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                          FAITH AND UNFAITH

                               A NOVEL

                           BY THE AUTHOR OF

       "PHYLLIS," "MOLLY BAWN," "AIRY FAIRY LILLIAN," "BEAUTY'S
                  DAUGHTERS," "MRS. GEOFFREY," ETC.


        "In Love, if Love be Love, if Love be ours,
        Faith and unfaith can ne'er be equal powers:
        Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all."--TENNYSON.


                         NEW YORK AND CHICAGO
                           BUTLER BROTHERS


                                TROW'S
                  PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY,
                              NEW YORK.




FAITH AND UNFAITH.




CHAPTER I.

  "A heap of dust alone remains of thee:
  'Tis all thou art, and all the proud shall be!"--POPE.


In an upper chamber, through the closed blinds of which the sun is
vainly striving to enter, Reginald Branscombe, fifth Earl of Sartoris,
lies dead. The sheet is reverently drawn across the motionless limbs;
the once restless, now quiet, face is hidden; all around is wrapt in
solemn unutterable silence,--the silence that belongs to death alone!

A sense of oppressive calm is upon everything,--a feeling of
loneliness, vague and shadowy. The clock has ticked its last an hour
ago, and now stands useless in its place. The world without moves on
unheeding; the world within knows time no more! Death reigns
triumphant! Life sinks into insignificance!

Once, a little flickering golden ray, born of the hot sun outside,
flashes in through some unknown chink, and casts itself gleefully upon
the fair white linen of the bed. It trembles vivaciously now here, now
there, in uncontrollable joyousness, as though seeking in its gayety
to mock the grandeur of the King of Terrors! At least so it seems to
the sole watcher in the lonely chamber, as with an impatient sigh he
raises his head, and, going over to the window, draws the curtains
still closer to shut out the obnoxious light; after which he comes
back to where he has been standing, gazing down upon, and thinking of,
the dead.

He is an old man, tall and gaunt, with kind but passionate eyes, and
a mouth expressive of impatience. His hands--withered but still
sinewy--are clasped behind his back; every feature in his face is full
of sad and anxious thought.

What changes the passing of a few short hours have wrought--so he
muses. Yesterday the man now chilled and silent for evermore was as
full of animation as he--his brother--who to-day stands so sorrowfully
beside his corpse. His blood had run as freely in his veins, his
pulses throbbed as evenly, his very voice had been sounding strong and
clear and hearty, when Death, remorseless, claimed him for his own.

Poor Reginald! Had he known of the fell disease that had nestled so
long within his heart?--or had no symptoms ever shown themselves to
give him kindly warning? Certainly no hint of it had ever passed his
lips, even to those most near and dear to him. He had lived apparently
free from care or painful forebodings of any kind,--a good and useful
life too, leaving nothing for those behind (who loved him) to regret.
Indeed, of late he had appeared even gayer, happier, than before; and
now--

It seems such a little time ago since they both were lads together. A
tiny space taken from the great eternity, when all is told. How well
the living man remembers at this moment many a boyish freak and
light-hearted jest, many a kindness shown and gift bestowed by the
dead, that until now had wellnigh been forgotten!

He thinks of the good old college days, when they worked little, and
fought hard, and trained their fresh young limbs to mighty deeds, and
walked, and rode, and held their own with the best, and showed open
defiance of dons and deans and proctors; he lingers, too, on the day
still farther on, when Reginald, having attained to his kingdom,
lavished with no meagre hand upon his more extravagant brother the
money so sorely needed.

Now Reginald is gone, and he, Arthur, reigns in his stead,
and----Alas! alas! poor Reggy!--Poor, dear old fellow!

He rouses himself with an effort, and, going very softly to a small
door that opens from the apartment, beckons gently to somebody beyond.

An old woman, dressed in deepest mourning, and of the housekeeper
type, answers his summons, her eyes red with excessive weeping.

"I am going now," Lord Sartoris whispers to her in a low tone. "I have
finished everything. You will remain here until my return."

"Yes, Mr. Arthur,--yes, my Lord," she answers, nervously; and then, as
she gives the old title for the first time to the man before her, she
bursts out crying afresh, yet silently, in a subdued fashion, as
though ashamed of her emotion.

Sartoris pats her shoulder kindly, and then with a sigh turns away,
and passes from the room with bent head and hands still clasped behind
him, as has become a habit with him of late years.

Down the stairs and along the hall he goes, until, reaching a door at
the lower end, he pauses before it, and, opening it, enters a room,
half library, half boudoir, furnished in a somewhat rococo style.

It is a room curiously built, being a complete oval, with two French
windows opening to the ground, and a glass door between them--partly
stained--that leads to the parterre outside. It is filled with
mediæval furniture, uncompromising and as strictly uncomfortable as
should be, and has its walls (above the wooden dado) covered with a
high-art paper, on which impossible storks, and unearthly birds of all
descriptions, are depicted as rising out of blue-green rushes.

This room is known as "my lady's chamber,"--having ever been the
exclusive property of the mistress of the house, until Mrs. Dorian
Branscombe, in default of any other mistress, had made her own of it
during her frequent visits to Hythe, and had refurnished it to suit
her own tastes, which were slightly Æsthetic.

Now, she too is dead and gone, and the room, though never entirely
closed or suffered to sink into disrepair, is seldom used by any of
the household.

As Lord Sartoris goes in, a young man, who has been standing at one of
the windows, turns and comes quickly to meet him. He is of good
height, and is finely formed, with brown hair cut closely to his head,
a brown moustache, and deep-blue eyes. His whole appearance is perhaps
more pleasing and aristocratic than strictly handsome, his mouth
being too large and his nose too pronounced for any particular style
of beauty.

Yet it is his eyes--perfect as they are in shape and color--that
betray the chief faults of his disposition. He is too easy-going, too
thoughtless of consequences, too much given to letting things
go,--without consideration or fear of what the end may bring; too full
of life and spirits to-day, to dream of a sadder morrow;--so happy in
the present that the future troubles him not at all.

"How ill you look!" he says, anxiously, addressing his uncle. "My dear
Arthur, you have been overdoing it. You should not have remained so
long in that room alone."

"Well, it is all over now," Sartoris says, wearily, sinking into a
chair near him. "I was glad to finish it once for all. Those private
papers he kept in his own room should be examined sooner or later; and
now my task is at an end I feel more contented."

"Was there anything beyond?----"

"Very little. Just one letter sealed and directed to me. It contained
a desire that poor Maud's letters should be buried with him. I found
them in a drawer by themselves neatly tied with pale-blue ribbon,--her
favorite color,--and with them an old likeness of her, faded almost
white."

"For how long he remembered her!" says the young man, in a tone of
slow astonishment.

"Too long for our present day," returns his uncle, absently. Then
there is silence for a moment or two, broken only by the chatter of
the birds in the sunlit garden outside. Presently Sartoris speaks
again. "Where is Horace?" he asks, indifferently.

"He was here, half an hour ago, with Clarissa. She came over when she
heard of----our sad news. They went out together,--to the stables, I
think. Shall I find him for you?"

"No, I do not want him," says Sartoris, a little impatiently. "How
strange no one told me of Clarissa's coming! And why did you not go
with her to the stables, Dorian? Surely you know more about horses
than he does."

       *       *       *       *       *

About twenty years before my story opens, Dorian, fourth Lord
Sartoris, died, leaving behind him three sons,--Reginald (who now,
too, has passed into the land of shadows), Arthur, the present earl,
and Dorian, the younger.

This Dorian alone, of all the brothers, had married. But his wife (who
was notable for nothing beyond her deceitful temper and beautiful
face, being as false as she was fair) having died too, in giving birth
to her second child Horace, and her husband having followed her to the
grave about three years later, the care of the children developed upon
their uncle Reginald, who had been appointed guardian.

But Reginald--being a somewhat careless man in many respects, and
little given to children--took small heed of them, and, beyond
providing masters for them at first, and later on sending them to
school and college, and giving them choice of professions, had left
them very much to their own devices.

True, when college debts accumulated, and pressing bills from
long-suffering tradespeople came pouring in, he would rouse himself
sufficiently to remonstrate with them in a feeble fashion, and, having
received promises of amendment from both boys, he would pay their
bills, make each a handsome present (as atonement for the mild
scolding), and, having thus dropped a sop to Cerberus,--or
conscience,--would dismiss money matters, nephews, and all from his
thoughts.

So the children grew, from youth to boyhood, from boyhood to early
manhood, with no one to whom to appeal for sympathy, with no woman's
voice to teach them right from wrong,--with few hardships, fewer
troubles, and no affections.

Arthur Branscombe, indeed, who had come back from India six months
after his father's death, and had stayed at Hythe for two interminable
years (as they seemed to him), had during that time so worked himself
into the heart of the eldest boy Dorian, and had so far taken him into
his own in return, that long years had failed to efface the fondness
of either. Indeed, now that he has returned from abroad (only, as fate
has willed it, to take his brother's place), he finds the love he had
grafted in the child still warm in the heart of the man.

Horace, the younger, had chosen his profession, and gone in heavily
for law. But Dorian, who inherited two thousand a year from his
father, and a charming residence,--situated about three miles from
Hythe, and two from the pretty village of Pullingham,--had elected to
try his hand at farming, and was at first honestly believed in by
confiding tenants, who discussed him as a being up to his eyes in
agricultural lore and literally steeped in new and improved projects
for the cultivation of land.

But time undeceived these good souls. And now, though they love him
better, they believe in him not at all. To adore one's horses, and to
be a perfect slave to one's dogs, is one thing; to find a tender
interest in the price of guano, and a growing admiration for prize
pigs, is quite another. When Dorian had tried it for six months, he
acknowledged, reluctantly, that to him mangels were an abomination,
and over-fed cattle a wearying of the flesh!

Every now and then, indeed, he tells himself that he must "look about
him," as he calls it, and, smothering a sigh, starts for a quick walk
across his land, and looks at a field or two, or into the nearest
paddock, and asks his steward how things are going on, and if all is
as satisfactory now as in the old days when his father held the reins
of government, and, having listened absently to comfortable answers
and cheerful predictions for the future, strolls away again,
thoroughly content, not caring to investigate matters further.

He is fond of London life, and spends a good deal of his time there;
is courted and petted and made much of by enterprising dowagers with
marriageable daughters, as a young man charming, well bred, altogether
_chic_, and undoubted heir to an earldom; for of Arthur Sartoris's
ever marrying, now he has so long passed the prime of life, no one
ever dreams.

He knows all the best people in town, and puts in a good time when
there; is a fair hand at whist, and can beat most men at billiards;
will now and then put money on a favorite for the Oaks or the Grand
National, but cannot be said to regard gambling as an amusement. He is
extravagant in many ways, but thoroughly unselfish and kind-hearted,
and generous to a fault. He is much affected by women, and adored by
children, who instinctively accept him as a true friend.

Horace, both in face and in figure, is strangely like his brother,--in
character very different. He is tall and well built, with eyes large,
dark, and liquid, but rather too closely set to be pleasing. His mouth
is firm and somewhat hard, his smile soft, but uncertain. He is always
charming to women, being outwardly blind to their caprices and an
admirer of their follies, and is therefore an immense favorite with a
certain class of them, whose minds are subservient to their bodies.
Yet to every rule there is an exception. And by women good and true,
and loyal, Horace has been, and is, well beloved.

       *       *       *       *       *

As Lord Sartoris and Dorian cross the hall, they meet Horace, and a
pretty girl--tall, slender, and graceful--coming towards them. She
appears sad, and slightly distressed, but scarcely unnerved: there is
a suspicion of tears about her large gray eyes. Her gown, of violet
velvet (for, though they are in the merry month of May, the days are
still cold and fretful), sits closely to her perfect figure; a Langtry
bonnet, to match her dress, covers her head and suits admirably her
oval face and Grecian nose and soft peach-like complexion.

Going up, with impulsive grace, to Lord Sartoris, she lays both her
ungloved hands upon his shoulders, and presses her lips with tender
sympathy to his cheek.

"How sad it all is!" she says, with a little break in her voice. "How
can I tell you all I feel for you? If you had only had the faintest
warning! But it was all so sudden, so dreadful."

"What a kind child you are, Cissy!" says Sartoris, gently; "and to
come to us _so soon_, that was so good of you."

"Was it?" says Clarissa, quickly. "That is what has been troubling me.
We only heard the terrible news this morning, and papa said it would
be intrusive to call so early; but I--I could not keep away."

"Your presence in this gloomy house is an undeniable comfort," says
Sartoris, sadly. "I am glad you understood us well enough to know
that. It is my greatest wish that you should regard us all with
affection."

He glances from her to Dorian, as he speaks, with anxious meaning. But
Dorian's gaze is fixed thoughtfully upon the stained-glass window that
is flinging its crimson and purple rays upon the opposite wall, and
has obviously been deaf to all that has been passing. As for Clarissa,
she has turned, and is looking into Horace's dark eyes.

Sartoris, catching the glance, drops Miss Peyton's hand with a sigh.
She notices the half-petulant action, and compresses her lips
slightly.

"Now I have seen you, I shall feel better," she says, sweetly. "And--I
think I must be going."

"Will you desert us so soon?" says Sartoris, reproachfully. "At least
stay to luncheon----." He pauses, and sighs profoundly. Just now the
idea that the routine of daily life must be carried on whether our
beloved lie dead upon their couches or stand living in our path, is
hateful to him.

"I hardly like," says Clarissa, nervously; "I fear----"

Dorian, rousing himself from his thoughts, comes back to the present
moment.

"Oh, stay, Clarissa," he says, hurriedly. "You really must, you know.
You cannot imagine what a relief you are to us: you help us to bear
our gloomy memories. Besides, Arthur has tasted nothing for hours, and
your being here may tempt him, perhaps, to eat."

"If I can be of any use----," says Clarissa, kindly. Whereupon
Sartoris gives her his arm, and they all adjourn to the dining-room.

It is a large, old-fashioned, stately apartment, oak-panelled, with
large mullioned windows, and a massive marble chimney-piece that
reaches high as a man's head. A pleasant, sociable room at ordinary
times, but now impregnated with the vague gloom that hangs over all
the house and seeks even here to check the gaudy brightness of the sun
that, rushing in, tries to illuminate it.

At the sideboard stands Simon Gale, the butler and oldest domestic of
Hythe, who has lived with the dead lord as man and boy, and now
regrets him with a grief more strongly resembling the sorrowing of one
for a friend than for a master.

With downcast eyes and bowed head he stands, thinking sadly how much
too old he is for new cares and fresh faces. Reginald had been all
the world to him: the new man is as nothing. Counting friendships as
of little worth unless years have gone to prove their depth and
sincerity, he feels no leaning towards the present possessor,--knows
him too short a time to like or dislike, to praise or blame.

Now, as his eyes wander down the long table, to where he can see the
empty chair of him who rests with such unearthly tranquillity in the
silent chamber above, the thought of how soon a comparative stranger
will fill it causes him a bitter pang. And, as he so muses, the door
opens, and they all come in,--Sartoris first, with Clarissa, pale, and
quiet; the brothers--so like, yet so unlike--following.

Old Simon, rousing himself, watches with jealous eyes to see the place
so long occupied by Reginald usurped by another. But he watches in
vain. Sartoris, without so much as a glance in its direction, takes
the chair at the lower end of the table; and the others, following his
lead, seat themselves at the sides without comment of any kind;
whereupon Gale draws a long breath, and vows fidelity to his new lord
upon the spot.

It is a dismal meal, dull, and dispiriting. The ghastly Egyptian mummy
seems present in full force, if not in the letter at least in the
spirit. Sartoris, having taken a glass of sherry, trifles with the
meat upon his plate, but literally eats nothing. No one appears
possessed with a desire to speak, and indeed there is little to be
said. When luncheon is nearly over, a small dark object, hitherto
unseen, creeps out from some forgotten corner, and stretches itself
forlornly; it is poor Reginald's favorite dog, that ever since his
death has lain crouching out of sight, but now, driven by the pain of
hunger, comes creeping forward, whining piteously.

He goes up to the accustomed chair, but, finding it for the first time
empty and deaf to his complainings, turns disconsolately away, and
passes from seat to seat, without accepting food at any of their
hands, until he comes to Clarissa. She, stooping, raises him to her
knee (her lashes wet with tears), and feeds him tenderly with the
dainty scraps upon her plate.

The whole scene, though simple, is suggestive of loss and loneliness.
Sartoris, leaving the table with some haste, goes to the window to
hide his emotion. Dorian follows him. Whereupon Horace, rising too,
crosses to where Clarissa sits, and, bending over her, says something
in a low tone.

The moments fly. A clock upon the mantel-piece chimes half-past four.
Some bird, in the exuberance of its mad joy, scurries wildly past the
windows. Sartoris, with a sigh, turns from the light, and, seeing Miss
Peyton and Horace still deep in conversation, frowns slightly.

"Horace, will you tell Durkin I want to see him at once, in the
library," he says, very quietly, yet with some latent irritability.

"In one moment," replies Horace, unmoved, going back to the low-toned
dialogue he has been carrying on with Clarissa.

"I am afraid I must lay myself open to the charge of rudeness," says
Sartoris, still very quietly, but with a peculiar smile. "But it is
important, and I must see Durkin at once. My dear Horace, oblige me in
this matter."

"Shall I not see Clarissa to her carriage first?" says Horace, raising
his dark eyes for one moment to his uncle's face.

"Dorian will see to that," says the old man, slowly, but so decisively
that Horace, bidding the girl a silent but warm farewell, with a bad
grace departs.

"How late it grows," says Miss Peyton, glancing at the clock; and,
drawing from a side-pocket her own watch, she examines it attentively,
as though to assure herself the huge timepiece on the mantel-shelf has
not told a deliberate lie. "I must go home! Papa will wonder where I
have been all this long time. Good-by, Mr. Branscombe" (she is still,
naturally, forgetful of the new title). "I hope," very sweetly, "you
will come to see us as soon as ever you can."

"Thank you, yes, I shall come very soon," says Sartoris; and then she
bids him good-by, and Dorian follows her from the room into the great
dark hall outside.

"How changed he is!" she says, turning suddenly to him, and
indicating, by a little backward motion of her head towards the
room she had just left, the person of whom she speaks. "How
altered!--Arthur, I mean. Not now, not by this grief; it isn't that:
his manner, to me especially, has been altogether different for a
fortnight past. Ever since that last picnic at Anadale--you remember
it--he has not been quite the same to me."

"Let me see; that, I think, was the evening you and Horace drove home
alone together, with that rather uncertain brown mare, was it not?"
says Dorian, with no apparent meaning in his tone. "My dear child, I
dare say you are mistaken about Arthur. Your imagination is leading
you astray."

"No, it is not. I am the least imaginative person alive," says Miss
Peyton, with an emphatic shake of her pretty head. "I can't bear that
sort of people myself; they are always seeing something that isn't
there, and are generally very tiresome all around. I'm rather vexed
about Arthur, do you know?"

"Don't mind him," says Branscombe, easily. "He'll come all right in
time. He is a peculiar fellow in many ways, and when he sets his heart
on any hobby, rides it to the death."

"Has he a hobby now?"

"Yes. He has just formed, and is now trying to work out, a gigantic
scheme, and cuts up a little rough every now and then because all the
world won't see it in the light that he does."

"Poor man!" says Clarissa, sympathetically, "No wonder he seems
strange at times: it is so depressing to be baffled. Why don't you
help him, Dorian?"

"It would take two to help him," says Mr. Branscombe, looking faintly
amused.

"Could I be of any use?"--eagerly. "I would do anything I could for
him."

"No, would you?" says Branscombe, his amusement growing more
perceptible. "I'm sure that's very good of you. I dare say, if Arthur
could hear you say that, he would go wild with joy. 'Anything' is such
a comprehensive word. You're sure you won't go back of it?"

"Quite sure,"--with some surprise.

"My dear Clarissa, is it possible you have not yet seen through
Arthur's latest and greatest design?"

"If you intend to tell me anything, do so: beating about the bush
always fatigues me to death," says Miss Peyton, in a tone of
dignified rebuke. "What does Arthur want?"

"A little thing,--a mere trifle. He simply wants you to marry me."

"Really, Dorian," says Clarissa, coloring slowly, but warmly, "I think
you might find some other subject to jest on."

"I never made a joke in my life; I hope I never shall," returns
Branscombe, reproachfully. "What have I done, that you should accuse
me of such a crime? I have only spoken the plain, unvarnished truth.
To see you my wife is the dream of Arthur's life, his sole ambition.
And just now, you know, you said you were quite prepared to do
anything for him. You can't, with any sense of honor, back out of your
given word."

"I never heard anything so absurd, so foolish, so nonsensical!" says
Miss Peyton, resentfully.

"Nonsensical! My dear Clarissa! pray consider my----"

"It is more! it is right down stupid of him," says Clarissa, who
plainly declines to consider any one's feelings.

"You needn't pile up my agony any higher," interposes Branscombe,
meekly. "To my everlasting regret I acknowledge myself utterly
unworthy of you. But why tell me so in such round terms? I assure you
I feel excessively hurt and offended. Am I to understand, then, that
you have refused me?"

"You shall understand something worse, if you say another word," says
Clarissa, holding, up before him a little clinched hand in a would-be
threatening manner. And then they both laugh in a subdued fashion; and
she moves on towards the open hall-door, he following.

"Well, I forgive you," he says, as she steps into her low phaeton, and
he arranges the rug carefully around her. "Though you don't deserve
it. (What ridiculous little hands to guide such refractory ponies!)
Sure you are quite comfortable? Well, good-by; and look
here,"--teasingly,--"I should think it over if I were you. You may not
get so excellent a chance again; and Arthur will never forgive you."

"Your uncle, though charming, and a very dear, is also a goose," says
Miss Peyton, somewhat irreverently. "Marry you, indeed! Why, I should
quite as soon dream of marrying my brother!"

"Well, as I can't be your husband, it would be rather nice to be your
brother," says Mr. Branscombe, cheerfully. "Your words give me hope
that you regard me in that light. I shall always think of you for the
future as my sister, and so I am sure"--with an eloquent and rather
mischievous pause--"will Horace!"

Miss Peyton blushes again,--much more vividly this time,--and,
gathering up the reins hastily, says "good-by" for the second time,
without turning her flushed face to his, and drives rapidly up the
avenue.

Branscombe stands on the steps watching her until she is quite lost to
sight behind the rhododendrons, and then strokes his moustache
thoughtfully.

"That has quite arranged itself, I should fancy," he says, slowly.
"Well, I hope he will be very good to her, dear little thing!"




CHAPTER II.

  "Her form was fresher than the morning rose
  When the dew wets its leaves."--THOMSON.


Pullingham-on-the-Moors is a small, untidy, picturesque little
village, situated on the side of a hill. It boasts a railway-station,
a police-barrack, a solitary hotel, and two or three well-sized shops.
It is old-fashioned, stationary, and, as a rule, hopelessly harmless,
though now and then, dissensions, based principally on religious
grounds, will arise.

These can scarcely be avoided, as one-half of the parish trips lightly
after Mr. Redmond, the vicar (who has a subdued passion for wax
candles, and a craving for floral decorations), and looks with scorn
upon the other half, as, with solemn step and slow, it descends the
high hill that leads, each Sabbath, to the "Methody" Chapel beneath.

It never grows older, this village, and never younger; is seldom cast
down or elated, surprised or demonstrative, about anything. In a
quaint, sleepy fashion, it has its dissipations, and acknowledges its
festive seasons,--such as Christmas-tide when all the shops burst
into a general bloom of colored cards, and February, when valentines
adorn every pane. It has also its fair days, when fat cattle and lean
sugar-sticks seem to be everywhere.

A marriage is reckoned an event, and causes some gossip: a birth does
not,--possibly because of the fact that it is a weekly occurrence.
Indeed, the babies in Pullingham are a "joy forever." They have their
season all the year round, and never by any chance "go out;" though I
have heard people very foolishly liken them to flowers. They grow, and
thrive, and blossom all over the place, which no doubt is greatly to
the credit of the inhabitants. Occasionally, too, some one is good
enough to cause a little pleasurable excitement by dying, but very
seldom, as the place is fatally healthy, and people live here until
they become a social nuisance, and almost wish themselves dead. There
is, I believe, some legend belonging to the country, about an old
woman who had to be shot, so aggressively old did she become; but this
is obscure.

About two miles from the town, one comes to Sartoris, the residence of
Dorian Branscombe, which runs in a line with the lands of Scrope
Royal, the property of Sir James Scrope.

Sir James is a tall, rather old-young man of thirty-two with a calm,
expressive face, kindly eyes, and a somewhat lanky figure. He has a
heart of gold, a fine estate, and----a step-sister.

Miss Jemima Scrope is not as nice as she might be. She has a face as
hard as her manners, and, though considerably over forty, is neither
fat nor fair. She has a perfect talent for making herself obnoxious to
all unhappy enough to come within her reach, a temper like "Kate the
Curst," and a nose like the Duke of Wellington.

Somewhere to the left, on a hill as high and pompous as itself, stands
the castle, where three months out of the twelve the Duke and Duchess
of Spendleton, and some of their family, put in a dreary time. They
give two balls, one fancy bazaar, a private concert, and three
garden-parties--neither more nor less--every year. Nobody likes them
very much, because nobody knows them. Nobody dislikes them very much,
for just the same reason.

The castle is beautifully situated, and is correct in every detail.
There are Queen Anne rooms, and Gothic apartments, and Elizabethan
anterooms, and staircases of the most vague. There are secret
passages, and panels, and sliding doors, and trap-doors, and, in fact,
every sort of door you could mention, and all other abominations.
Artists revel in it, and grow frenzied with joy over its
impossibilities, and almost every year some room is painted from it
and sent to the Academy, But outside lies its chief beauty, for there
are the swelling woods, and the glimpse of the far-off ocean as it
gleams, now green, now steel-blue, beneath the rays of the setting
sun. And beyond it is Gowran, where Clarissa lives with her father,
George Peyton.

Clarissa is all that is charming. She is tall, slight, _svelte_:
indeed, earth has not anything to show more fair. She is tender, too,
and true, and very earnest,--perhaps a degree too earnest, too
intense, for every-day life. Her eyes, "twin stars of beauty," are
deep and gray; her hair is dark; her mouth, though somewhat large, is
perfect; and her smile is indescribable, so sweet it is, so soft and
lingering.

Her mother died when she was nine years old, and from that time until
she was twelve she spent most of her life with the Branscombe
boys,--riding, fishing, sometimes even shooting, with them. The effect
of such training began to make itself felt. She was fast degenerating
into a tomboy of the first water (indeed, one of the purest gems of
its kind), when James Scrope, who even then was a serious young man,
came to the rescue, and induced her father to send her from Gowran to
a school at Brussels.

"Virtue is its own reward," they tell us: let us hope Scrope felt
rewarded! Whether he did or not, I know he was considerably frightened
when Clarissa (having discovered who had been the instigator of this
"plot" to drive her from her beloved Gowran) came down to Scrope Hall,
and, dashing into his presence like a small whirlwind, abused him for
his well-meant interference in good round terms, and, having refused
even to say good-by to him, had slammed the door in his face, and,
starting from home next morning, had seen no more of him for six long
years.

At seventeen, her aunt, the Hon. Mrs. Greville, had brought her back
from Brussels to her own house in town, where she kept her for twelve
months, and where she once more renewed acquaintance with her old
friends, Dorian and Horace Branscombe. Mrs. Greville took her to all
the most desirable balls of her season, to concerts and "small and
earlies," to high-art entertainments of the most "too, too," and,
having given her free scope to break the hearts of half the men in
town, had sent her at last to her father, hopelessly in love with a
detrimental.

The detrimental was Horace Branscombe. Mrs. Greville was intensely
annoyed and disgusted. After all her care, all her trouble, to have
this happen! She had married her own girls with the greatest _éclat_,
had not made one false move with regard to any of them, and now to see
Clarissa (who, with her beauty and fortune, might have married any
one) throw herself away upon a penniless barrister seemed to her to
savor of positive crime.

Horace, certainly, so far, had not proposed in form, but Mrs. Greville
was not to be hoodwinked. He meant it. He was not always at her
niece's side for nothing; and, sooner or later, Clarissa, with all her
money, would go over to him. When she thought of this shocking waste
of money, she groaned aloud; and then she washed her hands of the
whole affair, and sent Clarissa back to Gowran, where her father
received her with open arms, and made much of her.




CHAPTER III.

  "O Helen, fair beyond compare!
  I'll make a garland of thy hair,
  Shall bind my heart for evermair,
      Until the day I die!"


Across the lawn the shadows move slowly, and with a vague grace that
adds to their charm. The birds are drowsy from the heat, and, sitting
half hidden in the green branches, chant their songs in somewhat lazy
fashion. All nature has succumbed to the fierce power of Phoebus
Apollo.

  "The morn is merry June, I trow:
  The rose is budding fain."

Each flower in the sunlit garden is holding up its head, and breathing
fragrant sighs as the hours slip by, unheeded, yet full of a vague
delight.

Miss Peyton, in her white gown, and with some soft rich roses lying on
her lap, is leaning back in a low chair in the deep embrasure of the
window, making a poor attempt at working.

Her father, with a pencil in his hand, and some huge volumes spread
out before him, is making a few desultory notes. Into the library--the
coseyest, if not the handsomest, room at Gowran--the hot sun is
rushing, dancing lightly over statuettes and pictures, and lingering
with pardonable delay upon Clarissa's bowed head.

"Who is this coming up the avenue?" she says, presently, in slow,
sleepy tones, that suit the day. "It is--no, it isn't--and yet it
is--it must be James Scrope!"

"I dare say. He was to have returned yesterday. He would come here as
soon as possible, of course." Rising, he joins her at the window, and
watches the coming visitor as he walks his horse leisurely down the
drive.

"What a dear little modest speech!" says Miss Peyton, maliciously.
"Now, if I had been the author of it, I know some one who would have
called me vain! But I will generously let that pass. How brown Jim has
grown! Has he not?"

"Has he? I can scarcely see so far. What clear eyes you must have,
child, and what a faithful memory to recollect him without hesitation,
after all these years!"

"I never forget," says Clarissa, simply, which is quite the truth.
"And he has altered hardly anything. He was always so old, you know,
he really couldn't grow much older. What is his age now, papa?
Ninety?"

"Something over thirty, I fancy," says papa, uncertainly.

"Oh, nonsense!" says Miss Peyton. "Surely you romance, or else you are
an invaluable friend. When I grow brown and withered, I hope you will
prove equally good to me. I shall expect you to say all sorts of
impossible things, and not to blush when saying them. Ah!--here is Sir
James" as the door opens, and Scrope--healthy and bronzed from
foreign travel--enters quietly, staid and calm as ever.

When he has shaken hands with, and been warmly welcomed by, Mr.
Peyton, he turns with some diffidence towards the girl in the clinging
white gown, who is smiling at him from the window, with warm red lips,
half parted and some faint amusement in her friendly eyes.

"Why, you have forgotten me," she says, presently, in a low tone of
would-be reproach. "While I--I knew you at once."

"I have not forgotten," says Scrope, taking her hand and holding it,
as though unconsciously. "I was only surprised, puzzled. You are so
changed. All seems so different. A little child when last I saw you,
and now a lady grown."

"Oh, yes, I am quite grown up," says Miss Peyton, demurely. "I can't
do any more of that sort of thing, to oblige anybody,--even though
papa--who adores a Juno, and thinks all women should be divinely
tall--has often asked me to try. But," maliciously, "are you not going
to ask me how I have progressed (isn't that the right word?) with my
studies? You ought, you know, as it was you who sent me to school."

"I?" says Sir James, rather taken aback at this unexpected onslaught.

"Yes, you," repeats she, with a little nod. "Papa would never have had
the cruelty even to think of such a thing. I am glad you have still
sufficient grace left to blush for your evil conduct. Do you
remember," with a gay laugh, "what a terrible scolding I gave you
before leaving home?"

"I shall remember it to my dying day," says Sir James. "I was never so
thoroughly frightened before, or since. Then and there, I registered a
vow never again to interfere with any one's daughter."

"I hope you will keep that vow," says Miss Peyton, with innocent
malice, and a smile only half suppressed, that torments him in memory
for many a day. And then George Peyton asks some question, and
presently Sir James is telling him certain facts about the Holy Land,
and Asia generally, that rather upset his preconceived ideas.

"Yet I still believe it must be the most interesting spot on earth,"
he says, still clinging to old thoughts and settled convictions.

"Well, it's novel, you know, and the fashion, and that," says Sir
James, rather vaguely. "In fact, you are nowhere nowadays if you
haven't done the East; but it's fatiguing, there isn't a doubt. The
people aren't as nice as they might be, and honesty is not considered
the best policy out there, and dirt is the prevailing color, and
there's a horrid lot of sand."

"What a dismal ending!" says Clarissa, in a tone suggestive of
disappointment. "But how lovely it looks in pictures!--I don't mean
the sand, exactly, but the East."

"Most things do. There is an old grandaunt of mine hung in the gallery
at Scrope----"

"How shocking!" interrupted Miss Peyton, with an affected start. "And
in the house, too! So unpleasant! Did she do it herself, or who hanged
her?"

"Her picture, you know," says Scrope, with a laugh. "To hear that she
had made away with herself would be too good to be true. She looks
absolutely lovely in this picture I speak of, almost too fine for this
work-a-day world; yet my father always told me she was ugly as a
nightmare. Never believe in paint."

"Talking of Scrope," says Clarissa, "do you know, though I have been
home now for some months, I have never been through it since I was a
child? I have rather a passion for revisiting old haunts, and I want
to see it again. That round room in the tower used to be my special
joy. Will you show it to me?--some day?--any day?"

"What day will you come?" asks Scrope, thinking it unnecessary to
express the gladness it will be to him to point put the beauties of
his home to this new-old friend,--this friend so full of fresh and
perfect beauty, yet so replete with all the old graces and witcheries
of the child he once so fondly loved.

"I am just the least little bit in the world afraid of Miss Scrope,"
says Clarissa, with an irrepressible smile. "So I shall prefer to come
some time when you are in. On Thursday, if that will suit you. Or
Friday; or, if not then, why, Saturday."

"Make it Thursday. That day comes first," said Scrope.

"Now, that is a very pretty speech," declares Miss Peyton, vast
encouragement in her tone. "Eastern air, in spite of its drawbacks,
has developed your intellect, Jim. Hasn't it?"

The old familiar appellation, and the saucy smile that has always in
it something of tenderness, smites some half-forgotten chord in
Scrope's heart. He makes no reply, but gazes with an earnestness that
almost amounts to scrutiny at Clarissa, as she stands in the open
window leaning against a background of ivy, through which pale
rose-buds are struggling into view. Within her slender fingers the
knitting-needles move slowly, glinting and glistening in the sun's hot
rays, until they seem to emit tiny flashes as they cross and recross
each other. Her eyes are downcast, the smile still lingers on her
lips, her whole attitude, and her pretty graceful figure, clad in its
white gown, is

  "Like a picture rich and rare."

"On Thursday, then, I shall see you," he says, not because he has
tired of looking at her, but because she has raised her eyes and is
evidently wondering at his silence. "Good-by."

"Good-by," says Clarissa, genially. Then she lays down the neglected
knitting (that, indeed, is more a pretence than a reality), and comes
out into the middle of the room. "For the sake of old days I shall see
you to the hall door," she says, brightly. "No, papa, do not ring: I
myself shall do the honors to Jim."




CHAPTER IV.

  "All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
    Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
  All are but ministers of Love,
    And feed his sacred flame."--COLERIDGE.


All round the drawing-room windows at Scrope a wide balcony has been
built up, over which the creepers climb and trail. Stone steps leads
to it from the scented garden beneath, and up these runs Clarissa,
gayly, when Thursday morning had dawned, and deepened, and given place
to noon.

Within the drawing-room, before a low table, sits Miss Scrope, tatting
industriously. Tatting is Miss Scrope's forte. She never does anything
else. Multitudinous antimacassars, of all shapes, patterns, and
dimensions, grow beneath her untiring touch with the most alarming
rapidity. When finished, nobody knows what becomes of them, as they
instantly disappear from view and are never heard of afterwards. They
are as good as a ghost in Pullingham, and obstinately refuse to be
laid. It was charitably, if weakly, suggested at one time, by a member
of the stronger sex, that probably she sent them out in bales as
coverings for the benighted heathen; but when it was explained to this
misguided being that tatted antimacassars, as a rule, run to holes,
and can be seen through, even he desisted from further attempts to
solve the mystery.

Miss Peyton, throwing up one of the window-sashes, steps boldly into
the drawing-room and confronts this eminent tatter.

"Good-morning," she says, sweetly, advancing with smiling lips.

Miss Scrope, who has not heard her enter, turns slowly round: to say
she started would be a gross calumny. Miss Scrope never starts. She
merely raises her head with a sudden accession of dignity. Her
dignity, as a rule, is not fascinating, and might go by another name.

"Good-afternoon, Clarissa," she says, austerely. "I am sorry you
should have been forced to make an entrance like a burglar. Has the
hall door been removed? It used to stand in the front of the house."

"I think it is there still," Miss Peyton ventures, meekly.
"But"--prettily--"coming in through the window enabled me to see you
at least one moment sooner. Shall I close it again?"

"I beg you will not distress yourself about it," says Miss Scrope,
rising to ring the bell. "When Collins comes in he will see to it."

It is a wild day, though warm and sweet, and the wind outside is
tearing madly over lawn and shrubberies into the wood beyond.

"But in the mean time you will perhaps catch cold, of rheumatism, or
something," says Clarissa, hesitating.

"Rheumatism! pugh! nonsense!" says Miss Scrope, disdainfully. "I
simply don't believe in rheumatism. It is nothing but nerves. I don't
have those ridiculous pains and aches people hug nowadays, and I don't
believe they have either; it employs their idle time trying to invent
them."

"Is Jim in?" asks Clarissa, presently, having seated herself in a
horribly comfortless but probably artistic chair.

"_James is_ in," says Miss Scrope, severely. "Do you mean my brother?
It is really almost impossible to understand young people of the
present age."

"Don't you like the name Jim?" asks Clarissa, innocently, leaning
slightly forward, and taking up the edge of Miss Scrope's last
antimacassar to examine it with tender interest. "I think it such a
dear little name, and so happily wanting in formality. I have never
called him anything else since I can remember, so it comes most
naturally to me."

"I think it a most unmaidenly way of addressing any gentleman whose
priest christened him James," says Miss Scrope, unflinchingly. "What
would you think of him were he to call you by some hideous pet name,
or, more properly speaking, nickname?"

"I shouldn't mind it in the least; indeed, I think I should rather
like it," returns Clarissa, mildly.

"I believe that to be highly probable," retorts Miss Jemima, with
considerable scorn.

Clarissa laughs,--not an irritating laugh, by any means, but a little
soft, low, girlish laugh, very good to hear.

"If you scold me any more I shall cry," she says, lightly. "I always
give way to tears when driven into a corner. It saves time and
trouble. Besides," returning with some slight perversity to the
charge, "shall I tell you a secret? Your brother likes that little
name. He does, indeed. He has told me so a thousand times in the days
gone by. Very frivolous of him, isn't it? But--ah! here he is," as the
door opens, and Sir James comes in. "You are a little late, are you
not?" leaning back in her chair with a certain amount of languid, but
pleasing, grace, and holding out to him a slender ungloved hand, on
which some rings sparkle brilliantly.

"Have I kept you waiting?" asks he, eagerly, foolishly, glad because
of her last words, that seem to imply so much and really mean so
little. Has she been anxious for his coming? Have the minutes appeared
tedious because of his absence? "I hurried all I knew," he says; "but
stewards will be stewards."

"I have been quite happy with Miss Scrope; you need not look so
penitent," says Clarissa. "And who am I, that I should compete with a
steward? We have been having quite a good time, and an excellent
argument. Come here, and tell your sister that you think Jim the
prettiest name in the world."

"Did any one throw a doubt on the subject? Lives there a soul so dead
to euphony as not to recognize the music in those three letters?--Jim!
Why, it is poetry itself," says Sir James, who is not so absent that
he cannot scent battle on the breeze. As he speaks, he smiles: and
when James Scrope smiles he is almost handsome.

"Some day you will regret encouraging that child in her folly,"
remarks Miss Scrope, severely. At which the child makes a saucy little
grimace unseen, and rises to her feet.

"What a solemn warning!" says Scrope, with a shrug. "I hope," turning
to Clarissa, "you have taken it to heart, and that it will keep you
out of imaginary mischief. It ought, you know. It would be a shabby
thing to bring down public censure on the head of one who has so nobly
espoused your cause."

"My conduct from this day forth shall be above suspicion," says
Clarissa. "Good-by, Miss Scrope," stooping to press her fresh warm
lips to the withered cross old cheek beneath her: "I am going to tread
old ground with--James."

She follows him across hall and corridor, through two modern rooms,
and past a _portière_, into another and larger hall beyond. Here,
standing before a heavy oaken doer, he turns the handle of it, and, as
it swings back slowly and sleepily, they pass into another room, so
unexpectedly and so strangely different from any they have yet
entered, as almost to make one start.

It is a huge old-fashioned apartment, stone-floored and oak panelled,
that once, in olden days, must have been a refectory. Chairs carved in
oak, and built like bishops' thrones, line the walls, looking as
though no man for many a hundred years has drawn them from their
present position. Massive cabinets and cupboards, cunningly devised by
crafty hands in by-gone days, look out from dusky corners, the hideous
faces carved upon them wreathed in their eternal ghastly smiles. From
narrow, painted windows great gleams of sunset from the gay world
without pour in, only to look sadly out of place in the solemn gloomy
room. But one small door divides it from the halls outside; yet
centuries seem to roll between it and them.

In one corner a door lies half open, and behind it a narrow flight of
stairs runs upward to a turret chamber above,--a tiny stairway,
heavily balustraded and uncarpeted, that creates in one a mad desire
to ascend and learn the secrets that may lie at its top.

Miss Peyton, scarce noticing the monkish refectory, runs to the stairs
and mounts them eagerly, Sir James following her in a more leisurely
fashion.

"Now for my own room," she says, with some degree of quickness in her
tone. She reaches the turret chamber as she speaks, and looks around
her. It is quite a circle, and apparently of the same date as the one
they have just quitted. Even the furniture, though of lighter make and
size, is of a similar age and pattern. Ugly little chairs and
unpleasantly solid tables are dotted here and there, a perfect wealth
of Old-World work cut into them. Everything is carved, and to an
unsympathetic observer it might occur that the carver must have been a
person subject to fiendish visions and unholy nightmares. But no doubt
the beauty of his designs lies in their ugliness, and his heads are a
marvel of art, and his winged creatures priceless!

The high chimney-piece is _en rapport_ with all the rest, and scowls
unceasingly; and the very windows--long and deep--have little faces
carved on either side of them, of the most diabolical.

Miss Peyton is plainly entranced with the whole scene, and for a full
minute says nothing.

"I feel as though I were a child again," she says, presently, as
though half regretful. "Everything comes back to me with such a
strange yet tender vividness. This, I remember, was my favorite table,
this my favorite chair. And that little winged monster over there, he
used to whisper in my ears more thrilling tales than either Grimm or
Andersen. Have you never moved anything in all these years?"

"Never. It is your own room by adoption, and no one shall meddle with
it. When I went abroad I locked it, and carried the key of it with me
wherever I went; I hardly know why myself." He glances at her
curiously, but her face is averted, and she is plainly thinking less
of him than of the many odd trifles scattered around. "When I
returned, dust reigned, and spiders; but it has been made spick and
span to day for its mistress. Does it still please you? or will you
care to alter anything?"

"No, nothing. I shall pay a compliment to my childish taste by letting
everything stay just as it is. I must have been rather a nice child,
Jim, don't you think? if one passes over the torn frocks and the
shrewish tongue."

"I don't think I ever saw a tear in your frocks," says Sir James,
simply, "and if your tongue was shrewish I never found it out."

Miss Peyton gives way to mirth. She sits down on a wretchedly
uncomfortable, if delightfully mediæval, chair and laughs a good deal.

  "Oh, wad some power the giftie gie us
  To see oursels as others see us!"

she quotes, gayly. "Those lines, meant by poor Burns as a censure on
frail humanity, rather fall short at this moment. Were I to see myself
as you see me, Jim, I should be a dreadfully conceited person, and
utterly unbearable What a good friend you make!"

"A bad one, you mean. A real friend, according to my lights, is a
fellow who says unpleasant things all round and expects you to respect
his candor. By and by, when I tell you a few home truths, perhaps you
will not like me as you do now."

"Yes, I shall always like you," says Clarissa. "Long ago, when you
used to scold me, I never bore malice. I suppose you are one of those
rare people who can say the ungracious thing in such a manner that it
doesn't grate. But then you are old, you know, Jim, very
old,--though, in appearance, wonderfully young for your years. I do
hope papa, at your age, will look as fresh."

She has risen, and has slipped her hand through his arm, and is
smiling up at him gayly and with a sweetness irresistible. Sir James
looks as pleased as though he had received a florid compliment.

"What a baby you are!" he says, after a pause, looking down at her
admiringly. Judging by his tone, babies, in his eyes, must possess
very superior attractions. "There are a good many babies in the world,
don't you think?" he goes on, presently. "You are one, and Geoffrey
Branscombe is another. I don't suppose he will ever quite grow up."

"And Horace," says Clarissa, idly, "is he another?"

But Sir James, though unconsciously, resents the question.

"Oh, no!" he says, hastily. "He does not come within the category at
all. Why," with a faint smile, "he is even older than I am! There is
no tender baby-nonsense about him."

"No, he is so clever,--so far above us all, where intellect is
concerned," she says, absently. A slight smile plays about her lips,
and a light, that was not there a moment since, comes to life within
her eyes. With an effort, she arouses herself from what were plainly
happy daydreams, and comes back to the present, which, just now, is
happy too.

"I think nature meant me to be a nun," she says, smiling. "This place
subdues and touches me so. The sombre lights and shadows are so
impressive! If it were indeed mine (in reality), I should live a great
part of my time in it. Here, I should write my pleasantest letters,
and read my choicest books, take my afternoon tea, and make welcome my
dearest friends,--you among them. In fact, if it were practicable,"
nodding her pretty head emphatically, "I should steal this room. There
is hardly anything I would not do to make it my own."

Scrope regards her earnestly, with a certain amount of calm inquiry.
Is she a coquette, or merely unthinking? If, indeed, the face be the
index of the mind, one must account her free of all unworthy thought
or frivolous design. Here is

  "A countenance in which do meet
  Sweet records, promises as sweet."

Her eyes are still smiling up at him; her whole expression is full of
a gentle friendliness; and in his heart, at this moment, arises a
sensation that is not hope, or gladness, or despair, but yet is a
faint wild mingling of all three.

As for Clarissa, she stands a little apart, unconscious of all that is
passing in his heart, and gazes lovingly upon the objects that
surround her, as one will gaze now and then on things that have been
fondly remembered through the haze of many years. She is happy,
wrapped in memories of a past all sunshine and no shade, and is
ignorant of the meaning he would gladly attach to her last words.

"While I stay here I sin,--that is, I covet," she says, at length,
surprised by his silence, "and it grows late. Come, walk with me a
little way through the park: I have not yet seen the old path we used
to call the 'short cut' to Gowran, long ago."

So, down the dark stairs he follows her, across the stone flooring,
and into the hall outside, that seems so brilliant by contrast, and so
like another world, all is so changed, so different. Behind, lie
silence, unbroken, perfect, a sad and dreamy light, Old-World
grandeur; here, all is restless life, full of uncertain sounds, and
distant footsteps, and voices faint but positive.

"Is it not like a dream?" says Clarissa, stopping to point backwards
to the turret they have just quitted.

"The past is always full of dreams," replies he, thoughtfully.




CHAPTER V.

  "A violet by a mossy stone
    Half hidden from the eye!
  Fair as a star, when only one
    Is shining in the sky."--WORDSWORTH.


The baby morn has flung aside its robes, and grown to perfect
strength. The day is well advanced. Already it is making rapid strides
towards rest and evening; yet still no cooling breeze has come to
refresh the heart of man.

Below, in the quiet fields, the cattle are standing, knee-deep in
water, beneath the spreading branches of the kindly alder. They have
no energy to eat, but munch, sleepily, the all-satisfying cud, and,
with gentle if expressionless eyes, look out afar for evening and the
milkmaid.

    "'Tis raging noon; and, vertical, the sun
  Darts on the head direct his forceful rays.
  O'er heaven and earth, far as the ranging eye
  Can sweep, a dazzling deluge reigns; and all,
  From pole to pole, is undistinguished blaze.
  Distressful Nature pants!
  The very streams look languid from afar,
  Or, through th' unsheltered glade, impatient, seem
  To hurl into the covert of the grove."

A tender stillness reigns over everything. The very birds are mute.
Even the busy mill-wheel has ceased to move.

Bright flashes of light, that come and go ere one can catch them, dart
across the gray walls of the old mill,--that holds its gaunt and
stately head erect, as though defying age,--and, slanting to the
right, fall on the cottage, quaint and ivy-clad, that seems to nestle
at its feet. The roses that climb its walls are drooping; the
casements all stand wide. No faintest breath of air comes to flutter
Ruth's white gown, as she leans against the rustic gate.

All millers' daughters should be pretty. It is a duty imposed upon
them by tradition. Romance, of the most floral description, at once
attaches itself to a miller's daughter. I am not at all sure it does
not even cast a halo round the miller himself. Ruth Annersley at least
acknowledges this fact, and does her duty nobly; she gives the lie to
no old legends or treasured nursery superstitions; she is as pretty as
heart can desire,--

  "Fresh as the month, and as the morning fair."

She is small, piquant, timid, with large almond-shaped eyes and
light-brown hair, a rounded supple figure, and hands delicately white.
Perhaps there is a lack of force in her face, an indefinable want,
that hardly detracts from her beauty, yet sets one wondering, vaguely,
where it lies, and what it can be. The mouth, mobile and slightly
parted, betrays it most.

Her lashes, covering her brown eyes, are very long, and lie a good
deal on her cheeks. Her manner, without a suspicion of _gaucherie_, is
nervous, almost appealing; and her smile, because so rare, is very
charming, and apt to linger in the memory.

She is an only child, and all through her young life has been petted
and caressed rather more than is good for any one. Her father had
married, somewhat late in life, a woman in every way his superior,
and, she dying two years after her marriage, he had fallen back for
consolation upon the little one left to his sole care. To him, she was
a pride, a delight, a creature precious beyond words, on whom the sun
must shine gently and the rain fall not at all.

A shy child from the first, Ruth had declined acquaintance with the
villagers, who would, one and all, have been glad to succor the
motherless girl. Perhaps the little drop of gentle blood inherited
from her mother had thriven in her veins, and thus rendered her
distant and somewhat repellent in her manners to those in her own rank
of life.

She had been sent early to a private school, had been carefully
educated far above her position, and had come home again to her
father, with all the pretty airs and unconscious softness of manner
that, as a rule, belong to good birth.

She is warm-hearted, passionate, impulsive, and singularly
reserved,--so much so that few guess at the terrible power to love, or
hate, or suffer, in silence, that lies within her. She is a special
favorite with Miss Peyton and the vicarage people (Mr. and Mrs Redmond
and their five children), with those at Hythe, and indeed with most of
the country people, Miss Scrope excepted, who gives it freely as her
opinion that she will come to no good "with her books and her high
society and general fiddle-faddling." Nobody knows what this last
means, and every one is afraid to ask.

Just now, with her pretty head bare, and her hand shading her eyes,
she is gazing down the dusty road. Her whole attitude denotes
expectancy. Every feature (she is off her guard) expresses intense and
hopeful longing,--

  "Fiery Titan, who
        ----with his peccant heat
  Has dried up the lusty liquor new
  Upon the herbis in the greene mead,"

has plainly fallen in love with her to-day, as he has clothed her in
all his glory, and seems reluctant to pass her by on his homeward
journey.

The heat has made her pale and languid; but just at this moment a
faint delicate color springs into her face; and as the figure of a
young man, tall and broad-shouldered, turns the corner of the road,
she raises her hand to her cheek with a swift involuntary gesture. A
moment later, as the figure comes closer, so near that the face is
discernible, she pales again, and grows white as an early snow drop.

"Good-morning, Ruth," says Dorian Branscombe, with a smile, apparently
oblivious of the fact that morning has given place to noon many hours
agone.

Ruth returns his salutation gently, and lets her hand lie for an
instant in his.

"This is a summer's day, with a vengeance," says Dorian, genially,
proceeding to make himself comfortable on the top of the low wall near
which she is standing. He is plainly making up his mind to a long and
exhaustive conversation. "Talk of India!" he says disparagingly; "this
beats it to fits!"

Ruth acquiesces amiably.

"It is warm,--very," she says, calmly, but indifferently.

"'Ot I call it,--werry 'ot," returns he, making his quotation as
genially as though she understands it, and, plucking a little rose-bud
from a tree near him, proceeds to adorn his coat with it.

"It seems a long time since I have seen you," he goes on, presently;
and, as he speaks, his eyes again seek hers. Something in her face
touches some chord in his careless kindly nature.

"How pale you are!" he says, abruptly.

"Am I? The heat, no doubt,"--with a faint smile.

"But thin, too, are you not? And--and--" he pauses. "Anything wrong
with you, Ruth?"

"Wrong? No! How should there be?" retorts she, in a curious tone, in
which fear and annoyance fight for mastery. Then the storm dies away,
and the startled look fades from her pretty face.

"Why should you think me unhappy because I am a little pale?" she
asks, sullenly.

Branscombe looks surprised.

"You altogether mistake me," he says, gently. "I never associated you
in my mind with unhappiness. I merely meant, had you a headache, or
any other of those small ills that female flesh is heir to? I beg your
pardon, I'm sure, if I have offended you."

He has jumped off the wall, and is now standing before her, with only
the little gate between them. Her face is still colorless, and she is
gazing up at him with parted lips, as though she would fain say
something difficult to form into satisfactory speech. At this moment,
Lord Sartoris, coming suddenly round the angle of the road, sees them.

Ruth lowers her eyes, and some slight transient color creeps into her
cheeks. Sartoris, coming quickly up to them, makes some conventional
speech to her, and then turns to his nephew.

"Where are you going?" he asks, coldly.

"I was going to Hythe," returned the young man, easily. "Just as well
I didn't, eh? Should have found you out."

"Found me out,--yes," repeats his uncle, looking at him strangely. How
long--how long it takes to find out some people, on whom our very
hearts are set. "I am going to the village."

"Then so am I," says Branscombe. "Though I should think it would run
the original 'deserted' one close on such a day as this. Good-by,
Ruth."

He holds out his hand; and the girl, silently returning his warm
pressure, makes a faint courtesy to Lord Sartoris. There is no
servility, but some nervousness, in the slight salutation.

"How is your father, Ruth?" asks he, detaining her by a quick movement
of the hand.

"Quite well, thank you, my lord." Some timidity is discernible in her
tone, caused by the unmistakable reproof and sternness in his.

"I am glad to hear it. There is no worthier man in all the parish than
John Annersley. I hope nothing will ever occur to grieve or sadden
that good old man."

"I hope not, my lord," returns she, steadily, although his voice has
meaning in it. In another moment she is gone.

"How does your farming go on, Dorian?" asks Lord Sartoris, presently,
rousing himself from a puzzling revery.

"Quite in the model line," says Dorian, cheerful. "That Sawyer is an
invaluable fellow. Does all the work, you know,--which is most
satisfactory. Looks after the men, pays their wages, and takes all
trouble off my shoulders. Never could understand what a perfect
treasure is till I got him. Every one says I am most fortunate in my
choice of a steward."

"I dare say. It is amazing the amount of information people possess
about other people's servants. But you look after things yourself, of
course? However faithful and trustworthy one's hirelings may be, one's
own eyes should also be in the matter."

"Oh, of course," acquiesces Dorian, still cheerfully. "Nothing like
personal supervision, and so on. Every now and then, you know, I do
look over the accounts, and ask a few questions, and show myself very
learned in drainages, and so forth. But I don't see that I gain much
by it. Horrid stupid work, too,"--with a yawn. "Luckily, Sawyer is one
of the most knowing fellows in the world, or I suppose I should go to
smash. He is up to everything, and talks like a book. Quite a
pleasure, I give you my word,--almost a privilege,--to hear him
converse on short-horns and some eccentric root they call mangels."

"It is possible to be too knowing," says his uncle, depreciatingly.

"Eh? oh, no; Sawyer is not that sort of person. He is quite straight
all through. And he never worries me more than he can help. He looks
after everything, and whatever he touches (metaphorically speaking)
turns to gold. I'm sure anything like those pheasants----"

"Yes, yes, I dare say. But pheasants are not everything."

"Well, no; there are a few other things," says Dorian,
amicably,--"notably, grouse. Why this undying hatred to Sawyer, my
dear Arthur? In what has he been found wanting?"

"I think him a low, under-hand, sneaking sort of fellow," says
Sartoris, unhesitatingly. "I should not keep him in my employ half an
hour. However," relentingly, and somewhat sadly, "one cannot always
judge by appearances."

They have reached the village by this time, and are walking leisurely
through it. Almost as they reach the hotel that adorns the centre of
the main street, they meet Mr. Redmond, the rector, looking as hearty
and kindly as usual. Lord Sartoris, who has come down on purpose to
meet him, having asked his question and received his answer, turns
again and walks slowly homeward, Dorian still beside him.

As they again catch sight of the old mill, Sartoris says, quietly,
with a laudable attempt at unconcern that would not have deceived the
veriest infant, but is quite successful with Dorian, whose thoughts
are far away,--

"What a nice girl that little Ruth has grown!"

"Awfully pretty girl," returns Dorian, carelessly.

"Yes,"--gravely,--"very pretty; and I think--I hope--upright, as she
is beautiful. Poor child, hers seems to me a very desolate lot. Far
too well educated to associate with those of her own class, she is
still cut off by the laws of caste from mixing with those above her.
She has no friends, no mother, no sister, to love and sympathize with
her."

"My dear Arthur, how you do agonize yourself!" says Dorian. "She has
her father, and about as comfortable a time altogether as I know of."

"She reminds me of some lowly wayside flower," goes on the old man,
musingly, heedless of the brilliant interlude, "raising its little
head sadly among gay garden-plants that care not for her, whilst
beyond the hedge that bounds her garden she can watch her own species
grow and flourish in wild luxuriance. Her life can scarcely be called
happy. There must always be a want, a craving for what can never be
obtained. Surely the one that could bring sorrow to that pure heart,
or tears to those gentle eyes, should be----"

"Asphyxiated," puts in Dorian, idly. He yawns languidly and pulls the
head off a tall dandelion, that adorns the wayside, in a somewhat
desultory fashion. The color in the older man's cheeks grows a shade
deeper, and a gesture, as full of impatience as of displeasure,
escapes him.

"There are some subjects," he says, with calm severity, "that it would
be well to place beyond the reach of ridicule."

"Am I one of them?" says Dorian, lightly. Then, glancing at his
uncle's face, he checks himself, and goes on quickly. "I beg your
pardon, I'm sure. I have been saying something unlucky, as usual. Of
course I agree with you on all points, Arthur, and think the man who
could wilfully bring a blush to Ruth Annersley's cheek neither more
nor less than a blackguard _pur et simple_. By the by, that last
little homely phrase comes in badly there, doesn't it? Rather out of
keeping with the vituperative noun, eh!"

"Rather," returns Sartoris, shortly. He drops his nephew's arm,
and walks on in silence. As a rule, Dorian's careless humor suits
him; it amuses and adds a piquancy to a life that without it
(now that Dorian's society has become indispensable to him) would
prove "flat, stale, and unprofitable." But to-day, he hardly knows
why,--or, perhaps, hardly dares to know why,--his nephew's easy
light-heartedness jars upon him, vexing him sorely.

As they turn the corner of the road and go down the hill, they meet
Horace, coming towards them at a rapid pace. As he sees them, he
slackens his speed and approaches more slowly.

"Just as well I met you," he says, with an airy laugh, "as my thoughts
were running away with me, and Phoebus Apollo is in the ascendant:
veritably he 'rules the roast.' This uphill work is trying on the
lungs."

"Where have you been?" asks Dorian, just because he has nothing else
to say, and it is such a bore to think.

"At Gowran."

"Ah! I'm going there now. You saw Clarissa, then?" says Sartoris,
quickly. "When do you return to town, Horace?"

"To-morrow, I think,--I hope," says Horace; and, with a little nod on
both sides, they part. But when the bend in the road again hides him
from view, it would occur to a casual on-looker that Horace
Branscombe's thoughts must once more have taken his physical powers
into captivity, as his pace quickens, until it grows even swifter
than it was before.

Sartoris goes leisurely down the hill, with Dorian beside him,
whistling "Nancy Lee," in a manner highly satisfactory to himself, no
doubt, but slightly out of tune. When Sartoris can bear this musical
treat no longer, he breaks hurriedly into speech of a description that
requires an answer.

"What a pretty girl Clarissa Peyton is! don't you think so?"

When Dorian has brought Miss Lee to a triumphant finish, with a
flourish that would have raised murderous longings in the breast of
Stephen Adams, he says, without undue enthusiasm,--

"Yes, she is about the best-looking woman I know."

"And as unaffected as she is beautiful. That is her principal charm.
So thoroughly bred, too, in every thought and action. I never met so
lovable a creature!"

"What a pity she can't hear you!" says Branscombe. "Though perhaps it
is as well she can't. Adulation has a bad effect on some people."

"She is too earnest, too thorough, to be upset by flattery. I
sometimes wonder if there are any like her in the world."

"Very few, I think," says Dorian, genially.

Another pause, somewhat longer than the last, and then Sartoris says,
with some hesitation, "Do you never think of marrying, Dorian?"

"Often," says Branscombe, with an amused smile.

"Yet how seldom you touch on the matter! Why, when I was your age, I
had seen at least twenty women I should have married, had they shown
an answering regard for me."

"What a blessing they didn't!" says Branscombe. "Fancy, twenty of
them! You'd have found it awkward in the long run, wouldn't you? And I
don't think they'd have liked it, you know, in this illiberal country.
So glad you thought better of it."

"I wish I could once see you as honestly"--with a slight, almost
unconscious, stress on the word--"in love as I have been scores of
times."

"What a melancholy time you must have put in! When a fellow is in
love he goes to skin and bone, doesn't he? slights his dinner, and
refuses to find solace in the best cigar. It must be trying,--very;
especially to one's friends. I doubt you were a susceptible youth,
Arthur. I'm not."

"Then you ought to be," says Sartoris, with some anger. "All young men
should feel their hearts beat, and their pulses quicken, at the sight
of a pretty woman."

"My dear fellow," says Branscombe, severely, removing his glass from
his right to his left eye, as though to scan more carefully his
uncle's countenance, "there is something the matter with you this
morning, isn't there? You're not well, you know. You have taken
something very badly, and it has gone to your morals; they are all
wrong,--very unsound indeed. Have you carefully considered the nature
of the advice you are giving me? Why, if I were to let my heart beat
every time I meet all the pretty women I know, I should be in a
lunatic asylum in a month."

"Seriously, though, I wish you would give the matter some thought,"
says Lord Sartoris, earnestly: "you are twenty-eight,--old enough to
make a sensible choice."

Branscombe sighs.

"And I see nothing to prevent your doing so. You want a wife to look
after you,--a woman you could respect as well as love,--a thoughtful
beautiful woman, to make your home dearer to you than all the
amusements town life can afford. She would make you happy, and induce
you to look more carefully to your own interests, and----and----"

"You mean you would like me to marry Clarissa Peyton," says Dorian,
good-humoredly. "Well, it is a charming scheme, you know; but I don't
think it will come off. In the first place, Clarissa would not have
me, and in the next, I don't want to marry at all. A wife would bore
me to death; couldn't fancy a greater nuisance. I like women very
much, in fact, I may say, I am decidedly fond of a good many of them,
but to have one always looking after me (as you style it) and showing
up my pet delinquencies would drive me out of my mind. Don't look so
disgusted! I feel I'm a miserable sinner; but I really can't help it.
I expect there is something radically wrong with me."

"Do you mean to tell me"--with some natural indignation--"that up to
this you have never, during all your wanderings, both at home and
abroad, seen any woman you could sincerely admire?"

"Numbers, my dear Arthur,--any amount,--but not one I should care to
marry. You see, that makes such a difference. I remember once
before--last season--you spoke to me in this strain, and, simply to
oblige you, I thought I would make up my mind to try matrimony. So I
went in heavily, heart and soul, for Lady Fanny Hazlett. You have seen
Lady Fanny?"

"Yes, a good deal of her."

"Then you know how really pretty she is. Well, I spent three weeks at
it; regular hard work the entire time, you know, no breathing-space
allowed, as she never refuses an invitation, thinks nothing of three
balls in one night, and insisted on my dancing attendance on her
everywhere. I never suffered so much in my life; and when at last I
gave in from sheer exhaustion, I found my clothes no longer fitted me.
I was worn to a skeleton from loss of sleep, the heavy strain on my
mental powers, and the meek endurance of her ladyship's ill tempers."

"Lady Fanny is one woman, Clarissa Peyton is quite another. How could
you fail to be happy with Clarissa? Her sweetness, her grace of mind
and body, her beauty, would keep you captive even against your will."

Dorian pauses for a moment or two, and then says, very gently, as
though sorry to spoil the old man's cherished plan,--

"It is altogether impossible. Clarissa has no heart to give me."

Sartoris is silent. A vague suspicion of what now appears a certainty
has for some time oppressed and haunted him. At this moment he is
sadly realizing the emptiness of all his dreaming. Presently he says,
slowly,--

"Are you quite sure of this?"

"As certain as I can be without exactly hearing it from her own lips."

"Is it Horace?"

"Yes; it is Horace," says Branscombe, quietly.




CHAPTER VI.

  "Tread softly; bow the head,--
    In reverent silence bow,
  No passing bell doth toll,
  Yet an immortal soul
    Is passing now."--CAROLINE SOUTHEY.


A little room, scantily but neatly furnished. A low bed. A dying man.
A kneeling girl,--half child, half woman,--with a lovely, miserable
face, and pretty yellow hair.

It was almost dusk, and the sound of the moaning sea without, rising
higher and hoarser as the tide rushes in, comes like a wail of
passionate agony into the silent room.

The rain patters dismally against the window-panes. The wind--that all
day long has been sullen and subdued--is breaking forth into a fury
long suppressed, and, dashing through the little town, on its way to
the angry sea, makes the casements rattle noisily and the tall trees
sway and bend beneath its touch. Above, in the darkening heavens, gray
clouds are scurrying madly to and fro.

"Georgie," whispers a faint voice from out the gathering gloom, "are
you still there?"

"Yes, dear, I am here, quite near to you. What is it?"

"Sit where I can see you, child,--where I can watch your face. I have
something to say to you. I cannot die with this weight upon my heart."

"What weight, papa?"

"The uncertainty about your future," says the dying man, with some
excitement. "How can I leave you, my little one, to fight this cruel
world alone?"

"Do not think of me," says the girl, in a voice so unnaturally calm as
to betray the fact that she is making a supreme effort to steel
herself against the betrayal of emotion of any kind. By and by, will
there not be long years in which to make her moan, and weep, and
lament, and give herself wholly up to that grim giant, Despair? "Put
me out of your thoughts altogether. I shall do very, very well. I
shall manage to live as others have lived before me."

"Your Aunt Elizabeth will take you in for a little while, and
then----then----"

"I shall go out as a governess. I shall get into some kind, pleasant
family, and every one will be very good to me," says the girl, still
in a resolutely cheerful tone. "It will just suit me. I shall like it.
Do you understand me, papa? I shall like it better than anything,
because children are always fond of me."

The father's face grows sadder, even grayer, as she speaks. He sighs
in a troubled fashion, and strokes feebly the little fragile hand that
clings so desperately to his, while the damps of death lie thick upon
his brow.

"A governess," he murmurs, with some difficulty. "While you are only a
child yourself? What a hard, hard fate! Is there no friend to help and
comfort you?"

"I have a friend," replies she, steadily. "You have often heard me
mention her. You remember the name, now,--Clarissa Peyton? She was my
best friend at school, and I know she will do what she can for me. She
will be able to find me some nice children, and----"

"Friendship,"--interrupts he, bitterly,--"it is a breath,--a name. It
will fail you when you most need it."

"Clarissa will not fail me," replies she, slowly, though with a
feeling of deadly sickness at her heart. "And, besides, you must not
think of me as a governess always, papa. I shall, perhaps, marry
somebody, some day."

The dying man's eyes grow a shade brighter; it is a mere flicker, but
it lasts for a moment, long enough to convince her she has indeed
given some poor hope to cheer his last hours.

"Yes; to marry somebody," he repeats, wistfully, "that will be
best,--to get some good man, some kindly, loving heart to protect you
and make a safe shelter for you. There is comfort in the thought. But
I hope it will be soon, my darling, before your spirit is broken and
your youth dulled."

"I shall marry as soon as ever I can," says Georgie, making a last
terrible effort to appear hopeful and resigned. "I shall meet some one
very soon, no doubt,--very soon: so do not fret about me any more. Why
should I not, indeed? I am very pretty, am I not, papa?" In spite of
the lightness of her words, a heavy choking sob escapes her as she
finishes her little set speech. She buries her face in the
bed-clothes, to stifle her rising grief, but her father is almost too
far gone to notice it.

"Yes,--so like your mother," he mutters, somewhat thickly, clutching
aimlessly at the quilt. "Poor Alice!--poor girl! It was that day on
the beach, when the waves were dancing, and the sun----or was
it?----Did the old man ever forgive----?"

He is wandering, dreaming his death-dream of happier days, going back,
even as he sinks into everlasting sleep, to the gilded hours of youth.

The girl presses his hand to rouse him.

"Think of _me_ now," she entreats, despairingly; "it will only be for
a little while,--such a little while,--and then you will be with _her_
forever. Oh, papa! my dear, my dear; smile at me once again. Think of
me happily; let me feel when you are gone that your last hours with me
were peaceful."

His eyes meet hers, and he smiles tenderly. Gently she slips her arms
round him, and, laying her golden head upon the pillow, close to him,
presses her lips to his,--the soft warm lips, that contrast so
painfully with those pale cold other ones they touch. So she remains
for a long time, kissing him softly every now and again, and thinking
hopelessly of the end.

She neither sighs, nor weeps, nor makes any outward sign of anguish.
Unlike most people, she has realized to its fullest the awfulness of
this thing that is about to befall her. And the knowledge has
paralyzed her senses, rendering her dull with misery, and tearless.

Presently the white lids, weary with nights of watching, droop. Her
breath comes more evenly. Her head sinks more heavily against the
pillow, and, like a child worn out with grief and pain, she sleeps.

When next she wakes, gray dawn is everywhere. The wind still moans
unceasingly. Still the rain-drops patter against the panes. She raises
her head affrightedly, and, springing to his feet, bends with bated
breath above the quiet form lying on the bed.

Alas! alas! what change is here? He has not moved; no faintest
alteration can be traced in the calm pose of the figure that lies just
as she last saw it, when sleep o'er came her. The eyes are closed;
the tender smile--the last fond smile--still lingers on his lips; yet,
he is dead!

The poor child stands gazing down upon him with parted lips and
clasped hands, and a face almost as ashen as that marble one to which
her eyes grow with a horror unspeakable. He looks so peaceful--so much
as though he merely sleeps--that for one mad moment she tries not to
believe the truth. Yet she knows it is death, unmistakable and
relentless, upon which for the first time she looks.

He is gone, forever! without another kiss, or smile, or farewell word
beyond those last uttered. He had set out upon his journey alone, had
passed into the other happier land, in the cold silence of the night,
even while she slept,--had been torn from her, whilst yet her fond
arms encircled him.

Impelled by some indefinable desire, she lays her fingers softly on
the hand that lies outside the coverlet. The awful chill that meets
her touch seems to reach even to her heart. Throwing her arms above
her head, with a wild passionate cry, she falls forward, and lies
senseless across the lifeless body.

       *       *       *       *       *

Misery hurts, but it rarely kills; and broken hearts are out of
fashion. All this unhappiness came to Georgie Broughton about a year
ago, and though brain-fever followed upon it, attacking her with
vicious force, and almost handing her over as a victim to the greedy
grave, yet she had survived, and overcome death, and returned from the
land of shadows, weakened, indeed, but with life before her.

Months passed before she could summon up sufficient energy to plan or
think about a possible future. All this time her aunt Elizabeth had
clothed and fed and sheltered her, but unwillingly. Indeed, so
grudgingly had she dealt out her measure of "brotherly love" that the
girl writhed beneath it, and pined, with a passionate longing, for the
day that should see her freed from a dependence that had become
unspeakably bitter to her.

To-day, sitting in her little room,--an apartment high up in Aunt
Elizabeth's house,--she tells herself she will hesitate no longer,
that she is strong now, quite strong, and able to face the world. She
holds up her delicate little hand between her eyes and the window, as
a test of her returning strength, only to find she can almost see the
light through it,--so thin, so fragile, has it grown. But she will not
be disheartened; and, drawing pen and paper towards her, she tries to
write.

But it is a difficult task, and her head is strangely heavy, and her
words will not come to her. A vague feeling, too, that her letter will
be unsuccessful, that her friend will fail her, distresses and damps
her power to explain her position clearly.

Who can say if Clarissa Peyton will be the same at heart as when last
they parted, with many words of good will and affection, and eyes dark
with tears?

Grief and misery, and too much of Aunt Elizabeth, have already
embittered and generated distrust in her young bosom. She is tired,
too. All day she has toiled, has worked religiously, and gone through
wearying household labor, trying to repay in some faint wise the
reluctant hospitality extended to her. At this moment a sense of utter
desolation overpowers her, and with a brain on fire, and a heart half
broken, she pushes from her the partly-written letter, and, burying
her face in her arms, breaks into low but heavy weeping.

"Papa! papa!" she sobs, miserably. It is the common refrain of all her
sorrowful dirges,--the sadder that no response ever comes to the
lonely cry. Of our dead, if we would believe them happy we must also
believe that they have forgotten us; else how (when we think on our
bleeding hearts) could they keep their bliss so perfect?

Mournfully as Mariana in her moated grange, the poor child laments,
while sobs shake her slender frame. And the day dies, and the sun goes
down, and happily some noise in the house--a step, a voice--arouses
her, and, starting as though from some ugly dream, she takes up her
pen again, and writes eagerly, and without premeditation, to the one
friend in whom she still puts faith.




CHAPTER VII.

  "Life has rising ills."--DYER.


"Papa, papa," says Miss Peyton, impatiently, without eliciting any
response.

It is half-past ten, and breakfast is on the table! So are two little
white pigeons, who have flown in through the open window, and are
sitting, one on Clarissa's shoulder, the other on the edge of the
table, picking crumbs out of her plate. The sun is streaming hotly in,
the breath of flowers floating faintly in his train. A bowl of roses,
half opened and filled with the dew of early morning, lies near
Clarissa's plate. Upon the window-sill, outside, another little
pigeon, brown-tinged and timid, stands peeping shyly in, envying his
bolder brothers, and longing for the pretty coaxing voice of his
mistress that shall make him brave to enter.

But to-day the welcome summons does not come. Miss Peyton has an open
letter in her hand, the contents of which have plainly disturbed and
interested her to an unusual degree; so that the little bird, whose
pretty brown plumage is being transformed by the sun into richest
bronze, grows each moment more dejected. Not for him the crumbs and
the "flesh pots of Egypt."

"One----two----If you don't answer me before I say three, papa, I
shall do something desperate," she says, again, raising her voice a
little.

But still papa takes no heed. At this moment, poor man, he is deep in
Mr. Forster's Irish Distress Bill, and is deaf to all surroundings.

Clarissa loses patience. Taking up a teaspoon, she makes a sharp
"assault and battery" upon an unoffending teacup, thereby creating a
din compared to which the noise of tomtoms would be sweetest music.

George Peyton is not proof against this tattoo. He looks up irritably,
and for a moment withdraws his mind from Mr. Forster's Bill.

"My dear Clarissa," he says, very justly incensed, "what is it? What
on earth is the matter with you? My dear, whatever it is, do stop that
unpleasant noise: it plays the very mischief with one's nerves."

"It is only a teaspoon," begins Miss Peyton, delighted with her
success.

"And a cup, I think," says Mr. Peyton. "Separately they are
unoffending, together they can annoy. If you will put that spoon out
of your hand, my dear, you will make me much happier."

"It was only when I was actually hoarse, from trying to attract your
attention, that I resorted to violent measures," says Clarissa,
severely.

"I beg your pardon," returns he, submissively.

"Now listen to my letter," says Clarissa. "I want your advice. It is
such a dear letter, and such a sad one; and--and something must be
done at once."

"I quite agree with you," murmurs her father, dreamily. Once again his
mind is losing itself in the folds of the fragrant "Times."

                              "MANNERTON, Tuesday, September 24.

     "My DEAR CLARISSA,--

     "So long a time has elapsed since last I saw or heard of you
     that I half fear, as you read this, it will puzzle you to
     remember the writer. Am I quite forgotten? I hope not; as I
     want you to do me a great service. This reason for wishing
     myself still in your memory sounds selfish,--almost rude; but
     what can I do? Must I not speak the truth? And indeed I am in
     sore trouble. I am friendless, all but homeless, and utterly
     alone in the world. But, as I am quite determined to fight my
     own way, I have decided on going out as a governess, and I
     want you, dear, dear Cissy, to get somebody to try
     me,--somebody who would not be too hard upon me, just at
     first, until I had accustomed myself to the life and to the
     children's ways. You may say I can paint very well, and,
     though not a brilliant pianist, I have a good voice. (Do you
     recollect how, at school, you used to say you liked to hear
     me sing when the day was dying?) I can speak French and
     German, but I know nothing of Italian or Latin, and I was
     never very much at arithmetic, or that. I think I could get
     on, after a little training; and at all events I know I must
     try, as life here is not endurable.

     "Oh, Cissy, if time has changed you, if you have grown cold
     and careless, as all the rest of this cruel world, what shall
     I do? But I will not believe that even a hundred years could
     make you unkind or unfeeling. Do you think you will be very
     long in answering this? Every hour I shall be listening for
     the post: write to me, then, as soon as you can. I am very
     unhappy here with Aunt Elizabeth, who does not care for me.

                "I am, dear Clarissa,

                          "Your affectionate friend,

                                             "GEORGIE BROUGHTON.

     "P.S.--If you could get me pretty children, I should be so
     glad; but of course it must not make any difference, and I
     dare say ugly ones are just as nice, when one gets used to
     them. I am dreadfully afraid of boys; but perhaps there may
     be a few found somewhere amenable to reason, and at least one
     or two who do not object to knees in their knickerbockers. Do
     you remember the gardener's babies at Brussels, and how fond
     they were of me? Dear Cissy, write soon."

This is the letter, with all its pathetic little confidences, its "do
you remembers?" and "have you forgottens?" and its tone,--half proud
and half beseeching,--that has touched Miss Peyton so deeply.

Her mouth trembles, there are tears in her voice and eyes, as she
finishes the last word and turns her face to her father. Something she
sees in that vague but kindly man checks her enthusiasm for the
moment; a thought but half defined, a suspicion, disgraceful if true,
crosses her brain and fills her with indignation.

"Papa! Have you been listening?" she asks, in her sternest tones.

"Listening, my dear? Of course I have. Yes, certainly, with all my
might," returns he, with unusual and therefore doubtful alacrity. As a
matter of fact, I don't think much would be said about his
"distinguished answering" were he to be examined in the letter just
read; but all the more for this reason does he assume an air of
surprise at Clarissa's question, and covers himself with an expression
of injured innocence. Unfortunately for him, however, Miss Peyton is a
person not to be done.

"No, you have not," she says, severe but calm. "You have not heard a
single syllable. Your mind was full of that miserable paper all the
time, and I am positive you were putting together some silly speech
that you imagine would electrify those absurd men in the House of
Commons."

"I don't think it was a very silly speech, my dear Clarissa,"
remonstrates Mr. Peyton, feebly.

"Oh, then you do acknowledge you were miles away in thought," says
Clarissa, triumphant, if disgusted.

"My dear girl, how you do misjudge me!" protests poor Mr. Peyton, at
his wits' end. "I assure you, I was all attention to that very
excellent letter from beginning to end."

"Were you?" returns she, sweetly. "Then, of course, you can tell me
what was the last word."

She has placed her elbows on the table, and has let her pretty face
sink into the palms of her hands, and is now regarding her father with
a smile, half mocking, half malicious.

"The last word! Oh, nonsense, my dear Cis! who ever remembered the
last word of anything, unless it happened to be 'The Burial of Sir
John Moore,' or 'Beautiful Star,' or something that way? But I know
your letter was all about a young woman who has got herself into a
mess and wants to come to you now as maid or laundress. But there is
always danger in that sort of thing, you know, and you mightn't like
it afterwards: and----"

"Oh, what an engrossing speech that imaginary one of yours must have
been!" says Clarissa, with a little distracted shake of her head. "I
knew you were in the room, didn't I? No, no, no, you are altogether
wrong: this is no letter from maid or laundress, but from Georgie
Broughton. (You must remember her name, I have so often mentioned it
to you.) She is the dearest little thing in the world,--quite that,
and more. And she writes, to tell me she is miserably poor, and wants
to go out as a governess."

"Poor girl! Of all unhappy resources, the last."

"Yes; isn't it wretched? But, you see, she is bound to do something,
and wearing out one's heart in a dingy school-room seems to be the
only course left open to a pretty girl like Georgie."

"Try Mrs. Redmond, then. She is looking out for a governess for the
children; and your friend might drop in there without further
trouble."

"Oh, papa, but all those children! and Mrs. Redmond herself, too, so
fretful and so irritable,--so utterly impossible in every way. Her
very 'How d'ye do?' would frighten Georgie to death."

"People don't die of chills of that description; and your poor little
friend can scarcely expect to find everything _couleur de rose_.
Besides, 'all those children' you speak of just resolve themselves
into two, as the boys are at school, and Cissy calls herself grown up.
I should think Cissy would be, in fact, a great comfort to her, and
would be amenable to her, and gentle--and that."

At this, Miss Peyton laughs a little, and bites her lip.

"Amenable," she says, slowly. "Do you know, I am afraid my Georgie is
even younger than Cissy?"

"Younger!"

"Well, she will certainly look younger; she has such a little, fresh,
babyish rose-bud of a face. Do you think"--anxiously--"that would
matter much?"

"It doesn't sound promising; but, if she is a good girl, one might
forgive the great crime of being fresh and young. Dear me, it is very
awkward. If she had been a nice, sensible, ugly, middle-aged person,
now, all would have gone well; but, after all, poor child, of course
she can't help her appearance."

"No, she certainly cannot," says Clarissa, with a sigh,
heart-felt pity in her tone. "And her eyes are the very color of
forget-me-nots,--quite the prettiest I ever saw. It is really too
bad."

"Redmond, himself, would make no difficulty about it. He
prefers to have young people about him, and was always, you know,
rather----rather melancholy when in Miss Prood's society, who was
really a most estimable woman, and one whose moral character one could
not fail to admire, when one forgot her nose, and her----"

"Temper?"

"Well, yes, she was rather excitable. But, as I was saying, Redmond
and your friend would probably pull very well; and then there's the
curate. Why,"--brilliantly,--"she might marry the curate!"

"Mr. Hastings?" says Clarissa, with animation, brightening visibly.
"Why, really, so she might. Such a good-looking man, too, and clever.
It is only a day or two ago since somebody said to me, 'He has the
very sort of face they make bishops of nowadays.'"

"What a very disinterested girl you are!" says her father, with a
smile, faint but amused: "without a moment's hesitation you surrender
every hope of making this embryo bishop your own. Can devotion farther
go? Well, take my advice; and, as your heart is set upon this thing,
go down to the vicarage to-day; tell Mrs. Redmond you have secured a
governess for her; do not discuss the subject,--simply state the fact;
and I think you will find her deeply grateful, in that you have put an
end to her difficulties, without compelling her brain to bear upon the
matter."

"Machiavelli was a poor creature, when compared with you," says Miss
Peyton, saucily. "What plots and plans swell out your busy brain! I
shall go to the vicarage to-day, as you advise, and be as sweet as
honey to Mrs. Redmond, and win my cause against all obstacles. But
first"--turning with a soft movement to caress the snowy pigeon that
rests upon her shoulder--"little home friends must be fed."

The bird, as though comprehending her words, flies through the open
window to the balcony outside, to nestle among its more timid
companions; whilst Clarissa, a creature scarcely less fair than they,
follows him, to fling breadcrumbs for their morning meal.

A little later, having dressed herself, she starts upon her errand,
ready to take the vicarage by storm.




CHAPTER VIII.

  "'Tis love, love, love, that makes the world go round."


The hot September sun beats fiercely on her as she walks along; the
day is full of languor and sweet peace. The summer is almost done, and
is dying, rich in beauty, and warm with the ripeness of strength
perfected. From out the thickets, little birds, that three months
agone scarce knew the power of breath, now warble soft melodies, that
thrill the air with joy. Clarissa, glad, and full of purpose, feels
her heart at one with these tiny, heaven-taught musicians, as she
follows the path beneath the leafy trees that leads to the vicarage.

As she deserts the tinted wood, and gains the road that runs by the
old mill, she finds herself face to face with Horace Branscombe,
coming towards her in a somewhat laggard fashion. His brow is darkened
by a frown: his whole expression is moody and oppressed with
discontent.

As he sees Clarissa, his features--as though compelled by a powerful
will--undergo a complete change, and he smiles, and comes forward with
outstretched hand to greet her.

"Horace! you here again, and so soon?" she says, quickly. Surprise
lends haste to her tongue. She has believed him in London; and now to
see him thus unexpectedly, and without the usual friendly warning
conveyed by letter, causes her not only pleasure, but a vague
uneasiness.

"Does it seem 'so soon' to you?" replies he, in a carefully inspired
tone. "To me the last two months have appeared almost a year, so
heavily have dragged the days spent away from Pullingham."

It is a very stereotyped little sentence, old and world-worn, and
smacking faintly of insincerity; but when a woman loves a man she
rarely measures his words.

"I seem rude," says Clarissa, with a soft smile. "But you will
understand me. And you know you told me you did not intend to return
before Christmas."

"Yes, I know." He is silent for a little while, and then, rousing
himself, as though by an effort, says, slowly,--

"Did you miss me?"

"I always miss you," returns she, simply: "you know that." She flushes
warmly, and lets her long lashes fall leisurely, until at length they
hide from view the sweet confession of her eyes. There is a pause that
embraces a full minute, and then she speaks again. "You have not yet
told me the reason of your return," she says, gently.

"I wearied of town," replies he. "A strange acknowledgment for one
like me, but true. For once, I honestly pined for the country--insipid
as I have always deemed it--and craved unceasingly for something
fresh, new, innocent, something unused to gas, and the glare and
unholy glitter of a city."

He speaks bitterly--almost passionately--and as though for the moment
he has altogether forgotten the existence of his companion. An instant
later, however, he recovers himself.

"I felt I should be happier, more fitted to cope with my work, if I
could get even one glimpse of you!"

"Are you not happy, then?" asks she, gently, her heart beating fast,
her color growing and lessening rapidly.

"Happy? no. Can a man be happy while a perpetual doubt distracts him?
Can he know even the meaning of the word Peace, whilst devoured with a
fear that he shall never possess the one great good he desires?"

Again, his thoughts appear to wander; and some passion, not born of
the present moment, but borrowed from some other hour, fills his tone.

"Yes," says Clarissa, nervously, questioningly, feeling poor in words,
now that the great crisis of her life has come.

"So I am here," he goes on, softly, "to solve my doubt, to gain at
least a rest from the gnawing suspense that for so long I have
endured. Need I tell you that I love you?--that" (he pauses, and a
faint contraction of the features, that dies almost as it is born,
disfigures his face for a second)----"that you are the one woman in
all the world upon whom I have set my heart?"

There is silence. For Clarissa, an intense joy holds her mute; the
very intensity of her happiness checks the flow of speech. He, too,
seems lost in thought. Presently, however, he breaks the silence, and
this time a faint anxiety may be discernible in his voice, though his
face is calm and composed, as usual.

"You do not speak, Clarissa. I have told you of my love, and you are
silent. I now ask if you can love me? At least, give me an answer.
Dearest,"--glancing at her averted face, and seeing the shy blush that
adds another charm to its beauty,--"tell me the truth."

"I can; I do love you!" says Clarissa, sweetly, and with perfect
trust. She slips her hand into his. Raising his hat, he lifts the
slender fingers to his lips, and kisses them; and, then,
together--still hand in hand--they walk along, speechless, yet
seemingly content.

The road is dusty; and a few drops of rain fall, like mild blessings,
into its parched furrows. The roadside flowers, drooping and languid,
fling their rich perfume, with lavish generosity, upon the motionless
air. Some sheep, in a far-off meadow, bleat mournfully, and answer
back the echo that mocks their lament.

"You have made me happier than I ever hoped to be; but you have not
yet said you will marry me." The words come from Horace, but sound
curiously far away, the very stillness and sadness of the evening
rendering them more distant. Clarissa, glancing at him, can see he is
white as Death.

"How pale he is!" she thinks, and then makes herself happy in the
belief that he is terribly in earnest about this matter, and that his
love for her is infinite.

"Yes, I shall marry you," she says, with tender seriousness. To her,
this promise is a solemn bond, that nothing but death or falsehood can
cancel.

"When?"

"Oh, Horace, I cannot answer that question so readily. There are so
many things. Papa must be told; and James Scrope; and you must tell
Dorian and your uncle."

"All that would hardly take half an hour."

"Perhaps; but there are other reasons for delay, more than I can tell
you just now. And, besides, it is all so new, so strange." She smiles,
as though she would willingly have added the words, "so sweet;" and a
little happy far-away look creeps into and illumines her eyes. "Why
are you so impatient?"

"Impatient!" returns he, a touch of vehemence in his tone. "Of course
I am impatient. The sooner it is all got over the better." He checks
himself, draws his breath somewhat quickly, and goes on in a calmer
fashion: "What sort of a lover should I be, if I showed no anxiety to
claim you as soon as possible? _You_ should be the last to blame me
for undue haste in this matter. When shall it be, then?--In one month?
two? three?" He speaks again, almost excitedly.

"Oh, no, no," gently, but shrinking from him a little. "That would be
impossible. Why, think!--it is only this moment you have told me you
love me, and now you would have me name our wedding-day!"

"Not exactly that. But tell me some definite time, near at hand, to
which I can be looking forward. Everything rests with you now,
remember that." His last words convey an unconscious warning, but
Clarissa neither heeds or understands it.

"Papa will miss me so terribly," she says, dreamily; "it seems
selfish, almost as though I were wilfully deserting him. I should, at
least, like another Christmas at home with him. And see,"--turning to
him, with gentle earnestness,--"are we not quite happy as we now are,
loving and trusting in each other? Why, then, should we not continue
this present happiness for another year? You are silent, Horace! You
do not answer! Are you angry with me?" She lays her hand lightly on
his arm.

"No; not angry." His eyes are on the ground; and he takes no notice of
the tender pressure on his arm. "But a year is a long time to wait! So
many things may happen in twelve months; and deeds once done, forever
leave their mark."

"Do not speak like that, it is as though you would foretell evil,"
says Clarissa, a faint feeling of superstitious horror making her
nervous.

Branscombe, raising his head, regards her curiously.

"Why should there be evil to foretell?" he says, slowly. "And yet,
Clarissa, I would ask you always to remember this hour, and the fact
that it was you, not I, who wished the postponement of our marriage.
If it must be as you say, it will be better to keep our engagement as
quiet as possible; perfectly secret will indeed be best."

"Yes; if you wish it. That will please me, too. Only papa need know of
it, and----James Scrope."

"And why Sir James?" with a scrutinizing gaze.

"Why?"--with some surprise. "Well, I suppose because papa and I never
do anything important without telling him of it. He is quite our
oldest friend. We should hardly get on now without Jim."

"Not so old, either. I hope, by and by, you will be able to manage
without Sir James as a father-confessor."

"By and by I shall have you," says Clarissa, sweetly, with a smile and
a soft blush.

"True! I wonder if you will find that sufficient? I doubt I'm half
such a good fellow, Clarissa, as you believe me."

In which he comes nearer the truth than he ever came before.

"You are good enough for me," says Clarissa, with fond conviction.
"Will you come with me as far as the vicarage? I must go there to-day,
and the walk is such a pretty one, and,"--with a little happy
laugh,--"now you are quite my own property, I think I should like to
make use of you. Look! there is Ruth Annersley standing at her gate.
Good-morning, Ruth! What a charming day, is it not? after all
yesterday's rain!"

Ruth--who, the moment before, had made a faint movement as though she
would willingly have stepped behind the huge rose-bush nearest to her
and so have escaped observation--comes slowly forward. She is pale;
but the intense heat of the day makes itself felt by all, and has
deprived even Miss Peyton's cheeks of some of their usual warmth. She
accepts Clarissa's proffered hand, and smiles a faint welcome. But
when Horace would, too, have shaken hands with her, she declines to
see his meaning, and, bowing slightly, turns aside to listen to his
companion's words.

"Were you raking your walks?" asks Clarissa, idly, leaning on the
gate, and gazing down the trim-gravelled path that leads to the
ivy-clad cottage beyond. "Nobody's walks are ever as clean as yours, I
think. And your roses are something too delicious, far better than our
out-door flowers at Gowran. And so late in the season, too!"

"May I give you one?" says Ruth, dimpling prettily at her praise.

"Thank you. How sweet they are! No, no, Horace, that is altogether too
large for your coat. Ruth, will you give Mr. Branscombe a tiny bud?
That one over there, for instance."

"I don't think I see it," says Ruth, quietly. She has grown pale
again, and her lips have lost a little of the childish petulant pout
that characterizes them.

"Just over there. Don't you see? Why, you are almost looking at it,
you stupid child."

"I am stupid, I am afraid,"--with a faint smile. "Come in, Miss
Peyton, and gather it yourself." She opens the gate, with a sort of
determination in her manner, and Clarissa, going up to the rose-tree,
plucks the delicate blossom in dispute. Horace has followed her inside
the gate, but, turning rather to the left, falls apparently in love
with an artless white rose-bud that waves gently to and fro upon its
stem, as though eager to attract and rivet admiration.

"I think I prefer this flower, after all," he says, lightly. "May I
ask you to give it to me, Ruth?" His manner is quite easy, very nearly
indifferent, and his back is turned to Clarissa. But his eyes are on
Ruth; and the girl, though with open reluctance and ill-repressed
defiance, is compelled to pick the white rose and give it to him.

"Well, I really don't think you have shown very good taste," says
Clarissa, examining the two flowers. "Mine is the most perfect.
Nevertheless, I suppose wilful man must have his way. Let me settle it
in your coat for you."

Almost as she speaks, the flower drops accidentally from her fingers;
and, both she and Horace making a step forward to recover it, by some
awkward chance they tread on it, and crush the poor, frail little
thing out of all shape. It lies upon the gravel, broken and
disfigured, yet very sweet in death.

"You trod on it," says Horace, rather quickly, to Clarissa.

"No, dear; I really think--indeed I am sure--it was you," returns she,
calmly, but with conviction.

"It doesn't matter: it was hardly worth a discussion," says Ruth, with
an odd laugh. "See how poor a thing it looks now; and, yet, a moment
since it was happy on its tree."

"Never mind, Horace: this is really a charming little bud," says
Clarissa, gayly, holding out the rose of her own choosing: "at least
you must try to be content with it. Good-by, Ruth; come up to Gowran
some day soon, and take those books you asked for the other day."

"Thank you, Miss Peyton. I shall come soon."

"Good-by," says Horace.

"Good-by," returns she. But it is to Clarissa, not to him, she
addresses the word of farewell.

When the mill has been left some distance behind them, and Ruth's
slight figure, clad in its white gown, has ceased to be a fleck of
coloring in the landscape, Clarissa says, thoughtfully,--

"What a pretty girl that is, and how refined! Quite a little lady in
manner; so calm, and so collected,--cold, almost. I know many girls,
irreproachably born, not to be compared with her, in my opinion. You
agree with me?"

"Birth is not always to be depended upon nowadays."

"She is so quiet, too, and so retiring. She would not even shake hands
with you, when we met her, though you wanted her to. Did you remark
that?"

"Sometimes I am dull about trifles, such as that."

"Yes. By the by, she did not seem surprised at seeing you here to-day,
although she thought you safe in town, as we all did,--you deceitful
boy."

"Did she not?"

"No. But then, of course, it was a matter of indifference to her."

"Of course."

They have reached the entrance to the vicarage by this time, and are
pausing to say farewell for a few hours.

"I shall come up to Gowran to-morrow morning first thing, and speak to
your father: is that what you will wish me to do?" asks Horace, her
hand in his.

"Yes. But, Horace," looking at him earnestly, "I think I should like
to tell it all to papa myself first, this evening."

"Very well, dearest. Do whatever makes you happiest," returns he,
secretly pleased that the ice will be broken for him before his
prepares for his _mauvais quart-d'heure_ in the library. "And if he
should refuse his consent, Clarissa, what then? You know you might
make so much a better marriage."

"Might I?"--tenderly. "I don't think so; and papa would not make me
unhappy."




CHAPTER IX.

  "A generous friendship no cold medium knows."--POPE.


Mrs. Redmond is sitting on a centre ottoman, darning stockings. This
is her favorite pastime, and never fails her. When she isn't darning
stockings, she is always scolding the cook, and as her voice, when
raised, is not mellifluous, her family, in a body, regard the
work-basket with reverential affection, and present it to her notice
when there comes the crash of broken china from the lower regions, or
when the cold meat has been unfairly dealt with.

She is of the lean cadaverous order of womankind, and is bony to the
last degree. Her nose is aquiline, and, as a rule, pale blue. As this
last color might also describe her eyes, there is a depressing want of
contrast about her face. Her lips are thin and querulous, and her
hair--well, she hasn't any hair, but her wig is flaxen.

As Clarissa enters, she hastily draws the stocking from her hand, and
rises to greet her. A faint blush mantles in her cheek, making one at
once understand that in by-gone days she had probably been considered
pretty.

"So unexpected, my dear Clarissa," she says, with as pleased a smile
as the poor thing ever conjures up, and a little weakness at the
knees, meant for a courtesy. "So very glad to see you,"--as, indeed,
she is.

In her earlier days she had been called a belle,--by her own
people,--and had been expected, accordingly, to draw a prize in the
marriage-market. But Penelope Proude had failed them, and, by so
doing, had brought down eternal condemnation on her head. In her
second season she had fallen foolishly but honestly in love with a
well-born but impecunious curate, and had married him in spite of
threats and withering sneers. With one consent her family cast her off
and consigned her to her fate, declaring themselves incapable of
dealing with a woman who could wilfully marry a man possessed of
nothing. They always put a capital N to this word, and perhaps they
were right, as at that time all Charlie Redmond could call his own was
seven younger brothers and a tenor voice of the very purest.

As years rolled on, though Mrs. Redmond never, perhaps, regretted her
marriage, she nevertheless secretly acknowledged to herself a
hankering after the old life, a longing for the grandeur and riches
that accrued to it (the Proudes for generations had been born and bred
and had thriven in the soft goods line), and hugged the demoralizing
thought to her bosom that a little more trade and a little less blue
blood would have made her husband a degree more perfect.

It pleased her when the county families invited the youthful Cissy to
their balls; and it warmed her heart and caused her to forget the
daily shifts and worries of life when the duchess sent her fruit and
game, accompanied by kind little notes. It above all things reconciled
her to her lot, when the heiress of Gowran Grange pulled up her pretty
ponies at her door, and running in, made much of her and her children,
and listened attentively to her grievances, as only a sympathetic
nature can.

To-day, Clarissa's visit, being early, and therefore unconventional,
and for that reason the more friendly, sweetens all her surroundings.
Miss Peyton might have put in an appearance thrice in the day later
on, yet her visits would not have been viewed with such favor as is
this matutinal call.

"Cissy is out: she has gone to the village," says Mrs. Redmond,
scarcely thinking Clarissa has come all the way from Gowran to spend
an hour alone with her.

"I am sorry: but it is you I most particularly wanted to see. What a
delicious day it is! I walked all the way from Gowran, and the sun was
rather too much for me; but how cool it always is here! This room
never seems stuffy or over-heated, as other rooms do."

"It is a wretched place, quite wretched," says Mrs. Redmond, with a
depreciating glance directed at a distant sofa that might indeed be
termed patriarchal.

"What are you doing?" asks Clarissa, promptly, feeling she cannot with
any dignity defend the sofa. "Darning? Why can't I help you?--I am
sure I could darn. Oh, what a quantity of socks! Are they all broken?"
looking with awe upon the overflowing basket that lies close to Mrs.
Redmond's feet.

"Every one of them," replies that matron, with unction. "I can't think
how they do it, but I assure you they never come out of the wash
without innumerable tears." Whether she is alluding, in her graceful
fashion, to her children or their socks, seems at present doubtful. "I
sometimes fancy they must take their boots off and dance on the sharp
pebbles to bring them to such a pass; but they say they don't. Yet
how to account for this?" She holds up one bony hand, decorated with a
faded sock, in a somewhat triumphant fashion, and lets three emaciated
fingers start to life through the toe of it.

"Do let me help you," says Clarissa, with entreaty, and, stooping to
the basket, she rummages there until she produces a needle, a thimble,
and some thread. "I dare say I shall get on splendidly, if you will
just give me a hint now and then and tell me when I am stitching them
up too tightly."

This hardly sounds promising, but Mrs. Redmond heeds her not.

"My dear, pray do not trouble yourself with such uninteresting work,"
she says, hastily. "It really makes me unhappy to see you so employed;
and that sock of all others,--it is Bobby's, and I'm sure there must
be something wrong with his heels. If you insist on helping me, do try
another."

"No, I shall stitch up Bobby, or die in the attempt," says Miss
Peyton, valiantly. "It is quite nice work, I should think, and so
easy. I dare say after a time I should love it."

"Should you?" says Mrs. Redmond. "Well, perhaps; but for myself, I
assure you, though no one will believe it, I abhor the occupation.
There are moments when it almost overcomes me,--the perpetual in and
out of the needle, you will understand,--it seems so endless. Dear,
dear, there was a time when I was never obliged to do such menial
services, when I had numerous dependants to wait on me to do my
bidding But then"--with a deep sigh, that sounds like a blast from
Boreas--"I married the vicar."

"And quite right, too," says Clarissa, with a cheerful little nod,
seeing Mrs. Redmond has mounted her high horse and intends riding him
to the death. "I myself shouldn't hesitate about it, if I only got the
chance. And indeed where could any one get a more charming husband
than the dear vicar."

"Well, well, it was a foolish match notwithstanding," says Mrs.
Redmond, with a smile and a wan sort of blush; "though certainly at
that time I don't deny he was very fascinating. Such a voice, my dear!
and then his eyes were remarkably fine."

"'Were'--_are_, you mean," says the crafty Clarissa, knowing that
praise of her husband is sweet to the soul of the faded Penelope, and
that the surest means of reducing her to a pliant mood is to permit
her to maunder on uninterruptedly about past glories, and dead hours
rendered bright by age. To have her in her kindest humor, before
mentioning the real object of her visit, must be managed, at all
risks. "Yours was a love-match, wasn't it?" she says, coaxingly. "Do
tell me all about it." (She has listened patiently to every word of it
about a hundred times before.) "I do so like a real love-affair."

"There isn't much to tell," says Mrs. Redmond, who is quite delighted,
and actually foregoes the charm of darning, that she may the more
correctly remember each interesting detail in her own "old story;"
"but it was all very sudden,--very; like a tornado, or a whirlwind, or
those things in the desert that cover one up in a moment. First we met
at two croquet-parties,--yes, two,--and then at a dinner at the
Ramseys, and it was at the dinner at the Ramseys' that he first
pressed my hand. I thought, my dear, I should have dropped, it was
such a downright, not-to-be-got-over sort of squeeze. Dear me, I can
almost feel it now," says Mrs. Redmond, who is blushing like a girl.

"Yes. Do go on," says Clarissa, who, in reality, is enjoying herself,
intensely.

"Well, then, two days afterwards, to my surprise, he called with some
tickets for a concert, to which my mamma, who suspected nothing, took
me. There we met again, and it was there, right, as one might say,
under mamma's nose, he proposed to me. He was very eloquent, though he
was obliged to speak rather disconnectedly, owing to the music
stopping now and then and my mamma being of a suspicious turn: but he
was young in those days, my dear, and well favored, no doubt. So we
got married."

"That is the proper ending to all pretty stories. But is it true,"
says Clarissa, with a wiliness really horrible in one so young, "that
just at that time you refused a splendid offer, all for the vicar's
sake?"

"Splendid is a long word," says Mrs. Redmond, trying to speak
carelessly, but unmistakably elated, "yet I must confess there is some
truth in the report to which you allude. Sir Hubert Fitz-Hubert was a
baronet of very ancient lineage, came over with the Conqueror, or
King Alfred, I quite forget which, but it was whichever was the
oldest: that I know. He was, in fact, a trifle old for me, perhaps,
and not so rich as others I have known, but still a baronet. He
proposed to me, but I rejected him upon the spot with scorn, though he
went on his knees to me, and swore in an anguished frenzy, that he
would cut his throat with his razor if I refused to listen to his
suit! I did refuse, but I heard nothing more about the razor. I am
willing to believe he put some restraint upon his maddened feelings,
and refrained from inflicting any injury upon himself."

"Poor fellow!" says Clarissa, in a suspiciously choky tone.

"Then I espoused the vicar," says Mrs. Redmond, with a sentimental
sigh. "One does foolish things sometimes."

"That, now, was a wise one. I would not marry a king if I loved a
beggar. Altogether, you behaved beautifully, and just like a novel."

Feeling that the moment for action has arrived, as Mrs. Redmond is now
in a glow of pride and vanity well mixed, Clarissa goes on sweetly:

"I have some news for you."

"For me?"

"Yes, for you. I know how delicate you are, and how unable to manage
those two strong children you have at home. And I know, too, you have
been looking out for a suitable governess for some time, but you have
found a difficulty in choosing one, have you not?"

"Indeed I have."

"Well, I think I know some who will just suit you. She was at school
with me, and, though poor now, having lost both father and mother, is
of very good family, and well connected."

"But the salary?" says Mrs. Redmond, with some hesitation. "The salary
is the thing. I hear of no one now who will come for less than sixty
or seventy pounds a year at the lowest; and with Henry at school, and
Rupert's college expenses, forty pounds is as much as we can afford to
give."

"Miss Broughton will, I think, be quite content with that: she only
wants to be happy, and at rest, and she will be all that with you and
Cissy and Mr. Redmond. She is young, and it is her first trial, but
she is very clever: she has a really lovely voice, and paints
excessively well. Ethel has rather a taste for painting, has she not?"

"A decided talent for it. All my family were remarkable for their
artistic tendencies, so she, doubtless, inherits it; and--yes, of
course, it would be a great thing for her to have some one on the spot
to develop this talent, and train it. Your friend, you say, is well
connected?"

"Very highly connected, on her mother's side. Her father was a
lieutenant in the navy, and very respectable too, I believe; though I
know nothing of him."

"That she should be a lady is, of course, indispensable," says Mrs.
Redmond, with all the pride that ought to belong to softgoods people.
"I need hardly say _that_, I think. But why does she not appeal for
help to her mother's relations?"

"Because she prefers honest work to begging from those who up to this
have taken no notice of her."

"I admire her," says Mrs. Redmond, warmly. "If you think she will be
satisfied with forty pounds, I should like to try what she could do
with the children."

"I am very glad you have so decided. I know no place in which I would
rather see a friend of mine than here."

"Thank you, my dear. Then will you write to her, or shall I?"

"Let me write to her first, if you don't mind: I think I can settle
everything."

"Mind?--no, indeed: it is only too good of you to take so much trouble
about me."

To which Clarissa says, prettily,--

"Do not put it in that light: there is no pleasure so keen as that of
being able to help one's friends."

Then she rises, and, having left behind her three socks that no
earthly power can ever again draw upon a child's foot, so hopelessly
has she brought heel and sole together, she says good-by to Mrs.
Redmond, and leaves the room.

Outside on the avenue she encounters the vicar, hurrying home.

"Turn with me," she says, putting her hand through his arm. "I have
something to say to you."

"Going to be married?" asks he, gayly.

"Nonsense!"--blushing, in that he has so closely hit the mark. "It is
not of anything so paltry I would unburden my mind."

"Then you have nothing of importance to tell me," says the vicar; "and
I must go. Your story will keep: my work will not. I am in a great
hurry: old Betty Martin----"

"Must wait. I insist on it. Dying! nonsense! she has been dying every
week for three years, and you believe her every time. Come as far as
the gate with me."

"You command, I obey," says the vicar, with a sigh of resignation,
walking on beside his pet parishioner. "But if you could only
understand the trouble I am in with those Batesons you would know some
pity for me."

"What! again?" says Clarissa, showing, and feeling, deep compassion.

"Even so. This time about the bread. You know what unpleasant bread
they bake, and how Mrs. Redmond objects to it; and really it _is_ bad
for the children."

"It is poison," says Clarissa, who never does anything by halves, and
who is nothing if not sympathetic.

"Well so I said; and when I had expostulated with them, mildly but
firmly, and suggested that better flour might make better dough, and
they had declined to take any notice of my protest,--why, I just
ordered my bread from the Burtons opposite, and----"

The vicar pauses.

"And you have been happy ever since?"

"Well, yes, my dear. I suppose in a way I have; that is, I have ceased
to miss the inevitable breakfast-lecture on the darkness and
coarseness of the bread; but I have hardly gained on other points, and
the Batesons are a perpetual scourge. They have decided on never again
'darkening the church door' (their own words, my dear Clarissa),
because I have taken the vicarage custom from them. They prefer
imperilling their souls to giving up the chance of punishing me. And
now the question is, whether I should not consent to the slow
poisoning of my children, rather than drive my parishioners into the
arms of the Methodists, who keep open house for all comers below the
hill."

"I don't think I should poison the children," says Clarissa.

"But what is to become of my choir? Charlotte Bateson has the sweetest
voice in it, and now she will not come to church. I am at my wits' end
when I think of it all."

"I am going to supply Charlotte's place for you," says Clarissa,
slyly.

"Thank you, my dear. But, you see, you would never be in time. And,
unfortunately, the services must begin always at a regular hour.
Punctuality was the one thing I never could teach you,--that, and the
Catechism."

"What a libel!" says Clarissa. "I shouldn't malign my own teaching if
I were you. I am perfectly certain I could say it all now, this very
moment, from start to finish, questions and all, without a mistake.
Shall I?"

"No, no. I'll take your word for it," says the vicar, hastily. "The
fact is, I have just been listening to it at the morning school in the
village, and when one has heard a thing repeated fourteen times with
variations, one naturally is not ambitious of hearing it again, no
matter how profitable it may be."

"When I spoke of filling Charlotte's place," says Clarissa, "I did not
allude in any way to myself, but to----And now I am coming to my
news."

"So glad!" says the vicar; "I may overtake old Betty yet."

"I have secured a governess for Mrs. Redmond. Such a dear little
governess! And I want you to promise me to be more than usually kind
to her, because she is young and friendless and it is her first effort
at teaching."

"So that question is settled at last," says the vicar, with a deep--if
carefully suppressed--sigh of relief. "I am rejoiced, if only for my
wife's sake, who has been worrying herself for weeks past, trying to
replace the inestimable--if somewhat depressing--Miss Prood."

"Has she?" says Clarissa, kindly. "Worry is a bad thing. But to-day
Mrs. Redmond seems much better than she has been for a long time.
Indeed, she said so."

"Did she?" says the vicar, with a comical, transient smile, Mrs.
Redmond's maladies being of the purely imaginary order.

"What are you laughing at now?" asks Clarissa, who has marked this
passing gleam of amusement.

"At you, my dear, you are so quaintly humorous," replies he. "But go
on: tell me of this new acquisition to our household. Is she a friend
of yours?"

"Yes, a great friend."

"Then of course we shall like her."

"Thank you," says Clarissa. "She is very pretty, and very charming.
Perhaps, after all, I am doing a foolish thing for myself. How shall I
feel when she has cut me out at the vicarage?"

"Not much fear of that, were she Aphrodite herself. You are much too
good a child to be liked lightly or by halves. Well, good-by: you
won't forget about the flannel for the Batley twins?"

"I have it ready,--at least, half of it. How could I tell she was
going to have twins," says Clarissa, apologetically.

"It certainly was very inconsiderate of her," says the vicar, with a
sigh, as he thinks of the poverty that clings to the Batley _ménage_
from year's end to year's end.

"Well, never mind; she shall have it all next week," promises
Clarissa, soothingly, marking his regretful tone; and then she bids
him farewell, and goes up the road again in the direction of her home.

She is glad to be alone at last. Her mission successfully
accomplished, she has now time to let her heart rest contentedly upon
her own happiness. All the events of the morning--the smallest word,
the lightest intonation, the most passing smile, that claimed Horace
as their father--are remembered by her. She dwells fondly on each
separate remembrance, and repeats to herself how he looked and spoke
at such-and-such moments.

She is happy, quite happy. A sort of wonder, too, mixes with her
delight. Only a few short hours ago she had left her home, free,
unbetrothed, with only hope to sustain her, and now she is returning
to it with her hope a certainty,--bound, heart and soul, to the
dearest, truest man on earth, as she believes.

How well he loves her! She had noticed his sudden paling when she had
begged for some delay before actually naming her "brydale day." She
had hardly believed his love for her was so strong, so earnest: even
she (how _could_ she? with tender self-reproach) had misjudged him,
had deemed him somewhat cold, indifferent; unknowing of the deep
stratum of feeling that lay beneath the outward calm of his demeanor.

Dear, dearest Horace! She will never disbelieve in him again; he is
her own now, her very own, and she loves him with all her heart, and
he loves just the same, and----Oh, if every woman in the world could
only be as happy as she is to-day, what a glorious place it would be!

Not that it is such a bad place, by any means, as some people would
lead one to imagine. Surely these are disagreeable people,
misanthropists, misogamists, and such like heretics; or else, poor
souls! they are in a bad strait, without present hope and without any
one to love them! This last seems, indeed, a misfortune.

Yet why abuse a lovely world? How bright the day is, how sweet and
fresh the air, though evening is nigh at hand! She hardly ever
remembers a September so fine, So free from damp; the very birds----

Had he thought her unloving or capricious when she pleaded for a
longer engagement? (Here the tears rise unbidden in her eyes.) Oh,
surely not; he understood her thoroughly; for had he not smiled upon
her afterwards?

So he will always smile. There shall never be any cross words or angry
frowns to chill their perfect love! Their lives will be a summer
dream, a golden legend, a pure, fond idyl.

Thus beguiling time with beliefs too sweet for earthly power to grant,
she hastens home, with each step building up another story in her airy
house, until at length she carries a castle, tall and stately, into
her father's house.




CHAPTER X.

  "I have no other but a woman's reason:
  I think him so, because I think him so."--SHAKESPEARE.


"Where is papa?" she asks, meeting one of the servants in the hall.
Hearing he is out, and will not be back for some time, she, too, turns
again to the open door, and, as though the house is too small to
contain all the thoughts that throng her breast, she walks out into
the air again, and passes into the garden, where autumn, though kindly
and slow in its advances, is touching everything with the hand of
death.

  "Heavily hangs the broad sunflower
    Over its grave i' the earth so chilly;
  Heavily hangs the hollyhock,
    Heavily hangs the tiger lily."

With a sigh she quits her beloved garden, and wanders still! farther
abroad into the deep woods that "have put their glory on," and are
dressed in tender russets, and sad greens, and fading tints, that meet
and melt into each other.

The dry leaves are falling, and lie crackling under foot. The daylight
is fading, softly, imperceptibly, but surely. There is yet a glow from
the departing sunlight, that, sinking lazily beyond the distant hills,
tinges with gold the browning earth that in her shroud of leaves is
lying.

But death, or pain, or sorrow, has no part with Clarissa to-day. She
is quite happy,--utterly content. She marks not the dying of the year,
but rather the beauty of the sunset. She heeds not the sullen roar of
the ever-increasing streamlets, that winter will swell into small but
angry rivers; hearing only the songs of the sleepy birds as they croon
their night-songs in the boughs above her.

When an hour has passed, and twilight has come up and darkened all the
land, she goes back again to her home, and, reaching the library,
looks in, to find her father sitting there, engrossed as usual with
some book, which he is carefully annotating as he reads.

"Are you very busy?" asks she, coming slowly up to him. "I want to be
with you for a little while."

"That is right. I am never too busy to talk to you. Why, it is quite
an age since last I saw you!--not since breakfast; where have you been
all day?"

"You are a pet," says Miss Peyton, in a loving whisper, rubbing her
cheek tenderly against his, as a reward for his pretty speech. "I have
been at the vicarage, and have pleaded Georgie's cause so successfully
that I have won it; and have made them half in love with her already."

"A special pleader indeed. Diplomacy is your forte: you should keep to
it."

"I mean to. I shouldn't plead in vain with you, should I?" She has
grown somewhat earnest.

"Oh! with me!" says her father, with much self-contempt; "I have given
up all that sort of thing, long ago. I know how much too much you are
for me, and I am too wise to swim against the tide. Only I would
entreat you to be merciful as you are strong."

"What a lot of nonsense you do talk, you silly boy!" says Clarissa,
who is still leaning over his chair in such a position that he cannot
see her face. Perhaps, could he have seen it, he might have noticed
how pale it is beyond its wont. "Well, the Redmonds seemed quite
pleased, and I shall write to Georgie to-morrow. It will be nice for
her to be here, near me. It may keep her from being lonely and
unhappy."

"Well, it ought," says George Peyton. "What did the vicar say?"

"The vicar always says just what I say," replies she, a trifle
saucily, and with a quick smile.

"Poor man! his is the common lot," says her father; and then,
believing she has said all she wants to say, and being filled with a
desire to return to his book and his notes, he goes on: "So that was
the weighty matter you wanted to discuss, eh? Is that all your news?"

"Not quite," returns she, in a low tone.

"No? You are rich in conversation this evening. Who is it we are now
to criticise?"

"The person you love best,--I hope."

"Why, that will be you," says George Peyton.

"You are sure?" says Clarissa, a little tremulously; and then her
father turns in his chair and tries to read her face.

"No; stay just as you are; I can tell you better if you do not look at
me," she whispers, entreatingly, moving him with her hands back to his
former position.

"What is it, Clarissa?" he asks, hastily, though he is far from
suspecting the truth. Some faint thought of James Scrope (why he knows
not) comes to him at this moment, and not unpleasingly. "Tell me,
darling. Anything that concerns you must, of necessity, concern me
also."

"Yes, I am glad I know that," she says, speaking with some
difficulty, but very earnestly. "To-day I met Horace Branscombe."

"Yes?" His face changes a little, from vague expectancy to distinct
disappointment; but then she cannot see his face.

"And he asked me to be his wife--and--I said, Yes--if--if it pleases
you, papa."

It is over. The dreaded announcement is made. The words that have cost
her so much to utter have gone out into the air; and yet there is no
answer!

For a full minute silence reigns, and then Clarissa lays her hand
imploringly upon her father's shoulder. He is looking straight before
him, his expression troubled and grave, his mouth compressed.

"Speak to me," says Clarissa, entreatingly.

After this he does speak.

"I wish it had been Dorian," he says, impulsively.

Then she takes her hand from his shoulder, as though it can no longer
rest there in comfort, and her eyes fill with disappointed tears.

"Why do you say that?" she asks, with some vehemence. "It sounds as
if--as if you undervalued Horace! Yet what reason have you for doing
so? What do you know against him?"

"Nothing, literally nothing," answers Mr. Peyton, soothingly, yet with
a plaintive ring in his voice that might suggest the idea of his being
sorry that such answer must be made. "I am sure Horace is very much to
be liked."

"How you say that!"--reproachfully. "It sounds untrue! Yet it can't
be. What could any one say against Horace?"

"My dear, I said nothing."

"No, but you insinuated it. You said Dorian was his superior."

"Well, I think he is the better man of the two," said Mr. Peyton,
desperately, hardly knowing what to say, and feeling sorely aggrieved
in that he is compelled to say what must hurt her.

"I cannot understand you; you said you know nothing prejudicial to
Horace (it is impossible you should), and yet you think Dorian the
better man. If he has done no wrong, why should any one be a better
man? Why draw the comparison at all? For the first time in all your
life, you are unjust."

"No, Clarissa, I am not. At least, I think not. Injustice is a vile
thing. But, somehow, Sartoris and I had both made up our minds that
you would marry Dorian, and----"

He pauses.

"Then your only objection to poor Horace is that he is not Dorian?"
asks she, anxiously, letting her hand once more rest upon his
shoulder.

"Well, no doubt there is a great deal in that," returns he, evasively,
hard put to it to answer his inquisitor with discretion.

"And if Dorian had never been, Horace would be the one person in all
the world you would desire for me?" pursues she, earnestly.

George Peyton makes no reply to this,--perhaps because he has not one
ready. Clarissa, stepping back, draws her breath a little quickly, and
a dark fire kindles in her eyes. In her eyes, too, large tears rise
and shine.

"It is because he is poor," she says, in a low tone, that has some
contempt in it, and some passionate disappointment.

"Do not mistake me," says her father, speaking hastily, but with
dignity. Rising, he pushes back his chair, and turning, faces her in
the gathering twilight. "Were he the poorest man alive, and you loved
him, and he was worthy of you, I would give you to him without a
murmur. Not that"--hurriedly--"I consider Horace unworthy of you, but
the idea is new, strange, and----the other day, Clarissa, you were a
child."

"I am your child still,--always." She is sitting on his knee now, with
her arms round his neck, and her cheek against his; and he is holding
her _svelte_ lissome figure very closely to him. She is the one thing
he has to love on earth; and just now she seems unspeakably--almost
painfully--dear to him.

"Always, my dear," he reiterates, somewhat unsteadily.

"You have seen so little of Horace lately," she goes on, presently,
trying to find some comfortable reason for what seems to her her
father's extraordinary blindness to her lover's virtues. "When you see
a great deal of him, you will love him! As it is, darling, do--_do_
say you like him very much, or you will break my heart!"

"I like him very much," replies he, obediently, repeating his lesson
methodically, while feeling all the time that he is being compelled to
say something against his will, without exactly knowing why he should
feel so.

"And you are quite pleased that I am going to marry him?" reading his
face with her clear eyes; she is very pale, and strangely nervous.

"My darling, my one thought is for your happiness." There is evasion
mixed with the affection in this speech; and Clarissa notices it.

"No: say you are glad I am going to marry him," she says,
remorselessly.

"How can you expect me to say that," exclaims he, mournfully, "when
you know your wedding-day must part us?"

"Indeed it never shall!" cries she, vehemently; and then, overcome by
the emotion of the past hour, and indeed of the whole day, she gives
way and bursts into tears. "Papa, how can you say that? To be parted
from you! We must be the same to each other always: my wedding-day
would be a miserable one indeed if it separated me from you."

Then he comforts her, fondly caressing the pretty brown head that lies
upon his heart, as it had lain in past years, when the slender girl of
to-day was a little lisping motherless child. He calls her by all the
endearing names he had used to her then, until her sobs cease, and
only a sigh, now and again, tells of the storm just past.

"When is it to be?" he asks her, after a little while. "Not too soon,
my pet, I hope?"

"Not for a whole year. He said something about November, but I could
not leave you in such a hurry. We must have one more Christmas all to
ourselves."

"You thought of that," he says, tenderly. "Oh, Clarissa, I hope this
thing is for your good. Think of it seriously, earnestly, while you
have time. Do not rush blindly into a compact that must be binding on
you all your life."

"I hope it _will be_ for all my life," returns she, gravely. "To be
parted from Horace would be the worst thing that could befall me.
Always remember that, papa. I am bound to him with all my heart and
soul."

"So be it!" says George Peyton, solemnly. A sigh escapes him.

For some time neither speaks. The twilight is giving place to deeper
gloom, the night is fast approaching, yet they do not stir. What the
girl's thoughts may be at this moment, who can say? As for her father,
he is motionless, except that his lips move, though no sound comes
from them. He is secretly praying, perhaps, for the welfare of his
only child, to her mother in heaven, who at this time must surely be
looking down upon her with tenderest solicitude. Clarissa puts her
lips softly to his cheek.

"Our engagement will be such a long one, that we think--"

"Yes?"

"We should like it keep it secret. You will say nothing about it to
any one?"

"Not until you give me leave. You have acted wisely, I think, in
putting off your marriage for a while." Almost unconsciously he is
telling himself how time changes all things, and how many plans and
affections can be altered in twelve months.

"But surely you will tell James Scrope," he goes on, after a while:
"that will not be making it public. He has known you and been fond of
you ever since you were a baby; and it seems uncivil and unfriendly to
keep him in the dark."

"Then tell him; but no one else now, papa. I quite arranged for James,
he is such an old friend, and so nice in every way."

Here she smiles involuntarily, and, after a little bit, laughs
outright, in spite of herself, as though at some ridiculous
recollection.

"Do you know," she says, "when I told Horace I thought I should like
Sir James to know of our engagement, I really think he felt a little
jealous! At least, he didn't half like it. How absurd!--wasn't it?
Fancy being jealous of dear old Jim?"

"Old!--old! He is a long way off that. Why, all you silly little girls
think a man past twenty-nine to be hovering on the brink of the
grave. He can not be more than thirty-three, or so."

"He is very dreadfully old, for all that," says Miss Peyton, wilfully.
"He is positively ancient; I never knew any one so old. He is so
profound, and earnest, and serious, and----"

"What on earth has he done to you, that you should call him all these
terrible names?" says Mr. Peyton, laughing.

"He scolds me," says Clarissa, "he lectures me, and tells me I should
have an aim in life. You have been my aim, darling, and I have been
very devoted to it, haven't I?"

"You have, indeed. But now I shall be out in the cold, of course." His
tone is somewhat wistful. "That is all one gains by lavishing one's
affection upon a pretty child and centring one's every thought and
hope upon her."

"No, you are wrong there; it must be something to gain love that will
last for ever." She tightens her arm around his neck. "What a horrid
little speech! I could almost fancy James dictated it to you. He is a
sceptic, an unbeliever, and you have imbibed his notions. Cynical
people are a bore. You wouldn't, for example, have me fall in love
with James, would you?"

"Indeed I would," says George Peyton, boldly. "He is just the one man
I would choose for you,--'not Launcelot, nor another.' He is so
genuine, so thorough in every way. And then the estates join, and
that. I really wish you had fallen in love with Scrope."

"I love you dearly,--dearly," says Miss Peyton; "but you are a
dreadful goose! James is the very last man to grow sentimental about
any one,--least of all, me. He thinks me of no account at all, and
tells me so in very polite language occasionally. So you see what a
fatal thing it would have been if I had given my heart to him. He
would have broken it, and I should have died, and you would have put
up a touching, and elaborate tablet to my memory, and somebody would
have planted snowdrops on my grave. There would have been a tragedy in
Pullingham, with Jim for its hero."

"You take a different view of the case from mine. I believe there
would have been no broken heart, and no early grave, and you would
have been happy ever after."

"That is a more comfortable theory, certainly for _me_. But think what
a miserable life _he_ would have had with me forever by his side."

"A very perfect life, I think," says Mr. Peyton, looking with
pardonable pride upon the half-earnest, half-laughing, and wholly
lovely face so near him. "I don't know what more a fellow could
expect."

"You see I was right. I said you were a goose," says Miss Peyton,
irreverently. But she pats his hand, in the very sweetest manner
possible, as she says it. Then she goes on:

"Horace said he would come up to-morrow to speak to you."

"Very well, dear. That is the usual thing, I suppose. I hope he won't
be long-winded, or lachrymose, or anything that way. When a thing is
done it is done, and discussion is so unnecessary."

"Promise me to be very, very kind to him."

"I shan't eat him, if you mean that," says Mr. Peyton, half irritably.
"What do you think I am going to say to him? 'Is thy father an ogre,
that he should do this thing?' But have you quite made up your mind to
this step? Remember there will be no undoing it."

"I know that; but I feel no fear." She has grown pale again. "I love
him. How should I know regret when with him? I believe in him, and
trust him; and I know he is worthy of all my trust."

Mr. Peyton sighs. Some words come to his memory, and he repeats
them,--slowly, beneath his breath,--

  "There are no tricks in plain and simple faith!"

Truly, her faith is pure and simple, and free from thought of guile.

"I wonder what James Scrope will say to it all?" he says, presently.

"He never says very much on any subject, does he? If you are going
over to the Hall, will you tell him about it?"

"No; tell him yourself," says her father, in a curious tone.

"There is the dressing bell," says Clarissa getting up lazily. "I
don't feel a bit like eating my dinner, do you know?"

"Nonsense! The love-sick _rôle_ won't suit you. And people who don't
eat dinner get pale, and lose all their pretty looks. Run away, now,
and don't be long. I feel it would be injudicious to put cook into a
tantrum again to-night, after last night's explosion. So go and make
yourself lovely."

"I'll do my best," says Clarissa, modestly.




CHAPTER XI

  "I cannot but remember such things were,
  That were most precious to me.

       *       *       *       *       *

  Oh! I could play the woman with mine eyes."--_Macbeth._


"To tell him herself" has some strange attraction for Clarissa. To
hear face to face, what this her oldest friend will say to her
engagement with Horace is a matter of great anxiety to her. She will
know at once by his eyes and smile whether he approves or disapproves
her choice.

Driving along the road to Scrope, behind her pretty ponies, "Cakes"
and "Ale," with her little rough Irish terrier, "Secretary Bill,"
sitting bolt upright beside her, as solemn as half a dozen judges, she
wonders anxiously how she shall begin to tell James about it.

She hopes to goodness he won't be in his ultra-grave mood, that, as a
rule, leads up to his finding fault with everything, and picking
things to pieces, and generally condemning the sound judgment of
others. (As a rule, Clarissa is a little unfair in her secret comments
on James Scrope's character.) It will be so much better if she can
only come upon him out of doors, in his homeliest mood, with a cigar
between his lips, or his pipe. Yes, his pipe will be even better. Men
are even more genial with a pipe than with the goodliest habana.

Well, of course, if he is the great friend he _professes_ to
be,--heavy emphasis on the verb, and a little flick on the whip on
"Cakes's" quarters, which the spirited but docile creature resents
bitterly,--he must be glad at the thought that she is not going to
leave the country,--is, in fact, very likely to spend most of her time
still in Pullingham.

Not all of it, of course. Horace has duties, and though in her secret
soul she detests town life, still there is a joy In the thought that
she will be with him, helping him, encouraging him in his work,
rejoicing in his successes, sympathyzing with his fai----, but no, of
course there will be no failures! How stupid of her to think of that,
when he is so clever, so learned, so----

Yet it would be sweet, too, to have him fail once or twice (just a
little, insignificant, not-worth-speaking-about sort of a defeat), if
only to let him see how she could love him even the more for it.

She blushes, and smiles to herself, and, turning suddenly, bestows a
most unexpected caress upon "Secretary Bill," who wags his short tail
in return--that is, what they left him of it--lovingly, if somewhat
anxiously, and glances at her sideways out of his wonderful eyes, as
though desirous of assuring himself of her sanity.

Oh, yes, of course James will be delighted. And he will tell her so
with the gentle smile that so lights up his face, and he will take her
hand, and say he is so glad, so pleased, and----

With a sharp pang she remembers how her father was neither pleased nor
glad when she confided her secret to him. He had been, indeed,
distressed and confounded. He had certainly tried his hardest to
conceal from her these facts, but she had seen them all the same. She
could not be deceived where her father was concerned. He had felt
unmistakable regret----"Be quiet, Bill! You sha'n't come out driving
again if you can't sit still! What a bore a dog is sometimes!"

Well, after all, he is her father. It is only natural he should
dislike the thought of parting from her. She thinks, with an instant
softening of her heart, of how necessary she has become to him, ever
since her final return home. Before that he had been dull and
_distrait_; now he is bright and cheerful, if still rather too devoted
to his books to be quite good for him.

He might, indeed, be forgiven for regarding the man who should take
her from him as an enemy. But Jim is different; he is a mere
friend,--a dear and valued one, it is true, but still only a
friend,--a being utterly independent of her, who can be perfectly
happy without her, and therefore, of course, unprejudiced.

He will, she feels sure, say everything kind and sweet to her, and
wish her joy sincerely.

James, too, is very sensible, and will see the good points in Horace.
He evidently likes him; at least, they have always appeared excellent
friends when together. Dorian, of course, is the general
favorite,--she acknowledges that,--just because he is a little more
open, more outspoken perhaps,--easier to understand; whereas, she
firmly believes, she alone of all the world is capable of fully
appreciating the innate goodness of Horace!

Here she turns in the huge gateway of Scrope; and the terrier, growing
excited, gives way to a sharp bark, and the ponies swing merrily down
the avenue; and just before she comes to the hall door her heart fails
her, and something within her--that something that never errs--tells
her that James Scrope will not betray any pleasure at her tidings.

Before she quite reaches the hall door, a groom comes from a
side-walk, and, seeing him, Clarissa pulls up the ponies sharply, and
asks the man,--

"Is Sir James at home?"

"Yes, miss; he is in the stables, I think; leastways, he was half an
hour agone. Shall I tell him you are here?"

"No, thank you. I shall go and find him myself."

See flings her reins to her own groom, and, with Bill trotting at her
heels, goes round to the yard, glad, at least, that her first hope is
fulfilled,--that he is out of doors.

As she goes through the big portals into the ivied yard, she sees
before her one of the stablemen on his knees, supporting in his arms
an injured puppy: with all a woman's tenderness he is examining the
whining little brute's soft, yellow paw, as it hangs mournfully
downwards.

Sir James, with a pipe in his mouth,--this latter fact Clarissa hails
with rapture,--is also bending anxiously over the dog, and is so
absorbed in his contemplation of it as not to notice Clarissa's
approach until she is close beside him.

"What is the matter with the poor little thing?" she asks, earnestly,
gazing with deep pity at the poor puppy, that whines dismally and
glances up at her with the peculiarly tearful appealing expression
that belongs to setters.

"A knock of a stone, miss, nayther more nor less," exclaims the man,
angrily. "That's the honest truth, Sir James, you take my word for't.
Some o' them rascally boys as is ever and allus about this 'ere yard,
and spends their lives shyin' stones at every blessed sign they sets
their two eyes on, has done this. 'Ere's one o' the best pups o' the
season a'most ruined, and no satisfaction for it. It's a meracle if he
comes round (quiet there, my beauty, and easy there now, I tell ye),
and nobody does anything."

The old man stops, and regards his master reprovingly, nay, almost
contemptuously.

"I really don't see why you should think it was the boys, Joe?" says
Sir James, meekly.

"'Twarn't anythin' else, anyway," persists Joe, doggedly.

"Poor little fellow!--dear fellow!" murmurs Miss Peyton, caressingly,
to the great soft setter pup, patting its head lovingly, as it barks
madly, and makes frantic efforts to get from Joe's arms to hers, while
Bill shrieks in concert, being filled with an overwhelming amount of
sympathy.

"Better leave him to me, miss," says Joe, regarding the injured
innocent with a parent's eye. "He knows me. I'll treat him proper,"
raising his old honest weather-beaten face to Clarissa, in a solemn
reassuring manner, "you be bound. Yet them pups" (disgustedly) "is
like children, allus ungrateful. For the sake o' your handsome face,
now, he'd go to you if he could, forgetful of all my kindness to him.
Well, 'tis the way o' the world, I believe," winds up old Joe, rising
from his knees,--cheered, perhaps, by the thought that his favorite
pup, if only following the common dictates of animals, is no worse
than all others.

He grumbles something else in an undertone, and finally carries off
the puppy to his kennel.

"I am too amazed for speech," says Sir James, rising also to his feet,
and contemplating Clarissa with admiration. "That man," pointing to
Joe's retiring figure, "has been in my father's service, and in mine,
for fifty years, and never before did I hear a civil word from his
lips. I think he said your face was handsome, just now?--or was I
deceived?"

"I like Joe," says Miss Peyton, elevating her rounded chin: "I
downright esteem him. He knows where beauty lies."

"How he differs from the rest of the world!" says Scrope, not looking
at her.

"Does he? That is unkind, I think. Why," says Clarissa, with a soft
laugh, full of mischief, "should any one be blind to the claims of
beauty?"

"Why, indeed? It is, as I have been told, 'a joy forever.' No one
nowadays disputes anything they are told, do they?"

"Don't be cynical, Jim," says Miss Peyton, softly. What an awful thing
it will be if, now when her story is absolutely upon her lips, he
relapses into his unsympathetic mood!

"Well, I won't, then," says Scrope, amiably, which much relieves her.
And then he looks lovingly at his pipe, which he has held (as in duty
bound) behind his back ever since her arrival, and sighs heavily, and
proceeds to knock the ashes out of it.

"Oh, don't do that," says Clarissa, entreatingly. "I really wish you
wouldn't!" (This is the strict truth.) "You know you are dying for a
smoke, and I--I perfectly love the smell of tobacco. There is,
therefore, no reason why you should deny yourself."

"Are you really quite sure?" says Scrope, politely and hopefully.

"Quite,--utterly. Put it in your mouth again. And--do you mind?"--with
a swift glance upwards, from under her soft plush hat,--"I want you to
come for a little walk with me."

"To the end of the world, with _you_, would be a short walk," says
Scrope, with a half laugh, but a ring in his tone that, to a woman
heart-whole and unoccupied with thoughts of another man, must have
meant much. "Command me, madam."

"I have something very--very--_very_ important to tell you," says
Miss Peyton, earnestly. This time she looks at her long black gloves,
not at him, and makes a desperate effort to button an already obedient
little bit of ivory.

They have turned into the orchard, now bereft of blossom, and are
strolling carelessly along one of its side-paths. The earth is looking
brown, the trees bare; for Autumn--greedy season--has stretched its
hand "to reap the ripened fruits the which the earth had yold."

"Are you listening to me?" asks she, presently, seeing he makes no
response to her first move.

"Intently." He has not the very faintest idea of her meaning, so
speaks in a tone light and half amused, that leads her to betray her
secret sooner than otherwise she might have done. "Is it an honest
mystery," he says, carelessly, "or a common ghost story, or a state
secret? Break it to me gently."

"There is nothing to break," says Clarissa, softly. Then she looks
down at the strawberry borders at her side,--now brown and aged,--and
then says, in a very low tone, "I am going to be married!"

There is a dead silence. Sir James says nothing. He walks on beside
her with an unfaltering footstep, his head erect as ever, his hands
clasped in their old attitude behind his back. The sun is shining;
some birds are warbling faintly (as though under protest) in some
neighboring thicket; yet, I think Scrope neither sees the sun, nor
heeds the birds, nor knows for the moment that life flows within him,
after that little, low-toned speech of hers.

Then he awakes from his stupor, and, rousing himself, says, huskily,
yet with a certain amount of self-possession that deceives her,--

"You were saying----?"

"Only that I am going to be married," repeats Clarissa, in a somewhat
changed tone. The nervousness had gone out of it, and the natural
hesitation; she is speaking now quite composedly and clearly, as if
some surprise betrays itself in her voice.

Scrope is aware that his heart is beating madly. He has stopped, and
is leaning against the trunk of an apple-tree, facing Clarissa, who is
standing in the middle of the path. His face is ashen gray, but his
manner is quite calm.

"Who is it?" he asks, presently, very slowly.

"Mr. Branscombe,"--coldly.

"Dorian?"

"No. Horace."

"I wish it had been Dorian," he says, impulsively.

It is the last straw.

"And why?" demands she, angrily. She is feeling wounded, disappointed
at his reception of her news; and now the climax has come. Like her
father, he, too, prefers Dorian,--nay, by his tone, casts a slur upon
Horace. The implied dislike cuts her bitterly to the heart.

"What evil thing have you to say of Horace," she goes on, vehemently,
"that you so emphatically declare in favor of Dorian? When you are
with him you profess great friendship for him, and now behind his back
you seek to malign him to the woman he loves."

"You are unjust," says Scrope, wearily. "I know nothing bad of Horace.
I merely said I wished it had been Dorian. No, I have nothing to say
against Horace."

"Then why do you look as if you had?" says Miss Peyton, pettishly,
frowning a little, and letting her eyes rest on him for a moment only,
to withdraw them again with a deeper frown. "Your manner suggests many
things. You are like papa--" She pauses, feeling she has made a false
move, and wishes vainly her last words unsaid.

"Does your father disapprove, then?" asks he, more through idleness
than a desire to know.

Instinctively he feels that, no matter what obstacles may be thrown in
this girl's way, still she will carry her point and marry the man she
has elected to love. Nay, will not difficulties but increase her
steadfastness, and make strong the devotion that is growing in her
heart?

Not until now, this moment, when hope has died and despair sprung into
life, does he know how freely, how altogether, he has lavished the
entire affection of his soul upon her. During all these past few
months he has lived and thought and hoped but for her; and now--all
this is at an end.

Like a heavy blow from some unseen hand this terrible news has fallen
upon him, leaving him spent and broken, and filled with something that
is agonized surprise at the depth of the misfortune that has overtaken
him. It is as a revelation, the awakening to a sense of the longing
that has been his,--to the knowledge of the cruel strength of the
tenderness that binds his heart to hers.

With a slow wonder he lifts his eyes and gazes at her. There is a
petulant expression round her mobile lips, a faint bending of her
brows that bespeaks discontent, bordering upon anger, yet, withal, she
is quite lovely,--so sweet, yet so unsympathetic; so gentle, yet so
ignorant of all he is at present feeling.

With a sickening dread he looks forward to the future that still may
lie before him. It seems to him that he can view, lying stretched out
in the far distance, a lonely cheerless road, over which he must
travel whether he will or not,--a road bare and dusty and
companionless, devoid of shade, or rest, or joy, or that love that
could transform the barrenness into a "flowery mead."

"He that loses hope"--says Congreve--"may part with anything." To
Scrope, just now, it seems as though hope and he have parted company
forever. The past has been so dear, with all its vague beliefs and
uncertain dreamings,--all too sweet for realization,--that the present
appears unbearable.

The very air seems dark, the sky leaden, the clouds sad and lowering.
Vainly he tries to understand how he has come to love, with such a
boundless passion, this girl, who loves him not at all, but has
surrendered herself wholly to one unworthy of her,--one utterly
incapable of comprehending the nobility and truthfulness of her
nature.

The world, that only yesterday seemed so desirable a place, to-day has
lost its charm.

"What is life, when stripped of its disguise? A thing to be desired it
cannot be." With him it seems almost at an end. An unsatisfactory
thing, too, at its best,--a mere "glimpse into the world of might have
been."

Some words read a week ago come to him now, and ring their changes on
his brain. "Rien ne va plus,"--the hateful words return to him with a
pertinacity not to be subdued. It is with difficulty he refrains from
uttering them aloud.

"No; he does not disapprove," says Clarissa, interrupting his
reflections at this moment: "he has given his full consent to my
engagement." She speaks somewhat slowly, as if remembrance weighs
upon her. "And, even if he had not, there is still something that must
give me happiness: it is the certainty that Horace loves me, and that
I love him."

Though unmeant, this is a cruel blow. Sir James turns away, and,
paling visibly,--had she cared to see it,--plucks a tiny piece of bark
from the old tree against which he is leaning.

There is something in his face that, though she understands it not,
moves Clarissa to pity.

"You will wish me some good wish, after all, Jim, won't you?" she
says, very sweetly, almost pathetically.

"No, I cannot," returns he with a brusquerie foreign to him. "To do so
would be actual hypocrisy."

There is silence for a moment: Clarissa grows a little pale, in her
turn. In _his_ turn, he takes no notice of her emotion, having his
face averted. Then, in a low, faint, choked voice, she breaks the
silence.

"If I had been wise," she says, "I should have stayed at home this
morning, and kept my confidences to myself. Yet I wanted to tell you.
So I came, thinking, believing, I should receive sympathy from you;
and now what have I got? Only harsh and cruel words! If I had known--"

"Clarissa!"

"Yes! If any one had told me you would so treat me, I
should--should--"

It is this supreme moment she chooses to burst out crying; and she
cries heartily (by which I mean that she gives way to grief of the
most vehement and agonized description) for at least five minutes,
without a cessation, making her lament openly, and in a carefully
unreserved fashion, intended to reduce his heart to water. And not in
vain is _her_ "weak endeavor."

Sir James, when the first sob falls upon his ear, turns from her, and,
as though unable to endure the sound, deliberately walks away from her
down the garden path.

When he gets quite to the end of it, however, and knows the next turn
will hide him from sight of her tears or sound of her woe, he
hesitates, then is lost, and finally coming back again to where she is
standing, hidden by a cambric handkerchief, lays his hand upon her
arm. At his touch her sobs increase.

"Don't do that!" he says, so roughly that she knows his heart is
bleeding. "Do you hear me, Clarissa? Stop crying. It isn't doing you
any good, and it is driving me mad. What has happened?--what is making
you so unhappy?"

"_You_ are," says Miss Peyton, with a final sob, and a whole octave of
reproach in her voice. "Anything so unkind I never knew. And just when
I had come all the way over here to tell you what I would tell nobody
else except papa! There was a time, Jim" (with a soft but upbraiding
glance), "when you would have been sweet and kind and good to me on an
occasion like this."

She moves a step nearer to him, and lays her hand--the little, warm,
pulsing hand he loves so passionately--upon his arm. Her glance is
half offended, half beseeching: Scrope's strength of will gives way,
and, metaphorically speaking, he lays himself at her feet.

"If I have been uncivil to you, forgive me," he says, taking her hand
from his arm, and holding it closely in his own. "You do not know; you
cannot understand; and I am glad you do not. Be happy! There is no
substantial reason why you should not extract from life every sweet it
can afford: you are young, the world is before you, and the love you
desire is yours. Dry your eyes, Clarissa: your tears pierce my heart."

He has quite regained his self-control by this time, and having
conquered emotion, speaks dispassionately. Clarissa, as he has said,
does not understand the terrible struggle it costs him to utter these
words in an ordinary tone, and with a face which, if still pale,
betrays no mental excitement.

She smiles. Her tears vanish. She sighs contentedly, and moves the
hand that rests in his.

"I am so glad we are friends again," she says. "And now tell me why
you were so horrid at first: you might just as well have begun as you
have ended: it would have saved trouble and time, and" (reproachfully)
"all my tears."

"Perhaps I value you so highly that I hate the thought of losing you,"
says Scrope, palliating the ugliness of his conduct as best he may.
His voice is very earnest.

"How fond you are of me!" says Miss Peyton, with some wonder and much
pleasure.

To this he finds it impossible to make any answer.

"Whenever I wish I had had a brother, I always think of you," goes on
she, pleasantly, "you are so--so--quiet, and your scoldings so
half-hearted. Now, even though rather late, wish me joy."

"My dear, dear girl," says Scrope, "if I were to speak forever, I
could not tell you how I long for and desire your happiness. If your
life proves as calm and peaceful as I wish it, it will be a desirable
life indeed! You have thought of me as your brother: let me be your
brother indeed,--one in whom you can confide and trust should trouble
overtake you."

He says this very solemnly, and again Clarissa's eyes fill with tears.
She does now what she has not done since she was a little, impulsive,
loving girl: she lifts her head and presses her lips to his cheek.

For one brief moment he holds her in his arms, returning her caress,
warmly, it is true, but with ineffable sadness. To her, this embrace
is but the sealing of a fresh bond between them. To him it is a silent
farewell, a final wrenching of the old sweet ties that have endured so
long.

Up to this she has been everything to him,--far more than he ever
dreamed until the rude awakening came,--the one bright spot in his
existence; but now all is changed, and she belongs to another.

He puts her gently from him, and, with a kindly word and smile, leads
her to the garden gate, and so round to where her ponies are
impatiently awaiting her coming: after which he bids her good-by, and,
turning, goes indoors, and locks himself into his own private den.




CHAPTER XII.

  "The snow is on the mountain,
    The frost is on the vale,
  The ice hangs o'er the fountain,
    The storm rides on the gale."--OUSELEY.


Clarissa's letter to Georgie Broughton receives a most tender
response,--tender as it is grateful. The girl writes thankfully,
heartily, and expresses almost passionate delight at Clarissa's
instantaneous and ready sympathy.

The letter is short, but full of feeling. It conveys to Clarissa the
sad impression that the poor child's heart is dry and barren for lack
of that gracious dew called love, without which not one of us can
taste the blessedness of life.

  "Nothing is true but love, nor aught of worth;
  Love is the incense which doth sweeten earth."

So sings Trench. To Clarissa, just now, his words convey nothing less
than the very embodiment of truth. That Georgie should be unhappy for
want of this vital essence cuts her to the heart,--the more so that
Georgie persistently refuses to come to Gowran.

     "DEAREST CLARISSA,--Do not think me cold or ungrateful,"--so
     she writes,--"but, were I to go to you and feel again the
     warmth and tenderness of a home, it might unfit me for the
     life of trouble and work that must lie before me. 'Summer is
     when we love and are beloved,' and, of course, such summer is
     over for me. I know my task will be no light or easy one; but
     I have made up my mind to it, and indeed am thankful for it,
     as any change from this must of necessity be pleasant. And,
     besides, I may not be a governess forever. I have yet another
     plan in my head,--something papa and I agreed upon, before he
     left me,--that may put an end to my difficulties sooner than
     I think. I will tell you of it some time, when we meet."

"Poor darling," says Clarissa, "what a wretched little letter!" She
sighs, and folds it up, and wonders vaguely what this other plan of
Georgie's can be. Then she writes to her again, and describes Mrs.
Redmond as well as is possible.

"Accept her offer by return of post," she advises, earnestly. "Even
if, after a trial, you do not like her, still this will be an opening
for you; and I am glad in the thought that I shall always have you
near me,--at least until that mysterious plan of yours meets the
light. Mrs. Redmond is not, of course, everything of the most
desirable, but she is passable, and very kind at heart. She is tall
and angular, and talks all day long--and all night, I am sure, if one
would listen--about her ailments and the servants' delinquencies. She
is never without a cold in her head, and a half-darned stocking! She
calls the children's pinafores 'pinbefores,'--which is quite correct,
but very unpleasant; and she always calls terrible 'turrible;' but
beyond these small failings she is quite bearable."

And so on. When Miss Broughton receives this letter in her distant
home, she is again solemistress of a sickroom. Her aunt--the hard
taskmaster assigned to her by fate--lies on her bed stricken to the
earth by fever. To come to Pullingham now will be impossible. "Will
Mrs. Redmond wait for a month, or perhaps two?" She entreats Clarissa
to do what she can for her; and Clarissa does it; and the worried wife
of the vicar, softened by Miss Peyton's earnest explanations, consents
to expound Pinnock and "Little Arthur" to the small Redmonds until
such time as Miss Broughton's aunt shall be convalescent.

"The inaudible and noiseless foot of Time" creeps on apace, and
Christmas at last reaches Pullingham. Such a Christmas, too!--a
glorious sunny Christmas morning, full of light and life, snow-crowned
on every side. The glinting sunbeams lie upon the frozen hills,
kissing them with tender rapture, as though eager to impart some heat
and comfort to their chilly hearts.

  "Now trees their leafy hats do bare
  To reverence Winter's silver hair."

The woods are all bereft of green; the winds sigh wearily through
them; "no grass the fields, no leaves the forests wear;" a shivering
shroud envelops all the land.

But far above, in the clear sky, Sol shines triumphant. Nor ice, nor
snow, nor chilling blast has power to deaden him to-day. No "veil of
clouds involves his radiant head." He smiles upon the earth, and
ushers in the blessed morn with unexpected brilliancy. Innumerable
sounds swell through the frosty air; sweet bells ring joyously. All
the world is astir.

Except Clarissa. She lies, still sleeping,--dreaming, it may be, that
first glad dream of youth in which all seems perfect, changeless,
passion-sweet!

Upon her parted lips a faint soft smile is lingering, as though loath
to depart. Her face is lightly tinged with color, as it were a
"ripened rose." Upon one arm her cheek is pillowed; the other is
thrown, with negligent grace, above her head.

"Half-past eight, Miss Peyton, and Christmas morning; too," says a
voice more distinct than musical, and rather reproachful. It rushes
into Clarissa's happy dream like a night-mare, and sends all the dear
shades she has been conjuring to her side back into their uncertain
home.

The maid pokes the fire energetically, and arranges something upon the
dressing-table with much unnecessary vigor.

Clarissa, slowly bringing herself back from the world in which Hester,
however admirable in every respect, bears no part, sighs drowsily, and
sits up in her bed.

"Really that hour?" she says. "Quite too disgracefully late! A happy
Christmas, Hester!"

"Thank you, miss. The same to you, and very many of them!"

"Is it a cold morning?" asks Clarissa, with a little shiver. She
pushes back the soft waving masses of her brown hair from her
forehead, and gazes at Hester entreatingly, as though to implore her
to say it is warm as a day in June.

But Hester is adamant.

"Terrible cold, miss," she says, with a sort of gusto. "_That_ frosty
it would petrify you where you stand."

"Then I won't stand," declares Clarissa, promptly sinking back
once more into her downy couch. "I decline to be petrified,
Hester,"--tucking the clothes well round her. "Call me again next
week."

"The master is up this hour, miss," says the maid, reprovingly; "and
see how beautifully your fire is burning."

"I can't see anything but the water over there. _Is_ that ice in my
bath?"

"Yes, miss. Will you let me throw a little hot water into it to melt
it for you? Do, miss. I'm sure them miserable cold oblations is bitter
bad for you." Perhaps she means ablutions. Nobody knows. And Clarissa,
though consumed with a desire to know, dares not ask. Hester is
standing a few yards from her, looking the very personfication of all
pathos, and is plainly an-angered of the frozen bath.

"Well, then, Hester, yes; a little--a _very_ little--hot water, just
for once," says Clarissa, unable to resist the woman's pleading, and
her own fear of the "bitter chill" that awaits her on the other side
of the blankets. "My courage has flown; indeed, I don't see how I can
get up at all,"--willfully, snuggling down even more closely into the
warm sheets.

"Oh, now get up, miss, do," implores her maid. "It is getting real
late, and the master has been up asking for you twice already."

"Is papa dressed, then?"

"An hour ago, miss. He was standing on the doorsteps, feeding the
sparrows and robins, when I came up."

"Dear papa!" says Clarissa, tenderly, beneath her breath; and then she
springs out of bed, and gets into her clothes by degrees, and
presently runs down-stairs to the great old hall, where she finds her
father awaiting her.

He is standing at the upper end, with his back to the huge central
window, through which

  "Gleams the red sun athwart the misty haze
  Which veils the cold earth from its loving gaze."

A calm, clear light illumes the hall, born of the "wide and glittering
cloak of snow" which last night flung upon the land. At its other end
stand all the servants,--silent, expectant,--to hear what the master
shall say to them on this Christmas morning.

That George Peyton should refuse to address them on this particular
day is out of all hearing. His father, grandfather, and
great-grandfather had done it before him to the then servants;
therefore (according to the primitive notions of the county) he must
do the same. Yet it is undeniable that to the present proprietor this
task is a terrible one, and not to be performed at any price, could
escape from it be shown.

Eloquence is not Mr. Peyton's _forte_. To find himself standing before
an expectant audience, and to know they are prepared to hang upon his
accents, is not sweet to him,--in fact, fills him with terrors vast
and deep. Yet here they are awaiting his speech, in a goodly row, with
all their eyes fixed on his, and their minds prepared to receive
anything he may say.

He breathes a small sigh of relief as he sees Clarissa approaching,
and gives her his customary morning kiss in a rather warmer fashion
than usual, which has only the effect of raising mirth in Clarissa's
mind. She smiles in an unfilial fashion, and, slipping her hand
through his arm, awaits what fate may have in store.

Her father, when he has cast upon her one reproachful glance, turns to
the servants, and, with a heightened color and somewhat lame delivery,
says as follows:

"I am very glad to see you all again----" here he checks himself, and
grows a degree redder and more embarrassed. It occurs to him that,
after all, he saw them yesterday and the day before, and that it is on
the cards he will see them again to-morrow. Therefore why express
exuberant joy at the fact that he can see them at this present moment?

He glances, in a despairing fashion, at Clarissa; but she is plainly
delighted at his discomfiture, and refuses to give him any assistance,
unless a small approving nod can be accounted such.

Feeling himself, therefore, unsupported, he perforce, returns to the
charge.

"It is a great pleasure to me to know that no changes have taken place
during the past year, I hope"--(long pause)--"I hope we shall always
have the same story to tell."

This is fearfully absurd, and he knows it, and blushes again.

"Well, at least," he goes on, "I hope we shall not part from each
other without good cause,--such as a wedding, for instance."

Here he looks at the under-housemaid, who looks at the under-gardener,
who looks at his boots, and betrays a wild desire to get into them
forthwith.

"There is no occasion for me, I think, to make you a speech. I----the
fact is, I----couldn't make you a speech, so you must excuse me. I
wish you all a happy Christmas! I'm sure you all wish me the same.
Eh?----and----"

Here he is interrupted by a low murmur from the servants, who plainly
feel it their duty to let him know, at this juncture, that they do
hope his Christmas will be a successful one.

"Well----eh?----thank you----you know," says Mr. Peyton, at his wits'
end as to what he shall say next.

"You are all very kind, very kind indeed----very----. Mrs.
Lane,"--desperately,--"come here and take your Christmas-box."

The housekeeper advances, in a rounded stately fashion, and, with an
elaborate courtesy and a smile full of benignity, accepts her gift and
retires with it to the background. The others having all performed the
same ceremony, and also retired, Mr. Peyton draws a deep sigh of
relief, and turns to Clarissa, who, all through, has stood beside him.

"I think you might have put in a word or two," he says. "But you are a
traitor; you enjoyed my discomfiture. Bless me, how glad I am that
'Christmas comes but once a year!'"

"And how sorry I am!" says Clarissa, making a slight grimace. "It is
the one chance I get of listening to eloquence that I feel sure is
unsurpassable."

They are still standing in the hall. At this moment a servant throws
open the hall door and Dorian and Horace Branscombe, coming in, walk
up to where they are, near the huge pine fire that is roaring and
making merry on the hearth-stone; no grate defiles the beauty of the
Gowran hall. They are flushed from the rapidity of their walk, and are
looking rather more like each other than usual.

"Well, we have had a run for it," says Dorian. "Not been to breakfast,
I hope? If you say you have finished that most desirable meal, I shall
drop dead: so break it carefully. I have a wretched appetite, as a
rule, but just now I feel as if I could eat you, Clarissa."

"We haven't thought of breakfast, yet," says Clarissa. "I am so glad I
was lazy this morning! A happy Christmas, Dorian!"

"The same to you!" says Dorian, raising her hand and pressing it to
his lips. "By what luck do we find you in the hall?"

"The servants have just been here to receive their presents. Now, why
were you not a few minutes earlier, and you might have been stricken
dumb with joy at papa's speech?"

"I don't believe it was half a bad speech," says Mr. Peyton, stoutly.

"Bad! It was the most enchanting thing I ever listened to!--in fact,
faultless,--if one omits the fact that you looked as if you were in
torment all the time, and seemed utterly hopeless as to what you were
going to say next."

"James, is breakfast ready?" says Mr. Peyton, turning away to hide a
smile, and making a strenuous effort to suppress the fact that he has
heard one word of her last betrayal. "Come into the dining-room,
Dorian," he says, when the man has assured him breakfast will be ready
in two minutes: "it is ever so much more comfortable there."

Branscombe goes with him, and so presently, Clarissa and Horace find
themselves alone.

Horace, going up to her, as in duty bound, places his arm round her,
and presses his lips lightly, gently, to her cheek.

"You never wished _me_ a happy Christmas," he says, in the low soft
tone he always adopts when speaking to women. "You gave all your best
wishes to Dorian."

"You knew what was in my heart," replies she, sweetly, pleased that he
has noticed the omission.

"I wonder if I have brought you what you like," he says, laying in her
little palm a large gold locket, oval-shaped, and with forget-me-nots
in sapphires and diamonds, on one side. Touching a spring, it opens,
and there, staring up at her, is his own face, wearing its kindliest
expression, and seeming--to her--to breathe forth love and truth.

For a little minute she is silent; then she says softly, with lowered
eyes, and a warm, tender blush,--

"Did you have this picture taken for me, alone?"

It is evident the face in the locket is even dearer to her than the
locket itself.

"For you alone," says Horace, telling his lie calmly. "When it was
finished I had the negative destroyed. I thought only of you. Was not
that natural? There was one happy moment in which I assured myself
that it would please you to have my image always near you. Was I
wrong?--presumptuous?"

Into his tone he has managed to infuse a certain amount of uncertainty
and anxious longing that cannot fail to flatter and do some damage to
a woman's heart. Clarissa raises her trustful eyes to his.

"Please me!" she repeats, softly, tears growing beneath her lids: "it
pleases me so much that it seems to me impossible to express my
pleasure. You have given me the thing that, of all others, I have most
wished for."

She blushes, vividly, as she makes this admission. Horace, lifting her
hand, kisses it warmly.

"I am fortunate," he says, in a low tone. "Will you love the original,
Clarissa, as you love this senseless picture? After long years, how
will it be?" There is a touch of concern and doubt--and something
more, that may be regret--in his tone.

"I shall always love you," says the girl, very earnestly, laying her
hand on his arm, and looking at him with eyes that should have roused
all tenderness and devotion in his breast:

  "For at each glance of those sweet eyes a soul
  Looked forth as from the azure gates of heaven."

He is spared a reply. Dorian, coming again into the hall, summons them
gayly to breakfast.

       *       *       *       *       *

In the little casemented window of the tiny chamber that calls her
mistress, sits Ruth Annersley, alone.

The bells are ringing out still the blessed Christmas morn; yet she,
with downcast eyes, and chin resting in her hand, heeds nothing, being
wrapped in thought, and unmindful of aught but the one great idea that
fills her to overflowing. Her face is grave--nay, almost
sorrowful--and full of trouble; yet underlying all is gladness that
will not be suppressed.

At this moment--perhaps for the first time--she wakes to the
consciousness that the air is full of music, borne from the belfries
far and near. She shudders slightly, and draws her breath in a quick
unequal sigh.

"Another long year," she says wearily. "Oh that I could tell my
father!"

She lifts her head impatiently, and once more her eyes fall upon the
table on which her arm is resting. There are before her a few opened
letters, some Christmas cards, a very beautiful Honiton lace
handkerchief, on which her initials, "R. A.," are delicately worked,
and--apart from all the rest--a ring, set with pearls and turquoises.

Taking this last up, she examines it slowly, lovingly, slipping it on
and off her slender finger, without a smile, and with growing pallor.

A step upon the stairs outside! Hastily, and in a somewhat guilty
fashion, she replaces the ring upon the table, and drops the lace
handkerchief over it.

"Miss Ruth," says a tall, gawky country-girl, opening the door, "the
maister he be waitin' breakfast for you. Do ee come down now." Then,
catching sight of the handkerchief, "La! now," she says, "how fine
that be! a beauty, surely, and real lace, too! La! Miss Ruth, and who
sent you that, now? May I see it?"

She stretches out her hand, as though about to raise the dainty fabric
from its resting-place; but Ruth is before her.

"Do not touch it," she says, almost roughly for her. Then, seeing the
effect her words have caused, and how the girl shrinks back from her,
she goes on, hurriedly and kindly, "You have been in the dairy,
Margery, and perhaps your hands are not clean. Run away and wash them,
and come to attend table. Afterwards you shall come up here and see my
handkerchief and all my pretty cards."

She smiles, lays her hand on Margery's shoulder, and gently, but with
determination, draws her towards the door.

Once outside, she turns, and, locking the door, carefully puts the key
in her pocket.

Slowly, reluctantly, she descends the stairs,--slowly, and with a
visible effort, presses her lips in gentle greeting to her father's
care-worn cheek. The bells still ring on joyously, merrily; the sun
shines; the world is white with snow, more pure than even our purest
thoughts; but no sense of rest or comfort comes to Ruth. Oh, dull and
heavy heart that holds a guilty secret. Oh, sad (even though yet
innocent) is the mind that hides a hurtful thought! Not for you do
Christmas bells ring out their happy greeting! Not for such as you
does sweet peace reign triumphant.




CHAPTER XIII.

  "Is she not passing fair?"--_Two Gentlemen of Verona._


The day at length dawns when Miss Broughton chooses to put in an
appearance at Pullingham. It is Thursday evening on which she arrives,
and as she has elected to go to the vicarage direct, instead of to
Gowran, as Clarissa desired, nothing is left to the latter but to go
down on Friday to the Redmonds' to welcome her.

She (Clarissa) had taken it rather badly that pretty Georgie will not
come to her for a week or so before entering on her duties; yet in her
secret soul she cannot help admiring the girl's pluck, and her
determination to let nothing interfere with the business that must for
the future represent her life. To stay at Gowran,--to fall, as it
were, into the arms of luxury,--to be treated, as she knew she would
be, by Clarissa, as an equal, even in worldly matters, would be only
to unfit her for the routine that of necessity must follow. So she
abstains, and flings far from her all thought of a happiness that
would indeed be real, as Clarissa had been dear to her two years ago;
and to be dear to Georgie once would mean to be dear to her forever.

The vicar himself opens the door for Clarissa, and tells her Miss
Broughton has arrived, and will no doubt be overjoyed to see her.

"What a fairy you have given us!" he says, laughing. "Such a
bewildering child; all golden hair, and sweet dark eyes, and mourning
raiments. We are perplexed--indeed, I may say, dazed--at her
appearance; because we have one and all fallen in love with
her,--hopelessly, irretrievably,--and hardly know how to conduct
ourselves towards her with the decorum that I have been taught to
believe should be shown to the instructress of one's children. Now,
the last young woman was so different, and--"

"Young," says Miss Peyton.

"Well, old, if you like it. She certainly, poor soul, did remind one
of the 'sere and yellow.' But this child is all fire and life; and
really," says the vicar, with a sigh that may be relief, "I think we
all like it better; she is quite a break-in upon our monotony."

"I am so glad you all like her;" says Clarissa, quite beaming with
satisfaction. "She was such a dear little thing when last I saw her;
so gentle, too,--like a small mouse."

"Oh, was she?" says the vicar, anxiously. "She is changed a little, I
think. To me she is rather terrifying. Now, for instance, this morning
at breakfast, she asked me, before the children, 'if I didn't find
writing sermons a bore.' And when I said--as I was in duty bound to
say, my dear Clarissa--that I did not, she laughed out quite merrily,
and said she 'didn't believe me'! Need I say the children were in
raptures? but I could have borne that, only, when Mrs. Redmond forsook
me and actually laughed too, I felt the end of all things was come.
Clarissa," (severely), "I do hope I don't see you laughing, too."

"Oh, no!--not--not much," says Miss Peyton, who is plainly enjoying
the situation to its utmost. "It is very hard on you, of course."

"Well, it is," says the vicar, with his broad and rather handsome
smile, that works such miracles in the parish and among the mining
people, who look upon him as their own special property. "It is
difficult for a man to hope to govern his own household when his
nearest and dearest turn him into open ridicule. Your little friend is
a witch. What shall we do with her?"

"Submit to her," says Clarissa. "Where is she? I want to see her."

"Cissy will find her for you. I dare say they are together, unless
your 'Madam Quicksilver,' as I call her, has taken to herself wings
and flown away."

He turns, as though to go with her.

"No, no," says Clarissa; "I shall easily find her by myself. Go, and
do what you meant to do before I stopped you."

Moving away from him, she enters the hall, and seeing a servant, is
conducted by her to a small room literally strewn with work of all
kinds. Books, too, lie here in profusion, and many pens, and numerous
bottles of ink, and a patriarchal sofa that never saw better days than
it sees now, when all the children prance over it, and love it, and
make much of it, as being their very own.

On this ancient, friend a tiny fairy-like girl is sitting, smiling
sweetly at Cissy Redmond, who is chattering to her gayly and is
plainly enchanted at having some one of her own age to converse with.

The fairy is very lovely, with red-gold hair, and large luminous blue
eyes, soft and dark, that can express all emotions, from deepest love
to bitterest scorn. Her nose is pure Greek; her lips are tender and
mobile; her skin is neither white nor brown, but clear and warm, and
somewhat destitute of color. Her small head is covered with masses of
wavy, luxuriant, disobedient hair, that shines in the light like
threads of living gold.

She is barely five feet in height, but is exquisitely moulded. Her
hands and feet are a study, her pretty rounded waist a happy dream.
She starts from the sofa to a standing position as Clarissa enters,
and, with a low, intense little cry, that seems to come direct from
her heart, runs to her and lays her arms gently round her neck.

Once again Clarissa finds herself in Brussels, with her chosen friend
beside her. She clasps Georgie in a warm embrace; and then Cissy
Redmond, who is a thoroughly good sort, goes out of the room, leaving
the new governess alone with her old companion.

"At last I see you," says Miss Broughton, moving back a little, and
leaning her hands on Clarissa's shoulders that she may the more easily
gaze at her. "I thought you would never come. All the morning I have
been waiting, and watching, and longing for you!"

Her voice is peculiar,--half childish, half petulant, and wholly
sweet. She is not crying, but great tears are standing in her eyes as
though eager to fall, and her lips are trembling.

"I didn't like to come earlier," says Clarissa, kissing her again. "It
is only twelve now, you know; but I was longing every bit as much to
see you as you could be to see me. Oh, Georgie, how glad I am to have
you near me! and----you have not changed a little scrap."

She says this in a relieved tone.

"Neither have you," says Georgie: "you are just the same. There is a
great comfort in that thought. If I had found you changed,--different
in any way,--what should I have done? I felt, when I saw you standing
tall and slight in the doorway, as if time had rolled back, and we
were together again at Madame Brochet's. Oh, how happy I was then!
And now----now----"

The big tears in her pathetic eyes tremble to their fall, she covers
her face with her hands.

"Tell me everything," says Clarissa, tenderly.

"What is there to tell?--except that I am alone in the world, and very
desolate. It is more than a year ago now since----since----papa left
me. It seems like a long century. At first I was apathetic; it was
despair I felt, I suppose; indeed, I was hardly conscious of the life
I was leading when with my aunt. Afterwards the reaction set in; then
came the sudden desire for change, the intense longing for work of any
kind; and then----"

"Then you thought of me!" says Clarissa, pressing her hand.

"That is true. Then I thought of you, and how ready your sympathy had
ever been. When--when he died, he left me a hundred pounds. It was all
he had to leave." She says this hastily, passionately, as though it
must be gone through, no matter how severe the pain that accompanies
the telling of it. Clarissa, understanding, draws even closer to her.
This gentle movement is enough. A heart, too full, breaks beneath
affection's touch. Georgie bursts into tears.

"It was all on earth he _had_ to give," she sobs, bitterly, "and I
think he must have _starved_ himself to leave me even that! Oh, shall
I ever forget?"

"In time," whispers Clarissa, gently. "Be patient: wait." Then, with a
sigh, "How sad for some this sweet world can be!"

"I gave my aunt forty pounds," goes on the fair-haired beauty, glad to
find somebody in whom she can safely confide and to whom her troubles
may be made known. "I gave it to her because I had lived with her some
time, and she was not kind to me, and so I felt I should pay her
something. And then I put a little white cross on _his_ grave before I
left him, lest he should think himself quite forgotten. It was all I
could do for him," concludes she, with another heavy sob that shakes
her slight frame.

Her heart seems broken! Clarissa, who by this time is dissolved in
tears, places her arms round her, and presses her lips to her cheek.

"Try, _try_ to be comforted," entreats she. "The world, they tell me,
is full of sorrow. Others have suffered, too. And nurse used to tell
me, long ago, that those who are unhappy in the beginning of their
lives are lucky ever after. Georgie, it may be so with you."

"It may," says Georgie, with a very faint smile; yet, somehow, she
feels comforted.

"Do you think you will be content here?" asks Clarissa, presently,
when some minutes have passed.

"I think so. I am sure of it. It is such a pretty place, and so unlike
the horrid little smoky town from which I have come, and to which"
(with a heavy sigh), "let us hope, I shall never return."

"Never do," says Clarissa giving her rich encouragement. "It is ever
so much nicer here." As she has never seen the smoky town in question,
this is a somewhat gratuitous remark. "And the children are quite
sweet, and very pretty; and the work won't be very much; and--and I am
only just, an easy walking-distance from you."

At this termination they both laugh.

Georgie seems to have forgotten her tears of a moment since, and her
passionate burst of grief. Her lovely face is smiling, radiant; her
lips are parted; her great blue eyes are shining. She is a warm
impulsive little creature, as prone to tears as to laughter, and with
a heart capable of knowing a love almost too deep for happiness, and
as surely capable of feeling a hatred strong and lasting.

The traces of her late emotion are still wet upon her cheeks. Perhaps
she knows it not, but, "like some dew-spangled flower, she shows more
lovely in her tears." She and Clarissa are a wonderful contrast.
Clarissa is slight and tall and calm; she, all life and brightness,
eager, excited, and unmindful of the end.

Cissy Redmond, at this juncture, summons up sufficient courage to open
the door and come in again. She ignores the fact of Georgie's red
eyes, and turns to Clarissa. She has Miss Peyton's small dog in her
arms,--the terrier, with the long and melancholy face, that goes by
the name of Bill.

"_Your_ dog," she says to Clarissa, "and such a pet. He has eaten
several legs off the tables, and all my fingers. His appetite is a
credit to him. How do you provide for him at Gowran? Do you have an
ox roasted whole occasionally, for his special benefit?"

"Oh, he is a worry," says Clarissa, penitently. "Billy, come here, you
little reprobate, and don't try to look as if you never did anything
bad in your life. Cissy, I wish you and Georgie and the children would
all come up to Gowran to-morrow."

"We begin lessons to-morrow," says the new governess, gravely, who
looks always so utterly and absurdly unlike a governess, or anything
but a baby or a water-pixie, with her yellow hair and her gentian
eyes. "It will be impossible for me to go."

"But lessons will be over at two o'clock," says Cissy, who likes going
to Gowran, and regards Clarissa as "a thing of beauty." "Why not walk
up afterwards?"

"I shall expect you," says Clarissa, with decision; and then the two
girls tell her they will go with her as far as the vicarage gate, as
she must now go home.

There she bids them good-by, and, passing through the gate, goes up
the road. Compelled to look back once again, by some power we all know
at times, she sees Georgie's small pale face pressed against the iron
bars, gazing after her, with eyes full of lonely longing.

"Good-by, Clarissa," she says, a little sad imploring cadence
desolating her voice.

"Until to-morrow" replies Clarissa, with an attempt at gayety, though
in reality the child's mournful face is oppressing her. Then she
touches the ponies lightly, and disappears up the road and round the
corner, with Bill, as preternaturally grave as usual, sitting bolt
upright beside her.

The next morning is soft and warm, and, indeed, almost sultry for the
time of year. Thin misty clouds, white and shadowy, enwrap the fields
and barren ghost-like trees and sweep across the distant hills. There
is a sound as of coming rain,--a rushing and a rustling in the naked
woods. "A still wild music is abroad," as though a storm is impending,
that shall rise at night and shake the land the more fiercely because
of its enforced silence all this day.

                  "But now, at noon,
  Upon the southern side of the slant hill,
  And where the woods fence off the northern blast
  The season smiles, resigning all its rage,
  And has the warmth of May. The vault is blue,
  Without a cloud: and white without a speck,
  The dazzling splendor of the scene below."

The frost has gone, for the time being; no snow fell last night;
scarcely does the wind blow. If, indeed, "there is in souls a sympathy
with sounds," I fear Georgie and Cissy and the children must be
counted utterly soulless, as they fail to hear the sobbing of the
coming storm, but with gay voices and gayer laughter come merrily over
the road to Gowran. Upon the warm sullen air the children's tones ring
like sweet silver bells.

As they enter the gates of Gowran, the youngest child, Amy, runs to
the side of the new governess, and slips her hand through her arm.

"I am going to tell you about all the pretty things as we go along,"
she says, patronizingly yet half shyly, rubbing her cheek against Miss
Broughton's shoulder. She is a tall, slender child, and to do this has
to stoop a little. "You fairy," she goes on, admiringly, encouraged
perhaps by the fact that she is nearly as tall as her instructress,
"you are just like Hans Andersen's tales. I don't know why."

"Amy! Miss Broughton won't like you to speak to her like that," says
Cissy, coloring.

But Georgie laughs.

"I don't mind a bit," she says, giving the child's hand a reassuring
pressure. "I am accustomed to being called that, and, indeed, I rather
like it now. I suppose I _am_ very small. But" (turning anxiously to
Cissy, and speaking quite as shyly as the child Amy had spoken a
moment since) "there is a name to which I am not accustomed, and I
hate it. It is 'Miss Broughton.' Won't you call me 'Georgie?'"

"Oh, are you sure you won't mind?" says the lively Cissy, with a deep
and undisguised sigh of relief. "Well, that is a comfort! it is all I
can do to manage your name. You don't look a bit like a 'Miss
Anything,' you know, and 'Georgie' suits you down to the ground."

"Look, look! There is the tree where the fairies dance at night,"
cries Amy, eagerly, her little, thin, spiritual face lighting with
earnestness, pointing to a magnificent old oak-tree that stands apart
from all the others, and looks as though it has for centuries defied
time and storm and proved itself indeed "sole king of forests all."

"Every night the fairies have a ball there," says Amy, in perfect good
faith. "In spring there is a regular wreath of blue-bells all round
it, and they show where the 'good folks' tread."

"How I should like to see them!" says Georgie, gravely. I think, in
her secret soul, she is impressed by the child's solemnity, and would
prefer to believe in the fairies rather than otherwise.

"Well, _you_ ought to know all about them," says Amy, with a transient
but meaning smile: "you belong to them, don't you? Well" (dreamily),
"perhaps some night we shall go out hand in hand and meet them here,
and dance with them all the way to fairy-land."

"Miss Broughton,--there--through the trees! Do you see something
gleaming white?" asks Ethel, the eldest pupil. "Yes? Well, there, in
that spot, is a marble statue of a woman, and underneath her is a
spring. It went dry ever so many years ago, but when Clarissa's great
grandfather died the waters burst out again, and every one said the
statue was crying for him, he was so good and noble and so well
beloved."

"I think you might have let me tell that story," says Amy,
indignantly. "You knew I wanted to tell her that story."

"I didn't," with equal indignation; "and, besides, you told her about
the fairies' ball-room. I said nothing about that."

"Well, at all events," says Georgie, "they were two of the prettiest
stories I ever heard in my life. I don't know which was the prettier."

"Now, look at that tree," breaks in Amy, hurriedly, feeling it is
honestly her turn now, and fearing lest Ethel shall cut in before her.
"King Charles the Second spent the whole of one night in that
identical tree."

"Not the whole of it," puts in Ethel, unwisely.

"Now, I suppose this is my story, at all events," declares Amy,
angrily, "and I shall just tell it as I like."

"Poor King Charles!" says Georgie, with a laugh, "If we are to
believe all the stories we hear, half his lifetime must have been
spent 'up a tree.'"

A stone balcony runs before the front of the house. On it stands
Clarissa, as they approach, but, seeing them, she runs down the steps
and advances eagerly to meet them.

"Come in," she says. "How late you are! I thought you had proved
faithless and were not coming at all."

"Ah! what a lovely hall!" says Georgie, as they enter, stopping in a
childishly delighted fashion to gaze round her.

"It's nothing to the drawing-room: that is the most beautiful room in
the world," says the irrepressible Amy, who is in her glory, and who,
having secured the unwilling but thoroughly polite Bill, is holding
him in her arms and devouring him with unwelcome kisses.

"You shall see the whole house, presently," says Clarissa to Georgie,
"including the room I hold in reserve for you when these children have
driven you to desperation."

"That will be never," declares Amy, giving a final kiss to the
exhausted Billy. "We like her far too much, and always will, I know,
because nothing on earth could make me afraid of her!"

At this they all laugh. Georgie, I think, blushes a little; but even
the thought that she is not exactly all she ought to be as an orthodox
governess cannot control her sense of the ludicrous.

"Cissy, when is your father's concert to come off?" asks Clarissa,
presently.

"At once, I think. The old organ is unendurable. I do hope it will be
a success, as he has set his heart on getting a new one. But it is so
hard to make people attend. They will pay for their tickets, but they
won't come. And, after all, what the--the _others_ like, is to see the
county."

"Get Dorian Branscombe to help you. Nobody ever refuses him anything."

"Who is Dorian Branscombe?" asks Georgie, indifferently, more from
want of something to say than an actual desire to know.

"Dorian?" repeats Clarissa, as though surprised; and then, correcting
herself with a start, "I thought every one knew Dorian. But I forgot,
you are a stranger. He is a great friend of mine; he lives near this,
and you must like him."

"Every one likes him," says Cissy, cordially.

"Lucky he," says Georgie. "Is he your lover, Clarissa?"

"Oh, no,"--with a soft blush, born of the thought that if he is not
the rose he is very near to it. "He is only my friend, and a nephew of
Lord Sartoris."

"So great as that?"--with a faint grimace. "You crush me. I suppose he
will hardly deign to look at _me_?"

As she speaks see looks at herself in an opposite mirror, and smiles a
small coquettish smile that is full of innocent childish satisfaction,
as she marks the fair vision that is given back to her by the friendly
glass.

"I hope he won't look at you too much, for his own peace of mind,"
says Cissy, at which Clarissa laughs again; and then, the children
getting impatient, they all go out to see the pigeons and the gardens,
and stay lingering in the open air until afternoon tea is announced.




CHAPTER XIV.

                          "Where music dwells
  Lingering, and wandering on, as loath to die,
  Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof
  That they were born for immortality."--WORDSWORTH.


The parish church of Pullingham is as naught in the eyes of the
parishioners, in that it is devoid of an organ. No sweet sounds can be
produced from the awful and terrifying instrument that for years has
served to electrify the ears of those unfortunate enough to possess
sittings in the church. It has at last failed!

One memorable Sunday it groaned aloud,--then squeaked mildly;
cr--r--r--k went something in its inside; there was a final shriek,
more weird than the former, and then all was still! How thankful
should they have been for that! I believe they were truly and devoutly
so, but love for the "heavenly maid" still reigned in all their
hearts, and with joy they hearkened to their vicar when he suggested
the idea of a concert to be given for the purpose of raising funds
wherewith to purchase a new organ, or, at least, to help to purchase
it. The very thought was enough to raise high Jubilee within their
musical hearts.

Now, the one good thing still belonging to Mrs. Redmond is the remains
of what must once have been a very beautiful voice. With this she
possesses the power of imparting to others her own knowledge of
music,--a rather rare gift. With her own children, of course, she can
do nothing; they are veritable dead-letters in her hands,--she being
one of those women who spend their lives admonishing and thrusting
advice upon the world, yet find themselves unequal to the government
of their own household. But with the village choir all is different;
here she reigns supreme, and is made much of, for Pullingham is
decidedly musical, and all its young men and all its young women
either sing, or think they sing, or long after singing.

Tenors, sopranos, and basses are to be met with round every corner;
the very air is thick with them. The Pullinghamites _will_ sing,
whether they can or not, with a go and a gusto that speaks well for
their lungs, if a trifle trying to the listeners.

Vocal music being the thing held highest in favor in the Methodist
chapel, where Mr. Leatham, the "Methody" parson, holds unorthodox
services, many were the seceders from the parish church to join the
choir in the whitewashed chapel and shout the hymns of Moody and
Sankey, just at the commencement of this story.

Such secessions went nigh to breaking Mr. Redmond's heart. The organ
had failed him; it had wheezed, indeed, valiantly to the last, as
though determined to die game; but a day had come, as I said, when it
breathed its last sigh and the ancient bellows refused to produce
another note.

What was to be done? The villagers should and would have music at any
cost, and they never could be brought to see the enormity of
worshipping in the whitewashed edifice that was, and is, as the temple
of Belial in the eyes of their vicar.

It would take some time to procure funds for another and more
satisfactory organ. In the mean time, the whilom choir was falling to
pieces. The late organist had accepted a fresh and more lucrative
post: there was literally no head to keep the members together. What
was to be done?

In desperation, the vicar asked himself this, whilst looking vainly
round for some one to help him drag back his flock from the vicious
influence of the "American songsters," as he most irreverently termed
Messrs. M. and S. And it was then, when he was at his wits' end, that
Mrs. Redmond most unexpectedly came to the rescue. It was the first
and the last time in her life she ever rose to the occasion: but this
one solitary time she did it perfectly, and coming boldly to the
front, carried all before her.

She would undertake a singing-class; she would arrange, and teach, and
keep together a choir that should reduce to insignificance the poor
pretensions of a man like Leatham! The vicar, dazzled by all this
unlooked-for energy, gave his consent to her scheme, and never
afterwards repented it; for in three short months she had regulated
and coached a singing-class that unmistakably outshone its
Methodistical rivals.

And then came the question of the new organ.

"We have some money, but not enough money," said the vicar, one
evening, to the partner of his joys; "and something should be done to
bring the want of an organ before the public."

"I should think it must be sufficiently brought before them every
Sunday," said Mrs. Redmond, triumphantly laying her tenth mended sock
in the basket near her.

"The parish is all very well, my dear, but the county ought to hear of
it, and ought to help. I insist upon the county putting its hands in
its pockets."

"I think you are quite right to insist," said Mrs. Redmond, placidly;
"but how are you going to do it?"

"Let us give a concert," said the vicar, at last bringing to the light
of day his great project, that fairly took his wife's breath away.
"Yes, a concert, to which the whole county shall come and hear
my--nay, your--choir surpass itself."

Mrs. Redmond was struck dumb by this bold proposition, but, finally
giving in, she consented to teach the choir, assiduously twice a
week, all the quartettes and trios and solos she knew; while still
declaring, in a dismal fashion, that she knew the whole thing would be
a dismal failure, and that the great cause would lose by it more than
it would gain.

Many days, many hours, has Mr. Redmond spent arranging and
disarranging all the details of the proposed concert.

The idea is in itself a "happy thought,"--far happier than any of
Burnand's (so he tells himself); but a concert, however unpretentious,
is a prodigious affair, and not to be conducted by half a dozen raw
recruits.

Besides, the county admires the county, and would prefer seeing itself
represented on the boards to listening to the warblings, be they never
so sweet, of an outsider. It is so far more delicious to laugh behind
one's fan at the people in one's own set than at those outside the
pale of recognition. And, of course, the county must be humored.

The vicar grows nervous as he masters this fact, and strives
diligently to discover some among the upper ten who will come forward
and help to sweeten and gild the "great unwashed."

The duchess, unfortunately, is from home; but Lady Mary and Lady
Patricia are at the Castle, and Lady Mary--when she can be heard,
which, to do her justice, is very seldom, even in a very small
room--can sing nice little songs very nicely. Indeed, she is fond of
describing her own voice as "a sweet little voice," and certainly all
truth is embodied in the word "little."

Then there is young Hicks, the surgeon's son, who boasts a good
baritone, and is addicted to Molloy and Adams and all of their class,
and who positively revels in Nancy Lees, and such gentle beings as
those to whom the "Tar's Farewell" may be gently breathed.

Then there is the long gawky man staying with the Bellews, who can
shout from afar, and make music of his own that will probably, nay,
surely, go a long way towards bringing down the house, as far as the
farmer class is concerned; and with him will come Miss Bellew, who can
produce a very respectable second in any duet, and who is safe to go
anywhere with the long gawky young man, if report speaks truly.

Mrs. McConkie, from the neighboring parish, will lend a helping hand,
her husband being a brother clergyman; and there is, besides, Mr.
Henly, who plays the violin, and Mr. Johnson, who can recite both
comic and melancholy pieces with such success as to bring tears or
laughter, as the case may be, into the eyes of any one with half a
soul!

As nobody will confess to anything less than a whole soul, everybody
in Pullingham laughs or cries immoderately whenever Mr. Johnson gives
way to recitations.

And last, but not least, there is always Sarah Martin, the leader of
the village choir, and the principal feature in it, whose strong if
slightly ear-piercing soprano must prove her worthy of a new organ.

To the vicar's intense chagrin, Dorian Branscombe is absent,--has,
indeed, been up in town since the day before Georgie Broughton's
arrival, now a fortnight old.

Dorian would have been such a comfort! Not that he sings, or plays, or
fiddles, or, indeed, does anything in particular, beyond cajoling the
entire neighborhood; but that, as it happens, is, in this case,
everything. To cajole, to entreat, to compel the people to come in and
fill the empty benches, is all the vicar would require at his hands.

And Dorian could do all this. No one ever refuses him anything. Both
old women and young women acknowledge his power, and give in to him,
and make much of him, and hardly feel the worse because of their
subservience,--he having a little way of his own that makes them
believe, when they have been most ignominiously betrayed into saying
"yes" to one of his wildest propositions, he has been conferring a
favor upon them, more or less, for which he is just too generous to
demand thanks.

But this invaluable ally is absent. The vicar, in the privacy of his
own sanctum,--where no one can witness the ungodly deed,--stamps his
feet with vexation as he thinks on this, and tells himself he is
unlucky to the last degree, and acknowledges a worth in Dorian
Branscombe never learned before!

Clarissa is perfectly delighted with the whole idea, and somewhat
consoles him by her ready offers of assistance, and her determination
to step into the absent Dorian's shoes and make love to the county in
his stead.

She persists in calling it the "first concert of the season," which
rather alarms the vicar, who is depressed by his wife's
prognostications of failure, and sees nothing but ruin ahead. She
declares her intention of publishing it in all the London papers, and
offers the whole of the winter conservatories to decorate the
school-house (where it is to be held), so that those accustomed to the
sight of its white and somewhat barren walls will fail to recognize it
in its new-born beauty.

"Then, shall we name the 4th as the day?" says the vicar, with some
trepidation. It is now the end of January, and he is alluding to the
first week in the ensuing month. "I wish you could sing, Clarissa! I
dare say you would help me."

"Indeed I would. But Nature has proved unkind to me. And, after all,
you want no one else. The choir, in itself, is very efficient; and if
you must call for 'out-door relief,' why, you have Lady Mary, and the
others. That fearful young-man at Bellew is a fortune in himself; and
Mr. Johnson makes everybody cry--and it is so nice to cry."

"Yes,--yes,--I dare say," says the poor vicar, who is somewhat
_distrait_, and, to say the truth, a little miserable about the whole
undertaking. "Now, there is Sarah Martin. Do you think she will pull
through? On her I build all my hopes; but some inward doubt about her
oppresses me. Willie Bealman has a capital tenor; but he and Sarah
don't speak,--she refused him, I think,--and so they won't sing their
duet together. Then there is Lizzie Bealman, she might stand to me;
but she loses her voice when nervous, and has a most uncomfortable
trick of giggling when in the least excited."

"Put her in the background," says Clarissa. "She is of no use, except
in a chorus."

"Her people wouldn't stand it. They look upon her as a rising prima
donna. I assure you, my dear Clarissa," says the vicar, furtively
wiping his brow, "only for the sin of it, there are moments when I
could wish myself beneath the sod. The incessant worry is more than I
can bear!"

"Oh, now, don't say that," says Miss Peyton, patting his arm lovingly.
"It will be a great success, this concert: I know, I feel it will!"




CHAPTER XV.

              "As sweet and musical
  As bright Apollo's lute, strung with his hair;
  And when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods
  Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony."--_Love's Labor's Lost._


It is night, and the 4th of February. Already is Pullingham turning
out, dressed in its very Sunday best, and is wending its way towards
the school-house, where the concert is to be held.

For the last week it has been deep in the mysteries of solos, duets,
and trios. Indeed, there is hardly a family in the whole village that
does not know by heart every mortal thing that is going to be sung,
each family possessing a son or a daughter engaged in the common work,
and belonging to the choir; yet nevertheless it now goes in a body to
the school-house, as possessed with curiosity as though music is an
art unknown to them, and the piping of small trebles a thing unheard
of.

Nothing can exceed the excitement and jealousy that reign
everywhere,--principally in the hearts of Mr. Leatham's followers, who
hope wildly, but secretly, that failure may be the only crop their
rivals may reap.

It is a heavenly night, for which the Vicar is devoutly thankful. The
moon is riding high in the dark-blue dome; the stars are all alight;
the air, swift and keen, rushes along the high-roads, sweeping all
before it. There is no sign of rain; the sky above, "star-inwrought,"
shows promise of many fair to-morrows. "There is no excuse for their
non-attendance," murmurs the vicar to himself, as he stands inside the
school-house door, wording his thought, as he might, were he thinking
of the collecting together of his flock on Easter Sunday or to the
Holy Communion.

  "Vast night comes noiselessly up the eastern slope,
  And so the eternal chase goes round the world."

But for the soughing wind, the world is still. One by one, or two by
two, or sometimes as a whole family, the villagers drop in, arranging
themselves modestly in the back rows, and exchanging greetings with
each other in a subdued and whispered fashion.

A little while after the door is opened, the lower half of the hall is
crowded to excess. The vicar is well beloved by his parishioners; but
above and beyond all is the desire to see Maria, and Susan, and
Ezekiel upon the boards, "a singing for the quality!"

The room itself is what reporters would term "a blaze of light." Much
ingenuity has been exercised in the decoration of it; and certainly
the designs in laurels, and the designs in moss, and the one grand
design in paper roses, at the far end of the room, are all that heart
can desire.

To Clarissa, I think, this last outburst on the part of the village is
a heart-break; but, if so, she represses her grief valiantly, and
even, with her own forgiving fingers, condescends to brighten the
monstrosity with some hothouse flowers. But, when all is told, it
remains an eyesore,--a regrettable blot, not to be eradicated under
pain of bringing down the rage of the entire village upon the devoted
head of him or her who should interfere.

Mrs. Redmond, seated on the small platform, with the piano before her,
and the choir arranged, with careful regard to its different sizes, on
each side of her, waits patiently the coming of the county. She is
looking thinner, more miserable, than usual, and has a general air
about her of being chilled to the bone. Her fingers, lying idly in her
lap, clutch and unclutch each other aimlessly, as though vainly
searching for the accustomed sock.

Miss Broughton, who is taking no part in the performance,--having
suppressed the fact of her having a very beautiful voice, ever since
her arrival at Pullingham,--is sitting on a side-seat, longing eagerly
for Clarissa's arrival. The children have wandered a little away from
her, and are gazing, as lost in admiration, at the huge
rose-construction on the wall before them.

Presently, the Greys of Greymount come in, with a little shudder of
disgust at finding themselves almost the first; followed closely by
Lady Mary and Lady Patricia Hort, who do not shudder at all, but go
straight up the small passage between the seats, with their patrician
noses high in the air, and smile and nod cheerfully, and not at all
condescendingly, at Mrs. Redmond, who, poor soul, is deeply relieved
at sight of them.

Lady Mary goes on to the platform; Lady Patricia sinks into a front
seat specially provided for her, whilst Lord Alfred, their
brother,--who has been inveigled into coming, sorely against his
will,--having conversed with Lady Patricia for a few minutes, and told
her several lies about the arrangements for the evening,--not
intentionally, but through ignorance, being under the false impression
that a concert in a village is the same as a concert in town,--goes
over to one side of the building, and plants himself listlessly with
his back against a wall, from which position he gazes in a gloomy
fashion at everything in general, but Miss Broughton in particular.

Then comes everybody, and makes a great fuss about its
place,--Clarissa Peyton and her father excepted, who go straight to
where Georgie is sitting, and stay with her all the evening.

Dorian Branscombe, who has come down expressly for the concert, at
great trouble to himself, and simply to oblige the vicar, saunters
leisurely up the room towards the middle of the evening, and looks
round him dubiously, as though uncertain where to put in his time.

Seeing Clarissa, he goes up to her, and, with a faint sigh of relief,
leans over the back of her chair and says, "Good-evening," in a
languid tone.

"Ah! you, Dorian?" says Clarissa, very pleased. "Now, it _is_ good of
you to come."

"I'm always good," says Dorian. "I'm a model boy. It is so strange
that people won't recognize the fact. They sort of give me to
understand I'm quite the other thing, whatever that may be. Very full
house, don't you think, and awfully swagger? What's Lady Patricia got
on her? She is slightly terrifying, don't you think?"

"She isn't very well got up, certainly," says Clarissa, reluctantly.

"She's anyhow," says Mr. Branscombe, freely; and then his eyes fall
upon Georgie, who is gazing, in her rapt, childish fashion, at the
singer of the moment; and then he doesn't speak again for a little
while.

"Is Horace quite well?" asks Clarissa, presently.

"Quite well. He always is, you know. Who----who is the girl next your
father?"

"That is my friend, Georgie Broughton. I think I told you about her.
She is governess at the vicarage, now. Is she not lovely,--quite
sweet?" asks Clarissa, eagerly.

But Mr. Branscombe does not answer her. He is still staring at the
unconscious Georgie, and seems almost deaf to Clarissa's praise of
her. At this Miss Peyton is somewhat disgusted, and declines any
further attempt at laudation.

"A governess!" he says, at length, raising his brows, but without
removing his eyes from the fair and perfect face that, even now, he
tells himself, is without its equal.

"Yes. She is none the less sweet for that," says Clarissa, rather
coldly. She tells herself it is unlike Dorian to look down upon any
one because he or she may be in a worse position than his own.

"They are going to sing again," she says, in a tone she seldom uses to
him: "we must not talk, you know." She had some faint idea of
introducing him to Georgie, but she abandons it, and gives him to
understand that she has at present nothing more to say to him.

Whether he quite comprehends all she intends to convey, I know not;
but, raising himself slowly from his lounging position on the back of
her chair, he takes a last look at Georgie's profile, and moves into
the background.

"Good-evening, Branscombe," says Lord Alfred, presently; and Dorian,
finding himself beside him, returns the greeting, and props himself up
in his turn against the friendly wall, that shows its appreciation of
them by giving them finely whitewashed coats.

The concert is getting on swimmingly. As yet no flaw has occurred to
mark the brilliancy of its success. The opening chorus has been
applauded to the echo, especially by Lord Alfred, who feels it his
duty to do something, and who keeps on applauding, in the most
open-hearted manner each thing and everything, until he discovers he
has split his right glove all up the palm, when he caves in, and,
having said something impossible, puts his hands behind his back and
refuses to applaud again.

Lady Mary has come forward, and entreated her audience to "Love not,"
in the faintest and most plaintive of voices. The county is delighted
with her, and smiles unrestrainedly behind its fans. "Dear Lady Mary
is _so_ funny, don't you know," says Miss Grey of Greymount, in an
indescribable tone.

Then comes a solo on the violin, that charms all the back benches, and
reduces the farmers' wives and daughters to tears, as it tells them
how that the poor player's "lodging is on the cold ground."

Lord Alfred, who has not yet recovered his temper, says this is
"disgusting," and "wonders what the--so-and-so--brought him here at
all."

"I suppose the night brougham," says Dorian, equably, who is now
engaged in a minute examination of Miss Broughton's head, round which
her soft yellow hair is twisted in a loose artistic coil.

He is in quite a happy mood, if somewhat silent, and says the solo
isn't half bad; and now Mr. Hastings, the curate, reads something from
the "Ingoldsby Legends," that seems to displease Cissy Redmond
extremely, as she will not lift her head during the reading, or even
look at him, and expresses herself as quite charmed when it is at an
end.

And now comes the event of the evening,--the thing that is to convince
the county of the necessity for a good organ, and to show them the
rare excellence of the Pullingham choir.

Sarah Martin, the leading soprano--all muslin and blue bows--comes
forward, and begins the solo upon which all the vicar's hopes are
centred.

  "The shades of night are falling fast."

begins Sarah, nobly, and goes on in a hopeful manner to the end of the
first verse.

The vicar draws a deep sigh of relief!

  "His brow was sad, his eye beneath,"

goes on Sarah victoriously, her whole soul in the safe fulfilment of
her task. She gets through to the end of the second verse as
successfully as she did to the end of the first, and then pauses to
draw breath.

The vicar exchanges a triumphant glance with Miss Peyton.

  "In happy homes they saw the light,"

continues Sarah. And then--then! something horrible happens. A sound,
very terrible to the vicar, smites upon his ear,--a sound that fills
his clerical bosom with dismay. Sarah's voice--the voice of his chief
prop--has proved false. It has given way; it has cracked upon a high
note; and _the_ solo of the evening has proved a dead failure.

Talk of failing for a million; talk of Isandula or Majuba Hill; talk
of Mr. Parnell and the Coercion Bill! But was ever defeat so
disastrous as this? The vicar, but for his sex, and the publicity of
the thing, could thankfully have given way to tears. Miss Peyton
flushes to her temples and feels as if she herself has been guilty of
the miserable _fiasco_.

Of course it is hushed up. The piano comes out quite strong again,
under Mrs. Redmond's bony fingers; the defaulter is gently pushed into
the background, and a chorus introduced. Nevertheless, after the
breakdown, things somehow seem to go wrong. The other singers are
disheartened, and will not do their best; while Sarah, who is
dissolved in tears in the cloak-room, and who has another song on the
programme, obstinately refuses to try her powers again.

The vicar is in despair, although he walks about valiantly among the
audience, trying, most unsuccessfully, to appear unconcerned; whilst
the coughing and sneezing, that generally distinguish every place
where silence is the thing most to be desired, seem now on the
increase, to an alarming degree, and threaten to drown Lady Mary's
second effort.

"Who _is_ that blowing his nose?" demands the poor vicar, testily,
looking daggers in the direction of the sound. Clarissa, who is the
nearest to him as he makes this observation, just saves herself from
laughing aloud.

"Things have taken a bad turn," says the vicar, regarding her
reproachfully. "I am afraid my first attempt will only be remembered
as a wretched failure; and that girl has another song, and she will
not venture again, and there is no one to take her place."

"Mr. Redmond, I will sing for you, if you wish it," says a clear,
childish voice, that has always something pathetic about it. Georgie
has overheard his last speech, and has turned her soft, fair little
face to his, and is speaking to him, with a flush and a smile.

"But, my dear, can you sing?" says the vicar, anxiously. Her face is
full of music; but then he has never heard her sing. During her
fortnight's stay at the vicarage she has never sung one note, has
never betrayed the fact that she is a true daughter of Polyhymnia.

"I can, indeed,--really; I can sing very well," says Georgie, in her
little earnest fashion, and without the very faintest suspicion of
conceit. She is only eager to reassure him, to convince him of the
fact that she is worthy to come to his relief.

"But the song?" says Mr. Redmond, still hesitating, and alluding to
the second solo chosen by the defaulter.

"It is an old Irish song; I know it. It is 'Shule, agra,' and it
begins, 'My Mary with the curling hair,'" says Georgie, with a slight
nod. "I used to sing it long ago, and it is very pretty."

"Well, come," says the vicar, though with trepidation, and leads her
on to the platform, and up to Mrs. Redmond, to that good woman's
intense surprise.

Lady Mary has nearly brought her little vague whisper to an end. She
has at last disclosed to a listening audience that she has discovered
the real dwelling-place of the lost "Alice,"--who is uncomfortably
ensconced "amidst the starshine," if all accounts be true,--and is now
quavering feebly on a last and dying note.

"This is the song," says Mrs. Redmond, putting Sarah's rejected solo
into her hand.

"Thank you," says Miss Broughton She looks neither frightened nor
concerned, only a little pale, and with a great gleam in her eyes,
born, as it were, of an earnest desire to achieve victory for the
vicar's sake.

Then Lady Mary's final quaver dies, and she moves to one side,
leaving the space before the piano quite clear.

There is a slight pause; and then the slight childish figure, in its
gown of thin filmy black, comes forward, and stands before the
audience. She is quite self-possessed, but rather white, which has the
effect of rendering her large plaintive eyes darker and more lustrous
than usual. Her arms are half bare; her throat and part of her neck
can be seen gleaming white against the blackness of her dress. She is
utterly unadorned. No brooch or ear-rings, or bracelets or jewels of
any kind, can be seen. Yet she stands there before them a perfect
picture, more sweet than words can tell.

She holds her small shapely head erect, and seems unconscious of the
many eyes fixed upon her. Rarely has so fair a vision graced the dull
daily life of Pullingham. Even the sturdy, phlegmatic farmers stir
upon their seats, and nudge the partners of their joys, and wonder, in
a stage whisper, who "you can be?"

Mrs. Redmond plays a few faint chords, and then Georgie begins the
plaintive Irish air Sarah should have sung, and sings it as, perhaps,
she never sang before.

During the second verse, borne away by her passionate desire to
please, she forgets the music-sheet she holds, so that it flutters
away from her down to the floor, and lies there; while her hands,
seeking each other, grow entwined, and hang loosely before her,
showing like little flakes of snow against the darkness of her gown.

Her voice is beautiful, sweet, and full, and quick with passion,--one
of those exquisite voices that sink into the soul, and linger there
forever, even when the actual earthly sound has died away. She carries
the listeners with her, holding them as by a spell, and leaving them
silent, almost breathless, when she has finished her "sweet song."

Now she has come to the end of "Shule, agra," and turns away somewhat
abruptly to Mrs. Redmond, as though half frightened at the storm of
applause that greets her.

"Did I really sing so well?" she asked the vicar, presently, when he
has sought her out to thank her.

"Well?" repeats he. "What a word to use! It was divine; the whole room
was spell-bound. What a gift you possess! My dear, you have saved the
evening, and my honor, and the organ, and everything. I am deeply
grateful to you."

"How glad I am!" says the girl, softly; "and don't thank me. I liked
it,--the singing, the applause, the feeling that I was doing well. I
will sing for you again later on, if you wish it."

"It is too much to ask," says the vicar; "but, if you really don't
mind? Lady Patricia is in ecstasies, and says she could listen to you
forever."

Georgie laughs.

"Well, at least she shall listen to me once more," she says, gayly.

Lady Patricia is not the only one enthralled by the beautiful singer.
Dorian Branscombe has never once removed his eyes from her face: he is
as one bewitched, and, even at this early moment, wonders vaguely
within himself what can be the meaning of the strange pleasure, that
is so near akin to pain, that is tugging at his heart-strings.

Lord Alfred, too, is plainly impressed, and stares at the pretty
creature with the black gown and the snowy arms, until speech becomes
a necessity.

"Well, I never in all my life," he begins, emphatically, and then
stops. "Who is she, Branscombe?"

"Don't know, I'm sure," says Branscombe, rather shortly. What right
has Hort--what right has any fellow--to see beauty in her, except
himself? The words of her song are still running in his ears,--"My
love, my pearl!" How well they suit her! What a little baby face she
has, so pure and sweet! yet how full of feeling!

"What's her name?" asks Lord Alfred, nothing daunted.

"I have quite forgotten," returns Branscombe, even more coldly. His
second answer hardly tallies with his first; but of this he is quite
oblivious.

Lord Alfred raises his brows. "She has a magnificent voice, and is
very beautiful," he says, evenly. "Yet--do you know? she reminds me
somewhat of Harriet."

Harriet is a third and a favorite sister of Lord Alfred's,--a very
estimable young woman, much given to the reformation of drunkards,
who, though rather deficient in nose, makes up for it in prodigality
of mouth.

"I can't say I see the likeness," says Dorian, with as little disgust
as he can manage at so short a notice.

"My dear fellow," expostulates Lord Alfred, shifting his glass from
one eye to the other and looking palpably amused, "there is no reason
in the world why you should be grumpy because you are in love with the
girl. _I_ don't want to interfere with you."

"In love!" says Branscombe. "Nonsense! I never spoke a word to her in
my life."

"Well, it is uncommon like it," says Lord Alfred.

"Is it? Well, I can't help that, you know. Nevertheless, I am not in
love with any one."

"Then you ought to take that look off your face," persists his
lordship, calmly.

"I'll take off anything you like," replies Dorian? somewhat nettled.

At this, Lord Alfred laughs beneath his breath, and tells him he will
not keep him to this rash promise, as probably the Pullingham folk,
being pre-Adamites, might object to the literal fulfilment of it.

"But she is a very lovely girl, and I don't wonder at your
infatuation," he says, mildly.

"Foregone conclusions seem to be in your line," returns Dorian, with a
shrug. "It seems a useless thing to tell you again I have _not_ lost
my heart to Miss Broughton."

"Oh, so you have remembered her name!" says his lordship, dryly.

Meantime, the concert has reasserted itself, and things once more are
going on smoothly. The vicar, all smiles and sunshine, is going about
accepting congratulations on all sides.

"Such a _charming_ evening," says Mrs. Grey; "and _such_ music!
Really, London could not surpass it. And what a delicious face that
girl has got--like Spring, or May, or--er----Morning, or that.
I quite envy her to you. Now all _my_ governesses are so
unpleasant,--freckled, you know, or with a squint, or a crooked nose,
or that. Some people have _all_ the luck in this world," winds up Mrs.
Grey, with a gentle sigh, who has ten thousand a year and no earthly
care, and who always speaks in italics whenever she gets the slightest
chance.

"So glad you are pleased," says the vicar, genially. "Yes, she is as
beautiful as her voice. After all, I think the concert will prove a
success."

"It _has_ proved itself one," says Mrs. Grey, who adores the vicar,
and would flirt with him if she dared. "But when do you fail in
anything you undertake? Really, dear Mr. Redmond, you should not let
the idea die out. You should give us a good time like this at least
once in every month, and than see what _delicious_ windows you could
have. I for one"--coquettishly--"will promise to come to _every_ one
of them."

"At that rate, I should soon have no poor to look after," says the
gratified vicar, gayly.

"And a good thing, too. The poor are always so oppressive, and--er--so
_dirty_, but still"--seeing a change in his face--"_very_
interesting,--_very_!"

And then the concert comes to an end, and adieux are said, and fresh
congratulations poured out, so to speak, upon the Redmonds; and then
every one goes home.

Dorian Branscombe climbs into his dog-cart, and drives swiftly
homeward, under the glistening stars, whose "beauty makes
unhappy,"--his mind filled with many thoughts.

"'My love, my pearl!'"--the words of Georgie's song haunt him
incessantly, and ring their changes on his brain. "What words could be
more appropriate, more suited to her?" (Alas, when we come to pronouns
it is generally all over with us!) "A pearl! so fair! so pure! so
solitary! It just expressed her. By what right has Fate cast that
pretty child upon the cruel world to take her chance, to live or die
in it?

"How large her eyes are, and what a heavenly blue, and what a sad
expression lies within them! 'Grandmamma, grandmamma, what big eyes
you have!'" Here he rouses himself, and laughs a little, and wishes,
with some petulance, that he could put her out of his head.

"'My love, my pearl!' Yes, it was a very pretty song, and haunts one
somehow; but no doubt a good night's sleep will kill it. Hold up, you
brute,"--this to the kind and patient mare, who is doing her good nine
miles an hour, and who has mildly objected to a sharp stone. "Why
didn't Clarissa introduce me to her? I wish to goodness I hadn't to go
back to town to-morrow!" And so on, until he reaches Sartoris, and
flings himself, with some impatience, out of the trap, to the
amazement of his groom, who is accustomed to think of his master as a
young man to whom exertion is impossible.

Then he goes to bed, and spends the next four hours miserably, as he
falls into a heavy slumber, and dreams that oysters, pearl-laden, are
rushing boisterously over his body.




CHAPTER XVI.

  "There was a sound of revelry by night."--BYRON.


So Dorian returns to town, and stays there until the annual hunt ball,
of which he is a steward, summons him back to Pullingham.

It is, of course, the event of the season, this ball, and occurs early
in March. Clarissa, going down to the vicarage,--where, now, indeed,
she spends a good deal of her time,--speaks to the girls about it.

"I am so glad Georgie is in time for it," says Cissy, who is a
warm-hearted little soul, and who desires good for every one. "There
is something so nice about a real big ball."

"A ball!" says Georgie, growing a delicate pink, with excitement. "I
never was at a real ball in my life. Oh, Clarissa, will you take me?"

"Georgie! As if it isn't a real joy to me to have you," says Clarissa,
reproachfully. "I can't bear going anywhere by myself, and Mrs. Grey
always insists on taking Cissy."

"Well, she is very kind, you know," says Cissy, with some regret. "But
I do so wish she would let me go with _you_. However, mamma would not
like me to refuse her, and, after all, I shall meet you both in the
room. I wish we could manage to arrive just at the same moment."

"Well, I'll settle that with Mrs. Grey," says Clarissa. "Dorian will
get me a ticket for Georgie."

"Who is Dorian?" asks Georgie, idly. Literally, she cares nothing
about him, regarding him in this instance as merely a means to an
end,--a person who can obtain for her an entrance into a desired
haven. She has, indeed, forgotten that once before she asked this same
question and received her answer.

"Why, I told you," says Clarissa. "He is Lord Sartoris's nephew,--the
tall handsome young man who spoke to me at the concert."

"I didn't see him. When is this ball to be?"

"On the 5th. And now, about your dresses?"

"Mine goes without telling," says Cissy, in a resigned tone. "The
whole county knows it by heart by this time. After all, there is a
sort of comfort in everything, even in one's misfortune. Now, all _my_
young men won't have the trouble of looking for me, they will know me
directly, the instant their eyes light upon my gown, which is fast
becoming an heirloom."

"If it is the gown you wore the other night at the Bellews', you look
very sweet in it," says Clarissa, looking very sweet herself as she
utters this comforting speech.

"You are an angel, you know," says Cissy, with a merry little laugh.
"You see everybody through rose-colored spectacles."

"Isn't she rude?" says Clarissa. "One would think I was an old fogy of
ninety-five. Spectacles, indeed!"

"I must run," says Miss Cissy. "I entirely forgot all about the
dinner, and mamma left it to me, as she had to go and see old Mrs.
Martin. Good-bye, dear, _dearest_ Clarissa. How I wish I could go with
you to this lovely ball!"

"Never mind; people always meet," says Clarissa, consolingly.

"Yes,--at Philippi," returns the irrepressible, and, with a faint
grimace, she vanishes.

Georgie walks as far as the entrance-gate with Clarissa. When there,
she looks at the iron bars wistfully, and then says, in her pretty
childish way, "Let me go a little way with you, Clarissa, will you?"

Miss Peyton, who is walking, is delighted.

"As far as ever you will. Indeed, I want to speak to you. What--what
is your dress like, Georgie?"

Georgie hesitates. Clarissa, misunderstanding her silence, says,
gently, "Let me give you one, dearest?"

"Oh, no, no," says Miss Broughton, quickly. "I have one,--I have,
indeed; and it is rather pretty."

"But you told me you had never been at a ball."

"Neither have I. The gown I speak of was bought for a musical party.
It was given while I was with Aunt Elizabeth."

"Who gave it?"

"The gown?"

"Oh, no,--the party."

"Lady Lincoln. She has one son, Sir John, and I think it is he gives
the parties. Aunt Elizabeth was so pleased that I was asked that she
insisted on my going, though I cried, and prayed hard to be let stay
at home. It was only"--dropping her voice, with a heavy sigh--"eleven
months after papa had--had left me."

"It was cruel to force you to go against your will: but, when you were
there, did you enjoy yourself?"

"I did," confesses Miss Broughton, with a blush. "I enjoyed myself
more than I can say. I do not think I ever enjoyed myself so much in
all my life. I forgot everything for the time being, and was quite
happy. To me the flowers, the lights, the music, the pretty
dresses,--everything,--were new and fresh, and helped to take me out
of myself. And then, everybody was so kind, and Mr. Kennedy----"

"Who was he?" asks Clarissa, interested at once.

"A tall thin dark man, in the Guards,--the Coldstreams or the
Grenadiers, I quite forget which. He talked to me all the evening;
and, indeed, so did Sir John, Lady Lincoln's son; but I liked Mr.
Kennedy best."

"Poor Sir John!"

"Oh, no. Of course he cared nothing. When I left, Mr. Kennedy, and Sir
John, and Aunt Elizabeth's maid, walked home with me; and I think they
were cross,--the men, I mean. When I got home I found one of my gloves
was missing, and Aunt Elizabeth said I was very careless; and then she
asked me where was the crimson rose I had on my bosom when starting,
and, you see,"--apologetically,--"I had given it to Mr. Kennedy,
because he asked me for it; but when I told her so, she said I was
very forward! Did you ever hear such a word?" says Miss Broughton,
tears of indignation in her eyes. "Was it forward to give a dead rose
to a man who had been very kind to me for a whole evening?"

"Certainly not," says Clarissa, emphatically. "I would give a rose to
any one who was kind to me,--if they asked for it. Did you ever see Mr
Kennedy again?"

"Yes; he called next day, to return me my glove, which, he declared,
he had kept by mistake. But somehow I never got that glove again, so I
suppose he took it away with him when he left."

"I suppose so. Well, I shall write to Dorian for your ticket."

"Perhaps 'Dorian' will think me a great bother."

"Let him," says Clarissa, impatiently: as yet she has not forgiven him
that speech (so much mistaken) at the concert.

       *       *       *       *       *

The 5th has arrived. The day has dawned, lived, grown to its full
size, and then sunk, as we all must, into the arms of Death. The night
has come, with sound of music and breath of dying flowers, and the
drip, drip of the softly-flowing fountains.

The rooms are looking lovely; fair faces smile, and soft eyes gleam;
and figures, round and _svelte_ as Venus's own, sway with the music
and mingle with the throng.

The ball is at its height, when Clarissa, seeing Dorian, beckons to
him with her fan. It is a very slight invitation to her side, but one
instantly obeyed.

"Keep one dance for a friend of mine," she says, earnestly.

"Let me keep one dance for you."

"That, too, if you wish it; but I have a little friend here to-night,
and she knows nobody, and, though I know you won't like it" (calling
to mind again his supposed disparaging tone at the concert), "still,
for my sake, be kind to her."

"I shall be nectar to her, if you entreat me in that fashion. Who is
she?"

"Well, she is only a governess," begins Clarissa, beating about the
bush: she is quite determined, nevertheless, that Georgie shall not be
neglected or left out in the cold at this her first ball.

"A governess!" says Dorian, unthinkingly. "Oh, Clarissa, don't let me
in for that. I don't _mind_ them a bit; but I'm afraid of them. She is
safe to ask me if I don't think Murray's Grammar the most artfully
compiled book in the world, and I shan't know what to say in reply."

"You need not be afraid of my governess," says Clarissa, earnestly:
"she will not trouble you about Murray or his Grammar."

"Of course, if you say I must dance with her, I must," says
Branscombe, with a heavy sigh.

"I see her now. Come, let me introduce you to her."

"But not for this dance. I am engaged--I am, I give you my word--to
the prettiest girl in the room,--the prettiest child, I should say."

"You can dance with your child, of course; but at least let me
introduce you to my friend."

With a faint and carefully subdued shrug he submits to the inevitable,
and goes where Clarissa leads. He finds himself presently at the other
end of the room, near where a little dainty black-robed figure stands,
with three men before her, all evidently possessed with an
overpowering desire to inscribe their names upon the morsel of tinted
and gilded paper she holds in her hand.

Her large blue eyes are almost black with excitement; her lips are
parted, and, like Herrick's "Julia," are like "rubies," soft and rich.
She is glancing up, in a little puzzled fashion, at the tall fair man
who is bending over her whilst going through the usual formula, "May I
have the pleasure," etc.

"Well, where is this dreadful woman?" says Dorian, at this moment,
almost impatiently; he is watching Georgie and the fair man, and feels
distinctly savage.

"Why, here," says Clarissa.

"Here? Not the--the girl in black, talking to Bellew!"

"Yes; that is your dreadful woman."

"Oh, look here, you know, it is too absurd," says Dorian, with a low
laugh. "I have danced twice with her already, and am engaged to her
for this!"

"She is your 'child,' then?" asks Clarissa, opening her eyes.

"Yes; but a governess, my dear Clarissa?"

"She is teaching the Redmond children. I told you so at the concert."

"I quite forgot,--utterly. How could one think of her as that, you
know?"

"Now, please, do try and write plainly," breaks in Georgie's voice,
plaintively. "Up to this I have not been able to read a single name
upon my card."

"I'll do my best," says the fair young man. "Is that legible?"

"Bellew, is it? Yes, I can read that. Thank you, so much. Do you know,
I haven't the faintest idea who I am going to dance this with,
because"--examining her card--"it looks like 'Barleycorn,' and it
can't be that, you know?"

"There once was a John Barleycorn," says Mr. Bellew, thoughtfully.

Clarissa has been claimed by Horace Branscombe, and has disappeared.
Dorian, coming to the front, goes up to the little beauty in black and
silver, and says, in a contrite tone,--

"I am so sorry I can't write; yet nevertheless _I_ am John Barleycorn,
and this dance belongs to me."

"Why, so it does," says Georgie, recognizing him in a naïve manner,
and placing her hand upon his arm. She performs this last act slowly
and with hesitation, as though not entirely sure of his identity,
which has the effect of piquing him, and therefore heightening his
admiration for her.

"You have forgotten me," he says, reproachfully.

"Oh, no,"--slowly. "It was with you I danced the last waltz, I think."

"No. The last polka." He is even more piqued now. "It has slipped your
memory; yet there are some things one never forgets."

"Yes," says Miss Broughton, with a suppressed sigh; "but those are
unhappy things. Why think of them now? Let us dance again, and forget
while we can."

"You mistake me," says Dorian, hastily. "I thought of nothing unhappy.
I thought of you. I shall never forget this night."

"Ah, neither shall I!" says Miss Broughton, very earnestly indeed. By
an artificial observer, it might be thought somewhat sentimentally.

"Do you mean that?" says Dorian, hopefully, if curiously. "Am I to
understand you mean to keep this particular ball forever in mind?"

"You may, indeed."

"But why?"--with much animation, and an over-increasing show of hope.

"Because it is my first," says Miss Broughton, confidentially, with a
little quick-drawn sigh of utter content, and a soft, if rather too
general, smile.

"I see,"--disappointedly. "Is that your reason? What a curious one!"

"You think it ridiculous, don't you?" says Georgie, faintly, ashamed
of herself; "but it is quite true, and I can't help it. I was eighteen
last month, and never before was I at any ball. I shall never forget
this room,--I know that,--or the lights, or the flowers, or the man
over there beating time for the band, or--or anything."

"I think 'the man over there' has much the best of it," says Dorian.
"I wish I was the leader of that band. Is there any chance that your
partners of this evening will be remembered by you?"

"Well, I suppose I sha'n't quite forget you," says Georgie, seriously,
after a moment's careful reflection.

"I'll take jolly good care you don't," says Mr. Branscombe, rather
losing his head, because of her intense calmness, and speaking with
more emphasis than as a rule belongs to him. "You are staying at the
vicarage aren't you?"

"Yes," says Georgie.

"And I live just three miles from that----." Here he pauses, as though
afraid to make his insinuation too plain.

"At Sartoris, isn't it?" asks Georgie, sweetly. "Yes? Clarissa showed
me the entrance-gate to it last week. It looks pretty."

"Some day will you come up and see it?" asks he, with more earnestness
than he acknowledges even to himself; "and," with a happy thought,
"bring the children. It will be a nice walk for them."

"But you are always in London, are you not?" says Georgie.

"Oh, no, not always: I sha'n't go there again, for ever so long. So
promise, will you?"

"I'll ask Mrs. Redmond. But I know we can. She never refuses me
anything," says this most unorthodox governess.

"I'm sure I'm not surprised at that," says Branscombe. "Who could?"

"Aunt Elizabeth could," says Miss Broughton.

"I haven't the misfortune to know your aunt Elizabeth, for which I am
devoutly grateful, because if she 'could,' as you say, she must be too
good for hanging. By the by, this is not _my_ first ball; yet you have
never taken the trouble to ask me (though I asked you) why I intend
keeping this night as a white spot in my memory."

"Well, I ask you now," says Georgie, penitently.

"Do you care to know?"

"I do, indeed."

"Then it is because to-night I met you for the first time."

He bends his head a little, and looks into her eyes,--the beautiful
eyes that smile back so calmly into his, and are so cold to him, and
yet so full of fire,--eyes that somehow have power to charm him as no
others have yet been able to.

He is strangely anxious to know how his words will be received, and is
proportionately aggrieved in that she takes them as a matter of
course.

"After all, my reason is better than yours," she says, in her sweet,
petulant voice. "Come, let us dance: we are only wasting time."

Branscombe is at first surprised, then puzzled, then fascinated.
Almost any other woman of his acquaintance would have accepted his
remark as a challenge,--would have smiled, or doubted, or answered him
with some speech that would have been a leading question. But with
this girl all is different. She takes his words literally, and, while
believing them, shows herself utterly careless of the belief.

Dorian, passing his arm round her waist, leads her out into the room,
and again they waltz, in silence,--he having nothing to say to her,
she being so filled with joy at the bare motion that she cares no more
for converse. At last,

  "Like some tired bee that flags
  Mid roses over-blown,"

she grows languid in his arms, and stops before a door that leads into
a conservatory. It has been exquisitely fitted up for the occasion,
and is one glowing mass of green and white and crimson sweetness. It
is cool and faintly lit. A little sad fountain, somewhere in the
distance, is mourning sweetly, plaintively,--perhaps for some lost
nymph.

"You will give me another dance?" says Branscombe, taking her card.

"If I have one. Isn't it funny?--I feared when coming I should not get
a dance at all, because, of course, I knew nobody; yet I have had more
partners than I want, and am enjoying myself so much."

"Your card is full," says Branscombe, in a tone that suggests a
national calamity. "Would you--would you throw over one of these
fellows for me?"

"I would, in a minute," says Miss Broughton, naïvely; "but, if he
found me out afterwards, would he be angry?"

"He sha'n't find you out. I'll take care of that. The crowd is
intense. Of course"--slowly--"I won't ask you to do it, unless you
wish it. Do you?"

"There is one name on that card I can't bear," says Miss Broughton,
with her eyes fixed upon a flower she holds. Her dark lashes have
fallen upon her cheeks, and lie there like twin shadows. He can see
nothing but her mobile lips and delicately pencilled brows. He is
watching her closely, and now wonders vaguely if she is a baby or a
coquette.

"Show me the man you would discard," he says, running her pencil down
her programme.

"There,--stop there. The name is Huntley, is it not? Yes. Well, he is
old, and fat, and horrid; and I know he can't dance. You may draw the
pencil across his name,--if you are sure, _quite sure_, he won't find
me out."

"He shall not. But I would far rather you condemned that fair-haired
fellow you were talking to just now," says Dorian, who is vaguely,
faintly jealous of young Bellew.

"But he is so much nicer than Mr. Huntley," declares Georgie,
earnestly: "and he was my first partner, and I promised him so
faithfully to keep this dance for him."

"He'll never see you in the crush," says Branscombe.

"But I told him exactly where to find me."

"It is the most difficult thing in the world to be anywhere at the
precise moment stated."

"But I should _like_ to dance with him again," declares Miss
Broughton, innocently, being driven into a corner.

"Oh, of course that ends the matter," says Dorian, in an impossible
tone, drawing the pencil with much uncalled-for energy across Mr.
Huntley's name.

Then some other man comes up, and claims the little wilful beauty for
the waltz then playing, and, carrying her off in triumph, leaves
Branscombe alone.




CHAPTER XVII.

  "It is the hydra of calamities,
  The sevenfold death: the jealous are the
  Damn'd."--YOUNG.


Having watched her until the last fold of her gown has disappeared,
Branscombe turns abruptly away, and, passing through a glass door that
leads into the gardens outside, paces slowly up and down the winding
paths beneath the subdued light of countless Chinese lanterns, that,
hanging amidst the foliage, contrast oddly with the cold white
brilliancy of the stars overhead, that

  "Rush forth in myriads, as to wage
  War with the lines of darkness."

Cold as the night air is, not a breath of wind comes to disturb the
strange calm that hangs over land and sea. Far down in the bay the
ocean lies at rest. From the distance a faint sound of music from the
band comes softly, seductively to the ear, but beyond and above it
comes the song of the nightingale that, resting in yonder thicket,
pours forth its heart in tender hurried melody, as though fearful the
night will be

  "Too short for him to utter forth his love-chant,
  And disburthen his full soul of all its music."

The notes rise and fall, and tremble on the air. No other sound comes
from the breast of nature to mar the richness of its tone. No earthly
thing seems living but itself. For it the night appears created, and
draws its "sable curtain stained with gold" over the sleeping world.
This nightingale, of all the feathered tribes, is wakeful, and chants
its hymn of praise at midnight, whilst all its brethren rest in
peaceful slumber.

The intense and solemn stillness of all around renders more enchanting
the trills and tender trembles that shake its tiny throat. There is

  "No whispering but of leaves, on which the breath
  Of heaven plays music to the birds that slumber."

Yet this one sweet bird refuses rest, and, as though one of those
"small foules" that "slepen alle night with open eye," sings on
courageously amidst the gloom.

Dorian, strolling absently through the walks, and into the shrubberies
beyond, listens, and feels some sense of comfort (that has yet with it
a touch of pain) creep through him as the nightingale's sweet song
smites upon his ear.

Yet this is not the only sound that disturbs the quiet of the night.
Sadly, mournfully, a half-suppressed sob falls upon the air.

Branscombe starts, and looks round suddenly, but can see nothing. No
footsteps make themselves heard. The shrubs are sufficiently thick to
conceal the presence of any one, yet it seems to him as if the thought
of that sob was born of fancy, and that the earthly owner of it is
unborn.

Then some ray from the brilliant moon opens his eyes, and he sees a
woman's figure standing in a somewhat disconsolate attitude, with her
back against a tall elm, and her eyes fixed wistfully upon the distant
windows, through which the lights are streaming, and the passing to
and fro of the dancing crowd may be distinctly seen.

Dorian, recognizing her, goes quickly up to her and lays his hand upon
her shoulder. It is Ruth Annersley!

She stifles a low cry, and, turning to him, grows even a shade paler
than she was a moment since.

"Ruth," says Dorian, "what on earth brings you here at this hour?"

For a moment she makes him no answer. She raises her hand to brush
away the tears that still lie heavily upon her cheeks, and then moves
a little away from him, so as to elude his touch.

"I came to see them dancing," she says, at length, with difficulty; "I
thought it would be a pretty sight; and--it is--I have been so--so
pleased."

The words seem to choke her. With a movement that is terribly pathetic
she lays her hand upon her heart; and then Dorian, following the
direction her eyes have taken, sees what they see.

In an open window, directly opposite to where they are standing, two
figures can be seen in very close proximity to each other. Beyond are
the forms of the dancers; the faint sweet strains of the band float
out to meet the midnight air; but the two in the window seem lost to
all but the fact of their own existence, and that they are together.
At least, so it seems to the onlookers in the shrubberies.

See, now he takes her hand,--the kindly curtain hiding the act from
those within; he stoops towards her; the girl leans a little forward;
and then Dorian knows them; the man is Horace, and the girl Clarissa
Peyton!

Instinctively he glances from them to Ruth. She, too, is leaning
forward, her whole attention concentrated upon the picture before her.
Her eyes are wide and miserable, her cheeks pale and haggard.

"You have seen enough of this ball, Ruth," says Branscombe, very
gently. "Go home now."

"Yes; enough,--too much," says the girl, starting into life again. She
draws her breath quickly, painfully: her brow contracts. As though
unable to resist the movement, she again lays her hand upon her heart,
and holds it there, as though in anguish.

"What is it?" asks Dorian. "Are you in pain? How white you are!"

"I am tired. I have a pain here," pressing her hand still more closely
against her side. "This morning I felt well and strong--and now----.
My mother died of heart-disease; perhaps I shall die of it too. I
think so; I hope so!"

"You are talking very great nonsense," says Dorian, roughly, though in
his soul shocked to the last degree by the girl's manner, which is
full of reckless misery. "Nobody sees any amusement in dying. Come,
let me see you home."

"Oh, no! Please do not come, Mr. Branscombe," entreats she, so
earnestly that he feels she has a meaning in her words. "I have the
key of the small gate, and can run home in five minutes once I pass
that."

"Then at least I shall see you safely as far as the gate," says
Branscombe, who is tender and gentle in his manner to all women.

Silently they walk through the damp night grass, neither speaking,
until, coming to a curve in the way, she breaks silence.

"How beautiful Miss Peyton looks to-night," she says, in a tone
impossible to translate.

"Very," says Dorian, unkindly, yet with very kindly intent. "But then
she is always one of the most beautiful women I know."

"Is she--very much admired?"--this rather timidly.

"One can understand that at once," says Dorian, quietly. "Both her
face and figure are perfect." As he says this, quite calmly, his heart
bleeds for the girl beside him.

"Who has she been dancing most with?" Eagerly, almost painfully, this
question is put. The utter simplicity of it touches Dorian to his
heart's core.

"With my brother, of course. She--she would not care to dance very
much with any one else now, on account of her engagement."

"Her engagement?"

"Yes. She is to be married to my brother some time next year."

He hates himself bitterly as he says this: but something within him
compels him to the cruel deed, if only through pity for the girl who
walks beside him.

They are now within the shade of trees, and he cannot see her face;
though in very truth, if he could have seen it at this moment, he
would not have looked at it. No word escapes her; she walks on
steadily, as though actually made strong by the receiving of the blow.

Dorian would gladly believe that her silence means indifference; but
to-night has forced a truth upon him that for months he has
determinedly put behind him. Her tears, her agitation, the agony that
shone in her eyes as she fixed them upon Horace's form in the window,
have betrayed only too surely the secret she would so gladly hide.

She makes no further attempt at conversation, and, when they come to
the little iron gate that leads on to the road, would have passed
through, and gone on her homeward way mechanically, without bidding
him even good-night, as if (which is indeed the case) she has
forgotten the very fact of his near presence.

But he cannot let her go without a word.

"Good-night," he says, very kindly, his tone warmer because of his
pity for her. "Take care of yourself. Are you sure you do not fear
going alone?"

"Yes." Her voice is low, and sounds strange, even in her own ears.

"Wrap your shawl more closely round you. The night is cold. Is the
pain in your side better?"

"Yes,"--almost regretfully.

"That is right. Well, good-by. I shall stand here until I see you have
safely turned the corner; then I shall know you are out of all
danger." He has been holding her hand somewhat anxiously all this
time, not quite liking the strained expression in her face. Now he
presses it, and then drops it gently.

"Good-night," returns she, slowly, and then turns away from him, never
remembering to thank him for his kindness,--hardly, indeed, conscious
of having spoken the farewell word.

Her brain seems on fire; her body cold as death. Oh, to be in her own
room, free from all watching eyes, where she can fling herself upon
the ground, and moan and cry aloud against her fate, with only the
friendly darkness to overhear her! She hurries rapidly onward, and
soon the corner hides her from sight.

Dorian, when she has safely passed the spot agreed upon, goes back
once more in the direction of the house. He has hardly, however, gone
two hundred yards, when the voice of his uncle, Lord Sartoris, calling
to him through the gloom, stays his steps, and rouses him from the
painful revery into which he is fast falling.

"Who were you parting with at the gate?" asks Lord Sartoris, in so
unusual a tone that Dorian looks at him in some surprise. He is a
little sorry, for reasons that do not touch himself, that the question
should have been asked at all.

"Ruth Annersley," he answers, without hesitation, feeling that any
prevarication at this moment will only make matters worse for the
unhappy girl. May not Arthur have seen and known her?

"Ruth Annersley?"

"Yes. You will, of course, say nothing about it. She was foolish
enough to wish to see a few people dancing, so came here, and,
standing among the shrubs, obtained her wish,--which, no doubt, proved
as satisfactory as most of our desires, when gained."

"At this hour of the night to be here, alone!"

"Yes. Very imprudent of her, of course, and all that."

"There must have been some strong inducement to make a girl of her
gentle nature undertake so bold, so daring, a step. It was a strictly
improper action," says the old man, in his most stilted style.

"I dare say. Imprudent, however, was the word I used. I am rather glad
I was the one to meet her, as she knew me; and, as a rule, people talk
so much about nothing, and make such mountains out of mole-hills."

"It was fortunate, indeed, your meeting her. It might, in fact, almost
be termed a curious coincidence, your managing to be on this deserted
walk just at the required moment."

There is something so unpleasant, so sneering, about his tone that
Dorian colors hotly.

"I confess I hardly see it in the light you do," he says, easily
enough, but very coldly. "And I think I should term the coincidence
'lucky,' rather than curious. I see no difference between this walk
and half a dozen others. People don't seem to affect any of them
much."

"No," says Lord Sartoris.

"Any other fellow might have been here as well as me. You, for
example."

"Just so!" says Lord Sartoris.

"Then why bring in the word curious?"

"It merely occurred to me at the moment," says his lordship, drily.
"Been dancing much?"

"Yes,--no,--pretty well. Are you coming in?"

They are again in front of the house, and near the steps that lead to
the conservatory.

"Not just yet, I think."

"Then I fear I must leave you. I am engaged for this dance."

So, for the first time, these two part coldly. The old man goes
slowly, moodily, up and down the gravelled path beneath the brilliant
moon, that--

  "From her clouded veil soft gliding,
  Lifts her silvery lamp on high,"

and thinks of many things in a humor more sad than bitter; while the
young man, with angry brow and lips compressed, goes swiftly onward to
the house.

As he regains the ball-room, the remembrance of the little partner he
has come to claim rushes back upon him pleasantly, and serves to
dissipate the gloomy and somewhat indignant thoughts that have been
oppressing him. But where is she? He looks anxiously around; and,
after five minutes' fruitless search, lo! there are her eyes smiling
out at him from the arms of a gay and (doubtless) gallant plunger.

The next instant she is gone; but he follows her slight form with
eager glance, and at length crosses the room to where she is now
standing with her soldier. As he does so he flings from him all
tormenting thoughts, forgetting--as it is his nature to do--the
possible misery of the future in the certain happiness of the present.

"The next is ours, is it not?" he says; and she smiles at him,
and--can it be?--willingly transfers her hand from the heavy's arm to
his; and then they dance; and presently he takes her down to the
Peytons' carriage and puts her carefully into it, and presses her
hand, I think, ever so slightly, and then drives home, beneath the
silent stars, with an odd sensation at his heart--half pain, half
pleasure--he has never felt before.




CHAPTER XVIII.

  "Known mischiefs have their cure, but doubts have none;
  And better is despair than friendless hope
  Mixed with a killing fear."--MAY.


It is two o'clock on the following day. Horace,--who came down from
town for the ball, and is staying with Dorian,--sauntering leisurely
into the smoking-room at Sartoris, finds Branscombe there, overlooking
some fishing-tackle.

This room is a mingled and hopelessly entangled mass of guns, pipes,
whips, spurs, fishing-rods, and sporting pictures; there are, too, a
few other pictures that might not exactly come under this head, and a
various and most remarkable collection of lounging-chairs.

There is a patriarchal sofa, born to create slumber; and an ancient
arm-chair, stuffed with feathers and dreams of many sleepers. Over the
door stand out the skeleton remains of a horse's head, bleached and
ghastly, and altogether hideous, that, even now, reminds its master of
a former favorite hunter that had come to a glorious but untimely end
upon the hunting-field. A stuffed setter, with very glassy eyes, sits
staring, in an unearthly fashion, in one corner. Upon a window-sill a
cat sits, blinking lazily at the merry spring sunshine outside.

"Are you really going back to town this evening, Horace?" asks the
owner of all these gems, in a somewhat gloomy fashion, bending over a
fishing line as he speaks.

"Yes. I feel I am bound to be back there again as soon as possible."

"Business?"

"Well, I can hardly say it is exactly press of business," says the
candid Horace; "but if a man wants to gain any, he must be on the
spot, I take it?"

"Quite so. Where have you been all the morning? Sleeping?"

"Nothing half so agreeable." By this time Horace is looking at him
curiously, and with a gleam in his eyes that is half amusement, half
contempt: Dorian, whose head is bent over his work, sees neither the
amusement nor the scorn. "I did not go to bed at all. I walked down
to to the farms to try to get some fresh air to carry back with me to
the stifling city."

"Ah! past the mill? I mean in that direction?--towards the upper
farms?"

"No; I went past Biddulph's," says Horace, easily, half closing his
eyes, and Dorian believes him. "It is lighter walking that way; not so
hilly. Did you put in a good time last night?"

"Rather so. I don't know when I enjoyed an affair of the kind so
much."

"Lucky you!" yawns Horace, languidly. "Of all abominations, surely
balls are the worst. One goes on when one ought to be turning in, and
one turns in when one ought to be going out. They upset one's whole
calculations. When I marry I shall make a point of forgetting that
such things be."

"And Clarissa?" asks Dorian, dryly; "I can't say about the dancing
part of it,--you may, I suppose, abjure that if you like,--but I think
you will see a ball or two more before you die. She likes that sort of
thing. By the by, how lovely she looked last night!"

"Very. She cut out all the other women, I thought; they looked right
down cheap beside her."

"She had it very much her own way," says Dorian; yet, even as he
speaks, there rises before him the vision of a little lithe figure
gowned in black and crowned with yellow hair, whose dark-blue eyes
look out at him with a smile and a touch of wistfulness that adds to
their beauty.

"That little girl at the vicarage isn't bad to look at," says Horace,
idly, beating a tattoo on the window-pane.

"Miss Broughton? I should call her very good to look at," says Dorian,
for the first time making the discovery that there may be moments when
it would be a sure and certain joy to kick even one's own brother.

"Here is Arthur," says Horace, presently, drawing himself up briskly
from his lounging position. "A little of him goes a long way; and I
should say, judging from the expression of his lips, that he is in his
moodiest mood to day. You may interview him, Dorian: I feel myself
unequal to the task. Give him my love and a kiss, and say I have gone
for a ramble in the innocent woods."

He leaves the room, and, crossing the halls, makes his way into the
open air through the conservatory; while Lord Sartoris, entering by
the hall door, and being directed by a servant, goes on to Dorian's
den.

He is looking fagged and care-worn, and has about him that look of
extreme lassitude that belongs to those to whom sleep overnight has
been a stranger. Strong and painful doubts of Dorian's honesty of
purpose had kept him wakeful, and driven him now down from his own
home to Sartoris.

A strange longing to see his favorite nephew again, to look upon the
face he had always deemed so true, to hear the voice he loves best on
earth, had taken possession of him; yet now he finds himself
confronting Dorian with scarcely a word to say to him.

"I hardly hoped to find you at home," he says, with an effort.

"What a very flattering speech! Was that why you came? Sit here,
Arthur: you will find it much more comfortable."

He pushes towards him the cosily-cushioned chair in which Horace had
been sitting a minute ago.

"Do I look tired enough to require this?" says Sartoris, sinking,
however, very willingly into the chair's embrace. As he does so,
something lying on the ground (that has escaped Dorian's notice)
attracts him.

"What is this?" he asks, stooping to pick it up.

It is a lace handkerchief, of delicate and exquisite workmanship, with
some letters embroidered in one corner.

"You have been receiving gentle visitors very early," says Lord
Sartoris, turning the pretty thing round and round curiously.

"Not unless you can count Horace as one," says Dorian, with a light
laugh. "How on earth did that come here?" Stooping, he, too, examines
minutely the fragile piece of lace and cambric his uncle is still
holding. Sartoris turning it again, the initials in the corner make
themselves known, and stand out, legibly and carefully worked, as "R.
A."

Dorian's face changes. He knows the handkerchief only too well now. He
himself had given it to Ruth at Christmas; but how had it come here?
No one had entered the room to-day except himself and--Horace!

Notwithstanding the scene with Ruth the night before, when she had so
unmistakably betrayed her love for Horace, Dorian had never for one
moment suspected that things had gone farther than a mere foolish
girlish liking for a man rather handsomer than the ordinary run of
men. His brother's honor he had not doubted, nor did he deem him
capable of any act calculated to bring misery upon one who had trusted
him.

Now, in spite of himself, a terrible doubt arises, that will not be
suppressed; like a blow conviction falls; and many past actions and
past words crowd to his mind that, at the time of their occurrence,
seemed as mere nothings, but now are "confirmations strong" of the
truth that has just flashed upon him.

Had he lied to him when he told him a few minutes since he had been to
Biddulph's farm and not anywhere in the direction of the Old Mill?
Doubt, having once asserted itself, makes him now distrustful of his
brother's every look and every tone. And the handkerchief! He must
have had it from Ruth herself, and dropped it here inadvertently
before leaving the room. To him the idea that Horace should have
chosen a timid, fragile, gentle girl, like Ruth Annersley, upon whom
to play off the fascinations and wiles taught him by a fashionable
world, is nothing less than despicable. A deep sense of contempt for
the man who, to pass away pleasantly a few dull hours in the country,
would make a target of a woman's heart, fills his mind. He is frowning
heavily, and his face has grown very white Looking up, he becomes
aware that his uncle is watching him narrowly.

To the old man, the altered countenance of his nephew, his pallor and
hesitation, all betoken guilt. Dorian's eyes are still clear and calm,
as usual, but his expression has strangely altered.

"'R. A.,'" remarks Lord Sartoris, slowly. "Why, that might mean Ruth
Annersley."

"It might," returns Dorian, absently. He dares not speak his inmost
thoughts. After all, Horace may not be in the wrong: the girl's own
vanity, or folly, may have led her to believe a few words spoken in
jest to mean more than was ever intended. And, at all events, no
matter what comes of it, he cannot betray his brother.

"How could it have come here?" asks Lord Sartoris, without raising his
eyes from the luckless handkerchief. "Do you know anything of it?"

"Nothing; except that it belongs to Ruth. I gave it to her last
Christmas."

"You! A curious gift to a girl in her rank in life?"

"She wished for it," returns Branscombe, curtly.

"Then she is no doubt heart-broken, imagining she has lost it. Return
it to her, I advise you, without delay," says his uncle,
contemptuously, throwing it from him to a table near. "I need not
detain you any longer, now,"--rising, and moving towards the door.

"Going so soon?" says the younger man, roused from his galling
reflections, by his uncle's abrupt departure, to some sense of
cordiality. "Why, you have hardly stayed a moment."

"I have stayed long enough,--too long," says Lord Sartoris, gloomily,
fixing his dark eyes (that age have failed to dim) upon the man who
has been to him as his own soul.

"Too long?" repeats Branscombe, coloring darkly.

"Yes. Have you forgotten altogether the motto of our race?--'Leal
friend, leal foe.' Let me bring it to your memory."

"Pray do not trouble yourself. I remember it perfectly," says Dorian,
haughtily, drawing up his figure to its fullest height. "I am sorry,
my lord, you should think it necessary to remind me of it."

He bows and opens the door as he finishes his speech. Lord Sartoris,
though sorely troubled, makes no sign; and, without so much as a
pressure of the hand, they part.




CHAPTER XIX.

  "Lock you, how she cometh, trilling
    Out her gay heart's bird-like bliss!
  Merry as a May-morn thrilling
    With the dew and sunshine's kiss.

       *       *       *       *       *

  Ruddy gossips of her beauty
    Are her twin cheeks; and her mouth,
  In its ripe warmth, smileth fruity
    As a garden of the south."--GERALD MASSEY.


To Georgie the life at the vicarage is quite supportable,--is, indeed,
balm to her wounded spirit. Mrs. Redmond may, of course, chop and
change as readily as the east wind, and, in fact, may sit in any
quarter, being somewhat erratic in her humors; but they are
short-lived; and, if faintly trying, she is at least kindly and tender
at heart.

As for the vicar, he is--as Miss Georgie tells him, even without a
blush--"simply adorable;" and the children are sweet good-natured
little souls, true-hearted and earnest, to whom the loss of an empire
would be as dross in comparison with the gain of a friend.

They are young!

To Dorian Branscombe, Miss Broughton is "a thing of beauty, and a joy
forever; her loveliness increases" each moment, rendering her more
dear. Perhaps he himself hardly knows how dear she is to his heart,
though day after day he haunts the vicarage, persecuting the vicar
with parochial business of an outside sort. It ought, indeed, to be
"had in remembrance," the amount of charity this young man expended
upon the poor during all this early part of the year.

Then there is always Sunday, when he sits opposite to her in the old
church, watching her pretty mischievous little face meditatively
throughout the service, and listening to her perfect voice as it
rises, clear and full of pathos, in anthem and in hymn.

The spring has come at last, though tardy and slow in its approach.
Now--

  "Buds are bursting on the brier,
    And all the kindled greenery glows
    And life hath richest overflows,
  And morning fields are fringed with fire."

Winter is almost forgotten. The snow and frost and ice are as a dream
that was told. No one heeds them now, or thinks of them, or feels
aught about them, save a sudden chill that such things might have
been.

To-day is beautiful beyond compare. The sun is high in the heavens;
the birds are twittering and preening their soft feathers in the
yellow light that Phoebus flings broadcast upon the loving earth. The
flowers are waking slowly into life, and stud the mossy woods with
colorings distinct though faint:

        "Nooks of greening gloom
  Are rich with violets that bloom
  In the cool dark of dewy leaves."

Primroses, too, are all alive, and sit staring at the heavens with
their soft eyes, as though in their hearts they feel they are earth's
stars. Each subtle green is widening, growing. All nature has arisen
from its long slumber, and "beauty walks in bravest dress."

Coming up the road, Dorian meets Georgie Broughton, walking with quick
steps, and in evident haste, towards the vicarage. She is lilting some
merry little song of her own fancy, and has her hat pushed well back
from her forehead, so that all her sunny hair can be seen. It is a
lovely hat,--inexpensive, perhaps, but lovely, nevertheless, in that
it is becoming to the last degree. It is a great big hat, like a
coal-scuttle,--as scuttles used to be,--and gives her all the
appearance of being the original of one of Kate Greenaway's charming
impersonations.

"Good-morning," says Dorian, though, in truth, he hardly takes to
heart the full beauty of the fair morning that has been sent, so rapt
he is in joy at the very sight of her. "Going back to the vicarage
now?"

"Yes." She is smiling sweetly at him,--the little, kind, indifferent
smile that comes so readily to her red lips.

"Well, so am I," says Dorian, turning to accompany her.

Miss Broughton glances at him demurely.

"You can't want to go to the vicarage again?" she says, lifting her
brows.

"How do you know I have been there at all to-day?" says Dorian.

"Oh, because you are always there, aren't you?" says Georgie,
shrugging her shoulders, and biting a little flower she has been
holding, into two clean halves.

"As you know so much, perhaps you also know _why_ I am always there,"
says Branscombe, who is half amused, half offended, by her wilfulness.

"No, I don't," replies she, easily, turning her eyes, for the first
time, full upon his. "Tell me."

She is quite calm, quite composed; there is even the very faintest
touch of malice beneath her long lashes. Dorian colors perceptibly. Is
she coquette, or unthinking, or merely mischievous?

"No, not now," he says, slowly. "I hardly think you would care to
hear. Some day, if I may--. What a very charming hat you have on
to-day!"

She smiles again,--what true woman can resist a compliment--and
blushes faintly, but very sweetly, until all her face is like a pale
"rosebud brightly blowing."

"This old hat?" she says, with a small attempt at scorn and a very
well got-up belief that she has misunderstood him: "why, it has seen
the rise and fall of many generations. You can't mean _this_ hat?"

"Yes, I do. To me it is the most beautiful hat in the world, no matter
how many happy generations have been permitted to gaze upon it. It is
yours!"

"Oh, yes; I bought it in the dark ages," says Miss Broughton,
disdaining to notice the insinuation, and treating his last remark as
a leading question. "I am glad you like it."

"Are you? I like something else, too: I mean your voice."

"It is too minor,--too discontented, my aunt used to say."

"Your aunt seems to have said a good deal in her time. She reminds me
of Butler's talker: 'Her tongue is always in motion, though very
seldom to the purpose;' and again, 'She is a walking pillory, and
punishes more ears than a dozen standing ones.' But I wasn't talking
exactly of your everyday voice: I meant your singing: it is quite
perfect."

"Two compliments in five minutes!" says Miss Georgie, calmly. Then,
changing her tone with dazzling, because unexpected, haste, she says,
"Nothing pleases me so much as having my singing praised. Do you
know," with hesitation,--"I suppose--I am afraid it is very great
vanity on my part, but I love my own voice. It is like a friend to
me,--the thing I love best on earth."

"Are you always going to love it best on earth?"

"Ah! Well, that, perhaps, was an exaggeration. I love Clarissa. I am
happier with her than with any one else. You"--meditatively--"love her
too?"

"Yes, very much indeed. But I know somebody else with whom I am even
happier."

"Well, that is the girl you are going to marry, I suppose," says
Georgia, easily,--so easily that Dorian feels a touch of
disappointment, that is almost pain, fall on his heart. "But as for
Clarissa,"--in a puzzled tone,--"I cannot understand her. She is going
to marry a man utterly unsuited to her. I met him at the ball the
other night, and"--thoughtlessly--"I don't like him."

"Poor Horace!" says Dorian, rather taken aback. Then she remembers,
and is in an instant covered with shame and confusion.

"I beg your pardon," she says, hurriedly. "I quite forgot. It never
occurred to me he was your brother,--never, really. You believe me,
don't you? And don't think me rude. I am not"--plaintively--"naturally
rude, and--and, after all,"--with an upward glance full of honest
liking,--"he is not a _bit_ like _you_!"

"If you don't like him, I am glad you think he isn't," says Dorian;
"but Horace is a very good fellow all through, and I fancy you are a
little unjust to him."

"Oh, not unjust," says Georgie, softly. "I have not accused him of any
failing; it is only that something in my heart says to me, 'Don't like
him.'"

"Does something in your heart ever say to you, '_Like_ some one'?"

"Very often." She is (to confess the honest truth) just a little bit
coquette at heart, so that when she says this she lifts her exquisite
eyes (that always seem half full of tears) to his for as long as it
would take him to know they had been there, and then lowers them. "I
shall have to hurry," she says; "it is my hour for Amy's
music-lesson."

"Do you like teaching?" asks he, idly, more for the sake of hearing
her plaintive voice again, than from any great desire to know.

"Like it?" She stops short on the pretty woodland path, and confronts
him curiously: "Now, do you _think_ I could like it? I don't, then! I
perfectly hate it! The perpetual over and over again, the knowledge
that to-morrow will always be as to-day, the feeling that one can't
get away from it, is maddening. And then there are the mistakes, and
the false notes, and everything. What a question to ask me! Did any
one ever like it, I wonder!"

There is some passion, and a great deal of petulance, in her tone; and
her lovely flower-like face flushes warmly, and there is something
besides in her expression that is reproachful. Dorian begins to hate
himself. How could he have asked her such a senseless question? He
hesitates, hardly knowing what to say to her, so deep is his sympathy;
and so, before he has time to decide on any course, she speaks again.

"It is so monotonous," she says, wearily. "One goes to bed only to get
up again; and one gets up with no expectation of change except to go
to bed again."

"'One dem'd horrid grind,'" quotes Mr. Branscombe, in a low tone. He
is filled with honest pity for her. Instinctively he puts out his
hand, and takes one of hers, and presses it ever so gently. "Poor
child!" he says, from his heart. To him, with her baby face, and her
odd impulsive manner, that changes and varies with every thought, she
is merely a child.

She looks at him, and shakes her head.

"You must not think me unhappy," she says, hastily. "I am not that. I
was twice as unhappy before I came here. Everybody now is so kind to
me,--Clarissa, and the Redmonds, and"--with another glance from under
the long lashes--"you, and----Mr. Hastings."

"The curate?" says Dorian, in such a tone as compels Miss Broughton,
on the instant, to believe that he and Mr. Hastings are at deadly
feud.

"I thought you knew him," she says, with some hesitation.

"I have met him," returns he, "generally, I think, on tennis-grounds.
He can run about a good deal, but it seems a pity to waste a good bat
on him. He never hits a ball by any chance, and as for serving--I
don't think I swore for six months until the last time I met him."

"Why, what did he do?"

"More than I can recall in a hurry. For one thing, he drank more tea
than any four people together that ever I knew."

"Was that all? I see no reason why any one should be ashamed of liking
tea."

"Neither do I. On the contrary, one should be proud of it. It betrays
such meekness, such simplicity, such contentment. I myself am not fond
of tea,--a fact I deplore morning, noon, and night."

"It is a mere matter of education," says Georgie, laughing. "I used
not to care for it, except at breakfast, and now I love it."

"Do you? I wish with all my heart I was good souchong," says Mr.
Branscombe, at which she laughs again.

"One can't have all one's desires," she says. "Now, with me music is a
passion; yet I have never heard any of the great singers of the age.
Isn't that hard?"

"For you it must be, indeed. But how is it you haven't?"

"Because I have no time, no money, no--no anything."

"What a hesitation! Tell me what the 'anything' stands for."

"Well, I meant no home,--that is, no husband, I suppose," says
Georgie. She is quite unconcerned, and smiles at him very prettily as
she says it. Of the fact that he is actually in love with her, she is
totally unaware.

"That is a regret likely to be of short standing," he says, his eyes
on hers. But her thoughts are far away, and she hardly heeds the
warmth of his gaze or the evident meaning in his tone.

"I suppose if I did marry somebody he would take me to hear all the
great people?" she says, a little doubtfully, looking at him as though
for confirmation of her hope.

"I should think he would take you wherever you wanted to go, and to
hear whatever you wished to hear," he says, slowly.

"What a charming picture you conjure up!" says Georgie, looking at
him. "You encourage me. The very first rich man that asks me to marry
him, I shall say 'Yes' to."

"You have made up your mind, then, to marry for money?" He is watching
her closely, and his brow has contracted a good deal, and his lips
show some pain.

"I have made up my mind to nothing. Perhaps I haven't one to make
up,"--lightly. "But I hate teaching, and I hate being poor. That is
all. But we were not talking of that. We were thinking of Mr.
Hastings. At all events, you must confess he reads well, and that is
something! Almost everybody reads badly."

"They do," says Branscombe, meekly. "I do. Unless in words of one
syllable, I can't read at all. So the curate has the pull over me
there. Indeed, I begin to feel myself nowhere beside the curate. He
can read well, and drink tea well, and I can't do either."

"Why, here we are at the vicarage," says Georgie, in a tone of
distinct surprise, that is flattering to the last degree. "I didn't
think we were half so close to it. I am so glad I met you, because, do
you know, the walk hasn't seemed nearly so long as usual. Well,
good-by."

"May I have those violets?" says Branscombe, pointing to a little
bunch of those fair comers of the spring that lies upon her breast.

"You may," she says, detaching them from her gown and giving them to
him willingly, kindly, but without a particle of the tender confusion
he would gladly have seen in her. "They are rather faded," she says,
with some disappointment; "you could have picked yourself a sweeter
bunch on your way home."

"I hardly think so."

"Well, good-by again," she says, turning up to him the most bewitching
and delicious of small faces, "and be sure you put my poor flowers in
water. They will live the longer for it."

"They shall live forever. A hundred years hence, were you to ask me
where they were, I swear I should be able to show them."

"A very safe oath," says Miss Broughton; and then she gives him her
hand, and parts from him, and runs all the way down the short avenue
to the house, leaving him to turn and go on to Gowran.




CHAPTER XX.

  "There have been hearts whose friendship gave
  Them thoughts at once both soft and grave."


In the drawing-room he finds Clarissa sitting among innumerable spring
offerings. The whole place seems alive with them. "The breath of
flowers is on the air." Primroses and violets shine out from tiny
Etruscan vases, and little baskets of pale Belleek are hidden by
clustering roses brought from the conservatory to make sweet the
sitting-room of their mistress.

"I am so glad you have come," says Clarissa, rising with a smile to
welcome him, as he comes up to her. "The day was beginning to drag a
little. Come over here, and make yourself comfortable."

"That will I, right willingly, so it pleases you, madam," says Dorian,
and straightway, sinking into the desirable lounging-chair she has
pointed out, makes himself thoroughly happy.

A low bright fire is burning merrily; upon the rug a snow-white
Persian cat sinks blinking; while Billy, the Irish terrier, whose head
is bigger than his body, and whose hair is of the shabbiest, reclines
gracefully upon an ottoman near. Clarissa, herself, is lying back upon
a cushioned chair, looking particularly pretty, if a trifle indolent.

"Now for your news," she says, in the tone one adopts when expecting
to be amused.

Dorian, lifting his arms, lays them behind his head.

"I wonder if ever in all my life I had any news," he says,
meditatively. "After all, I begin to think I'm not much. Well, let me
see: would it be news to say I met and talked with, and walked with
your 'lassie wi' the lint-white locks'?"

"Georgie? You----. She was with me all the morning."

"So she told me."

"Ah? And how far did you go with her?"

"To the vicarage. As I had been there all the morning, I couldn't well
go in again,--a fact I felt and deplored."

"I am glad you walked back with her," says Miss Peyton; but she
doesn't look glad. "I hope you were nice to her?"

"Extremely nice: ask her if I wasn't. And our conversation was of the
freshest. We both thought it was the warmest spring day we had ever
known, until we remembered last Thursday, and then we agreed _that_
was the warmest spring day we had ever known. And then we thought
spring was preferable to summer. And, then, that Cissy Redmond would
be very pretty if she hadn't a cocked nose. Don't look so amazed, my
dear Clarissa: it was Miss Broughton's expression, not mine, and a
very good one too, I think. We say a cocked hat; therefore why not a
cocked nose? And then we said all education was a bore and a swindle,
and then----. How old is she, Clarissa?"

"You mean Georgie?"

"Yes."

"Neither nineteen nor twenty."

"So much! Then I really think she is the youngest-looking girl I ever
met at that age. She looks more like sweet seventeen."

"You think her pretty?"

"Rather more than that: she reminds me always of 'Maggie Lauder:'

  "'Her face is as the summer cloud, whereon
  The dawning sun delights to rest his rays.'

And, again, surely Apollo loves to

  "Play at hide-and-seek amid her golden hairs.'"

"Dorian, don't--don't make her unhappy," says Clarissa, blushing
hotly.

"I wish I could," says Dorian. He laughs as he speaks, but there
is truth hidden in his jesting tone. Oh, to make her feel
something,--that cold indifferent child!

"No, no. I am in earnest," says Clarissa, a little anxiously. "Don't
pay her too much attention, if you don't mean it."

"Perhaps I do mean it."

"She is very young,"--ignoring his last speech altogether. "She is a
perfect baby in some ways. It isn't kind of you, I think."

"My dear child, what am I doing? If I hand Miss Broughton a chair, or
ask her if she would like another cup of tea, is that 'making her
unhappy'? I really begin to think society is too moral for me. I shall
give it up, and betake myself to Salt Lake City."

"You won't understand me," begins she, sitting more upright, as though
desirous of argument; but he interrupts her.

"There you mistake me," he says. "My motives are quite pure. I am
dying to understand you, only I can't. If you would try to be a little
more lucid, all would be well; but why I am to be sat upon, and
generally maltreated, because I walked a mile or so with a friend of
yours, is more than I can grasp."

"I don't want to sit upon you," says Clarissa a little vexed.

"No! I dare say that chair is more comfortable."

"I don't want anything; I merely ask you to be careful. She is very
young, and has seen few men; and if you persist in your attentions she
may fall in love with you."

"I wish to goodness she would," says Branscombe; and then something in
his own mind strikes him, and he leans back in his chair, and laughs
aloud. There is, perhaps, more bitterness than mirth in his laugh; yet
Miss Peyton hears only the mirth.

"I hope she won't," she says, severely. "Nothing would cause me
greater sorrow. Underneath her childish manner there lies a passionate
amount of feeling that, once called into play, would be impossible to
check. Amuse yourself elsewhere, Dorian, unless you mean to marry
her."

"Well, why shouldn't I marry her?" says Dorian.

"I see no reason why you shouldn't. I only know you have no intention
whatever of doing so."

"If you keep on saying that over and over again, I dare say I _shall_
want to marry her," says Dorian. "There is nothing like opposition for
that kind of thing; you go and tell a fellow he can't and sha'n't
marry such-and-such a girl, and ten to one but he goes and does it
directly."

"Don't speak like that," says Clarissa, entreatingly: she is plainly
unhappy.

"Like what? What nonsense you have been talking all this time! Has it
never occurred to you that though, no doubt, I am endowed with many
qualities above the average, still I am not an 'Adonis,' or an
'Apollo,' or an 'Admirable Crichton,' or any thing of that sort, and
that it is probable your Miss Broughton might be in my society from
this till the day she dies without experiencing a pang, as far as I am
concerned."

"I don't know about 'Apollo' or 'Crichton,'" says Clarissa; "but let
her alone. I want her to marry Mr. Hastings."

"The curate?" says Dorian, for the second time to day.

"Yes. Why should you be so amazed? He is very charming, and I think
she likes him. He is very kind-hearted, and would make her happy; and
she doesn't like teaching."

"I don't believe she likes Hastings," says Dorian; yet his heart dies
within him as he remembers how she defended him about his unlimited
affection for the cup that "cheers but not inebriates."

"I believe she does," says Clarissa.

"Can't you do something for _me_, Clarissa?" says Dorian, with a
rather strained laugh: "you are evidently bent on making the entire
country happy, yet you ignore my case. Even when I set my heart upon a
woman, you instantly marry her to the curate. I hate curates! They are
so mild, so inoffensive, so abominably respectable. It is almost
criminal of you to insist on handing over to one of them that gay
little friend of yours with the yellow hair. She will die of Hastings,
in a month. The very next time I have the good fortune to find her
alone, I shall feel it my duty to warn her off him."

"Does anybody ever take advice unless it falls in with their own
wishes?" says Clarissa. "You may warn her as you will."

"I sha'n't warn her at all," says Dorian.

When he has left Clarissa, and is on his homeward way, this thought
still haunts him. Can that pretty child be in love with the lanky
young man in the long-tailed coat? She can't! No; it is impossible!
Yet, how sure Clarissa seemed! and of course women understand each
other, and perhaps Georgie had been pouring confidences of a tender
nature into her ears. This last is a very unpleasant idea, and helps
to decapitate three unoffending primroses.

Certainly she had defended that fellow very warmly (the curate is now
"that fellow"), and had spoken of him a though she felt some keen
interest in him. After all, what is it to him? (This somewhat
savagely, and with the aid of a few more flowers.) If he was in love
with her, it would be another thing; but as it is,--yes, as it _is_.

How often people have advised him to marry and settle down! Well, hang
it all, he is surely as good to look at as the curate, and his
position is better; and only a few hours ago she had expressed a
desire to see something of life. What would Arthur think of----

His thoughts change. Georgie's _riante_ lovely face fades into some
deeper recess of his heart, and a gaunt old figure, and a face stern
and disappointed, rises before him. Ever since that day at Sartoris,
when the handkerchief had been discovered, a coldness, a nameless but
stubborn shadow, had fallen between him and his uncle,--a shadow
impossible to lift until some explanation be vouchsafed by the younger
man.

Such an explanation it is out of Dorian's power to give. The
occurrence altogether was unhappy, but really nothing worthy of a
violent quarrel. Branscombe, as is his nature, pertinaciously thrusts
the whole affair out of sight, refusing to let it trouble him, except
on such occasions as the present, when it pushes itself upon him
unawares, and will not be suppressed.

Horace has never been to Pullingham since the night of the ball, and
his letters to Clarissa have been many and constant, so that Dorian's
suspicions have somewhat languished, and are now, indeed, almost dead,
he being slow to entertain evil thoughts of any one.

Ruth Annersley, too, though plainly desirous of avoiding his society
ever since his meeting with her in the shrubberies, seems happy and
content, if very quiet and subdued. Once, indeed, coming upon her
unexpectedly, he had been startled by an expression in her eyes
foreign to their usual calm; it was a look half terrified, half
defiant, and it haunted him for some time afterwards. But the
remembrance of that faded, too; and she had never afterwards risked
the chance of a _tête-à-tête_ with him.

       *       *       *       *       *

Meantime, Miss Peyton's little romance about the Broughton-Hastings
affair rather falls to bits. Georgie, taking advantage of an afternoon
that sees the small Redmonds on the road to a juvenile party, goes up
to Gowran, and, making her way to the morning room, runs to Clarissa
and gives her a dainty little hug.

"Aren't you glad I have come?" she says, with the utmost _naïveté_.
"I'm awfully glad myself. The children have all gone to the Dugdales',
and so I am my own mistress."

"And so you came to me," says Clarissa.

"Yes, of course."

"And now, to make you happy," says Clarissa, meditatively.

"Don't take any thought about that. It is already an accomplished
fact. I am with _you_, and therefore I am perfectly happy."

"Still, you so seldom get a holiday," goes on Clarissa, regretfully,
which is a little unfair, as the Redmonds are the easiest-going people
in the world, and have a sort of hankering after the giving of
holidays and the encouragement of idleness generally. The vicar,
indeed, is laden with a suppressed and carefully hidden theory that
children should never do anything but laugh and sit in the sun. In his
heart of hearts he condemns all Sunday-schools, as making the most
blessed day one of toil, and a wearying of the flesh, to the little
ones.

"Why,--why," said he, once, in an unguarded moment, bitterly repented
of afterwards, "forbid them their rest on the Sabbath day?"

"What a pity the afternoon is so uncertain!" says Clarissa. "We might
have gone for a nice long drive."

She goes over to the window, and gazes disconsolately at the huge
shining drops that fling themselves heavily against the panes, and on
the leaves and flowers outside; while

  "The thirsty earth soaks up the rain,
  And drinks, and gapes for drink again."

"I cannot feel anything to be a pity to-day," says Georgie. "I can
feel only a sense of freedom. Clarissa, let us play a game of
battledore and shuttlecock. I used to beat you at Brussels; try if you
can beat me now."

Into the large hall they go, and, armed with battledores, commence
their fray. Hither and thither flies the little white bird, backwards
and forwards move the lithe figures of the girls. The game is at its
height: it is just the absorbing moment, when 199 has been delivered,
and received, and returned, when Georgie, stopping short suddenly,
cries "Oh!" and 200 flutters to the ground.

Clarissa, who is standing with her back to the hall door, turns
instinctively towards it, and sees Dorian Branscombe.

"I have disturbed you. I have come in at the wrong moment?" asks that
young man, fearfully.

"Ah! you have spoiled our game. And we were so well into it. Your
sudden entrance startled Georgie, and she missed her aim."

"I am sorry my mere presence should reduce Miss Broughton to a state
of abject fright," says Dorian, speaking to Clarissa, but looking at
Georgie.

Her arm is still half raised, her color deep and rich, her eyes
larger, darker than usual; the excitement of the game is still full
upon her. As Dorian speaks, her lips part, and a slow sweet smile
creeps round them, and she looks earnestly at him, as though to assure
him that she is making him a free present of it,--an assurance that
heightens her beauty, to his mind. Gazing at her with open and sincere
admiration, he tells himself that

  "Nature might no more her child advance."

"Your presence would not frighten me," she says, shaking her head;
"but it was--I don't know what; I only know that I forgot myself for
the moment and missed my aim. Now, that was hard, because we were so
near our second hundred. Why did you not come a little sooner or a
little later?"

"Because 'a thoughtless animal is man,'" quotes he, his blue eyes full
of contrition. "And the door was wide open, and the picture before me
put all other thoughts out of my head. I wish I was a girl! I should
do nothing but play battledore and shuttlecock from morning till
night." Then, reproachfully, "I think you might both shake hands with
me, especially as I can say only 'how d'ye do' and 'good-by' in one
breath: I am bound to meet Arthur at three precisely."

"What a comfort!" says Clarissa, devoutly. "Then there is some faint
chance we may be allowed to end our afternoon in peace!"

"If there is one thing on earth for which I have a keen admiration, it
is candor," says Branscombe; "I thank you, Clarissa, for even this
small touch of it. Miss Broughton, be candid too, and say you, at
least, will regret me."

"I shall," says Georgie, with decided--and, it must be confessed,
unexpected--promptness.

"Ha!" says Dorian, victoriously. "Now I am content to go. A fig for
your incivility, Clarissa! At least I leave one true mourner behind."

"Two," says Clarissa, relentingly.

"Too late now; apology is useless! Well, I'm off. Can I do anything
for either of you?"

"Yes; bring me up that little dog you promised me,--one of Sancho's
puppies."

"You shall have the very prettiest to-morrow, in spite of your
ill-treatment. And you, Miss Broughton, what can I do for you?"

He is looking tenderly at the small childish face, framed in gold,
that is gazing at him smilingly from the distance.

"Me?" she says, waking, as if from a revery, with a faint blush. "Oh!
give me my liberty." She says it jestingly, but with a somewhat sad
shrug of her rounded shoulders, as she remembers the dismal
school-room, and the restraint that, however gentle, is hateful to her
gay, petulant nature. Her smile dies, and tears creep into her eyes.

In another moment she is laughing again; but months go by before
Dorian forgets the sad little petition and the longing glance that
accompanied it, and the sigh that was only half repressed.

"I like Mr. Branscombe so much," says Georgie, a little later on, when
Dorian has disappeared. They have forsaken their late game, and are
now in Clarissa's own room, standing in a deep oriel window that
overlooks the long sweep of avenue on one side, and the parterre
beneath where early spring flowers are gleaming wet with the rain that
fell so heavily an hour ago.

"Every one likes Dorian," says Clarissa, pleasantly, but without her
usual warmth when speaking of Branscombe. "He is a general favorite,
and I think he knows it. He is like a spoiled child; he says what he
likes to everyone, but nobody takes anything he says _seriously_."

This friendly hint is utterly thrown away. Miss Broughton understands
it not at all.

"Yet sometimes he looks quite grave," she says,--"nearly as grave as
Mr. Hastings when in his surplice, only not so solemn. That is all the
difference."

"I like Mr. Hastings in his surplice," says Clarissa; "I think him
very handsome: don't you?"

"Well--yes--. Only I wish his ears didn't stick out so much. Why do
they? He always, somehow, makes me think of Midas."

"But you like him," persists Clarissa, feeling, however, a little
crestfallen. It doesn't sound promising, this allusion to Mr.
Hastings's ears.

"Ever so much," says Georgie, enthusiastically; "and really, you know,
he can't help his ears. After all, how much worse a crooked eye would
be!"

"Of course. And his eyes are really beautiful."

"You are not in love with him, are you?" says Miss Georgie, with an
amused laugh; and again Clarissa's hopes sink to zero.

"No. But I am glad you are a friend of his. Does he--like you?"

"Yes, I think so: I am sure of it. Clarissa,"--with hesitation,--"if I
tell you something, will you promise me faithfully not to tell it
again?"

"I promise faithfully, darling, if you wish it."

"It is something Mr. Hastings said to me last night, and though I was
not told in words to keep it secret, still I think he would wish me to
be silent about it for--for a while. There can't be any harm in
confiding it to you, can there? You are such an old friend of both."

"Not the slightest harm," says Miss Peyton, with conviction.
Woman-like, she is burning with curiosity. Not for an instant does
she doubt that one of her greatest wishes is about to be fulfilled:
Mr. Hastings, who has a small though not insignificant income of his
own, independent of the Church, is about to marry her dearest Georgie.

"Her dearest Georgie," raising herself a little from her recumbent
position, leans her arm upon Clarissa's knee, and looks up into her
face: there is importance largely mingled with delight in her fair
features.

"Well, then," she says, slowly, as though loath to part all at once
with her treasured news, "last night--he told me--that he--was in
love!"

"Did he?"--with suppressed excitement. "And--and you--what did you
say?"

"I didn't say much," says Miss Broughton, regretfully. "I might have
said a great deal more, something kinder, more encouraging, you know;
but I was so surprised and so----"

"Pleased?"--tenderly.

"Pleased! I should think so," with so much _empressement_ that even
Clarissa is taken aback. "I was never so delighted in my life, only,
as I said before, a little confused, and couldn't think of anything
pretty to say."

"I think it was far nicer your saying nothing," says Clarissa, very
gently. She is a little disappointed in Georgie; a woman may be glad
to marry a man, but she shouldn't say so, at least not exactly in such
a cold-blooded fashion. "I can quite understand"--with sufficient
hesitation to convince herself, at least, that she does not
understand--"how you felt nervous in spite of your happiness."

"Oh, you always know everything," says Georgie, so lovingly that
Clarissa hates herself for thinking even one unpleasant thought of
her. "Well, he went on to say he never loved before. Now, honestly,
Clarissa,"--in a thoroughly matter-of-fact tone,--"do you think that
could be true?"

"Why shouldn't it be true?" says Clarissa, wishing with all her heart
the other would be a little more sentimental over her own first
love-affair, as she believes it to be.

"Well, yes, of course; he is rather young, and beauty goes a long way
with some men."

Again Clarissa stares. She hadn't thought Georgie vain of her own
charms. How difficult it is to know any one, even one's chiefest
friend!

"Then he went on to say he could never feel real happiness again until
he knew he was loved in return."

"Well?"--breathlessly,--"and then----?"

"I said,"--with the gayest little laugh imaginable,--"I thought he
_was_ loved in return."

"You _thought_, Georgie? What a strange answer! I do think you are a
little bit coquette! I am so glad, though. Do you know, I guessed all
along how it would be?"

"So did I. I knew very well how it would end. I felt he would fall a
victim sooner or later. It is rather soon, isn't it? But of course it
is only natural I should know about it?"

"Yes, only natural." Clarissa can think of nothing else to say. Not
like this had _she_ felt when----. To talk of him as a victim!

"I hope everything will be settled soon," goes on Miss Broughton,
gayly, "'Happy is the wooing that isn't long adoing.' And I should
like the marriage to be soon; wouldn't you? I think next time I see
him I shall ask him about it."

"Oh, Georgie, don't! Indeed I would not, if I were you," exclaims
Clarissa, in an agony. Good gracious! Is she lost to all sense of
shame? "He won't like it. It is surely the man's part to speak first
about that."

"Oh, very well,"--amicably. "But there couldn't be any harm in my
speaking about it."

"Just as much as in any other woman's."

"Not so much as if it was Cissy?"

"Twice as much. What has she got to do with it?"

"Well, a great deal, I take it,"--laughing again.

"As a friend she may feel some interest in him, I suppose. But _she_
is not going to marry him."

"Well, I think she is. You don't think she will refuse him, do
you?"--anxiously.

"Cissy Redmond!"

"Cissy Redmond."

"Do you mean to tell me," says Clarissa, growing very red, "that it
is Cissy you have been talking about all this time, and
not--yourself?"

"Myself! What on earth are you thinking of?" It is now Georgie's turn
to blush crimson, and she does it very generously. Then she breaks
into wild mirth, and, laying her head on Clarissa's knees, laughs till
she nearly cries. "Oh, when I think of all I have said!" she goes on,
the keenest enjoyment in her tone,--"how I praised myself, and how
cavalierly I treated his proposal, and--what was it I said about
asking him to name the wedding-day? Oh, Clarissa, what a dear you
are!--and what a _goose_!"

"Well, certainly, I never was so taken in in my life," confesses Miss
Peyton, and then she laughs too, and presently is as deeply interested
in Cissy's lover as if he had indeed been Georgie's.





CHAPTER XXI.

  "Sin and shame are ever tied together
  With Gordian knots, of such a strong thread spun,
  They cannot without violence be undone."--WEBSTER.

  "Sharper than the stings of death!"--REYNOLDS.


Upon Pullingham a great cloud has descended. It has gathered in one
night,--swiftly, secretly,--and has fallen without warning, crushing
many hearts beneath it. Shame, and sin, and sorrow, and that most
terrible of all things--uncertainty--have come together to form it,
while doubt and suspicion lie in its train.

Ruth Annersley is missing! She has disappeared,--utterly!
entirely!--leaving no trace behind her, no word, no line to relieve
the heart of the old man, her father, and which is slowly beginning to
break, as the terrible truth dawns upon him.

Only yester eve she had poured out his tea as usual, had bidden him
good night,--lovingly, indeed, but not as one would bid an eternal
farewell. Afterwards, he remembered, she had not given him--on that
night of all others--the customary kiss, but had passed away from him
coldly, callously--or was it that she feared?

Tired out with his day's work, the miller had gone to bed The girl,
as was her habit ever since the longer evenings had set in, had gone
for a little walk into the dewy woods, where we are told "every bough
that moves over our head has an oracular wisdom." Alas! that they
should have taught her so little. She had crossed the road before the
very eyes of her household, had entered the green forest of
early-breaking leaves, had faded from sight, and never came back
again.

The old man, who rises and goes to bed with the sun (most constant
companion of simple minds), had slept peacefully all night, never
doubting that the child of his heart lay dreaming calm and happy
dreams in her own room. Not until the morning was far advanced did he
discover that Ruth's bed had known no occupant the night before.

Afterwards, too, he remembered how little this thought had jarred upon
him just at first. It was strange, vexing; she should have told him
where she meant to spend her evening; but, beyond that, it caused him
no pang, no suspicion.

Her aunt lived in a neighboring town,--probably she had gone there. It
was only four miles away,--a walk Ruth had taken many a day, and
thought nothing of it; but it was imprudent starting on such a journey
so late in the evening; and, besides, there was always the old mare to
drive her there and back.

Messengers were despatched to her aunt's house, but they returned
bringing no tidings. She was not there--had not been for over a
fortnight.

Day wanes; twilight is descending,--

            "Melting heaven with earth,
  Leaving on craggy hills and running streams
  A softness like the atmosphere of dreams."

All day the miller has sat apart, his snow-white head upon his arms,
in the room her hands had beautified and made so dear. With passionate
indignation he has thrust from him all the attempts at sympathy, all
the hurtful, though well-meant, offers of assistance held out to him
by kindly neighbors. Silent, and half maddened by his thoughts, he
sits dogged and silent, refusing food, and waiting only for her who
never comes.

But when, at length, the gloaming comes, and day is over, without
bringing to him the frail form of her he so desires, he rises, and,
pushing back his chair, goes up to Hythe, and into the presence of
Lord Sartoris.

"_You_ will find me my girl," he says, and then he tells him all the
story.

Sartoris listens, and, as he does so, sickens with doubt that is
hardly a doubt, and fear that is nearly a certainty. Is this the end
he has so dreaded? Is this the creeping horror that has of late so
tortured him? Alas for the unblemished honor of the old name that for
centuries has held itself _sans peur et sans reproche_.

How can he dare to offer consolation to old Annersley? He covers his
face with his hands, and bends forward over the table. There is
something in his attitude that denotes despair, and renders more keen
the agony in Annersley's bosom.

"Why do you do that?" he cries, fiercely. "What is there to groan
about? Nothing, I tell you! The child has gone too far,--has lost her
way. She didn't understand. She cannot find her road home.--No
more--no more!"

His excitement and grief are pitiful to see. He wrings his hands; his
whole bearing and expression are at variance with his hopeful words.
"She will come back in an hour or two, mayhap," he says, miserably,
"and then I shall feel that I have disturbed your lordship: but I am
in a hurry, you see: I want her, and I cannot wait."

"What do you want me to do for you?" says Sartoris, very humbly. He
feels that he can hardly lift his eyes in this man's presence.

"Find her! That is all I ask of you. Find her, dead or alive! You are
a great man,--high in authority, with power, and servants at command.
Find me my child! Oh, _man_, help me, in some way!"

He cries this in an impassioned tone. He is totally overcome. His poor
old white head falls helplessly upon his clasped arms.

Sartoris, pale as death, and visibly affected, can make no reply. He
trembles, and stands before the humble miller as one oppressed with
guilt.

Annersley mistakes his meaning, and, striding forward, lays his hand
upon his arm.

"You are silent," he says, in a terrible tone, made up of grief and
anguish more intense than words can tell. "You do not think she is in
the wrong, do you? You believe her innocent? Speak!--speak!"

"I do," responds Sartoris, and only his own heart knows that he lies.
Yet his tone is so smothered, so unlike his usual one, that he hardly
recognizes it himself.

"If Mr. Branscombe were only here," says Annersley, in a stricken
voice, after a lengthened pause, "he would help me. He has always been
a kind friend to me and mine."

Lord Sartoris draws a deep breath, that is almost a sob.

"When does he return, my lord?"

"On Saturday. He said so, at least, when leaving."

"A long time," murmurs the old man, mournfully. "She will be home
before that,--if she ever comes at all." His head sinks upon his
breast. Then he rouses himself, and, glancing at Lord Sartoris, says
entreatingly, "Won't you write to him, my lord? Do, I implore of you,
and conjure him to return. If any one can help me it will be Mr.
Dorian."

"I shall write to him now,--now,--at once," says Sartoris,
mechanically, feeling how hideous is the mockery of this promise,
knowing what he thinks he knows. Even yet he clings to the hope that
he has been mistaken.

Thus he soothes the old man with vain promises, and so gets rid of
him, that he may be left alone with his own thoughts.

Shall he go to Dorian? This is the first engrossing idea. Yet it
affords but little consolation. To see him, to hear him, to listen to
a denial from his lips; that is what it holds out to him, and it is
all insufficient. How shall he believe him, knowing the many things
that have occurred? How treat his very most eager denial as anything
but a falsehood?

For hours he paces to and fro, pondering on what is the best course to
pursue. He is not his father, that he can coerce him. By nature
suspicious (though tender-hearted and indulgent in other ways), it
comes easily to him to believe that even the man in whom he has
trusted has been found wanting.

"To doubt is worse than to have lost," says Massinger; and surely he
is right. Sartoris, in deep perplexity, acknowledges the truth of this
line, and tells himself that in his old age he has been sorely tried.
The whole world seems changed. Sunshine has given place to gloom; and
he himself stands alone,--

  "Stoynde and amazde at his own shade for dreed,
  And fearing greater daungers than was nede."

Not until he is thoroughly exhausted, both in mind and body, does he
decide on leaving for town by the mid-day train next day.

In the mean time he will telegraph to Claridge's, some faint
remembrance lingering with him of Dorian's having made mention of that
hotel as being all any one's fancy could possibly paint it.

But the morrow brings its own tidings.

It is almost noon, and Sartoris, sitting in his library, writing some
business letters,--preparatory to catching the up train to town,--is
disturbed by a light knock at the door.

"Come in," he calls out, impatiently; and Simon Gale, opening the
door, comes slowly in.

He is a very old man, and has been butler in the family for more years
than he himself can count. His head is quite white, his form a little
bent; there is, at this moment, a touch of deep distress upon his face
that makes him look even older than he is.

"Are you busy, my lord?" asks he, in a somewhat nervous tone.

"Yes; I am very much engaged. I can see no one, Gale. Say I am
starting for town immediately."

"It isn't that, my lord. It is something I myself have to say to you.
If you could spare me a few minutes----." He comes a little nearer,
and speaks even more earnestly. "It is about Ruth Annersley."

Lord Sartoris, laying down his pen, looks at him intently.

"Close the door, Simon," he says, hurriedly, something in the old
servant's manner impressing him. "I will hear you. Speak, man: what is
it?"

"A story I heard this morning, my lord, which I feel it my duty to
repeat to you. Not that I believe one word of it. You will remember
that, my lord,--_not one word_." The grief in his tone belies the
truth of his avowal. His head is bent. His old withered hands clasp
and unclasp each other nervously.

"You are trembling," says Lord Sartoris. "Sit down. This news,
whatever it is, has unstrung you."

"It has," cries Simon, with vehemence. "I _am_ trembling; I _am_
unstrung. How can I be otherwise when I hear such a slander put upon
the boy I have watched from his cradle?"

"You are speaking of----?" demands Sartoris, with an effort.

"Mr. Dorian." He says this in a very low tone; and tears, that always
come so painfully and so slowly to the old, shine in his eyes. "His
sad complexion wears grief's mourning livery." He covers his face with
his hands.

Sartoris, rising from his seat, goes over to the window, and so stands
that his face cannot be seen.

"What have you got to say about Mr. Branscombe?" he asks, in a harsh,
discordant tone.

"My lord, it is an impertinence my speaking at all," says Gale.

"Go on. Let me know the worst. I can hardly be more miserable than I
am," returns Sartoris.

"It was Andrews, the under-gardener, was telling me," begins Simon,
without any further attempt at hesitation. "This morning, early, I met
him near the Ash Grove. 'Simon,' he says, 'I want to speak wi'ye. I
have a secret on my mind.'

"'If you have, my man, keep it,' says I. 'I want none o' your
secrets.' For in truth he is often very troublesome, my lord, though a
well-meaning youth at bottom.

"'But it is on my conscience,' says he, 'and if I don't tell it to you
I shall tell it to some one else, because tell it I must, or bust!'

"So when he went that far, my lord, I saw as how he was real uneasy,
and I made up my mind to listen. And then he says,--

"'Night before last feyther was coming through the copse wood that
runs t'other side o' the fence from Master Annersley's, and there, in
the thickest part o' it, he saw Miss Ruth a standing, and wi' her was
Mr. Branscombe.'

"'Which Mr. Branscombe?' says I.

"'Mr. Dorian,' he says, 'He seen him as plain as life, though it was
dusk, standing wi' his back half turned towards him, but not so turned
but what he could see his ear and part o' his face. He had a hold o'
Miss Ruth's hands; and was speaking very earnest to her, as though he
were persuading her to something she were dead against. And she were
crying very bitter, and trying to draw her hands away; but presently
she got quiet like; and then they went away together, slowly at first,
but quicker afterwards, in the direction of the wood that leads to
Langham. He did not stir a peg until they was out o' sight, he was so
afeard o' being seen. And now it is on his conscience that he did not
speak sooner, ever since he saw old Mr. Annersley yesterday, like a
mad creature, looking for his girl.'

"That was his story, my lord. And he told it as though he meant it. I
said to him as how Mr. Dorian was in Lonnun, and that I didn't believe
one word of it; and then he said,--

"'Lonnun or no Lonnun, there is no mistake about it. If, as you say,
he did go up to Lonnun, he must ha' come down again by the Langham
train, for he see him wi' his two eyes.'

"'Mr. Horace is very like Mr. Dorian,' I said. (Forgive me, my lord,
but there was a moment when I would gladly have believed the blame
might fall on Mr. Horace.) 'There are times when one can hardly know
them asunder;' but he scouted this notion.

"'Feyther seen him,' he said. 'He had one o' them light overcoats on
he is so fond o' wearing. It was him, and no other. He noticed the
coat most perticler. And a damn'd shame it is for him! If you don't
believe me, I can't help you. I believe it: that is enough for me.'"

Gale ceases speaking. And silence follows that lasts for several
minutes. Then he speaks again:

"I ask your pardon, my lord, for having so spoken about any member of
the family. But I thought it was only right you should know."

"You have acted very kindly." Even to himself his tone is strained
and cold. "This Andrews must be silenced," he says, after a little
pause, full of bitterness.

"I have seen to that, my lord. After what I said to him, he will
hardly speak again to any one on the subject."

"See to it, Simon. Let him fully understand that dismissal will be the
result of further talk."

"I will, my lord." Then, very wistfully, "Not that any one would
distrust Mr. Dorian in this matter. I feel--I know, he is innocent."

Lord Sartoris looks at him strangely; his lips quiver; he seems old
and worn, and as a man might who has just seen his last hope perish.

"I envy you your faith," he says, wearily; "I would give half--nay,
all I possess, if I could say that honestly."

Just at this moment there comes an interruption.

"A telegram, my lord," says one of the men, handing in a yellow
envelope.

Sartoris, tearing it open, reads hurriedly.

"I shall not go to town, Gale," he says, after a minute or two of
thought. "Counter-order the carriage. Mr. Branscombe comes home
to-night."




CHAPTER XXII.

     "When there is a great deal of smoke, and no clear flame, it
     argues much moisture in the matter, yet it witnesseth,
     certainly, that there is fire there."--LEIGHTON.


Long before the night has set in he comes; and, as he enters the room
where his uncle sits awaiting him, Lord Sartoris tells himself that
never before has he seen him so handsome, so tall, so good to look at.

"Your telegram made me uneasy," he says, abruptly, "so I came back
sooner than I had intended. Had you mine?"

"Yes; some hours ago."

"Did you want me, Arthur?"

"Yes; but not your return here. I sent my telegram principally to
learn your address, as I had made up my mind to go up to town. You
have frustrated that plan."

There is a meaning in his tone that puzzles Dorian.

"You going to trust yourself alone in our great Babylon?" he says,
raising his brows. "Why, the world must be coming to an end. What
business had you there that I could not have managed for you?"

"My business was with you."

"Anything wrong?" says the young man, impatiently, tapping a table
lightly with his fingers, and frowning somewhat heavily. "Your tone
implies as much. Has anything happened in my absence to cause you
annoyance? If so, let me know at once, and spare me any beating about
the bush. Suspense is unpleasant."

"It is," says Sartoris, rising from his chair, and moving a few steps
nearer to him. "It is slowly murdering poor old John Annersley!"

"I am still hopelessly in the dark," says Dorian, shrugging his
shoulders. "What has suspense got to do with old Annersley?"

"Are you really ignorant of all that has occurred? Have you not heard
of Ruth's mysterious disappearance?"

"'Ruth's disappearance?' I have heard nothing. Why, where can she have
gone?"

"That is exactly what no one knows, except she herself, of course,
and--one other." Then, turning impulsively to face his nephew, "I
thought you could have told me where she is," he says, without giving
himself time to think of all the words may convey to Dorian.

"What do you mean?" demands Branscombe, throwing up his head, and
flushing darkly. His eyes flash, his nostrils dilate. "Am I to infer
from your last remark that you suspect _me_ of having something to do
with her disappearance?"

"I do," returns Sartoris, slowly, but with his eyes upon the ground.
"How can I do otherwise when I call to mind all the causes you have
given me to doubt you? Have you forgotten that day, now some months
ago, when I met you and that unhappy girl together on the road to the
village? I, at least, shall never forget the white misery of her face,
and the unmistakable confusion in her manner, as I greeted her. Even
then the truth began to dawn upon me."

"The truth?" says Branscombe, with a short and bitter laugh.

"At that time I was unwilling to harbor unkind doubts of you in my
breast," goes on Sartoris, unmoved, nay, rather confirmed in his
suspicions by Branscombe's sneer; "but then came the night of the Hunt
ball, when I met you, alone with her, in the most secluded part of the
grounds, and when you were unable to give me any reasonable
explanation of her presence there; and then, a little later, I find a
handkerchief (which you yourself acknowledge having given her) lying
on your library floor; about that, too, you were dumb: no excuse was
ready to your lips. By your own actions I judge you."

"Your suspicions make you unjust, my lord," says the young man,
haughtily. "They overrule your better judgment. Are such paltry
evidences as you have just put forward sufficient to condemn me, or
have you further proofs?"

"I have,--a still stronger one than any other I have mentioned. The
last place in which Ruth Annersley was seen in this neighborhood was
in Hurston Wood, at eight o'clock on the evening of her departure,
and--you were with her!"

"_I_ was?"

"The man who saw you will swear to this."

"He must be rather a clever fellow. I congratulate you on your 'man.'"

"Do you deny it?" There is something that is almost hope in his tone.
"If not there last Tuesday, at that hour, where were you?"

"Well, really, it would take me all my time to remember. Probably
dining: got to my fish by that time, no doubt. Later on I was at Lady
Chetwoode's crush; but that"--with a sarcastic laugh--"is a very safe
thing to say, is it not? One can hardly prove the presence of any one
at a gathering together of the clans, such as there was at her 'at
home.' I _wouldn't_ believe I was there, if I were you."

He laughs again. Sartoris flushes hotly all over his lean earnest
face.

"It is needless lying," he says, slowly. "The very coat you wore--a
light overcoat,--probably" (pointing to it) "the one you are now
wearing--was accurately described." Dorian starts visibly. "Do you
still hope to brave it out?"

"A coat like this, do you say?" asks Branscombe, with a nervous
attempt at unconcern, laying his hand upon his sleeve.

"A light overcoat. Such was the description. But" (with a longing that
is terribly pathetic) "many overcoats are alike. And--and I dare say
you have not worn that one for months."

"Yes, I have. I wear it incessantly: I have taken rather a fancy to
it," replies Branscombe, in an uncompromising tone. "My persistent
admiration for it has driven my tailor to despair. I very seldom
(except, perhaps, at midnight revels or afternoon bores) appear in
public without it."

"Then you deny nothing?"

"Nothing!"--contemptuously, making a movement as though to depart.
"Why should I? If, after all these years that you have known me, you
can imagine me capable of evil such as you describe so graphically, it
would give me no pleasure to vindicate myself in your eyes. Think of
me as you will: I shall take no steps to justify myself."

"You dare not!" says Sartoris, in a stifled tone, confronting him
fully for the first time.

"That is just as you please to think," says Branscombe, turning upon
him with flashing eyes. He frowns heavily, and, with a little gesture
common to him, raises his hand and pushes the end of his fair
moustache between his teeth. Then, with a sudden effort, he controls
himself, and goes on more quietly: "I shall always feel regret in that
you found it so easy a matter to believe me guilty of so monstrous a
deed. I think we can have nothing further to say to each other, either
now or in the future. I wish you good-evening."

Sartoris, standing with his back almost turned to his nephew, takes no
heed of this angry farewell; and Dorian, going out, closes the door
calmly behind him.

Passing through the Long Hall, as it has been called from time
immemorial, he encounters Simon Gale, the old butler, and stops to
speak to him, kindly, as is his wont, though in truth his heart is
sore.

"Ah, Simon! How warm the weather grows!" he says, genially brushing
his short hair back from his forehead. The attempt is praiseworthy, as
really there is no hair to speak of, his barber having provided
against that. He speaks kindly, carelessly--if a little wearily. His
pulses are throbbing, and his heart beating hotly with passionate
indignation and disappointment.

"Very warm, sir," returns the old man, regarding him wistfully. He is
not thinking of the weather, either of its heat or cold. He is only
wondering, with a foreboding sadness, whether the man before him--who
has been to him as the apple of his eye--is guilty or not of the crime
imputed to him. With an effort he recovers himself, and asks, hastily,
though almost without purpose, "Have you seen my lord?"

"Yes; I have only just left him."

"You will stay to dinner, Mr. Dorian?" He has been "Mr. Dorian" to him
for so many years that now the more formal Mr. Branscombe is
impossible.

"Not to-night. Some other time when my uncle--" He pauses.

"You think him looking well?" asks the old man, anxiously, mistaking
his hesitation.

"Well! Oh, that doesn't describe him," says Branscombe, with a shrug,
and a somewhat ironical laugh. "He struck me as being unusually
lively,--in fact, 'strong as Boreas on the main.' I thought him very
well indeed."

"Ay, he is so! A godly youth brings a peaceful age; and his was that.
He has lived a good life, and now is reaping his reward."

"Is he?" says Dorian, with a badly-suppressed yawn. "Of course I was
mistaken, but really it occurred to me that he was in an abominable
temper. Is a desire to insult every one part of the reward?"

"You make light of what I say," returns Simon, reproachfully, "yet it
is the very truth I speak. He has no special sin to repent, no lasting
misdeed to haunt him, as years creep on. It were well to think of it,"
says Simon, with a trembling voice, "while youth is still with us. To
you it yet belongs. If you have done aught amiss, I entreat you to
confess, and make amends for it, whilst there is yet time."

Dorian, laying his hands upon the old servant's shoulders, pushes him
gently backwards, so that he may look the more readily into his face.

"Why, Simon! How absolutely in earnest you are!" he says, lightly.
"What crime have I committed, that I should spend the rest of my days
in sackcloth and ashes!"

"I know nothing," says old Gale, sadly. "How should I be wiser than my
masters? All I feel is that youth is careless and headstrong, and
things once done are difficult of undoing. If you would go to your
grave happy, keep yourself from causing misery to those who love you
and--_trust_ in you."

His voice sinks, and grows tremulous. Dorian, taking his hands from
his shoulders, moves back from the old man, and regards him
meditatively, stroking his fair moustache slowly, in a rather
mechanical fashion, as he does so.

"The whole world seems dyspeptic to-day," he says, ironically. Then,
"It would be such a horrid bore to make any one miserable that I
daresay I sha'n't try it. If, however, I do commit the mysterious
serious offence at which you broadly hint, and of which you plainly
believe me fully capable, I'll let you know about it."

He smiles again,--a jarring sort of smile, that hardly accords with
the beauty of the dying day,--and, moving away from the old man,
crosses the oaken flooring to the glass door that lies at the farther
end of the room, and that opens on to a gravelled path outside, on
which lilacs are flinging broadcast their rich purple bloom. As he
moves, with a pale face and set lips (for the bitter smile has faded),
he tramples ruthlessly, and without thought for their beauty, upon the
deep soft patches of coloring that are strewn upon the flooring from
the stained-glass windows above.

Throwing open the door, he welcomes gladly the cool evening air that
seems to rush to meet him.

"Pah!" he says, almost aloud, as he strides onwards beneath the
budding elms. "To think, after all these years, they should so readily
condemn! Even that old man, who has known me from my infancy, believes
me guilty."

Then a change sweeps over him. Insults to himself are forgotten, and
his thoughts travel onward to a fear that for many days has been
growing and gaining strength.

_Can_ Horace have committed this base deed? This fear usurps all other
considerations. Going back upon what he has just heard, he examines in
his mind each little detail of the wretched history imparted to him by
his uncle. All the suspicions--lulled to rest through lack of matter
wherewith to feed them--now come to life again, and grow in size and
importance in spite of his intense desire to suppress them.

On Tuesday night the girl had left her home. On Tuesday morning he had
been to Horace's rooms, had found him there, had sat and conversed
with him for upwards of an hour on different subjects,--chiefly, he
now remembers, of Clarissa Peyton.

The day had been warm, and he had taken off his coat (the light
overcoat he had affected for the past month), and had thrown it on a
chair, and--_left it there when going_!

The next morning he had called again and found the coat in the very
self-same place where he had thrown it. But in the mean time, during
all the hours that intervened between the afternoon of one day and the
forenoon of another, where had it been?

"The very coat you wore was minutely described."--The words come back
upon him with a sudden rush, causing him a keener pang than any he has
ever yet known. Must he indeed bring himself to believe that his own
brother had made use of the coat with the deliberate intention (should
chance fling any intruder in the way) of casting suspicion upon
him--Dorian?

In the dusk of the evening any one might easily mistake one brother
for the other. They are the same height; the likeness between them is
remarkable. He almost hates himself for the readiness with which he
pieces his story together, making doubt merge with such entirety into
conviction.

The evening is passing fair, yet it brings no comfort to his soul; the
trees towering upwards lie heavily against the sky; the breath of many
flowers makes rich the air. Already the faint moon arising, throws
her "silver light o'er half the world," and makes more blue the azure
depths above:

  "Star follows star, though yet day's golden light
  Upon the hills and headlands faintly streams."

The far-off grating sound of the corncrake can be heard; the cuckoo's
tuneless note, incessant and unmusical, tires the early night. The
faint sweet chirrups of many insects come from far and near, and break
upon the sense with a soft and lulling harmony:

  "There is no stir, nor breath of air; the plains
  Lie slumbering in the close embrace of night."

All nature seems sinking into one grand repose, wherein strife and
misery and death appear to have no part.

To Dorian the tender solemnity of the scene brings no balm. To go
again to town by the night mail--to confront Horace and learn from him
the worst--is his one settled thought, among the multitude of
disordered ones; and upon it he determines to act.

But what if he shall prove innocent, or deny all knowledge of the
affair? What then can clear Dorian in his uncle's eyes? And even
should he acknowledge the fact that he had enticed the girl from her
home, how can it benefit Dorian? He is scarcely the one to defend
himself at another's expense; and to betray Horace to clear himself
would be impossible to him.

He grows bewildered and heart-sick. Reaching home, he orders his
dog-cart to be brought round, and, by taking it a good deal out of his
good gray mare, he manages to catch the evening train to town.

Lord Sartoris, sitting brooding over miserable thoughts in the library
at Hythe, has tidings brought him of his nephew's speedy return to
London, and endures one stab the more, as he feels now more than ever
convinced of his duplicity.

Arrived in town, Branscombe drives to Horace's rooms, hoping against
hope that he may find him at home. To his surprise he does so find
him,--in the midst of papers, and apparently up to his eyes in
business.

"Working so late?" says Dorian, involuntarily, being accustomed to
think of Horace, at this hour, as one of a chosen band brought
together to discuss the lighter topics of the day over soup and fish
and flesh. In truth, now he is on the spot and face to face with his
brother, the enormity of his errand makes itself felt, and he hardly
knows what to say to him.

"You, Dorian?" Horace, raising his eyes, smiles upon him his usual
slow impenetrable smile. "Working? Yes; we others, the moneyless ones,
must work or die; and death is unpopular nowadays. Still, law is dry
work when all is confessed." He presses his hand to his forehead with
affected languor, and for an instant conceals his face. "By the by, it
is rather good of you to break in so unexpectedly upon my monotony.
Anything I can do for you?"

"Let me speak to you," says Dorian, impulsively, laying his hand upon
his arm. "If I am wronging you in my thoughts I shall never forgive
myself, and you, in all probability, will never forgive me either; yet
I must get it off my mind."

"My dear fellow, how you have flung away undoubted talent! Your tone
out-Irvings Irving: it is ultra-tragic. Positively, you make my blood
run cold. Don't stand staring at me in that awful attitude, but tell
me, as briefly as you can, what I have done."

He laughs lightly.

Dorian regards him fixedly. Has he wronged him? Has instinct played
him false?

"Where is Ruth Annersley?" he asks, awkwardly, as though getting rid
of the question at any price and without preamble. He has still his
hand upon his brother's arm, and his eyes upon his face.

"Ruth Annersley?" reiterates Horace, the most perfect amazement in his
tone. If purposely done, the surprise is very excellent indeed. "Why?
What has happened to her?"

"Have you heard nothing?"

"My dear fellow, how could I? I have not been near Pullingham for a
full month; and its small gossips fail to interest our big city. What
has happened?"

"The girl has left her home; has not been heard of since last Tuesday.
They fear she has wilfully flung up happiness and honor to
gain--misery."

"What a charitable place is a small village!" says Horace, with a
shrug. "Why should the estimable Pullinghamites imagine so much evil?
Perhaps, finding life in that stagnate hole unendurable, Ruth threw up
the whole concern, and is now seeking a subsistence honorably.
Perhaps, too, she has married. Perhaps----"

"Why do you not suppose her dead?" says Dorian, tapping the table with
his forefinger, his eyes fixed moodily on the pattern of the
maroon-colored cloth. "All such speculations are equally absurd. I
hardly came to London to listen to such vain imaginings."

"Then--I think I barely understand you," says Horace, amicably; "you
came because----?"

"Because I fancied I had here the best chance of hearing about her,"
interrupts Dorian, bluntly, losing patience a little.

"How fearfully you blunder!" returns Horace, still quite calmly,--nay,
in even a tone that might be called amused. "If you mean that I have
had anything to do with her vamoose, I beg to say your imagination has
run wild. You can search the place if you like. The old lady who
attends to my wants will probably express some faint disapprobation
when you invade the sanctity of her chamber, but beyond that no
unpleasantness need be anticipated. This is her favorite hour for
imbibing brandy--_my_ brandy, you will understand (she takes it merely
as a tonic, being afflicted--as she tells me--with what she is pleased
to term 'nightly trimbles'): so if, in the course of your wanderings,
you chance to meet her, and she openly molests you, don't blame me."

"Is that all you can tell me?"

"All about my old lady, certainly."

"And of Ruth?"

"I know nothing, as _you_ should understand." He laughs significantly.

"What do you mean?" demands Dorian, a little fiercely. His eyes are
dark and flashing, his lips compressed.

"What can I mean, except that you are ridiculously absurd?" says
Horace, rising. "What is it you expect me to say? I can't get you out
of it. I always knew you had a _penchant_ for her, but never thought
it would carry you so far. If you will take my advice, however, you
will be milder about it, and take that look off your face. If you go
in for society with that cut-up expression in your eyes, people will
talk."

"Then you know nothing?" repeats Branscombe, taking no notice
of--perhaps not even hearing--the foregoing speech.

"Absolutely nothing. How should I?" says Horace, with his soft smooth
smile. "Have a brandy-and-soda, Dorian, or a little curaçoa? Perhaps,
indeed, the brandy will be best (always allowing Mrs. McGinty has left
me any), you look so thoroughly done up."

"Thank you,--nothing." He gazes at his brother long and earnestly.
"The Branscombe word _ought_ to be sure," he says, moodily.

"Still unconvinced!" says Horace, with an airy laugh. "I know I ought
to take you by the shoulders, Dorian, and pitch you down the stairs;
but, somehow, I haven't the pluck to-night. I am overdone through this
abominable law, and--you are such a tremendous fellow when compared
with me. Must you really be off so soon? Stay and have a cup of
coffee? No? Well, if it must be, good-night."

Dorian goes down the stairs,--puzzled, bewildered, almost convinced.
At the foot of the staircase he looks up again, to see Horace standing
above him still, candle in hand, radiant, smiling, _débonnaire_,
apparently without a care in the world.

He nods to him, and Dorian, returning the salute in grave and silent
fashion, goes out into the lighted streets, and walks along in
momentary expectation of a hansom, when a well known voice smites upon
his ear:

"What in the name of wonder, Branscombe, brings you here?"

Turning, he finds himself face to face with Sir James Scrope.

"My presence is hardly an eighth wonder," he says, wearily. "But how
is it you are not in Paris?"

"Fate ordained it so, and probably fortune, as I just want a friend
with whom to put in an evening."

"You have chosen a dull companion," says Dorian, stupidly. "What
brought you home so soon? or, rather, what took you to Paris
originally?"

"Business partly, and partly because--er--that is, I felt I needed a
little change."

"Ah! just so," says Branscombe. But he answers as one might who has
heard nothing. Sir James casts upon him a quick penetrating glance.

"Anything wrong with you, Branscombe?" he asks, quietly. "Anything in
which I can be of use to you?"

"Thank you, no. I'm just a little down on my luck, that's all." Then,
abruptly, "I suppose you have heard of the scandal down in
Pullingham?"

"About that poor little girl?" says Sir James. "Oh, yes. 'Ill news
flies apace;' and this morning Hodges, who came to town to see me
about Bennett's farm, gave me a garbled account of her disappearance.
I think I hardly understand even now. How did it happen?"

For a full minute Dorian makes no reply. He is looking earnestly in
James Scrope's face, to see if in it there lurks any hidden thought,
any carefully concealed expression of mistrust. There is, indeed,
none. No shadow, no faintest trace of suspicion, lies in Scrope's
clear and honest eyes. Branscombe draws a deep breath. Whatever in the
future this friend may come to believe, now, at least, he holds
him--Dorian--clear and pure from this gross evil that has been imputed
to him.

He throws up his head with a freer air, and tries, with a quick
effort, to conquer the morbid feeling that for hours past has been
pressing upon him heavily.

"I know nothing," he says, presently, in answer to Sir James's last
remark.

"It is such an unaccountable story," says Scrope, lifting his brows.
"Where did she go? and with whom? Such a quiet little mouse of a girl,
one hardly understands her being the heroine of a tragedy. But how
does it particularly affect you?"

Branscombe hesitates. For one brief moment he wonders whether he shall
or shall not reveal to Scrope the scene that has passed between him
and his uncle. Then his whole sympathies revolt from the task, and he
determines to let things rest as they now are.

"Arthur has tormented himself needlessly about the whole business," he
says, turning his face from Scrope. "He thinks me--that is, every
one--to blame, until the girl is restored to her father."

"Ah! I quite see," says James Scrope.





CHAPTER XXIII.

  "Her eyes were deeper than the depth
  Of waters stilled at even."


"Dorian?" says Clarissa.

"Clarissa!" says Dorian.

"I really think I shall give a ball."

"What?" cries a small, sweet, plaintive voice from the corner, and
Georgie, emerging from obscurity and the tremendous volume she has
been studying, comes to the front, in her usual vehement fashion, and
stands before Miss Peyton, expectation in every feature. "Oh,
Clarissa, do say it again."

"Papa says I must entertain the county in some way," says Clarissa,
meditatively, "and I really think a ball will be the best way. Don't
you?"

"Don't I, though?" says Miss Broughton, with much vivacity. "Clarissa,
you grow sweeter daily. Let me offer you some small return for your
happy thought."

She laughs, and, stooping, presses her warm ripe lips against her
friend's cheek. She blushes as she performs this graceful act, and a
small, bright, mischievous gleam grows within her eye. The whole
action is half mocking, half tender:

  "A rosebud set with little wilfulthorns,
  And sweet as English air can make her, she."

The lines come hurriedly to Branscombe's mind, and linger there.
Raising her head again, her eyes meet his, and she laughs, for the
second time, out of the pure gladness of her heart.

"I think it was my happy thought," says Branscombe, mildly. "_I_
suggested this dance to Clarissa only yesterday. Might not I, too,
partake of the 'small return'?"

"It no longer belongs to me; I have given it all away,--here," says
Georgie, touching Clarissa's cheek with one finger; "but for that,"
with a slow adorable glance, "I should be charmed."

"I think I shall get pencil and paper and write down the names," says
Clarissa, energetically, rising and going towards the door. "Dorian,
take care of Georgie until I return."

"I wish I knew how," says Branscombe, in a tone so low that only
Georgie can hear it. Then, as the door closes he says, "Did you mean
your last speech?"

"My last? What was it? I never remember anything." She very seldom
blushes, but now again a soft delicate color creeps into her face.

"If you _hadn't_ given it all away, would you have given me a little
of that small return?"

"No."

"Not even if _I_ were to give a ball for you?"

"N-o--no."

"Not if I were to do for you the one thing you most desired?"

"No--no--no!" She speaks hastily, and glances at him somewhat
confusedly from beneath her long lashes.

"Well, of course, it is too much to expect," says Branscombe; "yet I
would do a good deal for you, even without hope of payment."

He comes a little nearer to her, and lays his hand upon the table
close to hers.

"If you really made the suggestion to Clarissa, you deserve some
reward," says Georgie, nodding her head. "Now, what shall it be?"

"Dance half the night with me."

"That would bore you,--and me. No; but if dancing delights
you--sir--may I have the pleasure of the first quadrille?"

"Madam," says Branscombe, laying his hand upon his heart, "you do me
too much honor; I am at your service now and forever."

"It is too large a promise."

"A true one, nevertheless."

A little earnest shade shows itself upon his face, but Georgie laughs
lightly, and moves away from him over to the window, and at this
moment Clarissa returns, armed with paper and pencils and a very much
pleased smile.

"Can't I have the gardens lighted?" she says, "with Chinese lanterns,
and that? I have been thinking of it."

"I don't know about 'that,'" says Dorian. "I'm not sure but it might
blow us all to atoms; but the celestial lights will be quite 'too,
too!' It must be a splendid thing, Clarissa, to have a brain like
yours. Now, neither Miss Broughton nor I have a particle between us."

"Speak for yourself, please," says Miss Broughton, very justly
incensed.

"I'm doing even more than that, I'm speaking for you too. Don't put up
too many Chinese lanterns, Clarissa, or it will be awkward: we shall
be seen."

"What matter? I love light," says Georgie, innocently. "How I do hope
there will be a moon! Not a mean effort at one, but a good, round,
substantial, vast old moon, such as there was two months ago."

       *       *       *       *       *

She has her wish: such another moonlight night as comes to Pullingham
on the night of Miss Peyton's ball has been rarely, if ever, seen. It
breaks over the whole place in a flood of light so whitely brilliant
that the very sleeping flowers lift up their heads, as though
believing the soft mystic light to be the early birth of morn.

All around is calm and drowsy sweet. The stars come forth to light the
world, and, perhaps, to do homage to Clarissa on this the night of her
first ball.

About six weeks have passed since Ruth Annersley left her home, and as
yet no tidings of her have reached Pullingham. Already people are
beginning to forget that such an _esclandre_ ever occurred in their
quiet village. The minutest inquiries have been made (chiefly by Lord
Sartoris, who is now very seldom at home); rewards offered; numerous
paragraphs, addressed to "R. A.," have appeared in the London papers,
but without result. The world is growing tired of the miserable
scandal, and Ruth's disappearance ceases to be the one engrossing
topic of conversation at village teas and bar-room revelries.

To-night is fair enough to make one believe sin impossible. It is
touched by heaven; great waves of light, sent by the "silver queen of
night," lie languidly on tree and bower; the very paths are bright
with its stray beams.

"Bats and grisly owls on noiseless wings" flit to and fro, "and now
the nightingale, not distant far, begins her solitary song."

Within, music is sounding, and laughter, and the faint sweet dropping
of fountains. Clarissa, moving about among her guests, is looking
quite lovely in a pale satin trimmed heavily with old gold. She is
happy and quite content, though her eyes, in spite of her, turn
anxiously, every now and then, to the doorway.

Every one is smiling, radiant. Even Dorian, who is waltzing with any
one but the woman he desires, is looking gracious all through, and is
creating havoc in the bosom of the damsel who has rashly intrusted
herself to his care.

Cissy Redmond, in the arms of a cavalry-man, is floating round the
room, her unutterable little _nez retroussé_ looking even more
pronounced than usual. Her face is lit up with pleasurable excitement;
to her--as she tells the cavalry-man without hesitation--the evening
is "quite too awfully much, don't you know!" and the cavalry-man
understands her perfectly, and is rather taking to her, which is
undoubtedly clever of the cavalry-man.

He is now talking to her in his very best style, and she is
smiling,--but not at him.

Within the shelter of a door, directly opposite, stands Mr. Hastings,
and he is answering back her smile fourfold. He will not dance
himself,--conscience forbidding,--yet it pleases him to see his Cissy
(as she now is) enjoying herself. The band is playing "Beautiful
Ferns" dreamily, languidly; and I think at this very moment Mr.
Hastings's reverend toes are keeping excellent time to the music. But
this, of course, is barest supposition; for what human eye can
penetrate leather?

The waltz comes to an end, and Dorian, having successfully rid himself
of his late partner, draws Georgie's hand within his arm and leads her
into a conservatory.

Her late partner was a fat, kindly squire, who _will_ dance, but who,
at the expiration of each effort to eclipse Terpsichore, feels
devoutly thankful that his task has come to an end. He is, to say the
mildest least of him, exceedingly tiring, and Georgie is rather glad
than otherwise that Dorian should lead her into the cool recess where
flowers and perfumed fountains hold full sway. She sinks into a seat,
and sighs audibly, and looks upwards at her companion from under
half-closed lids, and then, letting them drop suddenly, plays, in a
restless fashion, with the large black fan she holds.

Branscombe is stupidly silent; indeed, it hardly occurs to him that
speech is necessary. He is gazing earnestly, tenderly, at the small
face beside him,--

  "A face o'er which a thousand shadows go."

The small face, perhaps, objects to this minute scrutiny, because
presently it raises itself, and says, coquettishly,--

"How silent you are! What are you thinking of?"

"Of you," says Dorian, simply. "What a foolish question! You are a
perfect picture in that black gown, with your baby arms and neck."

"Anything else?" asks Miss Broughton, demurely.

"Yes. It also seems to me that you cannot be more than fifteen. You
look such a little thing, and so young."

"But I'm not young," says Georgie, hastily. "I am quite old. I wish
you would remember I am nearly nineteen."

"Quite a Noah's Ark sort of person,--a fossil of the pre-Adamite
period. How I envy you! You are, indeed, unique in your way. Don't be
angry with me because I said you looked young; and don't wish to be
old. There is no candor so hateful, no truth so unpleasing, as age."

"How do you know?" demands she, saucily, sweetly, half touched by his
tone. "You are not yet a Methuselah." Then, "Do you know your brother
has come at last? He is very late, isn't he?"

"He always is," says Dorian.

"And he has brought a friend with him. And who do you think it is?"

"I haven't the faintest idea," says Branscombe, turning a vivid red.

"Why, _my_ Mr. Kennedy!"

"_Your_ Mr. Kennedy?" reiterates he, blankly, his red becoming a
crimson of the liveliest hue.

"Yes, the dark thin young man I met at Sir John Lincoln's. I dare say
I told you about him?"

"Yes, you did," says Dorian, grimly.

"I see him over there," pointing airily with her fan through the open
conservatory door to a distant wall where many young men are
congregated together.

"The man with the nose?" asks Branscombe, slightingly, feeling sure in
his soul he is _not_ the man with the nose.

"He has a nose," says Miss Broughton, equably, "though there isn't
much of it. He is very like a Chinese pug. Don't you see him? But he
_is_ so nice."

Dorian looks again in the desired direction, and as he does so a tall
young man, with a somewhat canine expression, but very kindly,
advances towards him, and, entering the conservatory, comes up to Miss
Broughton with a smile full of delight upon his ingenuous countenance.

"Miss Broughton," he says, in a low musical voice, that has
unmistakable pleasure in it. "Can it really be you? I didn't believe
life could afford me so happy a moment as this."

"I saw you ten minutes ago," says Georgie, in her quick bright
fashion.

"And made no sign? that was cruel," says Kennedy, with some reproach
in his tone. He is looking with ill-suppressed admiration upon her
fair uplifted face. "Now that I have found you, what dance will you
give me?"

"Any one I have," she says, sweetly.

"The tenth? The dance after next,--after this, I mean?"

Branscombe, who is standing beside her, here turns his head to look
steadfastly at her. His blue eyes are almost black, his lips are
compressed, his face is very pale. Not an hour ago she had promised
him this tenth dance. He had asked it of her in haste, even as he went
by her with another partner, and she had smiled consent. Will she
forget it?

"With pleasure," she says, softly, gayly, her usual lovely smile upon
her lips. She is apparently utterly unconscious of any one except her
old-new friend. Kennedy puts her name down upon his card.

At this Dorian makes one step forward, as though to protest against
something,--some iniquity done; but, a sudden thought striking him, he
draws back, and, bringing his teeth upon his under lip with some
force, turns abruptly away. When next he looks in her direction, he
finds both Georgie and her partner have disappeared.

The night wanes. Already the "keen stars that falter never" are
dropping, one by one, to slumber, perfect and serene. Diana, tired of
her ceaseless watch, is paling, fading, dying imperceptibly, as though
feeling herself soon to be conquered by the sturdy morn.

Dorian, who has held himself carefully aloof from Miss Broughton ever
since that last scene, when she had shown herself so unmindful of him
and his just claim to the dance then on the cards, now, going up to
her, says, coldly,--

"I think the next is our dance, Miss Broughton."

Georgie, who is laughing gayly with Mr. Kennedy, turns her face to
his, some surprise mixed with the sweetness of her regard. Never
before has he addressed her in such a tone.

"Is it?" she says, gently. "I had forgotten; but of course my card
will tell."

"One often forgets, and one's card doesn't always tell," replies he,
with a smile tinctured with bitterness.

She opens her eyes, and stares at him blankly. There is some balm in
Gilead, he tells himself, as he sees she is totally unaware of his
meaning. Perhaps, after all, she _did_ forget about that tenth dance,
and did not purposely fling him over for the man now beside her, who
is grinning at her in a supremely idiotic fashion. How he hates a
fellow who simpers straight through everything, and looks always as if
the world and he were eternally at peace!

She flushes softly,--a gentle, delicate flush, born of distress,
coldness from even an ordinary friend striking like ice upon her
heart. She looks at her card confusedly.

"Yes, the next is ours," she says, without raising her eyes; and then
the band begins again, and Dorian feels her hand upon his arm, and
Kennedy bows disconsolately and disappears amid the crowd.

"Do you particularly want to dance this?" asks Dorian, with an effort.

"No; not much."

"Will you come out into the gardens instead? I want--I must speak to
you."

"You may speak to me here, or in the garden, or any where," says
Georgie, rather frightened by the vehemence of his tone.

She lets him lead her down the stone steps that lead to the
shrubberies outside, and from thence to the gardens. The night is
still. The waning moonlight clear as day. All things seem calm and
full of rest,--that deepest rest that comes before the awakening.

"Who is your new friend?" asks he, abruptly, when silence any longer
has become impossible.

"Mr. Kennedy. He is not exactly a friend. I met him one night before
in all my life, and he was very kind to me----"

"One night!" repeats Dorian, ignoring the fact that she yet has
something more to say. "One night! What an impression"--unkindly--"he
must have made on that memorable occasion, to account for the very
warm reception accorded to him this evening!"

She turns her head away from him, but makes no reply.

"Why did you promise me that dance if you didn't mean giving it?" he
goes on, with something in his voice that resembles passion, mixed
with pain. "I certainly believed you in earnest when you promised it
to me."

"You believed right: I did mean it. Am I not giving it?" says Georgie,
bewildered, her eyes gleaming, large and troubled, in the white light
that illumines the sleeping world. "It is your fault that we are not
dancing now. I, for my part, would much rather be inside, with the
music, than out here with you, when you talk so unkindly."

"I have no doubt you would rather be anywhere than with me," says
Dorian, hastily; "and of course this new friend is intensely
interesting."

"At least he is not rude," says Miss Broughton, calmly, plucking a
pale green branch from a laurestinus near her.

"I am perfectly convinced he is one of the few faultless people upon
earth," says Branscombe, now in a white heat of fury. "I shouldn't
dream of aspiring to his level. But yet I think you needn't have given
him the dance you promised me."

"I didn't," says Miss Broughton, indignantly, in all good faith.

"You mean to tell me you hadn't given me the tenth dance half an hour
before?"

"The tenth! You might as well speak about the hundred and tenth! If it
wasn't on my card how could I remember it?"

"But it was on your card: I wrote it down myself."

"I am sure you are making a mistake," says Miss Broughton, mildly;
though in her present frame of mind, I think she would have dearly
liked to tell him he is lying.

"Then show me your card. If I have blundered in this matter I shall go
on my knees to beg your pardon."

"I don't want you on your knees,"--pettishly. "I detest a man on his
knees, he always looks so silly. As for my card,"--grandly,--"here it
is."

Dorian, taking it, opens it, and, running his eyes down the small
columns, stops short at number ten. There, sure enough, is "D. B." in
very large capitals indeed.

"You see," he says, feeling himself, as he says it, slightly
ungenerous.

"I am very sorry," says Miss Broughton, standing far away from him,
and with a little quiver in her tone. "I have behaved badly, I now
see. But I did not mean it." She has grown very pale; her eyes are
dilating; her rounded arms, soft and fair and lovable as a little
child's, are gleaming snow-white against the background of shining
laurel leaves that are glittering behind her in the moonlight. Her
voice is quiet, but her eyes are full of angry tears, and her small
gloved hands clasp and unclasp each other nervously.

"You have proved me in the wrong," she goes on, with a very poor
attempt at coolness, "and, of course, justice is on your side. And you
are quite right to say anything that is unkind to me; and--and I
_hate_ people who are always in the right."

With this she turns, and, regardless of him, walks hurriedly, and
plainly full of childish rage, back to the house.

Dorian, stricken with remorse, follows her.

"Georgie, forgive me! I didn't mean it; I swear I didn't!" he says,
calling her by her Christian name for the first time, and quite
unconsciously. "Don't leave me like this; or, at least let me call
to-morrow and explain."

"I don't want to see you to-morrow or any other day," declares Miss
Broughton, with cruel emphasis, not even turning her head to him as
she speaks.

"But you shall see me to-morrow," exclaims he, seizing her hand, as
she reaches the conservatory door, to detain her. "You will be here; I
shall come to see you. I entreat, I implore you not to deny yourself
to me." Raising her hand, he presses it with passionate fervor to his
lips.

Georgie, detaching her hand from his grasp, moves away from him.

"'Must is for the queen, and shall is for the king,'" quotes she, with
a small pout, "and to-morrow--catch me if you can!"

She frowns slightly, and, with a sudden movement, getting behind a
large flowering shrub, disappears from his gaze for the night.




CHAPTER XXIV.

  "But sweeter still than this, than these, than all,
  Is first and passionate love: it stands alone."--BYRON.


Next day is born, lives, grows, deepens; and, as the first cold breath
of even declares itself, Dorian rides down the avenue that leads to
Gowran.

Miss Peyton is not at home (he has asked first for her, as in duty
bound), and Miss Broughton is in the grounds somewhere. This is vague.
The man offers warmly to discover her and bring her back to the house
to receive Mr. Branscombe; but this Mr. Branscombe will not permit.
Having learned the direction in which she is gone, he follows it, and
glides into a region wherein only fairies should have right to dwell.

A tangled mass of grass, and blackberry, and fern; a dying sunlight,
deep and tender; soft beds of tawny moss. Myriad bluebells are alive,
and, spreading themselves, far and wide, in one rich carpeting (whose
color puts to shame the pale blue of the heavenly vault above), make
one harmonious blending with their green straight leaves.

Far as the eye can reach they spread, and, as the light and wanton
wind stoops to caress them, shake their tiny bells with a coquettish
grace, and fling forth perfume to him with a lavish will.

The solemn trees, that "seem to hold mystical converse with each
other," look down upon the tranquil scene that, season after season,
changes, fades away, and dies, only to return again, fairer and
fresher than of yore. The fir-trees tower upwards, and gleam
green-black against the sky. Upon some topmost boughs the birds are
chanting a pæan of their own; while through this "wilderness of
sweets"--far down between its deep banks (that are rich with trailing
ivy and drooping bracken)--runs a stream, a slow, delicious, lazy
stream, that glides now over its moss-grown stones, and anon flashes
through some narrow ravine dark and profound. As it runs it babbles
fond love-songs to the pixies that, perchance, are peeping out at it,
through their yellow tresses, from shady curves and sun-kissed
corners.

It is one of May's divinest efforts,--a day to make one glad and feel
that it is well to be alive. Yet Branscombe, walking through this
fairy glen, though conscious of its beauty, is conscious, too, that in
his heart he knows a want not to be satisfied until Fate shall again
bring him face to face with the girl with whom he had parted so
unamicably the night before.

Had she really meant him not to call to-day? Will she receive him
coldly? Is it even possible to find her in such an absurd place as
this, where positively everything seems mixed up together in such a
hopeless fashion that one can't see farther than one's nose? Perhaps,
after all, she is not here, has returned to the house, and is now----

Suddenly, across the bluebells, there comes to him a fresh sweet
voice, that thrills him to his very heart. It is hers; and there, in
the distance, he can see her, just where the sunlight falls athwart
the swaying ferns.

She is sitting down, and is leaning forward, having taken her knees
well into her embrace. Her broad hat is tilted backward, so that the
sunny straggling hair upon her forehead can be plainly seen. Her gown
is snow-white, with just a touch of black at the throat and wrists; a
pretty frill of soft babyish lace caresses her throat.

Clear and happy, as though it were a free bird's her voice rises on
the wind and reaches Branscombe, and moves him as no other voice ever
had--or will ever again have--power to move him.

  "There has fallen a splendid tear
    From the passion-flower at the gate;
  She is coming, my dove, my dear;
    She is coming, my life, my fate."

The kind wind brings the tender passionate love-song to him, and
repeats it in his ear as it hurries onward: "My dove, my dear." How
exactly the words suit her! he says them over and over again to
himself, almost losing the rest of the music which she is still
breathing forth to the evening air.

"My life! my fate!" Is she his life,--his fate? The idea makes him
tremble. Has he set his whole heart upon a woman who perhaps can never
give him hers in return? The depth, the intensity of the passion with
which he repeats the words of her song astonishes and perplexes him
vaguely. Is she indeed his fate?

He is quite close to her now; and she, turning round to him her lovely
flower-like face, starts perceptibly, and, springing to her feet,
confronts him with a little frown, and a sudden deepening of color
that spreads from chin to brow.

At this moment he knows the whole truth. Never has she appeared so
desirable in his eyes. Life with her means happiness more than falls
to the lot of most; life without her, an interminable blank.

  "Love lights upon the hearts, and straight we feel
  More worlds of wealth gleam in an upturned eye
  Than in the rich heart or the miser sea."

"I thought I told you not to come," says Miss Broughton, still
frowning.

"I am sure you did not," contradicts he, eagerly; "you said, rather
unkindly, I must confess,--but still you said it,--'Catch me if you
can.' That was a command. I have obeyed it. And I have caught you."

"You knew I was not speaking literally," says Miss Broughton, with
some wrath. "The idea of your supposing I really meant you to catch
me! You couldn't have thought it."

"Well, what was I to think? You certainly said it. So I came. I
believed"--humbly--"it was the best thing to do."

"Yes; and you found me sitting--as--I was, and singing at the top of
my voice. How I dislike people"--says Miss Broughton, with fine
disgust--"who steal upon other people unawares!"

"I didn't steal; I regularly trampled"--protests Branscombe, justly
indignant--"right over the moss and ferns and the other things, as
hard as ever I could. If bluebells won't crackle like dead leaves it
isn't my fault, is it? _I_ hadn't the ordering of them!"

"Oh, yes, it is, every bit your fault," persists she, wilfully,
biting, with enchanting grace largely tinctured with viciousness, the
blade of grass she is holding.

Silence, of the most eloquent, that lasts for a full minute, even
until the unoffending grass is utterly consumed.

"Perhaps you would rather I went away," says Mr. Branscombe, stiffly,
seeing she will not speak. He is staring at her, and is apparently
hopelessly affronted.

"Well, perhaps I would," returns she, coolly, without condescending to
look at him.

"Good-by,"--icily.

"Good-by,"--in precisely the same tone, and without changing her
position half an inch.

Branscombe turns away with a precipitancy that plainly betokens hot
haste to be gone. He walks quickly in the home direction, and gets as
far as the curve in the glen without once looking back. So far the hot
haste lasts, and is highly successful; then it grows cooler; the first
deadly heat dies away, and, as it goes, his steps grow slower and
still slower. A severe struggle with pride ensues, in which pride goes
to the wall, and then he comes to a standstill.

Though honestly disgusted with his own want of firmness, he turns and
gazes fixedly at the small white-gowned figure standing, just as he
had left her, among the purple bells.

Yet not exactly as he had left her: her lips are twitching now, her
lids have fallen over her eyes. Even as he watches, the soft lips
part, and a smile comes to them,--an open, irrepressible smile, that
deepens presently into a gay, mischievous laugh, that rings sweetly,
musically upon the air.

It is too much. In a moment he is beside her again, and is gazing down
on her with angry eyes.

"Something is amusing you," he says. "Is it me?"

"Yes," says the spoiled beauty, moving back from him, and lifting her
lids from her laughing eyes to cast upon him a defiant glance.

"I dare say I do amuse you," exclaims he, wrathfully, goaded to
deeper anger by the mockery of her regard. "I have no doubt you
can find enjoyment in the situation, but I cannot! I dare
say"--passionately--"you think it capital fun to make me fall in love
with you,--to play with my heart until you can bind me hand and foot
as your slave,--only to fling me aside and laugh at my absurd
infatuation when the game has grown old and flavorless."

He has taken her hand whether she will or not, and, I think, at this
point, almost unconsciously, he gives her a gentle but very decided
little shake.

"But there is a limit to all things," he goes on, vehemently, "and
here, now, at this moment, you shall give me a plain answer to a plain
question I am going to ask you."

He has grown very pale, and his nostrils are slightly dilated. She has
grown very pale, too, and is shrinking from him. Her lips are white
and trembling; her beautiful eyes are large and full of an undefined
fear. The passion of his tone has carried her away with it, and has
subdued within her all desire for mockery or mirth. Her whole face has
changed its expression, and has become sad and appealing. This sudden
touch of fear and entreaty makes her so sweet that Dorian's anger
melts before it, and the great love of which it was part again takes
the upper hand.

Impulsively he takes her in his arms, and draws her close to him, as
though he would willingly shield her from all evil and chase the
unspoken fear from her eyes.

"Don't look at me like that," he says, earnestly. "I deserve it, I
know. I should not have spoken to you as I have done, but I could not
help it. You made me so miserable--do you know how miserable?--that I
forgot myself. Darling, don't turn from me; speak to me; forgive me!"

This sudden change from vehement reproach to as vehement tenderness
frightens Georgie just a little more than the anger of a moment since.
Laying her hand upon his chest, she draws back from him; and he,
seeing she really wishes to get away from him, instantly releases her.

As if fascinated, however, she never removes her gaze from his,
although large tears have risen, and are shining in her eyes.

"You don't hate me? I won't believe that," says Branscombe,
wretchedly. "Say you will try to love me, and that you will surely
marry me."

At this--feeling rather lost, and not knowing what else to do--Georgie
covers her face with her hands, and bursts out crying.

It is now Branscombe's turn to be frightened, and he does his part to
perfection. He is thoroughly and desperately frightened.

"I won't say another word," he says, hastily; "I won't, indeed. My
dearest, what have I said that you should be so distressed? I only
asked you to marry me."

"Well, I'm sure I don't know what more you could have said," sobs she,
still dissolved in tears, and in a tone full of injury.

"But there wasn't any harm in that," protests he, taking one of her
hands from her face and pressing it softly to his lips. "It is a sort
of thing" (expansively) "one does every day."

"Do you do it every day?"

"No: I never did it before. And" (very gently) "you will answer me,
won't you?"

No answer, however, is vouchsafed.

"Georgie, say you will marry me."

But Georgie either can't or won't say it; and Dorian's heart dies
within him.

"Am I to understand by your silence that you fear to pain me?" he
says, at length, in a low voice. "Is it impossible to you to love me?
Well, do not speak. I can see by your face that the hope I have been
cherishing for so many weeks has been a vain one. Forgive me for
troubling you: and believe I shall never forget how tenderly you
shrank from telling me you could never return my love."

Again he presses her hand to his lips; and she, turning her face
slowly to his, looks up at him. Her late tears were but a summer
shower, and have faded away, leaving no traces as they passed.

"But I didn't mean one word of all that," she says, naïvely, letting
her long lashes fall once more over her eyes.

"Then what did you mean?" demands he, with some pardonable impatience.
"Quite the contrary, all through?"

"N--ot quite,"--with hesitation.

"At least, that some day you will be my wife?"

"N--ot altogether."

"Well, you can't be half my wife," says Mr. Branscombe promptly.
"Darling, _darling_, put me out of my misery, and say what I want you
to say."

"Well, then, yes." She gives the promise softly, shyly, but without
the faintest touch of any deeper, tenderer emotion. Had Dorian been
one degree less in love with her, he could have hardly failed to
notice this fact. As it is, he is radiant, in a very seventh heaven of
content.

"But you must promise me faithfully never to be unkind to me again,"
says Georgie, impressively, laying a finger on his lips.

"Unkind?"

"Yes; _dreadfully_ unkind: just think of all the terrible things you
said, and the way you said them. Your eyes were as big as half-crowns,
and you looked exactly as if you would like to eat me. Do you know,
you reminded me of Aunt Elizabeth!"

"Oh, Georgie!" says Branscombe, reproachfully. He has grown rather
intimate with Aunt Elizabeth and her iniquities by this time, and
fully understands that to be compared with her hardly tends to raise
him in his beloved's estimation.

There is silence between them after this, that lasts a full minute,--a
long time for lovers freshly made.

"What are you thinking of?" asks Dorian, presently, bending to look
tenderly into her downcast eyes. Perhaps he is hoping eagerly that she
has been wasting a thought upon him.

"I shall never have to teach those horrid lessons again," she says,
with a quick sigh of relief.

If he is disappointed, he carefully conceals it. He laughs, and,
lifting her exquisite face, kisses her gently.

"Never," he says, emphatically. "When you go home, tell Mr. Redmond
all about it; and to-morrow Clarissa will go down to the vicarage and
bring you up to Gowran, where you must stay until we are married."

"I shall like that," says Georgie, with a sweet smile. "But, Mr.
Branscombe----"

"Who on earth is Mr. Branscombe?" asks Dorian. "Don't you know my name
yet?"

"I do. I think it is almost the prettiest name I ever heard,--Dorian."

"_Darling!_ I never thought it a nice name before; but now that you
have called me by it, I can feel its beauty. But I dare say if I had
been christened Jehoshaphat I should, under these circumstances, think
just the same. Well, you were going to say----?"

"Perhaps Clarissa will not care to have me for so long."

"So long? How long? By the by, perhaps she wouldn't; so I suppose we
had better be married as soon as ever we can."

"I haven't got any clothes," says Miss Broughton; at which they both
laugh gayly, as though it were the merriest jest in the world.

"You terrify me," says Branscombe. "Let me beg you will rectify such a
mistake as soon as possible."

"We have been here a long time," says Georgie, suddenly, glancing at
the sun, that is almost sinking out of sight behind the solemn firs.

"It hasn't been ten minutes," says Mr. Branscombe, conviction making
his tone brilliant.

"Oh, nonsense!" says Georgie. "I am sure it must be quite two hours
since you came."

As it has been barely one, this is rather difficult to endure with
equanimity.

"How long you have found it!" he says, with some regret. He is
honestly pained, and his eyes grow darker. Looking at him, she sees
what she has done, and, though ignorant of the very meaning of the
word "love," knows that she has hurt him more than he cares to
confess.

"I have been happy,--quite happy," she says, sweetly, coloring warmly
as she says it. "You must not think I have found the time you have
been with me dull or dreary. Only, I am afraid Clarissa will miss me."

"I should think any one would miss you," says Dorian, impulsively. He
smiles at her as he speaks; but there is a curious mingling of sadness
and longing and uncertainty in his face. Laying one arm round her,
with his other hand he draws her head down on his breast.

"At least, before we go, you will kiss me once," he says,
entreatingly. All the gayety--the gladness--has gone from his voice;
only the deep and lasting love remains. He says this, too,
hesitatingly, as though half afraid to demand so great a boon.

"Yes; I think I should like to kiss you," says Georgie, kindly; and
then she raises herself from his embrace, and, standing on tiptoe,
places both hands upon his shoulders, and with the utmost calmness
lays her lips on his.

"Do you know," she says, a moment later, in no wise disconcerted
because of the warmth of the caress he has given her in exchange for
hers,--"do you know, I never remember kissing any one in all my life
before, except poor papa, and Clarissa, and you."

Even at this avowal she does not blush. Were he her brother, or an
aged nurse, she could scarcely think less about the favor she has just
conferred upon the man who is standing silently regarding her, puzzled
and disappointed truly, but earnestly registering a vow that sooner or
later, if faithful love can accomplish it, he will make her all his
own, in heart and soul.

Not that he has ever yet gone so deeply into the matter as to tell
himself the love is all on his own side. Instinctively he shrinks from
such inward confession. It is only when he has parted from her, and is
riding quietly homeward through the wistful gloaming, that he
remembers, with a pang, how, of all the thousand and one things asked
and answered, one alone has been forgotten. He has never desired of
her whether she loves him.




CHAPTER XXV.

  "Love set me up on high: when I grew vain
  Of that my height, love brought me down again.

       *       *       *       *       *

  "The heart of love is with a thousand woes
  Pierced, which secure indifference never knows.

       *       *       *       *       *

  "The rose aye wears the silent thorn at heart,
  And never yet might pain for love depart."--TRENCH.


When Mrs. Redmond, next morning, is made aware of Georgie's engagement
to Dorian Branscombe, her curiosity and excitement know no bounds. For
once she is literally struck dumb with amazement. That Dorian, who is
heir to an earldom, should have fixed his affections upon _her_
governess, seems to Mrs. Redmond like a gay continuation of the
"Arabian Nights' Entertainments." When she recovers her breath, after
the first great shock to her nervous system, she lays down the
inevitable sock she is mending, and says as follows:

"My dear Georgina, are you quite sure he meant it? Young men,
nowadays, say so many things without exactly knowing why,--more
especially after a dance, as I have been told."

"I am quite sure," says Georgie, flushing hotly. She has sufficient
self-love to render this doubt very unpalatable.

Something that is not altogether remote from envy creeps into Mrs.
Redmond's heart. Being a mother, she can hardly help contrasting her
Cissy's future with the brilliant one carved out for her governess.
Presently, however, being a thoroughly good soul, she conquers these
unworthy thoughts, and when next she speaks her tone is full of
heartiness and honest congratulation. Indeed, she is sincerely
pleased. The fact that the future Lady Sartoris is at present an
inmate of her house is a thought full of joy to her.

"You are a very happy and a very fortunate girl," she says, gravely.

"Indeed yes, I think so," returns Georgie, in a low tone, but with
perfect calmness. There is none of the blushing happiness about her
that should of right belong to a young girl betrothed freshly to the
lover of her heart.

"Of course you do," says Mrs. Redmond, missing something in her voice,
though she hardly knows what. "And what we are to do without you, I
can't conceive; no one to sing to us in the evening, and we have got
so accustomed to that."

"I can still come and sing to you sometimes," says Georgie, with tears
in her eyes and voice.

"Ah, yes,--sometimes. That is just the bad part of it; when one has
known an 'always,' one does not take kindly to a 'sometimes.' And now
here come all my governess troubles back upon my shoulders once more.
Don't think me selfish, my dear, to think of that just now in the very
morning of your new happiness, but really I can't help it. I have been
so content with you, it never occurred to me others might want you
too."

"I will ask Clarissa to get you some one else nicer than me," says
Georgie, soothingly.

"Will you? Yes, do, my dear: she will do anything for you. And,
Georgina,"--from the beginning she has called her thus,--nothing on
earth would induce Mrs. Redmond to call her anything more
frivolous,--"tell her I should prefer somebody old and ugly, if at all
bearable, because then she may stay with me. Dear, dear! how Cissy
will miss you! And what will the vicar say?"

And so on. She spends the greater part of the morning rambling on in
this style, and then towards the evening despatches Georgie to Gowran
to tell Clarissa, too, the great news.

But Clarissa knows all about it before her coming, and meets her in
the hall, and kisses her then and there, and tells her she is so glad,
and it is the very sweetest thing that could possibly have happened.

"He came down this morning very early and told me all about it," she
says, looking as pleased as though it is her own happiness and not
another's she is discussing.

"Now, what a pity!" says Georgie: "and I did so want to tell you
myself, after the disgraceful way in which you tried to wed me to Mr.
Hastings."

"He could not sleep; he confessed that to me. And you had forbidden
him to go to the vicarage to see you to-day. What else then could he
do but come over and put in a good time here? And he did. We had quite
a splendid time," says Miss Peyton, laughing; "I really don't know
which of us was the most delighted about it. We both kept on saying
pretty things about you all the time,--more than you deserved, I
think."

"Now, don't spoil it," says Georgie: "I am certain I deserved it all,
and more. Well, if he didn't sleep, I did, and dreamed, and dreamed,
and dreamed all sorts of lovely things until the day broke. Oh,
Clarissa,"--throwing out her arms with a sudden swift gesture of
passionate relief,--"I am free! Am I not lucky, fortunate, to have
deliverance sent so soon?"

"Lucky, fortunate;" where has the word "happy" gone, that she has
forgotten to use it? Clarissa makes no reply. Something in the girl's
manner checks her. She is standing there before her, gay, exultant,
with all a child's pleasure in some new possession; "her eyes as stars
of twilight fair," flashing warmly, her whole manner intense and glad;
but there are no blushes, no shy half-suppressed smiles, there is no
word of love; Dorian's name has not been mentioned, except as a
secondary part of her story, and then with the extremest unconcern.

Yet there is nothing in her manner that can jar upon one's finer
feelings; there is no undue exultation at the coming great change in
her position,--no visible triumph at the fresh future opening before
her; it is only that in place of the romantic tenderness that should
accompany such a revelation as she has been making, there has been
nothing but a wild passionate thankfulness for freedom gained.

"When are you coming to stay with me altogether?--I mean until the
marriage?" asks Clarissa, presently.

"I cannot leave Mrs. Redmond like that," says Georgie, who is always
delightfully indefinite. "She will be in a regular mess now until she
gets somebody to take my place. I can't leave her yet."

"Dorian will not like that."

"He must try to like it. Mrs. Redmond has been very good to me, and I
couldn't bear to make her uncomfortable. I shall stay with her until
she gets somebody else. I don't think, when I explain it to him, that
Dorian will mind my doing this."

"He will think it very sweet of you," says Clarissa, "considering how
you detest teaching, and that."

While they are at tea, Dorian drops in, and, seeing the little
yellow-haired fairy sitting in the huge lounging-chair, looks so
openly glad and contented that Clarissa laughs mischievously.

"Poor Benedick!" she says, mockingly: "so it has come to this, that
you know no life but in your Beatrice's presence!"

"Well, that's hardly fair, I think," says Branscombe; "you, at least,
should not be the one to say it, as you are in a position to declare I
was alive and hearty at half-past twelve this morning."

"Why, so you were," says Clarissa, "terribly alive,--but only on one
subject. By the by, has any one seen papa lately? He had some new
books from town to-day,--some painfully _old_ books, I mean,--and has
not been found since. I am certain he will be discovered some day
buried beneath ancient tomes; perhaps, indeed, it will be this day.
Will you two forgive me if I go to see if it is yet time to dig him
out?"

They forgive her; and presently find themselves alone.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Is it all true, I wonder?" says Dorian, after a little pause. He is
holding her hand, and is looking down at her with a fond sweet smile
that betrays the deep love of his heart.

"Quite true; at least, I hope so," with an answering smile. Then, "I
am so glad you are going to marry me," she says, without the faintest
idea of shyness; "more glad than I can tell you. Ever since--since I
was left alone, I have had no one belonging to me,--that is, no one
quite my own; and now I have you. You will always be fonder of me than
of anybody else in the world, won't you?"

She seems really anxious as she asks this.

"My darling, of course I shall. How could you ask me such a question?
And you, Georgie, do you love me?"

"Love you? Yes, I suppose so; I don't know,"--with decided hesitation.
"I am certain I like you very, very much. I am quite happy when with
you, and you don't bore me a bit. Is that it?"

This definition of what love _may_ be, hardly comes up to the mark in
Mr. Branscombe's estimation.

She has risen, and is now looking up at him inquiringly, with eyes
earnest and beautiful and deep, but so cold. They chill him in spite
of his efforts to disbelieve in their fatal truthfulness.

"Hardly, I think," he says, with an attempt at gayety. "Something else
is wanting, surely. Georgie, when I asked you to marry me yesterday,
and when you gave the promise that has made me so unutterably happy
ever since, what was it you thought of?"

"Well, I'll tell you," says Miss Broughton, cheerfully. "First, I said
to myself, 'Now I shall never again have to teach Murray's Grammar.'"

"Was that your _first_ thought?" He is both surprised and pained.

"Yes, my very first. You look as if you didn't believe me," says Miss
Broughton, with a little laugh. "But if you had gone through as many
moods and tenses as I have during the past week, you would quite
understand. Well, then I thought how good it would be to have nothing
to do but amuse myself all day long. And then I looked at you, and
felt so glad you had no crooked eyes, or red hair, or anything that
way. And then, above all things, I felt how sweet it was to know I had
found somebody who would have to look after me and take care of me, so
that I need never trouble about myself any more."

"Did you never once think of me?" asks he, in a curious tone.

"Of you? Oh, no! You are quite happy," says Georgie, with a sigh. "You
have nothing to trouble you."

"Nothing! Of course not." Going up to her, he takes her dear little
face between both his hands, and looks long and earnestly into her
clear unconscious eyes. How gladly would he have seen them droop and
soften beneath his gaze! "Now let me tell you how I feel towards you,"
he says, smoothing her soft hair back from her forehead.

"I don't think I am a bit pretty with my hair pushed back," she says,
moving away from the caressing hand, and, with a touch, restoring her
"amber locks" to their original position. She smiles as she says
this,--indeed, ill temper, in any form, does not belong to her,--and,
when her hair is once more restored to order, she again slips her
fingers into his confidingly, and glances up at him. "Now tell me all
about it," she says.

"What am I to tell you?--that when I am away from you I am restless,
miserable; when with you, more than satisfied. I know that I could sit
for hours contentedly with this little hand in mine" (raising it to
his lips), "and I also know that, if fate so willed it, I should
gladly follow you through the length and breadth of the land. If you
were to die, or--or forsake me, it would break my heart. And all this
is because I love you."

"Is it?"--in a very low tone. "Does all that mean being in love?
Then"--in a still lower tone--"I know I am not one bit in love with
_you_."

"Then why are you marrying me?" demands he, a little roughly, stung to
pained anger by her words.

"Because I promised papa, when--when he was leaving me, that I would
marry the very first rich man that asked me," replies she, again
lifting her serious eyes to his. "I thought it would make him happier.
And it did. I am keeping my promise now," with a sigh that may mean
regret for her dead, or, indeed, anything.

"Are you not afraid to go too far?" demands he, very pale, moving back
from her, and regarding her with moody eyes. "Do you quite know what
you are saying--what you are compelling me, against my will, to
understand?"

She is plainly not listening to him. She is lost in a mournful revery,
and, leaning back in her chair, is staring at her little white fingers
in an absent fashion, and is twisting round and round upon her third
finger an old worn-out gold ring. Poor little ring, so full of sweet
and moving memories!

"It was very fortunate," she says, suddenly, with a smile, and without
looking up at him, being still engrossed in her occupation of twisting
the ring round her slender finger,--"it was _more_ than fortunate that
the first rich man should be _you_."

"Much more," he says, in an indescribable tone. Then with an effort,
"Would you have thrown me over had I been poor?"

"I shouldn't have consented to marry you, I think," says Miss
Broughton, quite calmly.

"As I said before, to be candid is your _forte_," exclaims he, with
extreme bitterness. "I wonder even if you loved a man to distraction
(I am not talking of myself, you know,--that is quite evident, is it
not?) would you reject him if he was not sufficiently--_bon parti_?"

"I don't think I could love any one to distraction," replies she,
quite simply. It seems the very easiest answer to this question.

"I believe you speak the very honest truth when you say that," says
Dorian, drawing his breath quickly. "You are indeed terribly honest.
You don't even shrink from telling the man you have elected to marry
that he is no more to you than any other man might be who was equally
possessed of filthy--if desirable--lucre!"

He turns from her, and, going to the window, stares out blindly upon
the dying daylight, and the gardens stretched beneath, where dying
flowers seem breathing of, and suggesting, higher thoughts.

He is unutterably wretched. All through his short courtship he had
entertained doubts of her affection; but now, to have her so openly,
so carelessly, declare her indifference is almost more than he can
bear. "We forgive so long as we love." To Dorian, though his love is
greater than that of most, forgiveness now seems difficult. Yet can he
resign her? She has so woven herself into his very heart-strings--this
cold, cruel, lovely child--that he cannot tear her out without a still
further surrender of himself to death. To live without her--to get
through endless days and interminable nights without hope of seeing
her, with no certain knowledge that the morrow will bring him sure
tidings of her--seems impossible. He sighs; and then, even as he
sighs, five slim cold little fingers steal within his.

"I have made you angry," says the plaintive voice, full of contrition.
A shapely yellow head pushes itself under one of his arms, that is
upraised, and a lovely sorrowful pleading face looks up into his. How
can any one be angry with a face like that?

"No, not angry," he says. And indeed the anger has gone from his
face,--her very touch has banished it,--and only a great and lasting
sadness has replaced it. Perhaps for the first time, at this moment
she grasps some faint idea of the intensity of his love for her. Her
eyes fill with tears.

"I think--it will be better for you--to--give me up," she says, in a
down-hearted way, lowering her lids over her tell-tale orbs, that are
like the summer sea now that they shine through their unwonted
moisture

  "Tears are trembling in her blue eyes,
  Like drops that linger on the violet,"

and Dorian, with a sudden passionate movement, takes her in his arms
and presses her head down upon his breast.

"Do you suppose I can give you up now," he says, vehemently, "when I
have set my whole heart upon you? It is too late to suggest such a
course. That you do not love me is my misfortune, not your fault.
Surely it is misery enough to know that,--to feel that I am nothing to
you,--without telling me that you wish so soon to be released from
your promise?"

"I don't wish it," she says, earnestly, shaking her head. "No, indeed!
It was only for your sake I spoke. Perhaps by and by you will regret
having married some one who does not love you altogether. Because I
know I could not sit contentedly for hours with my hand in any one's.
And there are a great many things I would not do for you. And if _you_
were to die----"

"There! that will do," he says, with sudden passion. "Do you know how
you hurt, I wonder? Are you utterly heartless?"

Her eyes darken as he speaks, and, releasing herself from his
embrace,--which, in truth, has somewhat slackened,--she moves back
from him. She is puzzled, frightened; her cheeks lose their soft
color, and--

  "With that, the water in her eie
  Arose, that she ne might it stoppe;
  And, as men sene the dew be droppe
  The leves and the floures eke,
  Right so upon her white cheke
  The wofull salt teres felle."

"I don't want to hurt you," she says, with a sob; "and I know I am
_not_ heartless." There is a faint tinge of indignation in her tone.

"Of course you are not. It was a rather brutal thing my saying so.
Darling, whatever else may render me unhappy, I can at all events find
comfort in the thought that you never loved any other man."

"But I did," says Miss Broughton, still decidedly tearful: "you must
always remember that. There was one; and"--she is plainly in the mood
for confessions--"I shall never love you or any one as I loved him."

"What are you going to tell me now?" says Dorian, desperately. He had
believed his cup quite full, and only now discovers his mistake. Is
there a still heavier amount of misery in store for him? "Is the worst
to be told me yet?" he says, with the calmness of despair, being quite
too far gone for vehemence of any description. "Why did you keep it
from me until now?"

"I didn't keep anything," cries she: "I told you long ago--at least,
I----"

"What is the name?" demands he, gloomily, fully expecting the hated
word "Kennedy" to fall from her lips. "Better let me know it. Nothing
you can possibly say can make me feel more thoroughly stranded than I
am."

"I think you are taking it very unreasonably," says Miss Broughton,
with quivering lips. "If I cannot bring myself to love anybody as well
as poor papa, I can't help it--and it isn't my fault--and you are very
unkind to me--and----"

"Good gracious! what a fright all about nothing!" says Mr. Branscombe,
with a sigh of intense relief. "I don't mind your poor father, you
know,--I rather admire your faithfulness there,--but I thought--er--it
doesn't in the least matter what I thought," hastily: "every one has
silly fancies at times." He kisses her lids warmly, tenderly, until
the heavy drops beneath press through and run all down her charming
childish face. "I am sure of this, at least," he says, hopefully,
"that you like me better than any living man."

"Well, I do, indeed," replies she, in a curious tone, that might be
suggestive of surprise at her own discovery of this fact. "But, then,
how bad you are to me at times! Dear Dorian,"--laying one hand, with
a pathetic gesture, on his cheek,--"do not be cross to me again."

"My sweetest!--my best beloved!" says Mr. Branscombe, instantly,
drawing his breath a little quickly, and straining her to his heart.




CHAPTER XXVI.

     "The wisdom of this world is idiotism."--DECKER.

     "If thou desirest to be borne with, thou must bear also with
     others."--KEMPIS.


It takes some time to produce another governess suited to the
Redmonds' wants. At length, however, the desired treasure is procured,
and forwarded, "with care," to the vicarage.

On inspection, she proves to be a large, gaunt, high-cheek-boned
daughter of Caledonia, with a broad accent, a broader foot, and
uncomfortably red hair. She comes armed with testimonials of the most
severely complimentary description, and with a pronounced opinion that
"salary is not so much an object as a comfortable home."

Such a contrast to Georgie can scarcely be imagined. The Redmonds, in
a body, are covered with despair, and go about the house, after her
arrival, whispering in muffled tones, and casting blanched and
stricken glances at each other. Dire dismay reigns in their bosoms;
while the unconscious Scot unlocks her trunks, and shakes out her
gowns, and shows plainly, by her behavior, that she has come to sit
down before the citadel and carry on a prolonged siege.

To tea she descends with a solemn step and slow, that Amy designates
as a "thud." But yet at this first tea she gains a victory. Arthur,
the second boy, who has been wicked enough to get measles at school,
and who is now at home to recruit himself and be the terror of his
family, is at this time kept rather on short commons by his mother
because of his late illness. This means bread-and-butter _without_
jam,--a meaning the lively Arthur rather resents. Seeing which, the
Caledonian, opening her lips almost for the first time, gives it as
her opinion that jam, taken moderately, is wholesome.

She goes even farther, and insinuates it may assist digestion, which
so impresses Mrs. Redmond that Arthur forthwith finds himself at
liberty to "tuck into" (his own expression) the raspberry jam without
let or hindrance.

This marvellous behavior on the part of the bony Scot tells greatly in
her favor, so far as the children go. They tell each other later on
that she can't be altogether an unpleasant sort, Master Arthur being
specially loud in her praise. He even goes so far as to insinuate that
Miss Broughton would never have said as much; but this base innuendo
is sneered down by the faithful children who have loved and lost her.
Nevertheless, they accept their fate; and, after a week or two, the
new-comer gains immense ground, and is finally pronounced by her
pupils to be (as she herself would probably express it) "no' that
bad." Thus, Miss McGregor becomes governess at the vicarage, vice
Georgie Broughton promoted.

To be married at once, without any unnecessary delay, is Dorian's
desire; and when, with some hesitation, he broaches the subject to
Georgie, to his surprise and great content he finds her quite willing
to agree to anything he may propose. She speaks no word of reluctance,
appears quite satisfied with any arrangement he or Clarissa may think
proper, makes no shrinking protest against the undue haste. She
betrays no shyness, yet no unseemly desire for haste. It seems to her
a matter of perfect indifference. She is going to be married, sooner
or later, as the case may be. Then why not the sooner?

This is, perhaps, the happiest time of her life. She roams all day
among the flowers and in the pleasure-grounds, singing, laughing,
talking gayly to any one she may meet at Gowran, where, since Miss
McGregor's advent, she has been. When at length it is finally settled
that the marriage is to take place next month, she seems rather
pleased than otherwise, and is openly delighted at the prospect held
out to her by Dorian of so soon seeing, with her own eyes, all the
foreign lands and romantic scenes her fancy has so often depicted.

Just now, even as the tiny clock inside the room is chiming four,
Dorian is standing outside the low French window of Miss Peyton's
morning-room, and, leaning half in, half out of it, is conversing with
her, alone. Georgie, for the time being, is lost to sight,--happy,
somewhere, no doubt, in the warm sunshine she loves so well.

"Clarissa," he is saying, in a somewhat halting fashion,--he is
coloring hotly, and is looking as uncomfortable as a man can look,
which is saying a good deal,--"look here."

An ignominious break-down.

"I'm looking," says Clarissa, somewhat unkindly; "and I don't see
much."

"Well, 'tis this, you know. You won't think it queer of me, will you?"

"I won't; I promise that. Though I haven't the faintest idea whether I
shall or not."

"When she is getting her things, her _trousseau_,--I want her to have
every earthly thing she can possibly fancy," he says, at last,
desperately. "Can't you manage that for me? Do; and make any use you
like of this."

He flings a cheque-book into her lap through the open window as he
speaks.

"She shall have everything she wants," says Clarissa; "but I don't
think"--taking up the book--"we shall require this."

"Nevertheless, keep it. You must want it; and don't mention me in the
matter at all. And--look here again--what do you think she would like
as a wedding-present?"

Of course he has given her long ago the orthodox engagement ring, the
locket, the bracelet, and so forth.

"Why don't you ask her?" says Miss Peyton.

"Because the other day she said she adored surprises. And I am sure
she doesn't care about being asked what she likes."

"You have your mother's diamonds."

"Oh, of course"--airily--"all my mother's things will be hers; that
goes without telling; but I hate old rubbish. I want to give her
something from myself to wear on her marriage morning. Don't you see?
or is it that you grow imbecile in your old age, my good Clarissa?"

"No; it only means that you are growing extravagant in your dotage, my
good Dorian. Well, mention something, that I may object to it."

"Emeralds, then?"

"No: papa has set his heart on giving her those."

"Rubies?"

"Oh, nothing red: they would not suit her."

"Opals?"

"Too unlucky, she would die or run away from you."

"Pearls? But of course,"--quickly: "why did I not think of them
before?"

"Why, indeed? They will be charming. By the by, Dorian, have you told
Lord Sartoris of your engagement?"

Dorian's brow darkens.

"No. He has been from home, you know, either in Paris or the Libyan
desert, or somewhere. He only turned up again two days ago. Seen him
since?"

"He was here, but I was out. Have you seen him?"

"Well, yes,--at a distance."

"Dorian, there is certainly something wrong between you and Lord
Sartoris. I have noticed it for some time. I don't ask you what it is,
but I entreat you to break through this coldness and be friends with
him again." She stoops towards him, and looks earnestly into his face.
He laughs a little.

"I'm tremendous friends with him, really," he says, "if you would only
try to believe it. I think him no end of a good fellow, if slightly
impossible at times. When he recovers from the attack of insanity that
is at present rendering him very obnoxious, I shall be delighted to
let by-gones be by-gones. But until then----"

"You will tell him of your engagement?"

"Perhaps: if occasion offers."

"No, not perhaps. Go to-day, this very evening, and tell him of it."

"Oh, I can't, really, you know," says Mr. Branscombe, who always finds
a difficulty in refusing any one anything.

"You must,"--with decision: "he surely deserves so much at your
hands."

"But how few of us get our deserts!" says Dorian, still plainly
unimpressed.

"Well, then, I think you should speak of it openly to him,--if only
for Georgie's sake."

"For her sake?" He colors again, and bites his lips. "If you really
think I owe it to her, of course I shall do it, however distasteful
the task may be; though I cannot see how it will benefit her."

"He is your uncle; you will wish your own family to receive her?"

"I dare say you are right," says Branscombe, with a shrug. "People
always are when they suggest to you an unpleasant course."

"What is unpleasant now? How can there be anything to distress any one
on such a heavenly day as this?" cries the soft petulant voice he
loves so well, calling to them across a flower-bed near.

Springing over it, she comes up to the window, and, leaning her elbows
on the sill close to him, laughs gayly up into his face.

"There shall be nothing to distress you, at all events, my 'amber
witch,'" returns he, gayly, too. "Come, show me once more these
gardens you love so well."

       *       *       *       *       *

A promise with Dorian is not made of pie-crust: though sorely against
his will, he goes up to Hythe after dinner to acquaint his uncle
formally of his approaching marriage. The evening is calm and full of
rest and quiet, a fit ending to the perfect day that has gone before:

  "The long day wanes, the broad fields fade; the night--
  The sweet June night--is like a curtain drawn.
  The dark lanes know no faintest sound, and white
  The pallid hawthorn lights the smooth-bleached lawn;
  The scented earth drinks from the silent skies
  Soft dews, more sweet than softest harmonies."

Going through the woods that lie upon his right, he walks silently
onward, impressed by the beauty of the swift-coming night, yet too
restless in mind to take in all its charms that are rich enough to
satisfy a hungry soul. A soft wind is sighing; beneath its touch the
young and tender branches are swaying lightly to and fro; all the
"feathery people of mid-air" are preening their downy plumage and
murmuring sleepy hymns ere sinking to their rest.

Scarce a sound can be heard, save the distant lowing of cattle, and
the drowsy drone of a slumberous bee as it floats idly by. The very
sound of Dorian's footsteps upon the soft grass can be distinctly
heard, so deadly is the calm that ushers in the night; when, lo! from
out some thicket, the nightingale,--

                  "Who is silent all day long;
  But when pale eve unseals her clear throat, looses
  Her twilight music on the dreaming boughs
  Until they waken"--

bursts into song. High and clear and exquisite rise the notes one
above the other, each vying in beauteous harmony with the last, until
one's very heart aches for love and admiration of their sweetness.

Dorian, though oppressed with many discordant thoughts, still pauses
to listen, until silence following upon the passionate burst of
melody, he draws his breath quickly and goes on to Hythe, and into the
dining-room there, where he finds Lord Sartoris still over his wine.

He is sitting at the head of the long table, looking strangely
solitary, and very much aged, considering the short time that has
elapsed since last he left Pullingham.

"So you are home again, Arthur," says Dorian, coldly, but with
apparent composure. They have not been face to face since that last
meeting, when bitter words, and still more bitter looks, had passed
between them.

Now, letting the quickly spoken sentence take the place of a more
active greeting, they nod coolly to each other, and carefully refuse
to let their hands touch.

"Yes," says Sartoris, evenly; "I returned two days ago. Business
recalled me; otherwise I was sufficiently comfortable where I was to
make me wish to remain there."

"And Constance, is she quite well?"

"Quite well, thank you. Your other cousins desired to be remembered to
you. So did she, of course."

A pause, prolonged and undesirable.

"You will take some claret?" says Sartoris, at last, pushing the
bottle towards him.

"No, thank you; I have only just dined. I came up to-night to tell you
what I dare say by this you have heard from somebody else; I am going
to be married on the 9th of next month."

Lord Sartoris turns suddenly to confront him.

"I had not heard it," he says, with amazement. "To be married! This is
very sudden." Then, changing his tone, "I am glad," he says, slowly,
and with an unmistakable sneer, "that at last it has occurred to you
to set that girl right in the eyes of the world. As a man of honor
there was no other course left open to you."

"To whom are you alluding?" asks Branscombe, growing pale with anger,
an ominous flash betraying itself in his gray eyes.

"I hope I understand you to mean to offer full, though tardy,
reparation to Ruth Annersley."

With an effort Branscombe restrains the fierce outburst of wrath that
is trembling on his lips.

"You still persist, then, in accusing me of being accessory to that
girl's disappearance?"

"You have never yet denied it," exclaims Sartoris, pushing back his
glass, and rising to his feet. "Give me the lie direct, if you
_can_,--if you _dare_,--and I will believe you."

"I never will," returns Dorian, now thoroughly roused,--"_never!_ If
my own character all these past years is not denial enough, I shall
give no other. Believe what you will. Do you imagine I shall come to
you, like a whipped school-boy, after every supposed offence, to say,
'I did do this,' or, 'I did not do that'? I shall contradict nothing,
assert nothing: therefore judge me as it may please you. I shall not
try to vindicate my actions to any living man."

His tone, his whole bearing, should have carried conviction to the
hearts of most men; but to the old lord, who has seen so much of the
world in its worst phases,--its cruelties and falsehoods,--and who has
roughed it so long among his fellowmen, faith, in its finer sense, is
wanting.

"Enough," he says, coldly, with a slight wave of his hand. "Let us end
this subject now and forever. You have come to tell me of your
approaching marriage; may I ask the name of the lady you intend making
your wife?"

"Broughton; Georgie Broughton," says Branscombe, briefly.

"Broughton,--I hardly fancy I know the name; and yet am I wrong in
thinking there is a governess at the vicarage of that name?"

"There _was_. She is now staying with Clarissa Peyton, I am to be
married to her, as I have already told you, early next month."

"A _governess_!" says Sartoris. There is a world of unpleasant meaning
in his tone. "Really,"--with slow contempt,--"I can hardly
congratulate you on your _tastes_! You, who might have chosen your
wife almost anywhere, can find nothing to suit you but an obscure
governess."

"I don't think there is anything particularly obscure about Georgie,"
replies Dorian, with admirable composure, though he flushes hotly.
"Have you ever seen her? No? Then, of course, you are not in a
position to judge of either her merits or demerits. I shall thank you,
therefore,"--surveying his uncle rather insolently, from head to
heel,--"to be silent on the subject."

After a slight pause, he turns again to Sartoris, and, forcing him to
meet his gaze, says haughtily,--

"May we hope you will be present at our wedding, my lord?"

"I thank you, no. I fear not," returns the older man, quite as
haughtily. "I hope to be many miles from here before the end of next
week."

Dorian smiles unpleasantly.

"You will at least call upon Miss Broughton before leaving the
neighborhood?" he says, raising his brows.

At this Sartoris turns upon him fiercely, stung by the apparent
unconcern of his manner.

"Why should I call?" he says, his voice full of indignant anger. "Is
it to congratulate her on her coming union with you? I tell you, were
I to do so, the face of another woman would rise before me and freeze
the false words upon my lips. To you, Dorian, in my old age, all my
heart went out. My hopes, my affections, my ambitions, began and ended
with you. And what a reward has been mine! Yours has been the hand to
drag our name down to a level with the dust. Disgrace follows hard
upon your footsteps. Were I to go, as you desire, to this innocent
girl, do you imagine I could speak fair words to her? I tell you, no!
I should rather feel it my duty to warn her against entering a house
so dishonored as yours. I should----"

"Pshaw!" says Branscombe, checking him with an impatient gesture.
"Don't let us introduce tragedy into this very commonplace affair.
Pray don't trouble yourself to go and see her at all. In your present
mood, I rather think you would frighten her to death. I am sorry I
intruded my private matters upon you: but Clarissa quite made a point
of my coming to Hythe to-night for that purpose, and, as you know, she
is a difficult person to refuse. I'm sure I beg your pardon for having
so unwarrantably bored you."

"Clarissa, like a great many other charming people, is at times prone
to give very unseasonable advice," says Sartoris, coldly.

"Which, interpreted, means that I did wrong to come. I feel you are
right." He laughs faintly again, and, taking up his hat, looks
straight at his uncle. He has drawn himself up to his full height, and
is looking quite his handsomest. He is slightly flushed (a dark color
that becomes him), and a sneer lies round the corners of his lips. "I
hardly know how to apologize," he says, lightly, "for having forced
myself upon you in this intrusive fashion. The only amends I can
possibly make is to promise you it shall never occur again, and to
still further give you my word that, for the future, I shall not even
annoy you by my presence."

So saying, he turns away, and, inclining his head, goes out through
the door, and, closing it gently after him, passes rapidly down the
long hall, as though in haste to depart, and, gaining the
entrance-door, shuts it, too, behind him, and breathes more freely as
he finds the air of heaven beating on his brow.

Not until he has almost reached Sartoris once more does that sudden
calm fall upon him that, as a rule, follows hard upon all our gusts of
passion. The late interview has hurt him more than he cares to confess
even to himself. His regard--nay, his affection--for Sartoris is deep
and sincere; and, though wounded now, and estranged from him, because
of his determination to believe the worst of him, still it remains
hidden in his heart, and is strong enough to gall and torture him
after such scenes as he has just gone through.

Hitherto his life has been unclouded,--has been all sunshine and happy
summer and glad with laughter. Now a dark veil hangs over it,
threatening to deaden all things and dim the brightness of his "golden
hours."

"He who hath most of heart knows most of sorrow." To Dorian, to be
wroth with those he loves is, indeed, a sort of madness that affects
his heart, if not his brain.

He frowns as he strides discontentedly onward through the fast-falling
night: and then all at once a thought comes to him--a fair vision
seems to rise almost in his path--that calms him and dulls all
resentful memories. It is Georgie,--his love, his darling! She, at
least, will be true to him. He will teach her so to love him that no
light winds of scandal shall have power to shake her faith. Surely a
heart filled with dreams of her should harbor no miserable thoughts.
He smiles again; his steps grow lighter! he is once more the Dorian of
old; he will--he must--be, of necessity, utterly happy with her beside
him during all the life that is to come.

Alas that human hopes should prove so often vain!




CHAPTER XXVII.

     "Tis now the summer of your youth; time has not cropt the
     roses from your cheek, though sorrow long has washed
     them."--_The Gamester._


The wedding--a very private one--goes off charmingly. The day breaks
calm, smilingly, rich with beauty. "Lovely are the opening eyelids of
the morn."

Georgie, in her wedding garments, looking like some pale white lily,
is indeed "passing fair." She is almost too pallid, but the very
pallor adds to the extreme purity and childishness of her beauty, and
makes the gazer confident "there's nothing ill can dwell in such a
temple." Dorian, tall and handsome, and unmistakably content, seems a
very fit guardian for so fragile a flower.

Of course the marriage gives rise to much comment in the county,
Branscombe being direct heir to the Sartoris title, and presumably the
future possessor of all his uncle's private wealth. That he should
marry a mere governess, a positive nobody, horrifies the county, and
makes its shrug its comfortable shoulders and give way to more
malicious talk than is at all necessary. With some, the pretty bride
is an adventuress, and, indeed,--in the very softest of soft whispers,
and with a gentle rustling of indignant skirts,--not _altogether_ as
correct as she might be. There are a few who choose to believe her of
good family, but "awfully out-at-elbows, don't you know;" a still
fewer who declare she is charming all round and fit for anything; and
hardly one who does not consider her, at heart, fortunate and
designing.

One or two rash and unsophisticated girls venture on the supposition
that perhaps, after all, it is a real _bonâ fide_ love-match, and make
the still bolder suggestion that a governess may have a heart as well
as other people. But these silly children are pushed out of sight, and
very sensibly pooh-poohed, and are told, with a little clever laugh,
that they "are quite too sweet, and quite dear babies, and they must
try and keep on thinking all that sort of pretty rubbish as long as
ever they can. It is so successful, and so very taking nowadays."

Dorian is regarded as an infatuated, misguided young man, who should
never have been allowed out without a keeper. Such a disgraceful
flinging away of opportunities, and birth, and position, to marry a
woman so utterly out of his own set! No wonder his poor uncle refused
to be present at the ceremony,--actually ran away from home to avoid
it. And--so--by the by, talking of running away, what was that affair
about that little girl at the mill? Wasn't Branscombe's name mixed up
with it unpleasantly? Horrid low, you know, that sort of thing, when
one is found out.

The county is quite pleased with its own gossip, and drinks
innumerable cups of choicest tea over it, out of the very daintiest
Derby and Sèvres and "Wooster," and is actually merry at the expense
of the newly-wedded. Only a very few brave men, among whom is Mr.
Kennedy, who is staying with the Luttrels, give it as their opinion
that Branscombe is a downright lucky fellow and has got the handsomest
wife in the neighborhood.

Towards the close of July, contrary to expectation, Mr. and Mrs.
Branscombe return to Pullingham, and, in spite of censure, and open
protest, are literally inundated with cards from all sides.

The morning after her return, Georgie drives down to Gowran, to see
Clarissa, and tell her "all the news," as she declares in her first
breath.

"It was all too enchanting," she says, in her quick, vivacious way. "I
enjoyed it _so_. All the lovely old churches, and the lakes, and the
bones of the dear saints, and everything. But I missed you, do you
know,--yes, really, without flattery, I mean. Every time I saw
anything specially desirable, I felt I wanted you to see it too. And
so one day I told Dorian I was filled with a mad longing to talk to
you once again, and I think he rather jumped at the suggestion of
coming home forthwith; and--why, here we are."

"I can't say how glad I am that you _are_ here," says Clarissa. "It
was too dreadful without you both. I am so delighted you had such a
really good time and were so happy."

"Happy!--I am quite that," says Mrs. Branscombe, easily. "I can always
do just what I please, and there is nobody now to scold or annoy me in
any way."

"And you have Dorian to love," says Clarissa, a little gravely, she
hardly knows why. It is perhaps the old curious want in Georgie's tone
that has again impressed her.

"Love, love, love," cries that young woman, a little impatiently. "Why
are people always talking about love? Does it really make the world go
round, I wonder? Yes, of course I have Dorian to be fond of now." She
rises impulsively, and, walking to one of the windows, gazes out upon
the gardens beneath. "Come," she says, stepping on to the veranda;
"come out with me. I want to breathe your flowers again."

Clarissa follows her, and together they wander up and down among the
heavy roses and drooping lilies, that are languid with heat and sleep.
Here all the children of the sun and dew seem to grow and flourish.

  "No daintie flowre or herbe that growes on grownd,
  No arborett with painted blossoms drest
  And smelling sweete, but there it might be fownd
  To bud out faire and throwe her sweete smels al arownd."

Dorian, coming up presently to meet his wife and drive her home, finds
her and Clarissa laughing gayly over one of Georgie's foreign
reminiscences. He walks so slowly over the soft green grass that they
do not hear him until he is quite close to them.

"Ah! you have come, Dorian," says Dorian's wife, with a pretty smile,
"but too soon. Clarissa and I haven't half said all we have to say
yet."

"At least I have said how glad I am to have you both back," says
Clarissa. "The whole thing has been quite too awfully dismal without
you. But for Jim and papa I should have gone mad, or something. I
never put in such a horrid time. Horace came down occasionally,--very
occasionally,--out of sheer pity, I believe; and Lord Sartoris was a
real comfort, he visited so often; but he has gone away again."

"Has he? I suppose our return frightened him," says Branscombe, in a
peculiar tone.

"I have been telling Clarissa how we tired of each other long before
the right time," says Georgie, airily, "and how we came home to escape
being bored to death by our own dulness."

Dorian laughs.

"She says what she likes," he tells Clarissa. "Has she yet put on the
dignified stop for you? It would quite subdue any one to see her at
the head of her table. Last night it was terrible. She seemed to grow
several inches taller, and looked so severe that, long before it was
time for him to retire, Martin was on the verge of nervous tears. I
could have wept for him, he looked so disheartened."

"I'm perfectly certain Martin adores me," says Mrs. Branscombe,
indignantly, "and I couldn't be severe or dignified to save my life.
Clarissa, you must forgive me if I remove Dorian at once, before he
says anything worse. He is quite untrustworthy. Good-by, dearest, and
be sure you come up to see me to-morrow. I want to ask you ever so
many more questions."

       *       *       *       *       *

"Cards from the duchess for a garden-party," says Georgie, throwing
the invitations in question across the breakfast-table to her husband.
It is quite a week later, and she has almost settled down into the
conventional married woman, though not altogether. To be entirely
married--that is, sedate and sage--is quite beyond Georgie. Just now
some worrying thought is oppressing her, and spoiling the flavor of
her tea; her kidney loses its grace, her toast its crispness. She
peeps at Dorian from behind the huge silver urn that seeks jealously
to conceal her from view, and says, plaintively,--

"Is the duchess a very grand person, Dorian?"

"She is an awfully fat person, at all events," says Dorian,
cheerfully. "I never saw any one who could beat her in that line.
She'd take a prize, I think. She is not a bad old thing when in a good
temper, but that is so painfully seldom. Will you go?"

"I don't know,"--doubtfully. Plainly, she is in the lowest depths of
despair. "I--I--think I would rather not."

"I think you had better, darling."

"But you said just now she was always in a bad temper."

"Always? Oh, no; I am sure I couldn't have said that. And, besides,
she won't go for you, you know, even if she is. The duke generally
comes in for it. And by this time he rather enjoys it, I suppose,--as
custom makes us love most things."

"But, Dorian, really now, what is she like?"

"I can't say that: it is a tremendous question. I don't know what she
is; I only know what she is not."

"What, then?"

"'Fashioned so slenderly, young and so fair,'" quotes he, promptly. At
which they both laugh.

"If she is an old dowdy," says Mrs. Branscombe, somewhat irreverently,
"I sha'n't be one scrap afraid of her, and I do so want to go right
over the castle. Somebody--Lord Alfred--would take me, I dare say.
Yes,"--with sudden animation,--"let us go."

"I shall poison Lord Alfred presently," says Dorian, calmly. "Nothing
shall prevent me. Your evident determination to spend your day with
him has sealed his doom. Very well: send an answer, and let us spend a
'nice long happy day in the country.'"

"We are always spending that, aren't we?" says Mrs. Branscombe,
adorably. Then, with a sigh, "Dorian, what shall I wear?"

He doesn't answer. For the moment he is engrossed, being deep in his
"Times," busy studying the murders, divorces, Irish atrocities, and
other pleasantries it contains.

"Dorian, do put down that abominable paper," exclaims she again,
impatiently, leaning her arms on the table, and regarding him
anxiously from the right side of the very forward urn that still will
come in her way. "What shall I wear?"

"It can't matter," says Dorian: "you look lovely in everything, so it
is impossible for you to make a mistake."

"It is a pity you can't talk sense,"--reproachfully. Then, with a
glance literally heavy with care, "There is that tea-green satin
trimmed with Chantilly."

"I forget it," says Dorian, professing the very deepest interest, "but
I know it is all things."

"No, it isn't: I can't bear the sleeves. Then"--discontentedly--"there
is that velvet."

"The very thing,"--enthusiastically.

"Oh, Dorian, dear! What are you thinking of? Do remember how warm the
weather is."

"Well, so it is,--grilling," says Mr. Branscombe, nobly confessing his
fault.

"Do you like me in that olive silk?" asks she, hopefully, gazing at
him with earnest intense eyes.

"Don't I just?" returns he, fervently, rising to enforce his words.

"Now, don't be sillier than you can help," murmurs she, with a lovely
smile. "Don't! I like that gown myself, you know: it makes me look so
nice and old, and that."

"If I were a little girl like you," says Mr. Branscombe, "I should
rather hanker after looking nice and young."

"But not too much so: it is frivolous when one is once married." This
pensively, and with all the air of one who has long studied the
subject.

"Is it? Of course you know best, your experience being greater than
mine," says Dorian, meekly, "but, just for choice, I prefer youth to
anything else."

"Do you? Then I suppose I had better wear white."

"Yes, do. One evening, in Paris, you wore a white gown of some sort,
and I dreamt of you every night for a week afterwards."

"Very well. I shall give you a chance of dreaming of me again," says
Georgie, with a carefully suppressed sigh, that is surely meant for
the beloved olive gown.

The sigh is wasted. When she does don the white gown so despised, she
is so perfect a picture that one might well be excused for wasting
seven long nights in airy visions filled all with her. Some wild
artistic marguerites are in her bosom (she plucked them herself from
out the meadow an hour agone); her lips are red, and parted; her hair,
that is loosely knotted, and hangs low down, betraying the perfect
shape of her small head, is "yellow, like ripe corn." She smiles as
she places her hand in Dorian's and asks him how she looks; while he,
being all too glad because of her excessive beauty, is very slow to
answer her. In truth, she is "like the snow-drop fair, and like the
primrose sweet."

At the castle she creates rather a sensation. Many, as yet, have not
seen her; and these stare at her placidly, indifferent to the fact
that breeding would have it otherwise.

"What a peculiarly pretty young woman," says the duke, half an hour
after her arrival, staring at her through his glasses. He had been
absent when she came, and so is only just now awakened to a sense of
her charms.

"Who?--what?" says the duchess, vaguely, she being the person he has
rashly addressed. She is very fat, very unimpressionable, and very
fond of argument. "Oh! over there. I quite forget who she is. But I do
see that Alfred is making himself, as usual, supremely ridiculous with
her. With all his affected devotion to Helen, he runs after every
fresh face he sees."

"'There's nothing like a plenty,'" quotes the duke, with a dry chuckle
at his own wit; indeed he prides himself upon having been rather a
"card" in his day, and anything but a "k'rect" one, either.

"Yes, there is,--there is propriety," responds the duchess, in an
awful tone.

"That wouldn't be a bit like it," says the duke, still openly amused
at his own humor; after which--thinking it, perhaps, safer to withdraw
while there is yet time--he saunters off to the left, and, as he has a
trick of looking over his shoulder while walking, nearly falls into
Dorian's arms at the next turn.

"Ho, hah!" says his Grace, pulling himself up very shortly, and
glancing at his stumbling-block to see if he can identify him.

"Why, it is you, Branscombe," he says, in his usual cheerful, if
rather fussy, fashion. "So glad to see you!--so glad." He has made
exactly this remark to Dorian every time he has come in contact with
him during the past twenty years and more. "By the by, I dare say you
can tell me,--who is that pretty child over there, with the white
frock and the blue eyes?"

"That pretty child in the frock is my wife," says Branscombe,
laughing.

"Indeed! Dear me! dear me! I beg your pardon. My dear boy, I
congratulate you. Such a face,--like a Greuze; or a--h'm--yes." Here
he grows slightly mixed. "You must introduce me, you know. One likes
to do homage to beauty. Why, where could you have met her in this
exceedingly deficient county, eh? But you were always a sly dog, eh?"

The old gentleman gives him a playful slap on his shoulder, and then,
taking his arm, goes with him across the lawn to where Georgie is
standing talking gayly to Lord Alfred.

The introduction is gone through, and Georgie makes her very best bow,
and blushes her very choicest blush; but the duke will insist upon
shaking hands with her, whereupon, being pleased, she smiles her most
enchanting smile.

"So glad to make your acquaintance. Missed you on your arrival," says
the duke, genially. "Was toiling through the conservatories, I think,
with Lady Loftus. Know her? Stout old lady, with feathers over her
nose. She always will go to hot places on hot days."

"I wish she would go to a final hot place, as she affects them so
much," says Lord Alfred, gloomily. "I can't bear her; she is always
coming here bothering me about that abominable boy of hers in the
Guards, and I never know what to say to her."

"Why don't you learn it up at night and say it to her in the morning?"
says Mrs. Branscombe, brightly. "_I_ should know what to say to her at
once."

"Oh! I dare say," says Lord Alfred. "Only that doesn't help me, you
know, because _I_ don't."

"Didn't know who you were, at first, Mrs. Branscombe," breaks in the
duke. "Thought you were a little girl--eh?--eh?"--chuckling again.
"Asked your husband who you were, and so on. I hope you are enjoying
yourself. Seen everything, eh? The houses are pretty good this year."

"Lord Alfred has just shown them to me. They are quite too exquisite,"
says Georgie.

"And the lake, and my new swans?"

"No; not the swans."

"Dear me! why didn't he show you those? Finest birds I ever saw. My
dear Mrs. Branscombe, you really must see them, you know."

"I should like to, if you will show them to me," says the little
hypocrite, with the very faintest, but the most successful, emphasis
on the pronoun, which is wine to the heart of the old beau; and,
offering her his arm, he takes her across the lawn and through the
shrubberies to the sheet of water beyond, that gleams sweet and cool
through the foliage. As they go, the county turns to regard them; and
men wonder who the pretty woman is the old fellow has picked up; and
women wonder what on earth the duke can see in that silly little Mrs.
Branscombe.

Sir James, who has been watching the duke's evident admiration for his
pretty guest, is openly amused.

"Your training!" he says to Clarissa, over whose chair he is leaning.
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself and your pupil. Such a
disgraceful little coquette I never saw. I really pity that poor
duchess: see there, how miserably unhappy she is looking, and
how----er----pink."

"Don't be unkind: your hesitation was positively cruel. The word 'red'
is unmistakably the word for the poor duchess to-day."

"Well, yes, and yesterday, and the day before, and probably
to-morrow," says Sir James, mildly. "But I really wonder at the
duke,--at his time of life, too! If I were Branscombe I should feel it
my duty to interfere."

He is talking gayly, unceasingly, but always with his grave eyes fixed
upon Clarissa, as she leans back languidly on the uncomfortable
garden-chair, smiling indeed every now and then, but fitfully, and
without the gladness that generally lights up her charming face.

Horace had promised to be here to-day,--had faithfully promised to
come with her and her father to this garden-party; and where is he
now? A little chill of disappointment has fallen upon her, and made
dull her day. No smallest doubt of his truth finds harbor in her
gentle bosom, yet grief sits heavy on her, "as the mildews hang upon
the bells of flowers to blight their bloom!"

Sir James, half divining the cause of her discontent, seeks carefully,
tenderly, to draw her from her sad thoughts in every way that occurs
to him; and his efforts, though not altogether crowned with success,
are at least so far happy in that he induces her to forget her
grievance for the time being, and keeps her from dwelling too closely
upon the vexed question of her recreant lover.

To be with Sir James is, too, in itself a relief to her. With him she
need not converse unless it so pleases her; her silence will neither
surprise nor trouble him; but with all the others it would be so
different: they would claim her attention whether she willed it or
not, and to make ordinary spirited conversation just at this moment
would be impossible to her. The smile dies off her face. A sigh
replaces it.

"How well you are looking to-day!" says Scrope, lightly, thinking this
will please her. She is extremely pale, but a little hectic spot, born
of weariness and fruitless hoping against hope, betrays itself on
either cheek. His tone, if not the words, does please her, it is so
full of loving kindness.

"Am I?" she says. "I don't feel like looking well; and I am tired,
too. They say,--

  'A merry heart goes all the day,
  Your sad tires in a mile-a;'

I doubt mine is a sad one, I feel so worn out. Though,"--hastily, and
with a vivid flush that changes all her pallor into warmth,--"if I
were put to it, I couldn't tell you why."

"No? Do you know I have often felt like that," says Scrope,
carelessly. "It is both strange and natural. One has fits of
depression that come and go at will, and that one cannot account for;
at least, I have, frequently. But you, Clarissa, you should not know
what depression means."

"I know it to day." For the moment her courage fails her. She feels
weak; a craving for sympathy overcomes her; and, turning, she lifts
her large sorrowful eyes to his.

She would, perhaps, have spoken; but now a sense of shame and a sharp
pang that means pride come to her, and, by a supreme effort, she
conquers emotion, and lets her heavily-lashed lids fall over her
suffused eyes, as though to conceal the tell-tale drops within from
his searching gaze.

"So, you see,"--she says, with a rather artificial laugh,--"your
flattery falls through: with all this weight of imaginary woe upon my
shoulders, I can hardly be looking my best."

"Nevertheless, I shall not allow you to call my true sentiments
flattery," says Scrope: "I really meant what I said, whether you
choose to believe me or not. Yours is a

  'Beauty truly blent, whose red and white
  Nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on.'"

"What a courtier you become!" she says, laughing honestly for almost
the first time to-day. It is so strange to hear James Scrope say
anything high-flown or sentimental. She is a little bit afraid that he
knows why she is sorry, yet, after all, she hardly frets over the fact
of his knowing. Dear Jim! he is always kind, and sweet, and
thoughtful! Even if he does understand, he is quite safe to look as if
he didn't. And that is always such a comfort!

And Sir James, watching her, and marking the grief upon her face,
feels a tightening at his heart, and a longing to succor her, and to
go forth--if need be--and fight for her as did the knights of old for
those they loved, until "just and mightie death, whom none can
advise," enfolded him in his arms.

For long time he has loved her,--has lived with only her image in his
heart. Yet what has his devotion gained him? Her liking, her regard,
no doubt, but nothing that can satisfy the longing that leaves
desolate his faithful heart. Regard, however deep, is but small
comfort to him whose every thought, waking and sleeping, belongs alone
to her.

  "Full little knowest thou, that hast not tride,
  What hell it is, in swing long to bide;
  To loose good dayes that might be better spent,
  To wast long nights in pensive discontent;
  To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow;
  To feed on hope, to pine with feare and sorrow;
  To fret thy soul with crosses and with cares;
  To eate thy heart through comfortlesse dispaires."

He is quite assured she lives in utter ignorance of his love. No word
has escaped him, no smallest hint, that might declare to her the
passion that daily, hourly, grows stronger, and of which she is the
sole object. "The noblest mind the best contentment has," and he
contents himself as best he may on a smile here, a gentle word there,
a kindly pressure of the hand to-day, a look of welcome to-morrow.
These are liberally given, but nothing more. Ever since her engagement
to Horace Branscombe he has, of course, relinquished hope; but the
surrender of all expectation has not killed his love. He is silent
because he must be so, but his heart wakes, and

  "Silence in love bewrays more woe
  Than words, though ne'er so witty."

"See, there they are again," he says now, alluding to Georgie and her
ducal companion, as they emerge from behind some thick shrubs. Another
man is with them, too,--a tall, gaunt young man, with long hair, and a
cadaverous face, who is staring at Georgie as though he would
willingly devour her--but only in the interest of art. He is lecturing
on the "Consummate Daffodil," and is comparing it unfavorably with the
"Unutterable Tulip," and is plainly boring the two, with whom he is
walking, to extinction. He is Sir John Lincoln, that old-new friend of
Georgie's, and will not be shaken off.

"Long ago," says Georgie, tearfully, to herself, "he was not an
æsthete. Oh, how I _wish_ he would go back to his pristine freshness!"

But he won't: he maunders on unceasingly about impossible flowers,
that are all very well in their way, but whose exaltedness lives only
in his own imagination, until the duke, growing weary (as well he
might, poor soul), turns aside, and greets with unexpected cordiality
a group upon his right, that, under any other less oppressive
circumstances, would be abhorrent to him. But to spend a long hour
talking about one lily is not to be borne.

Georgie follows his example, and tries to escape Lincoln and the
tulips by diving among the aforesaid group. She is very
successful,--groups do not suit æsthetics,--and soon the gaunt young
man takes himself, and his long hair, to some remote region.

"How d'ye do, Mrs. Branscombe?" says a voice at her elbow, a moment
later, and, turning, she finds herself face to face with Mr. Kennedy.

"Ah! you?" she says, with very flattering haste, being unmistakably
pleased to see him. "I had no idea you were staying in the country."

"I am staying with the Luttrells'. Molly asked me down last month."

"She is a great friend of yours, I know," says Mrs. Branscombe; "yet I
hadn't the faintest notion I should meet you here to-day."

"And you didn't care either, I dare say," says Mr. Kennedy, in a tone
that is positively sepulchral, and, considering _all_ things, very
well done indeed.

"I should have cared, if I had even once thought about it," says Mrs.
Branscombe, cheerfully.

Whereupon he says,--

"_Thank_ you!" in a voice that is _all_ reproach.

Georgie colors. "I didn't mean what _you_ think," she says, anxiously.
"I didn't _indeed_."

"Well, it sounded exactly like it," says Mr. Kennedy, with careful
gloom. "Of course it is not to be expected that you ever _would_ think
of me, but----I haven't seen you since that last night at Gowran, have
I?"

"No."

"I think you might have told me then you were going to be married."

"I wasn't going to be married then," says Georgie, indignantly: "I
hadn't a single idea of it. Never thought of it, until the next day."

"I quite thought you were going to marry me," says Mr. Kennedy, sadly;
"I had quite made up my mind to it. I never"--forlornly--"imagined you
as belonging to any other fellow. It isn't pleasant to find that one's
pet doll is stuffed with sawdust, and yet--"

"I can't think what you are talking about," says Mrs. Branscombe,
coldly, and with some fine disgust; she cannot help thinking that she
must be the doll in question, and to be filled with sawdust sounds
anything but dignified.

Kennedy, reading her like a book, nobly suppresses a wild desire for
laughter, and goes on in a tone, if possible, more depressed than the
former one.

"My insane hope was the doll," he says: "it proved only dust. I
haven't got over the shock yet that I felt on hearing of your
marriage. I don't suppose I ever shall now."

"Nonsense!" says Georgie, contemptuously. "I never saw you look so
well in all my life. You are positively fat."

"That's how it always shows with me," says Kennedy, unblushingly.
"Whenever green and yellow melancholy marks me for its own, I sit on a
monument (they always keep one for me at home) and smile incessantly
at grief, and get as fat as possible. It is a refinement of cruelty,
you know, as superfluous flesh is not a thing to be hankered after."

"How you must have fretted," says Mrs. Branscombe, demurely, glancing
from under her long lashes at his figure, which has certainly gained
both in size and in weight since their last meeting.

At this they both laugh.

"Is your husband here to-day?" asks he, presently.

"Yes."

"Why isn't he with you?"

"He has found somebody more to his fancy, perhaps."

As she says this she glances round, as though for the first time alive
to the fact that indeed he is not beside her.

"Impossible!" says Kennedy. "Give any other reason but that, and I may
believe you. I am quite sure he is missing you terribly, and is vainly
searching every nook and corner by this time for your dead body. No
doubt he fears the worst. If you were my----I mean if ever I were to
marry (which of course is quite out of the question now), I shouldn't
let my wife out of my sight."

"Poor woman! what a time she is going to put in!" says Mrs.
Branscombe, pityingly. "Don't go about telling people all that, or you
will never get a wife. By this time Dorian and I have made the
discovery that we can do excellently well without each other
sometimes."

Dorian coming up behind her just as she says this, hears her, and
changes color.

"How d'ye do!" he says to Kennedy, civilly, if not cordially, that
young man receiving his greeting with the utmost bonhommie and an
unchanging front.

For a second, Branscombe refuses to meet his wife's eyes, then,
conquering the momentary feeling of pained disappointment, he turns to
her, and says, gently,--

"Do you care to stay much longer? Clarissa has gone, and Scrope, and
the Carringtons."

"I don't care to stay another minute: I should like to go home now,"
says Georgie, slipping her hand through his arm, as though glad to
have something to lean on; and, as she speaks, she lifts her face and
bestows upon him a small smile. It is a very dear little smile, and
has the effect of restoring him to perfect happiness again.

Seeing which, Kennedy raises his brows, and then his hat, and, bowing,
turns aside, and is soon lost amidst the crowd.

"You are sure you want to come home?" says Dorian, anxiously. "I am
not in a hurry, you know."

"I am. I have walked enough, and talked enough, to last me a month."

"I am afraid I rather broke in upon your conversation just now," says
Branscombe, looking earnestly at her. "But for my coming, Kennedy
would have stayed on with you; and he is a--a rather amusing sort of
fellow, isn't he?"

"Is he? He was exceedingly stupid to-day, at all events. I don't
believe he has a particle of brains, or else he thinks other people
haven't. I enjoyed myself a great deal more with the old duke, until
that ridiculous Sir John Lincoln came to us. I don't think he knew a
bit who the duke was, because he kept saying odd little things about
the grounds and the guests, right under his nose; at least, right
behind his back: it is all the same thing."

"What is? His nose and his back?" asks Dorian; at which piece of folly
they both laugh as though it was the best thing in the world.

Then they make their way over the smooth lawns, and past the glowing
flower-beds, and past Sir John Lincoln, too, who is standing in an
impossible attitude, that makes him all elbows and knees, talking to a
very splendid young man--all bone and muscle and good humor--who is
plainly delighted with him. To the splendid young man he is nothing
but one vast joke.

Seeing Mrs. Branscombe, they both raise their hats, and Sir John so
far forgets the tulips as to give it as his opinion that she is "Quite
too, too intense for every-day life." Whereupon the splendid young
man, breaking into praise too, declares she is "Quite too awfully
jolly, don't you know," which commonplace remark so horrifies his
companion that he sadly and tearfully turns aside, and leaves him to
his fate.

Georgie, who has been brought to a standstill for a moment, hears both
remarks, and laughs aloud.

"It is something to be admired by Colonel Vibart, isn't it?" she says
to Dorian; "but it is really very sad about poor Sir John. He has
bulbous roots on the brain, and they have turned him as mad as a
hatter."




CHAPTER XXVIII.

  "There's not a scene on earth so full of lightness
                  That withering care
  Sleeps not beneath the flowers and turns their brightness
                  To dark despair."--HON. MRS. NORTON.


It is a day of a blue and goldness so intense as to make one believe
these two are the only colors on earth worthy of admiration. The sky
is cloudless; the great sun is wide awake; the flowers are drooping,
sleeping,--too languid to lift their heavy heads.

  "The gentle wind, that like a ghost doth pass,
  A waving shadow on the cornfield keeps."

And Georgie descending the stone steps of the balcony, feels her whole
nature thrill and glow beneath the warmth and richness of the beauty
spread all around with lavish hand. Scarcely a breath stirs the air;
no sound comes to mar the deep stillness of the day, save the echo of
the "swallows' silken wings skimming the water of the sleeping lake."

As she passes the rose-trees, she puts out her hand, and, from the
very fulness of her heart, touches some of the drowsy flowers with
caressing fingers. She is feeling peculiarly happy to-day: everything
is going so smoothly with her; her life is devoid of care; only
sunshine streams upon her path; storm and rain and nipping frosts seem
all forgotten.

Going into the garden, she pulls a flower or two and places them in
the bosom of her white gown, and bending over the basin of a fountain,
looks at her own image, and smiles at it, as well she may.

Then she blushes at her own vanity, and, drawing back from nature's
mirror, tells herself she will go a little farther, and see what
Andrews, the under-gardener (who has come to Sartoris from Hythe), is
doing in the shrubbery.

The path by which she goes is so thickly lined with shrubs on the
right-hand side that she cannot be seen through them, nor can she see
those beyond. Voices come to her from the distance, that, as she
advances up the path, grow even louder. She is not thinking of them,
or, indeed, of anything but the extreme loveliness of the hour, when
words fall upon her ear that make themselves intelligible and send the
blood with a quick rush to her heart.

"It is a disgraceful story altogether; and to have the master's name
mixed up with it is shameful!"

The voice, beyond doubt, belongs to Graham, the upper-housemaid, and
is full of honest indignation.

Hardly believing she has heard aright, and without any thought of
eaves-dropping, Georgie stands still upon the walk, and waits in
breathless silence for what may come next.

"Well, I think it is shameful," says another voice, easily recognized
as belonging to Andrews. "But I believe it is the truth for all that.
Father saw him with his own eyes. It was late, but just as light as it
is now, and he saw him plain."

"Do you mean to tell me," says Graham, with increasing wrath (she is
an elderly woman, and has lived at Sartoris for many years), "that you
really think your master had either hand, act, or part in inducing
Ruth Annersley to leave her home?"

"Well, I only say what father told me," says Andrews, in a
half-apologetic fashion, being somewhat abashed by her anger. "And he
ain't one to lie much. He saw him with her in the wood the night she
went to Lunnun, or wherever 'twas, and they walked together in the way
to Langham Station. They do say, too, that----"

A quick light footstep, a putting aside of branches, and Georgie,
pale, but composed, appears before them. Andrews, losing his head,
drops the knife he is holding, and Graham grows a fine purple.

"I don't think you are doing much good here, Andrews," says Mrs.
Branscombe, pleasantly. "These trees look well enough: go to the
eastern walk, and see what can be done there."

Andrews, only too thankful for the chance of escape, picks up his
knife again and beats a hasty retreat.

Then Georgie, turning to Graham, says slowly,--

"Now, tell me every word of it, from beginning to end."

Her assumed unconsciousness has vanished. Every particle of color has
flown from her face, her brow is contracted, her eyes are shining with
a new and most unenviable brilliancy. Perhaps she knows this herself,
as, after the first swift glance at the woman on Andrews's departure,
she never lifts her eyes again, but keeps them deliberately fixed upon
the ground during the entire interview. She speaks in a low
concentrated tone, but with firm compressed lips.

Graham's feelings at this moment would be impossible to describe.
Afterwards--many months afterwards--she herself gave some idea of them
when she declared to the cook that she thought she should have
"swooned right off."

"Oh, madam! tell you what?" she says, now, in a terrified tone,
shrinking away from her mistress, and turning deadly pale.

"You know what you were speaking about just now when I came up."

"It was nothing, madam, I assure you, only idle gossip, not worth----"

"Do not equivocate to me. You were speaking of Mr. Branscombe. Repeat
your 'idle gossip.' I will have it word for word. Do you hear?" She
beats her foot with quick impatience against the ground.

"Do not compel me to repeat so vile a lie," entreats Graham,
earnestly. "It is altogether false. Indeed, madam,"--confusedly,--"I
cannot remember what it was we were saying when you came up to us so
unexpectedly."

"Then I shall refresh your memory. You were talking of your master
and--and of that girl in the village who----" The words almost
suffocate her; involuntarily she raises her hand to her throat. "Go
on," she says, in a low, dangerous tone.

Graham bursts into tears.

"It was the gardener at Hythe--old Andrews--who told it to our man
here," she sobs, painfully. "You know he is his father, and he said he
had seen the master in the copsewood the evening--Ruth Annersley ran
away."

"He was in London that evening."

"Yes, madam, we all know that," says the woman, eagerly. "That alone
proves how false the whole story is. But wicked people will talk, and
it is wise people only who will not give heed to them."

"What led Andrews to believe it was your master?" She speaks in a hard
constrained voice, and as one who has not heard a word of the
preceding speech. In truth, she has not listened to it, her whole mind
being engrossed with this new and hateful thing that has fallen into
her life.

"He says he saw him,--that he knew him by his height, his figure, his
side-face, and the coat he wore,--a light overcoat, such as the master
generally uses."

"And how does he explain away the fact of--of Mr. Branscombe's being
in town that evening?"

At this question Graham unmistakably hesitates before replying. When
she does answer, it is with evident reluctance.

"You see, madam," she says, very gently, "it would be quite possible
to come down by the mid-day train to Langham, to drive across to
Pullingham, and get back again to London by the evening train."

"It sounds quite simple," says Mrs. Branscombe, in a strange tone.
Then follows an unbroken silence that lasts for several minutes and
nearly sends poor Graham out of her mind. She cannot quite see her
mistress's face as it is turned carefully aside, but the hand that is
resting on a stout branch of laurel near her is steady as the branch
itself. Steady,--but the pretty filbert nails show dead-white against
the gray-green of the bark, as though extreme pressure, born of mental
agitation and a passionate desire to suppress and hide it, has
compelled the poor little fingers to grasp with undue force whatever
may be nearest to them.

When silence has become positively unbearable, Georgie says, slowly,--

"And does all the world know this?"

"I hope not, ma'am. I think not. Though, indeed,"--says the faithful
Graham, with a sudden burst of indignation,--"even if they did, I
don't see how it could matter. It would not make it a bit more or less
than a deliberate lie."

"You are a good soul, Graham," says Mrs. Branscombe, wearily.

Something in her manner frightens Graham more than all that has gone
before.

"Oh, madam, do not pay any attention to such a wicked tale," she says,
anxiously, "and forgive me for ever having presumed to lend my ears to
it. No one knowing the master could possibly believe in it."

"Of course not." The answer comes with unnatural calmness from between
her white lips. Graham bursts into fresh tears, and flings her apron
over her head.

Mrs. Branscombe, at this, throws up her head hastily, almost
haughtily, and, drawing her hand with a swift movement across her
averted eyes, breathes a deep lingering sigh. Then her whole
expression changes; and, coming quite near to Graham, she lays her
hand lightly on her shoulder, and laughs softly.

Graham can hardly believe her ears: has that rippling, apparently
unaffected laughter come from the woman who a moment since appeared
all gloom and suppressed anger?

"I am not silly enough to fret over a ridiculous story such as you
have told me," says Georgie, lightly. "Just at first it rather
surprised me, I confess, but now--now I can see the absurdity of it.
There; do not cry any more; it is a pity to waste tears that later on
you may long for in vain."

But when she has gained the house, and has gone up to her own room,
and carefully locked her door, her assumed calmness deserts her. She
paces up and down the floor like some chained creature, putting
together bit by bit the story just related to her. Not for a moment
does she doubt its truth: some terrible fear is knocking at her heart,
some dread that is despair and that convinces her of the reality of
Andrews's relation.

Little actions of Dorian's, light words, certain odd remarks, passed
over at the time of utterance as being of no importance, come back to
her now, and assert themselves with overwhelming persistency, until
they declare him guilty beyond all dispute.

When she had gone to the altar and sworn fidelity to him, she had
certainly not been in love with her husband, according to the common
acceptation of that term. But at least she had given him a heart
devoid of all thought for another, and she had fully, utterly,
believed in his affection for her. For the past few months she had
even begun to cherish this belief, to cling to it, and even to feel
within herself some returning tenderness for him.

It is to her now, therefore, as the bitterness of death, this
knowledge that has come to her ears. To have been befooled where she
had regarded herself as being most beloved,--to have been only second,
where she had fondly imagined herself to be first and dearest,--is a
thought bordering upon madness.

Passionate sobs rise in her throat, and almost overcome her. An angry
feeling of rebellion, a vehement protest against this deed that has
been done, shakes her slight frame. It cannot be true; it shall not;
and yet--and yet--why has this evil fallen upon her of all others? Has
her life been such a happy one that Fate must needs begrudge her one
glimpse of light and gladness? Two large tears gather in her eyes, and
almost unconsciously roll down her cheeks that are deadly white.

Sinking into a chair, as though exhausted, she leans back among its
cushions, letting her hands fall together and lie idly in her lap.

Motionless she sits, with eyes fixed as if riveted to earth, while
tears insensibly steal down her pensive cheeks, which look like
weeping dew fallen on the statue of despair.

For fully half an hour she so rests, scarce moving, hardly seeming to
breathe. Then she rouses herself, and, going over to a table, bathes
her face with eau-de-Cologne. This calms her in a degree, and stills
the outward expression of her suffering, but in her heart there rages
a fire that no waters can quench.

Putting her hat on once again, she goes down-stairs, feeling eager for
a touch of the cool evening air. The hot sun is fading, dying; a
breeze from the distant sea is creeping stealthily up to the land. At
the foot of the staircase she encounters Dorian coming towards her
from the library.

"I have been hunting the place for you," he says, gayly. "Where on
earth have you been hiding? Visions of ghastly deaths rose before me,
and I was just about to have the lake dragged and the shrubberies
swept. Martin is nearly in tears. You really ought to consider our
feelings a little. Why, where are you off to now?"--for the first time
noticing her hat.

"Out," returns she, coldly, looking straight over his head: she is
standing on the third step of the stairs, while he is in the hall
below. "I feel stifled in this house."

Her tone is distinctly strange, her manner most unusual. Fearing she
is really ill, he goes up to her and lays his hand upon her arm.

"Anything the matter, darling? How white you look," he begins,
tenderly; but she interrupts him.

"I am quite well," she says, hardly, shrinking away from his touch as
though it is hateful to her. "I am going out because I wish to be
alone."

She sweeps past him through the old hall and out into the darkening
sunlight, without a backward glance or another word. Amazed, puzzled,
Branscombe stands gazing after her until the last fold of her dress
has disappeared, the last sound of her feet has echoed on the stone
steps beyond; then he turns aside, and, feeling, if possible, more
astonished than hurt, goes back to the library.

From this hour begins the settled coldness between Dorian and his
wife that is afterwards to bear such bitter fruit. She assigns no
actual reason for her changed demeanor; and Dorian, at first, is too
proud to demand an explanation,--though perhaps never yet has he loved
her so well as at this time, when all his attempts at tenderness are
coldly and obstinately rejected.

Not until a full month has gone by, and it is close upon the middle of
August, does it dawn upon him why Georgie has been so different of
late.

Sir James Scrope is dining with them, and, shortly after the servants
have withdrawn, he makes some casual mention of Ruth Annersley's name.
No notice is taken of it at the time, the conversation changes almost
directly into a fresh channel, but Dorian, happening to glance across
the table at his wife, sees that she has grown absolutely livid, and
really, for the instant, fears she is going to faint. Only for an
instant! Then she recovers herself, and makes some careless remark,
and is quite her usual self again.

But he cannot forget that sudden pallor, and like a flash the truth
comes to him, and he knows he is foul and despicable in the eyes of
the only woman he loves.

When Sir James has gone, he comes over to her, and, leaning his elbow
on the chimney-piece, stands in such a position as enables him to
command a full view of her face.

"Scrope takes a great interest in that girl Ruth," he says, purposely
introducing the subject again. "It certainly is remarkable that no
tidings of her have ever since reached Pullingham."

Georgie makes no reply. The nights have already grown chilly and there
is a fire in the grate, before which she is standing warming her
hands. One foot,--a very lovely little foot,--clad in a black shoe
relieved by large silver buckles, is resting on the fender, and on
this her eyes are riveted, as though lost in admiration of its beauty,
though in truth she sees it not at all.

"I can hardly understand her silence," persists Dorian. "I fear,
wherever she is, she must be miserable."

Georgie raises her great violet eyes to his, that are now dark and
deep with passionate anger and contempt.

"She is not the only miserable woman in the world," she says, in a
low, quick tone.

"No, I suppose not. But what an unsympathetic tone you use! Surely you
can feel for her?"

"Feel for her! Yes. No woman can have as much compassion for her as I
have."

"That is putting it rather strongly, is it not? You scarcely know her;
hardly ever spoke to her. Clarissa Peyton, for instance, must think
more pitifully of her than you can."

"I hope it will never be Clarissa's lot to compassionate any one in
the way I do her."

"You speak very bitterly."

"Do I? I think very bitterly."

"What do you mean?" demands he, suddenly, straightening himself and
drawing up his tall figure to its fullest height. His tone is almost
stern.

"Nothing. There is nothing to be gained by continuing this
conversation."

"But I think there is. Of late, your manner towards me has been more
than strange. If you complain of anything, let me know what it is, and
it shall be rectified. At the present moment, I confess, I fail to
understand you. You speak in the most absurdly romantic way about Ruth
Annersley (whom you hardly knew), as though there existed some special
reason why you, above all women, should pity her."

"I do pity her from my heart; and there is a special reason: she has
been deceived, and so have I."

"By whom?"

"I wish you would discontinue the subject, Dorian: it is a very
painful one to me, if--if not to you." Then she moves back a little,
and, laying her hand upon her chest, as though a heavy weight, not to
be lifted, is lying there, she says, slowly, "You compel me to say
what I would willingly leave unsaid. When I married you, I did not
understand your character; had I done so----"

"You would not have married me? You regret your marriage?" He is very
pale now, and something that is surely anguish gleams in his dark
eyes. Perhaps had she seen his expression her answer would have been
different, or, at least, more merciful.

"I do," she says, faintly.

"Why?" All heart seems gone from his voice. He is gazing mournfully
upon the girlish figure of his wife as she stands at some little
distance from him. "Have I been such a bad husband to you, Georgie?"
he says, brokenly.

"No, no. But it is possible to be cruel in more ways than one."

"It is, indeed!" Then he sighs wearily; and, giving up all further
examination of her lovely unforgiving face, he turns his gaze upon the
fire. "Look here," he says, presently; "I heard unavoidably what you
said to Kennedy that afternoon at the castle, that we could manage to
get on without each other excellently well on occasion: you alluded to
yourself, I suppose. Perhaps you think we might get on even better had
we never met."

"I didn't say that," says Georgie, turning pale.

"I understand,"--bitterly: "you only meant it. Well, if you are so
unhappy with me, and if--if you wish for a separation, I think I can
manage it for you. I have no desire whatever"--coldly--"to keep you
with me against your will."

"And have all the world talking?" exclaims she, hastily. "No. In such
a case the woman goes to the wall: the man is never in fault. Things
must now remain as they are. But this one last thing you can do for
me. As far as is possible, let us live as utter strangers to each
other."

"It shall be just as you please," returns he, haughtily.

       *       *       *       *       *

Day by day the dark cloud that separates them widens and deepens,
drifting them farther and farther apart, until it seems almost
impossible that they shall ever come together again.

Dorian grows moody and irritable, and nurses his wrongs in sullen
morbid silence. He will shoot whole days without a companion, or go
for long purposeless rides across country, only to return at nightfall
weary and sick at heart.

"Grief is a stone that bears one down." To Dorian, all the world seems
going wrong; his whole life is a failure. The two beings he loves most
on earth--Lord Sartoris and his wife--distrust him, and willingly lend
an open ear to the shameless story unlucky Fate has coined for him.

As for Georgie, she grows pale and thin, and altogether unlike
herself. From being a gay, merry, happy little girl, with "the sun
upon her heart," as Bailey so sweetly expresses it, she has changed
into a woman, cold and self-contained, with a manner full of settled
reserve.

Now and again small scenes occur between them that only render matters
more intolerable. For instance, coming into the breakfast-room one
morning, Georgie, meeting the man who brings the letters, takes them
from him, and, dividing them, comes upon one directed to Dorian, in an
unmistakable woman's hand, bearing the London post-mark, which she
throws across the table to her husband.

Something in the quickness of her action makes him raise his head to
look at her. Catching the expression of her eyes, he sees that they
are full of passionate distrust, and at once reads her thoughts
aright. His brow darkens; and, rising, he goes over to her, and takes
her hands in his, not with a desire to conciliate, but most
untenderly.

"It is impossible you can accuse me of this thing," he says, his voice
low and angry.

"Few things are impossible," returns she, with cold disdain. "Remove
your hands, Dorian: they hurt me."

"At least you shall be convinced that in this instance, as in all the
others, you have wronged me."

Still holding her hands, he compels her to listen to him while he
reads aloud a letter from the wife of one of his tenants who has gone
to town on law business and who has written to him on the matter.

Such scenes only help to make more wide the breach between them.
Perhaps, had Georgie learned to love her husband before her marriage,
all might have been well; but the vague feeling of regard she had
entertained for him (that, during the early days of their wedded life,
had been slowly ripening into honest love, not having had time to
perfect itself) at the first check had given in, and fallen--hurt to
death--beneath the terrible attack it had sustained.

She fights and battles with herself at times, and, with passionate
earnestness, tries to live down the growing emptiness of heart that is
withering her young life. All night long sometimes she lies awake,
waiting wearily for the dawn, and longing prayerfully for some change
in her present stagnation.

And, even if she can summon sleep to her aid, small is the benefit she
derives from it. Bad dreams, and sad as bad, harass and perplex her,
until she is thankful when her lids unclose and she feels at least she
is free of the horrors that threatened her a moment since.

  "Thou hast been called, O sleep! the friend of woe;
  But, 'tis the happy that have called thee so!"




CHAPTER XXIX.

  "The waves of a mighty sorrow
    Have whelmed the pearl of my life;
  And there cometh to me no morrow
    Shall solace this desolate strife.

       *       *       *       *       *

  "Gone are the last faint flashes,
    Set in the sun of my years,
  And over a few poor ashes
    I sit in darkness and tears."--GERALD MASSEY.


All night the rain has fallen unceasingly; now the sun shines forth
again, as though forgetting that excessive moisture has inundated the
quiet uncomplaining earth. The "windy night" has not produced a "rainy
morrow;" on the contrary, the world seems athirst for drink again, and
is looking pale and languid because it comes not.

  "Moist, bright, and green, the landscape laughs around:
  Full swell the woods."

Everything is richer for the welcome drops that fell last night. "The
very earth, the steamy air, is all with fragrance rife;" the flowers
lift up their heads and fling their perfume broadcast upon the flying
wind;

  "And that same dew, which sometime within buds
  Was wont to swell, like round and Orientpearls,
  Stood now within the pretty flowerets' eyes,
  Like tears that did their own disgrace bewail."

Georgie, with scarcely any heart to see their beauty, passes by them,
and walks on until she reaches that part of Hythe wood that adjoins
their own. As she passes them, the gentle deer raise their heads and
sniff at her, and, with their wild eyes, entreat her to go by and
take no notice of them.

Autumn, with his "gold hand," is

              "Gilding the falling leaf,
  Bringing up winter to fulfil the year,
  Bearing upon his back the ripéd sheaf."

All nature seems lovely, and, in coloring, intense. To look upon it is
to have one's heart widen and grow stronger and greater as its
divinity fills one's soul to overflowing. Yet to Georgie the hour
gives no joy: with lowered head and dejected mien she goes, scarce
heeding the glowing tints that meet her on every side. It is as though
she tells herself the world's beauty can avail her nothing, as, be the
day

                       "Foul, or even fair,
  Methinks her hearte's joy is stainéd with some care."

Crossing a little brook that is babbling merrily, she enters the land
of Hythe; and, as she turns a corner (all rock, and covered with
quaint ferns and tender mosses), she comes face to face with an old
man, tall and lean, who is standing by a pool, planted by nature in a
piece of granite.

He is not altogether unknown to her. At church she has seen him twice,
and once in the village, though she has never been introduced to him,
has never interchanged a single word with him: it is Lord Sartoris.

He gazes at her intently. Perhaps he too knows who she is, but, if so,
he makes no sign. At last, unable to bear the silence any longer, she
says, naïvely and very gently,--

"I thought you were in Paris."

At this extraordinary remark from a woman he has never spoken to
before, Sartoris lifts his brows, and regards her, if possibly, more
curiously.

"So I was," he says; "but I came home yesterday." Then, "And you are
Dorian's wife?"

Her brows grow clouded.

"Yes," she says, and no more, and, turning aside, pulls to pieces the
flowering grasses that grow on her right hand.

"I suppose I am unwelcome in your sight," says the old man, noting her
reserve. "Yet if, at the time of your marriage, I held aloof, it was
not because you were the bride."

"Did you hold aloof?" says Georgie, with wondering eyes. "Did our
marriage displease you? I never knew: Dorian never told me." Then,
with sudden unexpected bitterness, "Half measures are of no use. Why
did you not forbid the wedding altogether? That would have been the
wisest and kindest thing, both for him and me."

"I don't think I quite follow you," says Lord Sartoris, in a troubled
tone. "Am I to understand you already regret your marriage? Do not
tell me that."

"Why should I not?" says Georgie, defiantly. His tone has angered her,
though why, she would have found a difficulty in explaining. "You are
his uncle," she says, with some warmth: "why should you not know? Why
am I always to pretend happiness that I never feel?"

"Do you know what your words convey?" says Sartoris, more shocked than
he can express.

"I think I do," says the girl, half passionately; and then she turns
aside, and moves as though she would leave him.

"This is terrible," says Sartoris, in a low voice full of pain. "And
yet I cannot believe he is unkind to you."

"Unkind? No," with a little scornful smile: "I hear no harsh words, my
lightest wish is law; yet the veriest beggar that crawls the road is
happier than I am."

"It seems impossible," says Sartoris, quietly, looking intently at her
flower-like face and lovely wistful eyes,--"seeing you, it seems
impossible to me that he can do anything but love you."

"Do not profane the words," she says, quickly. Then she pauses, as
though afraid to continue, and presently says, in a broken voice, "Am
I--the only woman he has--loved?"

Something in the suppressed passion of her tone tells Lord Sartoris
that she too is in possession of the secret that for months has
embittered his life. This discovery is horrible to him.

"Who has been cruel enough to make you wise on that subject?" he says,
impulsively, and therefore unwisely.

Georgie turns upon him eyes brilliant with despair and grief.
"So"--she says, vehemently--"it is the world's talk. You know it: it
is, indeed, common property, this disgraceful story." Something within
her chokes her words; she can say no more. Passion overcomes her, and
want of hope, and grief too deep for expression. The gentle wells that
nature supplies are dead within her; her eyes, hot and burning,
conceal no water wherewith to cool the fever that consumes them.

"You are a stranger to me," she says, presently. "Yet to you I have
laid bare my thoughts. You think, perhaps, I am one to parade my
griefs, but it is not so; I would have you----"

"I believe you," he interrupts her hastily. He can hardly do
otherwise, she is looking so little, so fragile, with her quivering
lips, and her childish pleading eyes, and plaintive voice.

"Take courage," he says, softly: "you are young: good days may yet be
in store for you; but with me it is different. I am on the verge of
the grave,--am going down into it with no one to soothe or comfort my
declining years. Dorian was my one thought: you can never know how I
planned, and lived, and dreamed for him alone; and see how he has
rewarded me! For youth there is a future, and in that thought alone
lies hope; for age there is nothing but the flying present, and even
that, for me, has lost its sweetness. I have staked my all, and--lost!
surely, of we two, I should be the most miserable."

"Is that your belief?" says Mrs. Branscombe, mournfully. "Forgive me
if I say I think you wrong. You have but a little time to endure your
grief, I have my life, and perhaps"--pathetically--"it will be a long
one. To know I must live under his roof, and feel myself indebted to
him for everything I may want, for many years, is very bitter to me."

Sartoris is cut to the heart: that it should have gone so far that she
should shrink from accepting anything at Dorian's hands, galls him
sorely. And what a gentle tender boy he used to be, and how incapable
of a dishonest thought or action! At least, something should be done
for his wife,--this girl who has grown tired and saddened and out of
all heart since her luckless marriage. He looks at her again keenly,
and tells himself she is sweet enough to keep any man at her side, so
dainty she shows in her simple linen gown, with its soft Quakerish
frillings at the throat and wrists. A sudden thought at last strikes
him.

"I am glad I have met you," he says, quietly. "By and by, perhaps, we
shall learn to be good friends. In the mean time will you do me a
small favor? will you come up to Hythe on Thursday at one o'clock?"

"If you want me to come," says Georgie, betraying through her eyes the
intense surprise she feels at this request.

"Thank you. And will you give Dorian a written message from me?"

"I will," she says again. And tearing a leaf from his pocket-book, he
writes, as follows:

"When last we parted, it was with the expressed determination on your
part never again to enter my doors until such time as I should send
for you. I do so now, and beg you will come up to Hythe on Thursday
next at half-past one o'clock. I should not trouble you so far, but
that business demands your presence. I give you my word not to detain
you longer than is absolutely necessary."

Folding up this note, he gives it to her, and pressing her hand
warmly, parts from her, and goes back again to Hythe.

When in answer to his uncle's summons, Dorian walks into the library
at Hythe on Thursday afternoon, he is both astonished and disconcerted
to find his wife there before him. She had given the letter not to
him, but to one of the men-servants to deliver to him: so that he is
still in utter ignorance of her meeting in the wood with his uncle.

"You here?" he says to her, after he has acknowledged Lord Sartoris's
presence by the coldest and haughtiest of salutations.

She says, "Yes," in a low tone, without raising her eyes.

"I was not aware you and Lord Sartoris were on such intimate terms."

"We met by chance last Monday for the first time," returns she, still
without troubling herself to turn her eyes in his direction.

"You will sit down?" says Sartoris, nervously pushing a chair towards
him. Dorian is looking so pale and haggard, so unlike himself, that
the old man's heart dies within him. What "evil days" has he not
fallen on!

"No, thank you: I prefer standing. I must, however, remind you of your
promise not to detain me longer than you can help."

"Nor shall I. I have sent for you to-day to let you know of my
determination to settle upon your wife the sum of twenty thousand
pounds, to be used for her own exclusive benefit, to be hers
absolutely to do with as may seem best to her."

"May I ask what has put this quixotic idea into your head?" asks
Dorian, in a curious tone.

Georgie, who, up to this time, has been so astounded at the disclosure
of the earl's scheme as to be unable to collect her ideas, now feels a
sudden light break in upon her. She rises to her feet, and comes a
little forward, and, for the first time since his entrance, turns to
confront her husband.

"Let me tell you," she says, silencing Lord Sartoris by a quick motion
of the hand. "On Monday I told your uncle how--how I hated being
indebted to you for everything I may require. And he has thought of
this plan, out of his great kindness," turning eyes dark with tears
upon Lord Sartoris,--"to render me more independent. I thank you," she
says, going up to Sartoris and slipping her icy cold little hands into
his, "but it is far--far too much."

"So you have been regaling Lord Sartoris (an utter stranger to you)
with a history of all our private griefs and woes!" says Dorian,
slowly, utter contempt in his tone and an ominous light in his eyes.

"You wrong her, Dorian," says his uncle, gently. "It is not as you
represent it. It was by the merest chance I discovered your wife would
feel happier if more her own mistress."

"And by what right, may I inquire, do you seek to come between my wife
and me?" says Dorian, white with anger, standing, tall and strong,
with his arms folded and his eyes fixed upon his uncle. "Is it not my
part to support and keep her? Whose duty is it, if not mine? I wish
to know why you, of all men, have dared to interfere."

"I have not come between you: I seek no such ungracious part," replies
Sartoris, with quiet dignity. "I am only doing now what I should have
done on her marriage morning had--had things been different."

"It seems to me that I am brought up here as a criminal before my
judge and accuser," says Branscombe, very bitterly. "Let me at least
have the small satisfaction of knowing of what it is I am
accused,--wherein lies my crime. Speak," he says, turning suddenly to
his wife.

She is awed more than she cares to confess by his manner, which is
different from anything she has ever seen in him before. The
kind-hearted, easy-going Dorian is gone, leaving a stern, passionate,
disappointed man in his place.

"Have I ill-used you?" he goes on, vehemently. "Have I spoken harsh
words to you, or thwarted you in any way? Ever since the first hour
that saw you my wife have I refused to grant your lightest wish?
Speak, and let us hear the truth of this matter. I am a bad husband,
you say,--so infamous that it is impossible for you to receive even
the common necessaries of life at my hands! How have I failed in my
duty towards you?"

"In none of the outward observances," she says, faintly. "And yet you
have broken my heart!"

There is a pause. And then Dorian laughs aloud,--a terrible, sneering,
embittered laugh, that strikes cold on the hearts of the hearers.

"Your heart!" he says, witheringly. "Why, supposing for courtesy's
sake you did possess such an inconvenient and unfashionable appendage,
it would be still absurd to accuse me of having broken it, as it has
never been for five minutes in my possession."

Taking out his watch, he examines it leisurely. Then, with an utter
change of manner, addressing Lord Sartoris, he says, with cold and
studied politeness,--

"If you have quite done with me, I shall be glad, as I have another
appointment at three."

"I have quite done," says his uncle, wistfully, looking earnestly at
the handsome face before him that shows no sign of feeling whatsoever.
"I thank you much for having so far obliged me."

"Pray do not mention it. Good-morning."

"Good-morning," says Sartoris, wearily. And Branscombe, bowing
carelessly, leaves the room without another word.

When he has gone, Georgie, pale and trembling, turns to Sartoris and
lays her hand upon his arm.

"He hates me. He will not even look at me," she says, passionately.
"What was it he said, that I had no heart? Ah! what would I not give
to be able to prove his words true?"

She bursts into tears, and sobs long and bitterly.

"Tears are idle," says Sartoris, sadly. "Have you yet to learn that?
Take comfort from the thought that all things have an end."




CHAPTER XXX.

  "Oh that the things which have been were not now
  In memory's resurrection! But the past
  Bears in her arms the present and the future."--BAILEY.


Of course it is quite impossible to hide from Clarissa Peyton that
everything is going wrong at Sartoris. Georgie's pale unsmiling face
(so different from that of old), and Dorian's evident determination to
absent himself from all society, tell their own tale.

She has, of course, heard of the uncomfortable gossip that has
connected Ruth Annersley's mysterious disappearance with Dorian,
but--stanch friend as she is--has laughed to scorn all such
insinuations: that Georgie can believe them, puzzles her more than she
cares to confess. For a long time she has fought against the thought
that Dorian's wife can think aught bad of Dorian; but time undeceives
her.

To-day, Georgie, who is now always feverishly restless, tells herself
she will go up to Gowran and see Clarissa. To her alone she
clings,--not outwardly, in any marked fashion, but in her inmost
soul,--as to one who at her worst extremity will support and comfort
her.

The day is warm and full of color. Round her "flow the winds from
woods and fields with gladness laden:" the air is full of life. The
browning grass rustles beneath her feet. The leaves fall slowly one by
one, as though loath to leave their early home; the wind, cruel, like
all love, wooes them only to their doom.

"The waves, along the forest borne," beat on her face and head, and
half cool the despairing thoughts that now always lie hidden deep down
within her breast.

Coming to Gowran and seeing Clarissa in the drawing room window, she
beckons to her, and Clarissa, rising hastily, opens the hall door for
her, herself, and leads her by the hand into another cosier room,
where they may talk without interruption.

It so happens that Georgie is in one of her worst moods; and something
Clarissa says very innocently brings on a burst of passion that
compels Clarissa to understand (in spite of all her efforts to think
herself in the wrong) that the dissensions at Sartoris have a great
deal to do with Ruth Annersley.

"It is impossible," she says, over and over again, walking up and down
the room in an agitated manner. "I could almost as soon believe Horace
guilty of this thing!"

Georgie makes no reply. Inwardly she has conceived a great distaste to
the handsome Horace, and considers him a very inferior person, and
quite unfit to mate with her pretty Clarissa.

"In your heart," says Miss Peyton, stopping before her, "I don't
believe you think Dorian guilty of this thing."

"Yes I do," says Mrs. Branscombe, with dogged calmness. "I don't ask
you to agree with me. I only tell you what I myself honestly believe."
She has given up fighting against her fate by this time.

"There is some terrible mistake somewhere," says Clarissa, in a very
distressed voice, feeling it wiser not to argue the point further.
"Time will surely clear it up sooner or later, but it is very severe
on Dorian while it lasts. I have known the dear fellow all my life,
and cannot now begin to think evil of him. I have always felt more
like a sister to him than anything else, and I cannot believe him
guilty of this thing."

"_I_ am his wife, and I _can_," says Mrs. Branscombe, icily.

"If you loved him as you ought, you could not." This is the one rebuke
she cannot refrain from.

Georgie laughs unpleasantly, and then, all in a little moment, she
varies the performance by bursting into a passionate and most
unlooked-for flood of tears.

"Don't talk to me of love!" she cries, miserably. "It is useless. I
don't believe in it. It is a delusion, a mere mockery, a worn-out
superstition. You will tell me that Dorian loved me; and yet in the
very early days before our marriage, when his so-called love must have
been at its height, he insulted me beyond all forgiveness."

"You are making yourself wretched about nothing," says Clarissa,
kneeling beside her, and gently drawing her head down on her shoulder.
"Don't, darling,--don't cry like that. I know, I feel, all will come
right in the end. Indeed, unless Dorian were to come to me and say, 'I
have done this hateful thing,' I should not believe it."

"I would give all the world to be able to say that from my heart,"
says Mrs. Branscombe, with excessive sadness.

"Try to think it. Afterwards belief will be easy. Oh, Georgie, do not
nourish hard thoughts; tear them from your heart, and by and by, when
all this is explained away, think how glad you will be that, without
proof, you had faith in him. Do you know, unless my own eyes saw it, I
should never for any reason lose faith in Horace."

A tender, heavenly smile creeps round her beautiful lips as she says
this. Georgie, seeing it, feels heart-broken. Oh that she could have
faith like this!

"It is too late," she says, bitterly: "and I deserve all I have got. I
myself have been the cause of my own undoing. I married Dorian for no
other reason than to escape the drudgery of teaching. Yet now"--with a
sad smile--"I know there are worse things than Murray's Grammar. I am
justly punished." Her lovely face is white with grief. I have tried,
_tried_, TRIED to disbelieve, but nothing will raise this cloud of
suspicion from my breast. It weighs me down and crushes me more
cruelly day by day. "I wish--I wish"--cries poor little Georgie, from
her very soul--"that I had never been born, because I shall never know
a happy moment again."

The tears run silently down her cheeks one by one. She puts up her
small hands to defend herself, and the action is pitiable in the
extreme.

"How happy you were only a month ago!" says Clarissa, striken with
grief at the sight of her misery.

"Yes, I have had my day, I suppose," says Mrs. Branscombe, wearily.
"One can always remember a time when

  'Every morning was fair,
  And every season a May!'

But how soon it all fades!"

"Too soon for you," says Clarissa, with tears in her eyes. "You speak
as though you had no interest left in life."

"Yes, I have," says Georgie, with a faint smile. "I have the
school-children yet. You know I go to them every Sunday to oblige the
dear vicar. He would have been so sorry if I had deserted them,
because they grew fond of me, and he said, for that reason, I was the
best teacher in the parish, because I didn't bore them." Here she
laughs quite merrily, as though grief is unknown to her; but a minute
later, memory returning, the joy fades from her face, leaving it
sadder than before. "I might be Irish," she says, "emotion is so
changeable with me. Come down with me now to the village, will you? It
is my day at the school."

"Well, come up-stairs with me while I put on my things," says
Clarissa; and then, though really sad at heart, she cannot refrain
from smiling. "You are just the last person in the world," she says,
"one would accuse of teaching Scripture, or the Catechism, or that."

"What a very rude remark!" said Georgie, smiling naturally for the
first time to-day. "Am I such a _very_ immoral young woman?"

"No. Only I could not teach Genesis, or the Ten Commandments, or
Watts, to save my life," says Clarissa. "Come, or we shall be late,
and Pullingham Junior without Watts would, I feel positive, sink into
an abyss of vice. They might bark and bite, and do other dangerous
things."

       *       *       *       *       *

Mrs. Branscombe (with Clarissa) reaching the school-house just in time
to take her class, the latter sits down in a disconsolate fashion
upon a stray bench, and surveys the scene before her with wondering
eyes.

There sits Georgie, a very fragile teacher for so rough a class; here
sits the vicar with the adults before him, deep in the mysteries of
the Thirty-nine Articles.

The head teacher is nearly in tears over the Creed, because of the
stupidity of her pupils; the assistant is raging over the Ten
Commandments. All is gloom! Clarissa is rather delighted than
otherwise, and, having surveyed everybody, comes back to Georgie, she
being the most refreshing object on view.

At the top of the class, facing the big window, sits John Spriggs
(_ætat._ ten) on his hands. He has utterly declined to bestow his body
in any other fashion, being evidently imbued with the belief that his
hands were made for the support of the body,--a very correct idea, all
things considered.

He is lolling from side to side in a reckless way, and his eyes are
rolling in concert with him, and altogether his behavior is highly
suggestive of fits.

Lower down, Amelia Jennings is making a surreptitious cat's cradle,
which is promptly put out of sight, behind her back, every time her
turn comes to give an answer; but, as she summarily dismisses all
questions by declaring her simple ignorance of every matter connected
with Biblical history, the cradle progresses most favorably, and is
very soon fit to sleep in.

Mrs. Branscombe, having gone through the seventh chapter of St. Luke
without any marked success, falls back upon the everlasting Catechism,
and swoops down upon Amelia Jennings with a mild request that she will
tell her her duty to her neighbor.

Amelia, feeling she has no neighbors at this trying moment, and still
less catechism, fixes her big round blue eyes on Mrs. Branscombe, and,
letting the beloved cradle fall to the ground behind her back,
prepares to blubber at a second's notice.

"Go on," says Georgie, encouragingly.

Miss Jennings, being thus entreated, takes heart, and commences the
difficult injunction in excellent hope and spirits. All goes "merry as
a marriage bell," until she comes to the words "Love your neighbor as
yourself," when John Spriggs (who is not by nature a thoroughly bad
boy, but whose evil hour is now full upon him) says audibly, and
without any apparent desire to torment, "and paddle your own canoe."

There is a deadly pause, and then Amelia Jennings giggles out loud,
and Spriggs follows suit, and, after a bit, the entire class gives
itself up to merriment.

Spriggs, instead of being contrite at this flagrant breach of
discipline, is plainly elated with his victory. No smallest sign of
shame disfigures his small rubicund countenance.

Georgie makes a praiseworthy effort to appear shocked, but, as her
pretty cheeks are pink, and her eyes great with laughter, the
praiseworthy effort rather falls through.

At this moment the door of the school-house is gently pushed open, and
a new-comer appears on the threshold: it is Mr. Kennedy.

Going up unseen, he stands behind Georgie's chair, and having heard
from the door-way all that has passed, instantly bends over and hands
the notorious Spriggs a shilling.

"Ah! you again?" says Mrs. Branscombe, coloring warmly, merely from
surprise. "You are like Sir Boyle Roche's bird: you can be in two
places at the same moment. But it is wrong to give him money when he
is bad. It is out of all keeping; and how shall I manage the children
if you come here, anxious to reward vice and foster rebellion?"

She is laughing gayly now, and is looking almost her own bright little
self again, when, lifting her eyes, she sees Dorian watching her.
Instantly her smile fades; and she returns his gaze fixedly, as though
compelled to do it by some hidden instinct.

He has entered silently, not expecting to find any one before him but
the vicar: yet the very first object his eyes meet is his wife,
smiling, radiant, with Kennedy beside her. A strange pang contracts
his heart, and a terrible amount of reproach passes from his eyes to
hers.

He is sad and dispirited, and full of melancholy. His whole life has
proved a failure; yet in what way has he fallen short?

Kennedy, seeing Mrs. Branscombe's expression change, raises his head,
and so becomes aware of her husband's presence. Being a wise young man
in his own generation, he smiles genially upon Dorian, and, going
forward, shakes his hand as though years of devotion have served to
forge a link likely to bind them each to each forever.

"Charming day, isn't it?" he says, with a beatific smile. "Quite like
summer."

"Rather more like January, I think," says Dorian, calmly, who is in
his very worst mood. "First touch of winter, I should say." He laughs
as he says this; but his laugh is as wintry as the day, and chills the
hearer. Then he turns aside from his wife and her companion, and lays
his hand upon the vicar's shoulder, who has just risen from his class,
having carried it successfully through the best part of Isaiah.

"My dear boy,--you?" says the vicar, quite pleased to see him. "But in
bad time: the lesson is over, so you can learn nothing. I don't like
to give them too much Scripture on a week-day. It has a disheartening
effect, and----"

"I wish they could hear you," says Branscombe, with a slight shrug.

"It is as well they cannot," says the vicar; "though I doubt if free
speaking does much harm; and, really, perpetual grinding does destroy
the genuine love for our grand old Bible that we should all feel deep
down in our souls."

"Feeling has gone out of fashion," says Dorian, so distinctly that
Georgie in the distance hears him, and winces a little.

"Well, it has," says the vicar. "There can't be a doubt of it, when
one thinks of the alterations they have just made in that fine old
Book. There are innovations from morning till night, and nothing
gained by them. Surely, if we got to heaven up to this by the teaching
of the Bible as it _was_, it serves no cause to alter a word here and
there, or a sentence that was dear to us from our childhood. It brings
us no nearer God, but only unsettles beliefs that, perhaps, up to this
were sound enough. The times are not to be trusted."

"Is anything worthy of trust?" says Dorian, bitterly.

"I doubt I'm old-fashioned," says the dear vicar, with a deprecating
smile. "I dare say change is good, and works wonders in many ways. We
old people stick fast, and can't progress. I suppose I should be
content to be put on one side."

"I hope you will be put on my side," says Dorian: "I should feel
pretty safe then. Do you know, I have not been in this room for so
many years that I am afraid to count them? When last here, it was
during a holiday term; and I remember sitting beside you and thinking
how awfully jolly glad I was to be well out of it, when other children
were doing their lesson."

"Comfortable reflection, and therefore, as a rule, selfish," says the
vicar, with a laugh.

"Was it selfish? I suppose so." His face clouds again: a sort of
reckless defiance shadows it. "You must not expect much from me," he
says, slowly: "they don't accredit me with any good nowadays."

"My dear fellow," says the vicar, quietly, "there is something wrong
with you, or you would not so speak. I don't ask you now what it is:
you shall tell me when and where you please. I only entreat you to
believe that no one, knowing you as I do, could possibly think
anything of you but what is kind and good and true."

Branscombe draws his breath quickly. His pale face flushes; and a
gleam, that is surely born of tears, shines in his eyes. Clarissa,
who, up to this, has been talking to some of the children, comes up to
him at this moment and slips her hand through his arm. Is he not
almost her brother?

Only his wife stands apart, and, with white lips and dry eyes and a
most miserable heart, watches him without caring--or daring--to go
near to him. She is silent, _distraite_, and has altogether forgotten
the fact of Kennedy's existence (though he still stands close beside
her),--a state of things that young gentleman hardly affects.

"Has your class been too much for you? Or do other things--or
people--distress you?" he asks, presently, in a meaning tone. "Because
you have not uttered one word for quite five minutes."

"You have guessed correctly: some people do distress me--after a
time," says Mrs. Branscombe, so pointedly that Kennedy takes the
hint, and, shaking hands with her somewhat stiffly, disappears through
the door-way.

"Oh, yes," the vicar is saying to Clarissa, in a glad tone, that even
savors of triumph, "the Batesons have given up the Methodist chapel
and have come back to me. They have forgiven about the bread, though
they made a heavy struggle for it. Mrs. Redmond and I put our heads
together and wondered what we should do, and if we couldn't buy
anything there so as to make up for the loss of the daily loaves,
because she would not consent to poison the children."

"And you would!" says Clarissa, reproachfully. "Oh, what a terrible
admission!"

"We won't go into that, my dear Clarissa, if you please," says the
vicar, contritely. "There are moments in every life that one regrets.
But the end of our cogitations was this: that we went down to the
village,--Mrs. Redmond and I,--and, positively, for one bar of soap
and a package of candles we bought them all back to their pew in
church. You wouldn't have thought there was so much grace in soap and
candles, would you?" says the vicar, with a curious gleam in his eyes
that is half amusement, half contempt.

Even Georgie laughs a little at this, and comes nearer to them, and
stands close beside Clarissa, as if shy and uncertain, and glad to
have a sure partisan so near to her,--all which is only additional
pain to Dorian, who notices every lightest word and action of the
woman he has married.

"How did you get on to-day with your little people?" asks Mr. Redmond,
taking notice of her at once,--something, too, in her downcast
attitude appealing to his sense of pity. "Was that boy of the
Brixton's more than usually trying?"

"Well, he was bad enough," says Georgie, in a tone that implies she is
rather letting off the unfortunate Brixton from future punishment.
"But I have known him worse; indeed, I think he improves."

"Indeed, I think a son of his father could never improve," says the
vicar, with a melancholy sigh. "There isn't an ounce of brains in all
that family. Long ago, when first I came here, Sam Brixton (the father
of your pupil) bought a cow from a neighboring farmer called George
Gilbert, and he named it John. I thought that an extraordinary name
to call a cow, so I said to him one day, 'Sam, why on earth did you
christen that poor inoffensive beast John?' 'John?' said he, somewhat
indignantly, 'John? Why wouldn't I call him John, when I bought him
from George Gilbert?' I didn't see his meaning then,--and, I confess,
I haven't seen it since,--but I was afraid to expose my stupidity, so
I held my tongue. Do you see it?" He turns to Dorian.

"Not much," says Dorian, with a faint laugh.




CHAPTER XXXI.

  "One woe doth tread upon another's heel,
  So fast they follow."--_Hamlet._

  "One, that was a woman, sir."--_Hamlet._


Across the autumn grass, that has browned beneath the scorching summer
rays, and through the fitful sunshine, comes James Scrope.

Through the woods, under the dying beech-trees that lead to Gowran, he
saunters slowly, thinking only of the girl beyond, who is not thinking
of him at all, but of the man who, in his soul, Sir James believes
utterly unworthy of her.

This thought so engrosses him, as he walks along, that he fails to
hear Mrs. Branscombe, until she is close beside him, and until she
says, gently,--

"How d'ye do, Sir James?" At this his start is so visible that she
laughs, and says, with a faint blush,--

"What! is my coming so light that one fails to hear it?"

To which he, recovering himself, makes ready response:

      "So light a foot
  Will ne'er wear out the everlasting flint."

Then, "You are coming from Gowran?"

"Yes; from Clarissa."

"She is well?"

"Yes, and, I suppose, happy,"--with a shrug. "She expects Horace
to-morrow." There is a certain scorn in her manner, that attracts his
notice.

"Is that sufficient to create happiness?" he says, some what
bitterly, in spite of himself. "But of course it is. You know Horace?"

"Not well, but well enough," says Mrs. Branscombe, with a frown. "I
know him well enough to hate him."

She pauses, rather ashamed of herself for her impulsive confidence,
and not at all aware that by this hasty speech she has made a friend
of Sir James for life.

"Hate him?" he says, feeling he could willingly embrace her on the
spot were society differently constituted. "Why, what has he done to
you?"

"Nothing; but he is not good enough for Clarissa," protests she,
energetically. "But then who is good enough? I really think," says
Mrs. Branscombe, with earnest conviction, "she is far too sweet to be
thrown away upon any man."

Even this awful speech fails to cool Sir James's admiration for the
speaker. She has declared herself a non-admirer of the all-powerful
Horace, and this goes so far a way with him that he cannot bring
himself to find fault with her on any score.

"I don't know why I express my likes and dislikes to you so openly,"
she says, gravely, a little later on; "and I don't know, either, why I
distrust Horace. I have only a woman's reason. It is Shakespeare
slightly altered: 'I hate him so, because I hate him so.' And I hope,
with all my heart, Clarissa will never marry him."

Then she blushes again at her openness, and gives him her hand, and
bids him good-by, and presently he goes on his way once more to
Gowran.

On the balcony there stands Clarissa, the solemn Bill close beside
her. She is leaning on the parapet, with her pretty white hands
crossed and hanging loosely over it. As she sees him coming, with a
little touch of coquetry, common to most women, she draws her
broad-brimmed hat from her head, and, letting it fall upon the
balcony, lets the uncertain sunlight touch warmly her fair brown hair
and tender exquisite face.

Bill, sniffing, lifts himself, and, seeing Sir James, shakes his
shaggy sides, and, with his heavy head still drooping, and his most
hang-dog expression carefully put on, goes cautiously down the stone
steps to greet him.

Having been patted, and made much of, and having shown a scornful
disregard for all such friendly attentions, he trots behind Sir James
at the slow funeral pace he usually affects, until Clarissa is
reached.

"Better than my ordinary luck to find you here," says Sir James, who
is in high good humor. "Generally you are miles away when I get to
Gowran. And--forgive me--how exceedingly charming you are looking this
morning!"

Miss Peyton is clearly not above praise. She laughs,--a delicious
rippling little laugh,--and colors faintly.

"A compliment from you!" she says. "No wonder I blush. Am I really
lovely, Jim, or only commonly pretty? I should hate to be commonly
pretty." She lifts her brows disdainfully.

"You needn't hate yourself," says Scrope, calmly. "Lovely is the word
for you."

"I'm rather glad," says Miss Peyton, with a sigh of relief. "If only
for--Horace's sake!"

Sir James pitches his cigar over the balcony, and frowns. Always
Horace! Can she not forget him for even one moment?

"What brought you?" asks she, presently.

"What a gracious speech!"--with a rather short laugh. "To see you, I
fancy. By the by, I met Mrs. Branscombe on my way here. She didn't
look particularly happy."

"No." Clarissa's eyes grow sad. "After all, that marriage was a
terrible mistake, and it seemed such a satisfactory one. Do you know,"
in a half-frightened tone, "I begin to think they hate each other?"

"They don't seem to hit it off very well, certainly," says Sir James,
moodily. "But I believe there is something more on Branscombe's mind
than his domestic worries: I am afraid he is getting into trouble over
the farm, and that, and nothing hits a man like want of money. That
Sawyer is a very slippery fellow, in my opinion: and of late Dorian
has neglected everything and taken no interest in his land, and, in
fact, lets everything go without question."

"I have no patience with Georgie," says Clarissa, indignantly. "She is
positively breaking his heart."

"She is unhappy, poor little thing," says Scrope, who cannot find it
in his heart to condemn the woman who has just condemned Horace
Branscombe.

"It is her own fault if she is. I know few people so lovable as
Dorian. And now to think he has another trouble makes me wretched. I
do hope you are wrong about Sawyer."

"I don't think I am," says Scrope; and time justifies his doubt of
Dorian's steward.

       *       *       *       *       *

                               "SARTORIS, Tuesday, four o'clock.

     "DEAR SCROPE,--

     "Come up to me at _once_, if possible. Everything here is in
     a deplorable state. You have heard, of course, that Sawyer
     bolted last night; but perhaps you have _not_ heard that he
     has left things in a ruinous state. I must see you with as
     little delay as you can manage. Come straight to the library,
     where you will find me alone.

                              "Yours ever,

                                                         "D. B."

Sir James, who is sitting in his sister's room, starts to his feet on
reading this letter.

"Patience, I must go at once to Sartoris," he says, looking pale and
distressed.

"To see that mad boy?"

"To see Dorian Branscombe."

"That is quite the same thing. You don't call him sane, do you? To
marry that chit of a girl without a grain of common sense in her silly
head, just because her eyes were blue and her hair yellow, forsooth.
And then to go and get mixed up with that Annersley affair--"

"My dear Patience!"

"Well, why not? Why should I not talk? One must use one's tongue, if
one isn't a dummy. And then there is that man Sawyer: he could get no
one out of the whole country but a creature who----"

"Hush!" says Sir James, hastily and unwisely. "Better be silent on
that subject." Involuntarily he lays his hand upon the letter just
received.

"Ha!" says Miss Scrope, triumphantly, with astonishing sharpness. "So
I was right, was I? So that pitiful being has been exposed to the
light of day, has he? I always said how it would be; I knew it!--ever
since last spring, when I sent to him for some cucumber-plants, and
he sent me instead (with wilful intent to insult me) two vile gourds.
I always knew how it would end."

"Well, and how has it ended?" says Sir James, with a weak effort to
retrieve his position, putting on a small air of defiance.

"Don't think to deceive me," says Miss Scrope, in a terrible tone;
whereupon Sir James flies the apartment, feeling in his heart that in
a war of words Miss Scrope's match is yet to be found.

Entering the library at Sartoris, he finds Dorian there, alone,
indeed, and comfortless, and sore at heart.

It is a dark dull day. The first breath of winter is in the air. The
clouds are thick and sullen, and are lying low, as if they would
willingly come down to sit upon the earth and there rest
themselves,--so weary they seem, and so full of heaviness.

Above them a wintry sun is trying vainly to recover its ill temper.
Every now and then a small brown bird, flying hurriedly past the
windows, is almost blown against them by the strong and angry blast.

Within, a fire is burning, and the curtains are half drawn across the
windows and the glass door, that leads, by steps, down into the
garden. No lamps are lit, and the light is sombre and severe.

"You have come," says Dorian, advancing eagerly to meet him. "I knew I
could depend upon you, but it is more than good of you to be here so
soon. I have been moping a good deal, I am afraid, and forgot all
about the lamps. Shall I ring for some one now to light them?"

"No: this light is what I prefer," says Scrope, laying his hand upon
his arm. "Stir up the fire, if you like."

"Even that I had not given one thought to," says Branscombe, drearily.
"Sitting here all alone, I gave myself up a prey to evil thoughts."

The word "alone" touches Sir James inexpressibly. Where was his wife
all the time, that she never came to him to comfort and support him in
his hour of need?

"Is everything as bad as you say?" he asks, presently, in a subdued
tone.

"Quite as bad; neither worse nor better. There are no gradations about
utter ruin. You heard about Sawyer, of course? Harden has been with
me all last night and to-day, and between us we have been able to make
out that he has muddled away almost all the property,--which, you
know, is small. As yet we hardly know how we stand. But there is one
claim of fifteen thousand pounds that must be paid without delay, and
I have not one penny to meet it, so am literally driven to the wall."

"You speak as if----"

"No, I am speaking quite rationally. I know what you would say; but if
I was starving I would not accept one shilling from Lord Sartoris.
That would be impossible. You can understand why, without my going
into that infamous scandal. I suppose I can sell Sartoris, and pay
my--that is, Sawyer's--debts; but that will leave me a beggar." Then,
in a low tone, "I should hardly care, but for her. That is almost more
than I can bear."

"You say this debt of fifteen thousand pounds is the one that presses
hardest?"

"Yes. But for that, I might, by going in for strict economy, manage to
retrieve my present position in a year or two."

"I wish you would explain more fully," says Sir James; whereupon
Dorian enters into an elaborate explanation that leaves all things
clear.

"It seems absurd," says Scrope, impatiently, "that you, the heir to an
earldom and unlimited wealth, should be made so uncomfortable for the
sake of a paltry fifteen thousand pounds."

"I hardly think my wealth unlimited," says Branscombe; "there is a
good deal of property not entailed, and the ready money is at my
uncle's own disposal. You know, perhaps, that he has altered his will
in favor of Horace,--has, in fact, left him everything that it is
possible to leave?"

"This is all new to me," says Sir James, indignantly. "If it is true,
it is the most iniquitous thing I ever heard in my life."

"It is true," says Branscombe, slowly. "Altogether, in many ways, I
have been a good deal wrong; and the money part of it has not hurt me
the most."

"If seven thousand pounds would be of any use to you," says Scrope,
gently, delicately, "I have it lying idle. It will, indeed, be a
great convenience if you will take it at a reasonable----"

"That is rather unkind of you," says Dorian, interrupting him hastily.
"Don't say another word on that subject. I shall sink or swim without
aid from my friends,--aid, I mean, of that sort. In other ways you can
help me. Harden will, of course, see to the estate; but there are
other, more private matters, that I would intrust to you alone. Am I
asking too much?"

"Don't be unkind in your own turn," says Scrope, with tears in his
eyes.

"Thank you," says Dorian, simply. His heart seems quite broken.

"What of your wife?" asks Sir James, with some hesitation. "Does she
know?"

"I think not. Why should she be troubled before her time? It will come
fast enough. She made a bad match, after all, poor child! But there is
one thing I must tell you, and it is the small drop of comfort in my
cup. About a month ago, Lord Sartoris settled upon her twenty thousand
pounds, and that will keep her at least free from care. When I am
gone, I want you to see to her, and let me know, from time to time,
that she is happy and well cared for."

"But will she consent to this separation from you, that may last for
years?"

"Consent!" says Dorian, bitterly. "That is not the word. She will be
glad, at this chance that has arisen to put space between us. I
believe from my heart that----"

"What is it you believe?" says a plaintive voice, breaking in upon
Dorian's speech with curious energy. The door leading into the garden
is wide open: and now the curtain is thrust aside, and a fragile
figure, gowned in some black filmy stuff, stands before them. Both men
start as she advances in the uncertain light. Her face is deadly pale;
her eyes are large, and almost black, as she turns them questioningly
upon Sir James Scrope. It is impossible for either man to know what
she may, or may not, have heard.

"I was in the garden," she says, in an agitated tone, "and I heard
voices; and something about money; and Dorian's going away: and----"
(she puts her hand up to her throat) "and about ruin. I could not
understand: but you will tell me. You must."

"Tell her, Dorian," says Sir James. But Dorian looks doggedly away
from her, through the open window, into the darkening garden beyond.

"Tell me, Dorian," she says, nervously, going up to him, and laying a
small white trembling hand upon his arm.

"There is no reason why you should be distressed," says Branscombe,
very coldly, lifting her hand from his arm, as though her very touch
is displeasing to him. "You are quite safe. Sawyer's mismanagement of
the estate has brought me to the verge of ruin; but Lord Sartoris has
taken care that you will not suffer."

She is trembling violently.

"And you?" she says.

"I shall go abroad until things look brighter." Then he turns to her
for the first time, and, taking both her hands, presses them
passionately. "I can hardly expect forgiveness from you," he says:
"you had, at least, a right to expect position when you made your
unhappy marriage, and now you have nothing."

I think she hardly hears this cruel speech. Her thoughts still cling
to the word that has gone before.

"Abroad?" she says, with quivering lips.

"Only for a time," says Sir James, taking pity upon her evident
distress.

"Does he owe a great deal?" asks she, feverishly. "Is it a very large
sum? Tell me how much it is."

Scrope, who is feeling very sorry for her, explains matters, while
Dorian maintains a determined silence.

"Fifteen thousand pounds, if procured at once, would tide him over his
difficulties," says Sir James, who does her the justice to divine her
thoughts correctly. "Time is all he requires."

"I have twenty thousand pounds," says Georgie, eagerly. "Lord Sartoris
says I may do what I like with it. Dorian,"--going up to him
again,--"take it,--do, _do_. You will make me happier than I have been
for a long time if you will accept it."

A curious expression lights Dorian's face. It is half surprise, half
contempt: yet, after all, perhaps there is some genuine gladness in
it.

"I cannot thank you sufficiently," he says, in a low tone. "Your offer
is more than kind: it is generous. But I cannot accept it. It is
impossible I should receive anything at your hands."

"Why?" she says, her lips white, her eyes large and earnest.

"Does that question require an answer?" asks Dorian, slowly. "There
was a time, even in our short married life, when I believed in your
friendship for me, and then I would have taken anything from
you,--from my wife; but now, I tell you again, it is impossible. You
yourself have put it out of my power."

He turns from her coldly, and concentrates his gaze once more upon the
twilit garden.

"Don't speak to me like that,--at least now," says Georgie, her breath
coming in short quick gasps. "It hurts me so! Take this wretched
money, if--if you still have any love for me."

He turns deliberately away from the small pleading face.

"And leave you penniless," he says.

"No, not that. Some day you can pay me back, if you wish it. All these
months you have given me every thing I could possibly desire, let me
now make you some small return."

Unfortunately, this speech angers him deeply.

"We are wasting time," he says, quickly. "Understand, once for all, I
will receive nothing from you."

"James," says Mrs. Branscombe, impulsively, going up to Scrope and
taking his hand. She is white and nervous, and, in her agitation, is
hardly aware that, for the first time, she has called him by his
Christian name. "Persuade him. Tell him he should accept this money.
Dear James, speak for me: _I_ am nothing to him."

For the second time Branscombe turns and looks at her long and
earnestly.

"I must say I think your wife quite right," says Scrope,
energetically. "She wants you to take this money; your not taking it
distresses her very much, and you have no right in the world to marry
a woman and then make her unhappy." This is faintly quixotic,
considering all the circumstances, but nobody says anything. "You
ought to save Sartoris from the hammer no matter at what
price,--pride or anything else. It isn't a fair thing, you know,
Branscombe, to lift the roof from off her head for a silly prejudice."

When he has finished this speech, Sir James feels that he has been
unpardonably impertinent.

"She will have a home with my uncle," says Branscombe, unmoved,--"a
far happier and more congenial home than this has ever been." A faint
sneer disfigures his handsome mouth for a moment. Then his mood
changes, and he turns almost fiercely upon Georgie. "Why will you
fight against your own good fortune?" he says. "See how it is favoring
you. You will get rid of me for years, perhaps--I hope--forever, and
you will be comfortable with him."

"No, I shall not," says Mrs. Branscombe, a brilliant crimson has grown
upon her pale cheeks, her eyes are bright and full of anger, she
stands back from him and looks at him with passionate reproach and
determination in her gaze. "You think I will consent to live calmly
here while you are an exile from your home? In so much you wrong me.
When you leave Sartoris, I leave it too,--to be a governess once
more."

"I forbid you to do that," says Branscombe. "I am your husband, and,
as such, the law allows me some power over you. But this is only an
idle threat," he says, contemptuously. "When I remember how you
consented to marry even me to escape such a life of drudgery, I cannot
believe you will willingly return to it again."

"Nevertheless I shall," says Georgie, slowly. "You abandon me: why,
then, should you have power to control my actions? And I will not live
at Hythe, and I will not live at all in Pullingham unless I live
here."

"Don't be obstinate, Dorian," says Sir James, imploringly. "Give in to
her: it will be more manly. Don't you see she has conceived an
affection for the place by this time, and can't bear to see it pass
into strange hands? In the name of common sense, accept this chance of
rescue, and put an end to a most unhappy business."

Dorian leans his arms upon the mantel-piece, and his head upon his
arms. Shall he, or shall he not, consent to this plan? Is he really
behaving, as Scrope has just said, in an unmanly manner?

A lurid flame from the fire lights up the room, and falls warmly upon
Georgie's anxious face and clasped hands and sombre clinging gown;
upon Dorian's bowed head and motionless figure, and upon Sir James,
standing tall and silent within the shadow that covers the corner
where he is. All is sad, and drear, and almost tragic!

Georgie, with both hands pressed against her bosom, waits breathlessly
for Dorian's answer. At last it comes. Lifting his head, he says, in a
dull tone that is more depressing than louder grief,--

"I consent. But I cannot live here just yet. I shall go away for a
time. I beg you both to understand that I do this thing against my
will for my wife's sake,--not for my own. Death itself could not be
more bitter to me than life has been of late." For the last time he
turns and looks at Georgie. "You know who has embittered it," he says.
And then, "Go: I wish to be alone!"

Scrope, taking Mrs. Branscombe's cold hand in his, leads her from the
room. When outside, she presses her fingers on his in a grateful
fashion, and, whispering something to him in a broken voice,--which he
fails to hear,--she goes heavily up the staircase to her own room.

When inside, she closes the door, and locks it, and, going as if with
a purpose to a drawer in a cabinet, draws from it a velvet frame.
Opening it, she gazes long and earnestly upon the face it contains: it
is Dorian's.

It is a charming, lovable face, with its smiling lips and its large
blue honest eyes. Distrustfully she gazes at it, as if seeking to
discover some trace of duplicity in the clear open features. Then
slowly she takes the photograph from the frame, and with a scissors
cuts out the head, and, lifting the glass from a dull gold locket upon
the table near her, carefully places the picture in it.

When her task is finished, she looks at it once again, and then laughs
softly to herself,--a sneering unlovable laugh full of self-contempt.
Her whole expression is unforgiving, yet suggestive of deep regret.
Somehow, at this moment his last words came back to her and strike
coldly on her heart: "I wish to be alone!"

"Alone!" How sadly the word had fallen from his lips! How stern his
face had been, how broken and miserable his voice! Some terrible grief
was tearing at his heart, and there was no one to comfort or love him,
or----

She gets up from her chair, and paces the room impatiently, as though
inaction had ceased to be possible to her. An intense craving to see
him again fills her soul. She must go to him, if only to know what he
has been doing since last she left him. Acting on impulse, she goes
quickly down the stairs, and across the hall to the library, and
enters with a beating heart.

All is dark and dreary enough to chill any expectant mind. The fire,
though warm and glowing still, has burned to a dull red, and no bright
flames flash up to illumine the gloom. Blinded by the sudden change
from light to darkness, she goes forward nervously until she reaches
the hearth-rug: then she discovers that Dorian is no longer there.




CHAPTER XXXII.

  "Shake hands forever, cancel all our vows;
    And when we meet at any time again,
  Be it not seen in either of our brows
    That we one jot of former love retain."--DRAYTON.


Not until Mrs. Branscombe has dismissed her maid for the night does
she discover that the plain gold locket in which she had placed
Dorian's picture is missing. She had (why, she hardly cares to explain
even to herself) hung it round her neck; and now, where is it?

After carefully searching her memory for a few moments, she remembers
that useless visit to the library before dinner, and tells herself she
must have dropped it then. She will go and find it. Slipping into a
pale-blue dressing-gown, that serves to make softer and more adorable
her tender face and golden hair, she thrusts her feet into slippers of
the same hue, and runs down-stairs for the third time to-day, to the
library.

Opening the door, the brilliant light of many lamps greets her, and,
standing by the fire is her husband, pale and haggard, with the
missing locket in his hand. He has opened it, and is gazing at his own
face with a strange expression.

"Is this yours?" he asks, as she comes up to him. "Did you come to
look for it?"

"Yes." She holds out her hand to receive it from him, but he shows
some hesitation about giving it.

"Let me advise you to take this out of it," he says, coldly, pointing
to his picture. "Its being here must render the locket valueless. What
induced you to give it such a place?"

"It was one of my many mistakes," returns she, calmly, making a
movement as though to leave him; "and you are right. The locket is, I
think, distasteful to me. I don't want it any more: you can keep it."

"I don't want it, either," returns he, hastily; and then, with a
gesture full of passion, he flings it deliberately into the very heart
of the glowing fire. There it melts, and grows black, and presently
sinks, with a crimson coal, utterly out of sight.

"The best place for it," says he, bitterly. "I wish I could as easily
be obliterated and forgotten."

Is it forgotten? She says nothing, makes no effort to save the fated
case that holds his features, but, with hands tightly clenched,
watches its ruin. Her eyes are full of tears, but she feels benumbed,
spiritless, without power to shed them.

Once more she makes a movement to leave him.

"Stay," he says, gently; "I have a few things to say to you, that may
as well be got over now. Come nearer to the fire: you must be cold."

She comes nearer, and, standing on the hearth-rug, waits for him to
speak. As she does so, a sharp cough, rising to her throat, distresses
her sufficiently to bring some quick color into her white cheeks.
Though in itself of little importance, this cough has now annoyed her
for at least a fortnight, and shakes her slight frame with its
vehemence.

"Your cough is worse to-night," he says, turning to regard her more
closely.

"No, not worse."

"Why do you walk about the house so insufficiently clothed?" asks he,
angrily, glancing at her light dressing-gown with great disfavor.
"One would think you were seeking ill health. Here, put this round
you." He tries to place upon her shoulders the cashmere shawl she had
worn when coming in from the garden in the earlier part of the
evening. But she shrinks from him.

"No, no," she says, petulantly; "I am warm enough; and I do not like
that thing. It is black,--the color of Death!"

Her words smite cold upon his heart. A terrible fear gains mastery
over him. Death! What can it have to do with one so fair, so young,
yet, alas! so frail?

"You will go somewhere for change of air?" he says, entreatingly,
going up to her and laying his hand upon her shoulder. "It is of this,
partly, I wish to speak to you. You will find this house lonely and
uncomfortable (though doubtless pleasanter) when I am gone. Let me
write to my aunt, Lady Monckton. She will be very glad to have you for
a time."

"No; I shall stay here. Where are you going?"

"I hardly know; and I do not care at all."

"How long will you be away?"

"How can I answer that question either? There is nothing to bring me
home."

"How soon do you go?" Her voice all through is utterly without
expression, or emotion of any kind.

"Immediately," he answers, curtly. "Are you in such a hurry to be rid
of me? Be satisfied, then: I start to-morrow." Then, after an unbroken
pause, in which even her breathing cannot be heard, he says, in a
curious voice, "I suppose there will be no occasion for me to write to
you while I am away?"

She does not answer directly. She would have given half her life to be
able to say, freely, "Write to me, Dorian, if only a bare line, now
and then, to tell me you are alive;" but pride forbids her.

"None, whatever," she says, coldly, after her struggle with her inner
self. "I dare say I shall hear all I care to hear from Clarissa or Sir
James."

There is a long silence. Georgie's eyes are fixed dreamily upon the
sparkling coals. His eyes are fixed on her. What a child she looks in
her azure gown, with her yellow hair falling in thick masses over her
shoulders. So white, so fair, so cruelly cold! Has she no heart, that
she can stand in that calm, thoughtful attitude, while his heart is
slowly breaking?

She has destroyed all his happy life, this "amber witch," with her
loveliness, and her pure girlish face, and her bitter indifference;
and yet his love for her at this moment is stronger, perhaps, than it
has ever been. He is leaving her. Shall he ever see her again?

Something at this moment overmasters him. Moving a step nearer to her,
he suddenly catches her in his arms, and, holding her close to his
heart, presses kisses (unforbidden) upon her lips and cheek and brow.

In another instant she has recovered herself, and, placing her hands
against his chest, frees herself, by a quick gesture, from his
embrace.

"Was that how you used to kiss _her_?" she says, in a choked voice,
her face the color of death. "Let me go: your touch is contamination."

Almost before the last word has passed her lips, he releases her, and,
standing back, confronts her with a face as livid as her own.

In the one hurried glance she casts at him, she knows that all is,
indeed, over between them now; never again will he sue to her for love
or friendship. She would have spoken again,--would, perhaps, have said
something to palliate the harshness of her last words,--but by a
gesture he forbids her. He points to the door.

"Leave the room," he says, in a stern commanding tone; and, utterly
subdued and silenced by his manner, she turns and leaves him.




CHAPTER XXXIII.

  "A goodly apple, rotten at the heart.
  Oh, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!"--_Merchant of Venice._

  "No hinge nor loop
  To hang a doubt on."--_Othello._


Dorian has been two months gone, and it is once again close on
Christmas-tide. All the world is beginning to think of gifts, and
tender greetings, and a coming year. Clarissa is dreaming of wedding
garments white as the snow that fell last night.

The post has just come in. Clarissa, waking, stretches her arms over
her head with a little lazy delicious yawn, and idly turns over her
letters one by one. But presently, as she breaks the seal of an
envelope, and reads what lies inside it, her mood changes, and,
springing from her bed, she begins to dress herself with nervous
rapidity.

Three hours later, Sir James, sitting in his library, is startled by
the apparition of Clarissa standing in the door-way with a very
miserable face.

"What on earth has happened?" says Sir James, who is a very practical
young man and always goes at once to the root of a mystery.

"Horace is ill," says Miss Peyton, in a tone that might have suited
the occasion had the skies just fallen. "Oh, Jim, what shall I do?"

"My dearest girl," says Scrope, going up to her and taking her hands.

"Yes, he is very ill! I had not heard from him for a fortnight, and
was growing wretchedly uneasy, when to-day a letter came from Aunt
Emily telling me he has been laid up with low fever for over ten days.
And he is very weak, the doctor says, and no one is with him. And papa
is in Paris, and Lord Sartoris is with Lady Monckton, and Dorian--no
one knows where Dorian is!"

"Most extraordinary his never getting any one to write you a line!"

"Doesn't that only show how fearfully ill he must be? Jim, you will
help me, won't you?"

This appeal is not to be put on one side.

"Of course I will," says Scrope: "you know that--or you ought. What do
you want me to do?"

"To take me to him. I want to see him with my own eyes."

"To go yourself?" says Sir James, extreme disapprobation in his tone.
"You must be out of your mind."

"I am not," returns she, indignantly. "I never was more in it. And I
am going, any-way."

"What will your father say?"

"He will say I was quite right. Dear, _dear_, DEAR Jim,"--slipping her
hand through his arm, and basely descending from _hauteur_ to
coaxing,--"do say you will take me to him. It can't be wrong! Am I not
going to be his wife in a month's time?"

Sir James moves a chair out of his way with most unnecessary
vehemence.

"How that alters the case I can't see," he says, obstinately.

"You forsake me!" says Miss Peyton, her eyes filling with tears. "Do.
I can't be much unhappier than I am, but I did depend on you, you were
always so much my friend." Here two large tears run down her cheeks,
and they, of course, decide everything.

"I will take you," he says, hastily. "To-day?--The sooner the better,
I suppose."

"Yes; by the next train. Oh, how obliged to you I am! Dear Jim, I
shall never forget it to you!"

This is supposed to be grateful to him, but it is quite the reverse.

"I think you are very foolish to go at all," he says, somewhat
gruffly.

"Perhaps I am," she says, with a rueful glance. "But you cannot
understand. Ah! if you loved, yourself, you could sympathize with me."

"Could I?" says Sir James, with a grimace that is meant for a smile,
but as such is a most startling specimen of its class.

So they go up to town, and presently arrive at the house where Horace
lies unconscious of all around him. The door is opened to them by an
unmistakable landlady,--a fat, indolent person, with sleepy eyes, and
a large mouth, and a general air about her suggestive of perpetual
beef-steaks and bottled stout.

This portly dame, on being questioned, tells them, "Mr. Branscum has
just bin given his draft, and now he is snoozin' away as peaceable as
a hinfant, bless 'im."

"Is he--in bed?" asks Sir James, diffidently, this large person having
the power to reduce him to utter subjection.

"Lawks! no, sir. He wouldn't stay there he's that contrairy. Beggin'
yore parding, sir, he's yore brother?"

Sir James nods. She may prove difficult, this stout old lady, if he
declares himself no relative.

"To be shore!" says she. "I might 'a' knowed by the speakin' likeness
between you. You're the born himage of 'im. After his draft we laid
'im on the sofy, and there he is now, sleepin' the sleep of the just.
Just step up and see him; do, now. He is in a state of comus, and not
expectit to get out of it for two hours."

"The young--lady--will go up," says Sir James, feeling, somehow, as if
he has insulted Clarissa by calling her "a young lady." "She would
like" (in a confidential tone that wins on the stout landlady) "to see
him alone, just at first."

"Just so," says Mrs. Goodbody, with a broad wink; and Clarissa is
forthwith shown up-stairs, and told to open the first door she comes
to.

"And you," says Mrs. Goodbody to Sir James, "will please just to step
in 'ere and wait for her, while I see about the chicking broth!"

"What a charming room!" says Sir James, hypocritically; whereupon the
good woman, being intensely flattered, makes her exit with as much
grace as circumstances and her size will permit.

Clarissa opening the door with a beating heart, finds herself in a
pretty, carefully-shaded room, at the farther end of which, on a sofa,
Horace lies calmly sleeping. He is more altered than even her worst
fears had imagined, and as she bends over him she marks, with quick
grief, how thin and worn and haggard he has grown.

The blue veins stand out upon his nerveless hands. Tenderly, with the
very softest touch, she closes her own fingers over his. Gently she
brushes back the disordered hair from his flushed forehead, and then,
with a quick accession of coloring, stoops to lay a kiss upon the
cheek of the man who is to be her husband in one short month.

A hand laid upon her shoulder startles and deters her from her
purpose. It is a light, gentle touch, but firm and decided and
evidently meant to prevent her from giving the caress. Quickly raising
herself, Clarissa draws back, and, turning her head, sees----

Who is it? Has time rolled backwards? A small, light, gray-clad figure
stands before her, a figure only too well remembered! The brown hair
brushed back from the white temples with the old Quakerish neatness,
the dove-like eyes, the sensitive lips, cannot be mistaken. Clarissa
raises her hands to her eyes to shut out the sight.

Oh! not that! Anything but that! Not Ruth Annersley!

A faint sick feeling overcomes her; involuntarily she lays a hand upon
the back of a chair near her, to steady herself; while Ruth stands
opposite to her, with fingers convulsively clinched, and dilated
nostrils, and eyes dark with horror.

"What brings you here?" asks Ruth, at length, in a voice hard and
unmusical.

"To see the man whose wife I was to have been next month," says
Clarissa, feeling compelled to answer. "And"--in a terrible tone--"who
are you?"

"The woman who ought to be his wife," says Ruth, in the same hard
tone, still with her hands tightly clasped.

Clarissa draws her breath hard, but returns no answer; and then there
falls upon them a long, long silence, that presently becomes
unbearable. The two women stand facing each other, scarcely breathing.
The unnatural stillness is undisturbed save by the quick irregular
gasps of the sick man.

Once he sighs heavily, and throws one hand and arm across his face.
Then Ruth stirs, and, going swiftly and noiselessly to his side, with
infinite tenderness draws away the arm and replaces it in its former
position. She moves his pillows quietly, and passes her cool hand
across his fevered brow.

"Ruth?" he moans, uneasily, and she answers, "I am here, darling," in
the faintest, sweetest whisper.

Something within Clarissa's heart seems to give way. At this moment,
for the first time, she realizes the true position in which he has
placed her. A sensation of faintness almost overcomes her, but by a
supreme effort she conquers her weakness, and crushes back, too, the
rising horror and anger that have sprung into life. A curious calm
falls upon her,--a state that often follows upon keen mental anguish.
She is still completing the victory she has gained over herself, when
Ruth speaks again.

"This is no place for you!" she says, coldly, yet with her hand up to
her cheek, as though to shield her face from the other's gaze.

Clarissa goes up to her then.

"So you are found at last," she says, somewhat monotonously. "And, of
all places, here! Is there any truth in the world, I wonder? Was it
shame kept you from writing, all these months, to your unhappy father?
Do you know that an innocent man--his brother"--pointing with a
shivering gesture to the unconscious Horace--"has been suffering all
this time for his wrong-doing?"

"I know nothing," replies Ruth, sternly. "I seek to know nothing. My
intercourse with the world ceased with my innocence."

"You knew of my engagement to him?" says Clarissa, again motioning
towards the couch.

"Yes."

"Before you left Pullingham?"

"No! oh, no!--not then," exclaims Ruth, eagerly. "I did not believe it
then. Do not judge me more harshly than you can help."

The dull agony that flashes into her eyes quickens into life some
compassionate feeling that still lies dormant in Clarissa's breast.

"I do not judge you at all," she says, with infinite gentleness. Then,
with an impulsive movement, she turns and lays her hand upon her
shoulder. "Come home with me--now!" she says. "Leave this place, Ruth,
I implore you, listen to me!"

"Do not," says Ruth, shrinking from her grasp; "I am not fit for you
to touch. Remember all that has passed."

"Do you think I shall ever forget!" says Clarissa, slowly. "But for
your father's sake: he is ill,--perhaps dying. Come. For his sake you
will surely return?"

"It is too late!" says the girl, in a melancholy voice. And then,
again, "It is impossible." Yet it is apparent that a terrible struggle
is taking place within her breast: how it might have ended, whether
the good or bad angel would have gained the day, can never now be
said; a sigh, a broken accent, decided her.

"My head!" murmurs the sick man, feebly, drawing his breath wearily,
and as if with pain. "Ruth, Ruth, are you there?" The querulous
dependent tone rouses into instant life all the passionate tenderness
that is in Ruth's heart. Having soothed him by a touch, she turns once
more to Clarissa.

"He too is sick,--perhaps dying," she says, feverishly. "I cannot
leave him! I have sacrificed all for him, and I shall be faithful unto
the end. Leave me: I have done you the greatest wrong one woman can do
another. Why should you care for my salvation?" Through all the
defiance there is bitter misery in her tone.

"I don't know why; yet I do," says poor Clarissa, earnestly.

"You are a saint," says Ruth, with white lips. And then she falls upon
her knees. "Oh, if it be in your heart," she cries, "grant me your
forgiveness!"

Clarissa bursts into tears.

"I do grant it," she says. "But I would that my tongue possessed such
eloquence as could induce you to leave this house." She tries to raise
Ruth from her kneeling position.

"Let me remain where I am," says Ruth, faintly. "It is my right
position. I tell you again to go; this is no place for you. Yet stay
you, sweet woman,"--she cries, with sudden fervor, catching hold of
the hem of Clarissa's gown and pressing it to her lips,--"let me look
at you once again! It is my final farewell to all that is pure; and I
would keep your face fresh within my heart."

She gazes at her long and eagerly.

"What! tears?" she says; "and for me? Oh, believe me, though I shall
never see you again, the recollection of these tears will soothe my
dying hours, and perhaps wash out a portion of my sins!"

Her head drops upon her hands. So might the sad Magdalen have knelt.
Her whole body trembles with the intensity of her emotion, yet no
sound escapes her.

"Ruth, for the last time, I implore you to come with me," says
Clarissa, brokenly. And once more the parched lips of the crouching
woman frame the words, "It is too late!"

A moment after, the door is opened, and closed again and Clarissa has
looked her last upon Ruth Annersley.

How she makes her way down to the room where Sir James sits awaiting
her, Clarissa never afterwards remembers.

"It is all over: take me away!" she says, quietly, but somewhat
incoherently.

"He isn't dead?" says Sir James, who naturally conceives the worst
from her agitation.

"No: it is even worse," she says. And then she covers her face with
her hands, and sinks into a chair. "Ruth Annersley is here!" When she
has said this, she feels that life has almost come to an end. How
shall she make this wretched revelation to her father, to Georgie, to
all the rest of the world?

As for Sir James, he stands at some distance from her, literally
stunned by the news. Words seem to fail him. He goes up to her and
takes one of her small icy-cold hands in his.

"Did you see her?"

"Yes."

"The scoundrel!" says Sir James, in a low tone. Then, "Is he very
ill?" There is unmistakable meaning in his tone.

"Very." And here she falls to bitter weeping again.

It is a cruel moment: Sir James still holds her hand, but can find no
words to say to comfort her; indeed, where can comfort lie?

At this instant a heavy footfall resounds along the passage outside.
It warns them of the sylph-like approach of Mrs. Goodbody. Sir James
going quickly to the door, intercepts her.

"My--my sister is quite upset," he says, nervously. "Mr. Branscombe
was--was worse than she expected to find him."

"Upset!--and no wonder, too," says Mrs. Goodbody, with heavy sympathy,
gazing approvingly at Miss Peyton. "There's no denying that he's so
worn out, the pore dear, as it's quite dispiritin' to see 'im, what
with his general appearings and the fear of a bad turn at any mingit.
For myself, I take my meals quite promiscuous like, since he fell
ill,--just a bit here and a bit there, it may be, but nothing reg'lar
like. I ain't got the 'art. Howsoever, 'hope on, hope never,' is my
motter, miss; and we must allus hope for the best, as the sayin' is."

"Just so," says Sir James, who doesn't know, in the very least, what
to say.

"A good wife, sir, I allus say, is half the battle; and that lady
up-stairs, she is a reg'lar trump, she is, and so devoted, as it's
quite affectin' to witness. Good-mornin' sir--thank you, sir. I'll see
to him, you be bound; and, with his good lady above, there ain't the
smallest----"

Sir James, opening the hall door in despair, literally pushes Clarissa
out and into the cab that is awaiting them. For a long time she says
nothing; and just as he is beginning to get really anxious at her
determined silence, she says, with some difficulty,--

"Jim, promise me something?"

"Anything," says Jim.

"Then never again allude to this day, or to anything connected with
it; and never again mention--his--name to me, unless I first speak to
you."

"Never!" returns he, fervently. "Be sure of it."

"Thank you," she says, like a tired child; and then, sinking back in
her corner of the cab, she cries long and bitterly.




CHAPTER XXXIV.

  "Our doubts are traitors,
  And make us lose the good we oft might win."--SHAKESPEARE.

  "The day goeth down red darkling,
    The moaning waves dash out the light,
  And there is not a star of hope sparkling
    On the threshold of my night."--GERALD MASSEY.


The morning after her unfortunate visit to town, Clarissa sends to
Mrs. Branscombe, asking her to come to her without delay. The secret
that is in her heart weighs heavily, and Georgie must be told. Yet,
now, when the door opens, and Georgie stands before her, she is dumb,
and cold, and almost without power to move.

"What is it?" says Mrs. Branscombe, suddenly. The sad little smile
that of late has been peculiar to her fades at sight of Clarissa's
grief-stricken face. She advances, and lays a hand upon her arm. "You
look positively ill, Clarissa: something dreadful has happened. I can
see it in your eyes. It is bad news. Dorian,--he is not----"

She puts her hand to her throat, and leans on a chair.

"It is no bad news for you," says Clarissa, faintly, "but for me." She
pauses.

"Are you in trouble, dearest?" says Mrs. Branscombe, sadly. "I thought
you the happiest girl alive. Is there nothing but misery in this
wretched world?"

"I was in town yesterday," Clarissa begins, with an effort, and then
stops. How is she to betray her lover's falseness?

"And you saw Horace, and he is ill?" says Georgie, anxiously. "Tell me
all, Clarissa."

"It is so hard to tell," says poor Clarissa; and then she turns her
face to the wall, and wishes honestly that all things for her might
now be at an end:

  "Love, art thou bitter?
  Sweet is death to me."

At this moment she could have gladly welcomed death.

"There are many things," she says, "but this worst of all. He does not
love me; he has never loved me. And there is some one else; and----"

"Who is it?" asks Georgie, breathlessly, though the truth as yet is
far from her.

"Ruth Annersley! She was there,--in his rooms!" says Clarissa; and,
after this, there is a silence that lasts for several minutes.

The unhappy truth is told. Clarissa, shamed and heartbroken, moves
away, that her companion may not see her face. As for Mrs. Branscombe,
at first intense wonder renders her motionless; and then, as the exact
meaning of this terrible story breaks in upon her, a great and
glorious gleam of unmistakable rapture lights all her face, and,
sinking upon a _prie-Dieu_ near her, she presses her hands tightly
together. That Dorian is exonerated, is her first thought; that he
will never forgive her, is her second; and this drives all the blood
from her cheeks, and the gladness from her heart, and brings her back
again to the emptiness and barrenness that have made life a wilderness
to her for so many months.

Going over to Clarissa, she lays her arms gently round her neck. There
seems to be a new bond, born of grief, between them now.

"Do not pity me," says Clarissa, entreatingly.

"Pity you? no! There is no occasion for it. You are fortunate in
having escaped such a fate as was in store for you. In time you will
forget all this, and be happy in some other way."

"Shall I?" says Clarissa, drearily. "But, in the mean time, what shall
I do? How shall I fill the blank here?" She lays her hand upon her
heart.

"He is a wretch," says Georgie, with sudden fire. "If I were a man, I
should kill him."

"You should rather be thankful to him," says Clarissa, with some
bitterness. "My misery has proved your joy. The shadow has been raised
from Dorian."

"Clarissa, if you speak to me like that you will break my heart," says
Georgie, deeply grieved. "How could I know joy when you are unhappy?
And--and, besides, there is no joy for me anywhere. Dorian will never
forgive me. How could he? I, his wife, was the one who most heartily
condemned him and believed in his guilt."

"When you see him, all will be well. But he should be told; you will
see to that."

"Of course, darling. He is coming home next week. But how shall I meet
him and say all this to him! The very thought of it is terrible."

"Next week?--so soon?"

"Yes; I had a line from him this morning,--the only one he wrote me
since his departure; but that was my own fault. I am almost sorry he
is coming now," says Mrs. Branscombe, nervously. "I shall dread the
look in his eyes when I confess to him how readily I believed in that
false rumor."

"You hardly deserve pity," says Clarissa, suddenly, turning upon her
with some just anger. "You undervalued him all through. Instead of
going 'down on your knees to thank heaven, fasting, for a good man's
love,' you deliberately flung it away. How different it has been with
me! I trusted blindly, and see my reward! Even yet I cannot realize
it. It seems like some strange horrible nightmare, from which I must
awake. Yesterday I was so happy; to-day----"

She breaks down, and bursts into bitter weeping.

Georgie throws herself on her knees before her.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Is this your luggage, sir? Glad to see you back again, sir."

"Thank you, Jeffers. Yes, that is mine. All right at home, I hope?
Your mistress quite well?"

"Quite well, sir. She is at home, awaiting you."

Dorian turns away with a bitter smile. "At home, awaiting him!" What a
wretched fool he once was, when he used to really picture to himself a
fair fond woman waiting and longing for his return, whenever Fate had
called him from her side!

Arriving at Sartoris, he runs up the stairs to his own room, meeting
no one on his way. He smiles again--the same unlovely smile--as he
tells himself that Jeffers exaggerated the case a little,--as,
plainly, Georgie has taken special pains to be out of the way to avoid
meeting him on his first arrival.

Opening his door, he goes in, closing it firmly behind him. Everything
in the room is just as he had left it. Nothing has been changed; the
very book he had been reading is lying now open at the page he had
last looked into. A glorious fire is burning in the grate. A delicate
Bohemian vase is filled with some rare sweet flowers.

Whose hand had gathered them? If it was one of the servants, it was
very thoughtful. He is very fond of flowers. He moves listlessly
about, wondering vaguely how everything can look, after some months'
absence, so exactly as if he had seen it only yesterday, when a small
object lying on a side-table attracts his notice.

It is a little gray glove, soiled, finger-pressed, warm as if its
owner but just a minute since had drawn it from her hand. It is yet
almost a part of the white, soft flesh it had covered. His brow
contracts, and a pained expression crosses his face. Taking it up, he
lays it in his open palm, and regards it earnestly; he hesitates, and
then, as though unable to prevent himself, he raises it and presses it
passionately to his lips. An instant later, with a contemptuous
gesture and an inward anathema upon his own weakness, he flings it
far from him through the open window down on to the balcony
beneath,--where it flutters to Mrs. Branscombe's feet!

Mechanically she stoops and picks it up. She has been hurrying towards
the house, having only just heard of her husband's arrival, she not
having expected him for some time later, trains at Pullingham being
none of the most punctual.

Gazing at the luckless glove, her whole expression changes. She is
beneath his window: was it his hand flung it so disdainfully to the
ground,--the glove she had worn such a short time before, when
gathering the flowers that are now making his room so sweet? Clasping
the unoffending bit of kid closely in her hand, she enters the house,
by a wide French window, and goes straight into Dorian's room.

At the door she hesitates, and then knocks somewhat nervously.

"Come in." His voice has been so long a stranger to her that she
almost starts on hearing it, and the last remnant of her courage
vanishes. She opens the door and goes slowly in.

Dorian's back is turned to her. His coat is off, and he is brushing
his hair before a glass in the furious fashion men, as a rule, affect.
As she enters, he turns, and putting down the brushes, regards her
with undisguised surprise. Plainly, he has not expected her.

"How d'ye do?" he says, presently. It is perfectly absurd; yet neither
of them laughs. It is the most ridiculous greeting he could possibly
have made her, considering all things; yet no sense of ridicule
touches them. They are too near to tragedy to harbor a thought of
comedy.

"I did not expect you until five," says Georgie, in a constrained
tone. "If I had known, I should have been ready to receive you."

"Pray do not apologize," he says, coldly. "It is very good of you to
come here now. It is more than I expected."

"I came," says Georgie, with an effort, "because I have something to
tell you, that should be told without delay."

"What is it?" he asks, quickly. "Is my uncle well?"

"Quite well. I saw him yesterday. It has nothing to do with him;
though, of course, it must touch him very nearly."

"You will be tired," he says, with grave but distant politeness. "Sit
down while you tell me your news."

"No; I prefer standing." She clasps one hand tightly over the other,
and leans against the wall; she cannot, try as she will, remove her
eyes from his face. "What I want to say is this: I have heard of Ruth
Annersley!"

"Have you?" with an ominous calm in look and tone. "Where is she?"

"With--your brother!"

Dorian walks abruptly to the window, and stands there so that his face
cannot be seen. He is distressed beyond measure. So his old suspicions
have proved true, after all, and Horace's protestations were as basest
lies. He feels sick at heart for his brother's honor,--that miserable
remnant of a once fair thing, that costly garment, now reduced to
rags. After a while he forces himself to speak again.

"Who found her there?" he asks, huskily.

"Clarissa."

"Clarissa?" He is now thoroughly shocked. "What cruel fate made her
the discoverer?"

"Chance. He was ill, and she went to see him, out of pure love for
him. She was rewarded by a sight of Ruth Annersley!"

"Poor girl!" says Branscombe, sadly. "So true,--so trusting."

Georgie draws her breath quickly. Are not his words a reflection upon
her?--she, who has so failed in faith and love?

"I suppose that is all you have to tell me," says Dorian, presently,
in an absent, weary way.

"Not quite all," she says, with a trembling voice. She forces herself
to come nearer to him, and now stands before him like a small pale
culprit, unable to lift her eyes to his. "I want to tell you how
deeply I regret the injustice, the--"

"No, no," interrupts he, impatiently. "Let nothing be said about that.
It would be worse than useless. Why waste words over what can never be
undone?"

Still she perseveres bravely, although her breath is coming quicker,
and her lips are trembling.

"I must tell you how sorry I am," she says, with a suppressed sob. "I
want to ask you, if possible, to forg----"

"Believe me, it will be better to leave all this unsaid," he
interrupts her, gravely.

"Then you do not care to hear how I have regretted the wrong I did
you, and----?"

"As you ask me the question, I will answer you. No, I do not. Had you,
at any time, felt one particle of affection for me, you could never
have so misunderstood me. Let things now remain as they are. Though I
think that perhaps, for the short time I shall remain at home, it will
be better for your sake that we should appear before the world, at
least, as friends."

"You are leaving home again?" she asks, timidly. Now, as he stands
before her, so tall, and strong, and unforgiving, with this new-born
dignity upon him, she fully realizes, for the first time, all she has
recklessly resigned. He had loved her at one time, surely, and she had
trampled on that love, until she had crushed out of it all life and
sweetness:

                "For it so falls out
  That what we have we prize not to the worth
  While we enjoy it; but, being lacked and lost,
  Why, then we rack the value; then we find
  The virtue that possession would not show us
  While it was ours."

"Yes, as soon as I can finish the business that has brought me back. I
fear that will keep me two months, at least. I wish I could hasten it,
but it would be impossible." He grows slightly _distrait_, but, after
a moment, rouses himself with a start, and looks at her. "Am I keeping
you?" he asks, courteously. (To her the courtesy is a positive
cruelty.) "Do not let me detain you any longer. Is there anything more
you wish to say to me?"

"Nothing." His last words have frozen within her all desire for
reconciliation. Is he, indeed, in such great haste to be gone? Without
another word, she goes to the door, but, as she puts out her hand to
open it, something within her grasp becomes known to her. It is the
glove she had picked up on the balcony half an hour ago, and has held
ever since almost unconsciously.

"Was it--was it you that threw this from the window?" she says,
suddenly, for the last time raising her beautiful eyes to her
husband's face.

"Yes. This was no place for it," returns he, sternly.

Going down the staircase, full of grief and wounded pride, she
encounters Lord Sartoris.

"He has come?" asks the old man, in an agitated manner, laying his
hand on her arm.

"He has. If you wish to see him, he is in his own room," replies she,
in a singularly hard tone.

"Have you told him everything?" asks Sartoris, nervously. "It was a
fatal mistake. Do you think he will forgive me?"

"How can I say?" says Mrs. Branscombe, with a bitter smile. "I can
only tell you he has not forgiven me."

"Bless me!" says Lord Sartoris; "then, I suppose, I haven't a chance."

He is disheartened by her words, and goes very slowly on his way
towards his nephew's room. When they are once more face to face, they
pause and look with uncertainty upon each other. Then the older man
holds out his hands beseechingly.

"I have come to demand your forgiveness," he says, with deep entreaty.
"Dorian--grant it!--I am very old----"

In an instant Dorian's arm is round his neck, as it used to be in the
days long ago, before the dark cloud had rolled between them.

"Not another word, or I shall never forgive you!" says Branscombe,
tenderly, with the old smile upon his lips. And Sartoris, strong,
obstinate, self-willed man that he is, lays his head down upon his
"boy's" shoulder, and sobs aloud.




CHAPTER XXXV.

  "Oh, what a deal of scorn looks beautiful
  In the contempt and anger of her lips."--_Twelfth Night._


The dark day is growing colder and more drear. The winds are sighing
sadly. A shivering sobbing breeze, that rushes in a mournful fashion
through the naked twigs, tells one the year is drawing to a close, and
that truly it is "faint with cold, and weak with old."

Clarissa, riding along the forest path that leads to Sartoris, feels
something akin to pleasure in the sound of the rushing torrent that
comes from above and falls headlong into the river that runs on her
right hand.

There is, too, a desolation in the scene that harmonizes with her own
sad thoughts. She has watched the summer leaves and flowers decay, but
little thought her own hopes and longings should have died with them.
Is she never to know peace, or joy, or content again? On her "rests
remembrance like a ban:" she cannot shake it off.

"Rest! rest! Oh, give me rest and peace!" she cries aloud to her soul,
but no rest cometh. The world seems colorless, without tint or
purpose. She would gladly forget, if that might be, but it seems
impossible to her.

  "Ourselves we cannot recreate,
  Nor get our souls to the same key
  Of the remembered harmony."

The past--that is, her happy past--seems gone; the present is full of
grief; the future has nothing to offer. This fact comes to her, and,
with her eyes full of tears, she turns the corner and finds herself
face to face with Horace Branscombe.

The old smile is on his face; he comes to her and holds out both his
hands to take hers. He is worn and thin, and very handsome.

"I am too fortunate to meet you so soon," he says. "Yet I hardly think
I should shake hands with you." Evidently, some thought unknown to her
is in his mind.

"I am glad you have come to that conclusion," she says, "as there is
no desire whatever on my part that our hands should meet."

He is plainly puzzled.

"What a strange welcome!" he says, reproachfully. "My letters during
the past week should have explained everything to you."

"I have had none," says Clarissa, shortly.

"No? Was that why I received no answers? I have risen from a sick-bed
to come to you, and demand the reason of your silence."

"I am sorry you troubled yourself so far. Ruth Annersley could have
given you the answer you require."

His face blanches perceptibly; and his eyes, in their usual stealthy
fashion, seek the ground.

"What have I to do with her?" he says, sullenly.

"Coward!" says Miss Peyton, in a low tone. "Do you, then, deny even
all knowledge of the woman you have so wronged?"

"Take care! do not go too far," cries he, passionately, laying his
hand upon her bridle, close to the bit. "Have you no fear?"

"Of you? none!" returns she, with such open contempt as stings him to
the quick. "Remove your hand, sir."

"When I have said all I wish to say," returns he, coarsely, all his
real brutality coming to the surface. "You shall stay here just as
long as I please, and hear every word I am going to say. You
shall----"

"Will you remove your hand?"

"When it suits me," returns he; "not before."

Passionate indignation conquers her self-control. Raising her arm, she
brings down her riding-whip, with swift and unexpected violence, upon
his cheek. The blow is so severe that, for the moment, he loses his
presence of mind, and, swaying backward, lets the bridle go. Clarissa,
finding herself free, in another moment is out of his reach and on her
way to Sartoris.

As she reaches the gate, she meets James Scrope coming out, and,
drawing rein, looks at him strangely.

"Have you seen a ghost?" asks he, slipping from his saddle, and coming
up to her. "Your face is like death."

"I have, the ghost of an old love, but, oh, how disfigured! Jim, I
have seen Horace."

She hides her face with her hands. She remembers the late scene with
painful distinctness, and wonders if she has been unwomanly, coarse,
undeserving of pity. She will tell him,--that is, Scrope,--and, if he
condemns her, her cup will be indeed full.

Sir James--who, as a rule, is the most amiable of men--is now dark
with anger.

"Branscombe--here?" he says, indignantly.

"Yes. He had evidently heard nothing. But I told him; and--and then he
said things he should not have said; and he held my reins; and I
forgot myself," says poor Clarissa, with anguish in her eyes; "and I
raised my whip, and struck him across the face. Jim, if you say I was
wrong in doing this thing, you will kill me."

"Wrong!" says Scrope. "Hanging would be too good for him. Oh, to think
you should have been alone on such an occasion as that!"

"But it was a hateful thing to do, wasn't it?" says Miss Peyton,
faintly.

"Hateful? Why? I only wish you had laid his cheek open," says Sir
James, venomously. "But of course this poor little hand could not
manage so much." Stooping involuntarily, he presses his lips to the
hand that rests upon her knee.

"That wasn't the hand at all," says Miss Peyton, feeling inexpressibly
consoled by his tone and manner.

"Wasn't it? Then I shall kiss the right one now," says Sir James, and
caresses the other hand right warmly.

"I can't go on to Sartoris to-day," says Clarissa, in a troubled tone,
checking her horse in the middle of the broad avenue.

"No; come home instead," says Scrope; and, turning, they go slowly,
and almost silently, back to Gowran.

       *       *       *       *       *

Horace, rousing himself after his encounter with Clarissa, puts his
hand impulsively to his face, the sting of the blow still remaining.
His illness has left him somewhat prostrate and weak; so that he feels
more intensely than he otherwise would the pain that has arisen from
the sudden stroke. A bitter execration rises to his lips; and then,
feeling that all hope of reconciliation with Clarissa is at an end, he
returns to Langham Station, and, with a mind full of evil thoughts
and bitter revenge, goes back to town.

Wild and disturbed in appearance, he breaks in upon Ruth as she sits
reading alone in the very room where she had last seen Clarissa. As he
enters, she utters a glad little cry of welcome, and, springing to her
feet, goes over to him.

"So soon returned?" she says, joyfully; and then something she sees in
his face freezes within her all further expressions of pleasure: his
eyes are dark, his whole face is livid with rage.

"So you betrayed me?" he says, pushing her away from him. "Now, no
lies! I saw Clarissa Peyton to-day, and I know everything."

"You have been to Pullingham?" exclaims she, with a little gasp.
"Horace, do not blame me. What was I to do? When she came in here, and
saw me----"

"Clarissa, here?"

"Yes, here. I was afraid to tell you of it before, you seemed so weak,
so fretful. Last Tuesday week--the day you had the sleeping-draught
from Dr. Gregson--she came; she entered the room, she came near you,
she touched you, she would"--faintly--"have kissed you. But how could
I bear that? I stepped forward just in time to prevent her lips from
meeting yours."

"And so," he says, with slow vindictiveness, taking no notice of her
agony, "for the sake of a mere bit of silly sentimentality you spoiled
every prospect I have in life."

"Horace, do not look at me like that," she entreats, painfully.
"Remember all that has passed. If for one moment I went mad and forgot
all, am I so much to be blamed? You had been mine--altogether
mine--for so long that I had not strength in one short moment to
relinquish you. When she would have kissed you, it seemed to me more
than I could endure."

"Was it? It is but a little part of what you will have to endure for
the future," he says, brutally. "You have wilfully ruined me, and must
take the consequences. My marriage with Clarissa Peyton would have set
me straight with the world once more, and need not have altered our
relations with each other one iota."

"You would have been false to your wife?" murmurs she, shrinking back
from him. "Oh, no! that would have been impossible!"

He laughs ironically.

"I tell you candidly," he says, with reckless emphasis, "I should have
been false to one or other of you, and it certainly would not have
been to you."

"You malign yourself," she says, looking at him with steadfast love.

"Do I? What a fool you are!" he says, roughly. "Well, by your own mad
folly you have separated us irretrievably. Blame yourself for this,
not me. My affairs are so hopelessly entangled that I must quit the
country without delay. Your own mad act has rolled an ocean between
us."

He turns, and goes towards the door. Wild with grief and despair, she
follows him, and lays a detaining hand upon his arm.

"Not like this, Horace!" she whispers, desperately. "Do not leave me
like this. Have pity. You shall not go like this! Be merciful: you are
my all!"

"Stand out of my way," he says, between his teeth: and then, as she
still clings to him in her agony, he raises his hand and deliberately
strikes her. Not violently, not severely, but still with sufficient
force to make her stagger backwards and catch hold of a chair to keep
her from falling.

He is gone: and she, stunned, quivering, half blind with nervous
horror, still stands by the chair and tries to realize all that has
passed. As she draws a deep breath, she places her hand, with a
spasmodic movement, to her left side, as though to quell some darting
pain that lies there. The action brings back consciousness, and that
saddest of all things, memory.

"He did not mean it," she whispers to herself, with white set lips.
"It was not a blow; it was only that he wished to put me to one side,
and I was in his way, no doubt: I angered him by my persistency.
Darling! How could I think that he would hurt me?"

Languid, heart-broken, she creeps to her bed, and, flinging herself
upon it, dressed as she is, sleeps heavily until the morn, "diffusing
round a trembling flood of light," wakes her to grief once more.




CHAPTER XXXVI.

  "Have mind that eild aye follows youth;
  Death follows life with gaping mouth;
  Sen erdly joy abidis never,
  Work for the joy that lastis ever;
  For other joy is all but vain,
  And erdly joy returns in pain."--W. DUNBAR.


Something within her knows he will return. Yet all the next day long
she sits in terrible suspense, not being certain of the end. Towards
noon he comes, sullen, disdainful, and dark with depression.

He sinks into a chair, looking tired and careworn.

"You have over-fatigued yourself?" she says, gently, going over to him
and touching his hand lightly.

"No. I have been to Pullingham again and back; that is all."

"There again?" she says. "And you saw----?"

"Only Dorian. Don't trouble yourself about Clarissa," he says, with an
unpleasant laugh: "that game is played out. No, Dorian, alone, I went
to see." He shades his face with his hand, and then goes on: "There
are few like him in the world. In spite of all that has come and gone,
he received me kindly, and has given me what will enable me to
commence life afresh in a foreign land." There is remorse and deep
admiration in his tone.

But Ruth makes no reply: she cannot. Those last words, "a foreign
land," have struck like a dying knell upon her heart. She watches him
in despairing silence, as he walks restlessly up and down the room in
the uncertain twilight.

Presently he stops close to her.

"I suppose there is some orthodox way of breaking bad news," he says,
"but I never learned it. Ruth, your father is dead."

The girl shrinks back, and puts her hand to her forehead in a dazed,
pitiful fashion.

"Not dead!" she says, imploringly, as though her contrition could
bring him back to life. "Not altogether gone beyond recall. Sick,
perhaps,--nay, dying,--but not dead!"

"Yes, he is dead," says Horace, though more gently. "He died a week
ago."

A terrible silence falls upon the room. Presently, alarmed at her
unnatural calm, he lays his hand upon her shoulder to rouse her.

"There is no use in fretting over what cannot be recalled," he says,
quickly, though still in his gentler tone. "And there are other things
I must speak to you about to-night. My remaining time in this country
is short, and I want you to understand the arrangements I have made
for your comfort before leaving you."

"You will leave me?" cries she, sharply. A dagger seems to have
reached and pierced her heart. Falling upon her knees before him, she
clasps him, and whispers, in a voice that has grown feeble through the
intensity of her emotion, "Horace, do not forsake me. Think of all the
past, and do not let the end be separation. What can I do? Where can I
go?--with no home, no aim in life! Have pity! My father is dead; my
friends, too, are dead to me. In all this wide miserable world I have
only you!"

"Only me!" he echoes, with a short bitter laugh. "A prize, surely. You
don't know what folly you are talking. I give you a chance of escape
from me,--an honorable chance, where a new home and new friends await
you."

"I want no friends, no home." (She is still clinging to his knees,
with her white earnest face uplifted to his.) "Let me be your
slave,--anything; but do not part from me. I cannot live without you
now. It is only death you offer me."

"Remember my temper," he says, warningly. "Only last night I struck
you. Think of that. I shall probably strike you again. Be advised in
time, and forsake me, like all the others."

"You torture me," she says, still in the same low panting whisper.
"You are my very heart,--my life. Take me with you. Only let me see
your face sometimes, and hear your voice. I will not trouble you, or
hinder you in any way; only let me be near you." She presses her pale
lips to his hand with desperate entreaty.

"Be it so," he says, after a moment's hesitation. "If ever, in the
days to come, you repent your bargain, blame yourself, not me. I have
offered you liberty, and you have rejected it. I shall leave this
country in a week's time; so be prepared. But before going, as you are
so determined to cast in your lot with mine, I shall marry you."

She starts to her feet.

"Marry me?" she says, faintly. "Make me your wife! Oh, no! you don't
know what you are saying."

She trembles violently, and her head falls somewhat heavily against
his arm.

"It isn't worth a fainting fit," he says, hastily enough; but his arm,
as he places it round her, is strong and compassionate. "Can anything
be more absurd than a woman? Sit down here, and try to be reasonable.
You must be quick with your preparations, as we start on Tuesday. I
will see about a special license, and we can get the marriage ceremony
over to-morrow. I know a fellow who will manage it all for me."

"You are quite sure you will never regret this step?" she says,
earnestly, even at this supremely happy moment placing his happiness
before her own.

"I don't suppose so. If it is any satisfaction to you to know it," he
says, with a shrug, "you are the only woman I have ever loved, and
probably the only one I ever shall love."

A smile--radiant, perfect--lights her face. Surely, just then, the one
moment of utter happiness, that they tell us is all that is ever
allowed to poor mortals, is hers. It is broken by the clock of a
neighboring church clanging out the hour.

"So late!" says Horace, hurriedly. "I must go. Until to-morrow, Ruth,
good-by."

"Good-by!" She places her hands upon his shoulders, and, throwing back
her head, gazes long and earnestly into his face, as though reading
once again each line in the features she loves with such devotion.
"Before you go," she says, solemnly, "call me what I shall be so soon.
Say, 'Good-by, my wife!'"

"Good-by, my wife!" returns he, with more love in his accents than she
has heard for months.

She presses her lips passionately to his, and again, for the last
time, breathes the word "Farewell!"

His rapid footsteps descend the stairs. She listens to them until they
have ceased and all is still. Then she goes to the window, and presses
her forehead against the cold pane, that she may once more see him as
he crosses the street. The lamps are all alight, and a lurid glare
from one falls full upon her as she stands leaning eagerly forward to
catch the last glimpse of him she loves.

Presently she sinks into a seat, always with her eyes fixed upon the
spot where she last has seen him, and sits motionless, with her
fingers twisted loosely in her lap; she is so quiet that only the red
gleam from the world without betrays the fact of her presence.

Once her lips part, and from them slowly, ecstatically, come the
words, "His wife." Evidently her whole mind is filled with this one
thought alone. She thinks of him, and him only,--of him who has so
cruelly wronged her, yet who, in his own way, has loved her, too.

The moments fly, and night comes on apace, clothed in her "golden
dress, on which so many stars like gems are strewed;" yet still she
sits before the window silently. She is languid, yet happy,--weak and
spent by the excitement of the past hour, yet strangely full of peace.
Now and again she presses her hand with a gesture that is almost
convulsive to her side; yet whatever pain she feels there is
insufficient to drown the great gladness that is overfilling her.

To-morrow,--nay, even now, it is to-day,--and it is bringing her
renewed hope, fresh life, restored honor! He will be hers forever! No
other woman will have the right to claim him. Whatever she may have to
undergo at his hands, at least he will be her own. And he has loved
her as he never loved another. Oh, what unspeakable bliss lies in this
certainty! In another land, too, all will be unknown. A new life may
be begun in which the old may be swallowed up and forgotten. There
must be hope in the good future.

          "When we slip a little
  Out of the way of virtue, are we lost?
  Is there no medicine called sweet mercy?"

Only this morning she had deemed herself miserable beyond her fellows;
now, who can compete with her in utter content? In a few short hours
she will be his wife! Oh that her father could but----

Her father! Now, all at once, it rushes back upon her; she is a little
dazed, a good deal unsettled, but surely some one had said that
her--her father--was--dead!

The lamps in the street die out. The sickly winter dawn comes over the
great city. The hush and calm still linger; only now and then a dark
phantom form issues from a silent gateway, and hurries along the
pavement, as though fearful of the growing light.

Ruth has sunk upon her knees, and is doing fierce battle with the
remorse that has come to kill her new-born happiness. There is a
terrible pain at her heart, even apart from the mental anguish that is
tearing it. Her slight frame trembles beneath the double shock; a long
shivering sob breaks from her; she throws her arms a little wildly
across the couch before which she is kneeling, and gradually her form
sinks upon her arms. No other sob comes to disturb the stillness. An
awful silence follows. Slowly the cold gray morning fills the chamber,
and the sun,--

  "Eternal painter, now begins to rise,
  And limn the heavens in vermilion dyes."

But within deathly silence reigns. Has peace fallen upon that quiet
form? Has gentle sleep come to her at last?

       *       *       *       *       *

Horace, ascending the stairs cautiously, before the household is
astir, opens the room where last he had seen Ruth, and comes gently
in. He would have passed on to the inner chamber, thinking to rouse
her to prepare in haste for their early wedding, when the
half-kneeling half-crouching figure before the lounge attracts his
notice.

"Ruth," he says, very gently, fearful lest he shall frighten her by
too sudden a summons back to wakefulness; but there is no reply. How
can she have fallen asleep in such an uncomfortable position? "Ruth,"
he calls again, rather louder, some vague fear sending the blood back
to his heart; but again only silence greets his voice. And again he
says, "Ruth!" this time with passionate terror in his tone; but, alas!
there is still no response. For the first time she is deaf to his
entreaty.

Catching her in his arms, he raises her from her kneeling posture,
and, carrying her to the window, stares wildly into her calm
face,--the poor, sad, pretty face of her who had endured so much, and
borne so long, and loved so faithfully.

She is dead!--quite dead! Already the limbs are stiffening, the hands
are icy cold, the lips, that in life would so gladly have returned
kiss for kiss, are now silent and motionless beneath the despairing
caresses he lavishes upon them in the vain hope of finding yet some
warmth remaining.

But there is none. She is gone, past recall, past hearing all
expressions of remorseful tenderness. In the terrible lonely dawn she
had passed away, with no one near to hold her dying hand, without a
sigh or moan, leaving no farewell word of love or forgiveness to the
man who is now straining her lifeless body to his heart, as though to
make one last final effort to bring her back to earth.

There is a happy smile upon her lips, her eyes are quite closed,
almost she seems as one that sleepeth. The awful majesty of death is
upon her, and no voice of earth, however anguished and imploring, can
reach her ice-bound heart. As the first faint touch of light that came
to usher in her wedding morn broke upon the earth, she had died, and
gone somewhere

  "Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot
  Which men call earth."




CHAPTER XXXVII.

  "Was I deceived, or did a sable cloud
  Turn forth her silver lining on the night?"--MILTON.


The two months that Dorian has given himself in which to finish the
business that, he said, had brought him home, have almost come to an
end. Already winter is passing out of mind, and "Spring comes up this
way."

The "checkered daffodil" and the soft plaintive primrose are bursting
into bloom. The gentle rain comes with a passing cloud, and sinks
lovingly into the earth's bosom and into the hearts of the opening
buds.

The grass is springing; all the world is rich with fresh young life.
The very snowdrops--pale blossoms, born of bitter winds and sunless
skies--have perished out of sight.

Ruth is lying in her grave, cold and forgotten save by two,--the man
who has most wronged her, and the woman who had most to forgive her.
As yet, Clarissa cannot rise out of the depression that fell upon her
when Horace's treachery was first made known to her. Her love had
seemed so good, so tender, it had so brightened all her life, and had
been so much a part of her existence, that it seemed to carry to the
grave with it all her youth and gladness. However untrue this young
love of her life had been, still, while she believed in it, it had
been beautiful to her, and it is with bitterest grief she has laid it
aside; to her it had been a living thing, and even as it fades from
her she cries to it aloud to stay, and feels her arms empty in that it
no longer fills them.

        "But, oh, not yet, not yet
        Would my lost soul forget
  How beautiful he was while he did live,
        Or, when his eyes were dewy and lips wet,
        What kisses, tenderer than all regret,
          My love would give.

        "Strew roses on his breast,--
        He loved the roses best;
  He never cared for lilies or for snow.
        Let be this bitter end of his sweet quest;
        Let be the pallid silence, that is rest,
          And let all go!"

Mr. Winter's exquisite words come often to her; and yet, when the
first great pang is over, a sensation that may be almost called relief
raises her soul and restores her somewhat to her old self.

She is graver--if possible, gentler, more tender--than in the days
before grief had touched her. And, though her love has really died
beyond all reawakening, still the memory of what once had been has
left its mark upon her.

To Sir James she has never since mentioned the name of the man in whom
she had once so firmly believed, though oftentimes it has occurred to
her that relief might follow upon the bare asking of a question that
might serve to make common the actual remembrance of him.

To-day, as Scrope comes up the lawn to meet her, as she bends over the
"bright children of the sun," a sense of gladness that he is coming
fills her. She feels no nervousness or weariness with him, only rest
and peace, and something that is deeper still, though yet vague and
absolutely unknown to her own heart.

She goes forward to meet him, a smile upon her lips, treading lightly
on the young grass, that is emerald in hue,--as the color of my own
dear land,--and through which

            "The meek daisies show
            Their breasts of satin snow,
  Bedecked with tiny stars of gold mid perfume sighs."

"You again?" she says, with a lovely smile. He was here only
yesterday.

"What an uncivil speech! Do I come too often?" He has her hand in his,
and is holding it inquiringly, but it is such a soft and kind inquiry.

"Not half often enough," she says, and hardly knows why his face
flushes at her words, being still ignorant of the fact that he loves
her with a love that passeth the love of most.

"Well, you sha'n't have to complain of that any longer," he says,
gayly. "Shall I take up my residence here?"

"Do," says Miss Peyton, also in jest.

"I would much rather you took up yours at Scrope," he says,
unthinkingly, and then he flushes again, and then silence falls
between them.

Her foot is tapping the sward lightly, yet nervously. Her eyes are on
the "daisies pied." Presently, as though some inner feeling compels
her to it, she says,--"Why do you never speak to me of--Horace?"

"You forbade me," he says: "how could I disobey you? He is well,
however, but, I think, not altogether happy. In his last letter, to me
he still spoke remorsefully of--her." It is agony to him to say this,
yet he does it bravely, knowing it will be the wisest thing for the
woman he himself loves.

"Yes," she says, quite calmly. At this instant she knows her love for
Horace Branscombe is quite dead. "Her death was terrible."

"Yet easy, I dare say. Disease of the heart, when it carries one off,
is seldom painful. Clarissa, this is the very first time you have
spoken of her, either."

"Is it?" She turns away from him, and, catching a branch, takes from
it a leaf or two. "You have not spoken to me," she says.

"Because, as I said, you forbade me. Don't you know your word to me is
law?"

"I don't think I know much," says Miss Peyton, with a sad little
smile; but she lets her hand lie in his, and does not turn away from
him. "Horace is in Ceylon," she says presently.

"Yes, and doing very well. Do you often think of him now?"

"Very often. I am glad he is getting on successfully."

"Have you forgotten nothing, Clarissa?"

"I have forgotten a great deal. How could it be otherwise? I have
forgotten that I ever loved any one. It seems to me now impossible
that I could have felt all that I did two months ago. Yet something
lingers with me,--something I cannot explain." She pauses, and looks
idly down upon her white hands, the fingers of which are twining and
intertwining nervously.

"Do you mean that you have ceased to think of Horace in the light of a
lover?" he asks, with an effort certainly, yet with determination. He
will hear the truth now or never.

"What! wouldst thou have a serpent sting thee twice?" she says,
turning to him with some passion; and then her anger fades, and her
eyes fill with tears.

"If you can apply such a word to him, your love must be indeed dead,"
he says, in a curious tone, and, raising one of her hands, he lays it
upon his breast.

"I wish it had never been born," she says, with a sigh, not looking at
him.

"But is it dead?" persists he, eagerly.

"Quite. I buried it that day you took me--to his--rooms: you
remember?"

"How could I forget? Clarissa, if you are unhappy, so am I. Take pity
upon me."

"You unhappy?" She lifts her eyes to his.

"Yes. All my life I have loved you. Is your heart quite beyond my
reach?"

She makes him no answer.

"Without you I live but half a life," he goes on, entreatingly. "Every
hour is filled with thoughts of you. I have no interests apart from
you. Clarissa, if there is any hope for me, speak; say something."

"Would not his memory be a shadow between us always?" whispers she, in
trembling accents. "Forgiveness is within our power, forgetfulness is
beyond us! Jim, is this thing wise, that you are doing? Have you
thought of it?"

"I have thought of it for more than a long year," says Sir James. "I
think all my life, unconsciously, I have loved you."

"For so long?" she says, softly; and then, "How faithful you have
been!"

  "When change itself can give no more,
  'Tis easy to be true,"

quotes he, tenderly; and then she goes nearer to him,--tears in her
eyes.

"You are too good for me," she says.

"Darling," says Scrope, and after that, somehow, it seems but a little
thing that his arms should close around her, and that her head should
lie contentedly upon his shoulder.




CHAPTER XXXVIII.

  "There is no life on earth but being in love!"--BEN JONSON.

  "Love framed with Mirth a gay fantastic round;
  Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound;
      And he, amidst his frolic play,
      As if he would the charming air repay,
  Shook thousand odors from his dewy wing."--COLLINS.


It is the afternoon of the same day, and Dorian, with a keeper behind
him, is trudging through the woods of Hythe, two trusty setters at his
heels. He cannot be said to be altogether unhappy, because he has had
a real good day with his gun, as his bag can testify, and, be a man
never so disturbed by conflicting emotions, be he five fathoms deep in
a hopeless attachment, still he will tramp through his heather, or
ride to hounds, or smoke his favorite cigars, with the best, and find,
indeed, pleasure therein. For, truly,--

  "Man's love is of man's life a thing apart;
  'Tis woman's whole existence."

The sun is sinking to rest; the chill of a spring evening is in the
air. Dismissing the man who holds his bag, he sends him home to the
house by a nearer route, and, lighting a fresh cigar, follows the path
that leads through the fragrant wood into the grounds of Sartoris. The
breath of the bluebells is already scenting the air; the ferns are
growing thick and strong. He has come to a turn, that is all formed of
rock, and is somewhat abrupt, because of the sharp angle that belongs
to it, over which hart's-tongues and other graceful weeds fall lazily,
when, at a little distance from him, he sees Georgie sitting on the
fallen trunk of a tree, her head leaning against an oak, her whole
expression full of deep dejection.

As he comes nearer to her, he can see that she has been crying, and
that even now two tears are lying heavily upon her cheeks.

A troubled expression crosses his face. She looks so childish, so
helpless, with her hat upon the ground beside her, and her hands lying
listlessly upon her lap, and no one near to comfort her or to kiss the
melancholy from her large mournful eyes.

As she hears him coming, she starts to her feet, and, turning aside,
hastily dries the tears upon her cheeks, lest he shall mark her
agitation.

"What is the matter with you?" asks he, with quick but suppressed
concern.

"Nothing," returns she, in a low tone.

"You can't be crying for nothing," says Dorian; "and even your very
voice is full of tears! Are you unhappy about anything?"

"What a question to ask me!" says Mrs. Branscombe, reproachfully, with
a fresh irrepressible sob, that goes to his heart. He shifts his gun
uneasily from one shoulder to the other, hardly knowing what to say.
Is it his fault that she is so miserable? Must he blame himself
because she has found it impossible to love him?

"I beg your pardon," he says, in a low tone. "Of course I have no
right to ask you any questions."

"Yet I would answer you if I knew how," returns she, in a voice as
subdued as his own.

The evening is falling silently, yet swiftly, throwing "her dusky
veil o'er nature's face." A certain chill comes from the hills and
damps the twilight air.

"It is getting late," says Branscombe, gently. "Will you come home
with me?"

"Yes, I will go home," she says, with a little troubled submissive
sigh, and, turning, goes with him down the narrow pathway that leads
to the avenue.

Above them the branches struggle and wage a goblin war with each
other, helped by the night-wind, which even now is rising with sullen
purpose in its moan.

Dorian strides on silently, sad at heart, and very hopeless. He is
making a vigorous effort to crush down all regretful memories, and is
forcing himself to try and think with gladness of the time, now fast
approaching, when he shall be once more parted from her who walks
beside him with bent head and quivering lips. His presence is a grief
to her. All these past weeks have proved this to him: her lips have
been devoid of smiles; her eyes have lost their light, her voice its
old gay ring. When he is gone, she may, perhaps, recover some of the
gayety that once was hers. And, once gone, why should he ever return?
And----

And then--then! A little bare cold hand creeps into the one of his
that is hanging loosely by his side, and, nestling in it, presses it
with nervous warmth.

Dorian's heart beats madly. He hardly dares believe it true that she
should, of her own accord, have given her hand to him; yet he holds it
so closely in his own that his clasp almost hurts her. They do not
speak; they do not turn even to look at each other, but go on their
way, silent, uncertain, but no longer apart. By that one tender touch
they have been united.

"You are going abroad again?" she says, in a tone so low that he can
scarcely hear her.

"I was going," he says, and then their fingers meet again and press
each other gently.

Coming to the stile that leads into the next path, he lays down his
gun, and, mounting the steps, holds out his hand to help her to gain
the top.

Then, springing down to the other side, he takes her in his arms to
bring her to the ground beside him.

But when his arms have closed round her he leaves them there, and
draws her to his heart, and lays his cheek against hers. With a little
soft happy sob she lifts her arms and lays them round his neck; and
then, he tells himself, there is nothing more on earth to be wished
for.

"My wife!--my darling!" he says, unsteadily.

The minutes pass; then she looks up at him with soft speaking eyes.
There are no tears upon her cheeks, but her face is pale as moonlight,
and on it is a new deep meaning that Dorian has never seen there in
all his life before,--a gentle light, as kind as death, and as soft as
holy love!

As she so stands, gazing solemnly into his face, with all her heart in
her eyes, Dorian stoops and lays his lips on her. She colors a lovely
trembling crimson, and then returns the caress.

"You do love me at last?" he says. And then she says,--

"I do, with all my soul,"--in a tone not to be mistaken. Afterwards,
"Are you happy now?"

"Yes. How can I be otherwise? For

  'Thou with softest touch transfigurest
  This toil-worn earth into a heaven of rest.'

How could you so far have misjudged me?" he says, reproachfully,
referring to the old wound. "What had I done to you, that you should
believe me capable of such a thing?"

"It was my one sin," whispers she, nervously. "Is it too bad to be
forgiven?"

"I wonder what you could do, I wouldn't forgive," replies he,
tenderly, "now I know you love me."

"I think you needn't have thrown my poor glove out of the window!" she
says, with childish reproach. "That was very unkind, I think."

"It was brutal," says Branscombe. "But I don't believe you did love me
then."

"Well, I did. You broke my heart that day. It will take you all you
know"--with an adorable smile--"to mend it again."

"My own love," says Dorian, "what can I do? I would offer you mine in
exchange, but, you see, you broke it many a month ago, so the bargain
would do you no good. Let us both make up our minds to heal each
other's wounds, and so make restitution."

"Sweet heart, I bid you be healed," says Georgie, laying her small
hand, with a pretty touch of tenderest coquetry, upon his breast. And
then a second silence falls upon them, that lasts even longer than the
first. The moments fly; the breezes grow stronger, and shake with
petulant force the waving boughs. The night is falling, and "weeps
perpetual dews, and saddens Nature's scene."

"Why do you not speak?" says Georgie, after a little bit, rubbing her
cheek softly against his. "What is it that you want?"

"Nothing. Don't you know that 'Silence is the perfectest herald of
joy: I were but little happy, if I could say how much'?"

"How true that is! yet somehow, I always want to talk," says Mrs.
Branscombe,--at which they both laugh.

"Come home," says Dorian: "it grows cold as charity, and I'm getting
desperately hungry besides. Are you?"

"I'm starving," says Georgie, genially. "There, now; they say people
never want to eat anything when they are in love and when they are
filled with joy. And I haven't been hungry for weeks, until this very
moment."

"Just shows what awful stuff some fellows will talk," says Mr.
Branscombe, with an air of very superior contempt. After which they go
on their homeward journey until they reach the shrubbery.

Here voices, coming to them from a side-path, attract their notice.

"That is Clarissa," says Georgie: "I suppose she has come out to find
me. Let us wait for her here."

"And Scrope is with her. I wish she would make up her mind to marry
him," says Branscombe. "I am certain they are devoted to each other,
only they can't see it. Want of brain, I suppose."

"They certainly are exceedingly foolish, both of them," says Georgie,
emphatically.

The voices are drawing nearer; as their owners approach the corner
that separates them from the Branscombes, Clarissa says, in a clear,
audible tone,--

"I never in all my life knew two such silly people!"

"Good gracious!" says Branscombe, going up to her. "What people?"

"You two!" says Clarissa, telling the truth out of sheer fright.

"You will be so kind as to explain yourself, Clarissa," says Dorian,
with dignity. "Georgie and I have long ago made up our minds that
Solon when compared with us was a very poor creature indeed."

"A perfect fool!" says Mrs. Branscombe, with conviction.

The brightness of their tone, their whole manner, tell Clarissa that
some good and wonderful change has taken place.

"Then why is Dorian going abroad, instead of staying at home like
other people?" she says, uncertainly, feeling still puzzled.

"He isn't going anywhere: I have forbidden him!" says Mrs. Branscombe,
with saucy shyness.

"Oh, Jim, they have made it up!" says Miss Peyton, making this vulgar
remark with so much joy and feeling in her voice as robs it of all its
commonplaceness. She turns to Scrope as she says this, her eyes large
with delight.

"We have," says Georgie, sweetly. "Haven't we Dorian?" And then again
slipping her hand into his, "He is going to stay at home always for
the future: aren't you, Dorian?"

"I am going to stay just wherever you are for the rest of my life,"
says Dorian; and then Clarissa and James know that everything has come
all right.

"Then you will be at home for our wedding," says Scrope, taking
Clarissa's hand and turning to Branscombe.

Clarissa blushes very much, and Georgie, going up to her, kisses her
heartily.

"It is altogether quite too nice," says Mrs. Branscombe, with tears in
her eyes.

"If you don't look out, Scrope, she will kiss you too," says Dorian.
"Look here, it is nearly six o'clock, and dinner will be at seven.
Come back, you two, and dine with us."

"I should like to very much," says Clarissa, "as papa is in town."

"Well, then, come," says Georgie, tucking her arm comfortably into
hers, "and we'll send you home at eleven."

"I hope you will send me home too," says Scrope, meekly.

"Yes, by the other road," says Mrs. Branscombe, with a small grimace.
And then she presses Clarissa's arm against her side, and tells her,
without the slightest provocation, that she is a "darling," and that
everything is quite, quite, _quite_ TOO delicious!

       *       *       *       *       *

That evening, in the library, when Georgie and Dorian are once more
alone, Branscombe, turning to her, takes her in his arms.

"You are quite happy?" he asks, questioningly. "You have no regrets
now?"

"Not one," very earnestly. "But you, Dorian,"--she slips an arm round
his neck, and brings his face down closer to her own, as though to
read the expression of his eyes more clearly,--"are you satisfied?
Think how unkind I was to you; and, after all,"--naïvely,--"I
am only pretty; there is really nothing in me. You have my
whole heart, of course, you know that; I am yours, indeed, but
then"--discontentedly--"what am I?"

"I know: you are my own darling," says Branscombe, very softly.


THE END.




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TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES


1. Passages in italics are surrounded by _underscores_.

2. The word Phoebus uses an oe ligature in the original.

3. The following misprints have been corrected:
    "siting" corrected to "sitting" (page 68)
    "baoadcast" corrected to "broadcast" (page 173)
    "seond" corrected to "second" (page 180)
    "dinning-room" corrected to "dining-room" (page 212)
    "anthying" corrected to "anything" (page 244)

4. Some of the obvious punctuation errors have been corrected, e. g.,
addition of missing period at the end of sentences.

5. Other than the corrections listed above, printer's inconsistencies
in spelling, hyphenation, and ligature usage have been retained.