes me think you"re not quite--quite _sincere_! And I couldn"t possibly marry any one while I thought that of him. And I shall always have that feeling unless you find Bingo!"

It was of no use to argue with her; I knew Lilian by that time. With her pretty caressing manner she united a latent obstinacy which it was hopeless to attempt to shake. I feared, too, that she was not quite certain as yet whether she cared for me or not, and that this condition of hers was an expedient to gain time.

I left her with a heavy heart. Unless I proved my worth by bringing back Bingo within a very short time, Travers would probably have everything his own way. And Bingo was dead!

However, I took heart. I thought that perhaps if I could succeed by my earnest efforts in persuading Lilian that I really was doing all in my power to recover the poodle, she might relent in time, and dispense with his actual production.

So, partly with this object, and partly to appease the remorse which now revived and stung me deeper than before, I undertook long and weary pilgrimages after office hours. I spent many pounds in advertis.e.m.e.nts; I interviewed dogs of every size, colour, and breed, and of course I took care to keep Lilian informed of each successive failure. But still her heart was not touched; she was firm. If I went on like that, she told me, I was certain to find Bingo one day--then, but not before, would her doubts be set at rest.

I was walking one day through the somewhat squalid district which lies between Bow Street and High Holborn, when I saw, in a small theatrical costumier"s window, a handbill stating that a black poodle had "followed a gentleman" on a certain date, and if not claimed and the finder remunerated before a stated time, would be sold to pay expenses.

I went in and got a copy of the bill to show Lilian, and although by that time I scarcely dared to look a poodle in the face, I thought I would go to the address given and see the animal, simply to be able to tell Lilian I had done so.

The gentleman whom the dog had very unaccountably followed was a certain Mr. William Blagg, who kept a little shop near Endell Street, and called himself a bird-fancier, though I should scarcely have credited him with the necessary imagination. He was an evil-browed ruffian in a fur cap, with a broad broken nose and little shifty red eyes, and after I had told him what I wanted, he took me through a horrible little den, stacked with piles of wooden, wire, and wicker prisons, each quivering with restless, twittering life, and then out into a back yard, in which were two or three rotten old kennels and tubs. "That there"s him," he said, jerking his thumb to the farthest tub; "follered me all the way "ome from Kinsington Gardings, _he_ did. Kim out, will yer?"

And out of the tub there crawled slowly, with a snuffling whimper and a rattling of its chain, the identical dog I had slain a few evenings before!

At least, so I thought for a moment, and felt as if I had seen a spectre; the resemblance was so exact--in size, in every detail, even to the little clumps of hair about the hind parts, even to the lop of half an ear, this dog might have been the "doppel-ganger" of the deceased Bingo. I suppose, after all, one black poodle is very like any other black poodle of the same size, but the likeness startled me.

I think it was then that the idea occurred to me that here was a miraculous chance of securing the sweetest girl in the whole world, and at the same time atoning for my wrong by bringing back gladness with me to Shuturgarden. It only needed a little boldness; one last deception, and I could embrace truthfulness once more.

Almost unconsciously, when my guide turned round and asked," Is that there dawg yourn?" I said hurriedly, "Yes, yes--that"s the dog I want, that--that"s Bingo!"

"He don"t seem to be a puttin" of "isself out about seeing you again,"

observed Mr. Blagg, as the poodle studied me with a calm interest.

"Oh, he"s not exactly _my_ dog, you see," I said; "he belongs to a friend of mine!"

He gave me a quick furtive glance. "Then maybe you"re mistook about him," he said: "and I can"t run no risks. I was a goin" down in the country this "ere werry evenin" to see a party as lives at Wistaria Willa,--he"s been a hadwertisin" about a black poodle, _he_ has!"

"But look here," I said, "that"s _me_."

He gave me a curious leer. "No offence, you know, guv"nor," he said, "but I should wish for some evidence as to that afore I part with a vallyable dawg like this "ere!"

"Well," I said, "here"s one of my cards; will that do for you?"

He took it and spelt it out with a pretence of great caution, but I saw well enough that the old scoundrel suspected that if I had lost a dog at all, it was not this particular dog. "Ah," he said, as he put it in his pocket, "if I part with him to you, I must be cleared of all risks. I can"t afford to get into trouble about no mistakes. Unless you likes to leave him for a day or two, you must pay accordin", you see."

I wanted to get the hateful business over as soon as possible. I did not care what I paid--Lilian was worth all the expense! I said I had no doubt myself as to the real ownership of the animal, but I would give him any sum in reason, and would remove the dog at once.

And so we settled it. I paid him an extortionate sum, and came away with a duplicate poodle, a canine counterfeit which I hoped to pa.s.s off at Shuturgarden as the long-lost Bingo.

I know it was wrong--it even came unpleasantly near dog-stealing--but I was a desperate man. I saw Lilian gradually slipping away from me, I knew that nothing short of this could ever recall her, I was sorely tempted, I had gone far on the same road already, it was the old story of being hung for a sheep. And so I fell.

Surely some who read this will be generous enough to consider the peculiar state of the case, and mingle a little pity with their contempt.

I was dining in town that evening and took my purchase home by a late train; his demeanour was grave and intensely respectable; he was not the animal to commit himself by any flagrant indiscretion--he was gentle and tractable, too, and in all respects an agreeable contrast in character to the original. Still, it may have been the after-dinner workings of conscience, but I could not help fancying that I saw a certain look in the creature"s eyes, as if he were aware that he was required to connive at a fraud, and rather resented it.

If he would only be good enough to back me up! Fortunately, however, he was such a perfect facsimile of the outward Bingo, that the risk of detection was really inconsiderable.

When I got him home, I put Bingo"s silver collar round his neck--congratulating myself on my forethought in preserving it, and took him in to see my mother. She accepted him as what he seemed, without the slightest misgiving; but this, though it encouraged me to go on, was not decisive, the spurious poodle would have to encounter the scrutiny of those who knew every tuft on the genuine animal"s body!

Nothing would have induced me to undergo such an ordeal as that of personally restoring him to the Curries. We gave him supper, and tied him up on the lawn, where he howled dolefully all night, and buried bones.

The next morning I wrote a note to Mrs. Currie, expressing my pleasure at being able to restore the lost one, and another to Lilian, containing only the words, "Will you believe _now_ that I am sincere?" Then I tied both round the poodle"s neck and dropped him over the wall into the Colonel"s garden just before I started to catch my train to town.

I had an anxious walk home from the station that evening; I went round by the longer way, trembling the whole time lest I should meet any of the Currie household, to which I felt myself entirely unequal just then.

I could not rest until I knew whether my fraud had succeeded, or if the poodle to which I had entrusted my fate had basely betrayed me; but my suspense was happily ended as soon as I entered my mother"s room. "You can"t think how delighted those poor Curries were to see Bingo again,"she said at once; "and they said such charming things about you, Algy--Lilian, particularly--quite affected she seemed, poor child! And they wanted you to go round and dine there and be thanked to-night, but at last I persuaded them to come to us instead. And they"re going to bring the dog to make friends. Oh, and I met Frank Travers; he"s back from circuit again now, so I asked him in too, to meet them!"