Nora; vol. 3 [of 3]
Date: 2026-08-27T00:00:00+00:00

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Title: Nora; vol. 3 [of 3]

Author: Lady Emily Ponsonby

Release date: August 27, 2026 [eBook #79463]

Language: English

Original publication: London: Hurst and Blackett, 1870

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79463

Credits: Chuck Greif, MWS and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NORA; VOL. 3 [OF 3] ***

CHAPTER I., II., III., IV., V., VI., VII., VIII., IX., X., XI., XII., XIII., XIV., XV.

NORA.

VOL. III.

NORA.

BY
THE LADY EMILY PONSONBY,

AUTHOR OF

“THE DISCIPLINE OF LIFE,”
&c. &c.

Fierce passions discompose the mind
As tempests lash the sea.
Cowper.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. III.

LONDON:
HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS,
13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.
1870.

The right of Translation is reserved.
LONDON:
PRINTED BY MACDONALD AND TUGWELL, BLENHEIM HOUSE
BLENHEIM STREET. OXFORD STREET.

NORA

CHAPTER I.

PARTLY in hope that her trouble was over, and partly to practise that patience which she had set herself as a lesson, Nora ordered her carriage on the following morning, and spent the day in visiting the cottagers in a village some miles off.

She shrank from the sight of the work-people and James Field; but when beyond the precincts of her new home she breathed freely, and her spirit came back to her.

The occupation itself pleased her; the people were glad to see her, and their quaint out-of-the-world ways and speeches amused her. But there was a higher pleasure than this.

Henry had hoped that, when Nora came to visit her property, the way in which he was spoken of would teach her his value; and he would have been gratified could he have been present this day. His good looks and ready smiles had no doubt had a great effect in winning hearts; but these qualities, though they win favour, do not, when standing alone, move the affections. There had been a kindliness, a thoughtful desire to make all under him happy, which had told as much as the outward charm; and there were few houses in which he was not spoken of with warmth. Some were unconscious of his departure, and asked to speak to him; others had heard rumours of troubles, and anxiously inquired into their truth.

When the praises first began to fall on her ears, Nora blushed and was agitated; but pride and the dread of betraying herself soon came to her aid, and before they left the village she not only heard these eulogies with calmness, but in a kind of lofty manner called Miss Willis’s attention to the subject, expressing a composed regret that for one single moment other reports should have made an impression upon her.

On her return home she devoted the evening to an examination of the papers and plans which Henry, on that eventful morning, had placed in her hand.

Her inspection of these papers still further tended to raise him in her estimation. There was nothing in them betokening remarkable talent, and there were defects not only in composition, but here and there even in spelling; but they were characterized by a kind of determined industry, by very good sense, and, above all, by a most evident desire to fulfil her wishes; not only her expressed wishes, but that general wish for the well-being of the people which he knew to be her prevailing sentiment. There were, besides, lists of names with quaint little remarks appended, and here and there odd little sketches of buildings or out-houses, which were better described thus than by word—small characteristic touches which gave life to the dry details.

The examination interested and agitated her. Feelings of mingled joy and regret stirred her mind—joy in the conviction that he was worthy of her regard, in the faint hope that he had taken pleasure in acting for her; and regret, intolerable regret, in the thought of the events that had driven him away. Already the recall, that imploring recall of which poor Henry had dreamed, was stirring in her mind; but only stirring to be driven back again. For with such a secret in her heart, how could she act? How could she dare to invite him to her constant presence?

She lay awake thinking; at one moment feeling that her strength would bear her through—that all that regard which should not be indulged could be crushed out; and the next moment, as she vividly pictured future scenes, shrinking from them, from him, and from herself.

She rose up as unsettled and agitated as she had lain down; but she was happy, nevertheless. The stagnant life was stirred to its depths, and come what might in the present, the future smiled upon her. Its features were not distinct, but it lay with a golden gleam upon it.

It was in this cheerful state of mind that she went down to breakfast; but by the side of her plate there lay that which was to cloud the present and the future alike.

She saw the now well-known characters, and with eager fingers tore open the letter and read the words that follow:—

“Why were you born to be my enemy? It is just, perhaps, for God knows we have deserved little at your hands; yet it was cruel to beguile me with fair words, and then to undermine my peace as you have done. What remains for me but to fly from a country in which I dare no longer hold up my head? Had you summoned me to answer for myself, had you allowed me that justice all men are allowed, I think in that first moment my horror and surprise might have convinced you of my innocence; but, even if permitted, such justice is too late now. My mind, troubled and distracted, has no power to satisfy my judges. It has no power to satisfy even myself; for where is the proof of a thought to be found? Where in all heaven or earth could I look for it? I dare not—I, strong in innocence, say it—I dare not expose myself to the torture of such an inquisition as that which must be held. If those who know me have entertained a suspicion so vile, how could I convince a stranger? There lies the hateful letter, to give the lie to every word I say. Farewell for ever! They tell me you acted in kindness. If it be so, mistaken though it was, I will not refuse to say God bless you for it! I ask no answer to this letter. I need none. What are words to one who can no longer show his face in the light of day?”

Miss Willis, who was presiding over the teapot, an occupation Nora particularly disliked, was startled by a sudden exit from the room. Nora had fled.

She had fled to conceal a great agony—an agony of mind she could not master. Sharply as Mr. Powderham’s letter had pierced Henry’s heart, so sharply did his letter thrust its iron into her soul. She was amazed and consciencestricken; so amazed as to feel for a moment’s time guilty of all of which Henry accused her.

It was only after standing for some minutes pressing her hand on her aching, beating heart, that she began to see more clearly. She might have been mistaken in refusing to summon him to exculpate himself—she could not then debate the point; but except for a few overwhelming moments she had never thought him guilty of anything but hate, and that hate she had wished to retaliate only by good. When once she felt cleared regarding her conduct and her motives, hope revived, and thought came to her aid. She saw it was no time for reflection, but for action, and almost at once her resolution was taken.

She went back to Miss Willis; apologized simply for her abrupt departure; explained with most deceiving openness that it had been caused by a vexation and annoyance that had upset her; and after relating the purport of that vexation, asked if she knew where Mr. Stephen Fanshawe could be found.

Miss Willis’s eyes sparkled as she replied that, feeling convinced his services would be required in this business, she had written to a friend who knew his movements a few days before, and found that he would be at home this day, in order to make preparations for receiving his boys on the 6th.

“I have no right to trouble him, but I must do it,” Nora said.

And Miss Willis, who had an idea in her head which completely blinded her to all other ideas concerning Nora, assured her that he would be willing, always willing, to act where he could do good.

Nora wrote this telegraph message:—

“Miss Smith begs Mr. Fanshawe to hasten to Mr. Devereux, whom he may prevent from rashly leaving England. Particulars by post.”

In the evening she received, with intense relief and delight, a return message.

“I hasten to obey your commands.”

“You have now done all you can,” observed blind Miss Willis, “and you may rest satisfied.”

CHAPTER II.

NORA did, perhaps, try to be satisfied, and to await further intelligence with patience. But so far as the inward woman was concerned, the effort was not successful. The fear of betraying that hidden secret which weighs with all women, which almost governs a proud nature, did assist her in outwardly bearing the delay patiently, but even outwardly she was restless and excitable. What she hoped, or whom she hoped to see, she scarcely knew, but her eyes and ears were ever watching for some sign of the coming of some person who might bring intelligence.

Mr. Powderham visited her, with the plans of the building, which he wished her to look over. He was longing to ask her if she had heard from or of Henry, but his wounded pride forbade him to open the subject. She was longing to make the same inquiry of him, but finding him cold and reserved, dared not touch upon past differences.

Mrs. Elliott also called, and by the interest she exhibited in Henry’s welfare and Nora’s difficulties endeared herself to Nora. But she knew nothing.

These visits helped to pass the time; but they left the fears and anxieties of her heart unrelieved.

Was Henry gone? Had Stephen Fanshawe been able on that first day to arrest his flight? She thought the letter of explanation she had written, and which Mr. Fanshawe was to communicate to Henry, must have prevented his ill-judged resolution. But had he been in time? Upon the whole she hoped. There was nothing to cause a hasty flight, except that Henry was not a person influenced as other mortals are.

On the evening of the third day, after she and Miss Willis had dined, the doorbell suddenly rang. Nora, hardly knowing whom or what to expect, flew down the stairs; but, hearing Stephen Fanshawe’s voice, retreated again, the hope that had been dancing in her veins chilled. Why should he come? She stood, however, at the drawing-room door, and cordially meeting him, exclaimed,

“How kind of you to come down here!”

“I came myself,” he said, “because I have not good news. I tell you that at once. I have failed; and I thought I should best offer my explanations to you in person.”

He had failed. Then Henry was gone. Nora received so much into her brain; but, unable to meet the intelligence at that moment, she suffered it, as persons of strong will can do, to go no further. She asked no questions, but, putting the subject aside, gave her grateful and graceful attentions to the person whose kindness had brought him to her.

Repeating her cordial words, she preceded him into the drawing-room, where she forced him to own that he was chilly and hungry, and would not object to some attention to the wants of the natural man.

All this was interspersed with conversation on his journey, and Nora then left the room to order a tray of dinner to be taken up to her guest.

When all had been provided for, she went, like the stricken deer, to weep apart. Not, indeed, to weep with the eyes, but to face the intelligence she had heard, to receive it into her heart as well as into her brain. Henry was gone. He had left his home and country, and she should see him no more. He who for months she now knew too well had been the master of her thoughts, was blotted out from the sphere of her life, and must leave that life a blank. Gone in anger, and, if not in hate, in misunderstanding, calling her his enemy still.

In a kind of luxury of misery she suffered these reflections to take possession of her. It was a chilly night, but she opened the window and stood gazing out, making, as many have done, a kind of sad appeal to the silence and quiet of the sky. It was not passionate sorrow, it was an utter prostration of hope that was upon her; an intense pity for herself; a depth of dejection and melancholy that seemed for the moment unbearable.

How long she stood she did not know. At last, in very pity for her fate, a tear fell down her cheek; and at that sensation she came to herself.

What was she doing, and how long had she been absent, and was it thus she was preparing herself for the tale she had to hear? Should Stephen Fanshawe, whom three times she had employed in her dealings with Henry, suspect that he had been employed for a reason that was stronger than benevolence? The moods of human beings are indeed variable as the shade of the quivering aspen leaf; and as this idea struck her, all weakness and dejection passed from Nora’s spirit. Her pale cheek became purple with shame, and in two minutes she was armed with a courage that could hear every particular with the tranquillity of an indifferent person.

On her return to the drawing-room, she made no apology for her absence, but, finding Stephen Fanshawe had finished his repast, invited him again to the fire, and said if he was quite at liberty she should now like to hear “all the particulars of this terrible business.”

During her absence he had been making some inquiries of Miss Willis. He did not fully understand, he said, how so singular an idea as that of Henry’s guilt could, in the first instance, have arisen; nor why, when it arose, Henry was not immediately summoned back to exculpate himself.

Miss Willis did not herself know clearly why Henry had been suspected, except that the letter gave ground for suspicion; but she did know that Nora, feeling the letter ought not to have been found, had wished that Henry should never know the fact; and perhaps fixing her mind too exclusively on that wish, had been mistaken in her conduct.

In making this explanation she touched on all that had occurred, and spoke with admiration of the courage with which Nora had endured the most trying of suspicions:

At this part of her narrative Stephen Fanshawe fixed his sightless eyes very intently upon her and said,

“I wonder if the suspicion is true. I beg your pardon; I ought not to have any wonderings on such a subject, but if I was assured it was not so, I should speak more freely.”

“You may be quite sure,” Miss Willis cried warmly. “He is not the sort of person to attract Miss Smith; and had he been so, her conduct in the matter, under such an idea, must have been different.”

His conversation with Miss Willis had not altogether satisfied Stephen Fanshawe on this point. A little suspicion had been excited by the very earnest tone of Nora’s letter, and that slight suspicion had, in fact, brought him down. He knew what he had to say must give pain; and he wished by personal communication to soothe and satisfy, as far as was possible. What, however, Miss Willis had failed to do, Nora’s words did. There was something so unromantic, so very prosaic in the manner in which she asked for the “particulars of the terrible business,” that his suspicions fled in a moment. The phrase had been prepared as Nora came along; and she might have been gratified had she known its effect.

Much relieved, he came, therefore, to tell his tale; and drawing his chair near to her—she, to assist her tranquillity, having taken out her work—he began by observing that he had never seen Henry at all. He was gone before he reached London.

“My movements were as rapid as possible,” he said, “yet they were vain. He had left London for Liverpool the night before—in fact, on the night of the day he wrote to you. On hearing this I telegraphed to a friend at Liverpool, begging him to discover him; but the vessel had sailed. We fancy that Henry had inquired at the Packet Office, and finding a fine vessel on the eve of sailing for Australia, made haste to catch it. But, you see, we know where he is gone. The vessel was bound for Melbourne; and, though I have not myself an acquaintance in that city, I shall have no difficulty in communicating through persons in my father’s office.”

“Australia!” Nora had said, when he pronounced the word, in dismay and utter despondency. She knew as little about Australia as a well-educated person can know. To her it was the land that is very far off; and her heart sank. But when he ceased she said with quietness, “He has indeed gone beyond the reach of my good offices.”

“Hardly. Australia is nothing now-a-days. If it were Sydney, I have myself many friends settled there. Depend upon it, many of your acquaintance have half their hearts in Australia.”

Half their hearts! Did he suspect her of having half her heart on the way there? Nora armed herself anew at this thought. Putting down her work, and looking full at him, she asked,

“Now tell me about his mother. Did you see her?”

“I did; but I found the poor woman in so pitiable a state that I could learn nothing from her. I was myself, you know, in great perplexity as to what had happened, and I found her unable to do anything but cry and wring her hands. Literally wring her hands,” he continued; “not a book expression. I never saw it done before. Never, I mean, observed it. Two or three times I put my hand on her hands, and implored her to be still, but in vain.”

“And I the cause,” Nora said involuntarily, for she had intended to hold her peace.

“A complication of causes, I fancy. After trying in vain to discover something from her, I asked if I could see Miss Devereux; and as she did not forbid it, I rang the bell, and sent for her. I think I have often mentioned that the Devereux refused to speak to me, and Miss Devereux was one of the sharpest in her enmity. She is a disagreeable girl, but on this occasion she was less disagreeable than usual. She not only obeyed my summons, but seemed softened in mind, and very full of regrets at her brother’s departure. In this a reproaching conscience had some share.

“What I gathered from her was this. On receiving Mr. Powderham’s letter, containing the account of the accusation that had been made, Henry was at first completely stunned; but on reading a letter—the letter from his father, which I have not seen—shame and horror took possession of his mind, and he went to his father and delivered himself of his opinions in no measured terms. Letitia Devereux said there had been a regular scene; and that her father had lost his temper—which was a very rare thing for him. He had told Henry that it was a useless piece of hypocrisy on his part to object to the letter, for he knew well enough that, while he had confined himself to writing his wishes, Henry had acted; making himself, you understand, Henry’s accuser.

“After this scene, Miss Devereux said, her brother came to her in a state not far removed from insanity. If his own father accused him, he said, what hope was there for him in the world? She, it seems—” here he paused a moment, and hesitated; then went on—“I beg your pardon, if what I say should annoy you, but I think it is best to tell you the whole story. She, then, it seems, has had a joke of long standing with her brother, regarding his feelings for you.”

Nora’s heart leapt into her mouth, and, except that her cheek was crimson, restrained any outward expression, and he hurried on.

“All the family, you know well, I believe, have indulged in the foolish idea that you are their enemy—Henry as much as the others; but his sister has chosen always to impute to him contrary feelings, teasing him, as she owns, out of his life. On this occasion, instead of comforting him, she renewed her old joke, telling him that there was a very easy way of getting out of his difficulties, for he had but to go and disclose to you the state of his affections, and of course the accusation would die away of itself. Henry, she says, burst into a rage the like of which she had never seen; and calling her, and you, and all, his persecutors and enemies, said he should leave England for ever. He then left her, and she had very little idea that he would put the threat into execution.”

“His sister is much to blame. She must feel she is,” was all Nora could say, her lips moving as by wires.

“I think she does. She seemed really unhappy, and more than once said she had so often joked him before, that she never thought of his taking things so seriously. It appears he then made all his arrangements privately; packed up a few things; did not dine at home, but came in after dinner to take leave of them. She said her father was much shocked, and endeavoured to dissuade him from so rash a step; but Henry was then incapable of listening to reason. He was quite calm, but, like a person wound up to a thing, it was as little use to speak to him as to speak to a block of wood. He took leave of them quietly, she said, till he came to his mother; but when he kissed her he broke down, and she thinks it was the agony of that parting that overwhelmed the poor woman.”

Stephen Fanshawe’s voice shook a little, and he paused. He had tried to tell it all very quietly, but, in fact, the scene in Mr. Devereux’s house in London had affected him deeply. The broken-hearted mother wringing her hands was a picture before him.

Not a sound proceeded from Nora, though he listened eagerly. He then said,

“I am afraid I have told you a painful story, but that was what I came for. I thought it best.”

“Much best,” she said, with a super-human effort at tranquillity, and a successful one. “I now understand things, and see why my cousin was unwilling to let me help him. His sister is very very much to blame.”

“We must not be too hard on her,” he said. “Such jokes are the amusement of some families, and if they are teasing, they are also enlivening. Where Miss Devereux is to blame—and she feels it now—is in not having seen that the case was too serious for jests. It is not an every-day thing to be accused of being an incendiary.”

Little more was said on that evening. Nora could still talk of common topics, but she made few inquiries further regarding Henry.

Soon after tea, Stephen Fanshawe, having engaged Henry’s lodgings as he came by, departed, promising to return for breakfast, which he did.

Before his departure he asked Nora if there was anything else he could do for her, and she requested him to tell her if he could think of any means by which James Field could be withdrawn from Riddlemere?

He looked perplexed, and she said quickly,

“I daresay I am very wrong in my feeling about him, but I really cannot help it. I have tried to get over it, but every day my dislike increases. If he stays here, my whole peace and comfort is destroyed.”

“What can be done?” he said, more to himself than to her.

“You must understand that I wish him well. He is my mother’s nearest relation, and that cause alone would be enough to make me anxious for his welfare. But, indeed, though sometimes my feelings approach very nearly to hate, it is not a wicked hate. I would do anything for him; visit him if he was ill, do him good in any way, but I cannot bear to have him here. I have a feeling that he watches me; and even sometimes in the house I fancy that he is spying at me.”

“But is it so?” Stephen Fanshawe said, surprised, and turning his eyes from her to Miss Willis.

“Oh, no!” Nora cried eagerly. “I don’t accuse him of it. I only say that is the feeling he gives me. I think he thinks of our relationship, and, perhaps, feels we ought to be more intimate than we are. But it cannot be. I try to be friendly, as your father advised me—friendly but distant; but if I attempt this friendliness he revolts me. I think I am wrong; but I tell you my feeling, and ask if anything can be done.”

“It can be done only, I suppose, by offering him something better. You mean that, of course.”

“Yes; twice as good if it could be—only not here.”

“But is he fit?—ought I to recommend him?” he inquired seriously, as a conscientious person must.

“I think you may. Mr. Powderham is more than satisfied; and all here speak well of him—well not only of his cleverness, but of his conduct. Even Mrs. Ratcliffe, though, like me, she cannot like him, says he is a very proper-behaved man.”

“Then I daresay it may be done. I will try, at any rate. Depend on that.”

“I don’t know why I give you all this trouble,” Nora said, with a tone of feeling in her voice. “How shall I thank you for all?”

“Don’t talk about trouble,” he replied lightly. “Trouble is my life. If it should please God to disable me from taking trouble, then, indeed, I should have trouble, and find it hard to bear. Till then I am at your service.”

“I feel like that myself,” Nora said, with a smile.

CHAPTER III.

THE story is renewed after the lapse of nearly two years. The last chapter closed in the month of September. This one opens in June two years later. The last chapter closed at Riddlemere, and this re-opens in the same place. But a Riddlemere no longer the scene of devastation—no longer occupied by workmen and navvies. Riddlemere is a thing complete. It stands a fine feature in the wild country; and its beautiful gardens and pleasure-grounds are the pride of the district.

The scene re-opens in this beautiful garden. The capabilities of the place had been great. That Nora’s eye had seen at once, and for having seen it Mr. Powderham had been disgusted with her. A skilful eye and skilful hands had made the most of the materials, and though much remained to be done, the garden was already a pride in the country.

On a smooth lawn, tufted with shrubs, and ornamented with shrubs and flowers in pots, a party of children sat. There were five. Three very young, nearly of an age, and a girl and a boy, several years older.

The three little girls were pretty, and full of airs and graces. The older boy and girl had little charm of appearance, but seemed to be dissolved in love and admiration of their younger playfellows. With this group sat Miss Willis reading.

On a bench nearer to the house, and shaded by a large tree, lay another young girl. She was very pretty, but an invalid. She might be thirteen or fourteen years old, but the fair, fragile features were marked with lines of care. A garden chair was placed near her, and on this sat Nora, and by Nora stood a blind man.

“I know it is only four o’clock, Sophy,” Nora said, “but it is not a hot day, and for the last ten minutes I have fancied there was a chill in the air.”

“I like a chill in the air,” replied Sophy Brook, fretfully. “A cold air is what I want; I am always so hot. Stifled!”

“What, last week?” asked Stephen Fanshawe, smiling. For the week before there had been a remarkable event, frost and snow in June.

“Yes, always hot. Even when I am cold I am hot.”

And though it sounded perverse, what Sophy said was very true, and Nora did not attempt to contradict the statement. Sophy was always tossing about, and complaining of being parched.

“But you know, Sophy,” she said, soothingly, “that whatever we feel we must obey orders. Dr. Lewis, when he came, told me to take care you were in the air as much as possible, but also to be sure you were never out late, or when the wind was chill. I do not dare to disobey him. There! the wind is certainly rising, and you must go in.”

Sophy knew she must when Nora said she must, but she chose to be perverse, and refused to move. The wind was really rising, and Nora, alarmed, was considering what argument would be most prevailing, when Stephen Fanshawe, as if he had seen her perplexed face, looked at her with a smile, then took up the peevish invalid in his arms, and carried her in. Sophy, too much astonished to resist, lay quiet, while they walked, and suffered herself to be put down in Nora’s boudoir, into which they entered.

Nora then called her mother, and Sophy was led away.

Notwithstanding, however, the summary process, she had staid in the garden five minutes too long. A return of her illness was the consequence, of which more will be said afterwards.

“Thank you,” Nora said, turning to Stephen Fanshawe, as Sophy left the room. “How you guess all one’s wishes! I often wonder how you do it. Are you always studying man’s nature; and does that study always teach you what is the right thing to be done?”

“I don’t know if I study man,” he replied, and there was a shadow on his face. “Perhaps I do, for I certainly have a mania for character. But there are other means by which one guesses people’s wishes.”

“I suppose so. I spoke foolishly. Study might do something, but study would never give the gift of helping rightly. That must come by nature; it is a gift which you have, and I am utterly without. I do what I can, but I do not see. It is my bane that I do not see.”

“I don’t know that I have it by nature,” he began again. “I was saying there are means by which one learns the wishes of another.”

He spoke gravely; defending himself, as Nora thought, from thanks and praises, and she answered to her thought,

“You must not think I am flattering when I say that you have the gift of being a real helper. You have helped me again and again when I was most in need of help, and I should be ungrateful, indeed, if I did not feel it.”

The warmth of her words, and some thoughts connected with his help, brought a glow to her cheek, and there was a glow also on his.

Nora saw it, and it puzzled her; but there came a sudden uncomfortable sensation at being alone with him. She stepped out of her boudoir and plucked a sprig of syringa from a tree which stood in a wooden tub outside, saying, as she did so, “I am very fond of syringa; are you? Some people say it has too strong a scent, but I like it to be blown in at my windows.”

“I like it too,” he said, and held out his fingers for the sprig. She gave it carelessly, and then again felt uncomfortable, and remarked,

“I am glad Sophy is gone in. The wind is cool, if not cold, and I think it will rain. Must you go to-night?”

“I fear so,” he said sadly. “Should you mind walking with me to that thornbush? I have one question I want to ask you?”

“Oh! certainly,” she replied, trying to speak indifferently, though she began to wonder what was coming; to wonder, as those do who will not face a thought that comes to trouble them.

“Will you not get a bonnet or a hat, or whatever is preferred?” he asked, so much in his usual manner that Nora put her wondering away, and answered lightly,

“No. Miss Willis has to take care of winds, but my death must come in quite a different manner. As poor Sophy says, even when I am cold I am hot.”

And they walked off together. When he had escaped from the immediate neighbourhood of the house, he said,

“You said just now that the bane of your life was that you could not see. May I show you something which for nearly two years has been making my life so great a burden to me, that unless I do show it, I do not know what the consequence will be?”

Hating herself for the dread that had taken hold of her; thinking it scarcely possible, after the friendly way in which she had always treated him, yet not the less pursued by it, Nora knew not what to say. If her dread was a true one, she would prevent its expression if she could.

“Surely, you must know me too well,” she said at last, with earnestness, “to be afraid to speak to me of whatever concerns you. Even were the claim one of gratitude only, you have the right to claim my assistance; but I would also hope that we are friends, and the best of friends.”

On the last few words a very slight emphasis was put;—sufficient to warn him, if he needed warning, and no more. He did need it; and he felt it, and a flush of pain passed over his face.

“I knew it was in vain,” he said sadly. “Wisdom has cried to me a thousand times that my hope was so impossible, I had better close it from the light of day. But when I am absent from you, impossible as it is, it pursues and torments me; I came last night with the determination that I would try to see more clearly. Thank you, let us say no more on the subject.”

“Oh! Mr. Fanshawe!” she said, in a broken voice, and a tear fell from her eye.

It was not only the pain of giving pain to that blind man; there was a swelling of the heart within, to think that love had come to her—she who had so pined for love, and that it was worse than useless. It lost her a friend.

“Do not let me grieve you,” he said, not only hearing the tears in her voice, but knowing that he had caused one to fall from her eyes. “I shall get over it now. It was the strife that killed me. If there was a chance, the very faintest, I know you would give it to me; but there is none, and therefore I must submit to overcome.”

“I would,” she said, in a low voice, “but there is none.”

“Thank you. I know it. Now go in; I do not mean to lose you as my half ward and my friend. Go in out of this cold wind.”

He shook her hand with a smile, and she obeyed him thankfully.

He walked to the place where Miss Willis sat, and stood beside her.

“I have tried, Miss Willis, and I have failed.”

“Oh! impossible!” she said, turning pale.

“Quite true. I do not thank you the less for all your kind wishes and kind encouragement. Now, good-bye. I am off; but mean to come again.”

He shook her hand also, and went.

And poor Miss Willis sat and wept bitterly. She had for two years been feeding him with hopes. Never definitely, but seeing his hope, and administering to it in gentle ways, and with words dropped in season.

In season, at least, as she thought, but very much out of season, as it appeared. It was one of those cases where a well-meaning person, arguing from a theory, can do a world of mischief. She had a theory that two persons possessed of an enthusiasm of benevolence, as were Nora and Stephen Fanshawe, must be, as old nurses would say, “married in heaven.” She felt that they only needed help to be brought together, and made happy for time and eternity. And her theory was very good; only that human nature is perverse, and will not like in those fitting ways. There may be good reason why it will not, but it is often vexatious enough to see its stubbornness.

CHAPTER IV.

AFTER the departure of Henry Devereux a time of darkness and dreariness had fallen upon Nora’s spirit, affecting her mentally and bodily. Could any of those about her have seen the truth—could they have perceived that she, strong and wilful and haughty as she was, was reduced to the condition of a common love-sick girl, something might have been done to rouse her. But to this fact all were blind. Miss Willis thought she was out of heart and disappointed; Mrs. Ratcliffe that she was suffering from the effects of the over-excitement of the fire and its consequences. That she should be so was very natural. She was suffering from it, so was Sophy; and, though Nora had not actually been present at the fire, she had suffered more than any from the worry afterwards. No one imagined that the hair-brained, thoughtless Henry could have captivated the sage Nora.

Mrs. Ratcliffe consulted Miss Willis about a change of scene. Sophy ought to have sea air. Should she ask Miss Smith to go to the sea for a few weeks? Miss Willis thought the plan good. The building was in a miserable state; but the two fine months of September and October would be sufficient to set much to rights; and Nora might then return to take up her abode in renewed delight.

Nora received the request with eager pleasure. To escape from the sight of the devastations, and from the sight of James Field, was in itself a boon; and a plan was shortly made and executed.

During the preparations for the removal she cheered up, and her faithful friends thought themselves Solomons. But no sooner was it accomplished than she became drearier and wearier than ever. At Riddlemere she might have had occupation out of herself. At the sea she was forced in very shame to apply herself to common occupations—music, reading, drawing, &c.; and from each and all her soul revolted. She was always in fancy sailing with a ship to Australia, and striving to penetrate into the secrets of a heart on board the vessel. There were moments when the few soft words at the close of Henry’s letter, under the light shed upon them by Stephen Fanshawe’s statement, spoke hopeful things to her pining heart—moments when she felt with a deep conviction that Henry in his heart loved her, and that a day might come when all would be made clear.

But vague hopes are the most intangible of blessings. The more the mind tries to grasp them the more shadowy they become. Whenever, therefore, the conviction was taken home with the intention of being nursed and cherished, so soon it flitted away, and she felt she had taken hold of a spectre.

She returned, therefore, to take renewed possession of Riddlemere with a heart as cheerless as the one she carried away.

During her absence, the only occupation that had given her pleasure was the endeavour to amuse Sophy. Natural kindness was, in part, the reason of this; but there was another reason, of which Nora was unconscious. About once a week Sophy would ask in a plaintive voice whether anything had been heard of Mr. Devereux. She was the only person who seemed to bear him in memory, or, at least, in a cherished memory; and Nora clung to the child in consequence.

This occupation did not fail her on her return, for though slightly improved in health, Sophy was still ailing. She had lost her appetite, and her spirits, and her pretty colour; and being one of those natural born tyrants who rule those about them with a rod of iron, she kept all the inhabitants of Riddlemere in bondage to her whims and caprices.

The very day of Nora’s return to Riddlemere, James Field received the offer of a new situation; a place which, if he chose to exert himself, and behave himself, would be permanent, and in which he would rise gradually to higher trust. The situation was worth four hundred and fifty pounds a year.

James Field was affected in two ways by the offer. He was delighted, and he was annoyed. The offer was as good as he had ever expected to have; the work, which was chiefly as accountant and superintendent in a house of business, was what he was fittest for, and it gave him a thrill of pleasure to think of showing Nora how little he depended on her favour for his advance in life. And yet he was annoyed. He had looked forward to a time when, having the field all to himself, he might gain her favour. What idle dreams ran in his head, and made a part of this favour, he scarcely knew himself! They were like Alnaschar’s visions. But dreams of the future he certainly had.

He asked an interview on the morning of her return, and made a parade of the offer he had received, saying at the same time that he believed Mr. Powderham was satisfied with him, and would be sorry to lose him, and that he was therefore undecided what to do. He wished to see how Nora felt towards him, now that Henry was gone.

He was conceited, but less disagreeable in manner than usual, and Nora was able to be civil, and even kind. She said she was very glad he had had such a good offer, and as she should very shortly cease to want his assistance, she advised him to accept it at once.

His keen eye searched her through and through, to try and discover if his going caused her a feeling of regret. It need not be said that no such discovery could be made; and he lost his temper in consequence.

“Some people,” he said, “did not know what faithful service was.”

“How do you mean?” Nora inquired, with a haughtiness that cowed him.

“I make no complaint, ma’am, but considering my faithful service, not to speak of other circumstances, I had hoped that you might have been less unwilling to dispense with me.”

Nora’s courage usually rose with the occasion; after a moment’s thought she replied—

“With the way in which you have performed your duties here, I believe I have every reason to be satisfied. My good wishes, therefore, you shall always have; and as I suppose the other circumstances you speak of are our relationship, be sure you shall never find me wanting, should you at any time require my help. In other respects I will not pretend a satisfaction which I do not feel.”

“In what respects may I ask?” he asked.

“I did not think you behaved fairly to Mr. Devereux. It is all passed, and I have no wish to return to the annoyance of that time; but I never can think the showing of a letter found by chance was a just action. It is passed, and I shall try to forget it; and my good wishes you shall always have.”

“Ladies can never understand a man’s duty,” he replied bitterly; but he knew she had fixed on that very thing for which his own easy conscience could not altogether acquit him. He attempted no further arguments, and they parted.

“Proud vixen!” he murmured. “I will be even with her yet.”

His departure was of great use to Nora. She now felt free and at home at Riddlemere. She could watch the works, and talk to the workmen, and go in and out without fear; and this fearless feeling cheered her, while the objects about interested her—as much, that is to say, as anything could interest her which was not on board that vessel sailing, and now approaching, to the far land of Australia.

But there came other events, not to cheer, certainly, but to arouse her from that languor of spirit in which she passed her days.

Six weeks after the departure of James Field, she saw among the marriages in the Times the announcement of the marriage of James Field, Esq., to Letitia Devereux, daughter of Simon Devereux, Esq.

There could be no mistake; and Nora put down the paper with a face of consternation. It was not so much at the event itself as at the sudden thought that came that she was responsible for this. She had helped him into a place where marriage was possible. James Field the brother-in-law of Henry! She shuddered as she thought of it, and of what his feelings would be.

In her consternation she could resolve on no other step than her usual one—of writing, that is, to Stephen Fanshawe, to beg him to inquire into the circumstances. She, as usual, consulted Miss Willis before doing so, and received from her the usual assurance that to employ him was to do him a favour, not to give him trouble.

She wrote, and then had to wait. His boys were just returning home, and he was busy; and it was ten days, just Christmas-time, before he came. He then came, instead of writing, securing, as before, the lodging in the village.

His account of the state of affairs in the Devereux family was most melancholy. So melancholy, he told Miss Willis, that he was afraid to let anyone but himself relate it to Nora.

He had found, on calling, that Mrs. Devereux was too ill to see him. Not knowing where to turn, he had discovered the apothecary who was in attendance; and on going to him for information, found that he was the best person to consult, as he appeared to know well all the circumstances of the family. The account he gave was shortly this:

About a month back James Field had proposed to Letitia. His acquaintance with the family was one of long standing, in a formal way; but the apothecary observed that with regard to Miss Devereux it appeared to have been by no means formal. This, however, was without the knowledge of her parents.

The proposal had been received by both father and mother with astonishment and horror. Mr. Devereux,—showing, as Mr. Blair, the apothecary said, a pride of family which no one had ever suspected in him—and which he—Mr. Blair—must observe he had no right to entertain,—had put himself in a paroxysm of rage. Mrs. Devereux, who since Henry’s departure had never smiled, and seldom ceased to weep, who had been unable to interest herself in anything, roused herself to express her horror at this marriage. With her it seemed to be a dislike of the man, founded on old recollections; a dislike which, overpowering her in her weak state, seemed perfectly ungovernable.

Miss Devereux, and he believed Mr. Field, also, had taken the opposition, after the first moment, very quietly. They refused to break off their engagement; but he ceased to come to the house, and there was no appearance of any further design in contemplation.

A fortnight, however, after the refusal, Letitia was missed, and the day following wrote to her father to announce her marriage. It had been properly celebrated in the presence of many witnesses, and she was now gone to her husband’s home. She expressed regret at having been forced to take a step in opposition to her father’s wishes, but excused herself by pleading her conviction that when once he had said a thing he was incapable of changing; her long attachment to James Field; and, lastly, the unendurable dulness of her home. Of her mother she said nothing.

Neither father nor mother, Mr. Blair said, had appeared to be quite in their senses since the event. Mrs. Devereux had had a violent hysterical fit, and after being carried to bed, had there remained. She was a woman, he said, of few ideas, but those few held her fast. Devotion to her husband, love for Henry, and a sense of the necessity of propriety of behaviour in women, were the ideas that possessed her most strongly.

Unable to make the excuses which he and all others who knew what a dreary life she had led could make for the daughter, she thought only of the step itself, and coming on her already shattered state, it crushed her.

With regard to Mr. Devereux, it was difficult to say what it was that affected him so strongly. But Mr. Blair thought that, after years of prosperity, the sudden turn in his fortunes, the oversetting of his quiet life, was probably the thing that had unhinged him. He probably felt remorse as well as regret for Henry’s departure—a double remorse when he saw the effect on his wife; and whether or not he disliked James Field, and blamed himself for having put his daughter in his way, Mr. Blair could not say.

Stephen Fanshawe here repeated a remark of Mr. Blair’s, that it is impossible to argue from definite grounds in considering a character like that of Mr. Devereux.

To judge from his usual manners and conduct, it would have been thought that he had no feelings of a tender kind. But he possibly had some, as other human beings have, and the very unlikelihood of their rising up to sting him, the very uncommonness of the sensations of such a sting, would the more master him. Certain it was that he was altered. He had become violent, irritable, anxious, seemingly not master of himself; to use a French expressive word, éperdu.

The house, he said, was in a miserable state; and a little girl of four years old, who had long been in weak health, would not, in human probability, survive the winter. If that blow fell, he feared Mrs. Devereux would sink altogether.

Nora asked if anything would be done. Her heart yearned to be of use to the poor, crushed mother; but Stephen Fanshawe said nothing could be done by her. Guessing she would wish to be of use, he had sounded Mr. Blair; but he found that her name was often on the lips of Mr. Devereux, and never in any kindly manner. (He did not say what Mr. Blair had said, “always with curses.”) He advised her not to attempt to interfere at present—not at all without consulting him, he added, smiling.

Nothing had been heard of Henry. If good news came from him, the whole house might be cheered and restored.

Nora, after hearing these details, fell back no more into languor. There is something in the sight or the hearing of the real stubborn miseries of this world which often acts as a cure to the more imaginative part of sorrow. She did not feel less, her heart was little healed, but she began to look on life with different eyes. The thought of the poor, broken-hearted mother constantly pursued her, and withdrew her thoughts from herself.

CHAPTER V.

AND then came further trouble. Early in February, Monsieur d’Alberg wrote an exultant letter to announce the birth of a son. Why a son was so important to him none could say, but so it was; and, under the influence of this joyful event, his heart expanded enough to impart itself to Nora. He wrote a kindly as well as a triumphant letter; and it gave her a feeling that one of her haters was thawing towards her.

He did not invite her to come over at that time; but he expressed a wish that when Madame was recovered she would come and see the young heir.

Madame, however, did not recover rapidly. Nora began at last to wonder at the often-repeated bulletin: “Doing well, but continues weak.” She wrote to say that, if Monsieur d’Alberg approved, she would like to visit her mother. Perhaps her visit might invigorate her.

Monsieur d’Alberg wrote in reply to beg her to come. He did not say he felt uneasy; but Nora imagined that he did so, and set off without delay.

It did not need many looks in her mother’s face to convince Nora that her days were numbered. Monsieur d’Alberg did not appear to see it, physician though he was; but to the keen and searching eye of the sad daughter it was plain. And, in fact, after a painless decay of six weeks, Madame d’Alberg died.

Sad as were those weeks, they were not without sweetness. It was Nora who once again was all in all to her mother. Monsieur d’Alberg was not a man to invite to himself trouble and sorrow; and, as his eyes began to open to the conviction that his wife was dying, he very thankfully resigned her to Nora’s care. Not altogether in want of affection, he was very kind, and, whenever he came, spoke gently both to mother and daughter. It was more the wish to spare himself the sight of her decline than from want of common feeling; and there was nothing but peace and comfort around the dying bed of the well-meaning but weak woman.

Nor after her death did Monsieur d’Alberg shew any return of distrust or dislike. He acceded to her wish of taking little Annora under her protection for good; and with equal readiness to her taking the two elder sisters for a long visit to Riddlemere. He was going, he said, to break up his establishment for a time, to place his boy with a sister who lived in some other part of Switzerland, and would let her know when he intended to reform his household.

With three little sisters Nora therefore returned to Riddlemere, and a good deal of life was introduced into the house. Sophy was still in failing health, and in attending upon her, in amusing the children and performing her usual duties, full occupation was provided. She was still sad enough at heart, but was learning to control herself, and was outwardly cheerful.

Before the close of the year, Riddlemere was destined to receive other guests.

In the summer, Mrs. Devereux, after a long illness, in which her mind as well as body failed, died. The child of whom Mr. Blair had spoken died in the spring, and the blow, as he had imagined, gave the finishing stroke to her strength. Mrs. Devereux died, and a month after her death it could no longer be concealed that Mr. Devereux was mad.

Letitia had not been allowed to come to the house during her mother’s illness, or after her death. Her very name caused Mr. Devereux momentarily to lose his reason. But when the time came that the long brooding insanity became a confirmed thing, she was sent for.

Poor Letitia was not very happy in her marriage; and when these family cares devolved on her, she found but little help from her husband. He did indeed ascertain for her the state in which the money matters stood; but, finding these were not satisfactory, he declined to have any more to say. It was necessary to place Mr. Devereux in some sort of confinement, and to provide for the two children that were left. During the past year Mr. Devereux had done little to increase his fortune, and debts had accumulated; while the income which was settled on his wife and Henry could not be touched till Henry’s return.

Letitia wrote to Henry; but she did not know where he was, and she knew that his receipt of her letter was a doubtful event. He had at last written to his mother, and had said that he had found employment, but he also said that his life was an unsettled one. He gave a direction to which letters were to be sent, but desired her not to be uneasy if no answer was returned. He had, he said, no definite plans; when she wrote to Australia he might possibly be in New Zealand, “or in any other country on the face of the earth, except England.” The stormy passions that drove him away, too evidently still raging within him.

Letitia had had but one strong feeling in her life. Natural affections she certainly had, as was evident now, for she was oppressed with sorrow and care, and something of remorse, too, at the death of her mother, and the state of her father, and her home. But she had only consciously indulged one feeling, and to this she now clung. It was not a passion that made her happy, but she had taken it to herself, and to that passion or feeling, now become a duty, she was resolved to give her life’s devotion. When she saw, therefore, that she was to find no help or sympathy from her husband in her cares for her family, she resolved that she would take the burden on herself, and refrain from annoying him by word or look.

But in order to bear this burden without annoying him, she took a step which no other consideration would have made her take. She appealed, and in no haughty tone, to Nora. Her letter to Nora was a good one. Its tone would, in a man, have been called manly; for it acknowledged faults in the past, and yet, without abject expressions, asked that they should on this occasion be forgotten. She said she had a young brother and sister to provide for until Henry’s return, and could not from circumstances receive them herself. It was not money, she said, that she asked for them, but care. She was herself inexperienced in such things, and wished for the advice and assistance of one better fitted to offer it.

It would be difficult to say whether pleasure or surprise predominated in Nora’s mind on the reception of this letter. She had been led to form ideas of Letitia’s character different from what it portrayed. But the fact was, Letitia herself was changed. Devotion even to a bad husband was better for the character than the life of idle discontent which she had led at home; and the better parts of her character were beginning to emerge from darkness.

Unwilling to say anything that might wound, Nora simply answered the letter with the assurance of her willingness to give both assistance and advice; and then requested her faithful servant, Stephen Fanshawe, to go to Letitia and discover her wishes.

Her own wish, she told him, was to receive and keep the children until Henry’s return; but prudence made her unwilling to make the proposal, if such should not be Letitia’s plan.

On going to Letitia, Stephen found that the plan was exactly what she most approved. Her feeling of responsibility in arranging for the welfare of the children was satisfied; and as the home might then be broken up, there was good hope that the money matters might be satisfactorily arranged in the course of a few months. This last subject was of great importance to her. She of course had had no fortune, but should there be a satisfactory arrangement of affairs, a fortune might come to her, more or less; and whatever it were, it would gratify her husband.

Nora came to London, to her guardian’s house, to receive the children. She behaved with great prudence, making no advances to Letitia beyond what the occasion required, and was gratified by receiving a visit from her when the children were placed under her care.

There was no likeness to Henry in Letitia, and but little in the other children. The one who had lately died, the little girl of four years old, was the only one who had had any promise of the features, or of the charm of disposition, of the elder son. But the children were harmless, poor little shy things, who had had few pleasures and a careless education, and were therefore more interesting to a kind heart than had they been beautiful and charming.

She took them back to Riddlemere, and for the next seven months devoted herself to her large family.

It was at the end of that time that the little event mentioned two chapters back, broke the quietness of her life.

CHAPTER VI.

STEPHEN FANSHAWE had made a mistake. It was the first real, the first great mistake he had made in his life, and the mortification of that consciousness for a time overpowered other feelings. Had he followed his own keen and clear judgment it is unlikely that he would ever have been misled; but the continual dropping of a flattering suggestion had been too much for him. It had beguiled a heart only too ready to be beguiled, and judgment had for a time slept.

The occasion which had put his judgment to sleep had arisen only two months before his disclosure. Nora and Mr. Powderham differed in opinion about the purchase of a small piece of land adjoining her property. Nora wished to have it; Mr. Powderham said the purchase was too bad a one to permit him to allow it. She appealed to Mr. Fanshawe, whom she trusted as her guardian still. He took her part; and a feud between the two advisers followed. Nora, not yet thoroughly taught to yield, would not yield, and finally implored Mr. Fanshawe to come down and help her. He promised to do so; but a fit of the gout prevented his keeping his appointment, and he sent down his son during the Easter holidays to act for him. “Though blind,” he said, in his letter to Mr. Powderham, “you will find his judgment as good as mine.”

A great deal better, Mr. Powderham found it, for Stephen Fanshawe, without any hesitation, sided with him. The bit of property, he said, would cause Nora an amount of worry, and perhaps litigation, which it was not worth, even in her view—which no friendly adviser could allow her to saddle herself with. He stated his opinion openly and unhesitatingly, and the matter was decided.

It was on this occasion that his heart, which had only been too ready to escape, fairly escaped out of his keeping; that his judgment, only too ready to be beguiled, disappeared under a cloud. The way in which she bore his interference; the candour, the gentleness, the submission to reason, not only won his admiration, but suggested a flattering hope. Mr. Powderham had spoken of a woman’s obstinacy. Where was it? Was it before him that it had disappeared?

When he returned to his scholars he very shortly found that his mind was no longer as it had been; his work had lost its engrossing power; his mind was perpetually weighing and sifting hopes and fears, words and signs. His was a strong and determined mind, and feeling, like Othello, that “doubt was no fit state for man,” he resolved to be resolved. To Riddlemere, therefore, he suddenly went, and the result is known.

He had made a great mistake. He knew it before the words had left his lips, and yet persisted. He felt it bitterly afterwards. For a time, as was said, the mortification of the mistake almost swallowed up the other pain. Nor was the mortification selfish. He knew that, strong though Nora was in some senses, and blind as he was, there yet was no comparison of strength between them. He was, though blind, a strong man; and she, though formed in no soft mould, a weak woman. He had seen it from the very first; and it had been his joy to devote a part of his energies to help her. From this joy in the first instance he felt he had cut himself off.

But he was not one to be cut off from anything on which his mind was set, except impossibilities. And here, he thought, there is no impossibility. It was this idea which aroused him out of his depression.

“There are some past things which cannot be undone,” he reflected; “but this shall not be one. In its effects it can be undone. I have only to forget what I said, and she will forget also. I have only to return unconcernedly to our old relations, and she will return also.”

It might be a difficult task, but he was determined; and he cast about in his mind for an opportunity of exhibiting to her his easy yet hearty friendship.

There came to him an opportunity which he had not expected.

Having occasion to go to London to speak to the father of one of his pupils, he unexpectedly heard a piece of news interesting to Nora. The gentleman to whom he went, a great merchant, had been seized on the morning of his visit with an attack of quinzy. When his visitor arrived, he was no better than a dumb man. A brother-in-law, who was at the moment in the house, went down to Stephen to apologize for the trouble that had been given him in vain.

This brother-in-law, finding Stephen a tutor of a peculiar kind, and interested by his words and ways, entered into conversation with him; and, shortly struck by his intelligence, consulted him also. He told him he had only the day before arrived from Australia; that he had on his hands a difficult business—the care of the property of a young man now in Australia, a minor, and somewhat weak in his wits. He entered a good deal into the subject, delighted at finding a kind listener to his difficulties.

Stephen was always a kind listener, on principle; and though now, as often, wearied with unimportant details, was listening on, in hopes of being of use to some of the many who looked to him for help and employment, when he was suddenly startled by this answer to a question he put.

“Yes, very true—that landed property must have an agent; I should ask you if you could name a fit person for such a charge, were it not that I have partly engaged myself to an individual who made the passage with me, a Mr. Devereux, who appears to be a shrewd, knowing man.”

A Mr. Devereux returning from Australia! Stephen started, yet the description of the person was as unlike Henry as any description well could be.

“Do you know such a person?” inquired the gentleman.

“Perhaps I do. Is it a young gentleman?”

“Young! well, yes, I suppose so,” smiling. “About thirty, perhaps; but having the air of one well accustomed to business. A grave, sober person; intelligent, but not lively.”

“Possibly I do know him; your description does not exactly coincide with my remembrance, but years make changes. If the same, he has, I should say, the very qualities for the situation you propose, though without the usual routine education. And he has undertaken the task?”

“Not yet. He is to give me his answer in a week. We had, at different times, a good deal of conversation, and I was so struck by his common sense—a quality I value beyond all others—that I made him my offer before we parted yesterday, hoping sincerely that I should prevail on him to accept it. He asked a week’s delay, and I promised to wait.”

Henry’s common sense! That quality in which he had been to general appearance so singularly deficient. But Stephen perfectly understood the description. He had it, and he had it not. He had it in his nature, but it was too often swept from the surface by the blasts of passion.

After a few inquiries he hurried away, not only interested in Henry himself, but eager to use the opportunity for renewing his intercourse with Nora.

Unable, on that occasion, to remain in London, and hunt out the interesting stranger, yet by some inquiries satisfied of the truth of his suspicion, he hurried to Windsor, and there, before post-time, indited one of those letters to Nora which gave him so much trouble.

The trouble was simply in the manual labour; he felt none in re-opening the correspondence. He made no allusion to the past episode, but in his usual easy style told her of what had occurred in the morning. It was concisely told. He added that she would probably hear from Henry himself—perhaps receive a visit; but if it should not be so, and she would let him know, he would give a special holiday to his boys, and go to London himself to see him.

Nora blushed as she took up Stephen’s letter. He might have resolved to forget, but she had not forgotten. Her tender regrets were ever pursuing him; a sense of shame in having so misled him was ever pursuing her; a pity for herself in having thus lost one of her few friends, was ever present to her imagination. She blushed as she touched the letter, and glanced timidly at Miss Willis, dreading that she might be observed while thus perusing his first—not love-letter—but the reverse.

Miss Willis would probably have been conscious that there was a letter from Stephen Fanshawe in the room had she been as blind as he was. She knew such things by instinct, and was quite aware of the fact now. But, or rather in consequence, she was poring over a paper of her own; and Nora read her letter under the happy impression that it was unseen. Miss Willis had been very unhappy about Stephen. She blamed herself, not Nora; and yet Nora felt guilty when she saw how unhappy she was. His name, therefore, had passed out of their intercourse.

It was a different blush that dyed Nora’s cheeks, as she read, from the soft blush that had flitted over them when she began. It was a blush that rose from the depths of an agitated heart; and when it left her, it left her sick with ardent hope, and cold with deadly fear.

For about five minutes there was a silence. Poor Miss Willis, painfully conscious that there was something going on, read and re-read again her paper, and was proceeding to a fourth perusal, when the silence was broken. Nora had resumed her self-possession and composure.

“What do you think I have heard, Miss Willis?” she said, with a smile.

Miss Willis, full of Stephen, looked up with a wondering face. What could Nora have heard of such cheerful import?

“This letter is from Mr. Stephen Fanshawe;” and for the moment, the little episode being entirely forgotten, Nora said the name with easy fluency, “and what do you think he tells me? My cousin is come back.”

“Oh!” said Miss Willis. Expecting some important revelation regarding Stephen, this news fell flatly on her ear.

“He arrived the day before yesterday from Australia; and Mr. Fanshawe, who certainly has the gift of hearing pleasant things, found it out, and writes to tell me of it. Where are Simon and Bella? They must be told;” and she rose and called.

The two children were good children, and were opening, warming, and improving under her kind care; but they were not like children. The dreariness of their early home had left a shadow on them; and, though they had a good soil to be worked on, they had no childish bloom and radiancy.

Nora, who dared not herself give vent to the joyful feelings of her heart, was hoping for a burst from them. But she was disappointed. They loved the remembrance of Henry; but the remembrance of their dreary home was strongly upon them, and they could not, in the first instance, separate the different parts of the subject.

“Are you not glad?” Nora said, half reproachfully as they hung their heads.

“Of course we are glad,” the boy said bluntly. “Only we don’t know much about it. Will Henry come here?”

She turned her face away for a moment; then replied that she did not know.

“I think you should write to him, Simon,” she said. “You can send your letter to Letitia. She will be sure to know where he is.”

“And I will send my love,” said Annabella, perceiving, as she thought, in Nora’s eye, that a polite message would be proper.

“Poor things!” said Miss Willis, as they left the room, “they have been happier with you than in all their lives before; you must not expect romance from them.”

When Nora took Stephen’s letter to answer, she was, for the first time, struck by it. The absorbing contents of the letter had banished all tender regrets for him from her mind; but when she re-read it, its absence of sentiment struck her. If, in her tender regrets for him, there had been a shadow of relenting, this absence of sentiment would, as it has often happened, have caused a sensation of pique, or actual disappointment, as the case might have been; but Nora was too terribly conscious of the secrets of her own heart, to have room for any such feelings regarding a lover. She noticed the absence of sentiment with gratitude and emotion, understanding the motive, and touched by it.

Something of this gratitude, something of her sorrowful regrets, she now longed to pour forth to him; but after writing on and destroying one sheet of paper, an unusual wisdom came to her rescue. Let the past be past, since he was willing to have it so, and her answer was written in a tone copied from his. The word “grateful,” added to her usual signature, was the only sign of more than common feeling allowed to escape.

Stephen had not expected any relenting, and the answer, though it did not gratify, satisfied him.

In this answer she expressed a confident expectation that her cousin would visit, or otherwise communicate with his brother and sister. If her expectation should prove false she would then, she said, trouble him again.

Of this she had no need. She did otherwise hear of Henry.

CHAPTER VII.

THE description given of Henry by the strange gentleman was a true one. He was not in reality as much altered as he appeared; but on the surface of his character there was a great change. Its lightness and brightness had faded; its volatile caprice and giddiness was gone; and, such being the case, the more practical parts of his nature had come in to play—were, in fact, what was chiefly seen. He was, in his inner being, so remorseful and penitent and sad; and, for the time being, so given up to these feelings that he had no desire for diversion, no heart to be otherwise than sober and grave.

His life in Australia had been a hard one. On the voyage out, he had been supported by many thoughts and many dreams. The thoughts chiefly his own wrongs; the dreams, dreams of proving what he could do, which might make England regret him. England—a large word to express at once Nora, Mr. Powderham, and James Field.

To assist in these dreams, he, with the common sense he certainly possessed, made the best use of his time on board. From a kind teacher or professor of mathematics and arithmetic he took lessons in arithmetic, &c. From a surveyor who was on his way to an employment he took lessons and received hints in all matters appertaining to the surveyor’s business; and, working with a good heart, he pleased his kind instructors by his progress. Very valuable knowledge was thus stored for future use in his head.

But, while devoting a part of his days to these sensible duties, another part was as regularly devoted to the consideration of his wrongs. Could we fancy a calm spirit, studying as a curiosity the mind of man, there is, perhaps, no other thing which would cause a greater surprise than the unwearied manner in which man’s mind can dwell on certain subjects; and among all subjects none more astonishing than the way in which it can dwell un-tired on its wrongs. Day by day, and day by day, the same words can be repeated, the same scenes re-acted, the same indignant, impotent passion stirred within. So it was with Henry. He was never tired in recalling the painful past; the years of neglected childhood; the wrongs he had received from Stephen Fanshawe; the misery of his home; the false hopes on which his youth had been fed, up to the last painful time—his wrongs from James Field and Mr. Powderham, and Nora herself.

But, having stirred himself to passion during the earlier years, he rarely dwelt on the last item of all—on Nora; something warned him off from that track. “If I think of her I shall go mad!” was the usual conclusion to his reveries; and then he would stamp about the deck, and drive the insanity away.

On his arrival at Melbourne, in his haste to find employment, he bound himself to remain for six months in the office of a land-surveyor. One day of ill success had stirred him to impatience, and he made his engagement in his usual thoughtless way. His master was a hard-working, rough, and hard-tempered man; and Henry had a weary time of it. Until that was over he wrote no letter home. No sooner was he free from this employment than, tired and cramped in spirit by his labours at a desk, he accepted a situation with a large sheep farmer up the country. He longed for air and freedom; but his dreams were failing him, he was undecided as to his future life, and it was then, before leaving Melbourne for the open country, that he wrote to his mother.

The wild life pleased him for a time, but his heart was growing sad, and he was longing even for that unsoft home which had been his. Again he resorted to that contemplation of his wrongs which had driven him from home, country, comfort, love, and happiness; which had forced from him a vow to return to England no more until his innocence was made clear.

He had been about six months in his wild life when Letitia’s letter, reporting the death of his mother, and the insanity of his father, reached and paralyzed him. He loved his mother, and knew she loved him. The thought of her last embrace had been at once a torment and a consolation in his exile, and the hope of her smiling caress when he returned, if he ever did return, was the one hope of the future which was all bright, and had no darkness in it. Of death making an invasion into his home he had never thought. When in a passion he often wished himself and others dead; he often had seen and heard of the mournful emblems of man’s mortality; but he had never met with death in his private life, and had certainly never pictured it as seizing his mother—the one being of whose love he was secure. But she was dead, and when he heard the news he would not be comforted.

Yet in this first woe, sad as it might be, there was sweetness compared with the feelings which consideration brought upon him. When he came to study, as an exile does, Letitia’s letter, a horror of remorse came over him. Letitia was not of a soft or pitiful nature, neither to herself nor to others, and she said in plain words, “Your going first, and then my marriage, killed her.” “Your going killed her.” These four words took hold of Henry’s brain and maddened him. He had killed her, his mother; the only being who loved him.

He threw up his situation, he hardly knew wherefore, and travelled night and day in sultry weather, he knew not why, to Melbourne, and there fell ill of a fever, as might have been expected.

He fell into kind hands, and in the calm of convalescence for the first time came to think.

All his wild dreams of doing great things in Australia were over. He had only just money enough to take him home. But to this he was indifferent. He must go home; go to that country which had so wronged him—that country where as an innocent man he never could appear—that country in which the only being who cared for him lay sleeping in the grave. He must go. He must retract his vow; he could not resist Letitia’s appeal; he must go, but he wished he was dead and laid beside his mother.

He said this one day to a grave, motherly woman who had attended him in his illness.

“It would certainly be better for many of us,” she replied calmly, and without rebuke, “if we are certain that we are fit to meet God.”

Henry stared at her. Not that he had not often heard such words, but they had never before come home to him. He made her no answer; but he shivered, and his eyes went into himself, as they had never done before. Was he fit to meet God, if his wild words and prayers were granted? No great results ensued from this scrutiny; nothing that would have satisfied those who on such an occasion expect a definite and apparent change. Yet his self-questioning did effect a change. He no longer wearily wished to die, but wished to live. He no longer dreaded a return to England, but wished to reach it, and by his new life to redeem the past. He no longer dwelt on his wrongs, but, humbled in spirit, owned his own miserable failures; and in fact, if not in word, said, “Lord, have mercy upon me, and incline my heart to keep Thy laws.”

So far he was changed; and he went home with a steadfast purpose in his soul. If his father was indeed insane, he was the head of the house from which father and mother had been taken. He would do his duty to them, acting for Letitia and the rest as a father would do—for Letitia, even though married to “that man,” at whom his very flesh recoiled. Perhaps this last resolve more than aught else cheered him. It was something to feel that he could call Letitia sister still, although her name was Field.

So far he was changed. Over the upper crust of his character a breath of manliness and energy had passed, which sobered and quieted him, while deeper within a new and higher principle had begun to stir and act.

Yet he was Henry still. There was the same nature, impulsive, unreasoning, more under control, because he was more conscious of weakness, but liable to be blown with every blast of caprice or fancy or passion still.

On his arrival in London he went to his old home, now the habitation of others, and heard at the door that Letitia lived far away eastward, and that the rest of his family were at Riddlemere.

“Where?” he cried, with a crimson glow on his cheek, which astonished the quiet maid who answered his inquiries.

“A place called Riddlemere,” she said. “We have been sometimes asked, so I remember the name; but I don’t know the family.”

He turned away, and a little cloud began to arise and to shadow his intellect. What was the meaning of this? He walked on, feeling very desolate, and could not decide which way to turn. To visit Letitia at James Field’s house was beyond that full forgiveness he had purposed. That was a step he could not take. After some hesitation he went eastward, and took a lodging for himself in a respectable street not very far from where she lived. There he established himself, and sent for his luggage. He then wrote to Letitia, telling her where he was, and asking her to come to him.

Letitia obeyed with alacrity. Though given up heart and soul to her husband, she was not so happy with him as not to feel a certain joy in the sight of Henry’s face again. Only, as she entered his room she said,

“I come, Henry, and willingly; but I am a wife, and I will not hear one word against my marriage.”

“You shall not,” he said sadly; “there is misery enough for us to talk about.”

Then she looked into his sorrowful, changed face, and kissed him.

Their meeting was sad and quiet, but satisfactory so far as their own future relations were concerned. He listened to all Letitia had to tell; blamed her for nothing; owned that, in accepting Nora’s proposal, she had done the best for the children, and, in fact shewed himself, as he intended to do, the future father of the family. With a face quiet though careworn he listened to all the painful details of his mother’s illness and his father’s growing insanity, and only once shed a tear. It was when he heard for the first time of the little child’s death. It had been a soft little gentle thing, and Henry, in imagination, had had her hands around his neck, and his lips on her cheek, and had felt comforted about his mother. In her letter Letitia had forgotten this event, and when he heard of it a large tear rolled down his cheek. But he did not dwell on it. He felt so sad that nothing greatly affected him.

Nothing, except that one thought of Riddlemere. When he turned his thoughts in that direction, there was a cloud upon his brain.

He told Letitia of the agency that had been offered him.

She advised him to accept it. “If,” she added, with emphasis, “you must go to work again.”

“Of course I must work,” he replied. “Even if the affairs were in a better state than it seems from what you tell me they are, I should be a fool as regards myself, and worse than a fool as regards the family, if I did not work.”

“Yes, I did not mean that,” she said.

“Then what did you mean?” He controlled himself, speaking with a quietness that deceived her.

“I mean, Henry, that in your position anything of hard work is a mistake and a folly. You are the next heir to great wealth, and, as far as appears, Miss Smythe has no wish to marry. Of course she may marry, but if she does, I think, as I have always done, that you are the person she would choose.”

Considering the raging storm that was in Henry’s mind, the effort with which he kept it in check was truly heroic.

“Letitia,” he said, without apparent passion, but with solemnity, “if you and I are to remain friends, such words must never pass your lips again. You, of all people, ought to know,” he went on, with a tremble in his voice, “that the cloud under which I live, and which even here in London, where I am scarcely known, makes me afraid to lift up my head, has fixed a great gulf between Miss Smith and me. And were it not so, the thoughts you suggest are unseemly and unfitting.”

Letitia’s mind was not formed in the mould which thinks much of the unseemly. Of that part of Henry’s reply she thought nothing; but she had been affected by another part. When he said, “you of all people,” there came a bright spot on her cheek. She thought he was going to attack her husband, and that she was resolved not to bear. She was touched by his reticence.

“I beg your pardon, Henry,” she cried. “I really at the moment had forgotten that ridiculous folly.”

And it was true. Even in the midst of the excitement she had felt only the ridicule of the charge made against Henry, and had never believed that it was that charge which had driven him away.

“It was no folly,” he sadly said, but said no more; and they parted in peace, and with a promise on Letitia’s part to come again.

But, as was usual with Letitia, she had ruffled instead of soothing his spirits; and when she left him he laid his head on his hands and thought.

The subject of his thoughts was how to conduct himself with regard to Nora; how to take or to bear the benefits she poured on his family. With the mere effort to think about her, there returned something of old irritation and bitterness; the sad but natural effect of long habit upon the mind. Then came also that flood of vague passionate thoughts and feelings which always disordered him, and which he never dared to face. There was also, on this occasion, the pride of Henry, and the natural pride of man; the humiliation of accepting this unceasing return of good for evil.

He thought till he was weary. Then he went out in search of dinner, and, glad to escape from that portion of his thoughts which regarded Nora, he endeavoured to arrange his plans for the few next days. As he strolled home from a clean tavern, where he had found a clean dinner, he passed a church, where, in this poor district, an evening service was being celebrated, with choral music, and all the care and beauty a Queen might have commanded. He went in, and knelt, and listened with the poor congregation; and while the sweet and soothing sounds fell on his ear and stole into his heart, he felt, as many have done in like circumstances, that the cares and worries of this life were not everything; that there was a life of man which might be in a higher region—above the smoke and stir of this dim spot—where the peace of God was the only wind that blew.

He did not consciously think much of this. He only felt it, but, as he walked home, he said in his heart that he would do his duty, and not be tossed about as he had been, with the oppositions and contradictions of this vexing world.

The following morning he went to the asylum in which his father had been placed. He hoped to be allowed to see him, but this request was refused, and refused with decision.

“They had few cases in the asylum,” was the observation of the person to whom Henry was speaking, “more desperate, and, as far as yet appeared, more hopeless.”

The concern in Henry’s face softened the words the gentleman was about to use; but even softened, the account was a painful one. The malignant passions Mr. Devereux had cherished, now in the failure of mental power lorded over him, and there were times when it seemed as if a fiend possessed him. There were other and gentler moods, the gentleman said; and the hope was that they would in time be the prevailing ones.

After hearing this hopeless account, and feeling more than ever that it had become his business to watch over his family, Henry went to the lawyer in whose hands were the family affairs, and mastered the general state of things.

On his return home he wrote to accept the agency that had been so opportunely offered; and when Letitia came to him, he begged her to accompany him in his search for a small house, which he wished to take at once.

“But is there not a house in Hertfordshire, where you are going?”

“I believe there is, but all that will take time to settle. I want to have Simon and Bella at home with me at once. We can make our plans afterwards.”

He found the house he required somewhere towards Kensington. His affectionate nature turned lovingly to the old home he had once so hated, and he chose to bend his steps in that direction. It was not till the following day that he wrote to Nora.

CHAPTER VIII.

HENRY’S letter was as follows:—

“London, July 17.

“You will be surprised, after the declarations I once made, to hear of my return to England. But circumstances change, and changes make those vows rash which once were spoken in honesty. When I heard of my father’s unsettled mind, my dear mother’s death, and my sister’s marriage, I knew that my place was in England, and I returned to take such of my family as still remained to me under my care.

“It was not till I arrived that I knew who, up to this time, had been their protector.

“I will not attempt to thank you for what you have done. Your own generous nature prompted you, and that generous nature is its own sufficient reward.

“The time is come, however, when it is both my wish and my duty to release you from cares which ought not to be yours. I have taken a house near Kensington, and there, for the present, I hope to make a home for myself and the children. Eventually other arrangements may be necessary. I have accepted an agency about fifty miles from London, and possibly may, in the end, make my home there. At present I do not know what will be required of me.

“Will you be so good as to give the enclosed to Simon. It contains my directions regarding the journey. You will, perhaps, read it yourself, and assist him with your advice.

“The day I have named for the departure of the children is still a week distant. I could not make a comfortable arrangement for their reception sooner. I do not apologise for this delay. I know you too well to have any hesitation in asking it. It is but adding a mite to the load of obligation which would oppress me, were it not that it has pleased God to make you what you are. I remember how you once said that we ought all to be followers of Him who went about doing good. You may have forgotten the words you said, but, though in my life they have borne no fruit, they have haunted my memory; and it is not the first time I have felt they were spoken from the promptings of your own nature. May God bless you for your care of the worse than fatherless!

“Henry Devereux.”

A tear dropped from Henry’s eye as he finished his letter—a sudden startling one. It startled him, and he dashed it off—as once before in writing to Nora had happened—with disdain.

The tear was the expression of bitter but restrained feelings within, a sore heart striving to subdue its soreness; a gratitude felt, yet making the heart heavy with its weight; a struggle with a slumbering passion—a passion which was worship, but which was not love.

In feelings of youthful love, even under adverse circumstances, there is always some sweetness. But there was no sweetness here. It was no youthful love that he felt. She filled the inner recesses of his heart and brain; she caused a storm in his mind. But he had no hopes, nor wishes to have hopes. Therefore it could not be love.

It was not love he felt, and this Nora could feel as she read. When she saw his writing she took the letter away, and read it in solitude. She had been momentarily expecting to hear from him; and though the letter was not long delayed, being in circumstances which does quickly feel despair, she had begun to despair.

She opened it with joyful alacrity; but its grave, even tenor fell like a fog upon her fancy. At the sudden softening at the close she suddenly melted, and a sudden tear fell, even as Henry’s had done; but this was the only alleviating sensation, the only moment that had any sweetness in it. And even that soft close, even the remembrance he recalled of a former day, seemed to speak of the pains of gratitude. She could see and feel the sore heart labouring under the weight of her benefits, and words that might have been sweet, read in this light, became bitter.

In the course of the day she replied to him; and she felt none of the difficulties Henry had felt. Deep down in her soul secrets, which she herself rarely faced, lay; but on the surface she could still speak of him and to him with the freedom of the days before that painful secret had been revealed.

She called him “my dear cousin,” and said how glad she was to hear of his return, glad even though it brought a blow and disappointment with it, in that it deprived her of the society of the children. Of the bitter blow it was to have the children thus formally removed she said nothing, but added a few kind words regarding them; how greatly interested she should be in their future welfare, and how she hoped their visit might be repeated. There was then a few answers to the directions Henry had given for the journey, and she closed with a simple expression of her thanks for his kind words and thoughts about herself.

She felt no difficulty in writing, and in her simple, easy style Henry certainly could read nothing, could suspect nothing of the feelings that lay beneath it.

All was made ready for the departure of the two Devereux. They went with regret. Henry they had loved when he was with them, but of their London home they had no fond recollections. And they were parted with with regret. Although with few charms of body and mind, they had the charm of being easily pleased; of softening, and improving under care and culture. Miss Willis had devoted herself to them. Mrs. Ratcliffe had loved them for Henry’s sake—that Henry to whom she had been disloyal, but whom, even during her disloyalty, she had regretted and loved.

But there was one who cried herself ill when the day of departure came, and this was Sophy Brook. She had shewn no special love for the children during their stay, but when they were thus suddenly removed she cried till she had a fit of hysterics.

Sophy had caught cold, as it was said, on that June afternoon when Stephen Fanshawe carried her home. She had a severe attack of bronchitis, and Dr. Lewis, a famous physician at the Spa, was again summoned to see her.

He brought her well through the attack, but she did not afterwards improve as he expected.

“I cannot quite understand it,” he said one day to Nora, after examining her thoroughly; “there is no actual disease about the lungs. She is delicate and fragile, but there is nothing to threaten life, if proper care is taken. Were she a few years older,” he added, laughing, “I should ask if there was anything wrong here,” lightly touching his heart. “She has every symptom of a pining, hopeless attachment. But, of course, with her it is impossible.”

Nora repeated the words smilingly to Mrs. Ratcliffe. Mrs. Ratcliffe looked serious on the subject.

“That’s queer,” she observed. “We used to say, her mother and me, that Sophy had lost her heart to Mr. Henry Devereux. But we spoke jokingly, you know,” she added quickly, as Nora blushed; which she took as a rebuke for her speech. “He had such a way with him—turning her head, silly little thing!”

“Of course it is only a joke,” Nora said; but nevertheless her interest in Sophy increased.

When the news of his arrival came, she had told Sophy of it herself, and was amused by the pink glow that stole into her cheek.

“Do you think he will come down here?” Sophy had asked.

“I don’t know about that. Do you want to see him, Sophy?” she added lightly, for at the thought of Sophy’s supposed attachment her own took courage.

The pink glow changed to a deep crimson, and Sophy turned away her eyes while she said petulantly,

“I never said so; why should I?” And Nora, though amused and interested, said no more.

When, however, the news was broken that Simon and Annabella were to go, and that no visit from Henry would take place, Sophy cried; and when the children took leave of her, she cried herself into a fit of hysterics.

“It’s not for them,” Mrs. Ratcliffe said mysteriously, tossing her chin, and making wondering eyes at Nora.

Nora smiled, but wondered too, and devoted herself to cheer the pining invalid.

CHAPTER IX.

TWO days after the departure of the young Devereux, Monsieur d’Alberg wrote to tell Nora of his approaching marriage. With some pomp he observed that the education of the children being his first duty, he had guided his affections with that idea in his mind, and was happy to say that he had been fortunate enough to find an efficient guardian. He begged that he might have his daughters restored to him in a fortnight’s time; and gave directions, as Henry had done, as to how the journey was to be properly performed.

Nora was in dismay, and in her dismay condescended to supplicate. She accepted the fact of his marrying for his children’s good, and agreed with him that an efficient guardian would be invaluable for them. But she begged him to allow her to keep her sisters until the spring. She told him of the recent departure of her cousins, and dwelt with pathos on the loneliness she would now endure in her large house.

The account, however, that Monsieur d’Alberg had given of his marriage was not quite correct. He had chosen his first wife, and tyrannized over her; but the lady about to be his wife had chosen him, and there was little doubt would tyrannize over him. She was a maiden lady, whose passion was management; and when she saw Monsieur d’Alberg, being at the moment out of employment, she decided on taking charge of him and his four young children.

She was likely to prove a kind step-mother, but she had no pity to spare for Nora. The letter was submitted to her, but what she understood of Nora’s position made her feel envious, not compassionate. She insisted on the immediate return of her step-daughters—for she was married when the letter arrived—and it was with difficulty that Monsieur d’Alberg made her understand that his promise to leave the youngest to the charge of her sister and godmother had been given. Unwilling to deprive Annora of the advantages in store for her, he did manage to hold his ground on this point; but nothing else was conceded, and punctually to the day the little twins left Riddlemere for Geneva.

The strife with her stepfather, and the departure of her sisters, for a time occupied Nora’s mind. But when all excitement had ceased, and she was left alone with one little child, who, pining after her four companions, was sad also, the sensation of loneliness, and of aching longing for a something she did not dare to think of, became almost overpowering.

She had hoped that the connection with her cousins might be closely maintained; she had imagined that it might be maintained through Henry, but in both respects she was disappointed.

The first letter—the account of the journey—came in due course; but it was from Simon, and was as unsatisfactory, as vexing, as a boy’s letter could be.

He began by saying that he wrote because she had desired him to do so; and that, as he wrote, Henry would not. In words evidently dictated, he then went on to say how the journey had been made, how Henry met them at the station; how surprised he was at their size, and “he begs me to say how much he thinks we are improved.”

After this the boy had evidently been left to himself, and a few natural words were added.

“We like London better than we expected. The house is quite a little thing, but rather jolly. Henry is very good-natured, but quite changed. His hair is cut short, and that is what, I daresay, makes him look ill.” (Henry in former times had been somewhat vain of his abundant and glossy hair.) “He says perhaps we are to live in the country next year. I wish it could have been near Riddlemere. We never can like anything as well.

“Your affectionate cousin,
“Simon Devereux.”

The poor boy had seemed to make a little collection of teasing facts, and to throw them out for Nora’s benefit.

After this she heard no more for three weeks. Annabella then wrote to tell her that they had a Mademoiselle to teach them every day; that she was very good-natured; that Henry was not often in London, but when he was, was very good-natured, and had given her a doll with blue eyes.

Nor did future letters add much to her information. They were very rare—Nora could not know that when they came they were by Henry’s order. About once a month he would say, “Have you written lately to Miss Smith, Bella?” and a letter would then be compounded by Mademoiselle and Annabella, which was submitted to Henry, and which, if without a blot, he would pronounce all right. That it contained no information regarding himself he was not likely to observe. Not that the children forgot Nora; but a child’s correspondence is a visionary thing.

Very dreary was the present, and dreary too the look of the future, for there was added at this time the departure of Mrs. Elliott from Thorneybank. In vain dreams Nora had pictured a meeting with Henry there; but Mrs. Elliott had a sister in declining health. It was her only sister; and, in pity for his wife, Mr. Elliott had not only consented to go abroad, but had actually proposed the step. For four or five months Thorneybank was to be shut up.

And yet while, as it seemed, all things tended to prevent a meeting between Nora and Henry, there was a chance meeting in store for her. So little needed as well as useless are oftentimes the worries of blind mortals.

Sophy Brook’s health continued to decline—that is to say, it did not improve, which is said to be the same thing. Nora, whose interest had been greatly excited, and who paid her continued attention, was the first to make this observation. She began to feel that she was destined not to recover; and, with this thought in her head, to meditate on what her duty, with regard to Sophy’s state of religious preparation, ought to be. Hitherto to keep Sophy amused had been with everybody the great object. Some invalids are comfortable invalids. They allow attentions, they invite them, and, receiving them with gratitude, excite those who wait upon them to new efforts. These invalids are blessings, not cares. But Sophy was an uncomfortable invalid. It was hardly possible to please her. If attentions were paid her, she said, “Why was she to be treated as if she was ill?” Yet if, to punish her perverseness, a little neglect was sometimes administered, or if by chance anything was forgotten, her peevishness was a torment to the house.

There is no doubt that an invalid of this class had been a greater blessing to Nora than a comfortable invalid could have been; it occupied her mind as no other could have done. Nevertheless, when she began to observe that Sophy never really improved in health, and to feel convinced that death would come some day when, perhaps, not expected, the faults of Sophy’s temper and disposition began to press upon her mind.

The clergyman of Riddlemere was an elderly man—not old, but elderly. He was a kind-hearted man, sincerely bent on doing his duty, but he was not what would now be called an active man. Had he been born twenty years later he would probably have been so, for he had latent qualities of a useful and valuable kind; but in his early days he had run in a groove—a groove of reading, hearing, thinking, preaching, and a sort of mud had settled over his moral and intellectual frame. He could not bear an excess, and if the poor man was proud of anything (and he was not proud) it was of being a humdrum. “As for me,” he would say, if he ever fell into society whose zeal appeared to him dangerous, “I am a humdrum, and, please God, mean to die so.” And he thought he was saying a good thing; not a witty, but a religious thing.

When Nora came into his parish, he soon perceived that she was an enthusiast, but he shortly found, also, that her enthusiasm was chiefly on benevolence; that, as far as religious knowledge went, she was ignorant; that the strife of parties was as incomprehensible to her mind as the warfare of the Greeks among themselves; and that, so far from wishing to stir him out of that muddy atmosphere he so much loved, she was ready, as humbly and devoutly as his poorest almswoman, to receive instruction from his hands. Such being the case, they got on well together. He gave her good advice—advice really sound and good—whenever she wanted it; and he attended to her wishes regarding the church music, paying to it a greater degree of attention than had been his habit until she came.

But although Nora was, owing to her imperfect and foreign education, little instructed in religious questions, her mind was young and active. The muddy atmosphere was not beloved by her; and, though she entered not upon questions which she did not understand, certain things made an impression on her brain; almost without knowing they were there, she found them there when they were required.

It was thus with regard to Sophy. She felt that she ought to be placed in the hands appointed to watch over her, and yet how to accomplish this without alarming Sophy, she hardly knew. Mr. Lee had often seen her; he sometimes shook hands with her. If she had been able to be at church, he said he had been glad to see her there; if she had not, he said he hoped he should soon see her there; but with this his attentions had rested. Feeling, naturally perhaps, that with Nora and Miss Willis to instruct her, his cares were better bestowed elsewhere, to them he had left her.

After some consideration, it struck Nora that Sophy was approaching an age when the preparation for her confirmation should begin; and when once this thought was admitted, her way was clear. She mentioned the subject to Mr. Lee, and was pleased to find that he entered into her wishes; offering to take all responsibility upon himself, and explain to Sophy why he asked to visit her.

His first visit was dreaded by Nora. Sophy was so strange a being that she felt almost as if striking her death-bell in permitting the agitation it might cause her. But there is no arguing on human characters, especially in their perverse young days. Far from being agitated, Sophy was pleased; far from being alarmed about her health, the mention of her confirmation allayed her fears. She was always more or less uneasy about herself, even when wilfully opposing the rules laid down for her benefit, and the mention of an event which could not take place till the following spring seemed to her like an assurance that for so long at least her life was secure. And if she lived till the spring, why should she die then?

The visits of Mr. Lee were therefore peaceably permitted, and to a certain degree liked. Her mind was lively and intelligent, and any instruction bestowed in a kindly manner was pleasing to her.

Sophy was not a religiously minded child. Though fond of religious tales and hymns, and very scrupulous in regard to saying her prayers morning and night, she had not a reverent mind. She liked to be instructed, but not admonished; and, as far as she was able, drew off the minds of those who visited her from practical to theoretical questions.

Mr. Lee had a quiet homely way of speaking, which, for the most part, went right to the subject on which he was engaged, and with many of his parishioners had been in their illness very effective. But even he was drawn out of his usual track by Sophy. He was unprepared for the intelligence of her mind. It was not what he had expected of Mrs. Brook’s daughter, and he hardly knew what to make of it! Her beauty also, and her winningly capricious ways, affected, and, to a certain degree, bewildered him—so bewildered him as to shake him out of his muddy atmosphere, and lure him to follow her into the questions she put out for his consideration.

It was so, at least, in the beginning of his attendance. After four or five visits he became aware of a defect in his teaching. He observed that, after visiting Sophy, his own mind was busied about the difficulties of the Old Testament, questions of a small Colenso kind, which had already presented themselves to Sophy’s youthful intellect, and with which she occupied him during a great part of his stay.

Mr. Lee shook his head at himself; and on the next occasion, having in his explanations on the Catechism read a part of the Baptismal service, in which a mention is made of Noah’s ark; and, having been arrested by Sophy with a question as to how he imagined the beasts were stowed away in the ark, he was on the alert.

“Never mind the beasts, Sophy,” he replied quaintly. “It will be more to the purpose if we turn our attention to the wild beasts in your heart;” and seeing her smile at this he went on: “We will attack them one by one, and first of all the elephant. There is generally an elephant in every ark. I mean, my dear child, what is your besetting sin?”

At this sudden turn Sophy’s smiles vanished. Her cheeks became of a crimson dye, and in a moment—for Sophy’s tears were always near—large drops fell on her crimson cheeks.

Mr. Lee was much troubled. A character like Sophy’s was new to him, and though a few minutes before he had been anxious to stab, he was now desirous only to soothe.

“Don’t cry, Sophy,” he said, patting her hand, “I never meant to accuse you of any terrible sin. We all have our special temptations; and from things I had seen, and heard, I fancied you had one special temptation. Are you not a little cross and peevish, my child?”

The intense blush faded from Sophy’s cheeks; the tears ceased; the countenance cleared, and she replied, “I am, sir. But indeed I don’t mean to be;” and then, with a little of her peculiar sophistry, “I think it is my illness more than myself that is in fault. I was not cross when I was young.”

Mr. Lee need not be followed into the way in which he dealt with this argument. He spoke well, and Sophy profited. It was remarked by all that she was less cross and petulant. All her energies appeared to be directed to this point, and with success.

On one occasion, when she had borne a disappointment with great good-humour, Nora could not refrain from a kind word of praise.

“I am fighting with my wild beasts, Mr. Lee says,” said Sophy smiling. “We are to attack them one by one; and my temper is my elephant.”

“And have you got a whale?” asked old Mrs. Ratcliffe, who was present, and whose mind was excited by the thought of Sophy’s warfare.

A dark shade fell on the girl’s face, and it was only after a moment that she said, “A whale is not a wild beast, Gran.”

The instructions were continued during the autumn, and Sophy’s health continued not to improve. It was towards the end of November, at a sudden change from mild weather to a searching east wind, that, in spite of every care, Sophy caught a violent cold.

CHAPTER X.

“CAN I speak with Miss Smith?” asked Mr. Lee, as he left the room of Sophy Brook late one evening in the beginning of December.

Sophy had been very ill. The violence of the attack had abated, but she did not rally. Dr. Lewis, who again attended, said, that although the case was not hopeless, the violence of the late attack had considerably modified his former opinion. There was, evidently, mischief within.

She one day surprised her mother in tears. Mrs. Brook thought she was sleeping, and was therefore indulging herself in a good cry by her bedside. But Sophy was either not sleeping, or else awoke, and heard sundry small sounds, as of tears and their consequences. She put back a little white curtain from the head of her bed, and asked her mother why she cried?

Mrs. Brook had none of her daughter’s intelligence. She was paralyzed by the sudden inquiry, and made no reply.

“Am I going to die?” asked Sophy with authority.

Mrs. Brook replied that she was sure she hoped not, but when people were very ill they sometimes did die.

Sophy said no more; but the next morning Mrs. Brook, who slept in her daughter’s room, reported to Nora that she had had a very bad night; restless and feverish. “And she kept talking about her besetting sin, and sometimes she called it an elephant, and sometimes a whale, and such nonsense.”

During all the day Sophy lay brooding, and towards evening expressed a wish to see Mr. Lee.

It was late when he came, and it was on leaving her room that he asked to see Nora.

He was taken to the drawing-room, in which she and Miss Willis were sitting.

“Sophy Brook desired me to come and make a request to you,” he said, as he approached the place where she was writing. “It is a curious one. She wishes much to see Mr. Devereux once more.”

Nora had risen to receive him, but turned back to her writing, to conceal the glow which came to her cheeks at this strange request.

“Mr. Devereux!” she repeated, as she gathered her papers together.

“If you consent to her wish she will further ask you to write and press him to come without delay.”

“But, Mr. Lee,” Nora said, recovered from her first surprise, “can I?”

She was thinking of the singularity of writing to a busy man a hundred and fifty miles away at least, to ask him to come to the sick-bed of a fanciful child.

“It can do no harm,” he replied; “it must be for Mr. Devereux to decide whether or no he consents to the request.”

“If you think so—” she said, hesitatingly; and she looked into his face to endeavour to gather from it what he thought. But it was as impassive as it was wont to be.

“I think,” he replied, “that Sophy is very ill; and when a person in weak health has a strong fancy, I would always yield to it when it is sane and possible. It is giving trouble to Mr. Devereux; but, as I before said, it will be for him to refuse or decline the request. There can be no harm in making it.”

“No.”

“Then I may tell Sophy you will write? It will be too late for this night’s post; but the letter might go in the morning.”

Nora acquiesced, and he left her.

There was no harm certainly in making the request; but the bare idea of his coming had brought a pulse into every limb of her body. She was tingling with agitation from head to foot as she sat down to write.

“How strange of Sophy!” she said to Miss Willis.

“It is the little romance of her life,” was the reply. “Mr. Devereux cannot be angry at such devotion.”

Nora wrote:

“My dear Cousin,

“You remember little Sophy Brook. She is no longer very little, and is very ill. For two years she has been out of health, and, having lately caught cold, is much worse, and, I fear, is in danger. She has a great wish to see you once more—so great, that we cannot refuse to tell you of it. I do not think she has ever forgotten you, or the kindness you showed her; and if you could attend to her wish—although I feel it is asking a great deal—it would cheer and comfort her.

“Your affectionate cousin,
“Nora Smith.”

In two days Henry replied—

“I will certainly attend to Sophy Brook’s request. This day I am obliged to go down into Hertfordshire, but hope to be back by ten, and will start by the night mail. I hope I may reach Riddlemere by four o’clock. Poor Sophy! she was once my only friend.

“Henry Devereux.”

The letter was placed in Sophy’s hands in the morning, and a tear fell from her eyes at the last words. It was a strange little romance, Nora thought, thinking of what Miss Willis had said; and she kissed Sophy lovingly, with unconscious sympathy in her feelings.

All the morning Sophy lay quiet. Between twelve and one o’clock she heard a sound, and asked her mother to look out and see if it was Mr. Powderham arriving. He still came on certain days to the office at Riddlemere.

It was so, and Sophy begged her mother to go to him, and say she would be glad to speak to him. “You need not say anything about it,” she observed, “to any one else.”

Mrs. Brook stared, and thought her daughter must either be going to die, or go mad outright; but she implicitly obeyed her.

She shortly came back with a message that Mr. Powderham would be very happy to see Sophy, but he had an appointment at two o’clock, some miles off. He should be returning about four, and would go up and see her then, if she allowed it.

“That will do very well,” she replied, and relapsed into silence.

Henry arrived at four o’clock, as he had expected. He was shewn up into the room, where Nora awaited him. And all the agitation which for days had been stirring within her, and all the feelings of the years since they had parted, changed or melted away in his presence. Nothing could be more simple or commonplace than their meeting. There was no awkwardness, no doubt, no hesitation. Henry shook hands with her and then said,

“How is Sophy to-day?” as he might have done had they been in the constant habit of meeting.

Nora replied, and added, “It is very kind of you to attend to her wish.”

“I did not come wholly out of kindness,” he said. “I hope I should have come only on that account, but I had another reason.”

He spoke so entirely without feeling, or meaning, that it never even crossed Nora’s brain to imagine a flattering or sentimental idea to be contained in his words. She wondered what he meant, but did not presume to ask. When Sophy had been thus disposed of a silence came, and with the silence came a little awkwardness.

Nora was the one to relieve it. She said she would go and see if Sophy was inclined to receive him. She went, but almost immediately returned, saying she was not ready.

She then remembered hospitality, and begged Henry to have something to eat.

“There is cold luncheon ready in the dining-room,” she said. “Four o’clock is not an hour for dinner, I suppose, but if you would like hot things better, they will be ready in a moment.”

He declined the hot things, but accepted the cold offer; and as she rose to ring the bell said,

“Do not ring. I should like to try and find my way. Did they keep to the old plan of the house?”

And, receiving an acquiescence to this question, he left the room and left Nora alone. And then strange feelings stole over her; so strange that she sat lost in reverie. She went over, in those few minutes, all their singular acquaintance, the few happy meetings at the Spa, and the stormy close; and then that one meeting at Riddlemere, the recollection of which never failed to make her blood dance in her veins. And now he was here in her house after nearly three years’ absence; and all was cold and calm and passionless, all except her beating heart within.

She was roused by his voice at the door.

“Mrs. Ratcliffe came to fetch me, Miss Smith,” he said; “and Sophy wishes you to come too.”

Nora jumped up. Mrs. Ratcliffe had been in quest of a candle, for the passages were not yet lit, and now joined them at the door.

“Sophy sent me for Mr. Devereux, ma’am,” she said; “but the child begged me to ask you to come also.”

And so saying she led the way along the dark passages.

When the door of Sophy’s room was thrown open Nora felt bewildered. It seemed to be full of people. Two candles were burning on a table near a fire, and there stood Mrs. Brook and two maids of the house. By the side of Sophy’s bed sat Mr. Powderham, and behind him stood Mr. Lee. Miss Willis was also there.

Nora paused at the door, and looked at Henry who followed her, with perplexity and surprise; but he did not appear to be surprised; and when Mrs. Ratcliffe turned and touched his arm, followed her to Sophy’s bed.

“Here is Mr. Devereux, my dear,” she said, stooping over her. “Will you have a candle?”

“No, I don’t want light,” she replied, fretfully. “I want Mr. Devereux.”

“Here I am, Sophy,” he said, holding out his hand. “I am sorry you are so ill.”

“I want to speak to you, sir,” she said, taking no notice of the hand he held out. “I want to tell you, and to tell you before all these people, that I was the person who burnt the house. It kills me to tell it, but it has killed me worse to hide it.”

“I have often fancied it might have been so, Sophy,” Henry replied, and in a voice so calm and clear, no one could have imagined the storms that had been stirred by the subject. “Thank you for telling me. You will make a new man of me.”

“And do you forgive?” she asked, with a low, gasping sob.

“Forgive, Sophy! My poor child!” and he stooped down and kissed her, “there are too many things for which I need to be forgiven to talk much of forgiveness. But indeed I do forgive, and thank you.”

There was another sob from Sophy, and then a sound of a nose blowing by her bed. This was from Mr. Powderham. He was one of those men who, unless when things come in the routine of business, are always affected. Poor Sophy, making her dying confession, touched him. He blew his nose, and then said,

“Mr. Devereux, I beg your pardon. I understand now why Sophy Brook wished to have me here. I beg your pardon for my unjust suspicions; which, however, I will add, have long slept.”

“You were certainly very hard upon me, Mr. Powderham,” Henry replied. “But since the matter may be now set at rest, I would rather not, even in discussion, return to recollections of that time of horror.”

“It was because he was so hard that I was frightened,” Sophy cried in a shrill voice. “I thought if he was angry with you, what would he be with me.”

“How was it, Sophy?” Mr. Powderham asked, stooping towards her bed; the curiosity of the man putting other feelings to flight.

“I saw Mr. Devereux go into Miss Smith’s room, and he was there about five minutes; and then I saw him come out; and I wondered what he had been doing there; and I thought I would go and see. So I slipped away from Gran and mother and went in; and it was so dark I could not see if he had changed anything, so I lit the candle on the table; and just as I had lit it, I heard a noise, and I was afraid Gran would come and catch me, so I slipped out and left the candle. I remembered after I was in bed, but I never thought a little candle could do any harm.” And she ended with another sob.

“Well, never mind,” Mr. Powderham said soothingly; “it does not matter now. Why, the house is as fine as if there had never been an accident.”

“I did not care about the house,” Sophy cried, in the same shrill voice, “it was because you suspected Mr. Devereux that I was so unhappy. I meant every moment to tell, but I did not dare, and it has killed me.”

“Poor child!” Henry said kindly, “you will be happy now. You have made me very happy, you know. We are tiring her, are we not?” he said, turning to Mrs. Ratcliffe; feeling that he was the person in whom it lay to end the scene.

She agreed, and the whole party began to move. Henry moved also, but after going a few steps went back again to the bed. “Good-bye, Sophy,” and he kissed her. “I am going back to London to-night.”

“Oh, must you?” she gasped.

“Yes, I must. God bless you, my poor child, and do not trouble about having made me unhappy any more. You have always been my kind friend, and now more so than ever.”

He touched her little hand, and left the room.

Nora had returned to the drawing-room, which was now lighted, and where also Mr. Powderham and Mr. Lee stood. Henry joined them there, and Nora now, for the first time saw him clearly, and saw how much he was changed. She agreed with Simon that it was probably caused in part by the shortness of his hair; he had formerly, as was said, been proud of it, and had worn it in a manner which, in a woman, would have been called coquettish; but all airs of that kind were at an end. His head had been shaved during his fever, and the hair had not yet attained its old growth. It was not, however, only the growth of the hair. His air, and, as Dickens would say, “deportment,” was altogether different—grave, quiet, and subdued; a quiet that was hardly natural, as of one who kept a rein over himself, which was tighter than it ought to be.

Henry had lingered for his few words with Sophy, and a few more with Mrs. Ratcliffe. When he entered the drawing-room, Mr. Powderham was making inquiries of Mr. Lee regarding Sophy’s confession. Mr. Powderham, as is known, did not like to be in the wrong; but, having been so glaringly in the wrong, he was anxious to be now in the right, by acknowledging he had been wrong. At the same time, he wished to go back—to draw forth all the circumstances, and make certain explanations. Regarding Sophy and her confession, he received little satisfaction from Mr. Lee. He was as impenetrable as to what had passed between them, as any father confessor could be. It was natural, he said, the poor girl should wish to relieve her mind of such a secret; and that was all he told.

When Henry appeared, Mr. Powderham turned to him. He was anxious to do the thing handsomely, so far as confession of error went; but at the same time he felt he could prove that, although he had been wrong, he might, and, from the circumstances, even ought, to have been right.

But when he renewed his apologies, and his attempts at explanation, Henry again arrested him.

“I beg your pardon for interrupting you, Mr. Powderham; you can talk of these things calmly, but I cannot. When I remember the conduct to which I was driven, and the consequences of my conduct, my mind becomes in a flame. I bear no ill-will, I assure you, but I would rather leave the past at rest.”

“So be it,” Mr. Powderham said, with the air of a martyr; and he gave a slight, very slight shrug of his shoulder, which was meant to express to whosoever would have the wit to understand him, that Henry was as mad as he had always supposed him to be.

“You cannot forbid me the making public what the poor child has said.”

“On the contrary, I shall feel very grateful if you will do it.”

Henry then passed on, and approached Nora, who had sat down. “I must wish you good-bye now,” he said.

Poor Nora’s heart sank down in her body like a lump of lead. Going in this haste; she was nothing then, and less than nothing, if there be such a quantity, in his eyes.

But she spoke, as was usual to her, with composure.

“Must you really go so soon? Will you not at least stay to dine?”

“Thank you, no; I have business to-morrow, and the sooner I am off the better.”

He held out his hand. She rose and gave her own.

“I do not think you knew,” he said, “how good a deed you were doing in writing for me.”

She shook her head.

“Thank you for it all the same. I hope I shall be a new man. Henceforward,” and he smiled for the first time, “I shall not shrink from the name of Riddlemere when the children speak of it.”

That smile was left to comfort Nora.

“Good-bye, Miss Willis,” he said, in a more cheerful voice than had yet been heard from him. “How d’ye do? and good-bye—for I think this is our first speaking. It is very long since you and I have met.”

After a word with the other two guests, he went. With Mr. Lee he was very little acquainted. Mr. Lee had been out of health during the period Henry lived at Riddlemere, and during the fire, and the time succeeding it, had been abroad. He was, however, interested in Henry, and would have been glad to follow and speak to him; but Mr. Powderham was determined to go over his explanations with somebody. He therefore held him fast while he showed how right he had been, although in the wrong.

CHAPTER XI.

WE must again pass over many months.

A year, or nearly so, went wearily and drearily round, until, towards the end of September, Mrs. Elliott returned to Thorneybank, and returned so suddenly, that she herself bore the news of her arrival to Riddlemere.

Why the year had been so weary must be told; for Henry’s words, that henceforward he should not shrink when the children spoke of Riddlemere, had left a smile of hope in Nora’s breast, which promised other things.

But it was too soon apparent that, although possibly his feelings regarding Riddlemere itself and its inhabitants had undergone a change—that having been righted in the eyes of that world, he now felt able to hold up his head—although there was this change, there was no further change. He had no desire to be there; he seized no opportunity to be in Nora’s presence.

It was about six weeks after Sophy’s confession that this began to be apparent.

After the excitement of that time, the poor girl’s strength and vitality gave way. Although relieved, and thenceforward comparatively tranquil, she was exhausted, and roused herself to life no more.

On the morning of her death—for in a few weeks she died—she gave to Nora a gold pencil-case, one of her best treasures, and begged that it might be sent to Henry; and “Will you ask him,” she added, while a tear rolled down her cheek, “to come and stand at my grave?”

Nora promised, and the request was forwarded and complied with. Henry came on the morning of the funeral; won every heart, every portion of the hearts not already won, by his simple and kindly sympathy; walked by Nora’s side in the little band of mourners, and then—immediately on his return to Riddlemere—departed again.

He said he must be in London early on the following day. His lips were always true, and it was, therefore, no doubt true; yet Nora felt blank with disappointment. Was it to be ever thus? Was the hope of his friendship, was the hope of union with him and her cousins in the common interests of life, for which her lonely heart craved, to be for ever deferred?

This was all she said. Since her eyes again had rested upon him, that dread secret that had once been faced was driven back into the recesses of her soul.

Disappointment preyed upon her spirits and told upon her health. At Easter Mrs. Ratcliffe, observing her pale looks, advised a change. All the inhabitants of Riddlemere had felt the loss of poor Sophy, and, attributing Nora’s dejection partly to that cause, she remarked that it would be better for them all to make a break. Would she not go to see her guardian in London?

But Nora had an invincible repugnance to London. She hardly knew why, but the real cause was this. She felt she could not escape a visit, perhaps many visits, to Annabella; and at this moment it was a positive pain to her to think of entering Henry’s house.

Although she refused to think of London, she did not, however, oppose the idea of a change; and while she was considering the subject, with the listless consideration which is given to a point of profound indifference, her resolution was suddenly taken by the reception of a letter from Henry.

In this letter he told her he had decided on sending Simon to school, and, as Annabella would be lonely after his departure, he ventured to ask her to receive her for about three weeks.

Almost while she was reading the letter Nora came to a decision on her plans. She would go to the Spa after Easter, and there receive Henry when he brought Annabella for the proposed visit.

A great deal of work is done by the mental powers unconsciously. While Nora was reading, some inward suggestion was made, that there would be less awkwardness to Henry in paying her a visit at a public place like the Spa than in paying a visit at her own house. It was very suddenly that the little suggestion was made and, strange to say, it had never struck her before. But no sooner was it made than the decision was formed; and after Easter, with some zest and hope of pleasure, she left Riddlemere.

The request was in itself exhilarating, and, although the tone of Henry’s letter had been more formal, more cold than any she had yet received, she endeavoured to forget the tone, and to dwell on that overture of peace and friendliness which the request conveyed.

Henry’s letter had been very short and concise, but for the first time it had had a beginning and an end; the abruptness of feeling and agitation was over. It began “Dear Miss Smith,” and ended with “Faithfully yours.” On the words of the letter there was little to comment; but this calm and commonplace beginning and end had caused a pang, which, if Nora had been disposed to examine herself, might have shown her how far beyond friendship her hopes extended.

As was said, however, she endeavoured to forget, or to explain away the formality of the tone, and to accept the request with hope and gratitude. But again all her hopes were blighted. Henry brought his sister to the Spa, but so arranged his plans, that, with perfect truth he was able to say he must be in London early on the following morning. He arrived at the Spa, therefore, at five o’clock in the afternoon, and left again by the 6.30 for London. Deducting the comings and goings, he allowed three quarters of an hour for his visit to Nora.

And even this three quarters of an hour all felt to be too long. He accepted the proffer of tea, which in a slight degree broke the dull formality of the visit, but cold and dull and formal it was in no common degree.

A few arrangements were made for Annabella’s visit. She was to stay with Nora while she remained at the Spa, and then to have the pleasure of a week at Riddlemere.

“And when that is over,” Henry said, “I will, if you will allow me, send Mademoiselle down to fetch her.”

Up to this point Nora, trying to overcome the formality, had exerted herself to talk; but when this blow fell, her sentences became as measured as those of Henry. It was like two persons talking by machinery.

Towards the end of the visit a sharp cry from Annie d’Alberg was heard upstairs. Miss Willis, who had been one of the agreeable party described, but who, always backward and timid, had done little but make tea and ask a few questions, rose up and said she would see after her. But Nora prevented her.

There were in her heart so many bitter thoughts, that it was a relief to escape, even from this visit, which, it appeared, was to be the only one she was destined to have.

No sooner had she left the room than the manner of Henry changed. The frost was broken up. The thaw had come.

“Do you ever see Mr. Fanshawe now, Miss Willis?” he asked.

Miss Willis had not a lively imagination, and even now drew no deductions from the sudden change, but she did start at the altered tone of voice.

“We have not seen him of late,” she replied; “not for eight or nine months, I think?”

“I saw him last week,” Henry pursued. “He was engaged, as usual, in doing good.”

“Yes, always that,” was the hearty reply.

“Yes.” He paused for a moment, then went on—“It was here, at this Spa, that you once spoke so warmly about him. Do you remember? It was when we discovered that he was a common acquaintance.”

“Oh, yes, I remember very well.”

“I have not taken to the doing good yet myself,” and he half smiled, “but I no longer look on a life devoted to benevolence—is that the proper word to use—in the light I did then.”

“I should guess that,” Miss Willis said frankly.

“Why? Why should you guess?”

“Because you look altogether changed.”

“I look as I ought, then,” he replied, his countenance which had brightened clouding over. “I am changed, and I have had enough to change me. Oh! Miss Willis, do you know what it is to be so oppressed with shame that you sometimes hardly dare to lift up your head? No,” he suddenly paused in his vehement speech, and laughed outright. “How should you, and why should you?”

Before anything more was said, Nora returned, and brought with her Annabella, who had been playing upstairs. Annie had cut herself, and was to go to bed.

The explanation was hardly made before Henry found it was time to go. He kissed Annabella, repeated what he had said—that Mademoiselle should fetch her—and departed; departed, leaving a feeling of almost despair behind him.

In the course of the evening that followed, Miss Willis repeated to Nora what had passed in her absence. A person of commonly lively fancy would have made something of it. But one part of the subject only had attracted the conscious attention of Miss Willis; and it was with this part that she coloured her whole narrative. This part was the evident influence that Stephen Fanshawe was exercising over Henry, and how that influence was improving him.

Now Nora had almost ceased to think of improvement in Henry. He was to her only too perfect; and never had his looks, his voice, his tone, his manner, his everything, seemed more perfect than on this day. The words of Miss Willis, therefore, first irritated and then saddened her. In the colourless narrative she had had no part; and, though it was something to think of, though it did give her some insight into his habits and ways of life, there was no hope for her in the picture. He could have friends, and go hither and thither; but she was nothing in his life.

There came another visitor to Nora at the Spa, and he returned with her to Riddlemere. It was old Mr. Fanshawe. He was one of those to whom London is a necessity. He liked its light bread and its muffins, its ceaseless letters and ceaseless newspapers. Once only had he made up his mind to accept Nora’s pressing invitations to Riddlemere, and on that occasion a fit of the gout had prevented his carrying out the good intention. But the feeling that he ought to see the property of his ward sat like a nightmare on his conscience; and at this time the pressure on his conscience forced him to obey it.

On his return to London, he observed to his son how greatly Nora was changed.

“In what way?” Stephen asked.

“Why, in every way,” was the reply. “She used to be self-willed and haughty, and now she has no will at all. It is all calmness and submission. Not that I like self-will in a woman. I don’t mean to find fault; but I like a little spirit; we want it in this dull world. I used to be afraid of her enthusiasm. I thought she would saddle herself with all the sons of Adam; but she is as sober now as Mr. Conway himself. Above all, she used to be so confident; if she did not say so, I saw she thought that all her plans were perfect plans; and now she plainly says that ‘whatever she does in life, she is sure to make a mistake.’ What do you think about her?”

And he looked keenly at his son. For a certain unconscious shrinking from discussing Stephen’s affairs with him, had put some ideas into Mr. Fanshawe’s head.

“I think nothing,” he said composedly. “But I am very sorry to hear what you say.”

“Then you have not observed it. When did you see her last?”

“Last June. Ten months ago, and then only for a day. But,” he added, smiling, “I must make an opportunity to go and see after her. I consider her happiness my particular charge.”

Mr. Fanshawe’s budding ideas were put to flight.

“Well, do so,” he said, “you will find it as I say. I suppose the girl’s life is too lonely. She ought to be married. Moralists would say she is improved. But I like a little spirit, I own. Always within due bounds,” he added, prudently.

Stephen Fanshawe could not forget what his father had said. Nor could he explain the change in Nora. He had renewed his acquaintance with Henry, and from him had heard of the late disclosure at Riddlemere. He had hoped that this foolish barrier being swept away, the relations of Nora with her cousins were intimate and easy. But his father’s words made him think. His own disappointment had rather increased than damped his desire for her happiness; and as people of ardent desires will feel, he felt as if her happiness was his special charge.

Although he and Henry had renewed their acquaintance, they rarely met. He was occupied, and tied to his home. Henry was extremely busy, and only when occasionally in London for a Sunday, went down to Summerhill to visit him. During all this summer both were unusually busy, and both tied to their business, and Stephen could think of no reason for intruding himself on Nora’s privacy, nor could he make any observation of Henry’s conduct. Yet the idea that there was something to be discovered, haunted him.

It was Henry who gave him the opportunity he sought.

One day, at the end of a sultry July, he went down to Stephen, and asked if he would take a flying tour with him.

“Simon and Annabella are going with a kind lady to Broadstairs. The invitation extended to me; but I have not spirits for visiting. Yet I feel worn and wearied, and wish for novelty. I have never seen the Swiss mountains. Could we fly to Switzerland for a fortnight, and see something worth seeing?”

Stephen paused over the request. Formed an instantaneous plan, and said in reply,

“Have you ever seen the English lakes?”

“Never!”

“Then let that be our plan. I have only ten days to spare, for I have promised to take charge of two unhealthy boys during the holidays, and during those ten days I wish much to pay a visit at Riddlemere. We can take it on our way to the Lakes?”

“What sort of a visit?” Henry asked, with a pink spot on his cheek.

“A very short one. Of course we cannot intrude upon two ladies, except for a day. We will arrive in the morning, and go on our way in the evening.”

Henry gave his consent to the plan, from simple reluctance to say no. But he anticipated no pleasure from his visit to Nora, and he was correct in his anticipations. The day was not a pleasant one.

The chief cause of failure was in the hours of the visit. A visit from twelve to five is permissible only to intimacy. When acquaintance, however slight, arrive before dinner, pass the evening together, separate for the night, and meet again in the morning, the strange particles melt together and awkwardness evaporates. But there can be little hope of strange particles melting together in broad daylight, where there is nothing to assist conversation, and no special thing to be done.

And on this occasion the particles themselves were of the most unyielding nature, for constraint is that one thing that might and courage cannot overcome. Henry was constrained with Nora, and Nora, because of his constraint—a constraint which, in her phraseology, was called coldness—was constrained with him. Stephen would have been at his ease with Nora, had she permitted it; but she, on this first meeting—and seeing again that affliction of his, which ought to have made her doubly careful of wounding his peace—felt a shame at having misled him, which gave unwonted timidity and gentleness to her manners. Even Miss Willis, partly feeling guilty both to him and Nora, and partly catching the general infection, added her mite to the awkwardness of the meeting.

It was, indeed, so awkward a day, that, had it not been so wretched, it would have been laughable. Even wretched as it was, Nora, who was most alive to the difficulties of the case, could hardly help smiling over them.

At the close of the day there came a few moments of relaxation, a few moments which left on Nora’s mind a happier impression than the rest of the visit could have done. They were sitting in the drawing-room shortly before the departure of the guests. Stephen Fanshawe began to talk to Miss Willis about her step-mother. The conversation was not intended to be private, for he did not lower his voice, yet both Henry and Nora felt that could they at that moment have consulted the book of etiquette, it would most certainly order them to talk.

They were sitting near each other, by Nora’s writing-table; but having during the day exhausted every topic that human ingenuity could bring forward, this sudden command of conscience, or good manners, to converse, was not an easy one to obey. After casting his mind about in every direction, Henry gave it up in despair. But desperation made Nora bold, and the moment having arrived when she felt she must speak or die, she, in her desperation, caught hold of one of those very topics which during the day had been forbidden. A recurrence to past times.

“Mr. Fanshawe was speaking of building cottages just now,” she said. “Do you remember the plan of a cottage you left with me? It has been much liked, and we have followed it almost exactly in two that have been built.”

She had spoken in the very thoughtlessness of the moment’s desperation; and no sooner were the words said, than her heart leaped into her mouth with terror at what she had done. What would he think of her for thus bringing forward what he so determinedly avoided?

But Henry took the observation quietly. He was at the moment as thankful as she was to find a new subject on which they might converse.

“No, I had forgotten it,” was all he said; but as at the same instant she laid her hand on a large kind of scrap-book which was beside her on the table, and opened it, he rose, and came behind her to see it.

“I stuck all the papers you left me into this book,” Nora observed, with ease, and her usual simplicity of manner; for the quiet way in which he had replied, and his apparent interest, had put to flight unpleasant sensations.

“Did you, indeed! I am afraid that was an attention far more flattering than they deserved.”

Nora’s head drooped over the book, and she nervously turned over the pages. No words could have been more prosaically spoken than Henry’s—they were in fact a simple expression of what he thought, but Nora was suddenly conscious that she had paid them a too flattering attention, and that to pay that attention had been at one time her only consolation. Losing her ease and self-possession, she bent down her head and blushed.

But Henry saw nothing, guessed nothing of the effect of his words. Standing behind her, he could not see her blushes, and had he done so it would never have occurred to him to guess the cause. He saw of her sudden emotion far less than sightless eyes which were at a distance.

He stood waiting behind her, until she came to the page which contained the plan.

“Oh! yes, I remember now,” he observed, looking at it with interest; “but it is not perfect. I have been looking at many plans of cottages of late, and some I have seen are both better and cheaper than this one.”

He then began to talk to her of his present employment; told her how desirous was the guardian of the youth whose property he managed to improve the dwellings of the poor; and, taking the book from her hand to place it on the table, traced with his finger on the paper the varieties in some of those cottage plans of which he spoke.

For more than five minutes all went easily and pleasantly—so easily and pleasantly, that neither of them remembered their own identity; that they were that Henry and Nora between whom there never had been, and it seemed there never might be, peace. But a sudden recollection of identity came, and all was changed. In turning over a page in the scrap-book, Henry’s eyes fell on a list of names, which carried back his thoughts to what he called that time of horror. It had been written in haste the day after the fire, while arranging and tearing his papers. A blot on the paper, and a scrawled and excited look in the characters, brought vividly before him the torturing feelings and passionate conduct of that day. He thought of his father’s letter, recollected the hasty speeches which he had himself spoken against Nora—thought of all the folly and all the madness at that time, and of his whole life, and with a sudden change of manner and countenance, he closed the book and returned to his seat. And again constraint paralyzed his powers and made him dumb.

Nora could not but see that something had occurred to displease or annoy him. Could not but feel the influence of that annoyance. Felt indeed frozen with dismay, at the fear of having offended. But there was a great difference between Henry and Nora, as there is perhaps in this respect between most men and women. Nora was almost always outwardly equal to any emergency. It was even a fault in her manners that they were too impassive.

On this occasion, instead of seeming to observe his annoyance, she added a few words on the subject of cottages; then quietly, and with dexterity, slid away into some common-place topic of which she caught hold.

And Henry felt that she had seen his discomposure; felt that she had understood and endeavoured to cover it; felt that she had set him at ease again; and was grateful, and humbled.

CHAPTER XII.

THE travellers went on their way. No comments were made on the day they had passed, or the company they had left, yet both were thinking thoughts, and the thoughts of each were regarding the other. The thoughts of Henry were spoken at last.

It was at the close of a day spent on one of the lakes. They sat at a window which commanded a view of great beauty, and were watching a glorious sunset—Henry and his sightless companion. Henry described the beauties of the scene, and became animated as he described the various changes from black to violet, to rose, to scarlet, to gold, as the clouds caught the beams of the dying sun. He had enjoyed the two days of sight-seeing. His spirits had risen, and his own vivid enjoyment had been yet more excited, by finding he had power to kindle the imagination of his companion by his exclamations and descriptions.

It was suddenly, as the sun’s last beam vanished and left the landscape beautiful but grey, that he said,

“I wonder that you do not marry, Fanshawe?”

“That I do not marry!” Stephen repeated with a dry smile. “Easily said. As if a whole life’s welfare was not shut up in the idea! Who do you suppose would take me; and whom—though it would seem this question ought to be more easily settled—would I take?”

“I have had a thought,” Henry said, hesitatingly; “it has been much in my mind—especially to-day. There are persons to whom I think the literal words of being ‘sight to the blind’ would be bliss; so ardent seems their desire to spend themselves in doing good. With them, that one thing which makes you feel you are not as other men, would, so far from being a drawback, be an added attraction.”

“There are such, no doubt,” he said, with a melancholy smile. “But where are they to be found?”

There are occasions when people have an insuperable dislike to naming names. They hope to be understood by vague terms. Henry had hoped that Stephen would at once jump to the conclusion to which he wished his vague description to lead him.

There was a flush on his cheek, and a slight effort in his voice as he said,

“You must guess of who I was thinking. I mean Miss Smith.”

“Yes, I guessed that she was the person to whom your description applied. I guessed it, because I had once the same thought. But it was in vain.”

And a faint tinge, for the first time, flushed his own cheek.

“You surely mistake?” Henry cried, earnestly. “I do not think it would be in vain. I am almost certain it would not be so.”

“It was in vain. I asked the question, and she told me so.”

Henry looked as if he did not believe it. He was trying to recall that last day at Riddlemere, when, to his eyes, Nora and Stephen had seemed on peculiar terms; so friendly, and yet so—he hardly knew how to term it—but the mingled friendliness and timidity had struck him.

“Then women are strange beings,” at last he observed.

“In what way?” Stephen asked, smiling.

“It is so impossible to argue upon them. Their tastes have no reason in them. What do you think of my sister, Letitia, for instance?” he added, suddenly and gratefully changing the subject; for he felt he had been upon ground as dangerous with Stephen as it was unpleasant to himself. “It is utterly impossible for a man to conceive the state of heart and taste, and affection, which makes her endure that wretch, her husband. And not only endure. I can understand her having married him. She was wretched. Any escape was a temptation to her. But having married him, and knowing, as she fully must, how base and mean his nature is, how she can love him,—and she does love him,—is a thing that is to me utterly incomprehensible! A man might do his duty if he was a well-principled man in such circumstances; but he could not love, as Letitia does, a thing so utterly unworthy.”

“I think not. There is, I fancy, a radical difference in that respect between a man’s and a woman’s nature; and it is lucky it is so. What would become of this world if there was not the self-devotion of women to help and heal it. I am very sorry for your sister’s fate; but her case is too common a one for me to call it strange. There are things which I think stranger, far.”

“What things?” Henry asked; for the words were said with that sort of magnetism which forces the inquiry that is wanted.

“I think men are sometimes strange; and I think you are strange; and among strange things there is none that I think stranger than that you should not love Miss Smith.”

“I marry Miss Smith!” Henry said, colouring violently, and speaking with that old passionate excitement which his general conduct led his friends to believe had evaporated from his character. “If there was no other woman left in the world, I do not think it could be.”

“I said nothing of marriage,” Stephen replied, calmly. “Marriage requires the consent of two persons. I was speaking only of yourself, your tastes, your feelings. I think it strange, in the position you have been, knowing Miss Smith as you have cause to know her, and with that singular tinge of romance in your relations—I think it strange, I say, that she should not have caught your fancy; have excited you, in short, to love.”

“The positions may have been in fault,” Henry said, after a short pause. “There are some positions which make love impossible.”

“I know it. I suppose no man naturally loves an heiress. He may do it by force of will, or he may do it even because he is determined against it; but marriage with a very great heiress can never be a position natural to a man. In this case, however, there are so many circumstances of a modifying kind, that I do think your hardness strange. I will not speak of youth and beauty, and gifts of mind, and grace of manner—these others may have—but I do think there is a something in the manner in which she bears her wealth which is uncommon, and which is the more striking from the fact that her character, irrespective of her wealth, is proud and independent. She always seems to me, so far from glorying in her riches, to be apologizing for them.”

He paused a moment, but as Henry made no observation went on—

“And in other respects, there is so much to win a man. Her character, in spite of her good intellect and clear judgment, and her determination not to be tyrannized over when she does not trust, is one of the most confiding I ever met with; the most easy to lead and guide, and convince. Where she loved, she would love with the submission of her whole being. And then the loneliness of her position; her longing for affection and protection; the failure of all her efforts to win the friendship that others naturally have.”

He paused again for a moment, and then said in an altered voice,

“It was my sense of her isolation in this world that first won me, and at last led me to dare to approach her with my love. I felt that I, even I, cut off as I am from all that makes a man attractive, might yet protect her in her difficulties, and comfort her in loneliness. That she thought otherwise, has not altered my feelings. The gentleness with which she warned me against hope, has but made me love her more.”

There was a long silence after he ceased to speak. Henry had been moved and carried on by his words; he hardly knew for a few moments how to answer him. He knew what he felt, but the ground seemed to have been cut away from under his feet.

At last he said,

“Every man has his own feelings. I hardly know why we are to wonder one at another.”

“You began,” said his companion, smiling; “I did but turn upon you. My answer was, alas! easily given. As to you, do not answer me at all, unless you please. What reason, you truly remark, have we to wonder one at another! Each man is a whole by himself, as well as a member of Adam.”

“I do not mind answering you,” Henry said, perversely. “I do not love, nor do I even wish to love, Miss Smith. Do not suppose”—and though he was trying to speak calmly and temperately, there was a touch of heat in his voice—“that I do not see her with eyes of admiration, perhaps of homage, worship, or whatever a poor mortal feels towards a superior being; but homage is not always love. Do you remember some lines of Shakespeare—they are in ‘Julius Cæsar,’ I suppose—no, I think they are in ‘Antony and Cleopatra;’ it is where he describes the feelings of Antony in Cæsar’s presence. Antony was a great man everywhere else, but there he was small. Stay—they struck me much, because they describe what I feel when I am with her:—

‘Thy demon (that thy spirit which keeps thee) is
Noble, courageous, high, unmatchable,
Where Cæsar’s is not; but near him thy angel
Becomes a fear, as being o’erpowered; therefore
Make space enough between you.’”

Henry spoke these lines with a force of expression difficult to describe, as if they had indeed engrained themselves upon his mind.

“There is more of it,” he said, “but to the same purpose. That is what I feel when I am with her. With such feelings a man does not love, nor would he marry, even though a fairy made other impossibilities possible.”

“Most true. Marriage in such a case would be far from a heaven. I had never looked on Miss Smith in that light. It was the other side of her character which affected me.”

“It may have been so with you. You would not naturally look on her as I do. I—— Have you forgotten all the strange dealings which I and my family have had with her? It would seem as if between us a great gulf had been fixed—had been ordered, as well as fixed.”

“My dear Henry—forgive me for still calling you so, but you speak unreasonably—your poor father’s faults were never yours.”

“I cannot say that,” Henry replied, with passion and bitterness. “If you could know what it is to me to look back on my past life! I found some old verses in a book of Annabella’s the other day. I copied them, and carry them about with me. They are the only words I ever saw which express what I feel about myself.”

He drew a paper from his pocket, and all unconsciously held it out to Stephen. The blind man smiled, and Henry, colouring, withdrew it. The lines were these:—

“When I look back, and in myself behold
The wandering ways which youth could not descry,
And mark the fearful course that youth did hold,
And melt in mind the steps youth strayed awry,
My knees I bow, and from my heart I call—
O God, forgive these faults and follies all!

“For now I see how void youth is of skill—
How vain, also, his prime-time and his end.
I do confess my fault and all my ill,
And sorrow sore for that I did offend;
And with a heart repentant of all crimes,
Pardon I ask for youth ten thousand times.”

“Will you read them?” Stephen had said, and Henry had done so—very calmly, he thought, but, in truth, with his whole heart in what he repeated.

“We may all feel that,” was the remark, gravely made.

“No, we may not,” Henry replied. “It is my own special folly and madness, which is tied like a clog about my neck, and makes my life a burden to me. But let us have done now and for ever with this subject.”

“Certainly, for ever, if you wish it.”

CHAPTER XIII.

THIS visit had taken place in July. At the end of September Mrs. Elliott suddenly appeared at Riddlemere.

She came, asking largely for Nora’s sympathy. She had gone abroad with a sister—her only sister—apparently doomed to death. She returned with her not only destined to live, and live in health, but destined also to be married. This sister was many years younger than Mrs. Elliott, and was, and ever had been, the great interest of her life. She was now “insanely happy,” as she herself described herself, in the prospects opening before her.

In the two months—two dreary months that had elapsed after Henry’s visit—a change had come over Nora. That day, constrained and painful as it had been while passing, had left a kind of fragrance on her memory. It was the only day she had ever passed in his society; it was, with the exception of their early acquaintance, the only time when she had seen him in quiet—not in the hurry of going and coming. After his departure, she lived upon the recollection of this day; going over the scenes, the conversations, the small events of the day, again and again in her fancy. At first this enjoyment had been unconscious; but gradually Nora came to see, and finally to blush over the tendency of her reflections; and when at last this was perceived, she could deceive herself no more.

It was in this respect that she was changed. She faced the secret of her soul, and although she scarcely attained the idea of overcoming it, she determined not to be its slave. Looking backwards, she saw how it had poisoned her life—not her happiness only, but her life and character, poisoning with the moral poison of selfishness—how from the first moment that the fate of this cousin had interested her, she had given herself up to the thought of him, secluding herself from other interests, and to a great degree cutting herself off from common sympathies.

With Nora to acknowledge was to endeavour at least to reform. And it was when in the first ardour of her reformation that Mrs. Elliott came.

She came full of all the cares, thoughts, hopes, plans, arrangements, large and small, of an approaching wedding; and, for the first time, she found in Nora a willing and sympathising listener. To care or sorrow she had always been a kindly friend, but sympathy with the trifles which form a large part of life was new. Her mind had always been wandering after other things, too much absorbed to come down to common life.

When Nora first understood that there was going to be a marriage at Thorneybank, and that she was being invited, a bright light flashed over the future; but a few more words from Mrs. Elliott damped her expectations.

“I ask you, Nora,” Mrs. Elliott added, “as my own peculiar friend. But I am not going to have a great wedding—not a party; and I will tell you why. Oh! Nora, you do not know how good my old man has been. I never knew before how good he was. You know how willingly he went abroad with me when I was unhappy; and he behaved so like an angel all the winter that, as soon as ever my fears were relieved, and I saw Sybilla recovering, I proposed to come home. That was in March. But he said no, it would be safer to remain; and, as I thought it might be so, I gladly consented. But the reason of his proposing to stay on was that his sharp eyes had seen, what I never saw, the beginning of what has now happened. And he knew what joy it would be to me to put Sybilla into such hands as Colonel Greville’s; and he knew how easily the hopes of a man no longer very young are dashed, and how much more easily he could see Sybilla in our foreign life than in the quiet life of England. And he would not stir. And we have been cruizing, and travelling, and meeting Colonel Greville again and again; and suddenly it was all settled, and we set off home. But now for my reason,” she added, smiling. “You must know, Nora, that he has, and has always had, a monomania against wedding-parties. When he hears of the showing of trousseaux, and the accumulation of presents, and of twelve bridesmaids in veils, and such things, he becomes fit for an asylum; and so, as he has been so good I thought I would please him by having the quietest wedding man ever had. And Sybilla is as pleased as he is. It is a blow to me. But am I not right?”

Disappointed as she was, Nora could not but heartily say she was right.

During this quiet visit at Thorneybank Mrs. Elliott, busy as she was with other concerns, was so struck with the change in Nora, that she speculated much on the cause.

“I wonder what she is thinking of,” she observed one day, as she stood at her husband’s library window and watched Nora as she walked.

“Who is thinking?” asked Mr. Elliott.

“Nora. She is changed, and the whole thing puzzles me. She is not in high spirits; but then she never had high spirits; and I don’t think that is the change I mean.”

“I think she is always a very proper-behaved young lady.”

“Yes, that always; but she is very much changed—very much improved. I always liked and admired her, but now I love her. I used to feel abashed when she asked me to call her Nora; but now I feel inclined to call her dearest, and all sorts of fancy names. She is changed. You must own it.”

Mr. Elliott was very reluctant ever to own anything when called upon; but at last he said, unless he had forgotten, or unless the spending of a year abroad had made him prize English beauty, he thought she was prettier than she used to be.

“I think so too. So much more play of countenance; so much softer in look as well as manner. But what is the cause? I think there must be a cause. Have you any guess what it is?”

“No,” he said, resolutely, “I have no guess at all on the subject. But I guess what you think.”

“I feel sure there must be something between those young people. It is no new thought. I always thought so, perverse as all the circumstances of their acquaintance seemed. But what is it?—what is the matter? I was talking last night to Miss Willis about Henry Devereux, in whom she is much interested. She was telling me how changed he is; changed out of all knowledge, she said.”

“I don’t believe a bit of it,” observed Mr. Elliott in a mutter.

“She says so; but when I tried to discover what had changed him, she gave me no hint of what I imagine to be the case. She said he was changed by the misfortunes of his family. I said I thought they were unlikely so entirely to crush the spirit of a young man of his age and temperament; and she said it was because he felt himself to be the cause of all the trouble. But that is nonsense. I wish I could see him and tell him so. Not that I believe he really thinks so!”

“Nor more do I.”

“Then I think you feel like me, that there is some hidden cause for the change in both these young people, and that it is most probably connected with some quarrel or foolishness between them, which a little intercourse would set to rights. I must bring them together here, and exercise my own intellect upon them. I wish I could get Henry here to-morrow.”

She said this thoughtfully, as if she was considering some step that might be taken. Mr. Elliott laid down the book which had occupied him during the conversation, and now said gravely,

“Bring them together, my dear, if you please, whenever it can be done in a natural way. But, if you will take my advice, you will leave the matter alone. That young Mr. Henry has quicksilver instead of blood in his veins, and anybody who undertakes to manage him will bring themselves and him into trouble. And I very much doubt whether you would find Miss Nora an easy task. Depend upon it, if she fancied you speculated on her thoughts, and made designs even for her happiness, her maiden pride would break out into a hundred fiery bristles. No, no, Greville and Sybilla would have been difficult subjects to design for, but they would have been lambs in your hands compared to those other young people.”

“I would not think of designs if I could see how they are to meet; to meet, as I mean, familiarly. Nora cannot receive him at Riddlemere, and I am their only mutual acquaintance. Who can bring them together, if I do not?”

“Bring them together, my dear, if you please, but naturally—not non-naturally. Leave it alone till Christmas. At present—it will not be for long, but at present,” shaking his head, “we are allowed to keep Christmas like our forefathers. While we are allowed such indulgences, let us have a merry Christmas, and invite our friends and relations. Ask Henry and his young ones, and then he and Miss Nora will meet, and can’t help themselves.”

“You are right, as usual,” said his wife; and she put present designs out of her head.

When Christmas approached, she gave the purposed invitation to Henry. It was gratefully accepted for Annabella and Simon, and he promised to give as much of his own company as he could. Mrs. Elliott knew that she must be content with this promise; and she then gave her invitation to Nora, to pass a long Christmas in her house, including weeks on each side of it.

In the first instance Nora declined, and with a regret so intense—for she guessed who would be at Thorneybank—that it made her more resolute in her refusal. The reason of that refusal was a very simple one. For three years she had kept her Christmas at Riddlemere, and the chief happiness of her autumns had lain in her preparations for giving pleasure at that time. Had it not been for the hope of meeting Henry, she would not have even had a wish to leave home, and the knowledge that she did wish it made her resolute not to give way.

But it so happened that a fortnight before Christmas the step-mother of Miss Willis was taken dangerously ill, and Miss Willis was sent for. As soon as Mrs. Elliott heard of this she returned to the charge, said she would not and could not leave Nora alone; and Nora then very gratefully gave way. Some of her plans were postponed; some she would be near enough to direct. She and little Annora therefore removed to Thorneybank for a time. Simon and Annabella arrived a few days afterwards, but Henry did not come till Christmas Eve, and then only for a few days.

Being a person who, whatever she did, did it with her might, Nora had considered much of late how best to deal with herself, and had found that occupation and society, and the being driven out of the routine of life, was the most salutary remedy for her secret ailment that she could use. In this respect, therefore, she was a changed person. She exerted herself in society to the uttermost, gave her assistance in the entertainment of the young or the old with equal and cheerful readiness; and sometimes, in the joyousness of a large party, to which she was totally unaccustomed, caught the infection of joyousness, and did heartily what she did dutifully.

This had been the case, that is to say, before Henry’s arrival, and during the first day or two of his stay. After that, although the duty was as rigidly done, there was not much heart in it. For Henry did not thaw towards her. They were together, they met constantly, they sometimes conversed, but there was no approach to intimacy. There was no improvement in the terms of their acquaintance—there was even a going back. She had met him with ease and quietness. Even after the disappointment in his continued coldness, she only became a shade more formal with him. No careless person would have perceived that his presence in any way affected her.

Mrs. Elliott, by intense watching, did indeed make some observations, and they were these: that the presence of Nora affected Henry in a manner exactly contrary to the effect of his presence on her. When Henry was in the room, Nora, without being more really joyous, seemed to be stirred up to greater exertions, was more lively, more conversible.

With Henry it was otherwise. In Nora’s presence he seemed to be like a man moving in chains. He never was quite like his old self; but there were times when she felt tolerably re-assured as to his identity; but these never occurred when Nora was in the room.

Was it the natural consequence only of the old enmity, or did he cherish a secret affection, which her worldly position forbade him to make known? Or was there a misunderstanding between them, which neither had power to overcome? She could not resolve these and other questions.

Mr. Elliott had refused to believe that Henry was changed. But even he was forced to allow that it was so.

“He’s just one of the young men of the day,” he observed discontentedly to his wife, on the evening of Christmas day. “I don’t care a button for him now; he may be off to-morrow if he pleases.”

“Not if I can help it,” she said.

“It is impossible to make the fellow laugh; and what is the row, I should like to know? I hate your languid, blasé young man. I did think Henry had a little of the spirit of our forefathers left. But they are all the same. I hope I may be in my grave before England comes quite to an end.”

“In some ways I think Henry improved,” said his wife.

“In very queer ways, then. I believe he is a bit of a Puritan, if you mean that. From some things I observed, I suspect it.”

“No,” said his wife, laughing, “quite the other way.”

“What! a Papist, then?”

“Something between the two. From what he said this morning, I suspect he likes what we old-fashioned, sober people, can hardly understand.”

“It’s all the same thing—it’s what I mean by a Puritan; a man wrapt in his doctrines, and who does not care to adorn his doctrines by a cheerful Christian temper. That is what is wanted, and Mr. Henry and his Puritanism may take themselves off from my house.”

“I think you wrong him. Henry is certainly very much changed. He was thoughtless, and he is so no longer. But I do not think his religious views are in fault, or have anything to do with his dejection. I cannot understand it; but I will make it out before long, that I am determined.”

But even Mrs. Elliott failed to make out what was the cause of his dejection; although she soon perceived that it had something to do with Nora.

Since Nora had acknowledged to herself her feelings for Henry, she had set herself to conquer them; to conquer, at least, that part which she would not have dared to own; for to conquer her interest in him, her strong cousinly affection, never entered her thoughts.

On the fourth evening after Christmas, the lady who had so great a gift of music made one of the party at Thorneybank. She played as before, and, after concluding one piece, to which all had listened with rapt attention, she turned suddenly to Nora, and said,

“It is near four years, I think, since I met you here. On that occasion you and another person, who is also present, delighted us with a song, artless and simple, indeed, but going straight to the heart. May I request you to delight us again?”

Nora blushed, and glanced at Henry, but, without answering for him, expressed her own readiness to sing.

Henry had been leaning against the wall near the pianoforte. The playing of Miss Romer was of that nature which arrests even the careless; and he was not careless. He was fond of music, and had been standing, wrapt in thought, like the rest. When Nora agreed to the request, every eye turned to him; and Miss Romer and Mrs. Elliott made their earnest request that he would consent to take his part.

“I cannot,” he said. “How can I? I have not sung for years.”

But as few could understand how really disagreeable to him was the petition, a volley of voices implored him only just to try.

To refuse such pertinacious requests is worse than to yield, however unwelcome; and, seeing him hesitate, Nora came to his assistance, chose out an easy song—one of Christy’s Minstrels’—simple but touching, and placed it on the desk.

“I think you could manage this,” she said to him, with a smile of invitation.

He still looked annoyed, but came nearer; repeated that he knew he could not, but would try, as it was wished.

Nora began, and whatever her feelings might be, her voice was under control; its tones, as usual, sweet and clear and steady. Henry followed, and for a line or two he also sang steadily. But just as their voices were uniting with that peculiar sweetness which had lingered on Miss Romer’s memory, he faltered, tried to recover, made a false note, and suddenly broke down.

“I cannot do it—I told you I could not!” he said with passion.

With strange sweet feelings Nora had felt the mingling of their voices; but they had inspired, not overpowered her. Her voice had risen high and clear. When he suddenly paused, however, she paused also.

“It was nothing,” she said softly, looking up as she spoke. “Shall we begin again?”

“No, I cannot,” he cried in the same tone. “I do but spoil and drown your voice.” He then recovered himself, and in an altered and polite manner observed, “If you will be so good as to sing alone, you will cover my retreat.” And he placed a song on the desk, and retreated accordingly.

Nora began at his request, but no longer with inspiration in her tones. She sang the song correctly, but with a heart far away.

Mrs. Elliott followed Henry to a distant seat which he had taken, and said,

“What is the matter with you?”

“Matter with me!” he said with a short laugh. “Is it a very curious thing that a man who has not thought of music for years should not be able to sing a second at sight!”

“Perhaps not. I think, however, you could if you chose. But that is not the question. What is the matter with you? I have been daily longing to ask you.”

“I don’t understand. What is the matter with me?”

“You are so changed—more than you ought to be—so grave—so unlike everything you used to be.”

“I should have thought,” he said, in a sarcastic tone, “that a change in me was a desirable thing. A man at my age, and with my experience, ought not to be an imp of folly—such as I was.”

“Very true; and yet——”

“Oh! Mrs. Elliott, leave a man alone. I do very well as I am.”

Seeing she really annoyed him, she refrained from further questioning. On the night following, Henry, for the first time, sat by Nora at dinner. Mrs. Elliott, satisfied—by her husband’s constant advice—with the opportunity she had given to the supposed lovers to meet in her house, had made no efforts to force them together. As the time passed on, however, and she perceived that, although on friendly terms, there was seldom anything like conversation between them, she for once exerted a little art, and so arranged the party as to make it necessarily fall to Henry’s lot to take charge of his cousin.

But vain even was the hour during which they were, in a certain sense, bound together. A conversation of a fragmentary kind was indeed maintained, but there was the same evident chain on Henry’s spirit, and an increasing quietness and formality on the part of Nora. As he did not thaw, she froze.

Mrs. Elliott gave it up in despair. On the next day but one he was to return to London, and the visit which was to have accomplished so much had proved a failure.

CHAPTER XIV.

ON the two days following Christmas Day there had been a slight frost. Then came a harder one; and on this, the fifth day, there was an early announcement by Simon Devereux and another boy who was of the party at Thorneybank, that the lake in the grounds would bear.

It was a brilliant, exhilarating day. The frost was hard and the air keen, but there was not a breath of wind, and the sky was as blue, and the sun as bright as on a day in June. Mr. Elliott was as eager as the boys to be on the ice. In all sincerity he observed that in the days of his youth an English winter had been composed of frosts of the present delightful nature, and he hurried off to enjoy himself as soon as breakfast was over. Although refraining from partaking very actively in the amusements, he remained constantly upon and around the scene.

Towards noon Mrs. Elliott, with Nora, and two other ladies, joined the party also. Henry was skating when they drew near, but owing to the suddenness of the frost many persons were unprovided with skates, and he had already promised to give up his. Shortly after the arrival of Mrs. Elliott he did so, resigning them for a time to another gentleman. He came and stood on the banks, and assisted Annabella in her slides.

Nora’s youth had been passed abroad, and since her return to England she had lived the life of a matron of fifty rather than that of a young girl. She had never ventured on the ice beyond a few careful steps, and was nervous at the mere idea of launching herself freely upon it. The exhilaration of the scene, however, and the pressing entreaties of Mr. Elliott, at length animating her to overcome her fears, she consented to be instructed.

The very first rudiments, the suffering herself to be carried down a slide, had to be taught, and with good-humoured helplessness she put herself into Mr. Elliott’s hands. He, not Henry, was her instructor. Henry, as before said, was occupying himself with Annabella.

There was a curve in the lake at the place where they stood, and across the curve a slide for the children, short and safe, had already been made. Annabella was tired of it, and was venturing on a longer one, but on this safe slide Nora began her practice. She went two or three times slowly and carefully across. Becoming confident, and warmed and animated, she, after two or three ventures, desirous of shewing her improvement, and obtaining exercise of a livelier kind, withdrew from the edge of the bank on the opposite side, and took a run of some yards before she launched herself on the slide.

The operation was more rapid than she had been prepared for, and she came to the edge on the further side with a shock so violent that she lost her balance and her head. She stretched out her arms to recover herself, catching at she knew not what; but the support she had expected to find, gave way under her, and she and it fell.

The support was Henry. He had been at the moment, bending forward and stretching out his hand to a little girl who was in difficulties. He was not attending to Nora, or conscious of her violent approach, and when she suddenly grasped him he fell.

Nora rose in an instant, ashamed, but laughing, and not exactly conscious of what had occurred. But the laugh was over in a moment; for Henry did not rise; and the next instant there was a scream from Annabella.

“Oh! Henry, are you hurt?”

A general rush to the spot followed, while Nora stood stupefied with horror.

He had fallen with his head against a stone, and the blow had been unbroken by the soft hat he wore. He lay back with an expression of pain on his face, but pale and motionless.

A plank was procured in a moment from a neighbouring boat-house; messengers were dispatched for medical advice, and Henry was borne off to the house.

“How was it?” Mrs. Elliott said to Nora, as they slowly followed. “I did not see what happened.”

“I did it,” Nora said, forcing out the words. “In saving myself I threw him down.” She was pale and cold, but quiet.

“I think he is only stunned,” Mrs. Elliott observed compassionately. She took no special notice of what Nora said. She felt it to be a case in which words were useless.

Henry was carried to the house, and medical advice was very shortly procured. But no decisive opinion could be given. He lay during the whole day speechless and immovable; except, indeed, that one or two faint moans were heard, and there were once or twice faint movements of his head. The extent of the injury it was impossible to tell; but the grave faces betrayed the fears that were entertained.

During that whole day Nora sat in simple endurance like the rest. Had she not known it before she knew it now, that the life of her life was threatened; yet she had no rights, no power to say that during these fleeting moments she would watch over him. She had to endure like the rest, with only this sad superiority in her case, that she was the cause of the ill that had befallen.

The human mind can hardly admit of two overpowering sensations, and this consciousness, “and I the cause,” although it was there, although she knew the fact, and was made constantly aware of it through the pitying avoidance of the subject by all about her, was hardly felt. Henry’s life was trembling in the balance, and she had no power to divert her eyes from that one consideration. She was to feel it; but it scarcely added its sting to that day of horror and suspense.

Towards evening there was a slight change. Mrs. Elliott, who alone was permitted to go near the room, bore the news and made the most of it; and before the general separation for the night, she was able to give a yet more favourable report. Henry had moved and spoken. There might be other dangers—there was a fear of fever; but the first worst fear that he never would speak again was at an end. And the first relief from dread, however qualified by other fear, was what no words can express, or comparison describe.

CHAPTER XV.

THE fears of fever proved to be true. A brain-fever came on, and for a week Henry was very ill. Although serious, however, the attack was not considered dangerous, and as every day the physician spoke confidently of the result, cheerfulness returned to the members of the house.

Except the children, there were none who were bound to Henry by those near ties which make anxiety last while illness lasts. All were satisfied to know that he was no worse, or a shade better, and thankfully rolled anxiety away. All but Nora; and she had to behave like the rest. She did not dare to ask from hour to hour whether there was a change; did not dare to meet the physicians, and ask if they were convinced the danger was passed. No one appeared to consider her specially interested, or, indeed, except from the unfortunate circumstance of her fall, interested in any way.

No one except Mrs. Elliott. She saw the anxiety that devoured Nora; she saw the efforts by which she maintained her constant composure, and she did all which a kind person can do to relieve a state of mind which, although visible, shrinks from notice.

“But she will make herself ill,” she thought, “and the sooner she sees Henry the better. Possibly under these new circumstances the estrangement will give way.”

At the end of about ten days Henry was pronounced to be convalescent; and no sooner did the children hear that he was really better than they became clamorous to see him. Hitherto Mrs. Elliott only, and she under great restraint, had been allowed to go near his room.

“Now will be the time for Nora,” she thought; but before she had taken any measures for such a step, Nora herself spoke.

“I do not know if it could be allowed,” she said to Mrs. Elliott, “but I should be very glad if I might see my cousin. I am haunted by his face as he lay on the ground. It is dreadful! Nothing, I think, but seeing him can drive the impression away.”

She spoke quietly but earnestly. She did indeed feel as if she could scarcely bear for a longer time the torture of her mind.

“I understand that,” Mrs. Elliott said; and promised to see what could be done.

Henry was attended by two physicians; a great one, who came at stated times from a distance, and a little one, who devoted almost his whole time to him.

Mrs. Elliott waited until the following day, when the great physician came, and then made her request. “As he was satisfied with Henry’s state, might his little sister and his cousin now be allowed to see him?”

“To a visit from his little sister,” the physician replied, “there can be no possible objection. I am afraid the other is a more doubtful matter. Indeed,” he added, shaking his head, “I cannot take on myself at present to let him run the risk of agitation.”

Mrs. Elliott looked at him curiously.

“Would his cousin’s presence agitate him? Does he remember what happened on the ice?” she asked, discreetly.

“Are you not aware,” said the physician, “that during his delirium Mr. Devereux has constantly spoken of Miss Smith—so constantly, indeed, that I have every reason to fear he would not see her with calmness.”

“No, I was not aware,” she said, with extreme surprise and curiosity.

The physician looked at her with a smile.

“I see what you imagine; but that is not at all the impression I intend to convey. My impression would be of a contrary nature. Mr. Devereux very constantly spoke of and addressed Miss Smith, often calling her Miss Smythe. Sometimes he addressed her as having injured him, but more often reproached himself as if he had injured her. It was impossible to put any meaning to his ravings; but, under the circumstances, I think you will feel with me that the visit must be delayed.”

Mrs. Elliott was not very clear on this point, but it was not one on which she could venture to have an opinion.

She told Nora that Annabella was to be allowed to see Henry, as her visit would be no effort to him; but that any further step was forbidden for a few days longer. She spoke cheerfully, and Nora could only be satisfied to wait.

Henry was convalescent, but he did not recover. The joys of convalescence, such as poets have painted them, were not his. He was allowed to get up, he was laid on a sofa, he was wheeled to the window; but all the day long he lay languid, joyless, and indifferent.

When the great physician, who had ceased his constant attendance, came at the end of five or six days, he found but little improvement. “I cannot understand it,” he said. “There must be some hidden injury.”

“He would be well if he chose to be well,” said the lesser practitioner impatiently; “everything depends on the patient. If the patient will make no exertions, medicine is useless. If Mr. Devereux was in a hospital, they would turn him out; and the best thing for him, too.”

The little doctor who spoke thus had become much attached to Henry, but he was provoked with him for not getting well. He had been looking forward to a display of the progress made under his care, and he was disappointed.

The great physician asked for Mrs. Elliot.

“I think we will try your remedy,” he said. “The excitement I feared may prove a help instead of a hindrance. Mr. Devereux must be roused. Let us try an experiment. If Miss Smith is disposed to visit him, let her do so this afternoon. I need not recommend care and watchfulness. You will be on your guard. I leave the matter in your hands.”

Mrs. Elliott undertook it cheerfully. While he was dining, she paid Henry a visit; and as she left him, observed, quietly, that a few people were now to be admitted. “I shall bring Nora to see you this afternoon.”

She did not wait for any reply, nor paused to observe the manner in which the statement was received.

An hour afterwards she fetched Nora and accompanied her to his room. As they walked along, Nora begged her to remain with her during the visit.

“You see I have got my knitting,” Mrs. Elliott said, smiling. She could not refuse a request made with great earnestness, but she determined to use her discretion.

As they appeared at the door, a deep flush for an instant dyed Henry’s cheek, and then passed away with the rapidity of weakness, and left him deadly pale. He looked so wan, so weak, so emaciated with illness, that Nora paused breathless to recover herself from the shock he gave her. The sight of him was worse than the vision that had haunted her. “And I the cause!” she now said in her heart.

Accustomed, however, to self-control, the pause of horror was hardly perceived before she came quietly forward, and then shook hands in sedate and tranquil fashion. Mrs. Elliott then placed a chair for her opposite to him at the foot of the sofa, and sat down herself nearer to the door.

“I hoped I should have found you better,” Nora said, and her voice trembled a little as she spoke.

“I am better, thank you,” he replied. “Indeed, in a few days I suppose I shall be quite well.”

His words were cheerful and re-assuring, but the tone of his voice was most painful. So languid, weak, and weary.

“Do you not wish to get well?” Nora asked, addressing the tone of his voice, not the words he had said.

“I don’t know. Oh! yes, I suppose I wish to get well. All men do. But life is a great trouble—a great struggle. Sometimes I feel as if it was hardly worth while.”

And while he said these sentences, disconnectedly, his eyes rested on her, looking so large and mournful in his sunken cheeks, so like the eyes of Sophy in her dying days, that Nora felt struck as with a pang of death.

“I think you should wish to live,” she said, bending forward towards him, and speaking earnestly.

“I know I should,” he replied. “I know well that I am not fit to die; nor is weariness of life a good preparation for death.”

“I did not mean that. I meant—” and here her voice took a tone of passion in its earnestness—“I meant that you should wish to live for my sake.” A glow tinged his cheek for a second, but Nora scarcely perceived it. “If you were to die, what would become of me? Do you not know that I should have killed you?”

“You have killed me many times,” he answered; and in his voice, also, there was now a sound touched and altered from its languid tone. “This time only the stroke would have been welcome.”

“How have I killed you? What have I ever done that you should hate me?”

“Hate! Is it possible you think I hate?”

Up to this time, notwithstanding her great discomfort, Mrs. Elliott, in obedience to Nora’s wishes, had sat still. But here she felt unable to maintain her position longer, and softly left the room. Her departure was unperceived. She had been forgotten.

“It seems like hate,” Nora replied; “and what have I done, and how have I deserved it? If it has been my unhappy fate to offend you often, and now to have done you harm; you should pity, and not hate me. You should pity me; for you cannot tell how I wished to do you good—how I have longed, in my lonely life, to have you for my friend, and not my enemy.”

Her words were poured out, as she thus pleaded her cause before him, with a force and quickness uncommon to her. Henry listened with wide-opened eyes, and made no effort to arrest her.

It is related in Guarini’s “Pastor Fido,” that a hard-hearted young hunter, who had trampled on love, scorning a young maiden who loved him, was in a moment of time transformed by the discovery that he had wounded, and he thought to death, the maiden he was disdaining. In one instant the hard heart became soft.

It was with some such feeling, and with like suddenness, that Henry was now transformed. As he listened to Nora’s voice pleading before him, as he looked into her earnest eyes, the stubborn rebellious feeling which had made his life miserable, born of passion first, then of pride, gave way—melted within him.

“Hate!” he cried, and in an altered tone, “is it possible you think I hate?”

And then a new and sudden struggle began within. It was no longer the struggle of opposing feelings always felt in her presence, but the struggle against one feeling, which seemed bursting for utterance. The physician would have been alarmed if he had seen his agitation. His cheeks were flushed with crimson, and every vein in the now transparent skin seemed to be quivering beneath its slender covering.

Nora was terrified. She had hitherto been so absorbed by her intense desire to set all bitterness at rest between them, that she had not thought of the possibility of agitation. She now looked round, and saw that Mrs. Elliott was gone.

“You are ill,” she cried, in a fright. “I have done you harm again!” and she rose quickly from her seat.

“Wait,” he cried, and he stretched out his hand to her.

Pausing irresolute, hardly knowing what she did, she took it; and then meeting a gaze that seemed designed to read her very soul, she began to feel and to think;—and she blushed.

The blush loosed the fetters that withheld him.

“You said hate,” he cried, still gazing at her. “It is not hate. Shall I say what it is—unworthy though I am to feel it?”

A swift bright glow, radiant in its beauty and gladness, flitted over her unconscious face. It made her look so lovely that Henry could have risen from his couch and worshipped her. He did spring up and attempted to rise, but her imploring hand and weakness combined subdued him.

“Is it possible!” he cried, gazing at her. “Do you not hate?”

She smiled and blushed, and slowly shook her head; and so it came to pass that the barrier between them was broken down.

Nor was it likely to arise again, for the life of principle and self-control he had lately led had delivered Henry from the folly and childishness of old passion. The mirror of his mind was now smooth and clear, and it needed only to brush the mists away that had gathered upon it, and light entered, and with the light peace.

He one day described to Mrs. Elliott the singular torture he had long endured. Nora, as he saw her to be, as he knew her to be, had long won his heart. In their first meeting she had caught his fancy. To this had been afterwards added gratitude and reverence; and growing from these a devotion which, owing to their peculiar relations, was touched with a light of romance.

But in opposition to these feelings there had been another image perpetually rising before him—never, after his first acquaintance, taking any hateful form, but one tending to distance, to freeze, to chill him. He saw her as his benefactress and his judge. He saw her calm and kind, extending to him her clemency, inviting him to mercy, judging of him pitifully; seeing his errors, but forgiving them. And, strange to say, the more the first feelings strove for mastery, and sometimes gained it, the more did this image, with a cold Medusa gaze, haunt and repel him. The combat between the two feelings had made his life torture, his visits to her a torment.

“And no wonder,” was Mrs. Elliott’s observation. “But did it never strike, never cross your poor brain, that she could perhaps feel more like a young girl than an old judge?”

“Never but once,” he said. “After I left Riddlemere I was haunted by the thought, the hope that I had made a favourable impression; but Mr. Powderham’s letter telling me of her friendly interference in my favour put that to flight for ever. Nor was it likely, after her kindness to my family, that I should even imagine such a feeling on my return. I think,” and he coloured and smiled, “if what I now gather from her is true, her conduct to me and to them—judging by the common feelings of people in that position—was truly heroic. The devotion of my life will be a poor reward for all she has borne, and done.”

A conclusion is hardly needed to a tale that has been already too long. And there needs no pointing of a moral, when a moral has been so glaringly exhibited.

It is not perhaps a common thing for an individual hate to be nourished and cherished in a family; yet unless the annals of the world greatly lie, the very same state of mind is nourished and cherished by single persons, and in families, towards inanimate things; towards subjects, bodies, names, and words. There are reasonless antipathies and prejudices so nursed and fed in certain minds, that the very minds become perturbed by the violence of the hate; a single word, a simple name, sufficing to raise such a host of fiery thoughts, that the mental powers lose their balance, and become incapable of fair and righteous judgment.

It was the thought of some such truth that suggested the idea of the story which has been told; which prompted the attempt to display the effects of a reasonless hate on a young, unthinking character.

“Fierce passions discompose the mind,
As tempests lash the sea.”

There is the truth to be remembered. The remainder of the verse has its truth also:

“But calm content and peace we find
When, Lord, we turn to Thee.”

Yet it would be unfair to deny that these reasonless hates and antipathies are often cherished by minds whose desires are set in a right direction. Good men, religious men, indulge in prejudices, until their minds are unstrung by them. Yet good men, above all others, should beware of such things; for fierce passions and prejudices, if cherished, will discompose their brains, let them be as good as they may.

THE END.

LONDON: PRINTED BY MACDONALD AND TUGWELL, BLENHEIM HOUSE.

Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:

the two cbildren=> the two children {pg 73}

for it acknowleged=> for it acknowledged {pg 75}

disappoinment with it=> disappointment with it {pg 127}

and very scrupulons=> and very scrupulous {pg 146}

and Sophy profitted=> and Sophy profited {pg 150}

evening in the begining=> evening in the beginning {pg 152}

what I imgaine=> what I imagine {pg 230}

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Table of Contents

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- CHAPTER I.

- CHAPTER II.

- CHAPTER III.

- CHAPTER IV.

- CHAPTER V.

- CHAPTER VI.

- CHAPTER VII.

- CHAPTER VIII.

- CHAPTER IX.

- CHAPTER X.

- CHAPTER XI.

- CHAPTER XII.

- CHAPTER XIII.

- CHAPTER XIV.

- CHAPTER XV.

- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE