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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers, by 
+Mary Cholmondeley
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers
+
+Author: Mary Cholmondeley
+
+Release Date: August 10, 2006 [EBook #19020]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DANVERS JEWELS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Geetu Melwani, Suzanne Shell and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note: A number of typographical errors found in the
+original text have been corrected in this version. A list of these
+errors is found at the end (before the advertisments from the original
+book).
+
+
+
+  THE DANVERS JEWELS
+
+     AND
+
+  SIR CHARLES DANVERS
+
+     by
+
+  Mary Cholmondeley
+
+
+
+
+    NEW YORK
+
+ HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE
+
+    1890
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+     TO MY SISTER
+
+     "DI"
+
+     I AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATE THE STORY
+     WHICH SHE HELPED ME
+     TO WRITE
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+                   CONTENTS.
+
+
+     THE DANVERS JEWELS                 9
+
+
+                   THE SEQUEL.
+
+     SIR CHARLES DANVERS                93
+
+
+      *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE DANVERS JEWELS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+I was on the point of leaving India and returning to England when he
+sent for me. At least, to be accurate--and I am always accurate--I was
+not quite on the point, but nearly, for I was going to start by the mail
+on the following day. I had been up to Government House to take my leave
+a few days before, but Sir John had been too ill to see me, or at least
+he had said he was. And now he was much worse--dying, it seemed, from
+all accounts; and he had sent down a native servant in the noon-day heat
+with a note, written in his shaking old hand, begging me to come up as
+soon as it became cooler. He said he had a commission which he was
+anxious I should do for him in England.
+
+Of course I went. It was not very convenient, because I had to borrow
+one of our fellows' traps, as I had sold my own, and none of them had
+the confidence in my driving which I had myself. I was also obliged to
+leave the packing of my collection of Malay _krises_ and Indian
+_kookeries_ to my bearer.
+
+I wondered as I drove along why Sir John had sent for me. Worse, was he?
+Dying? And without a friend. Poor old man! He had done pretty well in
+this world, but I was afraid he would not be up to much once he was out
+of it; and now it seemed he was going. I felt sorry for him. I felt more
+sorry when I saw him--when the tall, long-faced A.D.C. took me into his
+room and left us. Yes, Sir John was certainly going. There was no
+mistake about it. It was written in every line of his drawn fever-worn
+face, and in his wide fever-lit eyes, and in the clutch of his long
+yellow hands upon his tussore silk dressing-gown. He looked a very sick
+bad old man as he lay there on his low couch, placed so as to court the
+air from without, cooled by its passage through damped grass screens,
+and to receive the full strength of the punka, pulled by an invisible
+hand outside.
+
+"You go to England to-morrow?" he asked, sharply.
+
+It was written even in the change of his voice, which was harsh, as of
+old, but with all the strength gone out of it.
+
+"By to-morrow's mail," I said. I should have liked to say something
+more--something sympathetic about his being ill and not likely to get
+better; but he had always treated me discourteously when he was well,
+and I could not open out all at once now that he was ill.
+
+"Look here, Middleton," he went on; "I am dying, and I know it. I don't
+suppose you imagined I had sent for you to bid you a last farewell
+before departing to my long home. I am not in such a hurry to depart as
+all that, I can tell you; but there is something I want done--that I
+want you to do for me. I meant to have done it myself, but I am down
+now, and I must trust somebody. I know better than to trust a clever
+man. An honest fool--But I am digressing from the case in point. I have
+never trusted anybody all my life, so you may feel honored. I have a
+small parcel which I want you to take to England for me. Here it is."
+
+His long lean hands went searching in his dressing-gown, and presently
+produced an old brown bag, held together at the neck by a string.
+
+"See here!" he said; and he pushed the glasses and papers aside from the
+table near him and undid the string. Then he craned forward to look
+about him, laying a spasmodic clutch on the bag. "I'm watched! I know
+I'm watched!" he said in a whisper, his pale eyes turning slowly in
+their sockets. "I shall be killed for them if I keep them much longer,
+and I won't be hurried into my grave. I'll take my own time."
+
+"There is no one here," I said, "and no one in sight except Cathcart,
+smoking in the veranda, and I can only see his legs, so he can't see
+us."
+
+He seemed to recover himself, and laughed. I had never liked his laugh,
+especially when, as had often happened, it had been directed against
+myself; but I liked it still less now.
+
+"See here!" he repeated, chuckling; and he turned the bag inside out
+upon the table.
+
+Such jewels I had never seen. They fell like cut flame upon the marble
+table--green and red and burning white. A large diamond rolled and fell
+upon the floor. I picked it up and put it back among the confused blaze
+of precious stones, too much astonished for a moment to speak.
+
+"Beautiful! aren't they?" the old man chuckled, passing his wasted hands
+over them. "You won't match that necklace in any jeweller's in England.
+I tore it off an old she-devil of a Rhanee's neck after the Mutiny, and
+got a bite in the arm for my trouble. But she'll tell no tales. He! he!
+he! I don't mind saying now how I got them. I am a humble Christian, now
+I am so near heaven--eh, Middleton? He! he! You don't like to contradict
+me. Look at those emeralds. The hasp is broken, but it makes a pretty
+bracelet. I don't think I'll tell you how the hasp got broken--little
+accident as the lady who wore it gave it to me. Rather brown, isn't it,
+on one side? but it will come off. No, you need not be afraid of
+touching it, it isn't wet. He! he! And this crescent. Look at those
+diamonds. A duchess would be proud of them. I had them from a private
+soldier. I gave him two rupees for them. Dear me! how the sight of them
+brings back old times. But I won't leave them out any longer. We must
+put them away--put them away." And the glittering mass was gathered up
+and shovelled back into the old brown bag. He looked into it once with
+hungry eyes, and then he pulled the string and pushed it over to me.
+"Take it," he said. "Put it away now. Put it away," he repeated, as I
+hesitated.
+
+I put the bag into my pocket. He gave a long sigh as he watched it
+disappear.
+
+"Now what you have got to do with that bag," he said, a moment
+afterwards, "is to take it to Ralph Danvers, the second son of Sir
+George Danvers, of Stoke Moreton, in D----shire. Sir George has got two
+sons. I have never seen him or his sons, but I don't mean the eldest to
+have them. He is a spendthrift. They are all for Ralph, who is a steady
+fellow, and going to marry a nice girl--at least, I suppose she is a
+nice girl. Girls who are going to be married always _are_ nice. Those
+jewels will sweeten matrimony for Mr. Ralph, and if she is like other
+women it will need sweetening. There, now you have got them, and that is
+what you have got to do with them. There is the address written on this
+card. With my compliments, you perceive. He! he! I don't suppose they
+will remember who I am."
+
+"Have you no relations?" I asked; for I am always strongly of opinion
+that property should be bequeathed to relatives, especially near
+relatives, rather than to entire strangers.
+
+"None," he replied, "not even poor relations. I have no deserving
+nephew or Scotch cousin. If I had, they would be here at this moment
+smoothing the pillow of the departing saint, and wondering how much they
+would get. You may make your mind easy on that score."
+
+"Then who is this Ralph whom you have never seen, and to whom you are
+leaving so much?" I asked, with my usual desire for information.
+
+He glared at me for a moment, and then he turned his face away.
+
+"D----n it! What does it matter, now I'm dying?" he said. And then he
+added, hoarsely, "I knew his mother."
+
+I could not speak, but involuntarily I put out my hand and took his
+leaden one and held it. He scowled at me, and then the words came out,
+as if in spite of himself--
+
+"She--if she had married me, who knows what might--But she married
+Danvers. She called her second son Ralph. My first name is Ralph." Then,
+with a sudden change of tone, pulling away his hand, "There! now you
+know all about it! Edifying, isn't it? These death-bed scenes always
+have an element of interest, haven't they? _Good_-evening"--ringing the
+bell at his elbow--"I can't say I hope we shall meet again. It would be
+impolite. No, don't let me keep you. Good-bye again."
+
+"Good-bye, Sir John," I said, taking his impatient hand and shaking it
+gently; "God bless you."
+
+"Thankee," grinned the old man, with a sardonic chuckle; "if anything
+could do me good that will, I'm sure. Good-bye."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As I breakfasted next morning, previously to my departure, I could not
+help reflecting on the different position in which I was now returning
+to England, as a colonel on long leave, to that in which I had left it
+many--I do not care to think how many--years ago, the youngest ensign in
+the regiment.
+
+It was curious to remember that in my youth I had always been considered
+the fool of the family; most unjustly so considered when I look back at
+my quick promotion owing to casualties, and at my long and prosperous
+career in India, which I cannot but regard as the result of high
+principles and abilities, to say the least of it, of not the meanest
+order. On the point of returning to England, the trust Sir John had with
+his usual shrewdness reposed in me was an additional proof, if proof
+were needed, of the confidence I had inspired in him--a confidence which
+seemed to have ripened suddenly at the end of his life, after many years
+of hardly concealed mockery and derision. Just as I was finishing my
+reflections and my breakfast, Dickson, one of the last joined
+subalterns, came in.
+
+"This is very awful," he said, so gravely that I turned to look at him.
+
+"What is awful?"
+
+"Don't you know?" he replied. "Haven't you heard about--Sir John--last
+night?"
+
+"Dead?" I asked.
+
+He nodded; and then he said--
+
+"Murdered in the night! Cathcart heard a noise and went in, and stumbled
+over him on the floor. As he came in he saw the lamp knocked over, and a
+figure rush out through the veranda. The moon was bright, and he saw a
+man run across a clear space in the moonlight--a tall, slightly built
+man in native dress, but not a native, Cathcart said; that he would take
+his oath on, by his build. He roused the house, but the man got clean
+off, of course."
+
+"And Sir John?"
+
+"Sir John was quite dead when Cathcart got back to him. He found him
+lying on his face. His arms were spread out, and his dressing-gown was
+torn, as if he had struggled hard. His pockets had been turned inside
+out, his writing-table drawers forced open, the whole room had been
+ransacked; yet the old man's gold watch had not been touched, and some
+money in one of the drawers had not been taken. What on earth is the
+meaning of it all?" said young Dickson, below his breath. "What was the
+thief after?"
+
+In a moment the truth flashed across my brain. I put two and two
+together as quickly as most men, I fancy. _The jewels!_ Some one had got
+wind of the jewels, which at that moment were reposing on my own person
+in their old brown bag. Sir John had been only just in time.
+
+"What was he looking for?" continued Dickson, walking up and down. "The
+old man must have had some paper or other about him that he wanted to
+get hold of. But what? Cathcart says that nothing whatever has been
+taken, as far as he can see at present."
+
+I was perfectly silent. It is not every man who would have been so in my
+place, but I was. I know when to hold my tongue, thank Heaven!
+
+Presently the others came in, all full of the same subject, and then
+suddenly I remembered that it was getting late; and there was a bustle
+and a leave-taking, and I had to post off before I could hear more. Not,
+however, that there was much more to hear, for everything seemed to be
+in the greatest confusion, and every species of conjecture was afloat as
+to the real criminal, and the motive for the crime. I had not much time
+to think of anything during the first day on board; yet, busy as I was
+in arranging and rearranging my things, poor old Sir John never seemed
+quite absent from my mind. His image, as I had last seen him, constantly
+rose before me, and the hoarse whisper was forever sounding in my ears,
+"I'm watched! I know I'm watched!" I could not get him out of my head. I
+was unable to sleep the first night I was on board, and, as the long
+hours wore on, I always seemed to see the pale searching eyes of the
+dead man; and above the manifold noises of the steamer, and the
+perpetual lapping of the calm water against my ear, came the whisper,
+"I'm watched! I know I'm watched!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+I was all right next day. I suppose I had had what women call _nerves_.
+I never knew what nerves meant before, because no two women I ever met
+seemed to have the same kind. If it is slamming a door that upsets one
+woman's nerves, it may be coming in on tiptoe that will upset another's.
+You never can tell. But I am sure it was nerves with me that first
+night; I know I have never felt so queer since. Oh yes I have,
+though--once. I was forgetting; but I have not come to that yet.
+
+We had a splendid passage home. Most of the passengers were in good
+spirits at the thought of seeing England again, and even the children
+were not so troublesome as I have known them. I soon made friends with
+some of the nicest people, for I generally make friends easily. I do not
+know how I do it, but I always seem to know what people really are at
+first sight. I always was rather a judge of character.
+
+There was one man on board whom I took a great fancy to from the first.
+He was a young American, travelling about, as Americans do, to see the
+world. I forget where he had come from--though I believe he told me--or
+why he was going to London; but a nicer young fellow I never met. He was
+rather simple and unsophisticated, and with less knowledge of the world
+than any man I ever knew; but he did not mind owning to it, and was as
+grateful as possible for any little hints which, as an older man who had
+not gone through life with his eyes shut, I was of course able to give
+him. He was of a shy disposition I could see, and wanted drawing out;
+but he soon took to me, and in a surprisingly short time we became
+friends. He was in the next cabin to mine, and evidently wished so much
+to have been with me, that I tried to get another man to exchange; but
+he was grumpy about it, and I had to give it up, much to young Carr's
+disappointment. Indeed, he was quite silent and morose for a whole day
+about it, poor fellow. He was a tall handsome young man, slightly built,
+with the kind of sallow complexion that women admire, and I wondered at
+his preferring my company to that of the womankind on board, who were
+certainly very civil to him. One evening when I was rallying him on the
+subject, as we were leaning over the side (for though it was December it
+was hot enough in the Red Sea to lounge on deck), he told me that he was
+engaged to be married to a beautiful young American girl. I forget her
+name, but I remember he told it me--Dulcima Something--but it is of no
+consequence. I quite understood then. I always can enter into the
+feelings of others so entirely. I know when I was engaged myself once,
+long ago, I did not seem to care to talk to any one but her. She did not
+feel the same about it, which perhaps accounted for her marrying some
+one else, which was quite a blow to me at the time. But still I could
+fully enter into young Carr's feelings, especially when he went on to
+expatiate on her perfections. Nothing, he averred, was too good for her.
+At last he dropped his voice, and, after looking about him in the dusk,
+to make sure he was not overheard, he said:
+
+"I have picked up a few stones for her on my travels; a few sapphires of
+considerable value. I don't care to have it generally known that I have
+jewels about me, but I don't mind telling _you_."
+
+"My dear fellow," I replied, laying my hand on his shoulder, and sinking
+my voice to a whisper, "not a soul on board this vessel suspects it, but
+so have I."
+
+It was too dark for me see his face, but I felt that he was much
+impressed by what I had told him.
+
+"Then _you_ will know where I had better keep mine," he said, a moment
+later, with his impulsive boyish confidence. "How fortunate I told you
+about them. Some are of considerable value, and--and I don't know where
+to put them that they will be absolutely safe. I never carried about
+jewels with me before, and I am nervous about _losing_ them, you
+understand." And he nodded significantly at me. "Now where would you
+advise me to keep them?"
+
+"On you," I said, significantly.
+
+"But where?"
+
+He was simpler than even I could have believed.
+
+"My dear boy," I said, hardly able to refrain from laughing, "do as I
+do; put them in a bag with a string to it. Put the string round your
+neck, and wear that bag under your clothes night and day."
+
+"At night as well?" he asked, anxiously.
+
+"Of course. You are just as likely to _lose_ them, as you call it, in
+the night as in the day."
+
+"I'm very much obliged to you," he replied. "I will take your advice
+this very night. I say," he added, suddenly, "you would not care to see
+them, would you? I would not have any one else catch sight of them for a
+good deal, but I would show you them in a moment. Every one else is on
+deck just now, if you would like to come down into my cabin."
+
+I hardly know one stone from another, and never could tell a diamond
+from paste; but he seemed so anxious to show me what he had, that I did
+not like to refuse.
+
+"By all means," I said. And we went below.
+
+It was very dark in Carr's cabin, and after he had let me in he locked
+the door carefully before he struck a light. He looked quite pale in the
+light of the lamp after the red dusk of the warm evening on deck.
+
+"I don't want to have other fellows coming in," he said in a whisper,
+nodding at the door.
+
+He stood looking at me for a moment as if irresolute, and then he
+suddenly seemed to arrive at some decision, for he pulled a small parcel
+out of his pocket and began to open it.
+
+They really were not much to look at, though I would not have told him
+so for worlds. There were a few sapphires--one of a considerable size,
+but uncut--and some handsome turquoises, but not of perfect color. He
+turned them over with evident admiration.
+
+"They will look lovely, set in gold, as a bracelet on _her_ arm," he
+said, softly. He was very much in love, poor fellow! And then he added,
+humbly, "But I dare say they are nothing to yours."
+
+I chuckled to myself at the thought of his astonishment when he should
+actually behold them; but I only said, "Would you like to see them, and
+judge for yourself?"
+
+"Oh! if it is not giving you too much trouble," he exclaimed,
+gratefully, with shining eyes. "It's very kind of you. I did not like to
+ask. Have you got them with you?"
+
+I nodded, and proceeded to unbutton my coat.
+
+At that moment a voice was heard shouting down the companion-ladder:
+"Carr! I say, Carr, you are wanted!" and in another moment some one was
+hammering on the door.
+
+Carr sprang to his feet, looking positively savage.
+
+"Carr!" shouted the voice again. "Come out, I say; you are wanted!"
+
+"Button up your coat," he whispered, scowling suddenly; and with an oath
+he opened the door.
+
+Poor Carr! He was quite put out, I could see, though he recovered
+himself in a moment, and went off laughing with the man, who had been
+sent for him to take his part in a rehearsal which had been suddenly
+resolved on; for theatricals had been brewing for some time, and he had
+promised to act in them. I had not been asked to join, so I saw no more
+of him that night. The following morning, as I was taking an early turn
+on the deck, he joined me, and said, with a smile, as he linked his arm
+in mine, "I was put out last night, wasn't I?"
+
+"But you got over it in a moment," I replied. "I quite admired you; and,
+after all, you know--some other time."
+
+"No," he said, smiling still, "not some other time. I don't think I will
+see them--thanks all the same. They might put me out of conceit with
+what I have picked up for my little girl, which are the best I can
+afford."
+
+He seemed to have lost all interest in the subject, for he began to talk
+of England, and of London, about which he appeared to have that kind of
+vague half-and-half knowledge which so often proves misleading to young
+men newly launched into town life. When he found out, as he soon did,
+that I was, to a certain extent, familiar with the metropolis, he began
+to question me minutely, and ended by making me promise to dine with him
+at the Criterion, of which he had actually never heard, and go with him
+afterwards to the best of the theatres the day after we arrived in
+London.
+
+He wanted me to go with him the very evening we arrived, but on that
+point I was firm. My sister Jane, who was living with a hen canary
+(called Bob, after me, before its sex was known) in a small house in
+Kensington, would naturally be hurt if I did not spend my first evening
+in England with her, after an absence of so many years.
+
+Carr was much interested to hear that I had a sister, and asked
+innumerable questions about her. Was she young and lovely, or was she
+getting on? Did she live all by herself, and was I going to stay with
+her for long? Was not Kensington--was that the name of the
+street?--rather out of the world? etc.
+
+I was pleased with the interest he took in any particulars about myself
+and my relations. People so seldom care to hear about the concerns of
+others. Indeed, I have noticed, as I advance in life, such a general
+want of interest on the part of my acquaintance in the minutiæ of my
+personal affairs that of late I have almost ceased to speak of them at
+any length. Carr, however, who was of what I should call a truly
+domestic turn of character, showed such genuine pleasure in hearing
+about myself and my relations, that I asked him to call in London in
+order to make Jane's acquaintance, and accordingly gave him her address,
+which he took down at once in his note-book with evident satisfaction.
+
+Our passage was long, but it proved most uneventful; and except for an
+occasional dance, and the theatricals before-mentioned, it would have
+been dull in the extreme. The theatricals certainly were a great
+success, mainly owing to the splendid acting of young Carr, who became
+afterwards a more special object of favor even than he was before. It
+was bitterly cold when we landed early in January at Southampton, and my
+native land seemed to have retired from view behind a thick veil of fog.
+We had a wretched journey up to London, packed as tight as sardines in a
+tin, much to the disgust of Carr, who accompanied me to town, and who,
+with his usual thoughtfulness, had in vain endeavored to keep the
+carriage to ourselves, by liberal tips to guards and porters. When we at
+last arrived in London he insisted on getting me a cab and seeing my
+luggage onto it, before he looked after his own at all. It was only when
+I had given the cabman my sister's address that he finally took his
+leave, and disappeared among the throng of people who were jostling each
+other near the luggage-vans.
+
+Curiously enough, when I arrived at my destination an odd thing
+happened. I got out at the green door of 23, Suburban Residences, and
+when the maid opened it, walked straight past her into the drawing-room.
+
+"Well, Jane!" I cried.
+
+A pale middle-aged woman rose as I came in, and I stood aghast. It was
+not my sister. It was soon explained. She was a little pettish about it,
+poor woman! It seemed my sister had quite recently changed her house,
+and the present occupant had been put to some slight inconvenience
+before by people calling and leaving parcels after her departure. She
+gave me Jane's new address, which was only in the next street, and I
+apologized and made my bow at once. My going to the wrong house was such
+a slight occurrence that I almost forgot it at the time, until I was
+reminded of it by a very sad event which happened afterwards.
+
+Jane was delighted to see me. It seemed she had written to inform me of
+her change of address, but the letter did not reach me before I started
+for England with the Danvers jewels, about which I have been asked to
+write this account. Considering this _is_ an account of the jewels, it
+is wonderful how seldom I have had occasion to mention them so far; but
+you may rest assured that all this time they were safe in their bag
+under my waiscoat; and knowing I had them there all right, I did not
+trouble my head much about them. I never was a person to worry about
+things.
+
+Still I had no wish to be inconvenienced by a hard packet of little
+knobs against my chest any longer than was necessary, and I wrote the
+same evening to Sir George Danvers, stating the bare facts of the case,
+and asking what steps he or his second son wished me to take to put the
+legacy in the possession of its owner. I had no notion of trusting a
+packet of such immense value to the newly organized Parcels Post. With
+jewels I consider you cannot be too cautious. Indeed, I told Jane so at
+the time, and she quite agreed with me.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+I did not much like the arrangement of Jane's new house when I came to
+stay in it. The way the two bedrooms, hers and mine, were shut off from
+the rest of the house by a door, barred and locked at night for fear of
+burglars, was, I thought, unpleasant, especially as, once in my room for
+the night, there was no possibility of getting out of it, the key of the
+door of the passage not being even allowed to remain in the lock, but
+retiring with Jane, the canary cage, and other valuables, into her own
+apartment. I remonstrated, but I soon found that Jane had not remained
+unmarried for nothing. She was decided on the point. The outer door
+would be locked as usual, and the key would be deposited under the
+pin-cushion in her room, as usual; and it was so.
+
+The next morning, as Jane and I went out for a stroll before luncheon,
+we had to pass the house to which I had driven by mistake the day
+before. To our astonishment, there was a crowd before the door, and a
+policeman with his back to it was guarding the entrance. The blinds were
+all drawn down. The image of the pale lonely woman, sitting by her
+little fire, whom I had disturbed the day before, came suddenly back to
+me with a strange qualm.
+
+"What is it?" I hurriedly asked a baker's boy, who was standing at an
+area railing, rubbing his chin against the loaf he was waiting to
+deliver. The boy grinned.
+
+"It's murder!" he said, with relish. "Burgilars in the night. I've
+supplied her reg'lar these two months. One quartern best white, one
+half-quartern brown every morning, French rolls occasional; but it's all
+up now." And he went off whistling a tune which all bakers' boys
+whistled about that time, called "My Grandfather's Timepiece," or
+something similar.
+
+A second policeman came up the street at this moment, and from him I
+learned all the little there was to know. The poor lady had not been
+murdered, it seemed, but, being subject to heart complaint, had died in
+the night of an acute attack, evidently brought on by fright. The maid,
+the only other person in the house, sleeping as maids-of-all-work only
+can, had heard nothing, and awoke in the morning to find her mistress
+dead in her bed, with the window and door open. "Strangely enough," the
+policeman added, "although nothing in the house had been touched, the
+lock of an unused bedroom had been forced, and the room evidently
+searched."
+
+Poor Jane was quite overcome. She seemed convinced that it was only by a
+special intervention of Providence that she had changed her house, and
+that her successor had been sacrificed instead of herself.
+
+"It might have been me!" she said over and over again that afternoon.
+
+Wishing to give a turn to her thoughts, I began to talk about Sir John's
+legacy, in which she had evinced the greatest interest the night before,
+and, greatly to her delight, showed her the jewels. I had not looked at
+them since Sir John had given them to me, and I was myself astonished at
+their magnificence, as I spread them out on the table under the
+gas-lamp. Jane exhausted herself in admiration; but as I was putting
+them away again, saying it was time for me to be dressing and going to
+meet Carr, who was to join me at the Criterion, she begged me on no
+account to take them with me, affirming that it would be much safer to
+leave them at home. I was firm, but she was firmer; and in the end I
+allowed her to lock them up in the tea-caddy, where her small stock of
+ready money reposed.
+
+I met Carr as we had arranged, and we had a very pleasant evening. Poor
+Carr, who had seen the papers, had hardly expected that I should turn
+up, knowing the catastrophe of the previous night had taken place at the
+house I was going to, and was much relieved to hear that my sister had
+moved, and had thus been spared all the horror of the event.
+
+The dinner was good, the play better. I should have come home feeling
+that I had enjoyed myself thoroughly, if it had not been for a little
+adventure with our cab-driver that very nearly proved serious. We got a
+hansom directly we came out of the theatre, but instead of taking us to
+the direction we gave him, after we had driven for some distance I began
+to make out that the cabman was going wrong, and Carr shouted to him to
+stop; but thereupon he lashed up his horse, and away we went like the
+wind, up one street, and down another, till I had lost all idea where we
+were. Carr, who was young and active, did all he could; but the cabman,
+who, I am afraid, must have been intoxicated, took not the slightest
+notice, and continued driving madly, Heaven knows where. At last, after
+getting into a very dingy neighborhood, we turned up a crooked dark
+street, unlit by any lamp, a street so narrow that I thought every
+moment the cab would be overturned. In another moment I saw two men rush
+out of a door-way. One seized the horse, which was much blown by this
+time, and brought it violently to a stand-still, while the other flew at
+the cab, and catching Carr by the collar, proceeded to drag him out by
+main force. I suppose Carr did his best, but being only an American, he
+certainly made a very poor fight of it; and while I was laying into the
+man who had got hold of him, I was suddenly caught by the legs myself
+from the other side of the cab. I turned on my assailant, saw a heavy
+stick levelled at me, caught at it, missed it, beheld a series of
+fireworks, and remembered nothing more.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The first thing I heard on beginning to come to myself was a series of
+subdued but evidently heart-felt oaths; and I became sensible of an airy
+feeling, unpleasant in the extreme, proceeding from an open condition of
+coat and waistcoat quite unsuited to the time of year. A low chorus of
+muffled whispering was going on round me. As I groaned, involuntarily,
+it stopped.
+
+"He's coming to!" I heard Carr say. "Go and fetch some brandy." And I
+felt myself turned right side uppermost, and my hands were rubbed,
+while Carr, in a voice of the greatest anxiety, asked me how I felt. I
+was soon able to sit up, and to become aware that I had a splitting
+headache, and was staring at a tallow-candle stuck in a bottle. Having
+got so far I got a little farther, and on looking round found myself
+reclining on a sack in a corner of a disreputable-looking room, dingy
+with dirt, and faithful to the memory of bad tobacco. Then I suddenly
+remembered what had occurred. Carr saw that I did so, and instantly
+poured forth an account of how we had been rescued from a condition of
+great peril by the man to whom the house we were in belonged, to whom he
+hardly knew how to express his gratitude, and who was now gone for some
+brandy for me. He told me a great deal about it, but I was so dizzy that
+I forgot most of what he said, and it was not until our deliverer
+returned with the brandy that I became thoroughly aware of what was
+going forward. I could not help thinking, as I thanked the honest fellow
+who had come to our assistance, how easily one may be deceived by
+appearances, for a more forbidding-looking face, under its fur cap, I
+never saw. That of his son, who presently returned with a four-wheeler
+which Carr had sent for, was not more prepossessing. In fact, they were
+two as villanous-looking men as I had ever seen. After recompensing both
+with all our spare cash, we got ourselves hoisted stiffly into the cab,
+and Carr good-naturedly insisted on seeing me home, though he owned to
+feeling, as he put it, "rather knocked up by his knocking down." We were
+both far too exhausted to speak much, until Carr gave a start and a gasp
+and said, "By Jove!"
+
+"What?" I inquired.
+
+"They are gone!" he said, tremulously--"my sapphires. They are gone!
+Stolen! I had them in a bag round my neck, as you told me. They must
+have been taken from me when I was knocked down. I say," he added,
+quickly, "how about yours? Have you got them all right?"
+
+Involuntarily I raised my hand to my throat. A horrid qualm passed over
+me.
+
+"Thank Heaven!" I replied, with a sigh of relief. "They are safe at home
+with Jane. What a mercy! I might have lost them."
+
+"_Might!_" said Carr. "You would have lost them to a dead certainty;
+mine _are_ gone!" And he stamped, and clinched his fists, and looked
+positively furious.
+
+Poor Carr! I felt for him. He took the loss of his stones so to heart;
+and I am sure it was only natural. I parted from him at my own door, and
+was glad on going in to find Jane had stayed up for me. I soon figured
+in her eyes as the hero of a thrilling adventure, while her clever hands
+applied sticking-plaster _ad libitum_. We were both so full of the
+events of the evening, and the letter which I was to write to the
+_Times_ about it the next day, that it never entered the heads of either
+of us, on retiring to bed, to remove Sir John's jewels from the
+tea-caddy into which they had been temporarily popped in the afternoon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+I really think adventures, like misfortunes, never come single. Would
+you believe it? Our house was broken into that very night. Nothing
+serious came of it, wonderful to relate, owing to Jane's extraordinary
+presence of mind. She had been unable to sleep after my thrilling
+account of the cab accident, and had consoled herself by reading
+Baxter's "Saint's Rest" by her night-light, for the canary became
+restless and liable to sudden bursts of song if a candle were lighted.
+While so engaged she became aware of a subdued grating sound, which had
+continued for some time before she began to speculate upon it. While she
+was speculating it ceased, and after a short interval she distinctly
+heard a stealthy step upon the stair, and the handle of the passage door
+before-mentioned was gently, very gently turned.
+
+Jane has some of that quickness of perception which has been of such use
+to myself through life. In a moment she had grasped the situation. Some
+one was in the house. In another moment she was hanging out of her
+bedroom window, springing the policeman's rattle which she had had by
+her for years with a view to an emergency of this kind, and at the same
+time--for she was a capable woman--blowing a piercing strain on a
+cabman's whistle.
+
+To make a long story short, her extraordinary presence of mind was the
+saving of us. With her own eyes she saw two dark figures fly up our area
+steps and disappear round the corner, and when a policeman appeared on
+the scene half an hour later, he confirmed the fact that the house had
+been broken into, by showing us how an entrance had been effected
+through the kitchen window.
+
+There was of course no more sleep for us that night, and the remainder
+of it was passed by Jane in examining the house from top to bottom every
+half hour or so, owing to a rooted conviction on her part that a
+burglar might still be lurking on the premises, concealed in the
+cellaret, or the jam cupboard, or behind the drawing-room curtains.
+
+By that morning's post I heard, as I expected I should do, from Sir
+George Danvers, but the contents of the letter surprised me. He wrote
+most cordially, thanking me for my kindness in undertaking such a heavy
+responsibility (I am sure I never felt it to be so) for an entire
+stranger, and ended by sending me a pressing invitation to come down
+to Stoke Moreton that very day, that he and his son, whose future wife
+was also staying with them, might have the pleasure of making the
+acquaintance of one to whom they were so much indebted. He added that
+his eldest son Charles was also going down from London by a certain
+train that day, and that he had told him to be on the lookout for me at
+the station in case I was able to come at such short notice. I made up
+my mind to go, sent Sir George a telegram to that effect, and proceeded
+to fish up the jewels out of the tea-caddy.
+
+Jane, who had never ceased for one instant to comment on the event of
+the night, positively shrieked when she saw me shaking the bag free from
+tea-leaves.
+
+"Good gracious! the burglars," she exclaimed. "Why, they might have
+taken them if they had only known."
+
+Of course they had _not_ known, as I had been particularly secret about
+them; but I wished all the same that I had not left them there all
+night, as Jane would insist, and continue insisting, that they had been
+exposed to great danger. I argued the matter with her at first; but
+women, I find, are impervious as a rule to masculine argument, and it is
+a mistake to reason with them. It is, in fact, putting the sexes for the
+moment on an equality to which the weaker one is unaccustomed, and
+consequently unsuited.
+
+A few hours later I was rolling swiftly towards Stoke Moreton in a
+comfortable smoking carriage, only occupied by myself and Mr. Charles
+Danvers, a handsome young fellow with a pale face and that peculiar
+tired manner which (though, as I soon found, natural to him) is so often
+affected by the young men of the day.
+
+"And so Ralph has come in for a legacy in diamonds," he said,
+listlessly, when we had exchanged the usual civilities, and had become,
+to a certain degree, acquainted. "Dear me! how these good steady young
+men prosper in the world. When last I heard from him he had prevailed
+upon the one perfect woman in the universe to consent to marry him, and
+his aunt (by-the-way, you will meet her there, too--Lady Mary
+Cunningham) had murmured something vague but gratifying about
+testamentary intentions. A week later Providence fills his brimming cup
+with a legacy of jewels, estimated at----" Charles opened his light
+sleepy eyes wide and looked inquiringly at me. "What are they estimated
+at?" he asked, as I did not answer.
+
+I really had no idea, but I shrugged my shoulders and looked wise.
+
+"Estimated at a fabulous sum," he said, closing his eyes again. "Ah! had
+they been mine, with what joyful alacrity should I have ascertained
+their exact money value. And mine they ought to have been, if the sacred
+law of primogeniture (that special Providence which watches over the
+interests of eldest sons) had been duly observed. Sir John had not the
+pleasure of my acquaintance, but I fear he must have heard some
+reports--no doubt entirely without foundation--respecting my career,
+which had induced him to pass me over in this manner. What a moral! My
+father and my aunt Mary are always delicately pointing out the
+difference between Ralph and myself. I wish I were a good young man,
+like Ralph. It seems to pay best in the long-run; but I may as well
+inform you, Colonel Middleton, of the painful fact that I am the black
+sheep of the family."
+
+"Oh, come, come!" I remarked, uneasily.
+
+"I should not have alluded to the subject if you were not likely to
+become fully aware of it on your arrival, so I will be beforehand with
+my relations. I was brought up in the way I should go," he continued,
+with the utmost unconcern, as if commenting on something that did not
+affect him in the least; "but I did not walk in it, partly owing to the
+uncongenial companionship that it involved, especially that of my aunt
+Mary, who took up so much room herself in the narrow path that she
+effectually kept me out of it. From my earliest youth, also, I took
+extreme interest in the parable of the Prodigal, and as soon as it
+became possible I exemplified it myself. I may even say that I acted the
+part in a manner that did credit to a beginner; but the wind-up was
+ruined by the lamentable inability of others, who shall be nameless, to
+throw themselves into the spirit of the piece. At various intervals," he
+continued, always as if speaking of some one else, "I have returned
+home, but I regret to say that on each occasion my reception was not in
+any way what I could have wished. The flavor of a fatted calf is
+absolutely unknown to me; and so far from meeting me half-way, I have in
+extreme cases, when impelled homeward by urgent pecuniary
+considerations, found myself obliged to walk up from the station."
+
+"Dear me! I hope it is not far," I said.
+
+"A mere matter of three miles or so uphill," he resumed; "nothing to a
+healthy Christian, though trying to the trembling legs of the ungodly
+after a long course of husks. There, now I think you are quite _au fait_
+as to our family history. I always pity a stranger who comes to a house
+ignorant of little domestic details of this kind; he is apt to make
+mistakes." "Oh, pray don't mention it,"--as I murmured some words of
+thanks--"no trouble, I assure you; trouble is a thing I don't take.
+By-the-way, are you aware we are going straight into a nest of private
+theatricals at Stoke Moreton? To-night is the last rehearsal; perhaps I
+had better look over my part. I took it once years ago, but I don't
+remember a word of it." And after much rummaging in a magnificent
+silver-mounted travelling-bag, the Prodigal pulled out a paper book and
+carelessly turned over the leaves.
+
+I did not interrupt his studies, save by a few passing comments on the
+weather, the state of the country, and my own health, which, I am sorry
+to say, is not what it was; but as I only received monosyllabic answers,
+we had no more conversation worth mentioning till we reached Stoke
+Moreton.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+Stoke Moreton is a fine old Elizabethan house standing on rising ground.
+As we drove up the straight wide approach between two rows of ancient
+fantastically clipped hollies, I was impressed by the stately dignity of
+the place, which was not lessened as we drew up before a great arched
+door-way, and were ushered into a long hall supported by massive pillars
+of carved white stone. A roaring log-fire in the immense fireplace threw
+a ruddy glow over the long array of armor and gleaming weapons which
+lined the walls, and made the pale winter twilight outside look bleak
+indeed. Charles, emerging slim and graceful out of an exquisite ulster,
+sauntered up to the fire, and asked where Sir George Danvers was. As he
+stood inside the wide fireplace, leaning against one of the pillars
+which supported the towering white stone chimney-piece, covered with
+heraldic designs and coats of arms, he looked a worthier representative
+of an ancient race than I fear he really was.
+
+"So they have put the stage at that end, in front of the pillars," he
+remarked, nodding at a wooden erection. "Quite right. I could not have
+placed it better myself. What, Brown? Sir George is in the drawing-room,
+is he? and tea, as I perceive, is going in at this moment. Come, Colonel
+Middleton." And we followed the butler to the drawing-room.
+
+I am not a person who easily becomes confused, but I must own I did get
+confused with the large party into the midst of which we were now
+ushered. I soon made out Sir George Danvers, a delicate, but
+irascible-looking old gentleman, who received me with dignified
+cordiality, but returned Charles's greeting with a certain formality and
+coldness which I was pained to see, family affection being, in my
+opinion, the chief blessing of a truly happy home. Charles I already
+knew, and with the second son, Ralph, a ruddy, smiling young man with
+any amount of white teeth, I had no difficulty; but after that I became
+hopelessly involved. I was introduced to an elderly lady whom I
+addressed for the rest of the evening as Lady Danvers, until Charles
+casually mentioned that his mother was dead, and that, until the
+Deceased Wife's Sister Bill was passed, he did not anticipate that his
+aunt Mary would take upon herself the position of step-mother to her
+orphaned nephews. The severe elderly lady, then, who beamed so sweetly
+upon Ralph, and regarded Charles with such manifest coldness, was their
+aunt Lady Mary Cunningham. She had known Sir John slightly in her youth,
+she said, as she graciously made room for me on her sofa, and she
+expressed a very proper degree of regret at his sudden death,
+considering that he had not been a personal friend in any way.
+
+"We all have our faults, Colonel Middleton," said Lady Mary, with a
+gentle sigh, which dislodged a little colony of crumbs from the front of
+her dress. "Sir John, like the rest of us, was not exempt, though I have
+no doubt the softening influence of age would have done much, since I
+knew him, to smooth acerbities of character which were unfortunately
+strongly marked in his early life."
+
+She had evidently not known Sir John in his later years.
+
+As she continued to talk in this strain I endeavored to make out which
+of the young ladies present was the one to whom Ralph was engaged. I was
+undecided as to which it was of the two to whom I had already been
+introduced. Girls always seem to me so very much alike, especially
+pretty girls; and these were both of them pretty. I do not mean that
+they resembled each other in the least, for one was dark and one was
+fair; but which was Miss Aurelia Grant, Ralph's _fiancée_, and which was
+Miss Evelyn Derrick, a cousin of the family, I could not make out until
+later in the evening, when I distinctly saw Ralph kiss the fair one in
+the picture-gallery, and I instantly came to the conclusion that she was
+the one to whom he was engaged.
+
+I asked Charles if I were not right, as we stood in front of the
+hall-fire before the rest of the party had assembled for dinner, and he
+told me that I had indeed hit the nail on the head in this instance,
+though for his own part he never laid much stress himself on such an
+occurrence, having found it prove misleading in the extreme to draw any
+conclusion from it. He further informed me that Miss Derrick was the
+young lady with dark hair who had poured out tea, and whom he had
+favored with some of his conversation afterwards.
+
+I admired Ralph's taste, as did Charles, who had never seen his future
+sister-in-law before. Aurelia Grant was a charming little creature, with
+a curly head and a dimple, and a pink-and-white complexion, and a
+suspicion of an Irish accent when she became excited.
+
+Charles said he admired her complexion most because it was so thoroughly
+well done, and the coloring was so true to nature.
+
+I did not quite catch his meaning, but it certainly was a beautiful
+complexion; and then she was so bright and lively, and showed such
+pretty little teeth when she smiled! She was quite delightful. I did not
+wonder at Ralph's being so much in love with her, and Charles agreed
+with me.
+
+"There is nothing like a good complexion," he remarked, gravely. "One
+may be led away to like a pale girl with a mind for a time, but for
+permanent domestic happiness give me a good complexion, and--a dimple,"
+he added, as if it were an after-thought. "I feel I could not bestow my
+best affections on a woman without a dimple. Yes, indeed! Ralph has
+chosen well."
+
+Now I do not agree with Charles there, as I have always considered that
+a woman _should_ have a certain amount of mind; just enough, in fact, to
+enable her to appreciate a superior one. I said as much to Charles; but
+he only laughed, and said it was a subject on which opinion had always
+varied.
+
+"How did he meet her?" I inquired.
+
+"On the Rigi, last summer," said Charles. "I am thinking of going there
+myself next year. Lovely orphan sat by Lady Mary at _table d'hôte_. Read
+tracts presented by Lady Mary. Made acquaintance. Lovely orphan's
+travelling companion or governess discovered to be live sister of
+defunct travelling companion or governess of Lady Mary. Result, warm
+friendship. Ralph, like a dutiful nephew, appears on the scene.
+Fortnight of fine weather. Interesting expeditions. Romantic attachment,
+cemented by diamond and pearl ring from Hunt & Roskell's. There is the
+whole story for you."
+
+Evelyn Derrick joined us as he finished speaking. She was a tall
+graceful girl, gentle and dignified in manner, with a pale refined face.
+She was pretty in a way, but not to compare to Aurelia. Evelyn had an
+anxious look about her, too. Now I do not approve of a girl looking
+grave; she ought to be bright and happy, with a smile for every one. It
+is all very well for us men, who have the work of the world to do, to
+look grave at times, but with women it is different; and a woman always
+looks her best when she smiles--at least, I think so.
+
+Then Aurelia came down, perfectly dazzling in white satin; then Sir
+George, then Ralph, giving an arm to Lady Mary, who suffered from
+rheumatism in her foot. Then came the gong, and there was a rustle down
+of more people, young and old, friends of the family who had come to
+act, or to see their sons and daughters act. As I never could get even
+their names right, I shall not attempt to give any account of them,
+especially as they are not of importance in any way.
+
+After dinner, on entering the drawing-room, I found that great
+excitement prevailed among the ladies respecting Sir John's jewels.
+About his sad fate and costly legacy they all seemed fully informed. I
+had myself almost forgotten the reason of my visit in my interest in my
+new surroundings, not having even as yet given up the jewels to Sir
+George Danvers or Ralph; but, at the urgent request of all the ladies at
+once, Ralph begged me to bring them down, to be seen and admired then
+and there, before the rehearsal began.
+
+"They will all be yours, you know," Ralph said to Aurelia. "You shall
+wear them on your wedding-day."
+
+"You are always talking about being married," said Aurelia, with a
+little pout. "I wish you would try and think of something else to say. I
+was quite looking forward to it myself until I came here, and now I am
+quite, _quite_ tired of it beforehand."
+
+Ralph laughed delightedly, and Sir George reminding me that every one
+was dying of anxiety, himself included, I ran up-stairs to take the
+brown bag from around my neck, and in a few minutes returned with it in
+my hand. They were all waiting for me, Lady Mary drawn up in an
+arm-chair beside an ebony table, on which a small space near her had
+been cleared, Charles alone holding rather aloof, sipping his coffee
+with his back to the fire.
+
+"Don't jostle," he said, as they all crowded round me. "Evelyn, let me
+beg of you not to elbow forward in that unbecoming manner. Observe how
+Aunt Mary restrains herself. Take time, Middleton! your coffee is
+getting cold. Won't you drink it first?"
+
+As he finished speaking I turned the contents of the bag upon the table.
+The jewels in the bright lamp-light seemed to blaze and burn into the
+ebony of the table. There was a general gasp, a silence, and then a
+chorus of admiration. Charles came up behind me and looked over my
+shoulder.
+
+"Good gracious!" said Lady Mary, solemnly. "Ralph, you are a rich man.
+Why, mine are nothing to them!" and she touched a diamond and emerald
+necklace on her own neck. "I never knew poor Sir John had so much good
+in him."
+
+"Oh, Ralph, Ralph!" cried Aurelia, clasping her little hands with a deep
+sigh. "And will they really be my very own?"
+
+Ralph assured her that they would, and that she should act in them the
+following night if she liked.
+
+I think there was not a woman present who did not envy Aurelia as Ralph
+took up a flashing diamond crescent and held it against her fair hair. I
+saw Evelyn turn away and begin to tear up a small piece of paper in her
+hand. Women are very jealous of each other, especially the nice, by
+which I mean the pretty, ones. I was sorry to see jealousy so plainly
+marked in such a charming looking girl as Evelyn; but women are all the
+same about jewels. Aurelia blushed and sparkled, and pouted when the
+clasp caught in her hair, and shook her little head impatiently, and was
+altogether enchanting.
+
+After the first burst of admiration had subsided, General Marston, an
+old Indian officer, who had been somewhat in the rear, came up, and
+looked long at the glittering mass upon the table.
+
+"Are you aware," he said at last to Ralph, pointing to the crescent,
+"that those diamonds are of enormous value? I have not seen such stones
+in any shop in London. I dare not say what that one crescent alone is
+worth, or that emerald bracelet. Jewels of such value as this are a
+grave responsibility." He stood, shaking his head a little and turning
+the crescent in his hand. "Wonderful!" he said. "Wonderful! Do not tear
+up that piece of rice-paper, Miss Derrick," he added, taking it from
+her. "The crescent was wrapped in it, and I will put it round it again.
+All these stones want polishing, and many of them resetting. They ought
+not to be tumbled together in this way in a bag, with nothing to
+prevent them scratching each other. See, Ralph, here is a clasp broken;
+and here are some loose stones; and this star has no clasp at all. You
+must take them up to some trustworthy jeweller, and have them thoroughly
+looked over."
+
+"I suppose the second son was specially mentioned, Middleton?" said
+Charles, as I drew back to let the rest handle and admire.
+
+"Of course!" said Lady Mary, sharply; "and a very fortunate thing, too."
+
+"Very--for Ralph," he replied. "It is really providential that I am what
+I am. Why, I might have ruined the dear boy's prospects if I had paid my
+tailor's bill, and lived in the country among the buttercups and
+daisies. Ah! my dear aunt, I see you are about to remark how all things
+here below work together for good!"
+
+"I was not going to remark anything of the kind," retorted Lady Mary,
+drawing herself up; "but," she added, spitefully, "I do not feel the
+less rejoiced at Ralph's good fortune and prosperity when I see, as I so
+often do, the ungodly flourishing like a green bay-tree."
+
+"Of course," said Charles, shaking his head, "if that is your own
+experience, I bow before it; but for my own part, I must confess I have
+not found it so. Flourish like a green bay-tree! No, Aunt Mary, it is a
+fallacy; they don't: I am sure I only wish they did. But I see the
+rehearsal is beginning. May I give you an arm to the hall?"
+
+The offer was entirely disregarded, and it was with the help of mine
+that Lady Mary retired from an unequal combat, which she never seemed
+able to resist provoking anew, and in which she was invariably worsted,
+causing her, as I could see, to regard Charles with the concentrated
+bitterness of which a severely good woman alone is capable.
+
+I soon perceived that Charles was on the same amicable terms with his
+father; that they rarely spoke, and that it was evidently only with a
+view to keeping up appearances that he was ever invited to the paternal
+roof at all. Between the brothers, however, in spite of so much to
+estrange them, a certain kindliness of feeling seemed to exist, which
+was hardly to have been expected under the circumstances.
+
+The rehearsal now began, and Sir George Danvers, who had remained behind
+to put by the jewels, and lock them up in his strong-box among his
+papers, came and sat down by me, again thanking me for taking charge of
+them, though I assured him it had been very little trouble.
+
+"Not much trouble, perhaps, but a great responsibility," he said,
+courteously.
+
+"A soldier, Sir George," I replied, with a slight smile, "becomes early
+inured to the gravest responsibility. It is the air we breathe; it is
+taken as a matter of course."
+
+He looked keenly at me, and was silent, as if considering
+something--perhaps what I had said.
+
+I was delighted to find the play was one of those which I had seen acted
+during our passage home. There is nothing I like so much as knowing a
+play beforehand, because then one can always whisper to one's companion
+what is coming next. The stage, with all its adjustments, had been
+carefully arranged, the foot-lights were lighted, the piece began. All
+went well till nearly the end of the first act, when there was a cry
+behind the scenes of "Mr. Denis!" Mr. Denis should have rushed on, but
+Mr. Denis did not rush on. The play stopped. Mr. Denis was not in the
+library, the improvised greenroom; Mr. Denis did not appear when his
+name was called in stentorian tones by Ralph, or in pathetic falsetto by
+Charles. In short, Mr. Denis was not forthcoming. A rush up-stairs on
+the part of most of the young men brought to light the awful fact that
+Mr. Denis had retired to his chamber, a prey to sudden and acute
+indisposition.
+
+"Dear me!" said Charles to Lady Mary, with a dismal shake of his head,
+"how precarious is life! Here to-day, and in bed to-morrow. Support your
+aunt Mary, my dear Evelyn; she wishes to retire to rest. Indeed, we may
+as well all go to bed, for there will be no more acting to-night without
+poor Denis. I only trust he may be spared to us till to-morrow, and that
+he may be well enough to die by my hand to-morrow evening."
+
+We all dispersed for the night in some anxiety. The play could not
+proceed without Mr. Denis, who took an important part; and Sir George
+ruefully informed me that all the neighboring houses had been filled for
+these theatricals, and that great numbers of people were expected. There
+was to be dancing afterwards, but the principal feature of the
+entertainment was the play. We all retired to rest, fervently hoping
+that the health of Mr. Denis might be restored by the following
+morning.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+But far from being better the following morning, Denis was much worse.
+Charles, who had sat up most of the night with him, and who came down to
+breakfast more cool and indifferent than ever, at once extinguished any
+hope that still remained that he would be able to take his part that
+night.
+
+Great was the consternation of the whole party. A vague feeling of
+resentment against Denis prevailed among the womankind, who, having all
+preserved their own healths intact for the occasion (and each by her own
+account was a chronic invalid), felt it was extremely inconsiderate, not
+to say indelicate, of "a great man like him" to spoil everything by
+being laid up at the wrong moment.
+
+But what was to be done? Denis was ill, and without Denis the play could
+not proceed. Must the whole thing be given up? There was a general
+chorus of lamentation.
+
+"I see no alternative," said Charles, "unless some Curtius will leap
+into the gulf, and go through the piece reading the part, and that is
+always a failure at the best of times."
+
+At that moment I had an idea; it broke upon me like a flash of
+lightning: _Valentine Carr_! I had seen him act the very part Denis was
+to have taken, in the theatricals on the steamer. How wonderfully
+fortunate that it should have occurred to me!
+
+I told Charles that I had a friend who had acted that part only the week
+before.
+
+"_You!_" cried Charles, losing all his customary apathy--"you don't say
+so! Great heavens, where is he? Out with him! Where is he at this
+moment? England, Ireland, Scotland, or Wales? Where is this treasure
+concealed?"
+
+"Oh, Colonel Middleton! Oh, how delightful!" cried a number of gentle
+voices; and I was instantly surrounded, and all manner of questions put
+to me. Would he come? Was he tall? And oh! _had_ he a beard? He had not
+a beard, had he? because it would not do for the part. Did he act well?
+When had he acted? Where had he acted?
+
+Sir George interrupted the torrent of interrogation.
+
+"Do you think he would come?" he asked.
+
+"I am almost sure he would," I said; "he is a great friend of mine."
+
+"It would be an exceedingly good-natured and friendly act," said Sir
+George. "Charles--no, I mean Ralph--bring a telegraph form, and if you
+will write a telegram at once, Middleton, I will send it to the station
+directly. We shall have an answer by twelve o'clock, and until then we
+will not give up all hope, though of course we must not count on your
+friend being able to come at such short notice."
+
+The telegram was written and despatched, Carr having given me an address
+where letters would find him, though he said he did not put up there. I
+sincerely hoped he would not be out of the way on this occasion, and I
+was not a little pleased when, a few hours later, I received a telegram
+in reply saying that he could come, and should arrive by the afternoon
+train which had brought me the day before.
+
+The spirits of the whole party revived. I (as is often the case) was in
+high favor with all. Even poor Denis, who had been very much depressed,
+was sufficiently relieved by the news--so Charles said--to smile over
+his beef-tea. Lady Mary, who appeared at luncheon-time, treated me with
+marked consideration. I had already laid them under an obligation, she
+said, graciously, by undertaking the care of the jewels, and now they
+were indebted to me a second time. Was Mr. Carr one of Lord Barrantyne's
+sons, or was he one of the Crampshire Carrs? She had known Lady Caroline
+Carr in her youth, but had not met her of late years. She seemed
+surprised when I told her that Carr was an American, and he sank, I
+could see, at once in her estimation; but she was kind enough to say
+that she was not a person who was prejudiced in any way by a man's
+nationality, and that she believed that very respectable people might be
+found among the Americans.
+
+The day passed in the usual preparations for an entertainment. If I went
+into the hall I was sure to run against gardeners carrying in quantities
+of hot-house plants, with which the front of the stage was being hidden
+from the foot-lights to the floor; if I wandered into the library I
+interrupted Aurelia and Ralph rehearsing their parts alone, with their
+heads very close together; if I hastily withdrew into the morning-room,
+it was only to find Charles upon his knees luring Evelyn to immediate
+flight, in soul-stirring accents, before an admiring audience of not
+unenvious young ladyhood.
+
+"Now, Evelyn, I ask you as a favor," said Charles, as I came in, moving
+towards her on his knees, "will you come a little closer when I am down?
+I don't mind wearing out my knees the least in a good cause; but I owe
+it to myself, as a wicked baron in hired tights, not to cross the stage
+in that position. Any impression I make will be quite lost if I do; and
+unless you keep closer, I shall never be able to reach your hand and
+clasp it to a heart at least two yards away. Now,"--rising, and crossing
+over to the other side--"I shall begin again. 'Ah! but my soul's
+adored--'"
+
+"Is Middleton here?" asked a voice in the door-way. It was Sir George
+Danvers who had put his head into the room, and I went to him.
+
+"I say, Middleton," he began, twirling his stick, and looking rather
+annoyed, "it is excessively provoking. I never thought of it before, but
+I find there is not a bed in the house. Every cranny has been filled. It
+never occurred to me that we had not a room for your friend, now that he
+is kind enough to come. And it looks so rude, when it is so exceedingly
+good-natured of him to come at all."
+
+"Oh, dear! anywhere will do," I said.
+
+"There is not even room for Ralph in the house," continued Sir George.
+"I have put him up at the lodge," pointing to a small house at the end
+of the drive, near the great entrance gates. "There is another nice
+little room leading out of his," he added, hesitating--"but really I
+don't like to suggest--"
+
+"Oh, that will do perfectly!" I broke in. "Carr is not the sort of
+fellow to care a straw how he is put up. He will be quite content
+anywhere."
+
+"Come and see it," he said, leading the way out-of-doors. "I would have
+turned out Charles in a moment, and given Carr his room; but Denis is
+really rather ill, and Charles sees to him, as he is next door."
+
+I could not help saying how much I liked Charles.
+
+"Strangers always do," he replied, coldly, as we walked towards the
+lodge. "I constantly hear him spoken of as a most agreeable young man."
+
+"And he is so handsome."
+
+"Yes," replied Sir George, in the same hard tone, "handsome and
+agreeable. I have no doubt he appears so to others; but I, who have had
+to pay the debts and hush up the scandals of my handsome and agreeable
+son, find Ralph, who has not a feature in his face, the better-looking
+of the two. I know Charles is head over ears in debt at this moment,
+but,"--with sudden acrimony--"he will not get another farthing from me.
+It is pouring water into a sieve."
+
+"Ralph is marrying a sweetly pretty creature," I said, with warmth,
+desirous of changing the subject.
+
+"Yes, she is very pretty," said Sir George, without enthusiasm; "but I
+wish she had belonged to one of our county families. It is nothing in
+the way of connection. She has no relations to speak of--one uncle
+living in Australia, and another, whom she goes to on Saturday, in
+Ireland. There seems to be no money either. It is Lady Mary's doing. She
+took a fancy to her abroad; and to say the truth, I did not wish to
+object, for at one time there seemed to be an attraction between Ralph
+and his cousin Evelyn Derrick, which his aunt and I were both glad to
+think had passed over. I do not approve of marriages between cousins."
+
+We had reached the lodge by this time, and I was shown a tidy little
+room leading out of the one Ralph was occupying, in which I assured Sir
+George that Carr would be perfectly comfortable, much to the courteous
+old gentleman's relief, though I could see that he was evidently annoyed
+at not being able to put him up in the house.
+
+In the afternoon, towards five o'clock, Carr arrived. I went into the
+hall to meet him, and to bring him into the drawing-room myself. Just as
+we came in, and while I was introducing him to Sir George, Ralph and
+Aurelia, who were sitting together as usual, started a lovers' squabble.
+
+"Oh _my_!" said Ralph, suddenly.
+
+"It is all your fault. You jogged my elbow," came Aurelia's quick
+rejoinder.
+
+"My dearest love, I did _not_," returned Ralph, on his knees,
+pocket-handkerchief in hand.
+
+It appeared that between them they had managed to transfer Amelia's tea
+from her cup to the front of her dress.
+
+"You did; you know you did," she said, evidently ready to cry with
+vexation. "I was just going to drink, and you had your arm round the
+back of my--"
+
+"Hush, Aurelia, I beg," expostulated Charles. "Aunt Mary and I are
+becoming embarrassed. It is not necessary to enter into particulars as
+to the exact locality of Ralph's arm."
+
+"Round the back of my chair," pouted Aurelia.
+
+"It is all right, Aunt Mary," called Charles, cheerfully, to that lady.
+"Only the back of her _chair_. We took alarm unnecessarily. Just as it
+should be. I have done the same myself with--a different chair."
+
+"He is _always_ doing it," continued Aurelia, unmollified. "I have told
+him about it before. He made me drop a piece of bread and butter on the
+carpet only yesterday."
+
+"I ate it afterwards," humbly suggested Ralph, still on his knees, "and
+there were hairs in it. There were, indeed, Aurelia."
+
+"And now it is my tea-gown," continued Aurelia, giving way to the
+prettiest little outburst of temper imaginable. "I wish you would get up
+and go away, Ralph, and not come back. You are only making it worse by
+rubbing it in that silly way with your wet handkerchief."
+
+"Here is another," said Charles, snatching up Lady Mary's delicate
+cambric one, which was lying on her work-table, while I was in the act
+of introducing Carr to her; and before that lady's politeness to Carr
+would allow her to turn from him to expostulate, Charles was on his
+knees beside Ralph, wiping the offending stain.
+
+"'Out, d----d spot!' or rather series of spots. What, Aurelia! you don't
+wish it rubbed any more? Good! I will turn my attention to the
+_Aubusson_ carpet. Ha! triumph! Here at least I am successful. Aunt
+Mary, you have no conception how useful your handkerchief is. The amount
+of tea or dirt, or both, which is leaving the carpet and taking refuge
+in your little square of cambric will surprise you when you see it. Ah!"
+rising from his knees as I brought up Carr, having by this time
+presented him to Sir George. "Very happy to see you, Mr. Carr. Most kind
+of you to come. Evelyn, are you pouring out some tea for Mr. Carr?
+Nature requires support before a last rehearsal. May I introduce you to
+my cousin Miss Derrick?"
+
+After Carr had also been introduced to Aurelia, who, however, was still
+too much absorbed in her tea-gown to take much notice of him, he seemed
+glad to retreat to a chair by Evelyn, who gave him his tea, and talked
+pleasantly to him. He was very shy at first, but he soon got used to us,
+and many were the curious glances shot at him by the rest of the party
+as tea went on. There was to be a last rehearsal immediately afterwards,
+so that he might take part in it; and there was a general unacknowledged
+anxiety on the part of all the actors as to how he would bear that
+crucial test on which so much depended. I was becoming anxious myself,
+being in a manner responsible for him.
+
+"You're not nervous, are you?" I said, taking him aside when tea was
+over. "Only act half as well as you did on the steamer and you will do
+capitally."
+
+"Yes, I am nervous," he replied, with a short uneasy laugh. "It is
+enough to make a fellow nervous to be set down among a lot of people
+whom he has never seen before--to act a principal part, too. I had no
+idea it was going to be such a grand affair or I would not have come. I
+only did it to please you."
+
+Of course I knew that, and I tried to reassure him, reminding him that
+the audience would not be critical, and how grateful every one was to
+him for coming.
+
+"Tell me who some of the people are, will you?" he went on. "Who is that
+tall man with the fair mustache? He is looking at us now."
+
+"That is Charles, the eldest son," I replied; "and the shorter one, with
+the pleasant face, near the window, is Ralph, his younger brother."
+
+"That is a very good-looking girl he is talking to," he remarked. "I did
+not catch her name."
+
+"Hush!" I said. "That is Miss Grant, whom he is engaged to. They have
+just had a little tiff, and are making it up. He _does_ talk to her a
+good deal. I have noticed it myself. Such a sweet creature!"
+
+"Is she going to act?"
+
+"Yes," I replied. "They are going to begin at once. You need not dress.
+It is not a dress rehearsal."
+
+"I think I will go and get my boots off, though," said Carr. "Can you
+show me where I am?"
+
+"I am afraid you are not in the house at all," I said. "The fact is--did
+not Sir George tell you?" And then I explained.
+
+For a moment his face fell, but it cleared instantly, though not before
+I had noticed it.
+
+"You don't mind?" I said, astonished. "You quite understand--"
+
+"Of course, of course!" he interrupted. "It is all right, I have a cold,
+that is all; and I have to sing next week. I shall do very well. Pray
+don't tell your friends I have a cold. I am sure Sir George is kindness
+itself, and it might make him uneasy to think I was not in his house."
+
+The rehearsal now began, and in much trepidation I waited to see Carr
+come on. The moment he appeared all anxiety vanished; the other actors
+were reassured, and acted their best. A few passages had to be
+repeated, a few positions altered, but it was obvious that Carr could
+act, and act well; though, curiously enough, he looked less
+gentlemanlike and well-bred when acting with Charles than he had done
+when he was the best among a very mixed set on the steamer.
+
+"You act beautifully, Mr. Carr!" said Aurelia, when it was over.
+"Doesn't he, Ralph?"
+
+"Doesn't he?" replied Ralph, hot but good-humored. "I am sure, Carr, we
+are most grateful to you."
+
+"So am I," said Charles. "Your death agonies, Carr, are a credit to
+human nature. No great vulgar writhings with legs all over the stage,
+like Denis; but a chaste, refined wriggle, and all was over. It is a
+pleasure to kill a man who dies in such a gentlemanlike manner. If only
+Evelyn will keep a little closer to me when I am on my wicked baronial
+knees, I shall be quite happy. You hear, Evelyn?"
+
+"How you can joke at this moment," said Evelyn, who looked pale and
+nervous, "I cannot think. I don't believe I shall be able to remember a
+word when it comes to the point."
+
+"Stage-fever coming on already," said Charles, in a different tone. "Ah!
+it is your first appearance, is it not? Go and rest now, and you will be
+all right when the time comes. I have a vision of a great success, and a
+call before the curtain, and bouquets, and other delights. Only go and
+rest now." And he went to light a candle for her. He seemed very
+thoughtful for Evelyn.
+
+It was the signal for all of us to disperse, the ladies to their rooms,
+the men to the only retreat left to them, the smoking-room. As Aurelia
+went up-stairs I saw her beckon Ralph and whisper to him:
+
+"Am I really to wear them?"
+
+"Wear what, my angel? The jewels! Why, good gracious, I had quite
+forgotten them. Of course I want you to wear them."
+
+"So do I, dreadfully," she replied, with a killing glance over the
+balusters. "Only if I am, you must bring them down in good time, and put
+them on in the greenroom. I hope you have got them somewhere safe."
+
+"Safe as a church," replied Ralph, forgetting that in these days the
+simile was not a good one. "Father has them in his strong-box. I will
+ask him to get them out--at least all that could be worn--and I will
+give them a rub up before you wear them."
+
+"Ah!" said Charles, sadly, as we walked up-stairs, "if only I had known
+Sir John!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+It was nearly eight o'clock when I came down. The play was to begin at
+eight. The hall, which was brilliantly lighted, was one moving mass of
+black coats, with here and there a red one, and evening-dresses many
+colored--the people in them, chatting, bowing, laughing, being ushered
+to their places. Lady Mary and Sir George Danvers side by side received
+their guests at the foot of the grand staircase, Lady Mary, resplendent
+in diamond tiara and riviere, smiling as if she could never frown; Sir
+George upright, courteous, a trifle stiff, as most English country
+gentlemen feel it incumbent on themselves to be on such occasions.
+
+Presently the continual roll of the carriages outside ceased, the lamps
+were toned down, the orchestra struck up, and Sir George and Lady Mary
+took their seats, looking round with anxious satisfaction at the hall
+crowded with people. People lined the walls; chairs were being lifted
+over the heads of the sitting for some who were still standing; cushions
+were being arranged on the billiard-table at the back for a covey of
+white waistcoats who arrived late; the staircase was already crowded
+with servants; the whole place was crammed.
+
+I wondered how they were getting on behind the scenes, and slipping out
+of the hall, I traversed the great gold and white drawing-room, prepared
+for dancing, and peeped into the morning-room, which, with the adjoining
+library, had been given up to the actors. They were all assembled in the
+morning-room, however, waiting for one of the elder ladies who had not
+come down. The prompter was getting fidgety, and walking about. The two
+scene-shifters, pale, weary-looking men, who had come down with the
+scenery, were sitting in the wings, perfectly apathetic amid the general
+excitement. Charles and several other actors were standing round a
+footman who was opening champagne bottles at a surprising rate. I saw
+Charles take a glass to Evelyn, who was shivering with a sharp attack of
+stage-fever in an arm-chair, looking over her part. She smiled
+gratefully, but as she did so her eyes wandered to the other side of the
+room, where Ralph, on his knees before Aurelia, was fastening a diamond
+star in her dress. Diamonds, rubies, and emeralds flashed in her hair,
+and on her white neck and arms. Ralph was fixing the last ornament onto
+her shoulder with wire off a champagne bottle, there being no clasp to
+hold it in its place. I saw Evelyn turn away again, and Charles, who was
+watching her, suddenly went off to the fire, and began to complain of
+the cold, and of the thinness of his silk stockings.
+
+The elder lady--"the heavy mother," as Charles irreverently called
+her--now arrived; the orchestra, which was giving a final flourish, was
+begged in a hoarse whisper to keep going a few minutes longer; eyes were
+applied to the hole in the curtain, and then, every one being assembled,
+it was felt by all that the awful moment had come at last. A more
+miserable-looking set of people I never saw. I always imagined that the
+actors behind the scenes were as gay off the stage as on it; but I found
+to my astonishment that they were all suffering more or less from severe
+mental depression. Ralph and Aurelia were now sitting ruefully together
+on an ottoman beside the painting table, littered with its various
+rouges and creams and stage appliances. Even Charles, who had
+established Evelyn on a chair in the wings at the side she had to come
+on from, and was now drinking champagne with due regard to his
+paint--even Charles owned to being nervous.
+
+"I wish to goodness Mrs. Wright would begin!" he said. "Ah, there she
+goes!"--as she ascended the stage steps. "There goes the bell. We are in
+for it now. She starts, and I come on next. Up goes the curtain. Where
+the devil has my book got to?"
+
+In another moment he was in the wings, intent on his part; then I saw
+him throw down his book and go jauntily forward. A moment more, and
+there was a thunder of applause. All the actors looked at each other,
+and smiled a feeble smile.
+
+"He will do," said General Marston, the Indian officer, who, now in the
+dress of an old-fashioned livery servant, proceeded to mount the steps.
+It dawned upon me that I was missing the play, and I hurried back to
+find Charles convulsing the audience with the utmost coolness, and
+evidently enjoying himself exceedingly. Then Evelyn came on--But who
+cares to read a description of a play? It is sufficient to say that
+Aurelia looked charming, and many were the whispered comments on her
+magnificent jewels; but on the stage Evelyn surpassed her, as much as
+Aurelia surpassed Evelyn off it.
+
+Ralph and Carr did well, but Charles was the favorite with every one,
+from the Duchess of Crushington in the front seat to the scullery-maid
+on the staircase. He was so bold, so wicked, so insinuating, in his
+plumed cap and short cloak, so elegantly refined when he wiped his sword
+upon his second's handkerchief. He took every one's heart by storm.
+Ralph, who represented all the virtues, with rather thick ankles and a
+false mustache, was nowhere. When the curtain fell for the last time,
+amid great and continued applause, the "heavy mother," Ralph, Aurelia,
+all were well received as they passed before it; but Charles, who
+appeared last, was the hero of the evening.
+
+"He is engaged to his cousin, Miss Derrick, isn't he?" said a lady near
+me, in a loud whisper to a friend.
+
+"Hush! no. Charles can't marry. Head over ears in debt. They say _she_
+is attached to one of her cousins, but I forget which. I am not sure it
+was not the other one."
+
+"Then it is the second son who is going to be married, is it? I know I
+heard something about one of them being engaged."
+
+"Yes, the second son is engaged to that good-looking girl in diamonds,
+who acted Florence Mordaunt. A lot of money, I believe, but not much in
+the way of family. Grandfather sold mouse-traps in Birmingham, so people
+say."
+
+"She looks like it!" replied the other, who had daughters out, and could
+not afford to let any praise of other girls pass. "No breeding or
+refinement; and she will be stout later, you will see."
+
+The play being over, a general movement now set in towards the
+drawing-room, where the band was already installed, and making its
+presence known by an inspiriting valse tune. In a few moments twenty,
+thirty, forty couples were swaying to the music; Aurelia in her acting
+costume was dancing away with Ralph in his red stockings; Carr with the
+"heavy mother," and Charles in prosaic evening-dress was flying past
+with Evelyn, who, now that she had effaced her beautiful stage
+complexion, looked pale and grave as ever.
+
+I suppose it was a capital ball. Every one seemed to enjoy it. I did not
+dance myself, but I liked watching the others; and after a time Charles,
+who had been dancing indefatigably with two school-room girls with
+pigtails, came and flung himself down on the other half of the ottoman
+on which I was sitting.
+
+"Three times with each!" he said, in a voice of extreme exhaustion. "No
+favoritism. I have done for to-night now."
+
+"What! Are you not going to dance any more?"
+
+"No, not unless Evelyn will give me another turn later, which she
+probably won't. There she goes with Lord Breakwater again. How I do
+dislike that young man! And look at Carr--valsing with Aurelia! He
+seems to be leaping on her feet a good deal, and she looks as if she
+were telling him so, does not she? There! they have subsided into the
+bay-window. I thought she would not stand it long. He does not dance as
+well as he acts. Heigh-ho! Come in to supper with me, Middleton. The
+supper-room will be emptier now, and I am dying of hunger. You must be
+the same, for you had no regular dinner any more than we had. Come
+along. We will get a certain little table for two that I know of, in the
+bay-window where I took the fair pigtail just now, to the evident
+anxiety of the parental chignon who was at the large table. We will have
+a good feed in peace and quietness."
+
+In a few minutes we were established in a quiet nook in the supper-room,
+which was now half empty, and were making short work of everything
+before us.
+
+"How well Carr acted!" said Charles at last, leaning back, and leisurely
+sipping his champagne. "I can think of something besides food now. Did
+not you think he acted well?"
+
+"Yes," I said, "but you cut him out."
+
+"Did I!" said Charles, absently, beckoning to some lobster salad which
+was passing. "Have some? Do, Middleton. We can but die once. You won't?
+Well I will. Have you often seen Carr act before?"
+
+"Never," I said. "I never met him till I came on board the _Bosphorus_
+at----"
+
+"Indeed! Oh! I fancied you were quite old friends."
+
+"We made great friends on the steamer."
+
+"Did you see much of him in London?" he asked, filling up his glass and
+mine.
+
+"Not much, naturally," I said, laughing. "I was in London only two
+nights."
+
+"Ah! I forgot. Very good of you, I am sure, to come down here so soon
+after your arrival. You would hardly have seen him at all since you
+landed, then?"
+
+"Carr? Yes," I replied, thinking Charles's talk was becoming very vague;
+though when I rallied him about it next day he assured me it had been
+very much to the point indeed. "We dined and went to the play together,
+and had rather a nasty accident into the bargain on our way home."
+
+"What kind of accident?"
+
+I told him the particulars, which seemed to interest him very much.
+
+"And you had all those jewels of poor Sir John's with you, no doubt,"
+continued Charles. "You said you had them on you day and night. I wonder
+you were not relieved of them."
+
+"That is just what Carr said," I went on; "for he lost something of his,
+poor fellow. However, I had left them with Jane in a--in a _safe
+place_."
+
+I did not think it necessary to mention the tea-caddy.
+
+"Oh! so Carr knew you had charge of them, did he?" said Charles. "Have
+some of these grapes, Middleton; the white ones are the best."
+
+"Yes," I said, "he was the only person who had any idea of such a thing.
+I am very careful, I can tell you; and I did not mean to have half the
+ship's company know that I had valuables to such an amount upon me. When
+I told Jane about them--"
+
+"Oh, then, Jane--I beg her pardon, Miss Middleton--was aware you had
+them with you?"
+
+"Of course," I replied; "and she was quite astonished at them when I
+showed them to her."
+
+"I hope," continued Charles, with his charming smile--all the more
+charming because it was so rare--"that Miss Middleton will add me to the
+number of her friends some day. I live in London, you know; but I wonder
+at ladies caring to live there. No poultry or garden, to which the
+feminine mind usually clings."
+
+"Jane seems to like it," I said.
+
+"Yes," replied Charles, meditatively. "I dare say she is very wise. A
+woman who lives alone is much safer in town than in an isolated house in
+the country, in case of fire, or thieves, or----"
+
+"Well, I don't know that," I said. "I don't see that they are so very
+safe. Why, only the night before I came down here----" I stopped. I had
+looked up to catch a sudden glimpse of Carr's face, pale and uneasy,
+watching us in a mirror opposite. In a moment I saw his face turn
+smiling to another--Evelyn's, I think--and both were gone.
+
+Charles's light steel eyes were fixed full upon me.
+
+"'Only the night before you came down here,' you were saying," he
+remarked, leaning back and half shutting them as usual.
+
+"Yes, only the night before I came down here our house was broken into;"
+and I gave him a short account of what had happened. "And only the night
+before _that_," I added, "a poor woman was murdered in Jane's old house.
+I remember it especially, because I went to the house by mistake, not
+knowing Jane had moved, and I saw her, poor thing, sitting by the fire.
+I don't see that living in town _is_ so much safer for life and
+property, after all."
+
+"Dear me! no. You are right, perfectly right," said Charles, dreamily.
+"Your sister's experience proves it. And that other poor creature--only
+the night before--and in Miss Middleton's former house, too. Well,
+Middleton," with a start, "I suppose we ought to be going back now. I
+have got all I want, if you have. I wonder what time it is? I'm dog
+tired."
+
+We re-entered the ball-room to find the last valse being played, and a
+crowd of people taking leave of Lady Mary.
+
+"Where's father?" asked Charles, as Ralph came up. "He ought to be here
+to say good-night."
+
+"He's gone to bed," said Ralph. "Aunt Mary sent him. He was quite done
+up. He has been on his legs all day. I expect he will be laid up
+to-morrow."
+
+In a quarter of an hour the ball-room was empty, and Lady Mary, who was
+dragging herself wearily towards the hall as the last carriage rolled
+away, felt that she might safely restore the balance of her mind by a
+sudden lapse from the gracious and benevolent to the acid and severe.
+
+"To bed! to bed!" she kept repeating. "Where is Evelyn? I want her arm.
+General Marston, Colonel Middleton, will you have the goodness to go and
+glean up these young people? Mrs. Marston and Lady Delmour, you must
+both be tired to death. Let us go on, and they can follow."
+
+General Marston and I found a whole flock of the said young people in
+the library, candle in hand, laughing and talking, thinking they were
+going that moment, but not doing it, and all, in fact, listening to
+Charles, who was expounding a theory of his own respecting ball dresses,
+which seemed to meet with the greatest feminine derision.
+
+"First take your silk slip," he was saying as we came in. "There is
+nothing indiscreet in mentioning a slip; is there, Evelyn? I trust not;
+for I heard Lady Delmour telling Mrs. Wright that all well-brought-up
+young ladies had silk slips. Then--"
+
+"He exposes his ignorance more entirely every moment," said Evelyn. "Let
+us all go to bed, and leave him to hold forth to men who know as little
+as himself."
+
+"Oh, Ralph!" said Aurelia, pointing to the jewels on her neck and arms;
+"before we go I want you to take back these. I don't like keeping them
+myself; I am afraid of them." And she began to take them off and lay
+them on the table.
+
+"Nonsense, my pet; keep them yourself, and lock them up in your
+dressing-case." And Ralph held them towards her.
+
+"I haven't got a dressing-case," said Aurelia, pouting; "and my hat-box
+won't lock. I don't like having them. I wish you would keep them
+yourself."
+
+"Bother!" said Ralph; "and father has gone to bed. He can't put them
+back into his safe, and he keeps the key himself. Where is the bag they
+go in?"
+
+Aurelia said that she had seen him put it behind a certain jar on the
+chimney-piece in the morning-room, and Carr went for it, she following
+him with a candle, as all the lamps had been put out. They presently
+returned with it, and Ralph, who had been collecting all the jewels
+spread over the table, shovelled them in with little ceremony.
+
+"Bother!" he said again, looking round and swinging the bag; "what on
+earth am I to do with them? Ah, well, here goes!" and he opened a side
+drawer in a massive writing-table and shoved the bag in.
+
+"There!" he said, locking it, and putting the key in his pocket; "they
+will do very well there till to-morrow. Are you content now, Aurelia?"
+
+"Oh yes," she said, "I am, if you are." And she bade us good-night and
+followed in the wake of the others, who were really under way at last.
+
+As we all tramped wearily up-stairs to the smoking-room I saw Charles
+draw Ralph aside and whisper something to him.
+
+"Nonsense!" I heard Ralph say. "Safe enough. Besides, who would suspect
+their being there? Just as safe as in the strong-box. Brahma lock. Won't
+be bothered any more about them."
+
+Charles shrugged his shoulders and marched off to bed. Ralph and Carr
+likewise went off shortly afterwards to their rooms in the lodge. Carr
+looked tired to death. I went down with them, at Ralph's request, to
+lock the door behind them, as all the servants had gone to bed.
+
+It was a fine night, still and cold, with a bright moon. It had
+evidently been snowing afresh, for there was not a trace of wheels upon
+the ground; but it had ceased now.
+
+"Good-night!" called Ralph and Carr, as they went down the steps
+together. I watched the two figures for a moment in the moonlight, their
+footsteps making a double track in the untrodden snow. The cold was
+intense. I drew back shivering, and locked and bolted the door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+It is very seldom I cannot sleep, but I could not that night. There was
+something in the intense quiet and repose of the great house, after all
+the excitement of the last few hours, that oppressed me. Everything
+seemed, as I lay awake, so unnaturally silent. There was not a sound in
+the wide grate, where the last ashes of the fire were silently giving up
+the ghost, not a rumble of wind in the old chimney which had had so much
+to say the night before. I tossed and turned, and vainly sought for
+sleep, now on this side, now on that. At last I gave up trying, half in
+the hope that it might steal upon me unawares. I thought of the play and
+the ball, of poor Charles and his debts--of anything and everything--but
+it was no good. In the midst of a jumble of disconnected ideas I
+suddenly found myself listening again to the silence--listening as if it
+had been broken by a sound which I had not heard. My watch ticked loud
+and louder on the dressing-table, and presently I gave quite a start as
+the distant stable clock tolled out the hour: One, two, three, four. I
+had gone to bed before three. Had I been awake only an hour? It seemed
+incredible. Getting up on tiptoe, vaguely afraid myself of breaking the
+silence, I noiselessly pushed aside the heavy curtains and looked out.
+
+The moon had set, but by the frosty starlight the outline of the great
+snow-laden trees and the wide sweep of white drive were still dimly
+visible. All was silent without as within. Not a branch moved or let
+fall its freight of snow. There was not a breath of wind stirring. I was
+on the point of getting back into bed, when I thought in the distance I
+heard a sound. I listened intently. No! I must have been mistaken. Ah!
+again, and nearer! I held my breath. I could distinctly hear a stealthy
+step coming up the stairs. My room was the nearest to the staircase end
+of the corridor, and any one coming up the stairs must pass my door.
+With a presence of mind which, I am glad to say, rarely deserts me, I
+blew out my candle, slipped to the door, and noiselessly opened it a
+chink.
+
+Some one was coming down the corridor with the lightness of a cat,
+candle in hand, as a faint light showed me. Another moment, and I saw
+Charles, pale and haggard, still in evening-dress, coming towards me. He
+was without his shoes. He passed my door and went noiselessly into his
+own room, a little farther down the passage. There was the faintest
+suspicion of a sound, as of a key being gently turned in the lock, and
+then all was still again, stiller than ever.
+
+What could Charles have been after? I wondered. He could not have been
+returning from seeing Denis, who was not only much better, but was in
+the room beyond his own. And why had he still got on his evening clothes
+at four o'clock in the morning? I determined to ask him about it next
+day, as I got back into bed again, and then, while wondering about it
+and trying to get warm, I fell fast asleep. I was only roused, after
+being twice called, to find that it was broad daylight, and to hear
+being carried down the boxes of many of the guests who were leaving by
+an early train.
+
+I was late, but not so late as some. Breakfast was still going on.
+Evelyn and Ralph had been up to see their friends off, but General and
+Mrs. Marston and Carr, who was staying on, came in after I did. Lady
+Mary and Aurelia were having breakfast in their own rooms. I think
+nothing is more dreary than a long breakfast-table, laid for large
+numbers, with half a dozen picnicking at it among the débris left by
+earlier ravages. Evelyn, behind the great silver urn, looked pale and
+preoccupied, and had very little to say for herself when I journeyed up
+to her end of the table and sat down by her. She asked me twice if I
+took sugar, and was not bright and alert and ready in conversation, as I
+think girls should be. Carr, too, was eating his breakfast in silence
+beside Mrs. Marston.
+
+It was not cheerful. And then Charles came in, listless and tired, and
+without an appetite. He sat down wearily on the other side of Evelyn,
+and watched her pour out his coffee without a word.
+
+"The Carews and Edmonts and Lady Delmour and her daughter have just
+gone," said Evelyn, "and Mr. Denis."
+
+"Yes," replied Charles, seeming to pull himself together; "Denis came to
+my room before he went. He looked a wreck, poor fellow; but not worse
+than some of us. These late hours, these friskings with energetic young
+creatures in the school-room, these midnight revels, are too much for
+me. I feel a perfect wreck this morning, too."
+
+He certainly looked it.
+
+"Have you had bad letters?" said Evelyn, in a low voice.
+
+He laughed a little--a grim laugh--and shook his head. "But I had
+yesterday," he added presently, in a low tone. "I shall have to try a
+change of air again soon, I am afraid."
+
+I was just going to ask Charles what he had been doing walking about in
+his socks the night before, when the door opened, and Ralph, whose
+absence I had not noticed, came in. He looked much perturbed. It seemed
+his father had been taken suddenly and alarmingly ill while dressing. In
+a moment all was confusion. Evelyn precipitately left the room to go to
+him, while Charles rushed round to the stables to send a groom on
+horseback for the nearest doctor. Ralph followed him, and the remainder
+of the party gathered in a little knot round the fire, Mrs. Marston
+expressing the sentiment of each of us when she said that she thought
+visitors were very much in the way when there was illness in the house,
+and that she regretted that she and her husband had arranged to stay
+over Sunday, to-day being Friday.
+
+"So have I," said Carr; "but I am sure I had better have refused. A
+stranger in a sick-house is a positive nuisance. I think I shall go to
+town by an afternoon train, if there is one."
+
+"Upon my word I think we had better do the same," said Mrs. Marston.
+"What do you say, Arthur?" and she turned to her husband.
+
+"I must go to-day, anyhow--on business," said General Marston.
+
+"I hope no one is talking of leaving," said Charles, who had returned
+suddenly, rather out of breath.
+
+As he spoke his eyes were fixed on Carr.
+
+"Yes, that is exactly what we were doing," said Mrs. Marston. "Nothing
+is so tiresome as having visitors on one's hands when there is illness
+in the house. Mr. Carr was thinking of going up to London by the
+afternoon train; and I have a very good mind to go away with Arthur,
+instead of staying on, and letting him come back here for me to-morrow,
+as we had intended."
+
+"Pray do not think of such a thing!" said Charles, really with
+unnecessary earnestness. "Mrs. Marston, pray do not alter your plans.
+Carr!" in a much sterner tone, "I must beg that you will not think of
+leaving us to-day. Your friend Colonel Middleton is staying on, and we
+cannot allow you to desert us so suddenly."
+
+It was more like a command than an invitation; but Carr, usually so
+quick to take a slight, did not seem to notice it, and merely said that
+he should be happy to go or stay, whichever was most in accordance with
+the wishes of others, and took up the newspaper. He and Charles did not
+seem to get on well. I could see that Charles had not seemed to take to
+him from the very first; and Carr certainly did not appear at ease in
+the house. Perhaps Charles felt that he had rather failed in courtesy
+to him, for during the remainder of the morning he hardly let him out of
+his sight. He took him to see the stables, though Carr openly declared
+that he did not understand horses; he showed him his collection of Zulu
+weapons in the vestibule; he even started a game of billiards with him
+till the arrival of the doctor. I did not think Carr took his attentions
+in very good part, though he was too well-mannered to show it; but he
+looked relieved when Charles went up-stairs with the doctor, and pitched
+his cue into the rack at once, and came to the hall-fire where I was
+sitting, and where Aurelia presently joined us, fresh and smiling, in
+the prettiest of morning-gowns. Every one met in the hall. It was in the
+centre of the house, and every one coming up or down had to pass through
+it. Just now it was not so tempting an abode as usual, for the flowers
+and part of the stage had already been removed, and the bare boards,
+with their wooden supports, gave an air of discomfort to the whole
+place.
+
+Aurelia opened wide eyes of horror at hearing Sir George was ill. She
+even got out a tiny laced pocket-handkerchief; but before she had had
+time to weep much into it, and spoil her pretty eyes, the doctor
+reappeared, accompanied by Charles and Ralph, and we all learned to our
+great relief that Sir George, though undoubtedly ill, was not
+dangerously so at present, though the greatest care would be necessary.
+Lady Mary had undertaken the nursing of her brother-in-law, and in her
+the doctor expressed the same confidence which parents are wont to feel
+in a stern school-master. In the mean time the patient was to be kept
+very quiet, and on no account to be disturbed.
+
+When the doctor had left, Ralph and Aurelia, who had actually seen
+nothing of each other that morning, sauntered away together towards the
+library. Charles challenged Carr to finish his game of billiards, and
+Marston and I retired up-stairs to the smoking-room, where we could talk
+over our Indian experiences, and perhaps doze undisturbed. We might have
+been so occupied for half an hour or more when a flying step came up the
+stairs, the door was thrown open, and Ralph rushed into the room.
+
+"General Marston! Colonel Middleton!" he gasped out, breathing hard,
+"will you, both of you, come to my father's room at once? He has sent
+for you."
+
+"Good gracious! Is he worse?" I exclaimed.
+
+"No. Hush! Don't ask anything, but just come,"--and he turned and led
+the way to Sir George Danvers's room.
+
+We followed in wondering silence, and, after passing along numerous
+passages, were ushered into a large oak-panelled room with a great
+carved bed in it, in the middle of which, bolt-upright, sat Sir George
+Danvers, pale as ivory, his light steel eyes (so like Charles's) seeming
+to be the only living thing about him.
+
+As we came in he looked at each of us in turn.
+
+"Where is Charles?" he said, speaking in a hoarse whisper.
+
+"Dear me! Sir George," I said, sympathetically, "how you _have_ lost
+your voice!"
+
+He looked at me for a moment, and then turned to Ralph again.
+
+"Where is Charles?" he asked a second time, in the same tone.
+
+"Here!" said a quiet voice. And Charles came in, and shut the door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+The two pairs of steel eyes met, and looked fixedly at each other.
+
+A tap came to the door.
+
+Sir George winced, and made a sign to Ralph, who rushed to it and bolted
+it.
+
+"I am coming in, George," said Lady Mary's voice.
+
+"Send her away," came a whisper from the bed.
+
+This was easier said than done. But it _was_ done after a sufficiently
+long parley; and Lady Mary retired under the impression that Ralph was
+sitting alone with his father, who thought he might get a little sleep.
+
+"Now," whispered Sir George, motioning to Ralph.
+
+"The fact is," said Ralph, "the jewels are gone! They have been stolen
+in the night."
+
+He bolted out with this one sentence, and then was silent. Marston and I
+stared at him aghast.
+
+"Is there no mistake?" said Marston at last.
+
+"None," replied Ralph. "I put them in a drawer in the great inlaid
+writing-table in the library last night, before everybody. I went for
+them this morning, half an hour ago, at father's request. The lock was
+broken, and they were gone."
+
+There was another long silence.
+
+"I was a fool, of course, to put them there," resumed Ralph. "Charles
+told me so; but I thought they were as safe there as anywhere, if no one
+knew--and no one did except the house party."
+
+"Were any of the servants about?" asked Marston.
+
+"Not one. They had all gone to bed except one of the footmen, who was
+putting out the lamps in the supper-room, miles away."
+
+Another silence.
+
+"That is the dreadful part of it," burst out Ralph. "They must have been
+taken by some one staying in the house--some one who saw me put them
+there. The first thing I did was to send for the house-maids, and they
+assured me that they had found every shutter shut, and every door
+locked, this morning, as usual. Any one with time and wits _might_ have
+got in through one of the library windows by taking out a pane and
+forcing the shutter. I suppose a practised hand might have done such a
+thing; but I went outside and there was not a footstep in the snow
+anywhere near the library windows, or, for that matter, anywhere near
+the house at all, except at the side and front doors, which are
+impracticable for any one to force an entrance by."
+
+"When did it leave off snowing?" asked Marston.
+
+"About three o'clock," replied Ralph. "It must have snowed heavily till
+then, for there was not a trace of all the carriage-wheels on the drive
+when we went out last night, but our footprints down to the lodge are
+clear in the snow now. There has been no snow since three o'clock this
+morning."
+
+"It all points to the same thing," said Charles, quietly, speaking for
+the first time. "The jewels were taken by some one staying in the
+house."
+
+"One of the servants--" began Marston.
+
+"No!" said Charles, cutting him short, "not one of the servants."
+
+"It is impossible it should have been one of them," said Ralph, after
+some thought. "First of all, none of them saw the jewels put into that
+drawer; and, secondly, how could they suspect me of hiding them in a
+place where I had never thought of putting them myself till that moment?
+Besides, that one drawer only was broken open--the centre drawer in the
+left-hand set of drawers. All the others were untouched, though they
+were all locked. No one who had not _seen_ the jewels put in would have
+found them so easily. That is the frightful part of it."
+
+For a few minutes no one spoke. At last Marston raised his head from his
+hands.
+
+"There is no way out of it," he said, very gravely. "The robbery was
+committed by one of the visitors staying in the house!"
+
+"Yes!" said Charles.
+
+"Yes!" echoed a whisper from the bed.
+
+Charles looked up slowly and deliberately, and the eyes of father and
+son met again.
+
+"We do not often agree, father," he said, in a measured voice. "I mark
+this exception to the rule with pleasure."
+
+"When I had made out as much as this," continued Ralph, "father told me
+to call both of you and Charles, to consider what ought to be done
+before we make any move."
+
+"Have you an inventory of the jewels?" asked Marston at length.
+
+"None," said Sir George, "unless Middleton had one from Sir John."
+
+I thereupon recapitulated in full all the circumstances of the bequest,
+finally adding that Sir John had never so much as mentioned an
+inventory.
+
+"So much the better for the thief," said Marston, his chin in his hands.
+"It is not a case for a detective," he added.
+
+"I think not," said Charles.
+
+A kind of hoarse ghostly laugh came from the bed. "Charles is always
+right," whispered the sick man. "Quite unnecessary, I am sure."
+
+"Oh, I don't know," I said, feeling I had not yet been of as much
+assistance as I could have wished. "Now, I think detectives are of
+use--really useful, you know, in finding out things. There was a
+detective, I remember, trying to trace the people who murdered that poor
+lady at Jane's old house since my return."
+
+"But who could it have been? who could it have been?" burst out Ralph,
+unheeding. "They were all friends. It is frightful to suspect one of
+them. One could as easily suspect one's self. Which of them all could
+have done a thing like that? Out of them all, which was it?"
+
+"Carr!" replied Charles, quietly, looking full at his father.
+
+If a bomb-shell had fallen among us at that moment it could not have
+produced a greater effect than that one word, uttered so deliberately.
+Sir George started in his bed, and clutched at the bedclothes with both
+hands. My brain positively reeled. Carr! my friend Carr! introduced into
+the family by myself, was being accused by Charles. I was speechless
+with indignation.
+
+"I am sorry, Middleton," continued Charles; "I know he is your friend,
+but I can't help that. Carr took the jewels. I distrusted him from the
+moment he set foot in the house."
+
+"Where is he at this instant?" said Marston, getting up. "Is no one with
+him?"
+
+"There is no need to be anxious on his account," replied Charles. "I
+took him up to the smoking-room before I came here, and I turned the key
+in the door. The key is here." And he laid it on the table.
+
+Marston sat down again.
+
+"What are your grounds for suspecting Carr?" he asked. "Remember, this
+is a very serious thing, Charles, that you have done in locking him up,
+if you have not adequate reason for it."
+
+"You had better leave Carr alone, Charles," said Ralph, significantly.
+
+"Let him go on," said Sir George.
+
+"I have no proof," continued Charles; "I did not see him take them, but
+I am as certain of it as if I had seen it with my own eyes. The jewels
+could only have been stolen by some one staying in the house. That is
+certain. Who, excepting Carr, was a stranger among us? Who, excepting
+Carr--"
+
+"Stop, Charles," said Ralph again. "Don't you know that Carr slept with
+me down at the lodge?"
+
+Charles turned on his brother and gripped his shoulder.
+
+"Do you mean to say," he said, sharply, "that Carr did not sleep in the
+house last night?"
+
+"Dear me, Charles, that was an oversight on your part," came Sir
+George's whisper.
+
+"No," replied Ralph, "he did not. The house was full, and we had to put
+him in that second small room through mine in the lodge. If Carr had
+been dying to take them he had not the opportunity. He could not have
+left his room without passing through mine, and I never went to sleep at
+all. I had a sharp touch of neuralgia from the cold, which kept me awake
+all night."
+
+"He got out through the window," said Charles.
+
+"Nonsense!" said Ralph, getting visibly angry; "you are only making
+matters worse by trying to put it on him. Remember the size of the
+window. Besides, you know how the lodge stands, built against the garden
+wall. When I came out this morning there was not a single footstep in
+the snow, except those we had made as we went there the night before. I
+noticed our footmarks particularly, because I had been afraid there
+would be more snow. No one could by any possibility have left the house
+during the night. Even Jones himself had not been out, for there was a
+little eddy of snow before the back door, and I remember calling to him
+that he would want his broom."
+
+"The snow clinches the matter, Charles," said Marston, gravely. "You
+have made a mistake."
+
+"Quite unintentional, I'm sure," whispered Sir George.
+
+There was something I did not like about that whisper. It seemed to
+imply more than met the ear.
+
+Charles did not appear to hear him. He was looking fixedly before him,
+his hand had dropped from Ralph's shoulder, his face was quite gray.
+
+"Then," he said, slowly, as if waking out of a dream, "it was _not_
+Carr."
+
+"No," said Sir George; "I never thought it was."
+
+"Good God!" ejaculated Charles, sinking into a low chair by the fire,
+and shading his face with his hand. "Not Carr, after all!"
+
+But my indignation could not be restrained a moment longer. I had only
+been kept silent by repeated signs from Marston, and now I broke out.
+
+"And so, sir, you suspect my friend," I said, "and insult him in your
+father's house by turning the key on him. You endeavor to throw
+suspicion on a man who never injured you in the slightest degree. You
+insult _me_ in insulting my friend, sir. Suspicion is not always such an
+easy thing to shake off as it has been in this instance. I, on my side,
+might ask what _you_ were doing walking about the passages in your socks
+at four o'clock this morning? In your socks, sir, still in your evening
+clothes--"
+
+I had spoken it anger, not thinking much what I was saying, and I
+stopped short, alarmed at the effect of my own words.
+
+"I knew it! I knew it!" gasped Sir George, in his hoarse, suffocated
+voice, and he fell back panting among his pillows.
+
+Charles took his hand from his face, and looked hard at me with a
+strange kind of smile.
+
+"At any rate we are quits, Middleton," he said. "You have done it now,
+and no mistake."
+
+I did not quite see what I had done, but it soon became apparent.
+
+"I knew it!" gasped out the sick man again; "I knew it from the first
+moment that he tried to throw suspicion on Carr."
+
+"Sir George," said Marston, gravely, "Charles made a mistake just now.
+Do not you, on your side, make another. Come, Charles," turning to the
+latter, who was now sitting erect, with flashing eyes, "tell us about
+it. What were you doing when Middleton saw you?"
+
+"I was coming up-stairs," said Charles, haughtily.
+
+"From the library?" asked Sir George.
+
+Charles bit his lip and remained silent.
+
+I would not have spoken to him for a good deal at that moment. He looked
+positively dangerous.
+
+"From the library, of course," he said at last, controlling himself, and
+speaking with something of his old careless manner, "laden with the
+spoils of my midnight depredations. Parental fondness will supply all
+minor details, no doubt; so, as the subject is a delicate one for me, I
+will withdraw, that it may be discussed more fully in my absence."
+
+"Stop, Charles," said Marston; "the case is too serious for banter of
+this kind. My dear boy," he added, kindly, "I am glad to see you angry,
+but nevertheless, you must condescend to explain. The longer you allow
+suspicion to rest on yourself the longer it will be before it falls on
+the right person. Come, what were you doing in the passage at that time
+of night?"
+
+Charles was touched, I could see. A very little kindness was too much
+for him.
+
+"It is no good, Marston," he said, in quite a different voice--"I am not
+believed in this house."
+
+He turned away and leaned against the mantle-piece, looking into the
+fire. Ralph cleared his throat once or twice, and then suddenly went up
+to him, and laid his hand affectionately on his shoulder.
+
+"Fire away, old boy!" he said, in a constrained tone, and he choked
+again.
+
+Charles turned round and faced his brother, with the saddest smile I
+ever saw.
+
+"Well, Ralph!" he said, "I will tell you everything, and then you can
+believe me or not, as you like. I have never told you a lie, have I?"
+
+"Not often," replied Ralph, unwillingly.
+
+"You at least are truth itself," said Charles, reddening; "and if you
+are biassed in your opinion of me, perhaps it is more the fault of that
+exemplary Christian, Aunt Mary, than your own. According to her, I have
+told lies enough to float a company or carry an election, and I never
+like to disappoint her expectations of me in that respect; but you I
+have never to my knowledge deceived, and I am not going to begin now."
+
+"You will be a clergyman yet," whispered the sick parent. "There is a
+good living in the family. Charles, I shall live to see the Reverend
+Charles Danvers in a surplice, preaching his first sermon on the ninth
+commandment."
+
+"At any rate, he is practising the fifth under difficulties at this
+moment," said Marston, as Charles winced and turned his back on the
+parental sick-bed. "Come, my boy, we are losing time."
+
+"Will somebody have the goodness to restrain Middleton if he gets
+excited?" said Charles. "I am afraid he won't like part of what I have
+got to say."
+
+"Nonsense, sir!" I replied, with warmth. "I hope I can restrain myself
+as well as any man, even under such provocation as I have lately
+received. You may depend on me, sir, that--"
+
+"We lose time," said Marston, seating himself by me, and cutting short
+what I was saying in an exceedingly brusque manner. "Come, Charles, you
+should not be interrupted."
+
+But he was. I interrupted him the whole time, in spite of continual
+efforts on the part of Marston to make me keep silence. I am not the man
+calmly to let pass black insinuations against the character of a friend.
+No, I stood up for him. I am glad to think how I stood up for him, not
+only metaphorically, but in the most literal sense of the term; for I
+found myself continually getting up, and Marston as often pulling me
+down again into my chair.
+
+"Am I to speak, or is Middleton?" said Charles at last, in despair. "I
+will do a solo, or I will keep silence; but really I am unequal to a
+duet."
+
+"Sir George," said Marston, "will you have the goodness to desire
+Colonel Middleton to be silent, or to leave the room till Charles has
+finished his story?"
+
+I was justly annoyed at Marston's manner of speaking of me, but as I had
+no intention to leave the room and miss what was going on, I merely
+bowed in answer to a civil request from Sir George, and took up an
+attitude of dignified silence. I felt that I had done my part in
+vindicating my friend; and after all, no one, evidently, was accustomed
+to believe what Charles said.
+
+"As I was saying," he continued, "I suspected Carr from the first. I did
+not like the look of him, and I purposely pumped Middleton about him
+last night at supper."
+
+I nearly burst out at the bare idea of Charles daring to say he had
+pumped me; but, as will be seen, he could twist anything that was said
+to such an extent that it was perfectly useless to contradict him any
+longer. I said not a single word, and he went on:
+
+"All Middleton told me confirmed me in my suspicions. Sir John had been
+murdered the night before Middleton sailed for England, a whisper of the
+jewels having no doubt gone abroad. Carr came on board next day, and
+made friends with Middleton. Whether he had anything to do with the
+murder or not, God knows! but he found out--nay, Middleton openly told
+him--that he had jewels of great value in his possession, which he
+carried about on his person. Carr was the only person aware of that
+fact. What follows? Carr has Middleton's address in London. Middleton
+goes to the house, and finds that his sister has moved to the next
+street. That house to which he first went is broken into, and the poor
+woman in it is murdered, or dies of fright that same night. I mention
+this as coincidence number one. The following evening Middleton, having
+by chance left the jewels at home, dines, and goes to the theatre by
+appointment with Carr. Unique cab accident occurs, in which Middleton is
+knocked on the head and rendered unconscious. Coincidence number two.
+Miss Middleton's house is broken into that same night on Middleton's
+return to it. Coincidence number three. When I put all this together
+last night, remembering that Carr, by Middleton's own account, was the
+only person aware that he had jewels of great value in his keeping, I
+felt absolutely certain (as I feel still) that he had accepted the
+invitation, and come down from London solely for the purpose of stealing
+them. It was pure conjecture on my part, and I dared say nothing beyond
+begging Ralph not to leave the jewels in the library--which, however, he
+did. I went straight off to my room when the others went to smoke, but I
+did not go to bed. The more I thought it over the more certain I felt
+that Carr would not let slip such an opportunity, the more convinced
+that an attempt would be made that very night. I did not know that he
+was not sleeping in the house, but I knew Ralph was at the lodge, so I
+could not go and consult with him, as I should otherwise have done. I
+thought of going to Middleton, whose room was close to mine, but on
+second thoughts I gave up the idea. I am glad I did. At last I
+determined I would wait till the house was quiet, and that then I would
+go down alone, and watch in the library in the dark. I lay down on my
+bed in my clothes to wait, and then--I had been up most of the night
+before with Denis; I was dead beat with acting and dancing--by ill luck
+I fell asleep. When I woke up I found to my horror that it was close on
+four o'clock. I instantly slipped off my shoes, and crept out of my room
+and down the stairs. I could not get to the library from the hall, as
+the stage blocked the way, and I had to go all the way round by the
+drawing-room and morning-room. As I went I thought how easy it would be
+for Carr to force the lock of the drawer; and so, it flashed across me,
+could I. Oh, Ralph!" said Charles, "I went down solely to look after
+your property for you, but I _did_ think of it. I hope I should not have
+done it, but I suddenly remembered how hard pressed I was for money, and
+I did think of the crescent, and how you would hardly miss it, and
+how--but what does it matter now? When I got to the library I found I
+was too late. The lock of the drawer had been forced, and it was empty.
+There was nothing for it but to go back to my room. I felt as certain
+that Carr had done it as that I am standing here; but I dared say
+nothing next morning, for fear of drawing an ever-ready parental
+suspicion on myself--which, however, Middleton did for me. All I could
+do was to keep Carr well in sight until the theft was found out, to
+prevent any possibility of his escaping, and then to accuse him. There!"
+said Charles, "that is the whole truth. Carr did not take the jewels;
+that is absolutely proved, and the sooner he is let out the better. Who
+took them Heaven only knows! I don't. But I know who meant to, and that
+was Carr."
+
+"Charles," said Ralph, with glistening eyes, "if ever I get them back
+you shall have the crescent."
+
+"A very neat little story altogether," said Sir George, "and the episode
+of temptation very effectively thrown in. It does you credit, my son,
+and is a great relief to your old father's mind."
+
+"Thank you, Charles," said Marston, getting up. "Sir George, it is close
+on luncheon-time, and Carr must be let out at once. Now that Charles has
+so completely cleared himself I don't see that anything more can be done
+for the moment; and of one thing I am certain, namely, that you are
+making yourself much worse, and must keep absolutely quiet for the rest
+of the day. If I may advise, I would suggest that Carr should be allowed
+to leave, as he wishes to do, by the afternoon train, and should not be
+pressed to stay. There is nothing more to be got out of him; and,
+considering the circumstances, I should say the sooner he is out of the
+house the better. As he has been wrongly suspected, I think the robbery
+had better not be mentioned to any one, even the ladies in the house,
+until after he has left."
+
+"Aurelia knows," said Ralph. "She was with me in the library. I left her
+crying bitterly about them."
+
+"Let her cry, if she will only hold her tongue," said Sir George, making
+a last effort to speak, but evidently at the extreme point of
+exhaustion. "And you, Marston, you are right about Carr. See that he
+goes this afternoon. There is nothing more to be done at present.
+Charles, you will remain here, though I have no doubt you have an
+engagement in London. I cannot spare you just yet."
+
+Charles bowed, and he and Marston went out. I remained a second behind
+with Ralph.
+
+"I see it quite clearly," said Sir George. "I know Charles. He is sharp
+enough. He saw Carr meant mischief, and he was beforehand with him; and
+_he_ took what Carr meant to take. It was not badly imagined, but he
+should have made certain Carr was sleeping in the house. It all turned
+on that. He never reckoned on the possibility of Carr's being cleared."
+
+"Middleton is still here," said Ralph, significantly, who was pouring
+out something for his father.
+
+"Is he? I thought he was gone!" said Sir George, so sharply, that I
+considered it advisable to retire at once.
+
+Charles and Marston were talking together earnestly in the passage.
+
+"He does not believe a word I say," said Charles, as I joined them;
+"and, what is more, I could see he had told Ralph he suspected me before
+we came in. Did not you see how Ralph tried to stop me when he thought I
+was committing myself by accusing Carr, who, it seems, was quite out of
+the question? I am glad you cut it short, Marston. He was making himself
+worse every moment."
+
+"Come on with that key of yours, and let us go and let out Carr,"
+replied Marston, patting Charles kindly on the back, "or he will be
+kicking all the paint off the door."
+
+"Not he!" said Charles. "An honest man would have rung up the whole
+household and nearly battered the door down by this time, thinking it
+had been locked by mistake. Carr knows better."
+
+We had reached the smoking-room by this time, just as the gong was
+beginning to sound for luncheon, and under cover of the noise Charles
+fitted the key into the key-hole and unlocked the door. He and Marston
+went slowly in, talking on some indifferent subject, and I followed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+The room seemed strangely quiet after the stormy interview in the
+sick-chamber which we had just left. The pale winter sunlight was
+stealing in aslant through the low windows. The fire had sunk to a deep
+red glow, and in an arm-chair drawn up in front of it, newspaper in
+hand, was Carr, evidently fast asleep.
+
+"'Oh, my prophetic soul!'" whispered Charles, nudging Marston; and then
+he went forward and shouted "Luncheon!" in a voice that would have waked
+the dead.
+
+Carr started up and rubbed his eyes.
+
+"Why, I believe you have been here ever since I left you here, hours
+ago," said Charles, in a surprised tone, though really, under the
+circumstances, it did not require a great stretch of the imagination to
+suppose any such thing.
+
+"Yes," said Carr, still rubbing his eyes. "Have you been gone long? I
+expect I fell asleep."
+
+"I rather thought you were inclined for a nap when I left you," replied
+Charles, airily; "and now let us go to luncheon."
+
+It was a very dismal meal. Lady Mary did not come down to it, and
+Aurelia sat with red eyes, tearful and silent. Ralph was evidently out
+of favor, for she hardly spoke to him, and snubbed him decidedly when he
+humbly tendered a peace-offering in the form of a potato. Evelyn, too,
+was silent, or made spasmodic attempts at conversation with Mrs.
+Marston, the only unconstrained person of the party. Evelyn and Aurelia
+had appeared together, and it was evident from Evelyn's expression that
+Aurelia had told her. What conversation there was turned upon Sir
+George's illness.
+
+"We must go by the afternoon train, my dear," said Marston down the
+table to his wife. "In Sir George's present state _all_ visitors are an
+incubus."
+
+Carr looked up. "I think I ought to go, too," he said. "I wished to
+arrange to do so this morning, but Mr. Danvers," glancing at Charles,
+"would not hear of it. I am sure, when there is illness in a house,
+strangers are always in the way."
+
+"I have seen my father since then," replied Charles, "and I fear his
+illness is much more serious than I had any idea of. That being the
+case, I feel it would be wrong to press any one, even Middleton, to stay
+and share the tedium of a sick-house."
+
+After a few more civil speeches it was arranged that Carr should, after
+all, leave by the train which he had proposed in the morning. It was
+found that there was still time for him to do so, but that was all. He
+was evidently as anxious to be off as the Danverses were that he should
+go. The dog-cart was ordered, a servant despatched to the lodge in hot
+haste to pack his portmanteau, and in half an hour he was bidding us
+good-bye, evidently glad to say it. Poor fellow! He little guessed, as
+he shook hands with us, how shamefully he had been suspected, how
+villanously he had been traduced behind his back. Somehow or other I had
+not had a moment of conversation with him since the morning, or a single
+chance of telling him how I had stood up for him in his absence. Either
+Charles or Marston were always at hand, and when he took leave of me I
+could only shake his hand warmly, and tell him to come and see me again
+in town. I watched him spinning down the drive in the dog-cart, little
+thinking how soon I should see him again, and in what circumstances.
+
+"We shall have more snow," said Ralph, coming in-doors. "I feel it in
+the air."
+
+General and Mrs. Marston were the next to leave, starting an hour later,
+and going in the opposite direction. I saw Marston turn aside, when his
+wife was taking leave of the others, and go up to Charles. The young
+hand and the old one met, and were locked tight.
+
+"Good-bye, my dear boy," said Marston.
+
+"Don't go," said Charles, without looking up.
+
+"I must!" said Marston. "I am due at Kemberley to-night, on business;
+but," in a lower tone, "I shall come back to-morrow, in case I can be of
+any use."
+
+They were gone, and I was the only one remaining. It has occurred to me
+since that perhaps they expected me to go too, but I never thought of it
+at the time. I had been asked for a week, and to go before the end of it
+never so much as entered my head.
+
+There was no chance of going out. The early winter afternoon was already
+closing in, and a few flakes of snow were drifting like feathers in the
+heavy air, promising more to come. Every one seemed to have dispersed,
+Ralph up-stairs to his father, Charles out-of-doors somewhere in spite
+of the weather. I remembered that I had not written to Jane since I
+left London, and went into the library to do so. As I came in I saw
+Evelyn sitting in a low chair by the fire, gazing abstractedly into it.
+She started when she saw me, and on my saying I wished to write some
+letters, showed me a writing-table near the fire, with pens, ink, and
+paper.
+
+"You will find it very cold at the big table in the window," she said,
+looking at it with its broken drawer, a chink open, with a visible
+shudder.
+
+I installed myself near the fire, talking cheerfully the while, for it
+struck me she was a little low in her spirits. She did not make much
+response, and I was settling down to my letters when she suddenly said:
+
+"Colonel Middleton!"
+
+"Yes, Miss Derrick."
+
+"I am afraid I am interrupting your writing, but--"
+
+I looked round. She was standing up, nervously playing with her rings.
+"But--I know I am not supposed to--but I know what happened last night;
+Aurelia told me."
+
+"It is very sad, isn't it?" I said. "But cheer up. I dare say we may get
+them back yet." And I nodded confidentially at her. "In the mean time,
+you know, you must not talk of it to any one."
+
+"Do you suspect any one in particular?" she asked, very earnestly,
+coming a step nearer.
+
+I hardly knew what to say. Carr, I need hardly mention, I had never
+suspected for a moment; but Charles--Marston had evidently believed what
+Charles had said, but I am by nature more cautious and less credulous
+than Marston. Besides, I had not forgiven Charles yet for trying to
+incriminate Carr. Not knowing what to say, I shrugged my shoulders and
+smiled.
+
+"You do suspect some one, then?"
+
+"My dear young lady," I replied, "when jewels are stolen, one naturally
+suspects some one has taken them."
+
+"So I should imagine. Whom do you naturally suspect?"
+
+I could not tell her that I more than suspected Charles.
+
+"I know nothing for certain," I said.
+
+"But you have a suspicion?"
+
+"I have a suspicion."
+
+She went to the door to see if it were shut, and then came back and
+said, in a whisper:
+
+"So have I."
+
+"Perhaps we suspect the same person?" I said.
+
+She did not answer, but fixed her dark eyes keenly on mine. I had never
+noticed before how dark they were.
+
+I saw then that she knew, and that she suspected Charles, just as Sir
+George had done.
+
+I nodded.
+
+"Nothing is proved," I said.
+
+"I dared not say even as much as this before," she continued, hurriedly.
+"It is only the wildest, vaguest suspicion. I have nothing to take hold
+of. It is so horrible to suspect any one; but--"
+
+She stopped suddenly. Her quick ear had caught the sound of a distant
+step coming across the hall. In another moment Aurelia came in.
+
+"Are you there, Evelyn?" she said. "I was looking for you, to ask where
+the time-table lives. I want to look out my journey for to-morrow. Ralph
+ought to do it, but he is up-stairs," with a little pout.
+
+"You ought not to have quarrelled with him until he had made it out for
+you," said Evelyn, smiling. "It is a very cross journey, isn't it? Let
+me see. You are going to your uncle in Dublin, are not you? You had
+better go to London, and start from there. It will be the shortest way
+in the end."
+
+The two girls laid their heads together over the Bradshaw, Evelyn's
+dark-soft hair making a charming contrast to Aurelia's yellow curls. At
+last the journey was made out and duly written down, and a post-card
+despatched to the uncle in Dublin.
+
+"Have you seen Ralph anywhere?" asked Aurelia, when she had finished it.
+"I am afraid I was a little tiny wee bit cross to him this morning, and
+I am so sorry."
+
+Evelyn always seemed to stiffen when Aurelia talked about Ralph, and,
+under the pretext of putting her post-card in the letter-bag for her,
+she presently left the room, and did not return.
+
+Aurelia sat down on the hearth-rug, and held two plump little hands to
+the fire. It was quite impossible to go on writing to Jane while she was
+there, and I gave it up accordingly.
+
+"I am glad Evelyn is gone," she said, confidentially. "Do you know why I
+am glad?"
+
+I said I could not imagine.
+
+"Because," continued Aurelia, nodding gravely at me, "I want to have a
+very, very, _very_ serious conversation with you, Colonel Middleton."
+
+I said I should be charmed, inwardly wondering what that little curly
+head would consider to be serious conversation.
+
+"Really serious, you know," continued Aurelia, "not pretence. About
+that!" pointing with a pink finger at the inlaid writing-table. "You
+know I was with Ralph when he found it out, and I am afraid I was a
+little cross to him, only really it was so hard, and they were so
+lovely, and it _was_ partly his fault, now, wasn't it, for leaving them
+there? He ought to have been more careful."
+
+"Of course he ought," I said. I would not have contradicted her for
+worlds.
+
+"And you know I am to be married next month; and Aunt Alice in Dublin,
+who is getting my things, says as it is to be a winter wedding I am to
+be married in a white _frisé_ velvet, and I did think the diamonds would
+have looked so lovely with it. Wouldn't they?"
+
+I agreed, of course.
+
+"But I shall never be married in them now," she said, with a deep sigh.
+"And I was looking forward to the wedding so much, though I dare say I
+did tell a naughty little story when I said I was _not_ to Ralph the
+other night. Of course Ralph is still left," she added, as an
+after-thought; "but it won't be so perfect, will it?"
+
+I was morally certain Charles would have to give them up, so I said,
+reassuringly:
+
+"Perhaps you may be married in them, after all."
+
+"Oh!" she said, clasping her hands together, "do you really think so? Do
+you know anything? I have not seen Ralph since to ask him about it. Do
+you think we shall really get them back?"
+
+"I should not wonder."
+
+"Oh, Colonel Middleton, I see you know. You are a clever, wise man, and
+you have found out something. Who is it? Do tell me!"
+
+"Will you promise not to tell any one?"
+
+"Mayn't I tell Ralph? I tell him everything."
+
+"Well, you may tell Ralph, because he knows already; but no one else,
+remember. The truth is, we are afraid it is Charles."
+
+There was a long pause.
+
+"I know Evelyn thinks so," said Aurelia, in a whisper, "though she tries
+not to show it, because--because--"
+
+"Because what?"
+
+"Well, of course, you can't have helped seeing, can you, that she and
+Charles--"
+
+I had not seen it; indeed, I had fancied at times that Evelyn had a
+leaning towards Ralph; but I never care to seem slower than others in
+noticing these things, so I nodded.
+
+"And then, you know, people can't be married that haven't any money; and
+Charles and Evelyn have none," said Aurelia. "Oh, I am glad Ralph is
+well off."
+
+A light was breaking in on me. Perhaps it was not Charles after all.
+Perhaps--
+
+"I am afraid Evelyn is very unhappy," continued Aurelia. "Her room is
+next to mine, and she walks up and down, and up and down, in the night.
+I hear her when I am in bed. Last night I heard her so late, so late
+that I had been to sleep and had waked up again. Do you know," and she
+crept close up to me with wide, awe-struck eyes, "I am going away
+to-morrow, and I don't like to say anything to any one but you; but I
+think Evelyn knows something."
+
+"Miss Derrick!" I said, beginning to suspect that she possibly knew a
+good deal more than any of us, and then suddenly remembering that she
+had been on the point of telling me something and had been interrupted.
+I was getting quite confused. She certainly would not have wished to
+confide in me if my new suspicion were correct. Considering there was a
+mystery, it was curious how every one seemed to know something very
+particular about it.
+
+"Yes," replied Aurelia, nodding once or twice. "I am sure she knows
+something. I went into her room before luncheon, and she was sitting
+with her head down on the dressing-table, and when she looked up I saw
+she had been crying. I don't know what to say about it to Ralph; but you
+know,"--with a shake of the curls--"though people may think me only a
+silly little thing, yet I do notice things, Colonel Middleton. Aunt
+Alice in Dublin often says how quickly I notice things. And I thought,
+as you were staying on, and seemed to be a friend, I would tell you this
+before I went away, as you would know best what to do about it."
+
+Aurelia had more insight into character than I had given her credit for.
+She had hit upon the most likely person to follow out a clew, however
+slight, in a case that seemed becoming more and more complicated. I
+inwardly resolved that I would have it out with Miss Derrick that very
+evening. Lady Mary now came in, and servants followed shortly afterwards
+with lamps. The dreary twilight, with its dim whirlwinds of driving
+snow, was shut out, the curtains were drawn, and tea made its
+appearance. Evelyn presently returned, and Charles also, who civilly
+wished Lady Mary good-morning, not having seen her till then. She handed
+him his tea without a word in reply. It was evident that she, also, was
+aware of the robbery, and it is hardly necessary to add that she
+suspected Charles.
+
+"How is my father?" he asked, taking no notice of the frigidity of her
+manner.
+
+"He is asleep at this moment," she replied. "Ralph is remaining with
+him."
+
+"He is better, then, I hope?"
+
+"He is in a very critical state, and is likely to remain in it. His
+illness was quite serious enough, without having it increased by one of
+his own household."
+
+"Ah, I was afraid that had been the case," returned Charles. "I knew you
+had been doctoring him when he was out of sorts yesterday. But you must
+not reproach yourself, Aunt Mary. We are none of us infallible. No doubt
+you acted for the best at the time, and I dare say what you gave him may
+not do him any permanent injury."
+
+"If that is intended to be amusing," said Lady Mary, her teacup
+trembling in her hand, "I can only say that, in my opinion, wilfully
+misunderstanding a simple statement is a very cheap form of wit."
+
+"I am so glad to hear you say so," said Charles, rising, "as it was at
+your expense." With which Parthian shot he withdrew.
+
+I endeavored in vain to waylay Evelyn after tea, but she slipped away
+almost before it was over, and did not appear again till dinner-time. In
+the mean while my brain, fertile in expedients on most occasions, could
+devise no means by which I could speak to her alone, and without
+Charles's knowledge. I felt I must trust to chance.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+When I came down before dinner I found Ralph and Charles talking
+earnestly by the hall-fire, Ralph's hand on his brother's shoulder.
+
+"You see we are no farther forward than we were," he was saying.
+
+"We shall have Marston back to-morrow," said Charles, as the gong began
+to sound. "We cannot take any step till then, especially if we don't
+want to put our foot in it. I have been racking my brains all the
+afternoon without the vestige of a result. We must just hold our hands
+for the moment."
+
+Dinner was announced, and we waited patiently for a few minutes, and
+impatiently for a good many more, until Evelyn hurried down, apologizing
+for being late, and with a message from Lady Mary that we were not to
+wait for her, as she was dining up-stairs in her own room--a practice to
+which she seemed rather addicted.
+
+"And where is Aurelia?" asked Ralph.
+
+"She is not coming down to dinner either," said Evelyn. "She has a bad
+headache again, and is lying down. She asked me to tell you that she
+wishes particularly to see you this evening, as she is going away
+to-morrow, and if she is well enough she will come down to the
+morning-room at nine; indeed, she said she would come down anyhow."
+
+After Ralph's natural anxiety respecting his ladylove had been relieved,
+and he had been repeatedly assured that nothing much was amiss, we went
+in to dinner, and a more lugubrious repast I never remember being
+present at. The meals of the day might have been classified thus:
+breakfast _dismal_; luncheon, _dismaller_ (or more dismal); dinner,
+_dismallest_ (or most dismal). There really was no conversation. Even I,
+who without going very deep (which I consider is not in good taste) have
+something to say on almost every subject--even I felt myself nonplussed
+for the time being. Each of us in turn got out a few constrained words,
+and then relapsed into silence.
+
+Evelyn ate nothing, and her hand trembled so much when she poured out a
+glass of water that she spilled some on the cloth. I saw Charles was
+watching her furtively, and I became more and more certain that Aurelia
+was right, and that Evelyn knew something about the mystery of the night
+before. I must and would speak to her that very evening.
+
+"Bitterly cold," said Ralph, when at last we had reached the dessert
+stage. "It is snowing still, and the wind is getting up."
+
+In truth, the wind was moaning round the house like an uneasy spirit.
+
+"That sound in the wind always means snow," said Charles, evidently for
+the sake of saying something. "It is easterly, I should think. Yes,"
+after a pause, when another silence seemed imminent, "there goes the
+eight o'clock train. It must be quite a quarter of an hour late, though,
+for it has struck eight some time. I can hear it distinctly. The station
+is three miles away, and you never hear the train unless the wind is in
+the east."
+
+"Come, Charles, not three miles--two miles and a half," put in Ralph.
+
+"Well, two and a half from here down to the station, but certainly three
+from the station up here," replied Charles; and so silence was
+laboriously avoided by diligent small-talk until we returned to the
+drawing-room, thankful that there at least we could take up a book, and
+be silent if we wished. We all did wish it, apparently. Evelyn was
+sitting by a lamp when we came in, with a book before her, her elbow on
+the table, shading her face with a slender delicate hand. She remained
+motionless, her eyes fixed upon the page, but I noticed after some time
+that she had never turned it over. Charles may have read his newspaper,
+but if he did it was with one eye upon Evelyn all the time. Between
+watching them both I did not, as may be imagined, make much progress
+myself. How was I to manage to speak to Evelyn alone, and without
+Charles's knowledge?
+
+At last Ralph, who had gone into the morning-room, opened the
+drawing-room door and put his head in.
+
+"Aurelia has not come down yet, and it is a quarter past nine. I wish
+you would run up, Evelyn, and see if she is coming."
+
+"She is sure to come!" replied Evelyn, without raising her eyes. "She
+said she _must_ see you."
+
+Ralph disappeared again, and the books and papers were studied anew with
+unswerving devotion. At the end of another ten minutes, however, the
+impatient lover reappeared.
+
+"It is half-past nine," he said, in an injured tone. "Do pray run up,
+Evelyn. I don't think she can be coming at all. I am afraid she is
+worse."
+
+Evelyn laid down her book and left the room. Ralph sauntered back into
+the morning-room, where we heard him beguiling his solitude with a few
+chords on the piano.
+
+Presently Evelyn returned. She was pale even to the lips, and her voice
+faltered as she said:
+
+"She has not gone to bed, for there is a light in her room; but she
+would not answer when I knocked, and the door is locked."
+
+"All of which circumstances are not sufficient to make you as white as a
+ghost," said Charles. "I think even if Aurelia has a headache, you would
+bear the occurrence with fortitude. My dear child, you do not act so
+well off the stage as on it. There is something on your mind. People
+don't upset water at dinner, and refuse all food except pellets of
+pinched bread, for nothing. What is it?"
+
+Evelyn sank into a chair, and covered her face with her trembling hands.
+
+"Yes, I thought so," said Charles, kneeling down by her, and gently
+withdrawing her hands. "Come, Evelyn, what is it?"
+
+"I dare not say." And she turned away her face, and tried to disengage
+her hands, but Charles held them firmly.
+
+"Is it about what happened last night?" he asked, in a tone that was
+kind, but that evidently intended to have an answer.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And do you know that I am suspected?"
+
+"You, Charles? Never!" she cried, starting up.
+
+"Yes, I. Suspected by my own father. So, if you know anything,
+Evelyn--which I see you do--it is your duty to tell us, and to help us
+in every way you can."
+
+He had let go her hands now, and had risen.
+
+"I don't know anything for certain," she said, "but--but we soon shall.
+Aurelia knows, and she is going to tell Ralph."
+
+"Miss Grant!" I exclaimed. "She knew nothing at tea-time. She was asking
+me about it."
+
+"It is since then," continued Evelyn. "I went up to her room before
+dinner to ask her for a fan that I had lent her. She was packing some of
+her things, and the floor was strewn with packing-paper and parcels. She
+gave me my fan, and was going on putting her things together, talking
+all the time, when she asked me to hand her a glove-box on the
+dressing-table. As I did so my eye fell on a piece of paper lying
+together with others, and I instantly recognized it as the same that had
+been wrapped round the diamond crescent when Colonel Middleton first
+showed us the jewels. I should never have noticed it--for though it was
+rice paper, it looked just like the other pieces strewn about--if I had
+not seen two little angular tears, which I suddenly remembered making in
+it myself when General Marston asked me not to pull it to pieces, which
+I suppose I had been absently doing. I made some sort of exclamation of
+surprise, and Aurelia turned round sharply, and asked me what was the
+matter. As I did not answer, she left her packing and came to the table.
+She saw in a moment what I was looking at. I had turned as red as fire,
+and she was quite white. 'I did not mean you to see that,' she said, at
+last, quietly taking up the paper. 'I meant no one to know until I had
+shown it to Ralph. _Do you know where I found it?_' and she looked hard
+at me. I could only shake my head. I was too much ashamed of a suspicion
+I had had to be able to get out a word. 'I am very sorry,' continued
+Aurelia, 'but I am afraid it will be my duty to tell Ralph, whatever the
+consequences may be. I have been thinking it over, and I think he ought
+to know. I am going to show it him to-night after dinner,' and she put
+it in her pocket, and then began to cry. I did not know what to say or
+do, I was so frightened at the thought of what was coming; and, as the
+dressing-bell rang at that moment, I was just leaving the room when she
+called me back.
+
+"'I can't come down to dinner,' she said. 'I hate Ralph to see me with
+red eyes. Tell him I shall come down afterwards, at nine o'clock, and
+that I want to see him particularly; only don't tell him what it is
+about, or mention it to any one else. I did not mean any one to know
+till he did.'
+
+"She began to cry afresh, and I made her lie down and put a shawl over
+her, and then left her, as I had still to dress, and I knew that Aunt
+Mary was not coming down. I was late as it was."
+
+"Is that all?" said Charles, who had been listening intently.
+
+"All," replied Evelyn. "We shall soon know the worst now."
+
+"Very soon," said Charles. "Ralph may come in here at any moment. Evelyn
+and Middleton, will you have the goodness to come with me?" And he led
+the way into the hall.
+
+We could hear Ralph in the next room, humming over an old Irish melody,
+with an improvised accompaniment.
+
+"Now show me her room," said Charles, "and please be quick about it."
+
+Evelyn looked at him astonished, and then led the way up-stairs, along
+the picture-gallery to another wing of the house. She stopped at last
+before a door at the end of a passage, dimly lighted by a lamp at the
+farther end. There was a light under the door, and a bright chink in the
+key-hole, but though we listened intently we could hear nothing stirring
+within.
+
+"Knock again," said Charles to Evelyn. "Louder!" as her hand failed her.
+
+There was no answer. As we listened the light within disappeared.
+
+"Bring that lamp from the end of the passage," said Charles to Evelyn,
+and she brought it.
+
+"Hold it there," he said; "and you, Middleton, stand aside."
+
+He took a few steps backward, and then flung himself against the door
+with his whole force. It cracked and groaned, but resisted.
+
+"The lock is old. It is bound to go," he said, panting a little.
+
+"Really, Charles," I remonstrated--"a lady's private apartment! Miss
+Derrick, I wonder you allow this."
+
+Charles retreated again, and then made a fresh and even fiercer
+onslaught on the door. There was a sound of splintering wood and of
+bursting screws, and in another moment the door flew open inward, and
+Charles was precipitated head-foremost into the room, his evening-pumps
+flourishing wildly in the air. In an instant he was on his feet again,
+gasping hard, and had seized the lamp out of Evelyn's hand. Before I had
+time to remonstrate on the liberty that he was taking, we were all three
+in the room.
+
+It was empty!
+
+In one corner stood a box, half packed, with various articles of
+clothing lying by it. On the dressing-table was a whole medley of little
+feminine knick-knacks, with a candlestick in the midst, the dead wick
+still smoking in the socket, and accounting for the disappearance of the
+light a few minutes before. The fire had gone out, but on a chair by it
+was laid a little black lace evening-gown, evidently put out to be worn;
+while over the fender a dainty pair of silk stockings had been hung, and
+two diminutive black satin shoes were waiting on the hearth-rug. The
+whole aspect of the room spoke of a sudden and precipitate flight.
+
+"Bolted!" said Charles, when he had recovered his breath. "And so the
+mystery is out at last! I might have known there was a woman at the
+bottom of it. Unpremeditated, though," he continued, looking round. "She
+meant to have gone to-morrow; but your recognition of that paper
+frightened her, though she turned it off well to gain time. No fool
+that! She had only an hour, and she made the most of it, and got off, no
+doubt, while we were at dinner, by the 8.2 London train, which is the
+last to-night; and after the telegraph office was closed, too! She knew
+nothing could be done till to-morrow. She has more wit than I gave her
+credit for."
+
+"I distrusted her before, though I had no reason for it, but I never
+thought she was gone," said Evelyn, trembling violently, and still
+looking round the room.
+
+"I knew it," said Charles, "from the moment I saw the light through the
+key-hole. A key-hole with a key in it would not have shown half the
+amount of light through it; and a locked door without a key in it is
+safe to have been locked _from the outside_. Had she a maid with her?"
+
+"No," replied Evelyn, "she used to come to me next door when she wanted
+help--but not often--because I think she knew I did not like her, though
+I tried not to show it."
+
+"Well, we have seen the last of her, or I am much mistaken," said
+Charles. "And now," he added, compressing his lips, "I suppose I must go
+and tell Ralph."
+
+"Oh, Ralph! Ralph!" gasped Evelyn, with a sudden sob; "and he was so
+fond of her!"
+
+"And so you distrusted her before, Evelyn? And why did you not mention
+that fact a little sooner?"
+
+"Without any reason for it? And when Ralph--Oh, I couldn't! I couldn't!"
+said the girl, crimsoning.
+
+Charles gazed intently at her as she turned away, pressing her hands
+tightly together, and evidently struggling with some sudden emotion for
+which there really was no apparent reason. She was overwrought, I
+suppose; and indeed the exertion of breaking in the door had been rather
+too much for Charles too; for, now that the excitement was over, his
+hand shook so much that he had to put down the lamp, and even his voice
+trembled a little as he said:
+
+"I don't think Ralph is very much to be pitied. He has had a narrow
+escape."
+
+"Don't come down again, either of you," he continued a moment later, in
+his usual voice. "I had better go and get it over at once. He will be
+wondering what has become of us if I wait much longer. Evelyn,
+good-night. Good-night, Middleton. If it is too early for you to go to
+bed, you will find a fire in the smoking-room."
+
+I bade Evelyn good-night, and followed Charles down the corridor. He
+replaced the lamp with a hand that was steady enough now, and went
+slowly across the picture-gallery. The way to my room led me through it
+also. Involuntarily I stopped at the head of the great carved staircase
+which led into the hall, and watched him going down, step by step, with
+lagging tread. From the morning-room came the distant sound of a piano,
+and a man's voice singing to it; singing softly, as though no Nemesis
+were approaching; singing slowly, as if there were time enough and to
+spare. But Nemesis had reached the bottom of the staircase; Nemesis,
+with a heavy step, was going across the silent hall--was even now
+opening the door of the morning-room. The door was gently closed again,
+and then, in the middle of a bar, the music stopped.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+I passed an uneasy night. The wind moaned wearily round the house, at
+one moment seeming to die away altogether, at another returning with
+redoubled fury, roaring down the wide chimney, shaking the whole
+building. It dropped completely towards dawn, and after hours of fitful
+slumber I slept heavily.
+
+In the gray of the early morning I was awakened by some one coming into
+my room, and started up to find Charles standing by my bedside, dressed,
+and with a candle in his hand. His face was worn and haggard from want
+of sleep.
+
+"I have come to speak to you before I go, Middleton," he said, when I
+was thoroughly awake. "Ralph and I are off by the early train. Will you
+tell my father that we may not be able to return till to-morrow, if
+then; and may I count upon you to keep all you saw and heard secret till
+after our return?"
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"To London. We start in twenty minutes. I don't think it is the least
+use, but Ralph insists on going, and I cannot let him go alone."
+
+"My dear Charles," I said (all my anger had vanished at the sight of his
+worn face), "I will accompany you."
+
+"Not for worlds!" he replied, hastily. "It would be no good. Indeed, I
+should not wish it."
+
+But I knew better.
+
+"An old head is often of use," I replied, rapidly getting into my
+clothes. "You may count on me, Charles. I shall be ready in ten
+minutes."
+
+Charles made some pretence at annoyance, but I was not to be dissuaded.
+I knew very well how invaluable the judgment of an elder man of
+experience could be on critical occasions; and besides, I always make a
+point of seeing everything I can, on all occasions. In ten minutes I was
+down in the dining-room, where, beside a spluttering fire, the brothers,
+both heavily booted and ulstered, were drinking coffee by candle-light.
+A hastily laid breakfast was on the table, but it had not been touched.
+The gray morning light was turning the flame of the candles to a rusty
+yellow, and outside, upon the wide stone sills, the snow lay high
+against the panes.
+
+Ralph was sitting with bent head by the fire, stick and cap in hand, his
+heavy boot beating the floor impatiently. He looked up as I came in, but
+did not speak. The ruddy color in his cheeks was faded, his face was
+drawn and set. He looked ten years older.
+
+"We ought to be off," he said at last, in a low voice.
+
+"No hurry," replied Charles; "finish your coffee."
+
+I hastily drank some also, and told Charles that I was coming with them.
+
+"No!" said Charles.
+
+"Yes!" I replied. "You are going to London, and so am I. I have decided
+to curtail my visit by a few days, under the circumstances. I shall
+travel up with you. My luggage can follow."
+
+As soon as Charles grasped the idea that I was not going to return to
+Stoke Moreton his opposition melted away; he even seemed to hail my
+departure with a certain sense of relief.
+
+"As you like," he said. "You can leave at this unearthly hour if you
+wish, and travel with us as far as Paddington."
+
+I nodded, and went after my great-coat. Of course I had not the
+slightest intention of leaving them at Paddington; but I felt that the
+time had not arrived to say so.
+
+"Here comes the dog-cart," said Charles, as I returned.
+
+Ralph was already on his feet. But the dog-cart, with its great bay
+horse, could not be brought up to the door. The snow had drifted heavily
+before the steps, and right up into the archway, and the cart had to go
+round to the back again before we could get in and start. Charles took
+the reins, and his brother got up beside him. The groom and I squeezed
+ourselves into the back seat. I could see that I was only allowed to
+come on sufferance, and that at the last moment they would have been
+willing to dispense with my presence. However, I felt that I should
+never have forgiven myself if I had let them go alone. Charles was not
+thirty, and Ralph several years younger. An experienced man of fifty to
+consult in case of need might be of the greatest assistance in an
+emergency.
+
+"Quicker!" said Ralph; "we shall miss the train."
+
+"No quicker, if we mean to catch it," said Charles. "I allowed ten
+minutes extra for the snow. We shall do it if we go quietly, but not if
+I let him go. An upset would clinch the matter."
+
+We drove noiselessly through the great gates with their stone lions on
+either side, rampant in wreaths of snow, and up the village street,
+where life was hardly stirring yet. The sun was rising large and red, a
+ball of dull fire in the heavy sky. It seemed to be rising on a dead
+world. Before us (only to be seen on my part by craning round) stretched
+the long white road. At intervals, here and there among the shrouded
+fields, lay cottages half hidden by a white network of trees. Groups of
+yellow sheep stood clustered together under hedge-rows, motionless in
+the low mist, and making no sound. A lonely colt, with tail erect, ran
+beside us on the other side of the hedge as far as his field would allow
+him, his heavy hoofs falling noiseless in the snow. The cold was
+intense.
+
+"There will be a drift at the bottom of Farrow hill," said Ralph; "we
+shall be late for the train."
+
+And in truth, as we came cautiously down the hill, on turning a corner
+we beheld a smooth sheet of snow lapping over the top of the hedge on
+one side, like iced sugar on a cake, and sloping downward to the ditch
+on the other side of the road.
+
+"Hold on!" cried Charles, as I stood up to look; and in another moment
+we were pushing our way through the snow, keeping as near the ditch as
+possible--too near, as it turned out. But it was not to be. A few yards
+in front of us lay the road--snowy, but practicable; but we could not
+reach it. We swayed backward and forward; we tilted up and down; Charles
+whistled, and made divers consolatory and encouraging sounds to the bay
+horse; but the bay horse began to plunge--he made a side movement--one
+wheel crunched down through the ice in the ditch, and all was over--at
+least, all in the cart were. We fell soft--I most providentially
+alighting on the groom, who was young, and inclined to be plump, and
+thus breaking a fall which to a heavy man of my age might have been
+serious. Charles and Ralph were up in a moment.
+
+"I thought I could not do it; but it was worth a trial," said Charles,
+shaking himself. "George, look after the horse and cart, and take them
+straight back. Now, Ralph, we must run for it if we mean to catch the
+train. Middleton, you had better go back in the cart." And off they set,
+plunging through the snow without further ceremony. I watched the two
+dark figures disappearing, aghast with astonishment. They were
+positively leaving me behind! In a moment my mind was made up; and,
+leaving the gasping young groom to look after the horse and cart, I set
+off to run too. It was only a chance, of course; but in this weather the
+train might be late. It was all the way downhill. I thought I could do
+it, and I did. My feet were balled with snow; I was hotter than I had
+been for years; I was completely out of breath; but when I puffed into
+the little road-side station, five minutes after the train was due, I
+could see that it was not yet in, and that Ralph and Charles were
+waiting on the platform.
+
+"My word, Middleton!" said Charles, coming to meet me. "I thought I had
+seen the last of you when I left you reclining on George in the drift. I
+do believe you have got yourself into this state of fever-heat purely to
+be of use to us two; and I treated you very cavalierly, I am sure. Let
+by-gones be by-gones, and let us shake hands while you are in this
+melting mood."
+
+I could not speak, but we shook hands cordially; and I hurried off to
+get my ticket.
+
+"You can only book to Tarborough!" he called after me, "where we change,
+and catch the London express."
+
+The station-master gave me my ticket, and then approached Charles, and
+touched his cap.
+
+"Might any of you gentlemen be going to London, sir?" he inquired.
+
+"All three of us."
+
+"I don't think you will get on, sir. The news came down this morning
+that the evening express from Tarborough last night was thrown off the
+rails by a drift, and got knocked about, and I don't expect the line is
+clear yet. There will be no trains running till later in the day, I am
+afraid."
+
+"The night express?" said Ralph, suddenly.
+
+"Do you mean the 9 train, which you can catch by the 8.2 from here?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"She was in it!" said Ralph, in a hoarse voice, as the man walked away.
+
+"How late the train is!" said Charles; "quarter of an hour already. I
+say, Jervis," calling after him, "any particulars about the accident?
+Serious?"
+
+"Oh dear no, sir, not to my knowledge. Never heard of anything but that
+the train had been upset, and had stopped the traffic."
+
+"Not many people travelling in such weather, at any rate. I dare say
+there was not a creature who went from here by the last train last
+night?"
+
+"Only two, sir. One of the young gentlemen from the rectory, and a young
+lady, who was very near late, poor thing, and all wet with snow. Ah,
+there she is, at last!" as the train came in sight; and he went through
+the ceremony of ringing the bell, although we were the only travellers
+on the platform.
+
+It was only an hour's run to Tarborough, where we were to join the main
+line.
+
+"What are we to do now?" said Charles, as the chimneys of Tarborough
+hove in sight, and the train slackened. "Ten to one we shall not be able
+to get on to London!"
+
+"Nor she either," said Ralph. "I shall see her! I shall see her here!"
+
+There was an air of excitement about the whole station as we drew up
+before the platform. Groups of railway officials were clustered
+together, talking eagerly; the bar-maids were all looking out of the
+refreshment-room door; policemen were stationed here and there; and
+outside the iron gates of the station a little crowd of people were
+waiting in the trodden yellow snow, peering through the bars.
+
+We got out, and Charles went up to a respectable-looking man in black,
+evidently an official of some consequence, and asked what was the
+matter. The man informed him that a special had been sent down the line
+with workmen to clear the rails, and that its return, with the
+passengers in the ill-fated express, was expected at any moment.
+
+"You don't mean to say the wretched passengers have been there all
+night?" exclaimed Charles. From the man's account it appeared that the
+travellers had taken refuge in a farm near the scene of the accident,
+and, the snow-storm continuing very heavily, it had not been thought
+expedient to send a train down the line to bring them away till after
+daybreak. "It has been gone an hour," he said, looking at the clock;
+"and it is hardly nine yet. Considering how late we received notice of
+the accident--for the news had to travel by night, and on foot for a
+considerable distance--I don't think there has been much delay."
+
+"Will all the passengers come back by this train?" asked Ralph.
+
+"Yes sir."
+
+"We will wait," said Ralph; and he went and paced up and down the most
+deserted part of the platform. The man followed him with his eyes.
+
+"Anxious about friends, sir?" he asked Charles.
+
+"Yes," I heard Charles say, as I went off to warm myself by the
+waiting-room fire, keeping a sharp lookout for the arrival of the train.
+When I came out some time later, wondering if it were ever going to
+arrive at all, I found Charles and the man in black walking up and down
+together, evidently in earnest conversation. When I joined them they
+ceased talking (I never can imagine why people generally do when I come
+up), and the latter said that he would make inquiry at the
+booking-office, and left us.
+
+"Who is that man?" I asked.
+
+"How should I know?" said Charles, absently. "He says he has been a
+London detective till just lately, but he is an inspector of police now.
+Well?" as the man returned.
+
+"Booking-clerk can't remember, sir; but the clerk at the telegraph
+office remembers a young lady leaving a telegram last night, to be sent
+on first thing this morning."
+
+"Has it been sent yet?"
+
+"Yes, sir; some time."
+
+"Where was it sent to?"
+
+"That is against rules, sir. The clerk has no right to give information.
+Anyhow, it is as good as certain, from what you say, that the party was
+in the train, and at all events you will not be kept in doubt much
+longer;" and he pointed to the long-expected puff of white smoke in the
+direction in which all eyes had been so anxiously turned. The train came
+slowly round a broad curve and crawled into the station. Ralph had come
+up, and his eyes were fixed intently upon it. The hand he laid on
+Charles's arm shook a little as he whispered, in a hoarse voice, "I must
+speak to her alone before anything is said."
+
+"You shall," replied Charles; and he moved forward a little, and waited
+for the passengers to alight. I felt that any chance of escape which lay
+in eluding those keen light eyes would be small indeed.
+
+Then ensued a scene of confusion, a Babel of tongues, as the passengers
+poured out upon the platform. "What was the meaning of it all?" hotly
+demanded an infuriated little man before he was well out of the
+carriage. "Why had a train been allowed to start if it was to be
+overturned by a snow-drift? What had the company been about not to make
+itself aware of the state of the line? What did the railway officials
+mean by--" etc. But he was not going to put up with such scandalous
+treatment. He should cause an inquiry to be made; he should write to the
+_Times_, he should--in short, he behaved like a true Englishman in
+adverse circumstances, and poured forth abuse like water. Others
+followed--some angry, some silent, all cold and miserable. A stout woman
+in black, who had been sent for to a dying child, was weeping aloud; a
+dazed man with bound-up head and a terrified wife were pounced upon
+immediately by expectant friends, and borne off with voluble sympathy.
+One or two people slightly hurt were helped out after the others. The
+train was emptied at last. Aurelia was not there. Charles went down the
+length of the train looking into each carriage, and then came back,
+answering Ralph's glance with a shake of the head. The man in black, who
+seemed to have been watching him, came up.
+
+"Have _all_ come back by this train?" Charles asked.
+
+"All, sir, except,"--and he hesitated--"except a few. The doctor who
+went has not returned; and the guard says there were some of the
+passengers, badly hurt, that he would not allow to be moved from the
+farm when the train came for them. The engine-driver and one or two
+others were--"
+
+Charles made a sign to him to be silent.
+
+"How far is it?" he asked.
+
+"Twenty miles, sir."
+
+"Are the roads practicable?"
+
+"No, sir. At least they would be very uncertain once you got into the
+lanes."
+
+"We can walk along the line," said Ralph. "That must be clear. Let us
+start at once."
+
+"Could not the station-master send us down on an engine?" asked Charles.
+"We would pay well for it."
+
+The police-inspector shook his head, but Charles went off to inquire,
+nevertheless, and he followed him. I thought him a very pushing,
+inquisitive kind of person. I have always had a great dislike to the
+idle curiosity which is continually prying into the concerns of others.
+Ralph and I walked up and down, up and down, the now deserted platform.
+I spoke to him once or twice, but he hardly answered; and after a time I
+gave it up, and we paced in silence.
+
+At last Charles returned. His request for an engine had been refused,
+but a further relay of workmen was being sent down the line in a couple
+of hours' time, and he had obtained leave for himself and us to go with
+them. After two long interminable hours of that everlasting pacing we
+found ourselves in an open truck, full of workmen, steaming slowly out
+of the station. At the last moment the man in black jumped in, and
+accompanied us.
+
+The pace may have been great, but to us it seemed exasperatingly slow,
+and in the open truck the cold was piercing. The workmen, who laughed
+and talked among themselves, appeared to take no notice of it; but I saw
+that Charles was shivering, and presently he made his brother light his
+pipe, and began to smoke hard himself.
+
+Ralph's pipe, however, went out unheeded in his fingers. He sat quite
+still with his back against the side of the truck, his eyes fixed upon
+the gray horizon. Once he turned suddenly to his brother, and said, as
+if unable to keep silence on what was in his mind, "What was her
+object?"
+
+Charles shook his head.
+
+"They were hers already!" he went on. "She would have had them all. If
+she had had debts, I would have paid them. What could her object have
+been?" And seemingly, without expecting a reply, he relapsed into
+silence.
+
+We had left the suburbs now, and were passing through a lonely country.
+Here and there a village of straggling cottages met the eye, clustering
+round their little church. In places the hedge-rows alone marked the lie
+of the hidden lanes; in others men were digging out the roads through
+drifts of snow, and carts and horses were struggling painfully along. In
+one place a little walking funeral was laboring across the fields from a
+lonely cottage, in the direction of the church, high on the hill, the
+bell of which was tolling through the quiet air. The sound reached us as
+we passed, and seemed to accompany us on our way. I heard the men
+talking among themselves that there had been no snow-storm like to this
+for thirty years; and as they spoke some of them began shading their
+eyes, and trying to look in the direction in which we were going.
+
+We had now reached a low waste of unenclosed land, with sedge and gorse
+pricking up everywhere through the snow, and with long lines of pollards
+marking the bed of a frozen stream. Near the line was a deserted
+brick-kiln, surrounded by long uneven mounds and ridges of ice, with
+three poplars mounting guard over it. Flights of rooks hung over the
+barren ground, and wheeled in the air with discordant clamor as we
+passed--the only living moving things in the utter desolation of the
+scene. As I looked there was an exclamation from one of the workmen, and
+the engine began to slacken. We were there at last.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+The engine and trucks stopped, the men shouldered their tools and
+tumbled out, and we followed them. A few hundred paces in front of us
+was a railway bridge, over which a road passed, and under which the rail
+went at a sharp curve. The snow had drifted heavily against the bridge,
+with its high earth embankment, making manifest at a glance the cause of
+the disaster.
+
+The bridge was crowded with human figures, and on the line below men
+were working in the drift, amid piles of débris and splintered wood. The
+wrecked train had all been slightly draped in snow; the engine alone,
+barely cold, lying black and grim, like some mighty giant, formidable in
+death. A sheet of glass ice near it showed how the boiler had burst.
+Some of the hindermost carriages were still standing, or had fallen
+comparatively uninjured; but others seemed to have leaped upon their
+fellows, and ploughed right through them into the drift. It was well
+that it began to snow as we reached the spot. There were traces of
+dismal smears on the white ground which it would be seemly to hide.
+
+Our friend in black went forward and asked a few questions of the man in
+charge, and presently returned.
+
+"The remainder of the passengers are at the farm," he said, pointing to
+a house at a little distance; and without further delay we began to
+scramble up the steep embankment, and clamber over the stone-wall of the
+bridge into the road. My mind was full of other things, but I remember
+still the number of people assembled on the bridge, and how a man was
+standing up in his donkey-cart to view the scene. It was Saturday, and
+there were quantities of village school-boys sitting astride on the low
+wall, or perched on adjacent hurdles, evidently enjoying the spectacle,
+jostling, bawling, eating oranges, and throwing the peel at the engine.
+Some older people touched their hats sympathetically, and one went and
+opened a gate for us into a field, through which many feet seemed to
+have come and gone; but for the greater number the event was evidently
+regarded as an interesting variation in the dull routine of every-day
+life; and to the school-boys it was an undoubted treat.
+
+Ralph and Charles walked on in front, following the track across the
+field. It was not particularly heavy walking after what we had had
+earlier in the day, but Ralph stumbled perpetually, and presently
+Charles drew his arm through his own, and the two went on together, the
+police-inspector following with me.
+
+In a few minutes we reached the farm, and entered the farm-yard, which
+was the nearest way to the house. A little knot of calves, intrenched on
+a mound of straw in the centre of the yard, lowered their heads and
+looked askance at us as we came in, and a party of ducks retreated
+hastily from our path with a chorus of exclamations, while a thin collie
+dog burst out of a barrel at the back door, and made a series of
+gymnastics at the end of a chain, barking hoarsely, as if he had not
+spared himself of late.
+
+An elderly woman with red arms met us at the door, and, on a whisper
+from the police-inspector, first shook her head, and then, in answer to
+a further whisper, nodded at another door, and, a voice calling her from
+within, hastily disappeared.
+
+The inspector opened the door she had indicated and went in, I with him.
+Charles, who had grown very grave, hung back with Ralph, who seemed too
+much dazed to notice anything in heaven above or the earth beneath. The
+door opened into an out-house, roughly paved with round stones, where
+barrels, staves, and divers lumber had been put away. There was straw in
+the farther end of it, out of which a yellow cat raised two gleaming
+eyes, and then flew up a ladder against the wall, and disappeared among
+the rafters. In the middle of the floor, lying a little apart, were
+three figures with sheets over them. Instinctively we felt that we were
+in the presence of death. I looked back at Charles and Ralph, who were
+still standing outside in the falling snow. Charles was bareheaded, but
+Ralph was looking absently in front of him, seeming conscious of
+nothing. The inspector made me a sign. He had raised one of the sheets,
+and now withdrew it altogether. My heart seemed to stand still. _It was
+Aurelia!_ Aurelia changed in the last great change of all, but still
+Aurelia. The fixed artificial color in the cheek consorted ill with the
+bloodless pallor of the rest of the face, which was set in a look of
+surprise and terror. She was altered beyond what should have been. She
+looked several years older. But it was still Aurelia. Those little
+gloved hands, tightly clinched, were the same which she had held to the
+library fire as we talked the day before; even the dress was the same.
+Alas! she had been in too great a hurry to change it before she left, or
+her thin shoes. Poor little Aurelia! And then--I don't know how it was,
+but in another moment Ralph was kneeling by her, bending over her,
+taking the stiffened hands in his trembling clasp, imploring the deaf
+ears to hear him, calling wildly to the pale lips to speak to him, which
+had done with human speech. I could not bear it, and I turned away and
+looked out through the open door at the snow falling. The inspector came
+and stood beside me. In the silence which followed we could hear Charles
+speaking gently from time to time; and when at last we both turned
+towards them again, Ralph had flung himself down on an old bench at the
+farther end of the out-house, with his back turned towards us, his arms
+resting on a barrel, and his head bowed down upon them. He neither spoke
+nor moved.
+
+Charles left him, and came towards us, and he and the inspector spoke
+apart for a moment, and then the latter dropped on his knees beside the
+dead woman, and, after looking carefully at a dark stain on one of the
+wrists, turned back the sleeve. Crushed deep into the round white arm
+gleamed something bright. It was an emerald bracelet which we both knew.
+Charles cast a hasty glance at Ralph, but he had not moved, and he drew
+me beside him, so as to interpose our two figures between him and the
+inspector. The latter quietly turned down the sleeve and recomposed the
+arm.
+
+"I knew she would have them on her, if she had them at all," he said, in
+a low voice. "We need look no farther at present. Not one will be
+missing. They are all there."
+
+He gazed long and earnestly at the dead face, and then to my horror he
+suddenly unfastened the little hat. I made an involuntary movement as if
+to stop him, but Charles laid an iron grip upon me, and motioned to me
+to be still. The stealthy hand quietly pushed back the fair curls upon
+the forehead, and in another moment they fell still farther back,
+showing a few short locks of dark hair beneath them, which so completely
+altered the dead face that I could hardly recognize it as belonging to
+the same person. The inspector raised his head, and looked significantly
+at Charles. Then he quietly drew forward the yellow hair over the
+forehead again, replaced the hat, and rose to his feet. Charles and I
+glanced apprehensively at Ralph, but he had not stirred. As we looked, a
+hurried step came across the yard, a hand raised the latch of the door,
+and some one entered abruptly. It was Carr. For one moment he stood in
+the door-way, for one moment his eyes rested horror-struck on the dead
+woman, then darted at us, from us to the inspector, who was coolly
+watching him, and--he was gone! gone as suddenly as he had come; gone
+swiftly out again into the falling snow, followed by the wild barking of
+the dog.
+
+Charles, who had had his back to the door, turned in time to see him,
+and he made a rush for the door, but the inspector flung himself in his
+way, and held him forcibly.
+
+"Let me go! Let me get at him!" panted Charles, struggling furiously.
+
+"I shall do no such thing, sir. It can do no good, and might do harm. He
+is armed, and you are not; and he would not be over-scrupulous if he
+were pushed. Besides, what can you accuse him of? Intent to rob? For he
+did not do it. If you have lost anything, remember, you have found it
+again. If you caught him a hundred times, you have no hold on him. I
+know him of old."
+
+"You?"
+
+"Yes; I have known him by sight long enough. He is not a new hand by any
+means--nor she either, as to that, poor thing."
+
+"But what on earth brought him here?"
+
+"He was waiting for news of her in London, most likely, and he knew she
+would have the jewels on her, and came down when he got wind of the
+accident."
+
+"Knew she would have the jewels! Then do you mean to say there was
+collusion between the two?"
+
+The inspector glanced furtively at Ralph, but he had never stirred, or
+raised his head since he had laid it down on his clinched hands.
+
+"They are both well known to the police," he said at last, "and I think
+it probable there was collusion between them, considering they were _man
+and wife_."
+
+
+
+
+CONCLUSION.
+
+
+I am told that I ought to write something in the way of a conclusion to
+this account of the Danvers jewels, as if the end of the last chapter
+were not conclusion enough. Charles, who has just read it, says
+especially that his character requires what he calls "an elegant
+finish," and suggests that a slight indication of a young and lovely
+heiress in connection with himself would give pleasure to the thoughtful
+reader. But I do not mean at the last moment to depart from the exact
+truth, and dabble in fiction just to make a suitable conclusion. If I
+must write something more, I must beg that it will be kept in mind that
+if further details concerning the robbery are now added against my own
+judgment, they will rest on Charles's authority--not mine--as anything I
+afterwards heard was only through Charles, whose information I never
+consider reliable in the least degree.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was not till three months later that I saw him again, on a wet April
+afternoon. I was still living in London with Jane when he came to see
+me, having just returned from a long tour abroad with Ralph.
+
+Sir George, he said, was quite well again, but the coolness between
+himself and his father had dropped almost to freezing-point since it had
+come to light that he had been innocent after all. His father could not
+forgive his son for putting him in the wrong.
+
+"I seldom disappoint him in matters of this kind," he said. "Indeed, I
+may say I have, as a rule, surpassed his expectations, and I must be
+careful never to fall short of them in this way again. But ah! Miss
+Middleton, I am sure you will agree with me how difficult it is to
+preserve an even course without relaxing a little at times."
+
+"My dear Mr. Charles," said Jane, beaming at him over her knitting, but
+not quite taking him in the manner he intended, "you are young yet, but
+don't be downhearted. I am sure by your face that as you grow older
+these deviations, which you so properly regret, will grow fewer and
+fewer, until, as life goes on, they will gradually cease altogether."
+
+"I consider it not improbable myself," said Charles, with a faint smile,
+and he changed the conversation. I really cannot put down here all that
+he proceeded to say in the most cold-blooded manner concerning Carr and
+Aurelia, or as he _would_ call them, Mr. and Mrs. Brown, _alias_
+Sinclair, _alias_ Tibbits. I for one don't believe a word of it; and I
+don't see how he could have found it all out, as he said he had, through
+the police, and people of that kind. I don't consider it is at all
+respectable consorting with the police in that way; but then Charles
+never was respectable, as I told Jane after he left, arousing excited
+feelings on her part which made me regret having mentioned it.
+
+According to him, Carr, who had never been seen or heard of since the
+day after the accident, was a professional thief, who had probably gone
+to ---- in India with the express design of obtaining possession of Sir
+John's jewels, which had, till near the time of his death, been safely
+stowed away in a bank in Calcutta. He and his wife usually worked
+together; but on this occasion she had, by means of her engaging manners
+and youthful appearance, struck up an acquaintance abroad with Lady Mary
+Cunningham, who, it will be remembered, had jewels of considerable
+value, with a view to those jewels. Ralph she had used as her tool, and
+engaged herself to him in the expectation that on her return to England
+she might, by means of her intimacy with the family, have an opportunity
+of taking them--Lady Mary having left them, while abroad, with her
+banker in London. The opportunity came while she was at Stoke Moreton;
+but in the mean while Sir John's priceless legacy had arrived, having
+eluded her husband's vigilance. (That certainly was true. The jewels
+were safe enough as long as I had anything to do with them.) Her
+husband, who followed them, saw that he was suspected, and threw the
+game into her hands, devoting himself entirely to putting his own
+innocence beyond a doubt; in which, with Ralph's assistance, he
+succeeded.
+
+"I see now," continued Charles, "why she spilled her tea when Carr
+arrived. She was taken by surprise on seeing him enter the room, having
+had, probably, no idea that he was the friend whom you had telegraphed
+for. I suspect, too, that same evening, after the ball, when she and
+Carr went together to find the bag, it was to have a last word to enable
+them to play into each other's hands, being aware, if I remember
+rightly, that father had gone to bed in company with the key of the
+safe, and that, consequently, the jewels might be left within easier
+reach than usual. No doubt she weighed the matter in her own mind, and
+decided to give up all thought of Lady Mary's jewels, and to secure
+those which were ten times their value. She could not have taken both
+without drawing suspicion upon herself. Like a wise woman she left the
+smaller, and went in for the larger prize; a less clever one would have
+tried for both, and have failed. She failed, it is true, by an
+oversight. She could never have noticed that the piece of paper wrapped
+round the crescent was peculiar in any way, or she would not have left
+it on the table among the others. She turned it off well when Evelyn
+recognized it, and made the most of her time. She was within an ace of
+success, but fate was against her. And Carr lost no time, either, for
+that matter; for I have since found out that the telegram she sent was
+to Birmingham, where he was no doubt hiding, bidding him meet her in
+London earlier than had been arranged. Of course he set off for the
+scene of the accident directly he heard of it, having received no
+further communication from her. We arrived only ten minutes before him.
+For my part, I admired _her_ more than I ever did before, when the truth
+about her came out. I considered her to be a pink-and-white nonentity,
+without an idea beyond a neat adjustment of pearl-powder, and then found
+that she possessed brains enough to outwit two minds of no mean calibre,
+namely, yours, Middleton, and my own. Evelyn was the only person who had
+the slightest suspicion of her, and that hardly amounted to more than an
+instinct, for she owned that she had no reason to show for it."
+
+"I wonder Lady Mary was so completely taken in by her to start with," I
+said.
+
+"I don't," replied Charles. "I have even heard of elderly men being
+taken in by young ones. Besides, suspicious people are always liable to
+distrust their own nearest relatives, especially their prepossessing
+nephews, and then lay themselves open to be taken in by entire
+strangers. She wanted to get Ralph married, and she took a fancy to this
+girl, who was laying herself out to be taken a fancy to. In short, she
+trusted to her own judgment, and it failed her, as usual. I wrote very
+kindly to her from abroad, telling her how sincerely I sympathized with
+her in her distress at finding how entirely her judgment had been at
+fault, how lamentably she had been deceived from first to last, and how
+much trouble she had been the innocent means of bringing on the family.
+I have had no reply. Dear Aunt Mary! That reminds me that she is in
+London now; and I think a call from me, and a personal expression of
+sympathy, might give her pleasure." And he rose to take his leave.
+
+I had let Charles go without contradicting a word he had said, because,
+unfortunately, I was not in a position to do so. As I have said before,
+I am not given to suspecting a friend, even though appearances may be
+against him; and I still believed in Carr's innocence, though I must own
+that I was sorry that he never answered any of the numerous letters I
+wrote to him, or ever came to see me in London, as I had particularly
+asked him to do. Of course I did not believe that he was married to
+Aurelia, for it was only on the word of a stranger and a
+police-inspector, while I knew from his own lips that he was engaged to
+a countrywoman of his own. However, be that how it may, my own rooted
+conviction at the time, which has remained unshaken ever since, is that
+in some way he became aware that he was unjustly suspected, and being,
+like all Americans, of a sensitive nature, he retired to his native
+land. Anyhow, I have never seen or heard anything of him since. I am
+aware that Jane holds a different opinion, but then Charles had
+prejudiced her against him--so much so that it has ended by becoming a
+subject on which we do not converse together.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I saw Charles again a few months later on a sultry night in July. I was
+leaving town the next day to be present at Ralph's wedding, and Jane and
+I were talking it over towards ten o'clock, the first cool time in the
+day, when he walked in. He looked pale and jaded as he sat down wearily
+by us at the open window and stroked the cat, which was taking the air
+on the sill. He said that he felt the heat, and he certainly look very
+much knocked up. I do not feel heat myself, I am glad to say.
+
+"I am going abroad to-morrow," he said, after a few remarks on other
+subjects. "It is not merely a question of pleasure, though I shall be
+glad to be out of London; but I have of late become an object of such
+increasing interest to those who possess my autograph that I have
+decided on taking change of air for a time."
+
+"Do you mean to say you are not going down to Stoke Moreton for Ralph's
+wedding?" I exclaimed. "I thought we should have travelled together, as
+we once did six months ago."
+
+"I can't go," said Charles, almost sharply. "I have told Ralph so."
+
+"I am sure he will be very much disappointed, and Evelyn too; and the
+wedding being from her uncle's house, as she has no home of her own,
+will make your absence all the more marked."
+
+"It _must_ be marked, then; but the young people will survive it, and
+Aunt Mary will be thankful. She has not spoken to me since I made that
+little call upon her in the spring. When I pass her carriage in the Row
+she looks the other way."
+
+"I am glad Ralph has consoled himself," I said. "A good and charming
+woman like Evelyn, and a nice steady fellow like Ralph, are bound to be
+happy together."
+
+"Yes," said Charles, "I suppose they are. She deserves to be happy. She
+always liked Ralph, and he _is_ a good fellow. The model young men make
+all the running nowadays. In novels the good woman always marries the
+scapegrace, but it does not seem to be the case in real life."
+
+"Anyhow, not in this instance," I remarked, cheerfully.
+
+"No, not in this instance, as you so justly observe," he replied, with a
+passing gleam of amusement in his restless, tired eyes. "And now,"
+producing a small packet, "as I am not going myself, I want to give my
+wedding-present to the bride into your charge. Perhaps you will take it
+down to-morrow, and give it into her own hands, with my best wishes."
+
+"Might we see it first?" said Jane, with all a woman's curiosity,
+evidently scenting a jewel-case from afar.
+
+Charles unwrapped a small morocco case, and, touching a spring, showed
+the diamond crescent, beautifully reset and polished, blazing on its red
+satin couch.
+
+"Ralph said I should have it, and he sent it me some time since," he
+said, turning it in his hand; "but it seems a pity to fritter it away in
+paying bills; and," in a lower tone, "I should like to give it to
+Evelyn. I hear she has refused to wear any of Sir John's jewels on her
+wedding-day, but perhaps, if you were to ask her--she and I are old
+friends--she might make an exception in favor of the crescent."
+
+And she did.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+
+SIR CHARLES DANVERS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+"Dear heart, Miss Ruth, my dear, now don't ye be a-going yet, and me
+that hasn't set eyes on ye this month and more--and as hardly hears a
+body speak from morning till night."
+
+"Come, come, Mrs. Eccles, I am always finding people sitting here. I
+expect to see the latch go every minute."
+
+"Well, and if they do; and some folks are always a-dropping in, and
+a-setting theirselves down, and a clack-clacking till a body can't get a
+bit of peace! And the things they say! Eh? Miss Ruth, the things I have
+heard folks say, a setting as it might be there, in poor Eccles his old
+chair by the chimley, as the Lord took him in."
+
+To the uninitiated, Mrs. Eccles's allusion might have seemed to refer to
+photography. But Ruth knew better; a visitation from the Lord being
+synonymous in Slumberleigh Parish with a fall from a ladder, a stroke of
+paralysis, or the midnight cart-wheel that disabled Brown when returning
+late from the Blue Dragon "not quite hisself."
+
+"Lor'!" resumed Mrs. Eccles, with an extensive sigh, "there's a deal of
+talk in the village now," glancing inquisitively at the visitor, "about
+him as succeeds to old Mr. Dare; but I never listen to their tales."
+
+They made a pleasant contrast to each other, the neat old woman, with
+her shrewd spectacled eyes and active, hard-worked fingers, and the
+young girl, tranquil, graceful, sitting in the shadow, with her slender
+ungloved hands in her lap.
+
+They were not sitting in the front parlor, because Ruth was an old
+acquaintance; but Mrs. Eccles _had_ a front parlor--a front parlor with
+the bottled-up smell in it peculiar to front parlors; a parlor with a
+real mahogany table, on which photograph albums and a few select volumes
+were symmetrically arranged round an inkstand, nestling in a very choice
+wool-work mat; a parlor with wax-flowers under glass shades on the
+mantle-piece, and an avalanche of paper roses and mixed paper herbs in
+the fireplace.
+
+Ruth knew that sacred apartment well. She knew the name of each of the
+books; she had expressed a proper admiration for the wax-flowers; she
+had heard, though she might have forgotten, for she was but young, the
+price of the "real Brussels" carpet, and so she might safely be
+permitted to sit in the kitchen, and watch Mrs. Eccles darning her son's
+socks.
+
+I am almost afraid Ruth liked the kitchen best, with its tiled floor and
+patch of afternoon sun; with its tall clock in the corner, its line of
+straining geraniums in the low window-shelf, and its high mantle-piece
+crowned by two china dogs with red lozenges on them, holding baskets in
+their mouths.
+
+"Yes, a deal of talk there is, but nobody rightly seems to know anything
+for certain," continued Mrs. Eccles, spreading out her hand in the heel
+of a fresh sock, and pouncing on a modest hole. "Ye see, we never gave a
+thought to _him_, with that great hearty Mr. George, his eldest brother,
+to succeed when the old gentleman went. And such a fine figure of a man
+in his clothes as poor Mr. George used to be, and such a favorite with
+his old uncle. And then to be took like that, horseback riding at polar,
+only six weeks after the old gentleman. But I can't hear as anybody's
+set eyes on his half-brother as comes in for the property now. He never
+came to Vandon in his uncle's lifetime. They say old Mr. Dare couldn't
+bide the French madam as his brother took when his first wife died--a
+foreigner, with black curls; it wasn't likely. He was always partial to
+Mr. George, and he took him up when his father died; but he never would
+have anything to say to this younger one, bein' nothin' in the world, so
+folks say, but half a French, and black, like his mother. I wonder
+now--" began Mrs. Eccles, tentatively, with her usual love of
+information.
+
+"I wonder, now," interposed Ruth, quietly, "how the rheumatism is
+getting on? I saw you were in church on Sunday evening."
+
+"Yes, my dear," began Mrs. Eccles, readily diverted to a subject of such
+interest as herself. "Yes, I always come to the evening service now,
+though I won't deny as the rheumatics are very pinching at times. But,
+dear Lord! I never come up to the stalls near the chancel, so you ain't
+likely to see me. To see them Harrises always a-goin' up to the very
+top, it does go agen me. I don't say as it's everybody as ought to take
+the lowest place. The Lord knows I'm not proud, but I won't go into them
+chairs down by the font myself; but to see them Harrises, that to my
+certain knowledge hasn't a bite of butcher's meat in their heads but
+onst a week, a-settin' theirselves up--"
+
+"Now, Mrs. Eccles, you know perfectly well all the seats are free in the
+evening."
+
+"And so they may be, Miss Ruth, my dear--and don't ye be a-getting up
+yet--and good Christians, I'm sure, the quality are to abide it. And it
+did my heart good to hear the Honorable John preaching as he did in his
+new surplice (as Widder Pegg always puts too much blue in the surplices
+to my thinking), all about rich and poor, and one with another. A
+beautiful sermon it was; but I wouldn't come up like they Harrises.
+There's things as is suitable, and there's things as is not. No, I keep
+to my own place; and I had to turn out old Bessie Pugh this very last
+Sunday night, as I found a-cocked up there, tho' I was not a matter of
+five minutes late. Bessie Pugh always was one to take upon herself, and,
+as I often says to her, when I hear her a-goin' on about free grace and
+the like, 'Bessie,' I says, 'if I was a widder on the parish, and not so
+much as a pig to fat up for Christmas, and coming to church reg'lar on
+Loaf Sunday, which it's not that I ain't sorry for ye, but _I_ wouldn't
+take upon myself, if I was you, to talk of things as I'd better leave to
+them as is beholden to nobody and pays their rent reg'lar. I've no
+patience--But eh, dear Miss Ruth! look at that gentleman going down the
+road, and the dog too. Why, ye haven't so much as got up! He's gone. He
+was a foreigner, and no mistake. Why, good Lord! there he is coming back
+again. He's seen me through the winder. Mercy on us! he's opening the
+gate; he's coming to the door!"
+
+As she spoke, a shadow passed before the window, and some one knocked.
+
+Mrs. Eccles hastily thrust her darning-needle into the front of her
+bodice, the general _rendezvous_ of the pins and needles of the
+establishment, and proceeded to open the door and plant herself in front
+of it.
+
+Ruth caught a glimpse of an erect light gray figure in the sunshine,
+surmounted by a brown face, and the lightest of light gray hats. Close
+behind stood a black poodle of a dignified and self-engrossed
+deportment, wearing its body half shaved, but breaking out in ruffles
+round its paws, and a tuft at the end of a stiffly undemonstrative tail.
+
+"The key of the church is kep' at Jones's, by the pump," said Mrs.
+Eccles, in the brusque manner peculiar to the freeborn Briton when
+brought in contact with a foreigner.
+
+"Thank you, madam," was the reply, in the most courteous of tones, and
+the gray hat was off in a moment, showing a very dark, cropped head,
+"but I do not look for the church. I only ask for the way to the house
+of the pastor, Mr. Alwynn."
+
+Mrs. Eccles gave full and comprehensive directions in a very high key,
+accompanied by much gesticulation, and then the gray hat was replaced,
+and the gray figure, followed by the black poodle, marched down the
+little garden path again, and disappeared from view.
+
+Mrs. Eccles drew a long breath, and turned to her visitor again.
+
+"Well, my dear, and did ye ever see the like of that? And his head, Miss
+Ruth! Did ye take note of his head? Not so much as a shadder of a
+parting. All the same all the way over; and asking the way to the
+rectory. Why, you ain't never going yet? Well, good-bye, my dear, and
+God bless ye! And now," soliloquized Mrs. Eccles, as Ruth finally
+escaped, "I may as well run across to Jones's, and see if _they_ know
+anything about the gentleman, and if he's put up at the inn."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was a glorious July afternoon, but it was hot. The roads were white,
+and the tall hedge-rows gray with dust. A wagon-load of late hay, with a
+swarm of children just out from school careering round it, was coming up
+the road in a dim cloud of dust. Ruth, who had been undecided which way
+to take, beat a hasty retreat towards the church-yard, deciding that, if
+she must hesitate, to do so among cool tombstones in the shade. She
+glanced up at the church clock, as she selected her tombstone under one
+of the many yew-trees in the old church-yard. Half-past four, and
+already an inner voice was suggesting _tea!_ To miss five o'clock tea on
+a thirsty afternoon like this was not to be thought of for a moment. She
+had no intention of going back to tea at Atherstone, where she was
+staying with her cousins, Mr. and Mrs. Danvers. Two alternatives
+remained. Should she go to Slumberleigh Hall, close by, and see the
+Thursbys, who she knew had all returned from London yesterday, or should
+she go across the fields to Slumberleigh Rectory, and have tea with
+Uncle John and Aunt Fanny?
+
+She knew that Sir Charles Danvers, Ralph Danvers's elder brother, was
+expected at Atherstone that afternoon. His aunt, Lady Mary Cunningham,
+was also staying there, partly with a view of meeting him. Ralph Danvers
+had not seen his brother, nor Lady Mary her nephew, for some time, and,
+judging by the interest they seemed to feel in his visit, Ruth had
+determined not to interrupt a family meeting, in which she imagined she
+might be _de trop_.
+
+"My fine tact," she thought, "will enable them to have a quiet talk
+among themselves till nearly dinner-time. But I must not neglect myself
+any longer. The Hall is the nearer, and the drive is shady; but, to put
+against that, Mabel will insist on showing me her new gowns, and Mrs.
+Thursby will make her usual remarks about Aunt Fanny. No; in spite of
+that burning expanse of glebe, I will go to tea at the rectory. I have
+not seen Uncle John for a week, and--who knows?--perhaps Aunt Fanny may
+be out."
+
+So the gloves were put on, the crisp white dress shaken out, the parasol
+put up, and Ruth took the narrow church path across the fields up to
+Slumberleigh Rectory.
+
+For many years since the death of her parents, Ruth Deyncourt had lived
+with her grandmother, a wealthy, witty, and wise old lady, whose house
+had been considered one of the pleasantest in London by those to whom
+pleasant houses are open.
+
+Lady Deyncourt, a beauty in her youth, a beauty in middle life, a beauty
+in her old age, had seen and known all the marked men of the last two
+generations, and had reminiscences to tell which increased in point and
+flavor, like old wine, the longer they were kept. She had frequented as
+a girl the Misses Berrys' drawing-room, and people were wont to say that
+hers was the nearest approach to a _salon_ which remained after the
+Misses Berry disappeared. She had married a grave politician, a rising
+man, whom she had pushed into a knighthood, and at one time into the
+ministry. If he had died before he could make her the wife of a premier,
+the disappointment had not been without its alleviations. She had never
+possessed much talent for domestic life, and, the yoke once removed, she
+had not felt the least inclination to take it upon herself again. As a
+widow, her way through life was one long triumphal procession. She had
+daughters--dull, tall, serious girls, with whom she had nothing in
+common, whom she educated well, brought out, laced in, and then married,
+one after another, relinquishing the last with the utmost cheerfulness,
+and refusing the condolences of friends on her lonely position with her
+usual frankness.
+
+But her son, her only son, she had loved. He was like her, and
+understood her, and was at ease with her, as her daughters had never
+been. The trouble of her life was the death of her son. She got over it,
+as she got over everything; but when several years afterwards his widow,
+with whom, it is hardly necessary to say, she was not on speaking terms,
+suddenly died (being a faint-hearted, feeble creature), Lady Deyncourt
+immediately took possession of her grandchildren--a boy and two
+girls--and proceeded as far as in her lay to ruin the boy for life.
+
+"A woman," she was apt to remark in after years, "is not intended by
+nature to manage any man except her husband. I am a warning to the
+mothers, aunts, and grandmothers, particularly the grandmothers, of the
+future. A husband is a sufficient field for the employment of a woman's
+whole energies. I went beyond my sphere, and I am punished."
+
+And when Raymond Deyncourt finally disappeared in America for the last
+time, having been fished up therefrom on several occasions, each time in
+worse case than the last, she excommunicated him, and cheerfully altered
+her will, dividing the sixty thousand pounds she had it in her power to
+leave, between her two granddaughters, and letting the fact become
+known, with the result that Anna was married by the end of her second
+season; and if at the end of five seasons Ruth was still unmarried, she
+had, as Lady Deyncourt took care to inform people, no one to thank for
+it but herself.
+
+But in reality, now that Anna was provided for, Lady Deyncourt was in no
+hurry to part with Ruth. She liked her as much as it was possible for
+her to like any one--indeed, I think she even loved her in a way. She
+had taken but small notice of her while she was in the school-room, for
+she cared little about girls as a rule; but as she grew up tall, erect,
+with the pale, stately beauty of a lily, Lady Deyncourt's heart went out
+to her. None of her own daughters had been so distinguished-looking, so
+ornamental. Ruth's clothes always looked well on her, and she had a
+knack of entertaining people, and much taste in the arrangement of
+flowers. Though she had inherited the Deyncourt earnestness of
+character, together with their dark serious eyes, and a certain annoying
+rigidity as to right and wrong, these defects were counterbalanced by
+flashes of brightness and humor which reminded Lady Deyncourt of herself
+in her own brilliant youth, and inclined her to be lenient, when in her
+daughters' cases she would have been sarcastic. The old woman and the
+young one had been great friends, and not the less so, perhaps, because
+of a tacit understanding which existed between them that certain
+subjects should be avoided, upon which, each instinctively felt, they
+were not likely to agree. And if the shrewd old woman of the world ever
+suspected the existence of a strength of will and depth of character in
+Ruth such as had, in her own early life, been a source of annoyance and
+perplexity to herself in her dealings with her husband, she was skilful
+enough to ignore any traces of it that showed themselves in her
+granddaughter, and thus avoided those collisions of will, the result of
+which she felt might have been doubtful.
+
+And so Ruth had lived a life full of varied interests, and among
+interesting people, and had been waked up suddenly in a gray and frosted
+dawn to find that chapter of her life closed. Lady Deyncourt, who never
+thought of travelling without her maid and footman, suddenly went on a
+long journey alone one wild January morning, starting, without any
+previous preparation, for a land in which she had never professed much
+interest heretofore. It seemed a pity that she should have to die when
+she had so thoroughly acquired the art of living, with little trouble to
+herself, and much pleasure to others; but so it was.
+
+And then, in Ruth's confused remembrance of what followed, all the world
+seemed to have turned to black and gray. There was no color anywhere,
+where all had been color before. Miles of black cloth and crape seemed
+to extend before her; black horses came and stamped black hoof-marks in
+the snow before the door. Endless arrangements had to be made, endless
+letters to be written. Something was carried heavily down-stairs, all in
+black, scoring the wall at the turn on the stairs in a way which would
+have annoyed Lady Deyncourt exceedingly if she had been there to see it,
+but she had left several days before it happened. The last pale shadow
+of the kind, gay little grandmother was gone from the great front
+bedroom up-stairs. Mr. Alwynn, one of Ruth's uncles, came up from the
+country and went to the funeral, and took Ruth away afterwards. Her own
+sister Anna was abroad with her husband, her brother Raymond had not
+been heard of for years. As she drove away from the house, and looked up
+at the windows with wide tearless eyes, she suddenly realized that this
+departure was final, that there would be no coming back, no home left
+for her in the familiar rooms where she and another had lived so long
+together.
+
+Mr. Alwynn was by her side in the carriage, patting her cold hands and
+telling her not to cry, which she felt no inclination to do; and then,
+seeing the blank pallor in her face, he suddenly found himself fumbling
+for his own pocket-handkerchief.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+On this particular July afternoon Mr. Alwynn, or, as his parishioners
+called him, "The Honorable John," was sitting in his arm-chair in the
+little drawing-room of Slumberleigh Rectory. Mrs. Honorable John was
+pouring out tea; and here, once and for all, let it be known that meals,
+particularly five o'clock tea, will occupy a large place in this
+chronicle, not because of any importance especially attaching to them,
+but because in the country, at least in Slumberleigh, the day is not
+divided by hours but by the meals that take place therein, and to write
+of Slumberleigh and its inhabitants with disregard to their divisions of
+time is "impossible, and cannot be done."
+
+So I repeat, boldly, Mr. and Mrs. Alwynn were at tea. They were alone
+together, for they had no children, and Ruth Deyncourt, who had been
+living with them since her grandmother's death in the winter, was now
+staying with her cousin, Mrs. Ralph Danvers, at Atherstone, a couple of
+miles away.
+
+If it had occasionally crossed Mr. Alwynn's mind during the last few
+months that he would have liked to have a daughter like Ruth, he had
+kept the sentiment to himself, as he did most sentiments in the company
+of his wife, who, while she complained of his habit of silence, made up
+for it nobly herself at all times and in all places. It had often been
+the subject of vague wonder among his friends, and even at times to Mr.
+Alwynn himself, how he had come to marry "Fanny, my love." Mr. Alwynn
+dearly loved peace and quiet, but these dwelt not under the same roof
+with Mrs. Alwynn. Nay, I even believe, if the truth were known, he liked
+order and tidiness, judging by the exact arrangement of his own study,
+and the rueful glances he sometimes cast at the litter of wools and
+letters on the newspaper-table, and the gay garden hats and goloshes,
+hidden, but not concealed, under the drawing-room sofa. Conversation
+about the dearness of butchers' meat and the enormities of servants
+palled upon him, I think, after a time, but he had taken his wife's
+style of conversation for better for worse when he took her gayly
+dressed self under those ominous conditions, and he never showed
+impatience. He loved his wife, but I think it grieved him when
+smart-colored glass vases were strewn among the cherished bits
+of old china and enamel which his soul loved. He did not like
+chromo-lithographs, or the framed photographs which Mrs. Alwynn called
+her "momentums of travel," among his rare old prints, either. He bore
+them, but after their arrival in company with large and inappropriate
+nails, and especially after the cut-glass candlesticks appeared on the
+drawing-room chimney-piece, he ceased to make his little occasional
+purchases of old china and old silver. The curiosity shops knew him no
+more, or if he still at times brought home some treasure in his hat-box,
+on his return from Convocation, it was unpacked and examined in private,
+and a little place was made for it among the old Chelsea figures on the
+bookcase in his study, which had stood, ever since he had inherited them
+from his father, on the drawing-room mantle-piece, but had been silently
+removed when a pair of comic china elephants playing on violins had
+appeared in their midst.
+
+Mr. Alwynn sighed a little when he looked at them this afternoon, and
+shook his head; for had he not brought back in his empty soup-tin an old
+earthen-ware cow of Dutch extraction, which he had long coveted on the
+shelf of a parishioner? He had bought it very dear, for when in all his
+life had he ever bought anything cheap? And now, as he was tenderly
+wiping a suspicion of beef-tea off it, he wondered, as he looked round
+his study, where he could put it. Not among the old Oriental china,
+where bits of Wedgwood had already elbowed in for want of room
+elsewhere. Among his Lowestoft cups and saucers? Never! He would rather
+not have it than see it there. He had a vision of a certain bracket,
+discarded from the hall, and put aside by his careful hands in the
+lowest drawer of the cupboard by the window, in which he kept little
+stores of nails and string and brown paper, among which "Fanny, my love"
+performed fearful ravages when minded to tie up a parcel.
+
+Mr. Alwynn nailed up the bracket under an old etching and placed the cow
+thereon, and, after contemplating it over his spectacles, went into the
+drawing-room to tea with his wife.
+
+Mrs. Alwynn was a stout, florid, good-humored-looking woman, with a
+battered fringe, considerably younger than her husband in appearance,
+and with a tendency to bright colors in dress.
+
+"Barnes is very poorly, my dear," said Mr. Alwynn, patiently fishing out
+one of the lumps of sugar which his wife had put in his tea. He took one
+lump, but she took two herself, and consequently always gave him two.
+"I should say a little strong soup would--"
+
+At this juncture the front door-bell rang, and a moment afterwards "Mr.
+Dare" was announced.
+
+The erect, light gray figure which had awakened the curiosity of Mrs.
+Eccles came in close behind the servant. Mrs. Alwynn received a deep bow
+in return for her look of astonishment; and then, with an eager
+exclamation, the visitor had seized both Mr. Alwynn's hands, regardless
+of the neatly folded slice of bread and butter in one of them, and was
+shaking them cordially.
+
+Mr. Alwynn looked for a moment as astonished as his wife, and the blank,
+deprecating glance he cast at his visitor showed that he was at a loss.
+
+The latter let go his hands and spread his own out with a sudden
+gesture.
+
+"Ah, you do not know me," he said, speaking rapidly; "it is twenty years
+ago, and you have forgotten. You do not remember Alfred Dare, the little
+boy whom you saw last in sailing costume, the little boy for whom you
+cut the whistles, the son of your old friend, Henry Dare?"
+
+"Good gracious!" ejaculated Mr. Alwynn, with a sudden flash of memory.
+"Henry's other son. I remember now. It _is_ Alfred, and I remember the
+whistles too. You have your mother's eyes. And, of course, you have come
+to Vandon now that your poor brother--We have all been wondering when
+you would turn up. My dear boy, I remember you perfectly now; but it is
+a long time ago, and you have changed very much."
+
+"Between eight years and twenty-eight there is a great step," replied
+Dare, with a brilliant smile. "How could I expect that you should
+remember all at once? But _you_ are not changed. I knew you the first
+moment. It is the same kind, good face which I remember well."
+
+Mr. Alwynn blushed a faint blush, which any word of praise could always
+call up; and then, reminded of the presence of Mrs. Alwynn by a short
+cough, which that lady always had in readiness wherewith to recall him
+to a sense of duty, he turned to her and introduced Dare.
+
+Dare made another beautiful bow; and while he accepted a cup of tea from
+Mrs. Alwynn, Mr. Alwynn had time to look attentively at him with his
+mild gray eyes. He was a slight, active-looking young man of middle
+height, decidedly un-English in appearance and manner, with dark roving
+eyes, mustaches very much twirled up, and a lean brown face, that was
+exceedingly handsome in a style to which Mr. Alwynn was not accustomed.
+
+And this was Henry Dare's second son, the son by his French wife, who
+had been brought up abroad, of whom no one had ever heard or cared to
+hear, who had now succeeded, by his half-brother's sudden death, to
+Vandon, a property adjoining Slumberleigh.
+
+The eager foreign face was becoming familiar to Mr. Alwynn. Dare was
+like his mother; but he sat exactly as Mr. Alwynn had seen his father
+sit many a time in that very chair. The attitude was the same. Ah, but
+that flourish of the brown hands! How unlike anything Henry would have
+done! And those sudden movements! He was roused by Dare turning quickly
+to him again.
+
+"I am telling Mrs. Alwynn of my journey here," he began; "of how I miss
+my train; of how I miss my carriage, sent to meet me from the inn; of
+how I walk on foot up the long hills; and when I get there they think I
+am no longer coming. I arrived only last night at Vandon. To-day I walk
+over to see my old friend at Slumberleigh."
+
+Dare leaned forward, laying the tips of his fingers lightly against his
+breast.
+
+"You seem to have had a good deal of walking," said Mr. Alwynn, rather
+taken aback, but anxious to be cordial; "but, at any rate, you will not
+walk back. You must stay the night, now you are here; mustn't he,
+Fanny?"
+
+Dare was delighted--beaming. Then his face became overcast. His eyebrows
+went up. He shook his head. Mr. and Mrs. Alwynn were most kind, but--he
+became more and more dejected--a bag, a simple valise--
+
+It could be sent for.
+
+Ah! Mr. Alwynn was too good. He revived again. He showed his even white
+teeth. He was about to resume his tea, when suddenly a tall white figure
+came lightly in through the open French window, and a clear voice began:
+
+"Oh, Uncle John, there is such a heathen of a black poodle making
+excavations in the flower-beds! Do--"
+
+Ruth stopped suddenly as her eyes fell upon the stranger. Dare rose
+instinctively.
+
+"This is Mr. Dare, Ruth," said Mr. Alwynn. "He has just arrived at
+Vandon."
+
+Ruth bowed. Dare surpassed himself, and was silent. All his smiles and
+flow of small-talk had suddenly deserted him. He began patting his dog,
+which had followed Ruth in-doors, and a moment of constraint fell upon
+the little party.
+
+"She is shy," said Dare to himself. "She is adorably shy."
+
+Ruth's quiet, self-possessed voice dispelled that pleasing illusion.
+
+"I have had a very exhausting afternoon with Mrs. Eccles, Aunt Fanny,
+and I have come to you for a cup of tea before I go back to Atherstone."
+
+"Why did you walk so far this hot afternoon, my dear? and how are Mrs.
+Danvers and Lady Mary? and is any one else staying there? and, my dear,
+_are_ the dolls finished?"
+
+"They are," said Ruth. "They are all outrageously fashionable. Even
+Molly is satisfied. There is to be a school-feast here to-morrow," she
+added, turning to Dare, who appeared bewildered at the turn the
+conversation was taking. "All our energies for the last fortnight have
+been brought to bear on dolls. We have been dressing dolls morning,
+noon, and night."
+
+"When is it to be, this school-feast?" said Dare, eagerly. "I will buy
+one--three dolls!"
+
+After a lengthy explanation from Mrs. Alwynn as to the nature of a
+school-feast as distinct from a bazaar, Ruth rose to go, and Mr. Alwynn
+offered to accompany her part of the way.
+
+"And so that is the new Mr. Dare about whom we have all been
+speculating," she said, as they strolled across the fields together. "He
+is not like his half-brother."
+
+"No; he seems to be entirely a Frenchman. You see, he was educated
+abroad, and that makes a great difference. He was a very nice little boy
+twenty years ago. I hope he will turn out well, and do his duty by the
+place."
+
+The neighboring property of Vandon, with its tumble-down cottages, its
+neglected people, and hard agent, were often in Mr. Alwynn's thoughts.
+
+"Oh, Uncle John, he will, he must! You must help him and advise," said
+Ruth, eagerly. "He ought to stay and live on the place, and look into
+things for himself."
+
+"I am afraid he will be poor," said Mr. Alwynn, meditatively.
+
+"Anyhow, he will be richer than he was before," urged Ruth, "and it is
+his duty to do something for his own people."
+
+When Ruth had said it was a duty, she imagined, like many another young
+soul before her, that nothing remained to be said, having yet to learn
+how much beside often remained to be done.
+
+"We shall see," said Mr. Alwynn, who had seen something of his
+fellow-creatures; and they walked on together in silence.
+
+The person whose duty Ruth had been discussing so freely looked after
+the two retreating figures till they disappeared, and then turned to
+Mrs. Alwynn.
+
+"You and Mr. Alwynn also go to the school-feast to-morrow?"
+
+Mrs. Alwynn, a little nettled, explained that of course she went, that
+it was her _own_ school-feast, that Mrs. Thursby, at the Hall, had
+nothing to do with it. (Dare did not know who Mrs. Thursby was, but he
+listened with great attention.) She, Mrs. Alwynn, gave it herself. Her
+own cook, who had been with her five years, made the cakes, and her own
+donkey-cart conveyed the same to the field where the repast was held.
+
+"Miss Deyncourt, will she be there?" asked Dare.
+
+Mrs. Alwynn explained that all the neighborhood, including the Thursbys,
+would be there; that she made a point of asking the Thursbys.
+
+"I also will come," said Dare, gravely.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+Atherstone was a rambling, old-fashioned, black-and-white house, half
+covered with ivy, standing in a rambling, old-fashioned garden--a
+charming garden, with clipped yews, and grass paths, and straggling
+flowers and herbs growing up in unexpected places. In front of the
+house, facing the drawing-room windows, was a bowling-green, across
+which, at this time of the afternoon, the house had laid a cool green
+shadow.
+
+Two ladies were sitting under its shelter, each with her work.
+
+It was hot still, but the shadows were deepening and lengthening. Away
+in the sun hay was being made and carried, with crackings of whips and
+distant voices. Beyond the hay-fields lay the silver band of the river,
+and beyond again the spire of Slumberleigh Church, and a glimpse among
+the trees of Slumberleigh Hall.
+
+"Ralph has started in the dog-cart to meet Charles. They ought to be
+here in half an hour, if the train is punctual," said Mrs. Ralph.
+
+She was a graceful woman, with a placid, gentle face. She might be
+thirty, but she looked younger. With her pleasant home and her pleasant
+husband, and her child to be mildly anxious about, she might well look
+young. She looked particularly so now as she sat in her fresh cotton
+draperies, winding wool with cool, white hands.
+
+The handiwork of some women has a hard, masculine look. If they sew, it
+is with thick cotton in some coarse material; if they knit, it is with
+cricket-balls of wool, which they manipulate into wiry stockings and
+comforters. Evelyn's wools, on the contrary, were always soft, fleecy,
+liable to weak-minded tangles, and so turning, after long periods of
+time, into little feminine futilities for which it was difficult to
+divine any possible use.
+
+Lady Mary Cunningham, her husband's aunt, made no immediate reply to her
+small remark. Evelyn Danvers was not a little afraid of that lady, and,
+in truth, Lady Mary, with her thin face and commanding manner, was a
+very imposing person. Though past seventy, she sat erect in her chair,
+her stick by her side, some elaborate embroidery in her delicate old
+ringed hands. Her pale, colorless eyes were as keen as ever. Her white
+hair was covered by a wonderful lace cap, which no one had ever
+succeeded in imitating, that fell in soft lappets and graceful folds
+round the severe, dignified face. Molly, Evelyn's little daughter, stood
+in great awe of Lady Mary, who had such a splendid stick with a silver
+crook of her very own, and who made remarks in French in Molly's
+presence which that young lady could not understand, and felt that it
+was not intended she should. She even regarded with a certain veneration
+the cap itself, which she had once met in equivocal circumstances,
+journeying with a plait of white hair towards Lady Mary's rooms.
+
+It was the first time since their marriage, of which she had not
+approved, that Lady Mary had paid a visit to Ralph and Evelyn at
+Atherstone. Lady Mary had tried to marry Ralph, in days gone by, to a
+woman who--but it was an old story and better forgotten. Ralph had
+married his first cousin when he had married Evelyn, and Lady Mary had
+strenuously objected to the match, and had even gone so far as to
+threaten to alter certain clauses in her will, which she had made in
+favor of Ralph, her younger nephew, at a time when she was at daggers
+drawn with her eldest nephew, Charles, now Sir Charles Danvers. But that
+was an old story, too, and better forgotten.
+
+When Charles succeeded his father some three years ago, and when, after
+eight years, Molly had still remained an only child, and one of the
+wrong kind, of no intrinsic value to the family, Lady Mary decided that
+by-gones should be by-gones, and became formally reconciled to Charles,
+with whom she had already found it exceedingly inconvenient, and
+consequently unchristian, not to be on speaking terms. As long as he was
+the scapegrace son of Sir George Danvers her Christian principles
+remained in abeyance; but when he suddenly succeeded to the baronetcy
+and Stoke Moreton, the air of which suited her so well, and, moreover,
+to that convenient _pied à terre_, the house in Belgrave Square, she
+allowed feelings, which she said she had hitherto repressed with
+difficulty, their full scope, expressed a Christian hope that, now that
+he had come to this estate, Charles would put away Bohemian things, and
+instantly set to work to find a suitable wife for him.
+
+At first Lady Mary felt that the task which she had imposed upon herself
+would (D.V.) be light indeed. Charles received her overtures with the
+same courteous demeanor which had been the chief sting of their former
+warfare. He paid his creditors, no one knew how, for his father had left
+nothing to him unentailed; and once out of money difficulties, he seemed
+in no hurry to plunge into them again. If he had not as yet thoroughly
+taken up the life of an English country gentleman, for want of that
+necessary adjunct which Lady Mary was so anxious to supply, at least he
+lived in England and in good society. In short, Lady Mary was fond of
+telling her friends Charles had entirely reformed, hinting, at the same
+time, that she had been the humble instrument, in the hands of an
+all-wise Providence, which had turned him back into the way in which the
+English aristocracy should walk, and from which he had deviated so long.
+But one thing remained--to marry him. Every one said Charles _must_
+marry. Lady Mary did not say it, but with her whole soul she meant it.
+What she intended to do, she, as a rule, performed--occasionally at the
+expense of those who were little able to afford it, but still the thing
+was (always, of course, by the co-operation of Providence) done. Ralph
+certainly had proved an exception to the rule. He had married Evelyn
+against Lady Mary's will, and consequently without the blessing of
+Providence. After that, of course, she had never expected there would be
+a son, and with each year her anxiety to see Charles safely married had
+increased. He had seemed so amenable that at first she could hardly
+believe that the steed which she had led to waters of such divers merit
+would refuse to drink from any of them. If rank had no charm for him,
+which apparently it had not, she would try beauty. When beauty failed,
+even beauty with money in its hand, Lady Mary hesitated, and then fell
+back on goodness. But either the goodness was not good enough, or, as
+Lady Mary feared, it was not sufficiently High Church to be really
+genuine: even goodness failed. For three years she had strained every
+nerve, and at the end of them she was no nearer the object in view than
+when she began.
+
+An inconvenient death of a sister, with whom she had long since
+quarrelled about church matters (and who had now gone where her folly in
+differing from Lady Mary would be fully, if painfully, brought home to
+her), had prevented Lady Mary continuing her designs this year in
+London. But if thwarted in one direction, she knew how to throw her
+energies into another. The first words she uttered indicated what that
+direction was.
+
+Evelyn's little remark about the dog-cart, which had gone to meet
+Charles, had so long remained without any response that she was about to
+coin another of the same stamp, when Lady Mary suddenly said, with a
+decision that was intended to carry conviction to the heart of her
+companion:
+
+"It is an exceedingly suitable thing."
+
+Evelyn evidently understood what it was that was so suitable, but she
+made no reply.
+
+"A few years ago," continued Lady Mary, "I should have looked higher. I
+should have thought Charles might have done better, but--"
+
+"He never could do better than--than--" said Evelyn, with a little mild
+flutter. "There is no one in the world more--"
+
+"Yes, yes, my dear--of course we all know that," returned the elder
+lady. "She is much too good for him, and all the rest of it. A few years
+ago, I was saying, I might not have regarded it quite in the light I do
+now. Charles, with his distinguished appearance and his position, might
+have married anybody. But time passes, and I am becoming seriously
+anxious about him; I am, indeed. He is eight-and-thirty. In two years he
+will be forty; and at forty you never know what a man may not do. It is
+a critical age, even when they are married. Until he is forty, a man may
+be led under Providence into forming a connection with a woman of
+suitable age and family. After that age he will never look at any girl
+out of her teens, and either perpetrates a folly or does not marry at
+all. If the Danvers family is not to become extinct, or to be dragged
+down by a _mésalliance_, measures must be taken at once."
+
+Evelyn winced at the allusion to the extinction of the Danvers family,
+of which Charles and Ralph were the only representatives. She felt
+keenly having failed to give Ralph a son, and the sudden smart of the
+old hurt added a touch of sharpness to her usually gentle voice as she
+said, "I cannot see what _has_ been left undone."
+
+"No, my dear," said Lady Mary, more suavely, "you have fallen in with my
+views most sensibly. I only hope Ralph--"
+
+"Ralph knows nothing about it."
+
+"Quite right. It is very much better he should not. Men never can be
+made to look at things in their proper light. They have no power of
+seeing an inch in front of them. Even Charles, who is less dense than
+most men, has never been allowed to form an idea of the plans which from
+time to time I have made for him. Nothing sets a man more against a
+marriage than the idea that it has been put in his way. They like to
+think it is all their own doing, and that the whole universe will be
+taken by surprise when the engagement is given out. Charles is no
+exception to the rule. Our duty is to provide a wife for him, and then
+allow him to think his own extraordinary cleverness found her for
+himself. How old is this cousin of yours, Miss Deyncourt?"
+
+"About three-and-twenty."
+
+"Exceedingly suitable. Young, and yet not too young. She is not
+beautiful, but she is decidedly handsome, and very high-bred-looking,
+which is better than beauty. I know all about her family; good blood on
+both sides; no worsted thread. I forget if there is any money."
+
+This was a pious fraud on Lady Mary's part, as she was, of course, aware
+of the exact sum.
+
+"Lady Deyncourt left her thirty thousand pounds," said Evelyn,
+unwillingly. She hated herself for the part she was taking in her aunt's
+plans, although she had been so unable to support her feeble opposition
+by any show of reason that it had long since melted away before the
+consuming fire of Lady Mary's determined authority.
+
+"Twelve hundred a year," said that lady. "I fear Lady Deyncourt was far,
+very far, from the truth, but she seems to have made an equitable will.
+I am glad Miss Deyncourt is not entirely without means; and she has
+probably something of her own as well. The more I see of that girl the
+more convinced I am that she is the very wife for Charles. There is no
+objection to the match in any way, unless it lies in that disreputable
+brother, who seems to have entirely disappeared. Now, Evelyn, mark my
+words. You invited her here at my wish, after I saw her with that
+dreadful Alwynn woman at the flower-show. You will never regret it. I am
+seventy-five years of age, and I have seen something of men and women.
+Those two will suit."
+
+"Here comes the dog-cart," said Evelyn, with evident relief.
+
+"Where is Miss Deyncourt?"
+
+"She went off to Slumberleigh some time ago. She said she was going to
+the rectory, I believe."
+
+"It is just as well. Ah! here is Charles."
+
+A tall, distinguished-looking man in a light overcoat came slowly round
+the corner of the house as she spoke, and joined them on the lawn.
+Evelyn went to meet him with, evident affection, which met with as
+evident a return, and he then exchanged a more formal greeting with his
+aunt.
+
+"Come and sit down here," said Evelyn, pulling forward a garden-chair.
+"How hot and tired you look!"
+
+"I am tired to death, Evelyn. I went to London in May a comparatively
+young man. Aunt Mary said I ought to go, and so, of course, I went. I
+have come back not only sadder and wiser--that I would try to bear--but
+visibly aged."
+
+He took off his hat as he spoke, and wearily pushed back the hair from
+his forehead. Lady Mary looked at him over her spectacles with grave
+scrutiny. She had not seen her nephew for many months, and she was not
+pleased with what she saw. His face looked thin and worn, and she even
+feared she could detect a gray hair or two in the light hair and
+mustache. His tired, sarcastic eyes met hers.
+
+"I was afraid you would think I had _gone off_," he said, half shutting
+his eyes in the manner habitual to him. "I fear I took your exhortations
+too much to heart, and overworked myself in the good cause."
+
+"A season is always an exhausting thing," said Lady Mary; "and I dare
+say London is very hot now."
+
+"Hot! It's more than hot. It is a solemn warning to evil-doers; a
+foretaste of a future state."
+
+"I suppose everybody has left town by this time?" continued Lady Mary,
+who often found it necessary even now to ignore parts of her nephew's
+conversation.
+
+"By everybody I know you mean _one_ family. Yes, they are gone. Left
+London to-day. Consequently, I also conveyed my remains out of town,
+feeling that I had done my duty."
+
+"Where is Ralph?" asked Evelyn, rising, dimly conscious that Charles and
+his aunt were conversing in an unknown tongue, and feeling herself _de
+trop_.
+
+"I left him in the shrubbery. A stoat crossed the road before the
+horse's nose as we drove up, and Ralph, who seems to have been specially
+invented by Providence for the destruction of small vermin, was in
+attendance on it in a moment. I had seen something of the kind before,
+so I came on."
+
+Evelyn laid down her work, and went across the lawn, and round the
+corner of the house, in the direction of the shrubbery, from which the
+voice of her lord and master "rose in snatches," as he plunged in and
+out among the laurels.
+
+"And how is Lord Hope-Acton?" continued Lady Mary, with an air of
+elaborate unconcern. "I used to know him in old days as one of the best
+waltzers in London. I remember him very slim and elegant-looking; but I
+suppose he is quite elderly now, and has lost his figure? or so some one
+was saying."
+
+"Not lost, but gone before, I should say, to judge by appearances," said
+Charles, meditatively, gazing up into the blue of the summer sky.
+
+The mixed impiety and indelicacy of her nephew's remark caused a sudden
+twitch to the High Church embroidery in Lady Mary's hand; but she went
+on a moment later in her usual tone:
+
+"And Lady Hope-Acton. Is she in stronger health?"
+
+"I believe she was fairly well; not robust, you know, but, like other
+fond mothers with daughters out, 'faint yet pursuing.'"
+
+Lady Mary bit her lip; but long experience had taught her that it was
+wiser to refrain from reproof, even when it was so urgently needed.
+
+"And their daughter, Lady Grace. How beautiful she is! Was she looking
+as lovely as usual?"
+
+"More so," replied Charles, with conviction. "Her nose is even
+straighter, her eyelashes even longer than they were last summer. I do
+not hesitate to say that her complexion is--all that her fancy paints
+it."
+
+"You are so fond of joking, Charles, that I don't know when you are
+serious. And you saw a good deal of her?"
+
+"Of course I did. I leaned on the railings in the Row, and watched her
+riding with Lord Hope-Acton, whose personal appearance you feel such an
+interest in. At the meeting of the four-in-hands, was not she on the
+box-seat beside me? At Henley, were we not in the same boat? At
+Hurlingham, did we not watch polo together, and together drink our tea?
+At Lord's, did not I tear her new muslin garment in helping her up one
+of those poultry-ladders on the Torringtons' drag? Have I not taken her
+in to dinner five several times? Have I not danced with her at balls
+innumerable? Have I not, in fact, seen as much of her as--of several
+others?"
+
+"Oh, Charles!" said Lady Mary, "I wish you would talk seriously for one
+moment, and not in that light way. Have you spoken?"
+
+"In a light way, I should say I had spoken a good deal; but _seriously_,
+no. I have never ventured to be serious."
+
+"But you will be. After all this, you _will_ ask her?"
+
+"Aunt Mary," replied Charles, with gentle reproach, "a certain delicacy
+should be observed in probing the exact state of a man's young
+affections. At five-and-thirty (I know I am five-and-thirty, because you
+have told people so for the last three years) there exists a certain
+reticence in the youthful heart which declines to lay bare its inmost
+feelings even for an aunt to--we won't say peck at, but speculate upon.
+I have told you all I know. I have done what I was bidden to do, up to a
+certain point. I am now here to recruit, and restore my wasted energies,
+and possibly to heal (observe, I say possibly) my wounded affections in
+the intimacy of my family circle. That reminds me that that little
+ungrateful imp Molly has not yet made the slightest demonstration of joy
+at my arrival. Where is she?" and without waiting for an answer, which
+he was well aware would not be forthcoming, Charles rose and strolled
+towards the house with his hands behind his back.
+
+"Molly!" he called, "Molly!" standing bareheaded in the sunshine, under
+a certain latticed window, the iron bars of which suggested a nursery
+within.
+
+There was a sudden answering cackle of delight, and a little brown head
+was thrust out amid the ivy.
+
+"Come down this very moment, you little hard-hearted person, and embrace
+your old uncle."
+
+"I'm comin', Uncle Charles, I'm comin';" and the brown head disappeared,
+and a few seconds later a white frock and two slim black legs rushed
+round the corner, and Molly precipitated herself against the waistcoat
+of "Uncle Charles."
+
+"What do you mean by not coming down and paying your respects sooner?"
+he said, when the first enthusiasm of his reception was over, looking
+down at Molly with a great kindness in the keen light eyes which had
+looked so apathetic and sarcastic a moment before.
+
+As he spoke, Ralph Danvers, a square, ruddy man in gray knickerbockers,
+came triumphantly round from the shrubbery, holding by its tail a minute
+corpse with out-stretched arms and legs.
+
+"Got him!" he said, smiling, and wiping his brow with honest pride.
+"See, Charles? See, Molly? Got him!"
+
+"Don't bring it here, Ralph, please. We are going to have tea," came
+Evelyn's gentle voice from the lawn; and Ralph and the terrier Vic
+retired to hang the body of the slain upon a fir-tree on the back
+premises, the recognized long home of stoats and weasels at Atherstone.
+
+Molly, in the presence of Lady Mary and the stick with the silver crook,
+was always more or less depressed and shy. She felt the pale cold eye of
+that lady was upon her, as indeed it generally was, if she moved or
+spoke. She did not therefore join in the conversation as freely as was
+her wont in the family circle, but sat on the grass by her uncle,
+watching him with adoring eyes, trying to work the signet ring off his
+big little finger, which in the memory of man--of Molly, I mean--had
+never been known to work off, while she gave him the benefit of small
+pieces of local and personal news in a half whisper from time to time as
+they occurred to her.
+
+"Cousin Ruth is staying here, Uncle Charles."
+
+"Indeed," said Charles, absently.
+
+His eyes had wandered to Evelyn taking Ralph his cup of tea, and giving
+him a look with it which he returned--the quiet, grave look of mutual
+confidence which sometimes passes between married people, and which for
+the moment makes the single state seem very single indeed.
+
+Molly saw that he had not heard, and that she must try some more
+exciting topic in order to rivet his attention.
+
+"There was a mouse at prayers yesterday, Uncle Charles."
+
+"There _wasn't_?"
+
+Uncle Charles was attending again now.
+
+Molly gave an exact account of the great event, and of how "Nanny" had
+gathered her skirts round her, and how James had laughed, only father
+did not see him, and how--There was a great deal more, and the story
+ended tragically for the mouse, whose final demise under a shovel, when
+prayers were over, Molly described in graphic detail.
+
+"And how are the guinea-pigs?" asked Charles, putting down his cup.
+
+"Come and see them," whispered Molly, insinuating her small hand
+delightedly into his big one; and they went off together, each happy in
+the society of the other. Charles was introduced to the guinea-pigs,
+which had multiplied exceedingly since he had presented them, the one
+named after him being even then engaged in rearing a large family.
+
+Then, after Molly had copiously watered her garden, and Charles's
+unsuspecting boots at the same time, objects of interest still remained
+to be seen and admired; confidences had to be exchanged; inner pockets
+in Charles's waistcoat to be explored; and it was not till the
+dressing-bell and the shrill voice of "Nanny" from an upper window
+recalled them, that the friends returned towards the house.
+
+As they turned to go in-doors Charles saw a tall white figure skimming
+across the stretches of low sunshine and long shadow in the field beyond
+the garden, and making swiftly for the garden gate.
+
+"Oh, Molly! Molly!" he said, in a tone of sudden consternation,
+squeezing the little brown hand in his. "_Who_ is that?"
+
+Molly looked at him astonished. A moment ago Uncle Charles had been
+talking merrily, and now he looked quite sad.
+
+"It's only Ruth," she said, reassuringly.
+
+"Who is Ruth?"
+
+"Cousin Ruth," replied Molly. "I told you she was here."
+
+"She's not _staying_ here?"
+
+"Yes, she is. She is rather nice, only she says the guinea-pigs smell
+nasty, which isn't true. She _will_ be late,"--with evident concern--"if
+she is going to be laced up; and I know she is, because I saw it on her
+bed. She doesn't see us yet. Let us go and meet her."
+
+"Run along, then," said Charles, in a lone of deep dejection, loosing
+Molly's hand. "I think I'll go in-doors."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+"I've done Uncle Charles a button-hole, and put it in his water-bottle,"
+said Molly, in an important _affairé_ whisper, as she came into Ruth's
+room a few minutes before dinner, where Ruth and her maid were
+struggling with a black-lace dress. "Mrs. Jones, you must be very quick.
+Why do you have pins in your mouth, Mrs. Jones? James has got his coat
+on, and he is going to ring the bell in one minute. I told him you had
+only just got your hair done; but he said he could not help that. Uncle
+Charles,"--peeping through the door--"is going down now, and he's got on
+a beautiful white waistcoat. He's brought that nice Mr. Brown with him
+that unpacks his things and plays on the concertina. Ah! there's the
+bell;" and Molly hurried down to give a description of the exact stage
+at which Ruth's toilet had arrived, which Ruth cut short by appearing
+hard upon her heels.
+
+"It is a shame to come in-doors now, isn't it?" said Charles, as he was
+introduced and took her in to dinner in the wake of Lady Mary and Ralph.
+"Just the first cool time of the day."
+
+"Is it?" said Ruth, still rather pink with her late exertions. "When I
+heard the dressing-bell ring across the fields, and the last gate would
+not open, and I found the railings through which I precipitated myself
+had been newly painted, I own I thought it had never been so hot all
+day."
+
+"How trying it is to be forgotten!" said Charles, after a pause. "We
+have met before, Miss Deyncourt; but I see you don't remember me. I gave
+you time to recollect me by throwing out that little remark about the
+weather, but it was no good."
+
+Ruth glanced at him and looked puzzled.
+
+"I am afraid I don't," she said at last. "I have seen you playing polo
+once or twice, and driving your four-in-hand; but I thought I only knew
+you by sight. When did we meet before?"
+
+"You have no recollection of a certain ball after some theatricals at
+Stoke Moreton, which you and your sister came to as little girls in
+pigtails?"
+
+"Of course I remember that. And were you there?"
+
+"Was I there? Oh, the ingratitude of woman! Did not I dance three times
+with each of you, and suggest chicken at supper instead of lobster
+salad? Does not the lobster salad awaken memories? Surely you have not
+forgotten that?"
+
+Ruth began to smile.
+
+"I remember now. So you were the kind man, name unknown, who took such
+care of Anna and me? How good-natured you were!"
+
+"Thanks! You evidently do remember now, if you say that. I recognized
+you at once, when I saw you again, by your likeness to your brother
+Raymond. You were very like him then, but much more so now. How is he?"
+
+Ruth's dark gray eyes shot a sudden surprised glance at him. People had
+seldom of late inquired after Raymond.
+
+"I believe he is quite well," she replied, in a constrained tone. "I
+have not heard from him for some time."
+
+"It is some years since I met him," said Charles, noting but ignoring
+her change of tone. "I used to see a good deal of him before he went
+to--was it America? I heard from him about three years ago. He was
+prospecting, I think, at that time."
+
+Ruth remembered that Charles had succeeded his father about three years
+ago. She remembered also Raymond's capacities for borrowing. A sudden
+instinct told her what the drift of that letter had been. The blood
+rushed into her face.
+
+"Oh, he didn't--did he?"
+
+The other three people were talking together; Lady Mary, opposite, was
+joining with a bland smile of inward satisfaction in the discussion
+between Ralph and Evelyn as to the rival merits of "Cochin Chinas" and
+"Plymouth Rocks."
+
+"If he did," said Charles, quietly, "it was only what we had often done
+for each other before. There was a time, Miss Deyncourt, when your
+brother and I both rowed in the same boat; and both, I fancy, split on
+the same rock. It was not so long since--"
+
+There was a sudden silence. The chicken question was exhausted. It
+dropped dead. Charles left his sentence unfinished, and, turning to his
+brother, the conversation became general.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the evening, when the others had said good-night, Charles and Ralph
+went out into the cool half-darkness to smoke, and paced up and down on
+the lawn in the soft summer night. The two brothers had not met for some
+time, and in an undemonstrative way they had a genuine affection for
+each other, which showed itself on this occasion in walking about
+together without exchanging a word.
+
+At last Charles broke the silence. "I thought, when I settled to come
+down here, you said you would be alone!" There was a shade of annoyance
+in his tone.
+
+"Well, now, that is just what I said at the time," said Ralph, sleepily,
+with a yawn that would have accommodated a Jonah, "only I was told I did
+not understand. They always say I don't understand if they're set on
+anything. I thought you wanted a little peace and quietness. I said so;
+but Aunt Mary settled we must have some one. I say, Charles," with a
+chuckle of deep masculine cunning, "you just look out. There's some
+mystery up about Ruth. I believe Aunt Mary got Evelyn to ask her here
+with an eye to business."
+
+"I would not do Aunt Mary the injustice to doubt _that_ for a moment,"
+replied Charles, rather bitterly; and they relapsed into silence and
+smoke.
+
+Presently Ralph, who had been out all day, yawned himself into the
+house, and left Charles to pace up and down by himself.
+
+If Lady Mary, who was at that moment composing herself to slumber in the
+best spare bedroom, had heard the gist of Ralph's remarks to his
+brother, I think she would have risen up and confronted him then and
+there on the stairs. As it was, she meditated on her couch with much
+satisfaction, until the sleep of the just came upon her, little recking
+that the clumsy hand of brutal man had even then torn the veil from her
+carefully concealed and deeply laid feminine plans.
+
+Charles, meanwhile, remained on the lawn till late into the night. After
+two months of London smuts and London smoke and London nights, the calm
+scented darkness had a peculiar charm for him. The few lights in the
+windows were going out one by one, and thousands and thousands were
+coming out in the quiet sky. Through the still air came the sound of a
+corn-crake perpetually winding up its watch at regular intervals in a
+field hard by. A little desultory breeze hovered near, and just roused
+the sleepy trees to whisper a good-night. And Charles paced and paced,
+and thought of many things.
+
+Only last night! His mind went back to the picture-gallery where he and
+Lady Grace had sat, amid a grove of palms and flowers. Through the open
+archway at a little distance came a flood of light, and a surging echo
+of plaintive, appealing music. It was late, or rather early, for morning
+was looking in with cold, dispassionate eyes through the long windows.
+The gallery was comparatively empty for a London gathering, for the
+balconies and hall were crowded, and the rooms were thinning. To all
+intents and purposes they were alone. How nearly--how nearly he had
+asked for what he knew would not have been refused! How nearly he had
+decided to do at once what might still be put off till to-morrow! And he
+_must_ marry; he often told himself so. She was there beside him on the
+yellow brocade ottoman. She was much too good for him; but she liked
+him. Should he do it--now? he asked himself, as he watched the slender
+gloved hand swaying the feather fan with monotonous languor.
+
+But when he took her back to the ball-room, back to an expectant, tired
+mother, he had not done it. He should be at their house in Scotland
+later. He thought he would wait till then. He breathed a long sigh of
+relief, in the quiet darkness now, at the thought that he had not done
+it. He had a haunting presentiment that neither in the purple heather,
+any more than in a London ball-room, would he be able to pass beyond
+that "certain point" to which, in divers companionship, with or without
+assistance, he had so often attained.
+
+For Charles was genuinely anxious to marry. He regarded with the
+greatest interest every eligible and ineligible young woman whom he came
+across. If Lady Mary had been aware of the very serious light in which
+he had considered Miss Louisa Smith, youngest daughter of a certain
+curate Smith, who in his youth had been originally extracted from a
+refreshment-room at Liverpool to become an ornament of the Church, that
+lady would have swooned with horror. But neither Miss Louisa Smith, with
+her bun and sandwich ancestry, nor the eighth Lord Breakwater's young
+and lovely sister, though both willing to undertake the situation, were
+either of them finally offered it. Charles remained free as air, and a
+dreadful stigma gradually attached to him as a heartless flirt and a
+perverter of young girls' minds from men of more solid worth. A man who
+pleases easily and is hard to please soon gets a bad name
+among--mothers. I don't think Lady Hope-Acton thought very kindly of
+him, as she sped up to Scotland in the night mail.
+
+Perhaps he was not so much to blame as she thought. Long ago, ten long
+years ago, in the reckless days of which Lady Mary had then made so
+much, and now made so little, poor Charles had been deeply in love with
+a good woman, a gentle, quiet girl, who after a time had married his
+brother Ralph. No one had suspected his attachment--Ralph and Evelyn
+least of all--but several years elapsed before he found time to visit
+them at Atherstone; and I think his fondness for Molly had its origin in
+his feeling for her mother. Even now it sometimes gave him a momentary
+pang to meet the adoration in Molly's eyes which, with their dark
+lashes, she had copied so exactly from Evelyn's.
+
+And now that he could come with ease on what had been forbidden ground,
+he had seen of late clearly, with the insight that comes of
+dispassionate consideration, that Evelyn, the only woman whom he had
+ever earnestly loved, whom he would have turned heaven and earth to have
+been able to marry, had not been in the least suited to him, and that to
+have married her would have entailed a far more bitter disappointment
+than the loss of her had been.
+
+Evelyn made Ralph an admirable wife. She was so placid, so gentle,
+and--with the exception of muddy boots in the drawing-room--so
+unexacting. It was sweet to see her read to Molly; but did she never
+take up a book or a paper? What she said was always gracefully put
+forth; but oh! in old days, used she in that same gentle voice to utter
+such platitudes, such little stereotyped remarks? Used she, in the palmy
+days that were no more (when she was not Ralph's wife), so mildly but so
+firmly to adhere to a pre-conceived opinion? Had she formerly such fixed
+opinions on every subject in general, and on new-laid eggs and the
+propriety of chicken-hutches on the lawn in particular? Disillusion may
+be for our good, like other disagreeable things, but it is seldom
+pleasant at the time, and is apt to leave in all except the most
+conceited natures (whose life-long mistakes are committed for our
+learning) a strange self-distrustful caution behind, which is mortally
+afraid of making a second mistake of the same kind.
+
+Charles suddenly checked his pacing.
+
+And yet surely, surely, he said to himself, there were in the world
+somewhere good women of another stamp, who might be found for diligent
+seeking.
+
+He turned impatiently to go in-doors.
+
+"Oh, Molly! Molly!" he said, half aloud, gazing at the darkened windows
+behind which the body of Molly was sleeping, while her little soul was
+frisking away in fairy-land, "why did you complicate matters by being a
+little girl?" With which reflection he brought his meditations to a
+close for the night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+Molly awoke early on the following morning, and early informed the rest
+of the household that the weather was satisfactory. She flew into Ruth's
+room with the hot water, to wake her and set her mind at rest on a
+subject of such engrossing interest; she imparted it repeatedly to
+Charles through his key-hole, until a low incoherent muttering convinced
+her that he also was rejoicing in the good news. She took all the dolls
+out of the baskets in which Ruth's careful hands had packed them the
+evening before, in the recognized manner in which dolls travel without
+detriment to their toilets, namely, head downward, with their
+orange-top-boots turned upward to the sky. In short, Molly busied
+herself in the usual ways in which an only child finds employment.
+
+It really was a glorious day. Except in Molly's eyes it was almost too
+good a day for a school-feast; too good a day, Ruth thought, as she
+looked out, to be spent entirely in playing at endless games of "Sally
+Water" and "Oranges and Lemons," and in pouring out sweet tea in a tent.
+She remembered a certain sketch at Arleigh, an old deserted house in the
+neighborhood, which she had long wished to make. What a day for a
+sketch! But she shut her eyes to the temptation of the evil one, and
+went out into the garden, where Molly's little brown hands were
+devastating the beds for the approaching festival, and Molly's shrill
+voice was piping through the fresh morning air.
+
+There had been rain in the night, and to-day the earth had all her
+diamonds on, just sent down reset from heaven. The trees came out
+resplendent, unable to keep their leaves still for very vanity, and
+dropping gems out of their settings at every rustle. No one had been
+forgotten. Every tiniest shrub and plant had its little tiara to show;
+rare jewels, cut by a Master Hand, which at man's rude touch, or, for
+that matter, Molly's either, slid away to tears.
+
+"You don't mean to say, Molly," said Charles, later in the day, when all
+the dolls had been passed in review before him, and he had criticised
+each, "that you are going to leave me all day by myself? What shall I do
+between luncheon and tea-time, when I have fed the guinea-pigs and
+watered the 'blue-belia,' as you call it--Where has that imp disappeared
+to now? I think," with a glance at Ruth, who was replacing the cotton
+wool on the doll's faces, "I really think, though I own I fancied I had
+a previous engagement, that I shall be obliged to come to the
+school-feast too."
+
+"Don't," said Ruth, looking up suddenly from her work with gray serious
+eyes. "Be advised. No man who respects himself makes himself common by
+attending village school-feasts and attempting to pour out tea, which he
+is never allowed to do in private life."
+
+"I could hand buns," suggested Charles. "You take a gloomy view of your
+fellow-creatures, Miss Deyncourt. I see you underrate my powers with
+plates of buns."
+
+"Far from it. I only wished to keep you from quitting your proper
+sphere."
+
+"What, may I ask, is my proper sphere?"
+
+"Not to come to school-feasts at all; or, if you feel that is beyond
+you, only to arrive when you are too late to be of any use; to stand
+about with a hunting-crop in your hand--for, of course, you will come on
+horseback--and then, after refreshing all of us workers by a few
+well-chosen remarks, to go away again at an easy canter."
+
+"I think I could do that, if it would give pleasure; and I am most
+grateful to you for pointing out my proper course to me. I have observed
+it is the prerogative of woman in general not only to be absolutely
+convinced as to her own line of action, but also to be able to point out
+that of man to his obtuser perceptions."
+
+"I believe you are perfectly right," said Ruth, becoming serious. "If
+men, especially prime-ministers, were to apply to almost any woman I
+know (except, of course, myself) for advice as to the administration of
+the realm or their own family affairs, I have not the slightest doubt
+that not one of them would be sent empty away, but would be furnished
+instantly with a complete guide-book as to his future movements on this
+side the grave."
+
+"Oh, some people don't stop there," said Charles. "Aunt Mary, in my
+young days, used to think nothing of the grave if I had displeased her.
+She still revels in a future court of justice, and an eternal
+cat-o'-nine tails beyond the tomb. Well, Molly, so here you are, back
+again! What's the last news?"
+
+The news was the extraordinary arrival of five new kittens, which,
+according to Molly, the old stable cat had just discovered in a loft,
+and took the keenest personal interest in. Charles was dragged away,
+only half acquiescent, to help in a decision that must instantly be come
+to, as to which of the two spotted or the three plain ones should be
+kept.
+
+It was a day of delight to Molly. She had the responsibility and honor
+of driving Ruth and the dolls in her own donkey-cart to the scene of
+action, where the school children, and some of the idlest or most
+good-natured of Mrs. Alwynn's friends, were even then assembling, and
+where Mrs. Alwynn herself was already dashing from point to point,
+buzzing like a large "bumble" bee.
+
+As the donkey-cart crawled up a gray figure darted out of the tent, and
+flew to meet them from afar. Dare, who had been on the lookout for them
+for some time, offered to lift out Molly, helped out Ruth, held the
+baskets, wished to unharness the donkey, let the wheel go over his
+patent leather shoe, and in short made himself excessively agreeable, if
+not in Ruth's, at least in Molly's eyes, who straightway entered into
+conversation with him, and invited him to call upon herself and the
+guinea-pigs at Atherstone at an early date.
+
+Then ensued the usual scene at festivities of this description. Tea was
+poured out like water (very like warm water), buns, cakes, and bread and
+butter were eaten, were crumbled, were put in pockets, were stamped
+underfoot. Large open tarts, covered with thin sticks of pastry, called
+by the boys "the tarts with the grubs on 'em," disappeared apace, being
+constantly replaced by others made in the same image, from which the
+protecting but adhesive newspaper had to be judiciously peeled. When the
+last limit of the last child had been reached, the real work of the day
+began--the games. Under a blazing sun, for the space of two hours,
+"Sally Water" or "Nuts in May" must be played, with an occasional change
+to "Oranges and Lemons."
+
+Ruth, who had before been staying with the Alwynns at the time of their
+school-feast, hardened her heart, and began that immoral but popular
+game of "Sally Water."
+
+    "Sally, Sally Water, come sprinkle your pan;
+    Rise up a husband, a handsome young man.
+    Rise, Sally, rise, and don't look sad,
+    You shall have a husband, good or bad."
+
+The last line showing how closely the state of feeling of village
+society, as regards the wedded state, resembles the view taken of it in
+the highest circles.
+
+Other games were already in full swing. Mrs. Alwynn, flushed and shrill,
+was organizing an infant troop. A good-natured curate was laying up for
+himself treasure elsewhere, by a present expenditure of half-pence
+secreted in a tub of bran. Dare, not to be behind-hand, took to swinging
+little girls with desperate and heated good-nature. His bright smile and
+genial brown face soon gained the confidence of the children; and then
+he swung them as they had never been swung before. It was positively the
+first time that some of the girls had ever seen their heels above their
+heads. And his powers of endurance were so great. First his coat and
+then his waistcoat were cast aside as he warmed to his work, until at
+last he dragged the sleeve of his shirt out of the socket, and had to
+retire into private life behind a tree, in company with Mrs. Eccles and
+a needle and thread. But he reappeared again, and was soon swept into a
+game of cricket that was being got up among the elder boys; bowled the
+school-master; batted brilliantly and with considerable flourish for a
+few moments, only to knock his own wickets down with what seemed
+singular want of care; and then fielded with cat-like activity and an
+entire oblivion of the game, receiving a swift ball on his own person,
+only to choke, coil himself up, and recover his equanimity and the ball
+in a moment.
+
+All things come to an end, and at last the Slumberleigh church clock
+struck four, and Ruth could sink giddily onto a bench, and push back
+the few remaining hair-pins that were left to her, and feebly endeavor,
+with a pin eagerly extracted by Dare from the back of his neck, to join
+the gaping ruin of torn gathers in her dress, so daintily fresh two
+hours ago, so dilapidated now.
+
+"There they come!" said Mrs. Alwynn, indignantly, who was fanning
+herself with her pocket-handkerchief, which stout women ought to be
+forbidden by law to do. "There are Mrs. Thursby and Mabel. Just like
+them, arriving when the games are all over! And, dear me! who is that
+with them? Why, it is Sir Charles Danvers. I had no idea he was staying
+with them. Brown particularly told me they had not brought back any
+friend with them yesterday. Dear me! How odd! And Brown--"
+
+"Sir Charles Danvers is staying at Atherstone," said Ruth.
+
+"At Atherstone, is he? Well, my dear, this is the first I have heard of
+it, if he is. I don't see what there is to make a secret of in _that_.
+Most natural he should be staying there, I should have thought. And, if
+that's one of Mabel's new gowns, all I can say is that yours is quite as
+nice, Ruth, though I know it is from last year, and those full fronts as
+fashionable as ever."
+
+As Mr. and Mrs. Alwynn went forward to meet the Thursbys, Charles
+strolled up to Ruth, and planted himself deliberately in front of her.
+
+"You observe that I am here?" he said.
+
+"I do."
+
+"At the proper time?"
+
+"At the proper time."
+
+"And in my sphere? I have tampered with no buns, you will remark, and
+teapots have been far from me."
+
+"I am exceedingly rejoiced my little word in season has been of such
+use."
+
+"It has, Miss Deyncourt. The remark you made this morning I considered
+honest, though poor, and I laid it to heart accordingly. But," with a
+change of tone, "you look tired to death. You have been out in the sun
+too long. I am going off now. I only came because I met the Thursbys,
+and they dragged me here. Come home with me through the woods. You have
+no idea how agreeable I am in the open air. It will be shady all the
+way, and not half so fatiguing as being shaken in Molly's donkey-cart."
+
+"In the donkey-cart I must return, however, if I die on the way," said
+Ruth, with a tired smile. "I can't leave Molly. Besides, all is not
+over yet. The races and prizes take time; and when at last they are
+dismissed, a slice of--"
+
+"No, Miss Deyncourt, _no_! Not more food!"
+
+"A slice of cake will be applied _externally_ to each of the children,
+which rite brings the festivities to a close. There! I see the dolls are
+being carried out. I must go;" and a moment later Ruth and Molly and
+Dare, who had been hovering near, were busily unpacking and shaking out
+the dolls; and Charles, after a little desultory conversation with Mabel
+Thursby, strolled away, with his hands behind his back and his nose in
+the air in the manner habitual to him.
+
+And so the day wore itself out at last; and after a hymn had been
+shrieked the children were dismissed, and Ruth and Molly at length drove
+away.
+
+"Hasn't it been delicious?" said Molly. "And my doll was chosen first.
+Lucy Bigg, with the rash on her face, got it. I wish little Sarah had
+had it. I do love Sarah so very much; but Sarah had yours, Ruth, with
+the real pocket and the handkerchief in it. That will be a surprise for
+her when she gets home. And that new gentleman was so kind about the
+teapots, wasn't he? He always filled mine first. He's coming to see me
+very soon, and to bring a curious black dog that he has of his very own,
+called--"
+
+"Stop, Molly," said Ruth, as the donkey's head was being sawed round
+towards the blazing high-road; "let us go home through the woods. I know
+it is longer, but I can't stand any more sun and dust to-day."
+
+"You do look tired," said Molly, "and your lips are quite white. My lips
+turned white once, before I had the measles, and I felt very curious
+inside, and then spots came all over. You don't feel like spots, do you,
+Cousin Ruth? We will go back by the woods, and I'll open the gates, and
+you shall hold the reins. I dare say Balaam will like it better too."
+
+Molly had called her donkey Balaam, partly owing to a misapprehension of
+Scripture narrative, and partly owing to the assurance of Charles, when
+in sudden misgiving she had consulted him on the point, that Balaam
+_had_ been an ass.
+
+Balaam's reluctant underjaw was accordingly turned in the direction of
+the woods, and, little thinking the drive might prove an eventful one,
+Ruth and Molly set off at that easy amble which a well-fed pampered
+donkey will occasionally indulge in.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+After the glare and the noise, the shrill blasts of penny trumpets, and
+the sustained beating of penny drums, the silence of the Slumberleigh
+woods was delightful to Ruth; the comparative silence, that is to say,
+for where Molly was, absolute silence need never be feared.
+
+Long before the first gate had been reached Balaam had, of course,
+returned to the mode of procedure which suited him and his race best,
+and it was only when the road inclined to be downhill that he could be
+urged into anything like a trot.
+
+"Never mind," said Molly, consolingly to Ruth, as he finally settled
+into a slow lounge, gracefully waving his ears and tail at the army of
+flies which accompanied him, "when we get to the place where the firs
+are, and the road goes between the rocks, it's downhill all the way, and
+we'll gallop down."
+
+But it was a long way to the firs, and Ruth was in no hurry. It was an
+ideal afternoon, verging towards evening; an afternoon of golden lights
+and broken shadows, of vivid greens in shady places. It must have been
+on such a day as this, Ruth thought, that the Almighty walked in the
+garden of Eden when the sun was low, while as yet the tree of knowledge
+was but in blossom, while as yet autumn and its apples were far off,
+long before fig-leaves and millinery were thought of.
+
+On either side the bracken and the lady-fern grew thick and high, almost
+overlapping the broad moss-grown path, across which the young rabbits
+popped away in their new brown coats, showing their little white linings
+in their lazy haste. A dog-rose had hung out a whole constellation of
+pale stars for Molly to catch at as they passed. A family of
+honeysuckles clung, faint and sweet, just beyond the reach of the little
+hand that stretched after them in turn.
+
+They had reached the top of an ascent that would have been level to
+anything but the mean spirit of a donkey, when Molly gave a start.
+
+"Cousin Ruth, there's something creeping among the trees--don't you hear
+it? Oh-h-h!"
+
+There really was a movement in the bracken, which grew too thick and
+high to allow of anything being easily seen at a little distance.
+
+"If it's a lion," said Molly, in a faint whisper, "and I feel in my
+heart it is, he must have Balaam."
+
+Balaam at this moment pricked his large ears, and Molly and Ruth both
+heard the snapping of a twig, and saw a figure slip behind a tree.
+Molly's spirits rose, and Ruth's went down in proportion. The woods were
+lonely, and they were nearing the most lonely part.
+
+"It's only a man," said Ruth, rather sharply. "I expect it is one of the
+keepers." (Oh, Ruth!) "Come, Molly, we shall never get home at this
+rate. Whip up Balaam, and let us trot down the hill."
+
+Much relieved about Balaam's immediate future, Molly incited him to a
+really noble trot, and did not allow him to relapse even on the flat
+which followed. Through the rattling and the jolting, however, Ruth
+could still hear a stealthy rustle in the fern and under-wood. The man
+was following them.
+
+"He's coming after us," whispered Molly, with round frightened eyes,
+"and Balaam will stop in a minute, I know. Oh, Cousin Ruth, what shall
+we do?"
+
+Ruth hesitated. They were nearing the steep pitch, where the firs
+overhung the road, which was cut out between huge bowlders of rock and
+sandstone. The ground rose rough and precipitous on their right, and
+fell away to their left. Just over the brow of the hill, out of sight,
+was, as she well knew, the second gate. The noise in the brushwood had
+ceased. Turning suddenly, her quick eye just caught sight of a figure
+disappearing behind the slope of the falling ground to the left. He was
+a lame man, and he was running. In a moment she saw that he was making a
+short cut, with the intention of waylaying them at the gate. He would
+get there long before they would; and even then Balaam was beginning the
+ascent, which really was an ascent this time, at his slowest walk.
+
+Molly's teeth were chattering in her little head.
+
+"Now, Molly," said Ruth, sharply, "listen to me, and don't be a baby.
+He'll wait for us at the gate, so he can't see us here. Get out this
+moment, and we will both run up the hill to the keeper's cottage at the
+top of the bank. We shall get there first, because he is lame."
+
+They had passed the bracken now, and were among the moss and sandstone
+beneath the firs. Ruth hastily dragged Molly out of the cart without
+stopping Balaam, who proceeded, twirling his ears, leisurely without
+them.
+
+"Oh, my poor Balaam!" sobbed Molly, with a backward glance at that
+unconscious favorite marching towards its doom.
+
+"There is no time to think of poor Balaam now," replied Ruth. "Run on in
+front of me, and don't step on anything crackly."
+
+"Never in this world," thought Ruth, "will I come alone here with Molly
+again. Never again will I--"
+
+But it was stiff climbing, and the remainder of the resolution was lost.
+
+They are high to the right above the white gate now. The keeper's
+cottage is in sight, built against a ledge of rock, up to which wide
+rough steps have been cut in the sandstone. Ruth looks down at the gate
+below. He is waiting--the dreadful man is waiting there, as she
+expected; and Balaam, toying with a fern, is at that moment coming round
+the corner. She sees that he takes in the situation instantly. There is
+but one way in which they can have fled, and he knows it. In a moment he
+comes halting and pounding up the slope. He sees their white dresses
+among the firs. Run, Molly! run, Ruth! Spare no expense. If your new
+black sash catches in the briers, let it catch; heed it not, for he is
+making wonderful play with that lame leg up the hill. It is an even
+race. Now for the stone steps! How many more there are than there ever
+were before! Quick through the wicket, and up through the little
+kitchen-garden. Molly is at the door first, beating upon it, and calling
+wildly on the name of Brown.
+
+And then Ruth's heart turns sick within her. The door is locked. Through
+the window, which usually blossoms with geraniums, she can see the black
+fireplace and the bare walls. No Brown within answers to Molly's cries.
+Brown has been turned away for drinking. Mrs. Brown, who hung a slender
+"wash" on the hedge only last week, has departed with her lord. Brown's
+cottage is tenantless. The pursuer must have known it when he breasted
+the hill. A mixed sound, as of swearing and stumbling, comes from the
+direction of the stone steps. The pursuer is evidently intoxicated,
+probably lunatic!
+
+"Quick, Molly!" gasps Ruth, "round by the back, and then cut down
+towards the young plantation, and make for the road again. Don't stop
+for me."
+
+The little yard, the pigsty, the water-butt, fly past. Past fly the
+empty kennels. Past does _not_ fly the other gate. Locked; padlocked!
+It is like a bad dream. Molly, with a windmill-like exhibition of black
+legs, gives Ruth a lead over. Now for it, Ruth! The bars are close
+together and the gate is high. It is not a time to stick at trifles.
+What does it matter if you can get over best by assuming a masculine
+equestrian attitude for a moment on the top bar? There! And now, down
+the hill again, away to your left. Take to your heels, and be thankful
+they are not high ones. Never mind if your hair is coming down. You have
+a thousand good qualities, Ruth, high principles and a tender
+conscience, but you are not a swift runner, and you have not played
+"Sally Water" all day for nothing. Molly is far in front now. A heavy
+trampling is not far behind; nay, it is closer than you thought. And
+your eyes are becoming misty, Ruth, and armies of drums are beating
+every other sound out of your ears--that shouting behind you, for
+instance. The intoxicated, murderous lunatic is close behind. One
+minute! Two minutes! How many more seconds can you keep it up? Through
+the young plantation, down the hill, into the sandy road again, the
+sandy, uphill road. How much longer can you keep it up?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Charles strolled quietly homeward, enjoying the beauties of nature, and
+reflecting on the quantity of rabbit-shooting that Mr. Thursby must
+enjoy. He may also have mused on Lady Grace, for anything that can be
+known to the contrary, and have possibly made a mental note that if it
+had been she whom he had asked to walk home with him, instead of Ruth,
+he would not have been alone at that moment. Be that how it may, he
+leisurely pursued his path until a fallen tree beside the bank looked so
+inviting that (Evelyn and Ralph having gone out to friends at a
+distance) Charles, who was in no hurry to return to Lady Mary, seated
+himself thereon, with a cigarette to bear him company.
+
+To him, with rent garments and dust upon her head, and indeed all over
+her, suddenly appeared Molly; Molly, white with panic, breathless,
+unable to articulate, pointing in the direction from which she had come.
+In a moment Charles was tearing down the road at full speed. A tall,
+swaying figure almost ran against him at the first turn, and Ruth only
+avoided him to collapse suddenly in the dry ditch, her face in the bank,
+and a yard of sash biting the dust along the road behind her.
+
+Her pursuer stopped short. Charles made a step towards him and stopped
+short also. The two men stood and looked at each other without
+speaking.
+
+When Ruth found herself in a position to make observations she
+discovered that she was sitting by the road-side, with her head resting
+against--was it a tweed arm or the bank? She moved a little, and found
+that first impressions are apt to prove misleading. It was the bank. She
+opened her eyes to see a brown, red-lined hat on the ground beside her,
+half full of water, through which she could dimly discern the golden
+submerged name of the maker. She seemed to have been contemplating it
+with vague interest for about an hour, when she became aware that some
+one was dabbing her forehead with a wet silk handkerchief.
+
+"Better?" asked Charles's voice.
+
+"Oh!" gasped Ruth, suddenly trying to sit up, but finding the attempt
+resulted only in the partial movement of a finger somewhere in the
+distance. "Have I really--surely, surely, I was not so abject as to
+_faint_?"
+
+"Truth," said Charles, with a reassured look in his quick, anxious eyes,
+"obliges me to say you did."
+
+"I thought better of myself than that."
+
+"Pride goes before a fall or a faint."
+
+"Oh, dear!" turning paler than ever. "Where is Molly?"
+
+"She is all right," said Charles, hastily, applying the
+pocket-handkerchief again. "Don't alarm yourself, and pray don't try to
+get up. You can see just as much of the view sitting down. Molly has
+gone for the donkey-cart."
+
+"And that dreadful man?"
+
+"That dreadful man has also departed. By-the-way, did you see his face?
+Would you know him again if the policeman succeeds in finding him?"
+
+"No; I never looked round. I only saw, when he began to run to cut us
+off at the gate, that he was lame."
+
+"H'm!" said Charles, reflectively. Then more briskly, with a new access
+of dabbing, "How is the faintness going on?"
+
+"Capitally," replied Ruth, with a faint, amused smile; "but if it does
+not seem ungrateful, I should be very thankful if I might be spared the
+rest of the water in the hat, or if it might be poured over me at once,
+if you don't wish it to be wasted."
+
+"Have I done too much? I imagined my services were invaluable. Let me
+help you to find your own handkerchief, if you would like a dry one for
+a change. Ah, what a good shot into that labyrinth of drapery! You have
+found it for yourself. You are certainly better."
+
+"But my self-respect," replied Ruth, drying her face, "is gone forever!"
+
+"I lost mine years ago," said Charles, carefully dusting Ruth's hat,
+"but I got over it. I had no idea those bows were supported by a wire
+inside. One lives and learns."
+
+"I never did such a thing before," continued Ruth, ruefully. "I have
+always felt a sort of contempt for girls who scream or faint just when
+they ought not."
+
+"For my part, I am glad to perceive you have some little feminine
+weakness. Your growing solicitude also as to the state of your back hair
+is pleasing in the extreme."
+
+"I am too confused and shaken to retaliate just now. You are quite right
+to make hay while the sun shines; but, when I am myself again, beware!"
+
+"And your gown," continued Charles. "What yawning gulfs, what chasms
+appear! and what a quantity of extraneous matter you have brought away
+with you--reminiscences of travel--burrs, very perfect specimens of
+burrs, thistledown, chips of fir, several complete spiders' webs; and
+your sash, which seems to have a particularly adhesive fringe, is a
+museum in itself. Ah, here comes that coward of little cowards, Molly,
+with Balaam and the donkey-cart!"
+
+Molly, who had left Ruth for dead, greeted her cousin with a transport
+of affection, and then proceeded to recount the fearful risks that
+Balaam had encountered by being deserted, and the stoic calm with which
+he had waited for them at the gate.
+
+"He's not a common donkey," she said, with pride. "Get in, Ruth. Are you
+coming in, Uncle Charles? There's just room for you to squeeze in
+between Ruth and me--isn't there, Ruth? Oh, you're not going to walk
+beside, are you?"
+
+But Charles was determined not to let them out of his sight again, and
+he walked beside them the remainder of the way to Atherstone. He
+remained silent and preoccupied during the evening which followed, pored
+over a newspaper, and went off to his room early, leaving Ralph dozing
+in the smoking-room.
+
+It was a fine moonlight night, still and clear. He stood at the open
+window looking out for a few minutes, and then began fumbling in a
+dilapidated old travelling-bag such as only rich men use.
+
+"Not much," he said to himself, spreading out a few sovereigns and some
+silver on the table, "but it will do."
+
+He put the money in his pocket, took off his gold hunting watch, and
+then went back to the smoking-room.
+
+"I am going out again, Ralph, as I did last night. If I come in late,
+you need not take me for a burglar."
+
+Ralph murmured something unintelligible, and Charles ran down-stairs,
+and let himself out of the drawing-room French window, that long French
+window to the ground, which Evelyn had taken a fancy to in a neighbor's
+drawing-room, and which she could never be made to see was not in
+keeping with the character of her old black-and-white house. He put the
+shutter back after he had passed through, and carefully drawing the
+window to behind him, without actually closing it, he took a turn or two
+upon the bowling-green, and then walked off in the direction of the
+Slumberleigh woods.
+
+After the lapse of an hour or more he returned as quietly as he had
+gone, let himself in, made all secure, and stole up to his room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+Vandon was considered by many people to be the most beautiful house in
+----shire.
+
+In these days of great brand-new imitation of intensely old houses,
+where the amount of ground covered measures the purse of the builder, it
+is pleasant to come upon a place like Vandon, a quiet old manor-house,
+neither large nor small, built of ancient bricks, blent to a dim purple
+and a dim red by that subtle craftsman Time.
+
+Whoever in the years that were no more had chosen the place whereon to
+build had chosen well. Vandon stood on the slope of a gentle hill,
+looking across a sweep of green valley to the rising woods beyond, which
+in days gone by had been a Roman camp, and where the curious might still
+trace the wide ledges cut among the regular lines of the trees.
+
+Some careful hand had planned the hanging gardens in front of the house,
+which fell away to the stream below. Flights of wide stone steps led
+down from terrace to terrace, each built up by its south wall covered
+with a wealth of jasmine and ivy and climbing roses. But all was wild
+and deserted now. Weeds had started up between the stone slabs of the
+steps, and the roses blossomed out sweet and profuse, for it was the
+time of roses, amid convolvulus and campion. The quaint old dove-cot
+near the house had almost disappeared behind the trees that had crowded
+up round it, and held aloft its weathercock in silent protest at their
+encroachment. The stables close at hand, with their worn-out clock and
+silent bell, were tenantless. The coach-houses were full of useless old
+chariots and carriages. Into one splendid court coach the pigeons had
+found their way through an open window, and had made nests, somewhat to
+the detriment of the green-and-white satin fittings.
+
+Great cedars, bent beneath the weight of years, grew round the house.
+The patriarch among them had let fall one of his gnarled supplicating
+arms in the winter, and there it still lay where it had fallen.
+
+Anything more out of keeping with the dignified old place than its owner
+could hardly be imagined, as he stood in his eternal light gray suit
+(with a badge of affliction lightly borne on his left arm), looking at
+his heritage, with his cropped head a little on one side.
+
+The sun was shining, but, like a smile on a serious face, Vandon caught
+the light on all its shuttered windows, and remained grave, looking out
+across its terraces to the forest.
+
+"If it were but a villa on the Mediterranean, or a house in London," he
+said to himself; "but I have no chance." And he shrugged his shoulders,
+and wandered back into the house again. But, if the outside oppressed
+him, the interior was not calculated to raise his spirits.
+
+Dare had an elegant taste, which he had never hitherto been able to
+gratify, for blue satin furniture and gilding; for large mirrors and
+painted ceilings of lovers and cupids, and similar small deer. The old
+square hall at Vandon, with its great stained glass windows,
+representing the various quarterings of the Dare arms, about which he
+knew nothing and cared less, oppressed him. So did the black polished
+oak floor, and the walls with their white bass-reliefs of twisting
+wreaths and scrolls, with busts at intervals of Cicero and Dante, and
+other severe and melancholy personages. The rapiers upon the high white
+chimney-piece were more to his taste. He had taken them down the first
+day after his arrival, and had stamped and cut and thrust in the most
+approved style, in the presence of Faust, the black poodle.
+
+Dare was not the kind of man to be touched by it; but to many minds
+there would have been something pathetic in seeing a house, which had
+evidently been an object of the tender love and care of a by-gone
+generation, going to rack and ruin from neglect. Careful hands had
+embroidered, in the fine exquisite work of former days, marvellous
+coverlets and hangings, which still adorned the long suites of empty
+bedrooms. Some one had taken an elaborate pleasure in fitting up those
+rooms, had put _pot-pourri_ in tall Oriental jars in the passages, had
+covered the old inlaid Dutch chairs with dim needle-work.
+
+The Dare who had lived at court, whose chariot was now the refuge of
+pigeons, whose court suits, with the tissue paper still in the sleeves,
+yet remained in one of the old oak chests, and whose jewelled swords
+still hung in the hall, had filled one of the rooms with engravings of
+the royal family and ministers of his day. The Dare who had been an
+admiral had left his miniature surrounded by prints of the naval
+engagements he had taken part in, and on the oak staircase a tattered
+flag still hung, a trophy of unremembered victory.
+
+But they were past and forgotten. The hands which had arranged their
+memorials with such pride and love had long since gone down to idleness,
+and forgetfulness also. Who cared for the family legends now? They, too,
+had gone down into silence. There was no one to tell Dare that the old
+blue enamel bowl in the hall, in which he gave Faust refreshment, had
+been brought back from the loot of the Winter Palace of Pekin; or that
+the drawer in the Reisener table in the drawing-room was full of
+treasured medals and miniatures, and that the key thereof was rusting in
+a silver patch-box on the writing-table.
+
+The iron-clamped boxes in the lumber-room kept the history to themselves
+of all the silver plate that had lived in them once upon a time,
+although the few odd pieces remaining hinted at the splendor of what had
+been. In one corner of the dining-room the mahogany tomb still stood of
+a great gold racing cup, under the portrait of the horse that had won
+it; but the cup had followed the silver dinner service, had followed the
+diamonds, had followed in the wake of a handsome fortune, leaving the
+after generations impoverished. If their money is taken from them, some
+families are left poor indeed, and to this class the Dares belonged. It
+is curious to notice the occasional real equality underlying the
+apparent inequality of different conditions of life. The unconscious
+poverty, and even bankruptcy, of some rich people in every kind of
+wealth except money affords an interesting study; and it seems doubly
+hard when those who have nothing to live upon, and be loved and
+respected for, except their money, have even that taken from them. As
+Dare wandered through the deserted rooms the want of money of his
+predecessors, and consequently of himself, was borne in upon him. It
+fell like a shadow across his light pleasure-loving soul. He had
+expected so much from this unlooked-for inheritance, and all he had
+found was a melancholy house with a past.
+
+He went aimlessly through the hall into the library. It was there that
+his uncle had lived; there that he had been found when death came to
+look for him; among the books which he had been unable to carry away
+with him at his departure; rare old tomes and first editions, long
+shelves of dead authors, who, it is to be hoped, continue to write in
+other worlds for those who read their lives away in this. Old Mr. Dare's
+interests and affections had all been bound in morocco and vellum. A
+volume lay open on the table, where the old man had put it down beside
+the leather arm-chair where he had sat, with his back to the light,
+summer and winter, winter and summer, for so many years.
+
+No one had moved it since. A wavering pencil-mark had scored the page
+here and there. Dare shut it up, and replaced it among its brethren. How
+_triste_ and silent the house seemed! He wondered what the old uncle had
+been like, and sauntered into the staircase hall, much in need of
+varnish, where the Dares that had gone before him lived. But these were
+too ancient to have his predecessor among them. He went into the long
+oak-panelled dining-room, where above the high carved dado were more
+Dares. Perhaps that man with the book was his namesake, the departed
+Alfred Dare. He wondered vaguely how he should look when he also took
+his place among his relations. Nature had favored him with a better
+mustache than most men, but he had a premonitory feeling that the very
+mustache itself, though undeniable in real life, would look out of
+keeping among these bluff, frank, light-haired people, of whom it seemed
+he--he who had never been near them before--was the living
+representative.
+
+A sudden access of pleasurable dignity came over him as he sat on the
+dining-table, the great mahogany dining-table, which still showed
+vestiges of a by-gone polish, and was heavily dented by long years of
+hammered applause. These ancestors of his! He would not disgrace them. A
+few minutes ago he had been wondering whether Vandon might not be let.
+Now, with one of the rapid transitions habitual to him, he resolved that
+he would live at Vandon, that in all things he would be as they had
+been. He would become that vague, indefinable, to him mythical
+personage--a "country squire." Fortunately, he had a neat leg for a
+stocking. It was lost, so to speak, in his present mode of dress; but he
+felt that it would appear to advantage in the perpetual knickerbockers
+which he supposed it would be his lot to wear. It would also become his
+duty and his pleasure to marry. For those who tread in safety the
+slippery heights of married life he felt a true esteem. It would be a
+strain, no doubt, a great effort; but at this moment he was capable of
+anything. The finger of duty was plain. And with that adorable Miss
+Ruth, with or without a fortune--Alas! he trusted she had a fortune,
+for, as he came to think thereon, he remembered that he was desperately
+poor. As far as he could make out from his agent, a grim, silent man,
+who had taken an evident dislike to him from the first, there was no
+money anywhere. The rents would come in at Michaelmas; but the interest
+of heavy mortgages had to be paid, the estate had to be kept up. There
+was succession duty; there were debts--long outstanding debts--which
+came pouring in now, which Waters spread before him with an iron smile,
+and which poor Dare contemplated with his head on one side, and solemn,
+arched eyebrows. When Dare was not smiling he was always preternaturally
+solemn. There was no happy medium in his face, or consequently in his
+mind, which was generally gay, but, if not, was involved in a tragic
+gloom.
+
+"These bills, my friend," he would say at last, tapping them in deep
+dejection, and raising his eyebrows into his hair, "how do we pay them?"
+
+But Waters did not know. How should he, Waters, know? Waters only knew
+that the farmers would want a reduction in these bad times--Mr. Dare
+might be sure of _that_. And what with arrears, and one thing and
+another, he need not expect more than two-thirds of his rents when they
+did arrive. Mr. Dare might lay his account for _that_.
+
+The only money which Dare received to carry on with, on his accession to
+the great honor and dignity of proprietor of Vandon, was brought to him
+by the old dairywoman of the house, a faithful creature, who produced
+out of an old stocking the actual coins which she had received for the
+butter and cheese she had sold, of which she showed Dare an account,
+chalked up in some dead language on the dairy door.
+
+She was a little doubled-up woman, who had served the family all her
+life. Dare's ready smile and handsome face had won her heart before he
+had been many days at Vandon, in spite of "his foreign ways," and he
+found himself constantly meeting her unexpectedly round corners, where
+she had been lying in wait for him, each time with a secret revelation
+to whisper respecting what she called the "goin's on."
+
+"You'll not tell on me, sir, but it's only right you should know as Mrs.
+Smith" (the house-keeper, of whom Dare stood in mortal terror) "has them
+fine damask table-cloths out for the house-keeper's room; I see 'em
+myself; and everything going to rag and ruin in the linen closet!" Or,
+"Joseph has took in another flitch this very day, sir, as Mrs. Smith
+sent for, and the old flitch all cut to waste. Do'e go and look at the
+flitches, sir, and the hams. They're in the room over the stables. And
+it's always butter, butter, butter, in the kitchen! Not a bit o'
+dripping used! There's not a pot of dripping in the larder, or so much
+as a skin of lard. Where does it all go to? You ask Mrs. Smith; and how
+she sleeps in her bed at night I don't know!"
+
+Dare listened, nodded, made his escape, and did nothing. In the village
+it was as bad. Time, which had dealt so kindly with Vandon itself, had
+taken the straggling village in hand too. Nothing could be more
+picturesque than the crazy black-and-white houses, with lichen on their
+broken-in thatch, and the plaster peeling off from between the irregular
+beams of black wood; nothing more picturesque--and nothing more
+miserable.
+
+When Time puts in his burnt umbers and brown madders with a lavish hand,
+and introduces his beautiful irregularities of outline, and his artistic
+disrepair, he does not look to the drainage, and takes no thought for
+holes in the roof.
+
+Dare could not go out without eager women sallying out of cottages as he
+passed, begging him just to come in and walk up-stairs. They would say
+no more--but would the new squire walk up-stairs? And Dare would stumble
+up and see enough to promise. Alas! how much he promised in those early
+days. And in the gloaming, heavy dull-eyed men met him in the lanes
+coming back from their work, and followed him to "beg pardon, sir," and
+lay before the new squire things that would never reach him through
+Waters--bitter things, small injustices, too trivial to seem worthy of
+mention, which serve to widen the gulf between class and class. They
+looked to Dare to help them, to make the crooked straight, to begin a
+new régime. They looked to the new king to administer his little realm;
+the new king, who, alas! cared for none of these things. And Dare
+promised that he would do what he could, and looked anxious and
+interested, and held out his brown hand, and raised hopes. But he had no
+money--no money.
+
+He spoke to Waters at first; but he soon found that it was no good. The
+houses were bad? Of course they were bad. Cottage property did not pay;
+and would Mr. Dare kindly tell him where the money for repairing them
+was to come from? Perhaps Mr. Dare might like to put a little of his
+private fortune into the cottages and the drains and the new pumps? Dare
+winced. His fortune had not gone the time-honored way of the fortunes of
+spirited young men of narrow means with souls above a sordid economy,
+but still it had gone all the same, and in a manner he did not care to
+think of.
+
+It was after one of these depressing interviews with Waters that Ralph
+and Evelyn found the new owner of Vandon, when they rode over together
+to call, a day or two after the school-feast. Poor Dare was sitting on
+the low ivy-covered wall of the topmost terrace, a prey to the deepest
+dejection. If he had lived in Spartan days, when it was possible to
+conceal gnawing foxes under wearing apparel, he would have made no use
+of the advantages of Grecian dress for such a purpose. Captivated by
+Evelyn's gentleness and sympathetic manner (strangers always thought
+Evelyn sympathetic), and impressed by Ralph's kindly, honest face, he
+soon found himself telling them something of his difficulties, of the
+maze in which he found himself, of the snubs which Waters had
+administered.
+
+Ralph slapped himself with his whip, whistled, and gave other masculine
+signs of interest and sympathy. Evelyn looked from one to the other,
+amiably distressed in her well-fitting habit. After a long conversation,
+in which Evelyn disclosed that Ralph was possessed of the most
+extraordinary knowledge and experience in such matters, the two
+good-natured young people, seeing he was depressed and lonely, begged
+him to come and stay with them at Atherstone the very next day, when he
+might discuss his affairs with Ralph, if so disposed, and take counsel
+with him. Dare accepted with the most genuine pleasure, and his speaking
+countenance was in a moment radiant with smiles. Was not the little
+Molly of the school-feast their child? and was not Miss Deyncourt
+likewise staying with them?
+
+When his visitors departed, Dare took a turn at the rapiers; then opened
+the piano with the internal derangement, and sang to his own
+accompaniment a series of little confidential French songs, which would
+have made the hair of his ancestors stand on end, if painted hair could
+do such a thing. And the "new squire," as he was already called,
+shrugged his shoulders, and lowered his voice, and spread out his
+expressive rapid hands, and introduced to Vandon, one after another,
+some of those choice little ditties, French and English, which had made
+him such a favorite companion in Paris, so popular in a certain society
+in America.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+"Sir Charles!"
+
+"Miss Deyncourt!"
+
+"I fear," with a glance at the yellow-back in his hand, "I am
+interrupting a studious hour, but--"
+
+"Not in the least, I assure you," said Charles, shutting his novel.
+"What is regarded as study by the feminine intellect is to the masculine
+merely relaxation. I was 'unbending over a book,' that was all."
+
+The process of "unbending" was being performed in the summer-house,
+whither he had retired after Evelyn and Ralph had started on their
+afternoon's ride to Vandon, in which he had refused to join.
+
+"I thought I should find you here," continued Ruth, frankly. "I have
+been wishing to speak to you for several days, but you are as a rule so
+surrounded and encompassed on every side by Molly that I have not had an
+opportunity."
+
+It had occurred to Charles once or twice during the last few days that
+Molly was occasionally rather in the way. Now he was sure of it. As Ruth
+appeared to hesitate, he pulled forward a rustic contorted chair for
+her.
+
+"No, thanks," she said. "I shall not long interrupt the unbending
+process. I only came to ask--"
+
+"To ask!" repeated Charles, who had got up as she was standing, and came
+and stood near her.
+
+"You remember the first evening you were here?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"And what we spoke of at dinner?"
+
+"Perfectly."
+
+"I came to ask you how much you lent Raymond?" Ruth's clear, earnest
+eyes were fixed full upon him.
+
+At this moment Charles perceived Lady Mary at a little distance,
+propelling herself gently over the grass in the direction of the
+summer-house. In another second she had perceived Charles and Ruth, and
+had turned precipitately, and hobbled away round the corner with
+surprising agility.
+
+"Confound her!" inwardly ejaculated Charles.
+
+"I wish to know how much you lent him," said Ruth again, as he did not
+answer, happily unconscious of what had been going on behind her back.
+
+"Only what I was well able to afford."
+
+"And has he paid it back since?"
+
+"I am sure he understood I should not expect him to pay it back at
+once."
+
+"But he has had it three years."
+
+Charles did not answer.
+
+"I feel sure he is not able to pay it. Will you kindly tell me how much
+it was?"
+
+"No, Miss Deyncourt; I think not."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because--excuse me, but I perceive that if I do you will instantly wish
+to pay it."
+
+"I do wish to pay it."
+
+"I thought so."
+
+There was a short silence.
+
+"I still wish it," said Ruth at last.
+
+Charles was silent. Her pertinacity annoyed and yet piqued him. Being
+unmarried, he was not accustomed to opposition from a woman. He had no
+intention of allowing her to pay her brother's debt, and he wished she
+would drop the subject gracefully, now that he had made that fact
+evident.
+
+"Perhaps you don't know," continued Ruth, "that I am very well off." (As
+if he did not know it! As if Lady Mary had not casually mentioned Ruth's
+fortune several times in his hearing!) "Lady Deyncourt left me twelve
+hundred a year, and I have a little of my own besides. You may not be
+aware that I have fourteen hundred and sixty-two pounds per annum."
+
+"I am very glad to hear it."
+
+"That is a large sum, you will observe."
+
+"It is riches," assented Charles, "if your expenditure happens to be
+less."
+
+"It does happen to be considerably less in my case."
+
+"You are to be congratulated. And yet I have always understood that
+society exacts great sacrifices from women in the sums they feel obliged
+to devote to dress."
+
+"Dress is an interesting subject, and I should be delighted to hear your
+views on it another time; but we are talking of something else just at
+this moment."
+
+"I beg your pardon," said Charles, quickly, who did not quite like being
+brought back to the case in point. "I--the truth was, I wished to turn
+your mind from what we were speaking of. I don't want you to count
+sovereigns into my hand. I really should dislike it very much."
+
+"You intend me to think from that remark that it was a small sum," said
+Ruth, with unexpected shrewdness. "I now feel sure it was a large one.
+It ought to be paid, and there is no one to do it but me. I know that
+what is firmness in a man is obstinacy in a woman, so do not on your
+side be too firm, or, who knows? you may arouse some of that obstinacy
+in me to which I should like to think myself superior."
+
+"If," said Charles, with sudden eagerness, as if an idea had just struck
+him, "if I let you pay me this debt, will you on your side allow me to
+make a condition?"
+
+"I should like to know the condition first."
+
+"Of course. If I agree,"--Charles's light gray eyes had become keen and
+intent--"if I agree to receive payment of what I lent Deyncourt three
+years ago, will you promise not to pay any other debt of his, or ever to
+lend him money without the knowledge and approval of your relations?"
+
+Ruth considered for a few minutes.
+
+"I have so few relations," she said at length, with rather a sad smile,
+"and they are all prejudiced against poor Raymond. I think I am the only
+friend he has left in the world. I am afraid I could not promise that."
+
+"Well," said Charles, eagerly, "I won't insist on relations. I know
+enough of those thorns in the flesh myself. I will say instead, 'natural
+advisers.' Come, Miss Deyncourt, you can't accuse me of firmness now!"
+
+"My natural advisers," repeated Ruth, slowly. "I feel as if I ought to
+have natural advisers somewhere; but who are they? Where are they? I
+could not ask my sister or her husband for advice. I mean, I could not
+take it if I did. I should think I knew better myself. Uncle John?
+Evelyn? Lord Polesworth? Sir Charles, I am afraid the truth is I have
+never asked for advice in my life. I have always tried to do what seemed
+best, without troubling to know what other people thought about it. But
+as I am anxious to yield gracefully, will you substitute the word
+'friends' for 'natural advisers'? I hope and think I have friends whom I
+could trust."
+
+"Friends, then, let it be," said Charles. "Now," holding out his hand,
+"do you promise never, et cetera, et cetera, without first consulting
+your _friends_?"
+
+Ruth put her hand into his.
+
+"I do."
+
+"That is right. How amiable we are both becoming! I suppose I must now
+inform you that two hundred pounds is the exact sum I lent your
+brother."
+
+Ruth went back to the house, and in a few minutes returned with a check
+in her hand. She held it towards Charles, who took it, and put it in his
+pocket-book.
+
+"Thank you," she said, with gratitude in her eyes and voice.
+
+"We have had a pitched battle," said Charles, relapsing into his old
+indifferent manner. "Neither of us has been actually defeated, for we
+never called out our reserves, which I felt would have been hardly fair
+on you; but we do not come forth with flying colors. I fear, from your
+air of elation, you actually believe you have been victorious."
+
+"I agree with you that there has been no defeat," replied Ruth; "but I
+won't keep you any longer from your studies. I am just going out driving
+with Lady Mary to have tea with the Thursbys."
+
+"Miss Deyncourt, don't allow a natural and most pardonable vanity to
+delude you to such an extent. Don't go out driving the victim of a false
+impression. If you will consider one moment--"
+
+"Not another moment," replied Ruth; "our bugles have sung truce, and I
+am not going to put on my war-paint again for any consideration. There
+comes the carriage," as a distant rumbling was heard. "I must not keep
+Lady Mary waiting;" and she was gone.
+
+Charles heard the carriage roll away again, and when half an hour later
+he sauntered back towards the house, he was surprised to see Lady Mary
+sitting in the drawing-room window.
+
+"What! Not gone, after all!" he exclaimed, in a voice in which surprise
+was more predominant than pleasure.
+
+"No, Charles," returned Lady Mary in her measured tones, looking slowly
+up at him over her gold-rimmed spectacles. "I felt a slight return of my
+old enemy, and Miss Deyncourt kindly undertook to make my excuses to
+Mrs. Thursby."
+
+No one knew what the old enemy was, or in what manner his mysterious
+assaults on Lady Mary were conducted; but it was an understood thing
+that she had private dealings with him, in which he could make himself
+very disagreeable.
+
+"Has Molly gone with her?"
+
+"No; Molly is making jam in the kitchen, I believe. Miss Deyncourt most
+good-naturedly offered to take her with her; but,"--with a shake of the
+head--"the poor child's totally unrestrained appetites and lamentable
+self-will made her prefer to remain where she was."
+
+"I am afraid," said Charles, meditatively, as if the idea were entirely
+a novel one, "Molly is getting a little spoiled among us. It is natural
+in you, of course; but there is no excuse for me. There never is. There
+are, I confess, moments when I don't regard the child's immortal welfare
+sufficiently to make her present existence less enjoyable. What a round
+of gayety Molly's life is! She flits from flower to flower, so to speak;
+from me to cook and the jam-pots; from the jam-pots to some fresh
+delight in the loft, or in your society. Life is one long feast to
+Molly. Whatever that old impostor the Future may have in store for her,
+at any rate she is having a good time now."
+
+There was a shade of regretful sadness in Charles's voice that ruffled
+his aunt.
+
+"The child is being ruined," she said, with resigned bitterness.
+
+"Not a bit of it. I was spoiled as a child, and look at me!"
+
+"You _are_ spoiled. I don't spoil you; but other people do. Society
+does. And the result is that you are so hard to please that I don't
+believe you will ever marry. You look for a perfection in others which
+is not to be found in yourself."
+
+"I don't fancy I should appear to advantage side by side with
+perfection," said Charles, in his most careless manner; and he rose, and
+wandered away into the garden.
+
+He was irritated with Lady Mary, with her pleased looks during the last
+few days, with her annoying celerity that afternoon in the garden. It
+was all the more annoying because he was conscious that Ruth amused
+and interested him in no slight degree. She had the rare quality
+of being genuine. She stood for what she was, without effort or
+self-consciousness. Whether playful or serious, she was always real.
+Beneath a reserved and rather quiet manner there lurked a piquant
+unconventionality. The mixture of earnestness and humor, which were so
+closely interwoven in her nature that he could never tell which would
+come uppermost, had a strange attraction for him. He had grown
+accustomed to watch for and try to provoke the sudden gleam of fun in
+the serious eyes, which always preceded a retort given with an air of
+the sweetest feminine meekness, which would make Ralph rub himself all
+over with glee, and tell Charles, chuckling, he "would not get much
+change out of Ruth."
+
+If only she had not been asked to Atherstone on purpose to meet him. If
+only Lady Mary had not arranged it; if only Evelyn did not know it; if
+only Ralph had not guessed it; if only he himself had not seen it from
+the first instant! Ruth and Molly were the only two unconscious persons
+in the house.
+
+"I wonder," said Charles to himself, "why people can't allow me to
+manage my own affairs? Oh, what a world it is for unmarried men with
+money! Why did I not marry fifteen years ago, when every woman with a
+straight nose was an angel of light; when I felt a noble disregard for
+such minor details as character, mind, sympathy, if the hair and the
+eyes were the right shade? Why did I not marry when I was out of favor
+with my father, when I was head over ears in debt, and when at least I
+could feel sure no one would marry me for my money? Molly," as that
+young lady came running towards him with lingering traces of jam upon
+her flushed countenance, "you have arrived just in time. Uncle Charles
+was getting so dull without you. What have you been after all this
+time?"
+
+"Cook and me have made thirty-one pots and a little one," said Molly,
+inserting a very sticky hand into Charles's. "And your Mr. Brown helped.
+Cook told him to go along at first, which wasn't kind, was it? but he
+stayed all the same; and I skimmed with a big spoon, and she poured it
+in the pots. Only they aren't covered up with paper yet, if you want to
+see them. And oh! Uncle Charles, what _do_ you think? Father and mother
+have come back from their ride, and that nice funny man who was at the
+school-feast is coming here to-morrow, and I shall show him my
+guinea-pigs. He said he wanted to see them very much."
+
+"Oh, he did, did he? When was that?"
+
+"At the school-feast. Oh!" with enthusiasm, "he was so nice, Uncle
+Charles, so attentive, and getting things when you want them; and the
+wheel went over his foot when he was shaking hands, and he did not mind
+a bit; and he filled our teapots for us--Ruth's big one, you know, that
+holds such a lot."
+
+"Oh! He filled the big teapot, did he?"
+
+"Yes, and mine too; and then he helped us to unpack the dolls. He was so
+kind to me and Cousin Ruth."
+
+"Kind to Miss Deyncourt, was he?"
+
+"Yes; and when we went away he ran and opened the gate for us. Oh, there
+comes Cousin Ruth back again in the carriage. I'll run and tell her he's
+coming. She _will_ be glad."
+
+"Aunt Mary is right," said Charles, watching his niece disappear. "Molly
+has formed a habit of expressing herself with unnecessary freedom.
+Decidedly she is a little spoiled."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+Dare arrived at Atherstone the following afternoon. Evelyn and Ralph,
+who had enlarged on the state of morbid depression of the lonely
+inhabitant of Vandon, were rather taken aback by the jaunty appearance
+of the sufferer when he appeared, overflowing with evident satisfaction
+and small-talk, his face wreathed with smiles.
+
+"He bears up wonderfully," said Charles aside to Ruth, later in the
+evening, as Dare warbled a very discreet selection of his best songs
+after dinner. "No one knows better than myself that many a breaking
+heart beats beneath a smiling waistcoat, but unless we had been told
+beforehand we should never have guessed it in his case."
+
+Dare, who was looking at Ruth, and saw Charles go and sit down by her,
+brought his song to an abrupt conclusion, and made his way to her also.
+
+"You also sing, Miss Deyncourt?" he asked. "I am sure, from your face,
+you sing."
+
+"I do."
+
+"Thank Heaven!" said Charles, fervently. "I did you an injustice. I
+thought you were going to say 'a little.' Every singing young lady I
+ever met, when asked that question, invariably replied 'a little.'"
+
+"I leave my friends to say that for me," said Ruth.
+
+"Perhaps you yourself sing a _little_?" asked Dare, wishing Charles
+would leave Ruth's ball of wool alone.
+
+"No," said Charles; "I have no tricks." And he rose and went off to the
+newspaper-table. Dare's songs were all very well, but really his voice
+was nothing so very wonderful, and he was not much of an acquisition in
+other ways.
+
+Then Dare took his opportunity. He dropped into Charles's vacant chair;
+he wound wool; he wished to learn to knit; his inquiring mind craved for
+information respecting shooting-stockings. He talked of music; of
+songs--Italian, French, and English; of American nigger melodies. Would
+Miss Deyncourt sing? Might he accompany her? Ah! she preferred the
+simple old English ballads. He _loved_ the simple English ballad.
+
+And Ruth, nothing loath, sang in her fresh, clear voice one song after
+another, Dare accompanying her with rapid sympathy and ease.
+
+Charles put down his paper and moved slightly, so that he had a better
+view of the piano. Evelyn laid down her work and looked affectionately
+at Ruth.
+
+"Exquisite," said Lady Mary from time to time, who had said the same of
+Lady Grace's wavering little soprano.
+
+"You also sing duets? You sing duets?" eagerly inquired Dare, the
+music-stool creaking with his suppressed excitement; and, without
+waiting for an answer, he began playing the opening chords of
+"Greeting."
+
+The two voices rose and fell together, now soft, now triumphant,
+harmonizing as if they sung together for years. Dare's second was low,
+pathetic, and it blended at once with Ruth's clear young contralto.
+Charles wondered that the others should applaud when the duet was
+finished. Ruth's voice went best alone in his opinion.
+
+"And the 'Cold Blast'?" asked Dare, immediately afterwards. "The 'Cold
+Blast' was here a moment ago,"--turning the leaves over rapidly. "You
+are not tired, Miss Deyncourt?"
+
+"Tired!" replied Ruth, her eyes sparkling. "It never tires me to sing.
+It rests me."
+
+"Ah! so it is with me. That is just how I feel," said Dare. "To sing, or
+to listen to the voice of--of--"
+
+"Of what? Confound him!" wondered Charles.
+
+"Of _another_," said Dare. "Ah, here he is!" and he pounced on another
+song, and lightly touched the opening chords.
+
+     "'Oh! wert thou in the cold blast,'"
+
+sang Ruth, fresh and sweet.
+
+     "'I'd shelter thee,'"
+
+Dare assured her with manly fervor. He went on to say what he would do
+if he were monarch of the realm, affirming that the brightest jewel of
+his crown would be his queen.
+
+"Anyhow, he can't pronounce Scotch," Charles thought.
+
+"Would be his queen," Dare repeated, with subdued emotion and an upward
+glance at Ruth, which she was too much absorbed in the song to see, but
+which did not escape Charles. Dare's dark sentimental eyes spoke volumes
+of--not sermons--at that moment.
+
+"Oh, Uncle Charles!" whispered Molly, who had been allowed to sit up
+about two hours beyond her nominal bedtime, at which hour she rarely
+felt disposed to retire--"oh, Uncle Charles! 'The brightest jewel in his
+crown!' Don't you wish you and me could sing together like that?"
+
+Charles moved impatiently, and took up his paper again.
+
+The evening passed all too quickly for Dare, who loved music and the
+sound of his own voice, and he had almost forgotten, until Charles left
+him and Ralph alone together in the smoking-room, that he had come to
+discuss his affairs with the latter.
+
+"Dear me," said Evelyn, who had followed her cousin to her room after
+they had dispersed for the night, and was looking out of Ruth's window,
+"that must be Charles walking up and down on the lawn. Well, now, how
+thoughtful he is to leave Mr. Dare and Ralph together. You know, Ruth,
+poor Mr. Dare's affairs are in a very bad way, and he has come to talk
+things over with my Ralph."
+
+"I hope Ralph will make him put his cottages in order," said Ruth, with
+sudden interest, shaking back her hair from her shoulders. "Do you think
+he will?"
+
+"Whatever Ralph advises will be sure to be right," replied Evelyn, with
+the soft conviction of his infallibility which caused her to be
+considered by most of Ralph's masculine friends an ideal wife. It is
+women without reasoning powers of any kind whom the nobler sex should be
+careful to marry if they wish to be regarded through life in this
+delightful way by their wives. Men not particularly heroic in
+themselves, who yet are anxious to pose as heroes in their domestic
+circle, should remember that the smallest modicum of common-sense on the
+part of the worshipper will inevitably mar a happiness, the very
+existence of which depends entirely on a blind unreasoning devotion. In
+middle life the absence of reason begins perhaps to be felt; but why in
+youth take thought for such a far-off morrow!
+
+"I hope he will," said Ruth, half to herself. "What an opportunity that
+man has if he only sees it. There is so much to be done, and it is all
+in his hands."
+
+"Yes, it's not entailed; but I don't think there is so very much," said
+Evelyn. "But then, so long as people are nice, I never care whether they
+are rich or poor. That is the first question I ask when people come into
+the neighborhood. Are they really nice? Dear me, Ruth, what beautiful
+hair you have; and mine coming off so! And, talking of hair, did you
+ever see anything like Mr. Dare's? Somebody must really speak to him
+about it. If he would keep his hands still, and not talk so quick, and
+let his hair grow a little, I really think he would not look so like a
+foreigner."
+
+"I don't suppose he minds looking like one."
+
+"My _dear_!"
+
+"His mother was a Frenchwoman, wasn't she? I am sure I have heard so
+fifty times since his uncle died."
+
+"And if she was," said Evelyn, reprovingly, "is not that an extra reason
+for his giving up anything that will remind people of it? And we ought
+to try and forget it, Ruth, and behave just the same to him as if she
+had been an Englishwoman. I wonder if he is a Roman Catholic?"
+
+"Ask him."
+
+"I hope he is not," continued Evelyn, taking up her candle to go. "We
+never had one to stay in the house before. I don't mean," catching a
+glimpse of Ruth's face, "that Catholics are--well--I don't mean _that_.
+But still, you know, one would not like to make great _friends_ with a
+Catholic, would one, Ruth? And he is so nice and so amusing that I do
+hope, as he is going to be a neighbor, he is a Protestant." And after a
+few more remarks of about the same calibre from Evelyn, the two cousins
+kissed and parted for the night.
+
+"Will he do it?" said Ruth to herself, when she was alone. "Has he
+character enough, and perseverance enough, and money enough? Oh, I wish
+Uncle John would talk to him!"
+
+Ruth was not aware that one word from herself would have more weight
+with a man like Dare than any number from an angel of heaven, if that
+angel were of the masculine gender. If at the other side of the house
+Dare could have known how earnestly Ruth was thinking about him, he
+would not have been surprised (for he was not without experience), but
+he would have felt immensely flattered.
+
+Vandon lay in a distant part of Mr. Alwynn's parish, and a perpetual
+curate had charge of the district. Mr. Alwynn consequently seldom went
+there, but on the few occasions on which Ruth had accompanied him in his
+periodical visits she had seen enough. Who cares for a recital of what
+she saw? Misery and want are so common. We can see them for ourselves
+any day. In Ruth's heart a great indignation had kindled against old Mr.
+Dare, of Vandon, who was inaccessible as a ghost in his own house,
+haunting the same rooms, but never to be found when Mr. Alwynn called
+upon him to "put things before him in their true light." And when Mr.
+Dare descended to the Vandon vault, all Mr. Alwynn's interest, and
+consequently a good deal of Ruth's, had centred in the new heir, who was
+so difficult to find, and who ultimately turned up from the other end of
+nowhere just when people were beginning to despair of his ever turning
+up at all.
+
+And now that he had come, would he make the crooked straight? Would the
+new broom sweep clean? Ruth recalled the new broom's brown handsome
+face, with the eager eyes and raised eyebrows, and involuntarily shook
+her head. It is difficult to be an impartial judge of any one with a
+feeling for music and a pathetic tenor voice; but the face she had
+called to mind did not inspire her with confidence. It was kindly,
+amiable, pleasant; but was it strong? In other words, was it not a
+trifle weak?
+
+She found herself comparing it with another, a thin, reserved face, with
+keen light eyes and a firm mouth; a mouth with a cigar in it at that
+moment on the lawn. The comparison, however, did not help her
+meditations much, being decidedly prejudicial to the "new broom;" and
+the faint chime of the clock on the dressing-table breaking in on them
+at the same moment, she dismissed them for the night, and proceeded to
+busy herself putting to bed her various little articles of jewellery
+before betaking herself there also.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Any doubts entertained by Evelyn about Dare's religious views were
+completely set at rest the following morning, which happened to be a
+Sunday. He appeared at breakfast in a black frock-coat, the splendor of
+which quite threw Ralph's ancient Sunday garment into the shade. He wore
+also a chastened, decorous aspect, which seemed unfamiliar to his mobile
+face, and rather ill suited to it. After breakfast, he inquired when
+service would be, and expressed a wish to attend it. He brought down a
+high hat and an enormous prayer-book, and figured with them in the
+garden.
+
+"Who is going to Greenacre, and who is going to Slumberleigh?" called
+out Ralph, from the smoking-room window. "Because, if any of you are
+going to foot it to Slumberleigh, you had better be starting. Which are
+you going to, Charles?"
+
+"I am going where Molly goes. Which is it to be, Molly?"
+
+"Slumberleigh," said Molly, with decision, "because it's the shortest
+sermon, and I want to see the little foal in Brown's field."
+
+"Slumberleigh be it," said Charles. "Now, Miss Deyncourt," as Ruth
+appeared, "which church are you going to support--Greenacre, which is
+close in more senses than one, where they never open the windows, and
+the clergyman preaches for an hour; or Slumberleigh, shady, airy, cool,
+lying past a meadow with a foal in it? If I may offer that as any
+inducement, Molly and I intend to patronize Slumberleigh."
+
+Ruth said she would do the same.
+
+"Now, Dare, _you_ will be able to decide whether Greenacre, with a
+little fat tower, or Slumberleigh, with a beautiful tall steeple, suits
+your religious views best."
+
+"I will also go to Slumberleigh," said Dare, without a moment's
+hesitation.
+
+"I thought so. I suppose,"--to Ralph and Evelyn--"you are going to
+Greenacre with Aunt Mary? Tell her I have gone to church, will you? It
+will cheer her up. Sunday is a very depressing day with her, I know. She
+thinks of all she has done in the week, preparatory to doing a little
+more on Monday. Good-bye. Now then, Molly, have you got your
+prayer-book? Miss Deyncourt, I don't see yours anywhere. Oh, there it
+is! No, don't let Dare carry it for you. Give it to me. He will have
+enough to do, poor fellow, to travel with his own. Come, Molly! Is Vic
+chained up? Yes, I can hear him howling. The craving for church
+privileges of that dumb animal, Miss Deyncourt, is an example to us
+Christians. Molly, have you got your penny? Miss Deyncourt, can I
+accommodate you with a threepenny bit? Now, _are_ we all ready to
+start?"
+
+"When this outburst of eloquence has subsided," said Ruth, "the audience
+will be happy to move on."
+
+And so they started across the fields, where the grass was already
+springing faint and green after the haymaking. There was a fresh
+wandering air, which fluttered the ribbons in Molly's hat, as she danced
+on ahead, frisking in her short white skirt beside her uncle, her hand
+in his. Charles was the essence of wit to Molly, with his grave face
+that so seldom smiled, and the twinkle in the kind eyes, that always
+went before those wonderful, delightful jokes which he alone could make.
+Sometimes, as she laughed, she looked back at Ruth and Dare, half a
+field behind, in pity at what they were missing.
+
+"Shall we wait and tell them that story, Uncle Charles?"
+
+"No, Molly. I dare say he is telling her another which is just as good."
+
+"I don't think he knows any like yours."
+
+"Some people like the old, old story best."
+
+"Do I know the old, old one, Uncle Charles?"
+
+"No, Molly."
+
+"Can you tell it?"
+
+"No. I have never been able to tell that particular story."
+
+"And do you really think he is telling it to her now?" with a backward
+glance.
+
+"Not at this moment. It's no good running back. He's only thinking about
+it now. He will tell it her in about a month or six weeks' time."
+
+"I hope I shall be there when he tells it."
+
+"I hope you may; but I don't think it is likely. And now, Molly, set
+your hat straight, and leave off jumping. I never jump when I go to
+church with Aunt Mary. Quietly now, for there's the church, and Mr.
+Alwynn's looking out of the window."
+
+Dare, meanwhile, walking with Ruth, caught sight of the church and
+lych-gate with heart-felt regret. The stretches of sunny meadowland, the
+faint glamour of church bells, the pale refined face beside him, had
+each individually and all three together appealed to his imagination,
+always vivid when he himself was concerned. He suddenly felt as if a
+great gulf had fixed itself, without any will of his own, between his
+old easy-going life and the new existence that was opening out before
+him.
+
+He had crossed from the old to the new without any perception of such a
+gulf, and now, as he looked back, it seemed to yawn between him and all
+that hitherto he had been. He did not care to look back, so he looked
+forward. He felt as if he were the central figure (when was he _not_ a
+central figure?) in a new drama. He was fond of acting, on and off the
+stage, and now he seemed to be playing a new part, in which he was not
+yet thoroughly at ease, but which he rather suspected would become him
+exceedingly well. It amused him to see himself going to church--_to
+church_--to hear himself conversing on flowers and music with a young
+English girl. The idea that he was rapidly falling in love was specially
+delightful. He called himself a _vieux scélérat_, and watched the
+progress of feelings which he felt did him credit with extreme
+satisfaction. He and Ruth arrived at the church porch all too soon for
+Dare; and though he had the pleasure of sitting on one side of her
+during the service, he would have preferred that Charles, of whom he
+felt a vague distrust, had not happened to be on the other.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+"My dear," said Mrs. Alwynn to her husband that morning, as they started
+for church across the glebe, "if any of the Atherstone party are in
+church, as they ought to be, for I hear from Mrs. Smith that they are
+not at all regular at Greenacre--only went once last Sunday, and then
+late--I shall just tell Ruth that she is to come back to me to-morrow. A
+few days won't make any difference to her, and it will fit in so nicely
+her coming back the day you go to the palace. After all I've done for
+Ruth--new curtains to her room, and the piano tuned and everything--I
+don't think she would like to stay there with friends, and me all by
+myself, without a creature to speak to. Ruth may be only a niece by
+marriage, but she will see in a moment--"
+
+And in fact she did. When Mrs. Alwynn took her aside after church, and
+explained the case in the all-pervading whisper for which she had
+apparently taken out a patent, Ruth could not grasp any reason why she
+should return to Slumberleigh three days before the time, but she saw at
+once that return she must if Mrs. Alwynn chose to demand it; and so she
+yielded with a good grace, and sent Mrs. Alwynn back smiling to the
+lych-gate, where Mr. Alwynn and Mabel Thursby were talking with Dare and
+Molly, while Charles interviewed the village policeman at a little
+distance.
+
+"No news of the tramp," said Charles, meeting Ruth at the gate; and they
+started homeward in different order to that in which they had come, in
+spite of a great effort at the last moment on the part of Dare, who
+thought the old way was better. "The policeman has seen nothing of him.
+He has gone off to pastures new, I expect."
+
+"I hope he has."
+
+"Mrs. Alwynn does not want you to leave Atherstone to-morrow, does she?"
+
+"I am sorry to say she does."
+
+"But you won't go?"
+
+"I must not only go, but I must do it as if I liked it."
+
+"I hope Evelyn won't allow it."
+
+"While I am living with Mrs. Alwynn, I am bound to do what she likes in
+small things."
+
+"H'm!"
+
+"I should have thought, Sir Charles, that this particularly feminine and
+submissive sentiment would have met with your approval."
+
+"It does; it does," said Charles, hastily. "Only, after the stubborn
+rigidity of your--shall I say your--week-day character, especially as
+regards money, this softened Sabbath mood took me by surprise for a
+moment."
+
+"You should see me at Slumberleigh," said Ruth, with a smile half sad,
+half humorous. "You should see me tying up Uncle John's flowers, or
+holding Aunt Fanny's wools. Nothing more entirely feminine and young
+lady-like can be imagined."
+
+"It must be a great change, after living with a woman like Lady
+Deyncourt--to whose house I often went years ago, when her son was
+living--to come to a place like Slumberleigh."
+
+"It _is_ a great change. I am ashamed to say how much I felt it at
+first. I don't know how to express it; but everything down here seems so
+small and local, and hard and fast."
+
+"I know," said Charles, gently; and they walked on in silence. "And
+yet," he said at last, "it seems to me, and I should have thought you
+would have felt the same, that life is very small, very narrow and
+circumscribed everywhere; though perhaps more obviously so in Cranfords
+and Slumberleighs. I have seen a good deal during the last fifteen
+years. I have mixed with many sorts and conditions of men, but in no
+class or grade of society have I yet found independent men and women.
+The groove is as narrow in one class as in another, though in some it is
+better concealed. I sometimes feel as if I were walking in a ball-room
+full of people all dancing the lancers. There are different sets, of
+course--fashionable, political, artistic--but the people in them are all
+crossing over, all advancing and retiring, with the same apparent
+aimlessness, or setting to partners."
+
+"There is occasionally an aim in that."
+
+Charles smiled grimly.
+
+"They follow the music in that as in everything else. You go away for
+ten years, and still find them, on your return, going through the same
+figures to new tunes. I wonder if there are any people anywhere in the
+world who stand on their own feet, and think and act for themselves; who
+don't set their watches by other people's; who don't live and marry and
+die by rote, expecting to go straight up to heaven by rote afterwards?"
+
+"I believe there are such people," said Ruth, earnestly; "I have had
+glimpses of them, but the real ones look like the shadows, and the
+shadows like the real ones, and--we miss them in the crowd."
+
+"Or one thinks one finds them, and they turn out only clever imitations
+after all. In these days there is a mania for shamming originality of
+some kind. I am always imagining people I meet are real, and not
+shadows, until one day I unintentionally put my hand through them, and
+find out my mistake. I am getting tired of being taken in."
+
+"And some day you will get tired of being cynical."
+
+"I am very much obliged to you for your hopeful view of my future. You
+evidently imagine that I have gone in for the fashionable creed of the
+young man of the present day. I am not young enough to take pleasure in
+high collars and cheap cynicism, Miss Deyncourt. Cynical people are
+never disappointed in others, as I so often am, because they expect the
+worst. In theory I respect and admire my fellow-creatures, but they
+continually exasperate me because they won't allow me to do so in real
+life. I have still--I blush to own it--a lingering respect for women,
+though they have taken pains to show me, time after time, what a fool I
+am for such a weakness."
+
+Charles looked intently at Ruth. Women are so terribly apt in handling
+any subject to make it personal. Would she fire up, or would she, like
+so many women, join in abuse of her own sex? She did neither. She was
+looking straight in front of her, absently watching the figures of Dare
+and Molly in the next field. Then she turned her grave, thoughtful
+glance towards him.
+
+"I think respect is never weakness," she said. "It is a sign of
+strength, even when it is misplaced. There is not much to admire in
+cunning people who are never taken in. The best people I have known, the
+people whom it did me good to be with, have been those who respected
+others and themselves. Do not be in too great a hurry to get rid of any
+little fragment that still remains. You may want it when it is gone."
+
+Charles's apathetic face had become strangely earnest. There was a keen,
+searching look in his tired, restless eyes. He was about to make some
+answer, when he suddenly became aware of Dare and Molly sitting perched
+on a gate close at hand waiting for them. Never had he perceived Molly's
+little brown face with less pleasure than at that moment. She scrambled
+down with a noble disregard of appearances, and tried to take his hand.
+But it was coolly withdrawn. Charles fell behind on some pretence of
+fastening the gate, and Molly had to content herself with Ruth's and
+Dare's society for the remainder of the walk.
+
+Ruth had almost forgotten, until Molly suggested at luncheon a picnic
+for the following day, that she was returning to Slumberleigh on Monday
+morning; and when she made the fact known, Ralph had to be "hushed"
+several times by Evelyn for muttering opinions behind the sirloin
+respecting Mrs. Alwynn, which Evelyn seemed to have heard before, and to
+consider unsuited to the ears of that lady's niece.
+
+"But if you go away, Cousin Ruth, we can't have the picnic. Can we,
+Uncle Charles?"
+
+"Impossible, Molly. Rather bread and butter at home than a mixed biscuit
+in the open air without Miss Deyncourt."
+
+"Is Mrs. Alwynn suffering?" asked Lady Mary, politely, down the table.
+
+Ruth explained that she was not in ill-health, but that she did wish to
+be left alone; and Ralph was "hushed" again.
+
+Lady Mary was annoyed, or, more properly speaking, she was "moved in the
+spirit," which in a Churchwoman seems to be the same thing as annoyance
+in the unregenerate or unorthodox mind. She regretted Ruth's departure
+more than any one, except perhaps Ruth herself. She had watched the girl
+very narrowly, and she had seen nothing to make her alter the opinion
+she had formed of her; indeed, she was inclined to advance beyond it.
+Even she could not suspect that Ruth had "played her cards well;"
+although she would have aided and abetted her in any way in her power,
+if Ruth had shown the slightest consciousness of holding cards at all,
+or being desirous of playing them. Her frank yet reserved manner, her
+distinguished appearance, her sense of humor (which Lady Mary did not
+understand, but which she perceived others did), and the quiet _savoir
+faire_ of her treatment of Dare's advances, all enhanced her greatly in
+the eyes of her would-be aunt. She bade her good-bye with genuine
+regret; the only person who bore her departure without a shade of
+compunction being Dare, who stood by the carriage till the last moment,
+assuring Ruth that he hoped to come over to the rectory very shortly;
+while Charles and Molly held the gate open meanwhile, at the end of the
+short drive.
+
+"I know that Frenchman means business," said Lady Mary wrathfully to
+herself, as she watched the scene from the garden. Her mind, from the
+very severity of its tension, was liable to occasional lapses of this
+painful kind from the spiritual and ecclesiastical to the mundane and
+transitory. "I saw it directly he came into the house; and with _his_
+opportunities, and living within a stone's-throw, I should not wonder if
+he were to succeed. Any man would fetch a fancy price at Slumberleigh;
+and the most fastidious woman in the world ceases to be critical if she
+is reduced to the proper state of dulness. He is handsome, too, in his
+foreign way. But she does not like him now. She is inclined to like
+Charles, though she does not know it. There is an attraction between the
+two. I knew there would be. And he likes her. Oh, what fools men are! He
+will go away; and Dare, on the contrary, will ride over to Slumberleigh
+every day, and by the time he is engaged to her Charles will see her
+again, and find out that he is in love with her himself. Oh, the folly,
+the density, of unmarried men! and, indeed," (with a sudden recollection
+of the deceased Mr. Cunningham), "of the whole race of them! But of all
+men I have ever known, I really think the most provoking is Charles."
+
+"Musing?" inquired her nephew, sauntering up to her.
+
+"I was thinking that we had just lost the pleasantest person of our
+little party," said Lady Mary, viciously seizing up her work.
+
+"I am still here," suggested Charles, by way of consolation. "I don't
+start for Norway in Wyndham's yacht for three days to come."
+
+"Do you mean to say you are going to Norway?"
+
+"I forget whether it was to be Norway; but I know I'm booked to go
+yachting somewhere. It's Wyndham's new toy. He paid through the parental
+nose for it, and he made me promise in London to go with him on his
+first cruise. I believe a very charming Miss Wyndham is to be of the
+party."
+
+"And how long, pray, are you going to yacht with Miss Wyndham?"
+
+"It is with her brother I propose to go. I thought I had explained that
+before. I shall probably cruise about, let me see, for three weeks or
+so, till the grouse-shooting begins. Then I am due in Scotland, at the
+Hope-Actons', and several other places."
+
+Lady Mary laid down her work, and rose to her feet, her thin hand
+closing tightly over the silver crook of her stick.
+
+"Charles," she said, in a voice trembling with anger, looking him full
+in the face, "you are a fool!" and she passed him without another word,
+and hobbled away rapidly into the house.
+
+"Am I?" said Charles, half aloud to himself, when the last fold of her
+garment had been twitched out of sight through the window.
+
+"_Am I?_ Molly," with great gravity, as Molly appeared, "yes, you may sit
+on my knee; but don't wriggle. Molly, what is a fool?"
+
+"I think it's Raca, only worse," said Molly. "Uncle Charles, Mr. Dare is
+going away too. His dog-cart had just come into the yard."
+
+"Has it? I hope he won't keep it waiting."
+
+"You are not going away, are you?"
+
+"Not for three days more."
+
+"Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Why, they will be gone in a moment."
+
+But to Charles they seemed three very long days indeed. He was annoyed
+with himself for having made so many engagements before he left London.
+At the time there did not seem anything better to be done, and he
+supposed he must go somewhere; but now he thought he would have liked to
+stay on at Atherstone, though he would not have said so to Lady Mary for
+worlds. He was tired of rushing up and down. He was not so fond of
+yachting, after all; and he remembered that he had been many times to
+Norway.
+
+"I would get out of it if I could," he said to Lady Mary on the last
+morning; "and of this blue serge suit, too (you should see Miss Wyndham
+in blue serge!); but it is not a question of pleasure, but of principle.
+I don't like to throw over Wyndham at the last moment, after what you
+said when I failed the Hope-Actons last year. Twins could not feel more
+exactly together than you and I do where a principle is involved. I see
+you are about to advise me to keep my engagement. Do not trouble to do
+so; I am going to Portsmouth by the mid-day train. Brown is at this
+moment packing my telescope and life-belt."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+It was the end of August. The little lawn at Slumberleigh Rectory was
+parched and brown. The glebe beyond was brown; so was the field beyond
+that. The thirsty road was ash-white between its gray hedge-rows. It was
+hotter in the open air than in the house, but Ruth had brought her books
+out into the garden all the same, and had made a conscientious effort to
+read under the chestnut-tree.
+
+For under the same roof with Mrs. Alwynn she had soon learned that
+application or study of any kind was an impossibility. Mrs. Alwynn had
+several maxims as to the conduct of herself, and consequently of every
+one else, and one of those to which she most frequently gave utterance
+was that "young people should always be cheery and sociable, and should
+not be left too much to themselves."
+
+When in the winter Mr. Alwynn had brought home Ruth, quite overwhelmed
+for the time by the shock of the first real trouble she had known, Mrs.
+Alwynn was kindness itself in the way of sweet-breads and warm rooms;
+but the only thing Ruth craved for, to be left alone, she would not
+allow for a moment. No! Mrs. Alwynn was cheerful, brisk, and pious at
+intervals. If she found her niece was sitting in her own room, she
+bustled up-stairs, poked the fire, gave her a kiss, and finally brought
+her down to the drawing-room, where she told her she would be as quiet
+as in her own room. She need not be afraid her uncle would come in; and
+she must not allow herself to get moped. What would she, Mrs. Alwynn,
+have done, she would like to know, if, when she was in trouble--and she
+knew what trouble meant, if any one did--she had allowed herself to get
+moped. Ruth must try and bear up. And at Lady Deyncourt's age it was
+quite to be expected. And Ruth must remember she still had a sister, and
+that there was a happy home above. And now, if she would get that green
+wool out of the red plush iron (which really was a work-box--such a
+droll idea, wasn't it?), Ruth should hold the wool, and they would have
+a cosey little chat till luncheon time.
+
+And so Mrs. Alwynn did her duty by her niece; and Ruth, in the dark
+days that followed her grandmother's death, took all the little
+kindnesses in the spirit in which they were meant, and did her duty by
+her aunt.
+
+But after a time Mrs. Alwynn became more exacting. Ruth was visibly
+recovering from what Mrs. Alwynn called "her bereavement." She could
+smile again without an effort; she took long walks with Mr. Alwynn, and
+later in the spring paid a visit to her uncle, Lord Polesworth. It was
+after this visit that Mrs. Alwynn became more exacting. She had borne
+with half attention and a lack of interest in crewel-work while Ruth was
+still "fretting," as she termed it. But when a person lays aside crape,
+and goes into half-mourning, the time had come when she may--nay, when
+she ought to be "chatty." This time had come with Ruth, but she was not
+"chatty." Like Mrs. Dombey, she did not make an effort, and, as the
+months passed on, Mrs. Alwynn began to shake her head, and to fear that
+"there was some officer or something on her mind." Mrs. Alwynn always
+called soldiers officers, and doctors physicians.
+
+Ruth, on her side, was vaguely aware that she did not give satisfaction.
+The small-talk, the perpetual demand on her attention, the constant
+interruptions, seemed to benumb what faculties she had. Her mind became
+like a machine out of work--rusty, creaking, difficult to set going. If
+she had half an hour of leisure she could not fix her attention to
+anything. She, who in her grandmother's time had been so keen and alert,
+seemed to have drifted, in Mrs. Alwynn's society, into a torpid state,
+from which she made vain attempts to emerge, only to sink the deeper.
+
+When she stood once more, fresh from a fortnight of pleasant intercourse
+with pleasant people, in the little ornate drawing-room at Slumberleigh,
+on her return from Atherstone, the remembrance of the dulled, confused
+state in which she had been living with her aunt returned forcibly to
+her mind. The various articles of furniture, the red silk handkerchiefs
+dabbed behind pendent plates, the musical elephants on the mantle-piece,
+the imitation Eastern antimacassars, the shocking fate, in the way of
+nailed and glued pictorial ornamentation, that had overtaken the back of
+the cottage piano--indeed, all the various objects of luxury and _vertu_
+with which Mrs. Alwynn had surrounded herself, seemed to recall to Ruth,
+as the apparatus of the sick-room recalls the illness to the patient,
+the stupor into which she had fallen in their company. With her eyes
+fixed upon the new brass pig (that was at heart a pen-wiper) which Mrs.
+Alwynn had pointed out as a gift of Mabel Thursby, who always brought
+her back some little "tasty thing from London"--with her eyes on the
+brass pig, Ruth resolved that, come what would, she would not allow
+herself to sink into such a state of mental paralysis again.
+
+To read a book of any description was out of the question in the society
+of Mrs. Alwynn. But Ruth, with the connivance of Mr. Alwynn, devised a
+means of eluding her aunt. At certain hours of the day she was lost
+regularly, and not to be found. It was summer, and the world, or at
+least the neighborhood of Slumberleigh Rectory, which was the same
+thing, was all before her where to choose. In after-years she used to
+say that some books had always remained associated with certain places
+in her mind. With Emerson she learned to associate the scent of hay, the
+desultory remarks of hens, and the sudden choruses of ducks. Carlyle's
+"Sartor Resartus," which she read for the first time this year, always
+recalled to her afterwards the leathern odor of the box-room, with an
+occasional _soupçon_ of damp flapping linen in the orchard, which spot
+was not visible from the rectory windows.
+
+Gradually Mrs. Alwynn became aware of the fact that Ruth was never to be
+seen with a book in her hand, and she expressed fears that the latter
+was not keeping up her reading.
+
+"And if you don't like to read to yourself, my dear, you can read to me
+while I work. German, now. I like the sound of German very well. It
+brings back the time when your Uncle John and I went up the Rhine on our
+honey-moon. And then, for English reading there's a very nice book Uncle
+John has somewhere on natural history, called 'Animals of a Quiet Life,'
+by a Mr. Hare, too--so comical, I always think. It's good for you to be
+reading something. It is what your poor dear granny would have wished if
+she had been alive. Only it must not be poetry, Ruth, not poetry."
+
+Mrs. Alwynn did not approve of poetry. She was wont to say that for her
+part she liked only what was perfectly _true_, by which it is believed
+she meant prose.
+
+She had no books of her own. In times of illness she borrowed from Mrs.
+Thursby (who had all Miss Young's works, and selections from the
+publications of the S.P.C.K.). On Sundays, when she could not work, she
+read, half aloud, of course, with sighs at intervals, a little manual
+called "Gold Dust," or a smaller one still called "Pearls of Great
+Price," which she had once recommended to Charles, whom she knew
+slightly, and about whom she affected to know a great deal, which
+nothing (except pressing) would induce her to repeat; which rendered
+the application of the "Pearls," to be followed by the "Dust," most
+essential to his future welfare.
+
+On this particular morning in August, Ruth had slipped out as far as the
+chestnut-tree, the lower part of which was hidden from the rectory
+windows by a blessed yew hedge. It was too hot to walk, it was too hot
+to draw, it was even too hot to read. It did not seem, however, to be
+too hot to _ride_, for presently she heard a horse's hoofs clattering
+across the stones of the stable-yard, and she knew, from the familiarity
+of the sound at that hour of the day, that Dare had probably ridden
+over, and, more probably still, would stay to luncheon.
+
+The foreign gentleman, as all the village people called him, had by this
+time become quite an institution in the neighborhood of Vandon. Every
+one liked him, and he liked every one. Like the sun, he shone upon the
+just and unjust. He went to every tennis-party to which he was invited.
+He was pleased if people were at home when he called. He became in many
+houses a privileged person, and he never abused his privileges. Women
+especially liked him. He had what Mrs. Eccles defined as "such a way
+with him;" his way being to make every woman he met think that she was
+particularly interesting in his eyes--for the time being. Men did not,
+of course, care for him so much. When he stayed anywhere, it was vaguely
+felt by the sterner sex of the party that he stole a march upon them.
+While they were smoking, after their kind, in clusters on the lawn, it
+would suddenly be observed that he was sitting in the drawing-room,
+giving a lesson in netting, or trying over a new song encircled by young
+ladyhood. It was felt that he took an unfair advantage. What business
+had he to come down to tea in that absurd amber plush smoking-suit, just
+because the elder ladies had begged to see it? It was all the more
+annoying, because he looked so handsome in it. Like most men who are
+admired by women, he was not much liked by men.
+
+But the house to which he came the oftenest was Slumberleigh Rectory. He
+was faithful to his early admiration of Ruth; and the only obstacle to
+his making her (in his opinion) happy among women, namely, her possible
+want of fortune, had long since been removed by the confidential remarks
+of Mrs. Alwynn. To his foreign habits and ideas fourteen or fifteen
+hundred a year represented a very large sum. In his eyes Ruth was an
+heiress, and in all good earnest he set himself to win her. Mr. Alwynn
+had now become the proper person to consult regarding his property; and
+at first, to Ruth's undisguised satisfaction, he consulted him nearly
+every other day, his horse at last taking the turn for Slumberleigh as a
+matter of course. Many a time, in these August days, might Mrs. Eccles
+and all the other inhabitants of Slumberleigh have seen Dare ride up the
+little street, taking as much active exercise as his horse, only
+skyward; the saddle being to him merely a point of rebound.
+
+But if the object of his frequent visits was misunderstood by Ruth at
+first, Dare did not allow it to remain so long. And not only Ruth
+herself, but Mr. and Mrs. Alwynn, and the rectory servants, and half the
+parish were soon made aware of the state of his affections. What was the
+good of being in love, of having in view a social aim of such a
+praiseworthy nature, if no one were aware of the same? Dare was not the
+man to hide even a night-light under a bushel; how much less a burning
+and a shining hymeneal torch such as this. His sentiments were strictly
+honorable. If he raised expectations, he was also quite prepared to
+fulfil them. Miss Deyncourt was quite right to treat him with her
+adorable, placid assumption of indifference until his attentions were
+more avowed. In the mean while she was an angel, a lily, a pearl, a
+star, and several other things, animal, vegetable, and mineral, which
+his vivid imagination chose to picture her. But whatever Dare's faults
+may have been--and Ruth was not blind to them--he was at least head over
+ears in love with her, fortune or none; and as his attachment deepened,
+it burned up like fire all the little follies with which it had begun.
+
+A clergyman has been said to have made love to the helpmeet of his
+choice out of the Epistle to the Galatians. Dare made his out of
+material hardly more promising--plans for cottages, and estimates of
+repairs. He had quickly seen how to interest Ruth, though the reason for
+such an eccentric interest puzzled him. However, he turned it to his
+advantage. Ruth encouraged, suggested, sympathized in all the little he
+was already doing, and the much that he proposed to do.
+
+Of late, however, a certain not ungrounded suspicion had gradually
+forced itself upon her which had led her to withdraw as much as she
+could from her former intercourse with Dare; but her change of manner
+had not quite the effect she had intended.
+
+"She thinks I am not serious," Dare had said to himself; "she thinks
+that I play with her feelings. She does not know me. To-morrow I ride
+over; I set her mind at rest. To-morrow I propose; I make an offer; I
+claim that adored hand; I--become engaged."
+
+Accordingly, not long after the clatter of horse's hoofs in the
+stable-yard, Dare himself appeared in the garden, and perceiving Ruth,
+for whom he was evidently looking, informed her that he had ridden over
+to ask Mr. Alwynn to support him at a dinner his tenants were giving in
+his honor--a custom of the Vandon tenantry from time immemorial on the
+accession of a new landlord. He spoke absently; and Ruth, looking at him
+more closely as he stood before her, wondered at his altered manner. He
+had a rose in his button-hole. He always had a rose in his button-hole;
+but somehow this was more of a rose than usual. His mustaches were
+twirled up with unusual grace.
+
+"You will find Mr. Alwynn in the study," said Ruth, hurriedly.
+
+His only answer was to cast aside his whip and gloves, as possible
+impediments later on, and to settle himself, with an elegant arrangement
+of the choicest gaiters, on the grass at her feet.
+
+It is probably very disagreeable to repeat in any form, however
+discreetly worded, the old phrase--
+
+    "The reason why I cannot tell,
+    But I don't like you, Doctor Fell."
+
+But it must be especially disagreeable, if a refusal is at first not
+taken seriously, to be obliged to repeat it, still more plainly, a
+second time. It was Ruth's fate to be obliged to do this, and to do it
+hurriedly, or she foresaw complications might arise.
+
+At last Dare understood, and the sudden utter blankness of his
+expression smote Ruth to the heart. He had loved her in his way after
+all. It is a bitter thing to be refused. She felt that she had been
+almost brutal in her direct explicitness, called forth at the moment by
+an instinct that he would proceed to extreme measures unless
+peremptorily checked.
+
+"I am so sorry," she said, involuntarily.
+
+Poor Dare, who had recovered a certain amount of self-possession, now
+that he was on his feet again, took up his gloves and riding-whip in
+silence. All his jaunty self-assurance had left him. He seemed quite
+stunned. His face under his brown skin was very pale.
+
+"I am so sorry," said Ruth again, feeling horribly guilty.
+
+"It is I who am sorry," he said, humbly. "I have made a great mistake,
+for which I ask pardon;" and, after looking at her for a moment, in
+blank incertitude as to whether she could really be the same person whom
+he had come to seek in such happy confidence half an hour before, he
+raised his hat, his new light gray hat, and was gone.
+
+Ruth watched him go, and when he had disappeared, she sat down again
+mechanically in the chair from which she had risen a few moments before,
+and pressed her hands tightly together. She ought not to have allowed
+such a thing to happen, she said to herself. Somehow it had never
+presented itself to her in its serious aspect before. It is difficult to
+take a vain man seriously. Poor Mr. Dare! She had not known he was
+capable of caring so much about anything. He had never appeared to such
+advantage in her eyes as he had done when he had left her the moment
+before, grave and silent. She felt she had misjudged him. He was not so
+frivolous, after all. And now that her influence was at an end, who
+would keep him up to the mark about the various duties which she knew
+now he had begun to fulfil only to please her? Oh, who would help and
+encourage him in that most difficult of positions, a land-owner without
+means sufficient for doing the best by land and tenantry? She
+instinctively felt that he could not be relied upon for continuous
+exertion by himself.
+
+"I wish I could have liked him," said Ruth to herself. "I wish, I wish,
+I could!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+During the whole of the following week Dare appeared no more at
+Slumberleigh. Mrs. Alwynn, whose time was much occupied as a rule in
+commenting on the smallest doings of her neighbors, and in wondering why
+they left undone certain actions which she herself would have performed
+in their place, Mrs. Alwynn would infallibly have remarked upon his
+absence many times during every hour of the day, had not her attention
+been distracted for the time being by a one-horse fly which she had seen
+go up the road on the afternoon of the day of Dare's last visit, the
+destination of which had filled her soul with anxious conjecture.
+
+She did not ascertain till the following day that it had been ordered
+for Mrs. Smith, of Greenacre; though, as she told Ruth, she might have
+known that, as Mr. Smith was going for a holiday with Mrs. Smith, and
+their pony lame in its feet; that they would have to have a fly, and
+with that hill up to Greenacre she was surprised one horse was enough.
+
+When the question of the fly had been thus satisfactorily settled, and
+Mrs. Alwynn had ceased wondering whether the Smiths had gone to Tenby or
+to Rhyl (she always imagined people went to one or other of these two
+places), her whole attention reverted to a screen which she was making,
+the elegance and novelty of which supplied her with a congenial subject
+of conversation for many days.
+
+"There is something so new in a screen, an entire screen of Christmas
+cards," Mrs. Alwynn would remark. "Now, Mrs. Thursby's new screen is all
+pictures out of the _Graphic_, and those colored Christmas numbers. She
+has put all her cards in a book. There is something rather _passy_ about
+those albums, I think. Now I fancy this screen will look quite out of
+the common, Ruth; and when it is done, I shall get some of those
+Japanese cranes and stand them on the top. Their claws are made to twist
+round, you know, and I shall put some monkeys--you know those droll
+chenille monkeys, Ruth--creeping up the sides to meet the cranes. I
+don't honestly think, my dear"--with complacency--"that many people will
+have anything like it."
+
+Ruth did not hesitate to say that she felt certain very few would.
+
+Mrs. Alwynn was delighted at the interest she took in her new work. Ruth
+was coming out at last, she told her husband; and she passed many happy
+hours entirely absorbed in the arrangement of the cards upon the panels.
+Ruth, thankful that her attention had been providentially distracted
+from the matter that filled her own thoughts, in a way that surprised
+and annoyed her, sorted, and snipped, and pasted, and decided weighty
+questions as to whether a goitred robin on a twig should be placed next
+to a smiling plum-pudding, dancing a polka with a turkey, or whether a
+congealed cross, with "Christian greeting" in icicles on it, should
+separate the two.
+
+To her uncle Ruth told what had happened; and as he slowly wended his
+way to Vandon on the day fixed for the tenant's dinner, Mr. Alwynn mused
+thereon, and I believe, if the truth were known, he was sorry that Dare
+had been refused. He was a little before his time, and he stopped on the
+bridge, and looked at the river, as it came churning and sweeping below,
+fretted out of its usual calm by the mill above. I think that as he
+leaned over the low stone parapet he made many quiet little reflections
+besides the involuntary one of himself in the water below. He would have
+liked (he was conscious that it was selfish, but yet he _would_ have
+liked) to have Ruth near him always. He would have liked to see this
+strange son of his old friend in good hands, that would lead him--as it
+is popularly supposed a woman's hand sometimes can--in the way of all
+others in which Mr. Alwynn was anxious that he should walk; a way in
+which he sometimes feared that Dare had not made any great progress as
+yet. Mr. Alwynn felt at times, when conversing with him, that Dare's
+life could not have been one in which the nobler feelings of his nature
+had been much brought into play, so crude and unformed were his ideas of
+principle and responsibility, so slack and easy-going his views of life.
+
+But if Mr. Alwynn felt an occasional twinge of anxiety and misgiving
+about his young friend, it speedily turned to self-upbraiding for
+indulging in a cynical, unworthy spirit, which was ever ready to seek
+out the evil and overlook the good; and he gradually convinced himself
+that only favorable circumstances were required for the blossoming forth
+of those noble attributes, of which the faintest indications on Dare's
+part were speedily magnified by the powerful lens of Mr. Alwynn's
+charity to an extent which would have filled Dare with satisfaction, and
+would have overwhelmed a more humble nature with shame.
+
+And Ruth would not have him! Mr. Alwynn remembered a certain passage in
+his own youth, a long time ago, when somebody (a very foolish somebody,
+I think) would not have him either; and it was with that remembrance
+still in his mind that he met Dare, who had come as far as the lodge
+gates to meet him, and whose forlorn appearance touched Mr. Alwynn's
+heart the moment he saw him.
+
+There was not time for much conversation. To his astonishment Mr. Alwynn
+found Dare actually nervous about the coming ordeal; and on the way to
+the Green Dragon, where the dinner was to be given, he reassured him as
+best he could, and suggested the kind of answer he should make when his
+health was drunk.
+
+When, a couple of hours later, all was satisfactorily over, when the
+last health had been drunk, the last song sung, and Dare was driving Mr.
+Alwynn home in the shabby old Vandon dog-cart, both men were at first
+too much overcome by the fumes of tobacco, in which they had been
+hidden, to say a word to each other. At last, however, Mr. Alwynn drew a
+long breath, and said, faintly:
+
+"I trust I may never be so hot again. Drive slowly under these trees,
+Dare. It is cooling to look at them after sitting behind that steaming
+volcano of a turkey. How is your head getting on? I saw you went in for
+punch."
+
+"Was that punch?" said Dare. "Then I take no more punch in the future."
+
+"You spoke capitally, and brought in the right sentiment, that there is
+no place like home, in first-rate style. You see, you need not have been
+nervous."
+
+"Ah! but it was you who spoke really well," said Dare, with something of
+his old eager manner. "You know these people. You know their heart. You
+understand them. Now, for me, I said what you tell me, and they were
+pleased, but I can never be with them like you. I understand the words
+they speak, but themselves I do not understand."
+
+"It will come."
+
+"No," with a rare accession of humility. "I have cared for none of these
+things till--till I came to hear them spoken of at Slumberleigh by you
+and--and now at first it is smooth, because I say I will do what I can,
+but soon they will find out I cannot do much, and then--" He shrugged
+his shoulders.
+
+They drove on in silence.
+
+"But these things are nothing--nothing," burst out Dare at last, in a
+tremulous voice, "to the one thing I think of all night, all day--how I
+love Miss Deyncourt, and how," with a simplicity which touched Mr.
+Alwynn, "she does not love me at all."
+
+There is something pathetic in seeing any cheerful, light-hearted animal
+reduced to silence and depression. To watch a barking, worrying, jovial
+puppy suddenly desist from parachute expeditions on unsteady legs, and
+from shaking imaginary rats, and creep, tail close at home, overcome by
+affliction, into obscurity, is a sad sight. Mr. Alwynn felt much the
+same kind of pity for Dare as he glanced at him, resignedly blighted,
+handsomely forlorn, who but a short time ago had taken life as gayly and
+easily as a boy home for the holidays.
+
+"Sometimes," said Mr. Alwynn, addressing himself to the mill, and the
+bridge, and the world in general, "young people change their minds. I
+have known such things happen."
+
+"I shall never change mine."
+
+"Perhaps not; but others might."
+
+"Ah!" and Dare turned sharply towards Mr. Alwynn, scanning his face with
+sudden eagerness. "You think--you think, possibly--"
+
+"I don't think anything at all," interposed Mr. Alwynn, rather taken
+aback at the evident impression his vague words had made, and anxious
+to qualify them. "I was only speaking generally; but--ahem! there is one
+point, as we are on the subject, that--"
+
+"Yes, yes?"
+
+"Whether you consider any decision as final or not"--Mr. Alwynn
+addressed the clouds in the sky--"I think, if you do not wish it to be
+known that anything has taken place, you had better come and see me
+occasionally at Slumberleigh. I have missed your visits for the past
+week. The fact is, Mrs. Alwynn has a way of interesting herself in all
+her friends. She has a kind heart, and--you--understand--any little
+difference in their behavior might be observed by her, and might
+possibly--might possibly"--Mr. Alwynn was at a loss for a word--"be, in
+short, commented on to others. Suppose now you were to come back with me
+to tea to-day?"
+
+And Dare went, nothing loath, and arrived at a critical moment in the
+manufacture of the screen, when all the thickest Christmas cards
+threatened to resist the influence of paste, and to curl up, to the
+great anxiety of Mrs. Alwynn.
+
+One of the principle reasons of Dare's popularity was the way in which
+he threw his whole heart into whatever he was doing, for the time; never
+for a long time, certainly, for he rarely bored himself or others by
+adherence to one set of ideas after its novelty had worn off.
+
+And now, as if nothing else existed in the world, and with a grave
+manner suggesting repressed suffering and manly resignation, he
+concentrated his whole mind on Mrs. Alwynn's recalcitrant cards, and
+made Ruth grateful to him by his tact in devoting himself to her aunt
+and the screen.
+
+"Well, I never!" said Mrs. Alwynn, after he was gone. "I never did see
+any one like Mr. Dare. I declare he has made the church stick, Ruth, and
+'Blessings on my friend,' which turned up at the corners twice when you
+put it on, and the big middle one of the kittens skating, too! Dear me!
+I am pleased. I hope Mrs. Thursby won't call till it's finished. But he
+did not look well, Ruth, did he? Rather pale now, I thought."
+
+"He has had a tiring day," said Ruth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+At Slumberleigh you have time to notice the change of the seasons. There
+is no hurry at Slumberleigh. Spring, summer, autumn, and winter, each in
+their turn, take quite a year to come and go. Three months ago it was
+August; now September had arrived. It was actually the time of damsons.
+Those damsons which Ruth had seen dangling for at least three years in
+the cottage orchards were ripe at last. It seemed ages ago since April,
+when the village was a foaming mass of damson blossom, and the "plum
+winter" had set in just when spring really seemed to have arrived for
+good. It was a well-known thing in Slumberleigh, though Ruth till last
+April had not been aware of it, that God Almighty always sent cold
+weather when the Slumberleigh damsons were in bloom, to harden the
+fruit. And now the lame, the halt, and the aged of Slumberleigh, all
+with one consent, mounted on tottering ladders to pick their damsons, or
+that mysterious fruit, closely akin to the same, called "black Lamas
+ploums."
+
+There were plum accidents, of course, in plenty. The Lord took Mrs.
+Eccles's own uncle from his half-filled basket to another world, for
+which, as a "tea and coffee totaller," he was no doubt well prepared.
+The too receptive organisms of unsuspecting infancy suffered in their
+turn. In short, it was a busy season for Mr. and Mrs. Alwynn.
+
+Ruth had plenty of opportunities now for making her long-projected
+sketch of the ruined house of Arleigh, for the old woman who lived in
+the lodge close by, and had charge of the place, had "ricked" her back
+in a damson-tree, and Ruth often went to see her. She had been Ruth's
+nurse in her childhood, and having originally come from Slumberleigh,
+returned there when the Deyncourt children grew up, and lived happily
+ever after, with the very blind and entirely deaf old husband of her
+choice, in the gray stone lodge at Arleigh.
+
+It was on her return from one of these almost daily visits that Mrs.
+Eccles pounced on Ruth as she passed her gate, and under pretence of
+inquiring after Mrs. Cotton, informed her that she herself was suffering
+in no slight degree. Ruth, who suddenly remembered that she had been
+remiss in "dropping in" on Mrs. Eccles of late, dropped in then and
+there to make up for past delinquencies.
+
+"Is it rheumatism again?" she asked, as Mrs. Eccles seemed inclined to
+run off at once into a report of the goings on of Widow Jones's Sally.
+
+"Not that, my dear, so much as a sinking," said Mrs. Eccles, passing her
+hand slowly over what seemed more like a rising than a depression in her
+ample figure. "But there! I've not been myself since the Lord took old
+Samiwell Price, and that's the truth."
+
+Samuel Price was the relation who had entered into rest off a ladder,
+and Ruth looked duly serious.
+
+"I have no doubt it upset you very much," she said.
+
+"Well, miss," returned Mrs. Eccles, with dignity, "it's not as if I'd
+had my 'ealth before. I've had something wrong in the cistern" (Ruth
+wondered whether she meant system) "these many years. From a gell I
+suffered in my inside. But lor'! I was born to trouble, baptized in a
+bucket, and taken with collects at a week old. And how did you say Mrs.
+Cotton of the lodge might be, miss, as I hear is but poorly too?"
+
+Ruth replied that she was better.
+
+"She's no size to keep her in 'ealth," said Mrs. Eccles, "and so bent as
+she does grow, to be sure. Eh, dear, but it's a good thing to be tall. I
+always think little folks they're like them little watches, they've no
+room for their insides. And I wonder now"--Mrs. Eccles was coming to the
+point that had made her entrap Ruth on her way past--"I wonder now--"
+
+Ruth did not help her. She knew too well the universal desire for
+knowledge of good and evil peculiar to her sex to doubt for a moment
+that Mrs. Eccles had begged her to "step in" only to obtain some piece
+of information, about which her curiosity had been aroused.
+
+"I wonder, now, if Cotton at the lodge has heard anything of the
+poachers again this year, round Arleigh way?"
+
+"Not that I know of," said Ruth, surprised at the simplicity of the
+question.
+
+"Dear sakes! and to think of 'em at Vandon last night, and Mr. Dare and
+the keepers out all night after 'em."
+
+Ruth was interested in spite of herself.
+
+"And the doctor sent for in the middle of the night," continued Mrs.
+Eccles, covertly eying Ruth. "Poor young gentleman! For all his forrin
+ways, there's a many in Vandon as sets store by him."
+
+"I don't think you need be uneasy about Mr. Dare," said Ruth, coldly,
+conscious that Mrs. Eccles was dying to see her change color. "If
+anything had happened to him Mr. Alwynn would have heard of it. And
+now," rising, "I must be going; and if I were you, Mrs. Eccles, I should
+not listen to all the gossip of the village."
+
+"Me listen!" said Mrs. Eccles, much offended. "Me, as is too poorly so
+much as to put my foot out of the door! But, dear heart!" with her usual
+quickness of vision, "if there isn't Mr. Alwynn and Dr. Brown riding up
+the street now in Dr. Brown's gig! Well, I never! and Mr. Alwynn
+a-getting out, and a-talking as grave as can be to Dr. Brown. Poor Mr.
+Dare! Poor dear young gentleman!"
+
+Ruth was conscious that she beat rather a hurried retreat from Mrs.
+Eccles's cottage, and that her voice was not quite so steady as usual
+when she asked the doctor if it were true that Mr. Dare had been hurt.
+
+"All the village will have it that he is killed; but he is all right, I
+assure you, Miss Deyncourt," said the kind old doctor, so soothingly and
+reassuringly that Ruth grew pink with annoyance at the tone. "Not a
+scratch. He was out with his keepers last night, and they had a brush
+with poachers; and Martin, the head keeper was shot in the leg. Bled a
+good deal, so they sent for me; but no danger. I picked up your uncle
+here on his way to see him, and so I gave him a lift there and back.
+That is all, I assure you."
+
+And Dr. Brown and Mrs. Eccles, straining over her geraniums, both came
+to the same conclusion, namely, that, as Mrs. Eccles elegantly expressed
+it, "Miss Ruth wanted Mr. Dare."
+
+"And he'll have her, too, I'm thinking, one of these days," Mrs. Eccles
+would remark to the circle of her acquaintance.
+
+Indeed, the match was discussed on numerous ladders, with almost as much
+interest as the unfailing theme of the damsons themselves.
+
+And Dare rode over to the rectory as often as he used to do before a
+certain day in August, when he had found Ruth under the
+chestnut-tree--the very day before Mrs. Alwynn started on her screen,
+now the completed glory of the drawing-room.
+
+And was Ruth beginning to like him?
+
+As it had not occurred to her to ask herself that question, I suppose
+she was _not_.
+
+Dare had grown very quiet and silent of late, and showed a growing
+tendency to dark hats. His refusal had been so unexpected that the blow,
+when it came, fell with all the more crushing force. His self-love and
+self-esteem had been wounded; but so had something else. Under the
+velvet corduroy waistcoat, which he wore in imitation of Ralph, he had a
+heart. Whether it was one of the very best of its kind or warranted to
+wear well is not for us to judge; but, at any rate, it was large enough
+to take in a very real affection, and to feel a very sharp pang. Dare's
+manner to Ruth was now as diffident as it had formerly been assured. To
+some minds there is nothing more touching than a sudden access of
+humility on the part of a vain man.
+
+Whether Ruth's mind was one of this class or not we do not pretend to
+know.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+It was Sunday morning at Atherstone. In the dining-room, breakfasting
+alone, for he had come down late, was Sir Charles Danvers. His sudden
+arrival on the previous Saturday was easily accounted for. When he had
+casually walked into the drawing-room late in the evening, he had
+immediately and thoroughly explained the reasons of his unexpected
+arrival. It seemed odd that he should have come to Atherstone, in the
+midland counties, "on his way" between two shooting visits in the north,
+but so it was. It might have been thought that one of his friends would
+have been willing to keep him two days longer, or receive him two days
+earlier; but no doubt every one knows his own affairs best, and Charles
+might certainly, "at his age," as he was so fond of saying, be expected
+to know his.
+
+Anyhow, there he was, leaning against the open window, coffee-cup in
+hand, lazily watching the dwindling figures of Ralph and Evelyn, with
+Molly between them, disappearing in the direction of Greenacre church,
+hard by.
+
+The morning mist still lingered on the land, and veiled the distance
+with a tender blue. And up across the silver fields, and across the
+standing armies of the yellowing corn, the sound of church bells came
+from Slumberleigh, beyond the river; bringing back to Charles, as to us
+all, old memories, old hopes, old visions of early youth, long
+cherished, long forgotten.
+
+The single bell of Greenacre was giving forth a slow, persistent,
+cracked invitation to true believers, as an appropriate prelude to Mr.
+Smith's eloquence; but Charles did not hear its testimony.
+
+He was listening to the Slumberleigh bells. Was that the first chime or
+the second?
+
+Suddenly a thought crossed his mind. Should he go to church?
+
+He smiled at the idea. It was a little late to think of that. Besides he
+had let the others start, and he disliked that refuge of mildew and
+dust, Greenacre.
+
+There was Slumberleigh!
+
+There went the bells again!
+
+Slumberleigh! Absurd! Why, he should positively have to run to get there
+before the First Lesson; and that mist meant heat, or he was much
+mistaken.
+
+Charles contemplated the mist for a few seconds.
+
+Tang, teng, ting, tong, tung!
+
+He certainly always made a point of going to church at his own home. A
+good example is, after all, just as important in one place as another.
+
+Tang, tong, teng, tung, _ting_! went the bells.
+
+"Why not run?" suggested an inner voice. "Put down your cup. There! Now!
+Your hat's in the hall, with your gloves beside it. Never mind about
+your prayer-book. Dear me! Don't waste time looking for your own stick.
+Take any. Quick! out through the garden-gate! No one can see you. The
+servants have all gone to church except the cook, and the kitchen looks
+out on the yew hedge."
+
+"Over the first stile," said Charles to himself. "I am out of sight of
+the house now. Let us be thankful for small mercies. I shall do it yet.
+Oh, what a fool I am! I'm worse than Raca, as Molly said. I shall be
+rushing precipitately down a steep place into the sea next. Confound
+this gate! Why can't people leave them open? At any rate, it will remain
+open now. I am not going to have my devotions curtailed by a gate. I
+fancied it would be hot, but never anything half as hot as this. I hope
+I sha'n't meet Brown taking a morning stroll. I value Brown; but I
+should have to dismiss him if he saw me now. I could never meet his eye
+again. What on earth shall I say to Ralph and Evelyn when I get back?
+What a merciful Providence it is that Aunt Mary is at this moment
+intoning a response in the highest church in Scarborough!"
+
+_Ting, ting, ting!_
+
+"Mr. Alwynn is getting on his surplice, is he? Well, and if he is, I can
+make a final rush through the corn, can't I? There's not a creature in
+sight. The bell's down! What of that? There is the voluntary. Easy over
+the last fields. There are houses in sight, and there may be wicked
+Sabbath-breakers looking out of windows. Brown's foal has grown since
+July. Here we are! I am not the only Christian hurrying among the tombs.
+I shall get in with 'the wicked man' after all."
+
+Some people do not look round in church; others do. Mrs. Alwynn always
+did, partly because she wished to see what was going on behind her, and
+partly because, in turning back again, she could take a stealthy survey
+of Mrs. Thursby's bonnet, in which she always felt a burning interest,
+which she would not for worlds have allowed that lady to suspect.
+
+If the turning round had been all, it would have mattered little; but
+Mrs. Alwynn suffered so intensely from keeping silence that she was
+obliged to relieve herself at intervals by short whispered comments to
+Ruth.
+
+On this particular morning it seemed as if the comments would never end.
+
+"I am so glad we asked Mr. Dare into our pew, Ruth. The Thursbys are
+full. That's Mrs. Thursby's sister in the red bonnet."
+
+Ruth made no reply. She was following the responses in the psalms with a
+marked attention, purposely marked to check conversation, and sufficient
+to have daunted anybody but her aunt.
+
+Mrs. Alwynn took a spasmodic interest in the psalm, but it did not last.
+
+"Only two basses in the choir, and the new _Te Deum_, Ruth. How vexed
+Mr. Alwynn will be!"
+
+No response from Ruth. Mrs. Alwynn took another turn at her prayer-book,
+and then at the congregation.
+
+"'I am become as it were a monster unto--' Ruth! _Ruth!_"
+
+Ruth at last turned her head a quarter of an inch.
+
+_"Sir Charles Danvers is sitting in the free seats by the font!"_
+
+Ruth nailed her eyes to her book, and would vouchsafe no further sign of
+attention during the rest of the service; and Dare, on the other side,
+anxious to copy Ruth in everything, being equally obdurate, Mrs. Alwynn
+had no resource left but to follow the service half aloud to herself, at
+the times when the congregation were _not_ supposed to join in, putting
+great emphasis on certain words which she felt applicable to herself, in
+a manner that effectually prevented any one near her from attending to
+the service at all.
+
+It was with a sudden pang that Dare, following Ruth out into the
+sunshine after service, perceived for the first time Charles, standing,
+tall and distinguished-looking, beside the rather insignificant heir of
+all the Thursbys, who regarded him with the mixed admiration and gnawing
+envy of a very young man for a man no longer young.
+
+And then--Charles never quite knew how it happened, but with the full
+intention of walking back to the rectory with the Alwynns, and staying
+to luncheon, he actually found himself in Ruth's very presence,
+accepting a cordial invitation to luncheon at Slumberleigh Hall. For the
+first time during the last ten years he had done a thing he had no
+intention of doing. A temporary long-lost feeling of shyness had seized
+upon him as he saw Ruth coming out, tall and pale and graceful, from the
+shadow of the church porch into the blaze of the mid-day sunshine. He
+had not calculated either for that sudden disconcerting leap of the
+heart as her eyes met his. He had an idiotic feeling that she must be
+aware that he had run most of the way to church, and that he had
+contemplated the burnished circles of her back hair for two hours,
+without a glance at the fashionably scraped-up head-dress of Mabel
+Thursby, with its hogged mane of little wire curls in the nape of the
+neck. He felt he still looked hot and dusty, though he had imagined he
+was quite cool the moment before. To his own astonishment, he actually
+found his self-possession leaving him; and though its desertion proved
+only momentary, _in_ that moment he found himself walking away with the
+Thursbys in the direction of the Hall. He was provoked, angry with
+himself, with the Thursbys, and, most of all, with Mr. Alwynn, who had
+come up a second later, and asked him to luncheon, as a matter of
+course, also Dare, who accepted with evident gratitude. Charles felt
+that he had not gone steeple-chasing over the country only to talk to
+Mrs. Thursby, and to see Ruth stroll away over the fields with Dare
+towards the rectory.
+
+However, he made himself extremely agreeable, which was with him more a
+matter of habit than those who occasionally profited by it would have
+cared to know. He asked young Thursby his opinion on E.C. cartridges; he
+condoled with Mrs. Thursby on the loss of her last butler, and recounted
+some alarming anecdotes of his own French cook. He admired a pallid
+water-color drawing of Venice, in an enormous frame on an enormous
+easel, which he rightly supposed to be the manual labor of Mabel
+Thursby.
+
+When he rose to take his leave, young Thursby, intensely flattered by
+having been asked for that opinion on cartridges by so renowned a shot
+as Charles, offered to walk part of the way back with him.
+
+"I am afraid I am not going home yet," said Charles, lightly. "Duty
+points in the opposite direction, I have to call at the rectory. I want
+Mr. Alwynn's opinion on a point of clerical etiquette, which is setting
+my young spiritual shepherd at Stoke Moreton against his principal
+sheep, namely, myself."
+
+And Charles took his departure, leaving golden opinions behind him, and
+a determination to invite him once more to shoot, in spite of his many
+courteous refusals of the last few years.
+
+Mrs. Alwynn always took a nap after luncheon in her smart Sunday gown,
+among the mustard-colored cushions of her high-art sofa. Mr. Alwynn,
+also, was apt at the same time to sink into a subdued, almost apologetic
+doze, in the old arm-chair which alone had resisted the march of
+discomfort, and so-called "taste," which had invaded the rest of the
+little drawing-room of Slumberleigh Rectory. Ruth was sitting with her
+dark head leaned against the open window-frame. Dare had not stayed
+after luncheon, being at times nervously afraid of giving her too much
+of his society; and she was at liberty to read over again, if she chose,
+the solitary letter which the Sunday post had brought her. But she did
+not do so; she was thinking.
+
+And so her sister Anna was actually returning to England at last! She
+and her husband had taken a house in Rome, and had arranged that Ruth
+should join them in London in November, and go abroad with them after
+Christmas for the remainder of the winter. She had pleasant
+recollections of previous winters in Rome, or, on the Riviera with her
+grandmother, and she was surprised that she did not feel more interested
+in the prospect. She supposed she would like it when the time came, but
+she seemed to care very little about it at the present moment. It had
+become very natural to live at Slumberleigh, and although there were
+drawbacks--here she glanced involuntarily at her aunt, who was making
+her slumbers vocal by a running commentary on them through her
+nose--still she would be sorry to go. Mr. Alwynn gave the ghost of a
+miniature snore, and, opening his eyes, found Ruth bent affectionately
+upon him. Her mind went back to another point in Anna's letter. After
+dilating on the extreme admiration and regard entertained for herself by
+her husband, his readiness with shawls, etc., she went on to ask whether
+Ruth had heard any news of Raymond.
+
+Ruth sighed. Would there ever be any news of Raymond? The old nurse at
+Arleigh always asked the same question. "Any news of Master Raymond?" It
+was with a tired ache of the heart that Ruth heard that question, and
+always gave the same answer. Once she had heard from him since Lady
+Deyncourt's death, after she had written to tell him, as gently as she
+could, that she and Anna had inherited all their grandmother had to
+leave. A couple of months later she had received a hurried note in
+reply, inveighing against Lady Deyncourt's injustice, saying (as usual)
+that he was hard up for money, and that, when he knew where it might
+safely be sent, he should expect her and her sister to make up to him
+for his disappointment. And since then, since April--not a word. June,
+July, August, September. Four months and no sign. When he was in want of
+money his letters heretofore had made but little delay. Had he fallen
+ill and died out there, or met his death suddenly, perhaps in some wild
+adventure under an assumed name? Her lips tightened, and her white brows
+contracted over her absent eyes. It was an old anxiety, but none the
+less wearing because it was old. Ruth put it wearily from her, and took
+up the first book which came to her hand, to distract her attention.
+
+It was a manual out of which Mrs. Alwynn had been reading extracts to
+her in the morning, while Ruth had been engaged in preparing herself to
+teach in the Sunday-school. She wondered vaguely how pleasure could be
+derived, even by the most religious persons, from seeing favorite texts
+twined in and out among forget-me-nots, or falling aslant in old English
+letters off bunches of violets; but she was old enough and wise enough
+to know that one man's religion is another man's occasion of stumbling.
+Books are made to fit all minds, and small minds lose themselves in
+large-minded books. The thousands in which these little manuals are
+sold, and the confidence with which their readers recommend them to
+others, indicates the calibre of the average mind, and shows that they
+meet a want possibly "not known before," but which they alone, with
+their little gilt edges, can adequately fill. Ruth was gazing in absent
+wonder at the volume which supplied all her aunt's spiritual needs when
+she heard the wire of the front door-bell squeak faintly. It was a
+stiff-necked and obdurate bell, which for several years Mr. Alwynn had
+determined to see about.
+
+A few moments later James, the new and inexperienced footman, opened the
+door about half a foot, put in his head, murmured something inaudible,
+and withdrew it again.
+
+A tall figure appeared in the door-way, and advanced to meet her, then
+stopped midway. Ruth rose hastily, and stood where she had risen, her
+eyes glancing first at Mr. and then at Mrs. Alwynn.
+
+The alien presence of a visitor had not disturbed them. Mrs. Alwynn, her
+head well forward and a succession of chins undulating in perfect repose
+upon her chest, was sleeping as a stout person only can--all over. Mr.
+Alwynn, opposite, his thin hands clasped listlessly over his knee, was
+as unconscious of the two pairs of eyes fixed upon him as Nelson
+himself, laid out in Madame Tussaud's.
+
+Charles's eyes, twinkling with suppressed amusement, met Ruth's. He
+shook his head energetically, as she made a slight movement as if to
+wake them, and stepping forward, pointed with his hat towards the open
+window, which reached to the ground. Ruth understood, but she hesitated.
+At this moment Mrs. Alwynn began a variation on the simple theme in
+which she had been indulging, and in so much higher a key that all
+hesitation vanished. She stepped hastily out through the window, and
+Charles followed. They stood together for a moment in the blazing
+sunshine, both too much amused to speak.
+
+"You are bareheaded," he said, suddenly; "is there any"--looking
+round--"any shade we could take refuge under?"
+
+Ruth led the way round the yew hedge to the horse-chestnut; that
+horse-chestnut under which Dare had once lost his self-esteem.
+
+"I am afraid," said Charles, "I arrived at an inopportune moment. As I
+was lunching with the Thursbys, I came up in the hope of finding Mr.
+Alwynn, whom I wanted to consult about a small matter in my own parish."
+
+Charles was quite pleased with this sentence when he had airily given it
+out. It had a true ring about it he fancied, which he remembered with
+gratitude was more than the door-bell had. Peace be with that door-bell,
+and with the engaging youth who answered it.
+
+"I wish you had let me wake Mr. Alwynn," said Ruth. "He will sleep on
+now till the bells begin."
+
+"On no account. I should have been shocked if you had disturbed him. I
+assure you I can easily wait until he naturally wakes up; that is," with
+a glance at the book in her hand, "if I am not disturbing you--if you
+are not engaged in improving yourself at this moment."
+
+"No. I have improved myself for the day, thanks. I can safely afford to
+relax a little now."
+
+"So can I. I resemble Lady Mary in that. On Sunday mornings she reflects
+on her own shortcomings; on Sunday afternoons she finds an innocent
+relaxation in pointing out mine."
+
+"Where is Lady Mary now?"
+
+"I should say she was in her Bath-chair on the Scarborough sands at this
+moment."
+
+"I like her," said Ruth, with decision.
+
+"Tastes differ. Some people feel drawn towards wet blankets, and others
+have a leaning towards pokers. Do you know why you like her?"
+
+"I never thought about it, but I suppose it was because she seemed to
+like _me_."
+
+"Exactly. You admired her good taste. A very natural vanity, most
+pardonable in the young, was gratified at seeing marks of favor so well
+bestowed."
+
+"I dare say you are right. At any rate, you seem so familiar with the
+workings of vanity in the human breast that it would be a pity to
+contradict you."
+
+"By-the-way," said Charles, speaking in the way people do who have
+nothing to say, and are trying to hit on any subject of conversation,
+"have you heard any more of your tramp? There was no news of him when I
+left. I asked the Slumberleigh policeman about him again on my way to
+the station."
+
+"I have heard no more of him, though I keep his memory green. I have not
+forgotten the fright he gave me. I had always imagined I was rather a
+self-possessed person till that day."
+
+"I am a coward myself when I am frightened," said Charles, consolingly,
+"though at other times as bold as a lion."
+
+They were both sitting under the flickering shadow of the already
+yellowing horse-chestnut-tree, the first of all the trees to set the
+gorgeous autumn fashions. But as yet it was paling only at the edges of
+its slender fans. The air was sweet and soft, with a voiceless whisper
+of melancholy in it, as if the summer knew, for all her smiles, her hour
+had wellnigh come.
+
+The rectory cows--the mottled one, and the red one, and the big white
+one that was always milked first--came slowly past on their way to the
+pond, blinking their white eyelashes leisurely at Charles and Ruth.
+
+"It is almost as hot as that Sunday in July when we walked over from
+Atherstone. Do you remember?" said Charles, suddenly.
+
+"Yes."
+
+She knew he was thinking of their last conversation, and she felt a
+momentary surprise that he had remembered it.
+
+"We never finished that conversation," he said, after a pause.
+
+"No; but then conversations never are finished, are they? They always
+seem to break off just when they are coming to the beginning. A bell
+rings, or there is an interruption, or one is told it is bedtime."
+
+"Or fools rush in with their word where you and I should fear to tread,
+and spoil everything."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And have you been holding the wool and tying up the flowers, as you so
+graphically described, ever since you left Atherstone in July?"
+
+"I hope I have; I have tried."
+
+"I am sure of that," he said, with sudden earnestness, then added more
+slowly, "I have not wound any wool; I have only enjoyed myself."
+
+"Perhaps," said Ruth, turning her clear, frank gaze upon him, "that may
+have been the harder work of the two; it sometimes is."
+
+His light, restless eyes, with the searching look in them which she had
+seen before, met hers, and then wandered away again to the level meadows
+and the woods and the faint sky.
+
+"I think it was," he said at last; and both were silent. He reflected
+that his conversations with Ruth had a way of beginning in fun, becoming
+more serious, and ending in silence.
+
+The bells rang out suddenly.
+
+Charles thought they were full early.
+
+"Mr. Alwynn will wake up now," said Ruth; "I will tell him you are
+here."
+
+But before she had time to do more than rise from her chair, Mr. Alwynn
+came slowly round the yew hedge, and stopped suddenly in front of the
+chestnut-tree, amazed at what he saw beneath it. His mild eyes gazed
+blankly at Charles through his spectacles, gathering a pained expression
+as they peered over the top of them, which did not lessen when they fell
+on Ruth.
+
+Charles explained in a few words the purport of his visit, which had
+already explained itself quite sufficiently to Mr. Alwynn; and
+mentioning that he had waited in the hope of presently finding Mr.
+Alwynn "disengaged" (at this Mr. Alwynn blushed a little), asked leave
+to walk as far as the church with him to consult him on a small matter,
+etc. It was a neat sentence, but it did not sound quite so well the
+third time. It had lost by the heathenish and vain repetitions to which
+it had been subjected.
+
+"Certainly, certainly," said Mr. Alwynn, mollified, but still
+discomposed. "You should have waked me, Ruth;" turning reproachfully to
+his niece, whose conduct had never, in his eyes, fallen short of
+perfection till this moment. "Little nap after luncheon. Hardly asleep.
+You should have waked me."
+
+"There was Aunt Fanny," said Ruth, feeling as if she had committed some
+grave sin.
+
+"Ah-h!" said Mr. Alwynn, as if her reason were a weighty one, his memory
+possibly recalling the orchestral flourish which as a rule heralded his
+wife's return to consciousness. "True, true, my dear. I must be going,"
+as the chime ceased. "Are you coming to church this afternoon?"
+
+Ruth replied that she was not, and Mr. Alwynn and Charles departed
+together, Charles ruefully remembering that he had still to ask advice
+on a subject the triviality of which would hardly allow of two opinions.
+
+Ruth watched them walk away together, and then went back noiselessly
+into the drawing-room.
+
+Mrs. Alwynn was sitting bolt upright, her feet upon the floor, her gown
+upon the sofa. Her astonished eyes were fixed upon the dwindling figures
+of Mr. Alwynn and Charles.
+
+"Goodness, Ruth!" she exclaimed, "who is that white waistcoat walking
+with your uncle?"
+
+Ruth explained.
+
+"Dear me! And as likely as not he came to see the new screen. I know
+Mrs. Thursby tells everybody about it. And his own house so full of
+beautiful things too. Was ever anything so annoying! We should have had
+so much in common, for I hear his taste is quite--well, really quite out
+of the way. How contrary things are, Ruth! You awake and me asleep, when
+it might just as well have been the other way; but it is Sunday, my
+dear, so we must not complain. And now, as we have missed church, I will
+lie down again, and you shall read me that nice sermon, which I always
+like to hear when I can't go to church; the one in the green book about
+Nabob's vineyard."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+Great philosophers and profound metaphysicians should by rights have
+lived at Slumberleigh. Those whose lines have fallen to them "ten miles
+from a lemon," have time to think, if so inclined.
+
+Only elementary natures complain of their surroundings; and though at
+first Ruth had been impatient and depressed, after a time she found
+that, better than to live in an atmosphere of thought, was to be thrown
+entirely on her own resources, and to do her thinking for herself.
+
+Some minds, of course, sink into inanition if an outward supply of
+nutriment is withheld. Others get up and begin to forage for themselves.
+Happy are these--when the transition period is over--when, after a time,
+the first and worst mistakes have been made and suffered for, and the
+only teaching that profits anything at all, the bitter teaching of
+experience, has been laid to heart.
+
+Such a nature was Ruth's, upright, self-reliant, without the impetuosity
+and impulsiveness that so often accompanies an independent nature, but
+accustomed to look at everything through her own eyes, and to think, but
+not till now to act for herself.
+
+She had been brought up by her grandmother to believe that before all
+things _noblesse oblige_; to despise a dishonorable action, to have her
+feelings entirely under control, to be intimate with few, to be
+courteous to all. But to help others, to give up anything for them, to
+love an unfashionable or middle-class neighbor, or to feel a personal
+interest in religion, except as a subject of conversation, had never
+found a place in Lady Deyncourt's code, or consequently in Ruth's,
+though, as was natural with a generous nature, the girl did many little
+kindnesses to those about her, and was personally unselfish, as those
+who live with self-centred people are bound to be if there is to be any
+semblance of peace in the house.
+
+But now, new thoughts were stirring within her, were leavening her whole
+mind. All through these monotonous months she had watched the quiet
+routine of patient effort that went to make up the sum of Mr. Alwynn's
+life. He was a shy man. He seldom spoke of religion out of the pulpit;
+but all through these long months he preached it without words to Ruth,
+as she had never heard it preached before, by
+
+     "The best portion of a good man's life--
+     His little, nameless, unremembered acts
+       Of kindness and of love."
+
+It was the first time that she had come into close contact with a life
+spent for others, and its beauty appealed to her with a new force, and
+gradually but surely changed the current of her thoughts, until, as "we
+needs must love the highest when we see it," she unconsciously fell in
+love with self-sacrifice.
+
+The opinions of most young persons, however loudly and injudiciously
+proclaimed, rarely do the possessors much harm, because they are not,
+as a rule, acted upon; but with some few people a change of views means
+a change of life. Ruth was on the edge of a greater change than she
+knew.
+
+At first she had often regretted the chapter of her life that had been
+closed by Lady Deyncourt's death. Now, she felt she could not go back to
+it, and find it all-sufficient as of old. It would need an added
+element, without which she began to see that any sort or condition of
+life is but a stony, dusty concern after all--an element which made even
+Mr. Alwynn's colorless existence a contented and happy one.
+
+Ruth had been telling him one day, as they were walking together, of her
+sister's plans for the winter, and that she was sorry to think her time
+at Slumberleigh was drawing to a close.
+
+"I am afraid," he said, "in spite of all you say, my dear, it has been
+very dull for you here. No little gayeties or enjoyments such as it is
+right young people should have. I wish we had had a picnic, or a
+garden-party, or something. Mabel Thursby cannot be happy without these
+things, and it is natural at your age that you should wish for them.
+Your aunt and I lead very quiet lives. It suits us, but it is different
+for young people."
+
+"Does it suit you?" asked Ruth, with sudden earnestness. "Do you really
+like it, or do you sometimes get tired of it?"
+
+Mr. Alwynn looked a little alarmed and disconcerted. He never cared to
+talk about himself.
+
+"I used to get tired," he said at last, with reluctance, "when I was
+younger. There were times when I foolishly expected more from life
+than--than, in fact, I quite got, my dear; and the result was, I fear I
+had a very discontented spirit--an unthankful, discontented spirit," he
+repeated, with sad retrospection.
+
+Something in his tone touched Ruth to the quick.
+
+"And now?"
+
+"I am content now."
+
+"Uncle John, tell me. How did you grow to feel content?"
+
+He saw there were tears in her eyes.
+
+"It took a long time," he said. "Anything that is worth knowing, Ruth,
+takes a long time to learn. I think I found in the end, my dear, that
+the only way was to put my whole heart into what I was doing," (Mr.
+Alwynn's voice was simple and earnest, as if he were imparting to Ruth a
+great discovery). "I had tried before, from time to time, of course, but
+never quite as hard as I might have done. That was where I failed. When
+I put myself on one side, and really settled down to do what I could
+for others, life became much simpler and happier."
+
+He turned his grave, patient eyes to Ruth's again. Was something
+troubling her?
+
+"I have often thought since then," he went on, speaking more to himself
+than to her, "that we should consider well what we are keeping back our
+strength for, if we find ourselves refusing to put the whole of it into
+our work. When at last one does start, one feels it is such a pity one
+did not do it earlier in life. When I look at all the young faces
+growing up around me, I often hope, Ruth, they won't waste as much time
+as I did."
+
+How simple it seemed while she listened to him; how easy, how natural,
+this life for others!
+
+She could not answer. One sentence of Mr. Alwynn's was knocking at the
+door of her heart for admission; was drowning with its loud beating the
+sound of all the rest:
+
+_"We should consider well what we are keeping back our strength for, if
+we refuse to put the whole of it into our work."_
+
+She and Mr. Alwynn walked on in silence; and after a time, always afraid
+of speaking much on the subject that was first in his own mind, he began
+to talk again on trivial matters, to tell her how he had met Dare that
+morning, and had promised on her behalf that she would sing at a little
+local concert which the Vandon school-master was getting up that week to
+defray the annual expense of the Vandon cricket club, and in which Dare
+was taking a vivid interest.
+
+"You won't mind singing, will you, Ruth?" asked Mr. Alwynn, wishing she
+would show a little more interest in Dare and his concert.
+
+"Oh no, of course not," rather hurriedly. "I should be glad to help in
+any way."
+
+"And I thought, my dear, as it would be getting late, we had better
+accept his offer of staying the night at Vandon."
+
+Ruth assented, but so absently that Mr. Alwynn dropped the subject with
+a sigh, and walked on, revolving weighty matters in his mind. They had
+left the woods now, and were crossing the field where, two months ago,
+the school-feast had been held. Mr. Alwynn made some slight allusion to
+it, and then coughed. Ruth's attention, which had been distracted, came
+back in a moment. She knew her uncle had something which he did not
+like, something which yet he felt it his duty to say, when he gave that
+particular cough.
+
+"That was when you were staying with the Danvers, wasn't it, Ruth?" in a
+would-be casual, disengaged tone.
+
+"Yes; I came over from Atherstone with Molly Danvers."
+
+"I remember," said Mr. Alwynn, looking extremely uncomfortable; "and--if
+I am not mistaken--ahem! Sir Charles Danvers was staying there at the
+same time?"
+
+"Certainly he was."
+
+"Yes, and I dare say, Ruth--I am not finding fault, far from it--I dare
+say he made himself very agreeable for the time being?"
+
+"I don't think he made himself so. I should have said he was naturally
+so, without any effort, just as some people are naturally the reverse."
+
+"Indeed! Well, I have always heard he was most agreeable; but I am
+afraid--I think perhaps it is just as well you should know--forewarned
+is forearmed, you know--that, in fact, he says a great deal more than he
+means sometimes."
+
+"Does he? I dare say he does."
+
+"He has a habit of appearing to take a great interest in people, which I
+am afraid means very little. I dare say he is not fully aware of it, or
+I am sure he would struggle against it, and we must not judge him; but
+still, his manner does a great deal of harm. It is peculiarly open to
+misconstruction. For instance," continued Mr. Alwynn, making a rush as
+his courage began to fail him, "it struck me, Ruth, the other
+day--Sunday, was it? Yes, I think it _was_ Sunday--that really he had
+not much to ask me about his week-day services. I--ahem! I thought he
+need not have called."
+
+"I dare say not."
+
+"But now, that is just the kind of thing he _does_--calls, and,
+er--under chestnut-trees, and that sort of thing--and how _are_ young
+people to know unless their elders tell them that it is only his way,
+and that he has done just the same ever so often before?"
+
+"And will again," said Ruth, trying to keep down a smile. "Is it true
+(Mabel is full of it) that he is engaged, or on the point of being so,
+to one of Lord Hope-Acton's daughters?"
+
+"People are always saying he is engaged, to first one person and then
+another," said Mr. Alwynn, breathing more freely now that his duty was
+discharged. "It often grieves me that your aunt mentions his engagement
+so confidently to friends, because it gives people the impression that
+we know, and we really don't. He is a great deal talked about, because
+he is such a conspicuous man in the county, on account of his wealth and
+his place, and the odd things he says and does. There is something
+about him that is different from other people. I am sure I don't know
+why it is, but I like him very much myself. I have known him do such
+kind things. Dear me! What a pleasant week I had at Stoke Moreton last
+year. It is beautiful, Ruth; and the collection of old papers and
+manuscripts unique! Your aunt was in Devonshire with friends at the
+time. I wish he would ask me again this autumn, to see those charters of
+Edward IV.'s reign that have been found in the secret drawer of an old
+cabinet. I hear they are quite small, and have green seals. I wish I had
+thought of asking him about them on Sunday. If they are really
+small--but it was only Archdeacon Eldon who told me about them, and he
+never sees anything any particular size--if they should happen to be
+really small--" And Mr. Alwynn turned eagerly to the all-engrossing
+subject of the Stoke Moreton charters, which furnished him with
+conversation till they reached home.
+
+_"We should consider well what we are keeping back our strength for, if
+we refuse to put the whole of it into our work."_
+
+All through the afternoon and the quiet, monotonous evening these words
+followed Ruth. She read them between the lines of the book she took up.
+She stitched them into her sewing. They went up-stairs with her at
+night, they followed her into her room, and would not be denied. When
+she had sent away her maid, she sat down by the window, and, with the
+full harvest-moon for company, faced them and asked them what they
+meant. But they only repeated themselves over and over again. What had
+they to do with her? Her mind tried to grapple with them in vain. As
+often as she came to close quarters with them they eluded her and
+disappeared, only to return with the old formula.
+
+Her thoughts drifted away at last to what Mr. Alwynn had said of
+Charles, and all the disagreeable things which Mabel had come up on
+Monday morning, with a bunch of late roses, on purpose to tell her
+respecting him. She had taken Mabel's information at its true worth,
+which I fear was but small; but she felt annoyed that both Mabel and Mr.
+Alwynn should have thought it necessary to warn her. As if, she said to
+herself, she had not known! Really, she had not been born and bred in
+Slumberleigh, nor had she lived there all her life. She had met men of
+that kind before. She always liked them. Charles especially amused her,
+and she could see that she amused him; and, now she came to think of it,
+she supposed he had paid her a good deal of attention at Atherstone, and
+perhaps he had not come over to Slumberleigh especially to see Mr.
+Alwynn. It was as natural to men like Charles to be always interested
+in some one, as it would be unnatural in others ever to be so, except as
+the result of long forethought, and with a wedding-ring and a set of
+bridesmaids well in view. But to attach any importance to the fact that
+Charles liked to talk to her would have been absurd. With another man it
+might have meant much; but she had heard of Charles and his misdoings
+long before she had met him, and knew what to expect. Lord Breakwater's
+sister had confided to her many things respecting him, and had wept
+bitter tears on her shoulder, when he suddenly went off to shoot
+grizzlies in the Rocky Mountains.
+
+"He has not sufficient vanity to know that he is exceedingly popular,"
+said Ruth to herself. "I should think there are few men, handicapped as
+he is, who have been liked more entirely for themselves, and less for
+their belongings; but all the time he probably imagines people admire
+his name, or his place, or his income, and not himself, and consequently
+he does not care much what he says or does. I am certain he does not
+mean to do any harm. His manner never deceived me for a moment. I can't
+see why it should others; but, from all accounts, he seems to be
+frequently misunderstood. That is just the right word for him. He is
+misunderstood. At any rate, I never misunderstood him. That Sunday call
+might have made me suspicious of any ordinary mortal; but I knew no
+common rule could apply to such an exception as he is. I only wonder,
+when he really does find himself in earnest, how he is to convey his
+meaning to the future Lady Danvers. What words would be strong enough;
+what ink would be black enough to carry conviction to her mind?"
+
+She smiled at the thought, and, as she smiled, another face rose
+suddenly before her--Dare's pale and serious, as it had been of late,
+with the wistful, anxious eyes. _He_, at least, had meant a great deal,
+she thought with remorse. _He_ had been in earnest, sufficiently in
+earnest to make himself very unhappy, and on her account.
+
+Ruth had known for some time that Dare loved her; but to-night that
+simple, unobtrusive fact suddenly took larger proportions, came boldly
+out of the shadow and looked her in the face.
+
+He loved her. Well, what then?
+
+She turned giddy, and leaned her head against the open shutter.
+
+In the silence the words that had haunted her all the afternoon came
+back; not loud as heretofore, but in a whisper, speaking to her heart,
+which had begun to beat fast and loud.
+
+_"We should consider well what we are keeping back our strength for, if
+we refuse to put the whole of it into our work."_
+
+What work was there for her to do?
+
+The giddiness and the whirl in her mind died down suddenly like a great
+gust on the surface of a lake, and left it still and clear and cold.
+
+The misery of the world and the inability to meet it had so often
+confused and weighed her down that she had come back humbly of late to
+the only possibility with which it was in her power to deal, come back
+to the well-worn groove of earnest determination to do as much as in her
+lay, close at hand, when she could find a field to labor in. And now she
+suddenly saw, or thought she saw, that she had found it. She had been
+very anxious as to whether Dare would do his duty, but till this moment
+it had never struck her that it might be _her_ duty to help him.
+
+She liked him; and he was poor--too poor to do much for the people who
+were dependent on him, the poor, struggling people of Vandon. Their
+sullen, miserable faces rose up before her, and their crazy houses.
+Fever had broken out again in the cottages by the river. He needed help
+and encouragement, for he had a difficult time before him. And she had
+these to give, and money too. Could she do better with them? She knew
+Mr. Alwynn wished it. And as to herself? Was she never going to put self
+on one side? She had never liked any one very much--at least, not in
+that way--but she liked him.
+
+The words came like a loud voice in the silence. She liked him. Well,
+what then?
+
+She shut her eyes, but she only shut out the moon's pale photographs of
+the fields and woods. She could not shut out these stern besieging
+thoughts.
+
+What was she holding back for? For some possible ideal romantic future;
+for the prince of a fairy story? No? Well, then, for what?
+
+The moon went behind a cloud, and took all her photographs with her. The
+night had turned very cold.
+
+"To-morrow," said Ruth to herself, rising slowly; "I am too tired to
+think now. To-morrow!"
+
+And as she spoke the faint chime of the clock upon her table warned her
+that already it was to-morrow.
+
+And soon, in a moment, as it seemed to her, before she had had time to
+think, it was again to-morrow, a wet, dim to-morrow, and she was at
+Vandon, running up the wide stone steps in the starlight, under Dare's
+protecting umbrella, and allowing him to take her wraps from her before
+the hall fire.
+
+The concert had gone off well. Ruth was pleased, Mr. Alwynn was pleased.
+Dare was in a state of repressed excitement, now flying into the
+drawing-room to see if there were a good fire, as it was a chilly
+evening; now rushing thence to the dining-room to satisfy himself that
+all the immense and elaborate preparations which he had enjoined on the
+cook had been made. Then, Ruth must be shown to her room. Who was to do
+it? He flew to find the house-keeper, and after repeated injunctions to
+the house-maid, whom he met in the passage, not to forget the hot water,
+took Mr. Alwynn off to his apartment.
+
+The concert had begun, as concerts always seem to do, at the exact time
+at which it is usual to dine, so that it was late before the principal
+performers and Mr. Alwynn reached Vandon. It was later still before
+supper came, but when it came it was splendid. Dare looked with anxious
+satisfaction, over a soup tureen, at the various spiced and glazed forms
+of indigestion, sufficient for a dozen people, which covered the table.
+It grieved him that Ruth, confronted by a spreading ham, and Mr. Alwynn,
+half hidden by a bowlder of turkey, should have such moderate appetites.
+But at least she was there, under his roof, at his table. It was not
+surprising that he could eat nothing himself.
+
+After supper, Mr. Alwynn, who combined the wisdom of the worldly serpent
+with the harmlessness of the clerical dove, fell--not too
+suddenly--asleep by the fire in the drawing-room, and Ruth and Dare went
+into the hall, where the piano was. Dare opened it and struck a few
+minor chords. Ruth sat down in a great carved arm-chair beside the fire.
+
+The hall was only lighted by a few tall lamps high on pedestals against
+the walls, which threw great profiles of the various busts upon the dim
+bass-reliefs of twining scroll-work; and Dare, with his eyes fixed on
+Ruth, began to play.
+
+There is in some music a strange appeal beyond the reach of words. Those
+mysterious sharps and flats, and major and minor chords, are an alphabet
+that in some occult combinations forms another higher language than that
+of speech, a language which, as we listen, thrills us to the heart.
+
+It was an old piano, with an impediment in its speech, out of the yellow
+notes of which Ruth could have made nothing; but in Dare's hands it
+spoke for him as he never could have spoken for himself.
+
+His eyes never left her. He feared to look away, lest he should find the
+presence of that quiet, graceful figure by his fireside had been a
+dream, and that he was alone again with the dim lamps, alone with Dante
+and Cicero and Seneca.
+
+The firelight dwelt ruddily upon her grave clear-cut face and level
+brows, and upon the folds of her white gown. It touched the slender
+hands clasped lightly together on her knee, and drew sudden sparks and
+gleams out of the diamond pin at her throat.
+
+His hands trembled on the keys, and as he looked his heart beat high and
+higher, loud and louder, till it drowned the rhythm of the music. And as
+he looked her calm eyes met his.
+
+In another moment he was on his knees beside her, her hands caught in
+his trembling clasp, and his head pressed down upon them.
+
+"I know," he gasped, "it is no good. You have told me so once. You will
+tell me so again. I am not good enough. I am not worthy. But I love you;
+I love you!"
+
+In moments of real feeling the old words hold their own against all
+modern new-comers. Dare repeated them over and over again in a paroxysm
+of overwhelming emotion which shook him from head to foot.
+
+Something in his boyish attitude and in his entire loss of self-control
+touched Ruth strangely. She knew he was five or six years her senior,
+but at the moment she felt as if she were much older than he, and a
+sudden vague wish passed through her mind that he had been nearer her in
+age; not quite so young.
+
+"Well?" she said, gently; and he felt her cool, passive hands tremble a
+little in his. Something in the tone of her voice made him raise his
+head, and meet her eyes looking down at him, earnestly, and with a great
+kindness in them.
+
+A sudden eager light leaped into his face.
+
+"Will you?" he whispered, breathlessly, his hands tightening their hold
+of hers. "Will you?"
+
+There was a moment's pause, in which the whole world seemed to stand
+quite still and wait for her answer.
+
+"Yes," she said at last, "I will."
+
+"I am glad I did it," she said to herself, half an hour later, as she
+leaned her tired head against the carved oak chimney-piece in her
+bedroom, and absently traced with her finger the Latin inscription over
+the fireplace. "I like him very much. I am glad I did it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+For many years nothing had given Mr. Alwynn such heart-felt pleasure as
+the news Ruth had to tell him, as he drove her back next morning to
+Slumberleigh, behind Mrs. Alwynn's long-tailed ponies.
+
+It was a still September morning, with a faint pearl sky and half-veiled
+silver sun. Pale gleams of sunshine wandered across the busy harvest
+fields, and burnished the steel of the river.
+
+Decisions of any kind rarely look their best after a sleepless night;
+but as Ruth saw the expression of happiness and relief that came into
+her uncle's face, when she told him what had happened, she felt again
+that she was glad--very glad.
+
+"Oh, my dear! my dear!"--Mr. Alwynn was driving the ponies first against
+the bank, and then into the opposite ditch--"how glad I am; how
+thankful! I had almost hoped, certainly; I wished so much to think it
+possible; but then, one can never tell. Poor Dare! poor fellow! I used
+to be so sorry for him. And how much you will be able to do at Vandon
+among the people. It will be a different place. And it is such a relief
+to think that the poor old house will be looked after. It went to my
+heart to see the way it had been neglected. I ventured this morning, as
+I was down early, to move some of that dear old Worcester farther back
+into the cabinet. They really were so near the edge, I could not bear to
+see them; and I found a Sèvres saucer, my dear, in the library that
+belonged to one of those beautiful cups in the drawing-room. I hope it
+was not very wrong, but I had to put it among its relations. It was
+sitting with a Delf mug on it, poor thing. Dear me! I little thought
+then--Really, I have never been so glad about anything before."
+
+After a little more conversation, and after Mr. Alwynn had been
+persuaded to give the reins to his niece, who was far more composed than
+himself, his mind reverted to his wife.
+
+"I think, my dear, until your engagement is more settled, till I have
+had a talk with Dare on the subject (which will be necessary before you
+write to your uncle Francis), it would be as well not to refer to it
+before--in fact, not to mention it to Mrs. Alwynn. Your dear aunt's
+warm heart and conversational bent make it almost impossible for her to
+refrain from speaking of anything that interests her; and indeed, even
+if she does not say anything in so many words, I have observed that
+opinions are sometimes formed by others as to the subject on which she
+is silent, by her manner when any chance allusion is made to it."
+
+Ruth heartily agreed. She had been dreading the searching catechism
+through which Mrs. Alwynn would certainly put her--the minute inquiries
+as to her dress, the hour, the place; whether it had been "standing up
+or sitting down;" all her questions of course interwoven with personal
+reminiscences of "how John had done it," and her own emotion at the
+time.
+
+It was with no small degree of relief at the postponement of that evil
+hour that Ruth entered the house. As she did so a faint sound reached
+her ear. It was that of a musical-box.
+
+"Dear! dear!" said Mr. Alwynn, as he followed her. "It is a fine day.
+Your aunt must be ill."
+
+For the moment Ruth did not understand the connection of ideas in his
+mind, until she suddenly remembered the musical-box, which, Mrs. Alwynn
+had often told her, was "so nice and cheery on a wet day, or in time of
+illness."
+
+She hurriedly entered the drawing-room, followed by Mr. Alwynn, where
+the first object that met her view was Mrs. Alwynn extended on the sofa,
+arrayed in what she called her tea-gown, a loose robe of blue cretonne,
+with a large vine-leaf pattern twining over it, which broke out into
+grapes at intervals. Ruth knew that garment well. It came on only when
+Mrs. Alwynn was suffering. She had worn it last during a period of
+entire mental prostration, which had succeeded all too soon an exciting
+discovery of mushrooms in the glebe. Mr. Alwynn's heart and Ruth's sank
+as they caught sight of it again.
+
+With a dignity befitting the occasion, Mrs. Alwynn recounted in detail
+the various ways in which she had employed herself after their departure
+the previous evening, up to the exact moment when she slipped going
+up-stairs, and sprained her ankle, in a blue and green manner that had
+quite alarmed the doctor when he had seen it, and compared with which
+Mrs. Thursby's gathered finger in the spring was a mere bagatelle.
+
+"Mrs. Thursby stayed in bed when her finger was bad," said Mrs. Alwynn
+to Ruth, when Mr. Alwynn had condoled, and had made his escape to his
+study. "She always gives way so; but I never was like that. I was up all
+the same, my dear."
+
+"I hope it does not hurt very much," said Ruth, anxious to be
+sympathetic, but succeeding only in being commonplace.
+
+"It's not only the pain," said Mrs. Alwynn, in the gentle resigned voice
+which she always used when indisposed--the voice of one at peace with
+all the world, and ready to depart from a scene consequently so devoid
+of interest; "but to a person of my habits, Ruth--never a day without
+going into the larder, and always seeing after the servants as I
+do--first one duty and then another--and the chickens and all. It seems
+a strange thing that I should be laid aside."
+
+Mrs. Alwynn paused, as if she had not for the nonce fathomed the
+ulterior reasons for this special move on the part of Providence, which
+had crippled her, while it left Ruth and Mrs. Thursby with the use of
+their limbs.
+
+"However," she continued, "I am not one to repine. Always cheery and
+busy, Ruth: that is my motto. And now, my dear, if you will wind up the
+musical-box, and then read me a little bit out of 'Texts with Tender
+Twinings'" (the new floral manual which had lately superseded the
+"Pearls"), "after that we will start on one of my scrap-books, and you
+shall tell me all about your visit to Vandon."
+
+It was not the time Ruth would have chosen for a _tête-à-tête_ with her
+aunt. She was longing to be alone, to think quietly over what had
+happened, and it was difficult to concentrate her attention on pink and
+yellow calico, and cut out colored royal families, and foreign birds,
+with a good grace. Happily Mrs. Alwynn, though always requiring
+attention, was quite content with the half of what she required; and,
+with the "Buffalo Girls" and the "Danube River" tinkling on the table,
+conversation was somewhat superfluous.
+
+In the afternoon Dare came, but he was waylaid in the hall by Mr.
+Alwynn, and taken into the study before he could commit himself in Mrs.
+Alwynn's presence. Mrs. Thursby and Mabel also called to condole, and a
+little later Mrs. Smith of Greenacre, who had heard the news of the
+accident from the doctor. Altogether it was a delightful afternoon for
+Mrs. Alwynn, who assumed for the time an air of superiority over Mrs.
+Thursby to which that lady's well-known chronic ill-health seldom
+allowed her to lay claim.
+
+Mrs. Alwynn and Mrs. Thursby had remained friends since they had both
+arrived together as brides at Slumberleigh, in spite of a difference of
+opinion, which had at one time strained friendly relations to a painful
+degree, as to the propriety of wearing the hair over the top of the
+ear. The hair question settled, a temporary difficulty, extending over a
+few years, had sprung up in its place, respecting what Mrs. Thursby
+called "family." Mrs. Alwynn's family was not her strong point, nor was
+its position strengthened by her assertion (unsupported by Mrs.
+Markham), that she was directly descended from Queen Elizabeth.
+Consequently, it was trying to Mrs. Thursby--who, as every one knows,
+was one of the brainless Copleys of Copley--that Mrs. Alwynn, who in the
+lottery of marriage had drawn an honorable, should take precedence of
+herself. To obviate this difficulty, Mrs. Thursby, with the ingenuity of
+her sex, had at one time introduced Mr. and Mrs. Alwynn as "our rector,"
+and "our rector's wife," thus denying them their name altogether, for
+fear lest its connection with Lord Polesworth should be remembered, and
+the fact that Mr. Alwynn was his brother, and consequently an honorable,
+should transpire.
+
+This peculiarity of etiquette entirely escaped Mr. Alwynn, but aroused
+feelings in the breast of his wife which might have brought about one of
+those deeply rooted feuds which so often exist between the squire's and
+clergyman's families, if it had not been for the timely and serious
+illness in which Mrs. Thursby lost her health, and the principal part of
+the other subject of disagreement--her hair.
+
+Then Queen Elizabeth and the honorable were alike forgotten. With her
+own hands Mrs. Alwynn made a certain jelly, which Mrs. Thursby praised
+in the highest manner, saying she only wished that it had been the habit
+in _her_ family to learn to do anything so useful. Mrs. Thursby's new
+gowns were no longer kept a secret from Mrs. Alwynn, to be suddenly
+sprung upon her at a garden-party, when, possibly in an old garment
+herself, she was least able to bear the shock. By-gones were by-gones,
+and, greatly to the relief of the two husbands, their respective wives
+made up their differences.
+
+"And a very pleasant afternoon it has been," said Mrs. Alwynn, when the
+Thursbys and Dare, who had been loath to go, had taken their departure.
+"Mrs. Thursby and Mabel, and Mrs. Smith and Mr. Dare. Four to tea. Quite
+a little party, wasn't it, Ruth? And so informal and nice; and the buns
+came in as naturally as possible, which no one heard me whisper to James
+for. I think those little citron buns are nicer than a great cake like
+Mrs. Thursby's; and hers are always so black and overbaked. That is why
+the cook sifts such a lot of sugar over them. I do think one should be
+real, and not try to cover up things. And Mr. Dare so pleasant. Quite
+sorry to go he seemed. I often wonder whether it will be you or Mabel in
+the end. He ought to be making up his mind. I expect I shall have a
+little joke with him about it before long. And such an interest he took
+in the scrap-book. I asked him to come again to-morrow."
+
+"I don't expect he will be able to do so," said Mr. Alwynn. "I rather
+think he will have to go to town on business."
+
+Later in the evening, Mr. Alwynn told Ruth that in the course of his
+interview he had found that Dare had the very vaguest ideas as to the
+necessity of settlements; had evidently never given the subject a
+thought, and did not even know what he actually possessed.
+
+Mr. Alwynn was secretly afraid of what Ruth's trustee, his brother, Lord
+Polesworth (now absent shooting in the Rocky Mountains), would say if,
+during his absence, their niece was allowed to engage herself without
+suitable provision; and he begged Ruth not "to do anything rash" in the
+way of speaking of her engagement, until Dare could, with the help of
+his lawyer, see his way to making some arrangement.
+
+"I know he has no money," said Ruth, quietly; "that is one of the
+reasons why I am going to marry him."
+
+Mr. Alwynn, to whom this seemed the most natural reason in the world,
+was not sure whether it would strike his brother with equal force. He
+had a suspicion that when Lord Polesworth's attention should be turned
+from white goats and brown bears to the fact that his niece, who had
+means of her own, had been allowed to engage herself to a poor man, and
+that Mr. Alwynn had greatly encouraged the match, unpleasant questions
+might be asked.
+
+"Francis will be back in November," said Mr. Alwynn. "I think, Ruth, we
+had better wait till his return before we do anything definite."
+
+"Anything _more_ definite, you mean," said Ruth. "I have been very
+definite already, I think. I shall be glad to wait till he comes back,
+if you wish it, Uncle John. I shall try to do what you both advise. But
+at the same time I am of age; and if my word is worth anything, you know
+I have given that already."
+
+Dare felt no call to go to London by the early train on the following
+morning, so he found himself at liberty to spend an hour at Slumberleigh
+Rectory on his way to the station, and by the advice of Mr. Alwynn went
+into the garden, where the sound of the musical-box reached the ear, but
+in faint echoes, and where Ruth presently joined him.
+
+In his heart Dare was secretly afraid of Ruth; though, as he often told
+himself, it was more than probable she was equally afraid of him. If
+that was so, she controlled her feelings wonderfully, for as she came
+to meet him, nothing could have been more frankly kind, more friendly,
+or more composed than her manner towards him. He took her out-stretched
+hand and kissed it. It was not quite the way in which he had pictured to
+himself that they would meet; but if his imagination had taken a
+somewhat bolder flight in her absence, he felt now, as she stood before
+him, that it had taken that flight in vain. He kept her hand, and looked
+intently at her. She did not change color, nor did that disappointing
+friendliness leave her steady eyes.
+
+"She does not love me," he said to himself. "It is strange, but she does
+not. But the day will come."
+
+"You are going to London, are you not?" asked Ruth, withdrawing her hand
+at last; and after hearing a detailed account of his difficulties and
+anxieties about money matters, and after taking an immense weight off
+his mind by telling him that they would have no influence in causing her
+to alter her decision, she sent him beaming and rejoicing on his way,
+quite a different person to the victim of anxiety and depression who had
+arrived at Slumberleigh an hour before.
+
+Mrs. Alwynn was much annoyed at Dare's entire want of heart in leaving
+the house without coming to see her, and during the remainder of the
+morning she did not cease to comment on the differences that exist
+between what people really are and what they seem to be, until, in her
+satisfaction at recounting the accident to Evelyn Danvers, a new and
+sympathetic listener, she fortunately forgot the slight put upon her
+ankle earlier in the day. The complete enjoyment of her sufferings was,
+however, destined to sustain a severe shock the following morning.
+
+She and Ruth were reading their letters, Mrs. Alwynn, of course, giving
+Ruth the benefit of the various statements respecting the weather which
+her correspondents had confided to her, when Mr. Alwynn came in from the
+study, an open letter in his hand. He was quite pink with pleasure.
+
+"He has asked me to go and see them," he said, "and they _are_ small,
+and have green seals, all excepting one,"--referring to the
+letter--"which has a big red seal in a tin box, attached by a tape.
+Ruth, I am perfectly _convinced_ beforehand that those charters are
+grants of land of the fourteenth or fifteenth century. Sir Charles
+mentions that they are in black letter, and only a few lines on each,
+but he says he won't describe them in full, as I must come and see them
+for myself. Dear me! how I shall enjoy arranging them for him, which he
+asked me to do. I had really become so anxious about them that a few
+days ago I determined to set my mind at rest, and I wrote to him to ask
+for particulars, and that is his answer."
+
+Mr. Alwynn put Charles's letter into her hand, and she glanced over it.
+
+"Why, Uncle John, he asks Aunt Fanny as well; and--'if Miss Deyncourt is
+still with you, pleasure,' etc.--and _me_, too!"
+
+"When is it for?" asked Mrs. Alwynn, suddenly sitting bolt-upright.
+
+"Let me see. 'Black letter size about'--where is it? Here. 'Tuesday, the
+25th, for three nights. Leaving home following week for some time.
+Excuse short notice,' etc. It is next week, Aunt Fanny."
+
+"I shall not be able to go," gasped Mrs. Alwynn, sinking back on her
+sofa, while something very like tears came into her eyes; "and I've
+never been there, Ruth. The Thursbys went once, in old Sir George's
+time, and Mrs. Thursby always says it is the show-place in the county,
+and that it is such a pity I have not seen it. And last autumn, when
+John went, I was in Devonshire, and never even heard of his going till I
+got home, or I'd have come back. Oh, Ruth! Oh, dear!"
+
+Mrs. Alwynn let her letters fall into her lap, and drew forth the
+colored pocket-handkerchief which she wore, in imitation of Mabel
+Thursby, stuck into the bodice of her gown, and at the ominous
+appearance of which Mr. Alwynn suddenly recollected a duty in the study
+and retreated.
+
+With an unerring instinct Ruth flew to the musical-box and set it going,
+and then knelt down by the prostrate figure of her aunt, and
+administered what sympathy and consolation she could, to the "cheery"
+accompaniment of the "Buffalo Girls."
+
+"Never mind, dear Aunt Fanny. Perhaps he will ask you again when you are
+better. There will be other opportunities."
+
+"I always was unlucky," said Mrs. Alwynn, faintly. "I had a swelled face
+up the Rhine on our honey-moon. Things always happen like that with me.
+At any rate,"--after a pause--"there is _one_ thing. We ought to try and
+look at the bright side. It is not as if we had not been asked. We have
+not been overlooked."
+
+"No," said Ruth, promptly; and in her own mind she registered a vow that
+in her future home she would never give the pain that being overlooked
+by the larger house can cause to the smaller house.
+
+"And I will stay with you, Aunt Fanny," she went on, cheerfully. "Uncle
+John can go by himself, and we will do just what we like while he is
+away, won't we?"
+
+But at this Mrs. Alwynn demurred. She was determined that if she played
+the rôle of a martyr she would do it well. She insisted that Ruth should
+accompany Mr. Alwynn. She secretly looked forward to telling Mabel that
+Ruth was going. She did not mind being left alone, she said. She
+desired, with a sigh of self-sacrifice, that Mr. Alwynn should accept
+for himself and his niece. She had not been brought up to consider
+herself, thank God! She had her faults she knew. No one was more fully
+aware of them than herself; but she was not going to prevent others
+enjoying themselves because she herself was laid aside.
+
+"And now, my dear," she said, with a sudden return to mundane interests
+that succeeded rather unexpectedly to the celestial spirit of her
+previous remarks, "you must be thinking about your gowns. If I had been
+going, I should have had my ruby satin done up--so beautiful by
+candle-light. What have you to wear? That white lace tea-gown with the
+silver-gray train is very nice; but you ought not to be in half mourning
+now. I like to see young people in colors. And then there is that
+gold-and-white brocade, Ruth, that you wore at the drawing-room last
+year. It is a beautiful dress, but rather too quiet. Could not you
+brighten it up with a few cherry-colored bows about it, or a sash? I
+always think a sash is so becoming. If you were to bring it down, I dare
+say I could suggest something. And you must be well dressed, for though
+he only says 'friends,' you never can tell whom you may not meet at a
+place like that."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+The last week of September found Charles back at Stoke Moreton to
+receive the "friends" of whom Mrs. Alwynn spoke. People whose partridges
+he had helped to kill were now to be gathered from the east and from the
+west to help to kill his. From the north also guests were coming, were
+leaving their mountains to--But the remainder of the line is invidious.
+The Hope-Actons had written to offer a visit at Stoke Moreton on the
+strength of an old promise to Charles, a promise so old that he had
+forgotten it, until reminded, that next time they were passing they
+would take his house on their way. They had offered their visit exactly
+at the same time for which he had just invited the Alwynns and Ruth.
+Charles felt that they were not quite the people whom he would have
+arranged to meet each other, but, as Fate had so decreed it, he
+acquiesced calmly enough.
+
+But when Lady Mary also wrote tenderly from Scarborough, to ask if she
+could be of any use helping to entertain his guests, he felt it
+imperative to draw the line, and wrote a grateful effusion to his aunt,
+saying that he could not think of asking her to leave a place where he
+felt sure she was deriving spiritual and temporal benefit, in order to
+assist at so unprofitable a festivity as a shooting-party. He mentioned
+casually that Lady Grace Lawrence, Miss Deyncourt, and Miss Wyndham were
+to be of the party, which details he imagined might have an interest for
+her amid her graver reflections.
+
+The subject of Ruth's coming certainly had a prominent place in his own
+graver reflections. For the last fortnight, as he went from house to
+house, he had been wondering how he could meet her again, and, when Mr.
+Alwynn's letter concerning the charters was forwarded to him, a sudden
+inspiration made him then and there send the invitation which had
+arrived at Slumberleigh Rectory a few days before. He groaned in spirit
+as he wrote it, at the thought of Mrs. Alwynn disporting herself,
+dressed in the brightest colors, among his other guests; and it was with
+a feeling of thankfulness that he found Ruth and Mr. Alwynn were coming
+without her.
+
+He had felt very little interest so far in the party, which, with the
+exception of the Hope-Actons, had been long arranged, but now he found
+himself looking forward to it with actual impatience, and he returned
+home a day before the time, instead of an hour or two before his guests
+were expected, as was his wont.
+
+The Wyndhams and Hope-Actons, with Lady Grace in tow, were the first to
+appear upon the scene. Mr. Alwynn and Ruth arrived a few hours later,
+amid a dropping fire of young men and gun-cases, who kept on turning up
+at intervals during the afternoon, and, according to the mysterious
+nocturnal habits of their kind, till late into the night.
+
+If ever a man appears to advantage it is on his native hearth, and as
+Charles stood on his in the long hall, where it was the habit of the
+house to assemble before dinner, Ruth found that her attempts at
+conversation were rather thrown away upon Lady Grace, with whom she had
+been renewing an old acquaintance, and whose interest, for the time
+being, entirely centred in the carved coats of arms and heraldic designs
+with which the towering white stone chimney-piece was covered.
+
+Lady Grace was one of those pretty, delicate creatures who remind one of
+a very elaborate rose-bud. There was an appearance of ultra-refinement
+about her, a look of that refinement which is in itself a weakness, a
+poverty of blood, so to speak, the opposite and more pleasing but
+equally unhealthy extreme of coarseness. She looked very pretty as,
+having left Ruth, she stood by Charles, passing her little pink hand
+over the lowest carvings, dim and worn with the heat of many generations
+of fires, and listened with rapt attention to his answers to her
+questions.
+
+"And the Hall is so beautiful," she said, looking round with childlike
+curiosity at the walls covered with weapons, and with a long array of
+armor, and at the massive pillars of carved white stone which rose up
+out of the polished floor to meet the raftered ceiling. "It is so--so
+uncommon."
+
+Whatever Charles's other failings may have been, he was an admirable
+host. The weather was fine. What can be finer than September when she is
+in a good-humor? The two first days of Ruth's visit were unalloyed
+enjoyment. It seemed like a sudden return to the old life with Lady
+Deyncourt, when the round of country visits regularly succeeded the
+season in London. Of Mr. Alwynn she saw little or nothing. He was buried
+in the newly discovered charters. Of Charles she saw a good deal, more
+than at the time she was quite aware of, for he seemed to see a great
+deal of everybody, from Lady Grace to the shy man of the party, who at
+Stoke Moreton first conceived the idea that he was an acquisition to
+society. But, whether Charles made the opportunities or not which came
+so ready to his hand, still he found time, amid the pressure of his
+shooting arrangements and his duties as host, to talk to Ruth.
+
+One day there was cub-hunting in the gray of the early morning, to which
+she and Miss Wyndham went with Charles and others of the party who could
+bear to get up betimes. Losing sight of the others after a time, Ruth
+and Charles rode back alone together, when the sun was high, walking
+their tired horses along the black-berried lanes, and down the long
+green rides cut in the yellowing bracken of the park.
+
+"And so you are going to winter in Rome?" said Charles, who had the
+previous day, contrary to his wont, accepted an invitation to
+Slumberleigh Hall for the middle of October. "I sometimes go to Rome
+for a few weeks when the shooting is over. And are you glad or sorry at
+the prospect of leaving your Cranford?"
+
+"Very sorry."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I have seen an entirely new phase of life at Slumberleigh."
+
+"I think I can guess what you mean," said Charles, gravely. "One does
+not often meet any one like Mr. Alwynn."
+
+"No. I was thinking of him. Until I came to Slumberleigh the lines had
+not fallen to me in very clerical places, so my experience is limited;
+but he seems to me to be the only clergyman I have known who does not
+force on one a form of religion that has been dead and buried for
+years."
+
+"The clergy have much to answer for on that head," said Charles with
+bitterness. "I sometimes like and respect them as individuals, but I do
+not love them as a class. One ought to make allowance for the fact that
+they are tied and bound by the chain of their Thirty-nine Articles; that
+at three-and-twenty they shut the doors deliberately on any new and
+possibly unorthodox idea; and it is consequently unreasonable to expect
+from them any genuine freedom or originality of thought. I can forgive
+them their assumption of superiority, their inability to meet honest
+scepticism with anything like fairness, their continual bickering among
+themselves; but I cannot forgive them the harm they are doing to
+religion, the discredit they are bringing upon it by their bigoted views
+and obsolete ideas. They busy themselves doing good--that is the worst
+of it; they mean well, but they do not see that, in the mean while,
+their Church is being left unto them desolate; though perhaps, after
+all, the Church having come to be what it is, that is the best thing
+that can happen."
+
+"There are men among the clergy who will not come under that sweeping
+accusation," said Ruth. "Look at some of the London churches. Are they
+desolate? Goodness and earnestness will be a power to the end of time,
+however narrow the accompanying creed may be."
+
+"That is true, but we have heads as well as hearts. Goodness and
+earnestness appeal to the heart alone. The intellect is left out in the
+cold. However good and earnest, and eloquent one of these great
+preachers may be, the reason we go to hear him is not only because of
+that, but because he appears to be thinking in a straight line, because
+he seems to recognize the long-resisted claim of the intellect, and we
+hope he will have a word to say to us. He promises well, but listen to
+him a little longer, follow his thought, and you will begin to see that
+he will only look for truth within a certain area, that his steps are
+describing an arc, that he is tethered. Give him time enough, and you
+will see him tread out the complete circle in which he and his brethren
+are equally bound to walk."
+
+"You forget," said Ruth, "that you are regarding the Church from the
+stand-point of the cultivated and intellectual class, for whom the
+Church has ceased to represent religion; but there are lots of people
+neither cultivated nor intellectual--women even of our own class are not
+so as a rule--to whom the Church, with its ritual and dogma, is a real
+help and comfort. If, as you say, it does not suit the more highly
+educated, I think you have no right to demand that it _should_ suit what
+is, after all, a very small minority. It would be most unfair if it
+did."
+
+Charles did not answer. He had been looking at her, and thinking how few
+women could have disagreed with him as quietly and resolutely as this
+young girl riding at his side, carefully avoiding chance rabbit-holes as
+she spoke.
+
+"There is, and there always will be, a certain number of people, not
+only among the clergy," she went on, "who, as somebody says, 'put the
+church clock back,' and are unable to see that they cannot alter the
+time of day for all that; only they can and do prevent many
+well-intentioned people from trusting to it any longer. But there are
+others here and there whom a dogmatic form of religion has been quite
+unable to spoil, whose more simple turn of mind draws out of the very
+system that appears to you so lifeless and effete, a real faith, a
+personal possession, which no one can take from them."
+
+Her eyes sparkled as she spoke, and Charles saw that she was thinking of
+Mr. Alwynn.
+
+"He has got it," he said, slowly, "this something which we all want, and
+for the greater part never find. He has got it. To see and recognize it
+early is a great thing," he continued, earnestly. "To disbelieve in it
+in early life, and cavil at all the caricatures and imitations, and only
+come to find out its reality comparatively later on, is a great
+misfortune--a great misfortune."
+
+She felt that he was speaking of himself, and they rode on in silence,
+each grave with a sense of mutual understanding and companionship. They
+forded the stream, and trotted up the little village street, the
+cottagers gazing admiringly after them till they disappeared within the
+great arched gate-way. And Charles looked at his old house as they
+paced up the wide drive, and wondered whether it were indeed possible
+that the lonely years he had spent in it had come to an end at last--at
+last.
+
+Ruth had noticed that he had lost no opportunity of talking to her, and
+when she heard him conversing with Lady Grace, or plunging into
+fashionable slang with Miss Wyndham, found herself admiring the facility
+with which he adapted himself to different people.
+
+The following afternoon, as she was writing in the library, she was
+amused to see that he found it incumbent on him to write too, even going
+so far as to produce a letter from Molly, whose correspondence he said
+he invariably answered by return.
+
+"You seem very fond of giving Molly pleasure," said Ruth.
+
+"I am glad to see, Miss Deyncourt, that you are beginning to estimate me
+at my true worth."
+
+"You have it in your power just now to give a great pleasure," said
+Ruth, earnestly, laying down the pen which she had taken up.
+
+"How?"
+
+"It seems so absurd when it is put into words, but--by asking Mrs.
+Alwynn some time to stay here. She has always longed to see Stoke
+Moreton, because--well, because Mrs. Thursby has; and real, positive,
+actual tears were shed that she could not come when you asked us."
+
+"Is it possible?" said Charles. "It is the first time that any letter of
+mine has caused emotion of that description."
+
+"Ah! you don't know how important the smallest things appear if one
+lives in a little corner of the world where nothing ever happens. If
+Mrs. Alwynn had been able to come, her visit would have been an event
+which she would have remembered for years. I assure you, I myself, from
+having lived at Slumberleigh eight months, became quite excited at the
+prospect of so much dissipation."
+
+And Ruth leaned back in her chair with a little laugh.
+
+Charles looked narrowly at her and his face fell.
+
+"I am glad you told me," he said, after a moment's pause. "People
+generally mention these things about ten years afterwards; when there is
+probably no possibility of doing anything. Thank you."
+
+Ruth was disconcerted by the sudden gravity of his tone, and almost
+regretted the impulse that had made her speak. She forgot it, however,
+in the _tableaux vivants_ which they were preparing for the evening, in
+which she and Charles illustrated the syllable _nun_ to enthusiastic
+applause. Ruth represented the nun, engaged in conversation, over the
+lowest imaginable convent wall, with Charles, in all the glory of his
+cocked hat and deputy-lieutenant's uniform, who, while he held the nun's
+hand in one of his, pointed persuasively with the other towards an
+elaborately caparisoned war-horse, trembling beneath the joint weight of
+a yeomanry saddle and a side-saddle attached behind it, which
+considerably overlapped the charger's impromptu fur boa tail.
+
+After the _tableaux_ there was dancing in acting costume, at which the
+two men, who acted the war-horse between them were the only persons to
+protest, Lady Grace being beautiful as an improvised Anne Boleyn, and
+the shy man resplendent in a fancy dress of Charles's.
+
+When the third morning came, Ruth gave a genuine sigh at the thought
+that it was the last day. Lady Grace, who was also leaving the following
+morning, may be presumed to have echoed it with far more sorrow. The
+Wyndhams were going that day, and disappeared down the drive, waving
+handkerchiefs, and carriage-rugs, and hats on sticks, out of the
+carriage-windows, as is the custom of really amusing people when taking
+leave.
+
+In the afternoon, Lady Grace and Charles went off for a ride alone
+together, to see some ruin in which Lady Grace had manifested a sudden
+interest, the third horse, which had been brought round for another of
+the men, being sent back to the stables, his destined rider having
+decided, at the eleventh hour, to join the rest of the party in a little
+desultory rabbit shooting in the park, which he proceeded to do with
+much chuckling over his extraordinary penetration and tact.
+
+The elder ladies went out driving, looking, as seen from an upper
+window, like four poached eggs on a dish; and the coast being clear,
+Ruth, who had no love of driving, escaped with her paint-box to the
+garden, where she was making a sketch of Stoke Moreton.
+
+Some houses, like people, have dignity. Stoke Moreton, with ivy creeping
+up its mellow sandstone, and peeping into its long lines of mullioned
+windows, stood solemn and stately amid its level gardens; the low sun,
+bringing out every line of carved stone frieze and quaint architrave,
+firing all the western windows, and touching the tall heads of the
+hollyhocks and sunflowers, that stood in ordered regiments within their
+high walls of clipped box. And Ruth dabbed and looked, and dabbed again,
+until she suddenly found that if she put another stroke she would spoil
+all, and also that her hands were stiff with cold. After a few admiring
+glances at her work, she set off on a desultory journey round the
+gardens to get warm, and finally, seeing an oak door in the garden-wall
+open, wandered through it into the church-yard. The church door was
+open, too, and Ruth, after reading some of the epitaphs on the
+tombstones, went in.
+
+It was a common little church enough, with a large mortuary chapel,
+where all the Danvers family reposed; ancient Danvers lying in armor,
+with their mailed hands joined, beside their wives; more modern Danvers
+kneeling in bass-relief in colored plaster and execrable taste in
+recesses. The last generations were there also; some of them
+anticipating the resurrection and feathered wings, but for the most part
+still asleep. Charles's mother was there, lying in white marble among
+her husband's people, with the child upon her arm which she had taken
+away with her.
+
+And in the middle of the chapel was the last Sir Charles Danvers, whom
+his brother, Sir George, the father of the present owner, had succeeded.
+The evening sun shone full on the kneeling soldier figure, leaning on
+its sword, and on the grave, clear-cut face, which had a look of
+Charles. The long, beautifully modelled hands, clasped over the battered
+steel sword-hilt, were like Charles's too. Ruth read the inscription on
+the low marble pedestal, relating how he had fallen in the taking of the
+Redan, and then looked again. And gradually a great feeling of pity rose
+in her heart for the family which had lived here for so many
+generations, and which seemed now so likely to die out. Providence does
+not seem to care much for old families, or to value long descent. Rather
+it seems to favor the new race--the Browns, and the Joneses, and the
+Robinsons, who yesterday were not, and who to-day elbow the old county
+families from the place which has known them from time immemorial.
+
+"I suppose Molly will some day marry a Smith," said Ruth to herself,
+"and then it will be all over. I don't think I will come and see her
+here when she is married."
+
+With which reflection she returned to the house, and, after disturbing
+Mr. Alwynn, who was deep in a catalogue of the Danvers manuscripts, in
+which it was his firm conviction that he should find some mention of the
+charters, she went into the library, and wondered which of the several
+thousands of books would interest her till the others came in.
+
+The library was a large room, the walls of which were lined with books
+from the floor to the ceiling. In order to place the higher shelves
+within reach, a light balcony of polished oak ran round the four walls,
+about equidistant from the floor and the ceiling. Ruth went up the tiny
+corkscrew staircase in the wall, which led to the balcony, and settling
+herself comfortably in the low, wide window-seat, took out one volume
+after another of those that came within her reach. These shelves by the
+window where she was sitting had somehow a different look to the rest.
+Old books and new, white vellum and card-board, were herded together
+without any apparent order, and with no respect of bindings. Here a
+splendid morocco "Novum Organum" was pushed in beside a cheap and much
+worn edition of Marcus Aurelius; there Emerson and Plato and Shakespeare
+jostled each other on the same shelf, while, just below, "Don Quixote"
+was pressed into the uncongenial society of Carlyle on one side and
+Confucius on the other. As she pulled out one book after another, she
+noticed that the greater part of them had Charles's name in them. Ruth's
+curiosity was at once aroused. No doubt this was the little corner in
+his great house in which he chose to read, and these were his favorite
+books which he had arranged so close to his hand. If we can judge our
+fellow-creatures at all, which is doubtful, it is by the books they
+read, and by those which, having read, they read again. She looked at
+the various volumes in the window-seat beside her with new interest, and
+opened the first one she took up. It was a collection of translations
+from the Persian poets, gentlemen of the name of Jemshíd, Sádi, and
+Hafiz, of whom she had never heard. As she turned over the pages, she
+heard the ringing of horses' hoofs, and, looking out from her point of
+observation, saw Charles and Lady Grace cantering up the short wide
+approach, and clattering out of sight again behind the great stone
+archway. She turned back to her book, and was reading an ode here and
+there, wondering to see how the same thoughts that work within us to-day
+had lived with man so many hundred years ago, when her eye was caught by
+some writing on the margin of a page as she turned it over. A single
+sentence on the page was strongly underlined:
+
+_"True self-knowledge is knowledge of God."_
+
+Jemshíd was a wise man, Ruth thought, if he had found out that; and then
+she read, in Charles's clear handwriting in the margin:
+
+_"With this compare 'Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it
+will ever bubble up if thou wilt ever dig.'--Marcus Aurelius."_
+
+At this moment Charles came into the library, and looked up to where she
+was sitting, half hidden from below by the thickness of the wall.
+
+"What, studying?" he called, gayly. "I saw you sitting in the window as
+I rode up. I might have known that if you were lost sight of for half
+an hour you would be found improving yourself in some exasperating way."
+And he ran up the little stairs and came round the balcony towards her.
+"My own special books, I see--Eve, as usual, surreptitiously craving for
+a knowledge of good and evil. What have you got hold of?"
+
+The remainder of the window-seat was full of books; so, to obtain a
+better view of what she was reading, he knelt down by her, and looked at
+the open book on her knee.
+
+Ruth did not attempt to close it. She felt guilty, she hardly knew of
+what. After a moment's pause she said:
+
+"I plead guilty. I was curious. I saw these were your own particular
+shelves; but I never can resist looking at the books people read."
+
+"Will you be pleased to remember in future that, in contemplating my
+character, Miss Deyncourt--a subject not unworthy of your attention--you
+are on private property. You are requested to keep on the gravel paths,
+and to look at the grounds I am disposed to show you. If, as is very
+possible, admiration seizes you, you are at liberty to express it. But
+there must be no going round to the back premises, no prying into
+corners, no trespassing where I have written up, 'No road.'"
+
+Ruth smiled, and there was a gleam in her eyes which Charles well knew
+heralded a retort, when suddenly through the half-open door a silken
+rustle came, and Lady Hope-Acton slowly entered the room, as if about to
+pass through it on her way to the hall.
+
+Now, kneeling is by no means an attitude to be despised. In church, or
+in the moment of presentation to majesty, it is appropriate, even
+essential; but it is dependent, like most things, upon circumstances and
+environment. No attitude, for instance, could be more suitable and
+natural to any one wishing to read the page on which a sitting
+fellow-creature was engaged. Charles had found it so. But, as Lady
+Hope-Acton sailed into the room, he felt that, however conducive to
+study, it was not the attitude in which he would at that moment have
+chosen to be found. Ruth felt the same. It had seemed so natural a
+moment before, it was so hideously suggestive now.
+
+Perhaps Lady Hope-Acton would pass on through the other door, so widely,
+so invitingly open. Neither stirred, in the hope that she might do so.
+But in the centre of the room she stopped and sighed--the slow,
+crackling sigh of a stout woman in a too well-fitting silk gown.
+
+Charles suddenly felt as if his muddy boots and cords were trying to
+catch her eye, as if every book on the shelves were calling to her to
+look up.
+
+For a second Ruth and Charles gazed down upon the top of Lady
+Hope-Acton's head, the bald place on which showed dimly through her
+semi-transparent cap. She moved slightly, as if to go; but no, another
+step was drawing near. In another moment Lady Grace came in through the
+opposite door in her riding-habit.
+
+Ruth felt that it was now or never for a warning cough; but, as she
+glanced at Charles kneeling beside her, she could not give it. Surely
+they would pass out in another second. The thought of the two pairs of
+eyes which would be raised, and the expression in them was intolerable.
+
+"Grace," said Lady Hope-Acton, with dreadful distinctness, advancing to
+meet her daughter, "has he spoken?"
+
+"No," said Lady Grace, with a little sob; "and,"--with a sudden burst of
+tears--"oh, mamma, I don't think he ever will."
+
+Oh, to have coughed, to have sneezed, to have choked a moment earlier!
+Anything would have been better than this.
+
+"Run up-stairs this moment, then, and change your habit and bathe your
+eyes," said Lady Hope-Acton, sharply. "You need not come down till
+dinner-time. I will say you are tired."
+
+And then, to the overwhelming relief of those two miserable spectators,
+the mother and daughter left the door.
+
+But to the momentary sensation of relief in Ruth's mind a rush of pity
+succeeded for the childlike grief and tears; and with and behind it,
+like one hurrying wave overtopping and bearing down its predecessor,
+came a burning indignation against the cause of that picturesque
+emotion.
+
+It is indeed a lamentable peculiarity of our fallen nature that the
+moment of relief from the smart of anxiety is seldom marked by so
+complete a mental calmness and moderation as could be wished.
+
+Ruth rose slowly, with the book still in her hand, and Charles got off
+his knees as best he could, and stood with one hand on the railing of
+the balcony, as if to steady himself. His usually pale face was crimson.
+
+Ruth closed the book in silence, and with a dreadful precision put it
+back in its accustomed place. Then she turned and faced him, with the
+western light full upon her stern face, and another light of contempt
+and indignation burning in her direct eyes.
+
+"Poor little girl," she said, in a low distinct voice. "What a triumph
+to have succeeded in making her unhappy. She is very young, and she did
+not understand the rules of the game. Poor, foolish little girl!"
+
+If he had been red before, he was pale enough now. He drew himself up,
+and met her direct gaze without flinching. He did not speak, and she
+left him standing in the window, and went slowly along the balcony and
+down the little staircase into the room below.
+
+As she was about to leave the room he moved forward suddenly, and said,
+"Miss Deyncourt!"
+
+Involuntarily she stopped short, in obedience to the stern authority of
+the tone.
+
+"You are unjust."
+
+She did not answer and left the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+
+"Uncle John," said Ruth next morning, taking Mr. Alwynn aside after
+breakfast, "we are leaving by the early train, are we not?"
+
+"No, my love, it is quite impossible. I have several papers to identify
+and rearrange."
+
+"We have stayed a day longer than we intended as it is. Most of the
+others go early. Do let us go too."
+
+"It is most natural, I am sure, my dear, that you should wish to get
+home," said Mr. Alwynn, looking with sympathetic concern at his niece;
+"and why your aunt has not forwarded your letters I can't imagine. But
+still, if we return by the mid-day train, Ruth, you will have plenty of
+time to answer any letters that--ahem!--seem to require immediate
+attention, before the post goes; and I don't see my way to being ready
+earlier."
+
+Ruth had not even been thinking of Dare and his letters; but she saw
+that by the early train she was not destined to depart, and watched the
+other guests take leave with an envious sigh. She was anxious to be
+gone. The last evening, after the episode in the library, had been
+interminably long. Already the morning, though breakfast was hardly
+over, seemed to have dragged itself out to days in length. A sense of
+constraint between two people who understand and amuse each other is
+very galling. Ruth had felt it so. All the previous evening Charles had
+hardly spoken to her, and had talked mainly to Lady Hope-Acton, who was
+somewhat depressed, and another elder lady. A good-night and a flat
+candlestick can be presented in a very distant manner, and as Ruth
+received hers from Charles that evening, and met the grave, steady
+glance that was directed at her, she perceived that he had not forgiven
+her for what she had said.
+
+She felt angry again at the idea that he should venture to treat her
+with a coldness which seemed to imply that she had been in the wrong.
+The worst of it was that she felt she was to blame; that she had no
+right whatever to criticise Charles and his actions. What concern were
+they of hers? How much more suitable, how much more eloquent a dignified
+silence would have been. She could not imagine now, as she thought it
+over, why she had been so unreasonably annoyed at the moment as to say
+what she had done. Yet the reason was not far to seek, if she had only
+known where to lay her hand on it. She was uneasy, impatient; she longed
+to get out of the house. And it was still early; only eleven. Eleven
+till twelve. Twelve till one. One till half-past. Two whole hours and a
+half to be got through before the Stoke Moreton omnibus would bear her
+away. She looked round for a refuge during that weary age, and found it
+nearer than many poor souls do in time of need, namely, at her elbow, in
+the shape, the welcome shape of the shy man--almost the only remnant of
+the large party whose dispersion she had just been watching. Whenever
+Ruth thought of that shy man afterwards, which was not often, it was
+with a sincere hope that he had forgotten the forwardness of her
+behavior on that particular morning. She wished to see the
+picture-gallery. She would of all things like a walk afterwards. No, she
+had not been as far as the beech-avenue; but she would like to go.
+Should they look at the pictures first--now--no time like the present?
+How pleased he was! How proud! He felt that his shyness had gone
+forever; that Miss Deyncourt would, no doubt, like to hear a few
+anecdotes of his college life; that a quiet man, who does not make
+himself cheap to start with, often wins in the end; that Miss Deyncourt
+had unusual appreciation, not only for pictures, but for reserved and
+intricate characters that yet (here he ventured on a little joke, and
+laughed at it himself) had their lighter side. And in the long
+picture-gallery Ruth and he studied the old masters, as they had seldom
+been studied before, with an intense and ignorant interest on the one
+hand, and an entire absence of mind on the other.
+
+Charles, who had done a good deal of pacing up and down his room the
+night before, and had arrived at certain conclusions, passed through the
+gallery once, but did not stop. He looked grave and preoccupied, and
+hardly answered a question of Mr. Conway's about one of the pictures.
+
+Half-past eleven at last. A tall inlaid clock in the gallery mentioned
+the hour by one sedate stroke; the church clock told the village the
+time of day a second later. They had nearly finished the pictures. Never
+mind. She could take half an hour to put on her hat, and surely any
+beech-avenue, even on a dull day like this might serve to while away the
+remaining hour before luncheon.
+
+They had come to the last picture of the Danvers collection, and Ruth
+was dwelling fondly on a very well-developed cow by Cuyp, as if she
+could hardly tear herself away from it, when she heard a step coming up
+the staircase from the hall, and presently Charles pushed open the
+carved folding-doors which shut off the gallery from the rest of the
+house, and looked in. She was conscious that he was standing in the
+door-way, but new beauties in the cow, which had hitherto escaped her,
+engaged her whole attention at the moment, and no one can attend to two
+things at once.
+
+Charles did not come any farther; but, standing in the door-way, he
+called to the shy man who went to him, and the two talked together for a
+few moments. Ruth gazed upon the cow until it became so fixed upon the
+retina of her eye that, when she tried to admire an old Florentine
+cabinet near it, she still saw its portrait; and when, in desperation,
+she turned away to look out of the window across the sky and sloping
+park, the shadow of the cow hung like a portent.
+
+A moment later Mr. Conway came hurrying back to her much perturbed, to
+say he had quite forgotten till this moment, had not in the least
+understood, in fact, etc. Danvers' gray cob, that he had thoughts of
+buying, was waiting at the door for him to try--in fact, had been
+waiting some time. No idea, upon his soul--
+
+Ruth cut his apology short before he had done more than flounder well
+into it.
+
+"You must go and try it at once," she said with decision; and then she
+added, as Charles drew near: "I have changed my mind about going out. It
+looks as if it might turn to rain. I shall get through some arrears of
+letter-writing instead."
+
+Mr. Conway stammered, and repeated himself, and finally rushed out of
+the gallery. Ruth expected that Charles would accompany him, but he
+remained standing near the window, apparently engaged like herself in
+admiring the view.
+
+"It struck me," he said, slowly, with his eyes half shut, "that Conway
+proved rather a broken reed just now."
+
+"He did," said Ruth. She suddenly felt that she could understand what it
+was in Charles that exasperated Lady Mary so much.
+
+He came a step nearer, and his manner altered.
+
+"I sent him away," he said, looking gravely at her, "because I wished to
+speak to you."
+
+Ruth did not answer or turn her head, though she felt he was watching
+her. Her eyes absently followed two young fallow-deer in the park,
+cantering away in a series of hops on their long stiff legs.
+
+"I cannot speak to you here," said Charles, after a pause.
+
+Ruth turned round.
+
+"Silence is golden sometimes. I think quite enough has been said
+already."
+
+"Not by me. You expressed yourself with considerable frankness. I wish
+to follow your example."
+
+"You said I was unjust at the time. Surely that was sufficient."
+
+"So insufficient that I am going to repeat it. I tell you again that you
+are unjust in not being willing to hear what I have to say. I have seen
+a good deal of harm done by misunderstandings, Miss Deyncourt. Pride is
+generally at the bottom of them. We are both suffering from a slight
+attack of that malady now; but I value your good opinion too much to
+hesitate, if, by any little sacrifice of my own pride, I can still
+retain it. If, after your remarks yesterday, I can make the effort (and
+it _is_ an effort) to ask you to hear something I wish to say, you, on
+your side, ought not to refuse to listen. It is not a question of
+liking; you _ought_ not to refuse."
+
+He spoke in an authoritative tone, which gave weight to his words, and
+in spite of herself she saw the truth of what he said. She was one of
+those rare women who, being convinced against their will, are _not_ of
+the same opinion still. It was ignominious to have to give way; but,
+after a moment's struggle with herself, she surmounted her dislike to
+being overruled, together with a certain unreasoning tenacity of opinion
+natural to her sex, and said, quietly:
+
+"What do you wish me to do?"
+
+Charles saw the momentary struggle, and honored her for a quality which
+women seldom give men occasion to honor them for.
+
+"Do you dislike walking?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then, if you will come out-of-doors, where there is less likelihood of
+interruption than in the house, I will wait for you here."
+
+She went silently down the picture-gallery, half astonished to find
+herself doing his bidding. She put on her walking things mechanically,
+and came back in a few minutes to find him standing where she had left
+him. In silence they went down-stairs, and through the piazza with its
+flowering orange-trees, out into the gardens, where, on the stone
+balustrade, the peacocks were attitudinizing and conversing in the high
+key in which they always proclaim a change of weather and their innate
+vulgarity to the world. Charles led the way towards a little rushing
+brook which divided the gardens from the park.
+
+"I think you must have had a very low opinion of me beforehand to say
+what you did yesterday," he remarked, suddenly.
+
+"I was angry," said Ruth. "However true what I said may have been, I had
+no right to say it to--a comparative stranger. That is why I repeat that
+it would be better not to make matters worse by mentioning the subject
+again. It is sure to annoy us both. Let it rest."
+
+"Not yet," said Charles, dryly. "As a comparative stranger, I want to
+know,"--stopping and facing her--"exactly what you mean by saying that
+she, Lady Grace, did not understand the rules of the game."
+
+"I cannot put it in other words," said Ruth, her courage rising as she
+felt that a battle was imminent.
+
+"Perhaps I can for you. Perhaps you meant to say that you believed I was
+in the habit of amusing myself at other people's expense; that--I see
+your difficulty in finding the right words--that it was my evil sport
+and pastime to--shall we say--raise expectations which it was not my
+intention to fulfil?"
+
+"It is disagreeably put," said Ruth, reddening a little; "but possibly I
+did mean something of that kind."
+
+"And how have you arrived at such an uncharitable opinion of a
+comparative stranger?" asked Charles, quietly enough, but his light eyes
+flashing.
+
+She did not answer.
+
+"You are not a child, to echo the opinion of others," he went on. "You
+look as if you judged for yourself. What have I done since I met you
+first, three months ago, to justify you in holding me in contempt?"
+
+"I did not say I held you in contempt."
+
+"You must, though, if you think me capable of such meanness."
+
+Silence again.
+
+"You have pushed me into saying more than I meant," said Ruth at last;
+"at least you have said I mean a great deal more than I really do. To be
+honest, I think you have thoughtlessly given a good deal of pain. I dare
+say you did it unconsciously."
+
+"Thank you. You are very charitable, but I cannot shield myself under
+the supposition that at eight-and-thirty I am a creature of impulse,
+unconscious of the meaning of my own actions."
+
+"If that is the case," thought Ruth, "your behavior to me has been
+inexcusable, especially the last few days; though, fortunately for
+myself, I was not deceived by it."
+
+"If you persist in keeping silence," said Charles, after waiting for her
+to speak, "any possibility of conversation is at an end."
+
+"I did not come out here for conversation," replied Ruth. "I came, not
+by my own wish, to hear something you said you particularly desired to
+say. Do you not think the simplest thing, under the circumstances, would
+be--to say it?"
+
+He gave a short laugh, and looked at her in sheer desperation. Did she
+know what she was pushing him into?
+
+"I had forgotten," he said. "It was in my mind all the time; but now you
+have made it easy for me indeed by coming to my assistance in this way.
+I will make a fresh start."
+
+He compressed his lips, and seemed to pull himself together. Then he
+said, in a very level voice:
+
+"Kindly give me your whole attention, Miss Deyncourt, so that I shall
+not be obliged to repeat anything. The deer are charming, I know; but
+you have seen deer before, and will no doubt again. I am sorry that I am
+obliged to speak to you about myself, but a little autobiography is
+unavoidable. Perhaps you know that about three years ago I succeeded my
+father. From being penniless, and head over ears in debt, I became
+suddenly a rich man--not by my father's will, who entailed every acre of
+the estates here and elsewhere on Ralph, and left everything he could to
+him. I had thought of telling you what my best friends have never known,
+why I am not still crippled by debt. I had thought of telling you why,
+at five-and-thirty, I was still unmarried, for my debts were not the
+reason; but I will not trouble you with that now. It is enough to say
+that I found myself in a position which, had I been a little younger,
+with rather a different past, I should have enjoyed more than I did. I
+was well received in English society when, after a lapse of several
+years and a change of fortune, I returned to it. If I had thought I was
+well received for myself, I should have been a fool. But I came back
+disillusioned. I saw the machinery. When you reflect on the vast and
+intricate machinery employed by mothers with grown-up daughters, you may
+imagine what I saw. In all honesty and sincerity I wished to marry; but
+in the ease with which I saw I could do so lay my chief difficulty. I
+did not want a new toy, but a companion. I suppose I still clung to one
+last illusion, that I might meet a woman whom I could love, and who
+would love me, and not my name or income. I could not find her, but I
+still believed in her. I went everywhere in the hope of meeting her,
+and, if others have ever been disappointed in me, they have never known
+how disappointed I have been in them. For three years I looked for her
+everywhere, but I could not find her, and at last I gave her up. And
+then I met Lady Grace Lawrence, and liked her. I had reason to believe
+she could be disinterested. She came of good people--all Lawrences are
+good; she was simple and unspoiled, and she seemed to like me. When I
+look back I believe that I had decided to ask her to marry me, and that
+it was only by the merest chance that I left London without speaking to
+her. What prevented me I hardly know, unless it was a reluctance at the
+last moment to cast the die. I came down to Atherstone, harassed and
+anxious, tired of everything and everybody, and there," said Charles,
+with sudden passion, turning and looking full at Ruth, "there I met
+_you_."
+
+The blood rushed to her face, and she hastily interposed, "I don't see
+any necessity to bring my name in."
+
+"Perhaps not," he returned, recovering himself instantly;
+"unfortunately, I do."
+
+"You expect too much of my vanity," said Ruth, her voice trembling a
+little; "but in this instance I don't think you can turn it to account.
+I beg you will leave me out of the question."
+
+"I am sorry I cannot oblige you," he said, grimly; "but you can't be
+left out. I only regret that you dislike being mentioned, because that
+is a mere nothing to what is coming."
+
+She trusted that he did not perceive that the reason she made no reply
+was because she suddenly felt herself unable to articulate. Her heart
+was beating wildly, as that gentle, well conducted organ had never
+beaten before. What was coming? Could this stern, determined man be the
+same apathetic, sarcastic being whom she had hitherto known?
+
+"From that time," he continued, "I became surer and surer of what at
+first I hardly dared to hope, what it seemed presumption in me to hope,
+namely, that at last I had found what I had looked for in vain so long.
+I had to keep my engagement with the Hope-Actons in Scotland; but I
+regretted it. I stayed as short a time as I could. I did not ask them to
+come here. They offered themselves. I think, if I have been to blame, it
+has not been in so heartless a manner as you supposed; and it appears to
+me Lady Hope-Acton should not have come. This is my explanation. You can
+add the rest for yourself. Have I said enough to soften your harsh
+judgment of yesterday?"
+
+Ruth could not speak. The trees were behaving in the most curious
+manner, were whirling round, were swaying up and down. The beeches close
+in front were dancing quadrilles; now ranged in two long rows, now
+setting to partners, now hurrying back to their places as she drew near.
+
+"Sit down," said Charles's voice, gently; "you look tired."
+
+The trunk of a fallen tree suddenly appeared rising up to meet her out
+of a slight mist, and she sat down on it more precipitately than she
+could have wished. In a few seconds the trees returned to their places,
+and the mist, which appeared to be very local, cleared away.
+
+Charles was sitting on the trunk beside her, looking at her intently.
+The anger had gone out of his face, and had given place to a look of
+deep anxiety and suspense.
+
+"I have not finished yet," he said, and his voice had changed as much as
+his face. "There is still something more."
+
+"No, no!" said Ruth. "At least, if there is, don't say it."
+
+"I think I would rather say it. You wish to save me pain, I see; but I
+am quite prepared for what you are going to say. I did not intend to
+speak to you on the subject for a long time to come, but yesterday's
+event has forced my hand. There must be no more misunderstandings
+between us. You intend to refuse me, I can see. All the same, I wish to
+tell you that I love you, and to ask you to be my wife."
+
+"I am afraid I cannot," said Ruth, almost inaudibly.
+
+"No," said Charles, looking straight before him, "I have asked you too
+soon. You are quite right. I did not expect anything different; I only
+wished you to know. But, perhaps, some day--"
+
+"Don't!" said Ruth, clasping her hands tightly together. "You don't know
+what you are saying. Nothing can make any difference, because--I am
+engaged."
+
+She dared not look at his face, but she saw his hand clinch.
+
+For an age neither spoke.
+
+Then he turned his head slowly and looked at her. His face was gray even
+to the lips. With a strange swift pang at the heart, she saw how her few
+words had changed it.
+
+"To whom?" he said at last, hardly above a whisper.
+
+"To Mr. Dare."
+
+"Not that man who has come to live at Vandon?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Another long silence.
+
+"When was it?"
+
+"Ten days ago."
+
+"Ten days ago," repeated Charles, mechanically, and his face worked.
+"Ten days ago!"
+
+"It is not given out yet," said Ruth, hesitating, "because Mr. Alwynn
+does not wish it during Lord Polesworth's absence. I never thought of
+any mistake being caused by not mentioning it. I would not have come
+here if I had had the least idea that--"
+
+"You cannot mean to say that you had never seen that I--what I--felt for
+you?"
+
+"Indeed I never thought of such a thing until two minutes before you
+said it. I am very sorry I did not, but I imagined--"
+
+"Let me hear what you imagined."
+
+"I noticed you talked to me a good deal; but I thought you did exactly
+the same to Lady Grace, and others."
+
+"You could not imagine that I talked to others--to any other woman in
+the world--as I did to you."
+
+"I supposed," said Ruth, simply, "that you talked gayly to Lady Grace
+because it suited her; and more gravely to me, because I am naturally
+grave. I thought at the time you were rather clever in adapting yourself
+to different people so easily; and I was glad that I understood your
+manner better than some of the others."
+
+"Better!" said Charles, bitterly. "Better, when you thought that of me!
+No, you need not say anything. I was in fault, not you. I don't know
+what right I had to imagine you understood me--you seemed to understand
+me--to fancy that we had anything in common, that in time--" He broke
+into a low wretched laugh. "And all the while you were engaged to
+another man! Good God, what a farce! what a miserable mistake from first
+to last!"
+
+Ruth said nothing. It was indeed a miserable mistake.
+
+He rose wearily to his feet.
+
+"I was forgetting," he said; "it is time to go home." And they went back
+together in silence, which was more bearable than speech just then.
+
+The peacocks were still pirouetting and minuetting on the stone
+balustrade as they came back to the garden. The gong began to sound as
+they entered the piazza.
+
+To Ruth it was a dreadful meal. She tried to listen to Mr. Conway's
+account of the gray cob, or to the placid conversation of Mr. Alwynn
+about the beloved manuscripts. Fortunately the morning papers were full
+of a recent forgery in America, and a murder in London, which furnished
+topics when these were exhausted, and Charles used them to the utmost.
+
+At last the carriage came. Mr. Alwynn and Mr. Conway simultaneously
+broke into incoherent ejaculations respecting the pleasure of their
+visit; Ruth's hand met Charles's for an embarrassed second; and a moment
+later they were whirling down the straight wide approach, between the
+columns of fantastically clipped hollies, leaving Charles standing in
+the door-way. He was still standing there when the carriage rolled under
+the arched gate-way with its rampant stone lions. Ruth glanced back
+once, as they turned into the road, at the stately old house, with its
+pointed gables and forests of chimneys cutting the gray sky-line. She
+saw the owner turn slowly and go up the steps, and looked hastily away
+again.
+
+"Poor Danvers!" said Mr. Alwynn, cheerfully, also looking, and putting
+Ruth's thoughts into words. "He must be desperately lonely in that house
+all by himself; but I suppose he is not often there."
+
+And Mr. Alwynn, whose mind had been entirely relieved since Ruth's
+engagement from the dark suspicion he had once harbored respecting
+Charles, proceeded to dilate upon the merits of the charters, and of the
+owner of the charters, until he began to think Ruth had a headache, and
+finding it to be the case, talked no more till they reached, at the end
+of their little journey, the door of Slumberleigh Rectory.
+
+"Is it very bad?" he asked, kindly, as he helped her out of the
+carriage.
+
+Ruth assented, fortunately with some faint vestige of truth, for her hat
+hurt her forehead.
+
+"Then run up straight to your own room, and I will tell your aunt that
+you will come and have a chat with her later on, perhaps after tea, when
+the post will be gone." Mr. Alwynn spoke in the whisper of stratagem.
+
+Ruth was only too thankful to be allowed to slip on tiptoe to her own
+room, but she had not been there many minutes when a tap came to the
+door.
+
+"There, my dear," said Mr. Alwynn, putting his head in, and holding some
+letters towards her. "Your aunt ought to have forwarded them. I brought
+them up at once. And there is nearly an hour to post-time, and she won't
+expect you to come down till then. I think the headache will be better
+now, eh?"
+
+He nodded kindly to her, and closed the door again. Ruth sat down
+mechanically, and began to sort the packet he had put into her hands.
+The first three letters were in the same handwriting, Dare's large vague
+handwriting, that ran from one end of the envelope to the other, and
+partly hid itself under the stamp.
+
+She looked at them, but did not open them. A feeling of intense
+lassitude and fatigue had succeeded to the unconscious excitement of the
+morning. She could not read them now. They must wait with the others.
+Presently she could feel an interest in them; not now.
+
+She leaned her head upon her hand, and a rush of pity swept away every
+other feeling as she recalled that last look at Stoke Moreton, and how
+Charles had turned so slowly and wearily to go in-doors. There was an
+ache at her heart as she thought of him, a sense of regret and loss. And
+he had loved her all the time!
+
+"If I had only known!" she said to herself, pressing her hands against
+her forehead. "But how could I tell--how could I tell?"
+
+She raised her head with a sudden movement, and began with nervous
+fingers to open Dare's letters, and read them carefully.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+
+In the long evening that followed Ruth's departure from Stoke Moreton,
+Charles was alone for once in his own home. He was leaving again early
+on the morrow, but for the time he was alone, and heavy at heart. He sat
+for hours without stirring, looking into the fire. He had no power or
+will to control his thoughts. They wandered hither and thither, and up
+and down, never for a moment easing the dull miserable pain that lay
+beneath them all.
+
+Fool! fool that he had been!
+
+To have found her after all these years, and to have lost her without a
+stroke! To have let another take her, and such a man as Dare! To have
+such a fool's manner that he was thought to be in earnest when he was
+least so; that now, when his whole future hung in the balance,
+retribution had overtaken him, and with bitter irony had mocked at his
+earnestness and made it of none effect. She had thought it was his
+natural manner to all! His cursed folly had lost her to him. If she had
+known, surely it would have been, it must have been different. At heart
+Charles was a very humble man, though it was not to be expected many
+would think so; but nevertheless he had a deep, ever-deepening
+consciousness (common to the experience of the humblest once in a
+lifetime) that between him and Ruth that mysterious link of mutual
+understanding and sympathy existed which cannot be accounted for, which
+eludes analysis, which yet makes, when the sex happens to be identical,
+the indissoluble friendship of a David and a Jonathan, a Karlos and a
+Posa; and, where there is a difference of sex, brings about that rarest
+wonder of the world, a happy marriage.
+
+Like cleaves to like. He knew she would have loved him. She was his by
+right. The same law of attraction which had lifted them at once out of
+the dreary flats of ordinary acquaintanceship would have drawn them ever
+closer and closer together till they were knit in one. He knew, with a
+certainty that nothing could shake, that he could have made her love
+him, even as he loved her; unconsciously at first, slowly perhaps--for
+the current of strong natures, like that of deep rivers, is sometimes
+slow. Still the end would have been the same.
+
+And he had lost her by his own act, by his own heedless folly; her want
+of vanity having lent a hand the while to put her beyond his reach
+forever.
+
+It was a bitter hour.
+
+And as he sat late into the night beside the fire, that died down to
+dust and ashes before his absent eyes, ghosts of other heavy hours,
+ghosts of the past, which he had long since buried out of his sight,
+came back and would not be denied.
+
+To live much in the past, is a want of faith in the Power that gives the
+present. Comparatively few men walk through their lives looking
+backward. Women more frequently do so from a false estimate of life
+fostered by romantic feeling in youth, which leads them, if the life of
+the affections is ended, resolutely to refuse to regard existence in any
+other maturer aspect, and to persist in wandering aimlessly forward,
+with eyes turned ever on the dim flowery paths of former days.
+
+"Let the dead past bury its dead."
+
+But there comes a time, when the grass has grown over those graves, when
+we may do well to go and look at them once more; to stand once again in
+that solitary burial-ground, "where," as an earnest man has said, "are
+buried broken vows, worn-out hopes, joys blind and deaf, faiths betrayed
+or gone astray--lost, lost love; silent spaces where only one mourner
+ever comes."
+
+And to the last retrospective of us our dead past yet speaks at times,
+and speaks as one having authority.
+
+Such a time had come for Charles now. From the open grave of his love
+for Ruth he turned to look at others by which he had stood long ago, in
+grief as sharp, but which yet in all its bitterness had never struck as
+deep as this.
+
+Memory pointed back to a time twenty years ago, when he had hurried home
+through a long summer night to arrive at Stoke Moreton too late; to find
+only the solemn shadow of the mother whom he had loved, and whom he had
+grieved; too late to ask for forgiveness; too late for anything but a
+wild passion of grief and remorse, and frantic self-accusation.
+
+The scene shifted to ten years later. It was a sultry July evening of
+the day on which the woman whom he had loved for years had married his
+brother. He was standing on the deck of the steamer which was taking him
+from England, looking back at the gray town dwindling against the tawny
+curtain of the sunset. In his brain was a wild clamor of wedding-bells,
+and across the water, marking the pulse of the sea, came to his outward
+ears the slow tolling of a bell on a sunken rock near the harbor mouth.
+
+It seemed to be tolling for the death of all that remained of good in
+him. In losing Evelyn, whom he had loved with all the idealism and
+reverence of a reckless man for a good woman, he believed, in the
+bitterness of his spirit, that he had lost all; that he had been cut
+adrift from the last mooring to a better future, that nothing could hold
+him back now. And for a time it had been so, and he had drowned his
+trouble in a sea in which he wellnigh drowned himself as well.
+
+Once more memory pointed--pointed across five dark years to an evening
+when he had sat as he was sitting now, alone by the wide stone hearth in
+the hall at Stoke Moreton, after his father's death, and after the
+reading of the will. He was the possessor of the old home, which he had
+always passionately loved, from which he had been virtually banished so
+long. His father, who had never liked him, but who of late years had
+hated him as men only hate their eldest sons, had left all in his power
+to his second son, had entailed every acre of the Stoke Moreton and
+other family properties upon him and his children. Charles could touch
+nothing, and over him hung a millstone of debt, from which there was now
+no escape. He sat with his head in his hands--the man whom his friends
+were envying on his accession to supposed wealth and position--ruined.
+
+A few days later he was summoned to London by a friend whom he had known
+for many years. He remembered well that last meeting with the stern old
+man whom he had found sitting in his arm-chair with death in his face.
+He had once or twice remonstrated with Charles in earlier days, and as
+he came into his presence now for the last time, and met his severe
+glance, he supposed, with the callousness that comes from suffering
+which has reached its lowest depths, that he was about to rebuke him
+again.
+
+"And so," said General Marston, sternly, "you have come into your
+kingdom; into what you deserve."
+
+"Yes," said Charles. "If it is any pleasure to you to know that what you
+prophesied on several occasions has come true, you can enjoy it. I am
+ruined!"
+
+"You fool!" said the sick man slowly. "To have come to five-and-thirty,
+and to have used up everything which makes life worth having. I am not
+speaking only of money. There is a bankruptcy in your face that money
+will never pay. And you had talent and a good heart and the making of a
+man in you once. I saw that when your father turned you adrift. I saw
+that when you were at your worst after your brother's marriage. Yes, you
+need not start. I knew your secret and kept it as well as you did
+yourself. I tried to stop you; but you went your own way."
+
+Charles was silent. It was true, and he knew it.
+
+"And so you thought, I suppose, that if your father had made a just will
+you could have retrieved yourself?"
+
+"I know I could," said Charles, firmly; "but he left the ----shire
+property to Ralph, and every shilling of his capital; and Ralph had my
+mother's fortune already. I have Stoke Moreton and the place in Surrey,
+which he could not take from me, but everything is entailed, down to the
+trees in the park. I have nominally a large income; but I am in the
+hands of the Jews. I can't settle with them as I expected, and they will
+squeeze me to the uttermost. However, as you say, I have the
+consolation of knowing I brought it on myself."
+
+"And if your father acted justly, as you would call it, which I knew he
+never would, you would have run through everything in five years' time."
+
+"No, I should not. I know I have been a fool; but there are two kinds of
+fools--the kind that sticks to folly all its life, and the kind that has
+its fling, and has done with it. I belong to the second kind. My father
+had no right to take my last chance from me. If he had left it me, I
+should have used it."
+
+"You look tired of your fling," said the elder man. "Very tired. And you
+think money would set you right, do you?" He looked critically at the
+worn, desperate face opposite him. "I made my will the other day," he
+went on, his eyes still fixed on Charles. "I had not much to leave, and
+I have no near relations, so I divided it among various charitable
+institutions. I see no reason to alter my will. If one leaves money,
+however small the sum may be, one likes to think it has been left to
+some purpose, with some prospect of doing good. A few days ago I had a
+surprise. I fancy it was to be my last surprise in this world. I
+inherited from a distant relation, who died intestate, a large fortune.
+After being a poor man all my days, wealth comes to me when I am on the
+point of going where money won't follow. Curious, isn't it? I am going
+to leave this second sum in the same spirit as the first, but in rather
+a different manner. I like to know what I am doing, so I sent for you. I
+am of opinion that the best thing I can do with it, is to set you on
+your legs again. What do you owe?"
+
+Charles turned very red, and then very white.
+
+"What do you owe?" repeated the sick man, testily. "I am getting tired.
+How much is it?" He got out a check-book, and began filling it in. "Have
+you no tongue?" he said, angrily, looking up. "Tell me the exact figure.
+Well? Keep nothing back."
+
+"I won't be given the whole," said Charles, with an oath. "Give me
+enough to settle the Jews, and I will do the rest out of my income. I
+won't get off scot free."
+
+"Well, then, have your own way, as usual, and name the sum you want.
+There, take it," he said, feebly, when Charles had mentioned with shame
+a certain hideous figure, "and go. I shall never know what you do with
+it, so you can play ducks and drakes with it if you like. But you won't
+like. You have burned your fingers too severely to play with fire again.
+You have turned over so many new leaves that now you have come to the
+last in the book. I have given you another chance, Charles; but one man
+can't do much to help another. The only person who can really help you
+is yourself. Give yourself a chance, too."
+
+How memory brought back every word of that strange interview. Charles
+saw again the face of the dying man; heard again the stern, feeble
+voice, "Give yourself a chance."
+
+He had given himself a chance. "Some natures, like comets, make strange
+orbits, and return from far." Charles had returned at last. The old
+man's investment had been a wise one. But, as Charles looked back, after
+three years, he saw that his friend had been right. His money debts had
+been the least part of what he owed. There were other long-standing
+accounts which he had paid in full during these three years, paid in the
+restless weariness and disappointment that underlay his life, in the
+loneliness in which he lived, in his contempt for all his former
+pursuits, which had left him at first devoid of any pursuits at all.
+
+He had had, as was natural, very little happiness in his life, but all
+the bitterness of all his bitter past seemed as nothing to the agony of
+this moment. He had loved Evelyn with his imagination, but he loved Ruth
+with his whole heart and soul, and--he had lost her.
+
+The night was far advanced. The dawn was already making faint bars over
+the tops of the shutters, was looking in at him as he sat motionless by
+his dim lamp and his dead fire. And, in spite of the growing dawn, it
+was a dark hour.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+
+Dare returned to Vandon in the highest spirits, with an enormous emerald
+engagement-ring in an inner waistcoat-pocket. He put it on Ruth's third
+finger a few days later, under the ancient cedar on the terrace at
+Vandon, a spot which, he informed her (for he was not without poetic
+flights at times), his inner consciousness associated with all the love
+scenes of his ancestors that were no more.
+
+He was stricken to the heart when, after duly admiring it, Ruth gently
+explained to him that she could not wear his ring at present, until her
+engagement was given out.
+
+"Let it then be given out," he said, impetuously. "Ah! why already is it
+not given out?"
+
+She explained again, but it was difficult to make him understand, and
+she felt conscious that if he would have allowed her the temporary use
+of one hand to release a fly, which was losing all self-control inside
+her veil, she might have been more lucid. As it was, she at last made
+him realize the fact that, until Lord Polesworth's return from America
+in November, no further step was to be taken.
+
+"But all is right," he urged with pride. "I have seen my lawyer; I make
+a settlement. I raise money on the property to make a settlement. There
+is nothing I will not do. I care for nothing only to marry you."
+
+Ruth led him to talk of other things. She was very gentle with him,
+always attentive, always ready to be interested; but any one less
+self-centred than Dare would have had a misgiving about her feeling for
+him. He had none. Half his life he had spent in Paris, and, imbued with
+French ideas of betrothal and marriage, he thought her manner at once
+exceedingly becoming and natural. She was reserved, but reserve was
+charming. She did not care for him very much perhaps, as yet, but as
+much as she could care for any one. Most men think that if a woman does
+not attach herself to them she is by nature cold. Dare was no exception
+to the rule; and though he would have preferred that there should be
+less constraint in their present intercourse, that she would be a little
+more shy, and a little less calm, still he was supremely happy and
+proud, and only longed to proclaim the fortunate state of his affairs to
+the world.
+
+One thing about Ruth puzzled him very much, and with a vague misgiving
+she saw it did so. Her interest in the Vandon cottages, and the schools,
+and the new pump, had been most natural up to this time. It had served
+to bring them together; but now the use of these things was past, and
+yet he observed, with incredulity at first and astonishment afterwards,
+that she clung to them more than ever.
+
+What mattered it for the moment whether the pump was put up or not, or
+whether the cottages by the river were protected from the floods? Of
+course in time, for he had promised, a vague something would be done;
+but why in the golden season of love and plighted faith revert to
+prosaic subjects such as these?
+
+Some men are quite unable to believe in any act of a woman being
+genuine. They always find out that it has something to do with them. If
+an angel came down from heaven to warn a man of this kind of wrath to
+come, he would think the real object of her journey was to make his
+acquaintance.
+
+Ruth saw the incredulity in Dare's face when she questioned him, and her
+heart sank within her. It sank yet lower when she told him one day, with
+a faint smile, that she knew he was not rich, and that she wanted him to
+let her help in the rebuilding of certain cottages, the plans of which
+he had brought over in the summer, but which had not yet been begun,
+apparently for the want of funds.
+
+"What you cannot do alone we can do together," she said.
+
+He agreed with effusion. He was surprised, flattered, delighted, but
+entirely puzzled.
+
+The cottages were begun immediately. They were near the river, which
+divided the Slumberleigh and Vandon properties. Ruth often went to look
+at them. It did her good to see them rising, strong and firm, though
+hideous to behold, on higher ground than the poor dilapidated hovels at
+the water's edge, where fever was always breaking out, which yet made,
+as they supported each other in their crookedness, and leaned over their
+own wavering reflections, such a picturesque sketch that it seemed a
+shame to supplant them by such brand new red brick, such blue tiling,
+such dreadful little porches.
+
+Ruth drew the old condemned cottages, with the long lines of pollarded
+marshy meadow, and distant bridge and mill in the background, but it was
+a sketch she never cared to look at afterwards. She was constantly
+drawing now. There was a vague restlessness in her at this time that
+made her take refuge in the world of nature, where the mind can withdraw
+itself from itself for a time into a stronghold where misgiving and
+anxiety cannot corrupt, nor self break through and steal. In these days
+she shut out self steadfastly, and fixed her eyes firmly on the future,
+as she herself had made it with her own hands.
+
+She had grown very grave of late. Dare's high spirits had the effect of
+depressing her more than she would allow, even to herself. She liked
+him. She told herself so every day, and it was a pleasure to her to see
+him so happy. But when she had accepted him he was so diffident, so
+quiet, so anxious, that she had not realized that he would return to his
+previous happy self-confidence, his volubility, his gray hats--in fact,
+his former gay self--directly his mind was at ease and he had got what
+he wanted. She saw at once that the change was natural, but she found it
+difficult to keep pace with, and the effort to do so was a constant
+strain.
+
+She had yet to learn that it is hard to live for those who live for
+self. Between a nature which struggles, however feebly, towards a higher
+life, and one whose sole object is gracefully and good-naturedly, but
+persistently to enjoy itself, there is a great gulf fixed, of which
+often neither are aware, until they attempt a close relationship with
+each other, when the chasm reveals itself with appalling clearness to
+the higher nature of the two.
+
+Ruth was glad when a long-standing engagement to sing at a private
+concert in one place, and sell modern knick-knacks in old English
+costume at another, took her from Slumberleigh for a week. She looked
+forward to the dreary dissipation in store for her with positive
+gladness; and when the week had passed, and she was returning once more,
+she wished the stations would not fly so quickly past, that the train
+would not hurry itself so unnecessarily to bring her back to
+Slumberleigh.
+
+As the little local line passed Stoke Moreton station she looked out for
+a moment, but leaned back hurriedly as she caught a glimpse of the
+Danvers omnibus in the background, with its great black horses, and a
+footman with a bag standing on the platform. In another moment Mrs.
+Alwynn, followed by the footman, made a dart at Ruth's carriage, jumped
+in, seized the bag, repeated voluble thanks, pressed half her gayly
+dressed person out again through the window to ascertain that her boxes
+were put in the van, caught her veil in the ventilator as the train
+started, and finally precipitated herself into a seat on her bag, as the
+motion destroyed her equilibrium.
+
+"Well, Aunt Fanny!" said Ruth.
+
+"Why, goodness gracious, my dear, if it isn't you! And, now I think of
+it, you were to come home to-day. Well, how oddly things fall out, to be
+sure, me getting into your carriage like that. And you'll never guess,
+Ruth, though for that matter there's nothing so very astonishing about
+it, as I told Mrs. Thursby, you'll never guess where _I've_ been
+visiting."
+
+Ruth remembered seeing the Danvers omnibus at the station, and suddenly
+remembered, too, a certain request which she had once made of Charles.
+
+"Where can it have been?" she said, with a great show of curiosity.
+
+"You will never guess," said Mrs. Alwynn, in high glee. "I shall have to
+help you. You remember my sprained ankle? There! Now I have as good as
+told you."
+
+But Ruth would not spoil her aunt's pleasure; and after numerous
+guesses, Mrs. Alwynn had the delight of taking her completely by
+surprise, when at last she leaned forward and said, with a rustle of
+pride, emphasizing each word with a pat on Ruth's knee:
+
+"I've been to Stoke Moreton."
+
+"How delightful!" ejaculated Ruth. "How astonished I am! Stoke Moreton!"
+
+"You may well say that," said Mrs. Alwynn, nodding to her. "Mrs. Thursby
+would not believe it at first, and afterwards she said she was afraid
+there would not be any party; but there was, Ruth. There was a married
+couple, very nice people, of the name of Reynolds. I dare say, being
+London people, you may have known them. She had quite the London look
+about her, though not dressed low of an evening; and he was a clergyman,
+who had overworked himself, and had come down to Stoke Moreton to rest,
+and had soup at luncheon. And there was another person besides, a
+Colonel Middleton, a very clever man, who wrote a book that was printed,
+and had been in India, and was altogether most superior. We were three
+gentlemen and two ladies, but we had ices each night, Ruth, two kinds of
+ices; and the second night I wore my ruby satin, and the clergyman at
+Stoke Moreton, that nice young Mr. Brown, who comes to your uncle's
+chapter meetings, dined, with his sister, a very pleasing person indeed,
+Ruth, in black. In fact, it was a very pleasant little gathering, so
+nice and informal, and the footman did not wait at luncheon, just put
+the pudding and the hot plates down to the fire; and Sir Charles so
+chatty and so full of his jokes, and I always liked to hear him, though
+my scent of humor is not quite the same as his. Sir Charles has a
+feeling heart, Ruth. You should have heard Mr. Reynolds talk about him.
+But he looked very thin and pale, my dear, and he seemed to be always so
+tired, but still as pleasant as could be. And I told him he wanted a
+wife to look after him, and I advised him to have an egg beaten up in
+ever such a little drop of brandy at eleven o'clock, and he said he
+would think about it, he did indeed, Ruth; so I just went quietly to the
+house-keeper and asked her to see to it, and a very sensible person she
+was, Ruth, been in the family twenty years, and thinks all the world of
+Sir Charles, and showed me the damask table-cloths that were used for
+the prince's visit, and the white satin coverlet, embroidered with gold
+thistles, quite an heirloom, which had been worked by the ladies of the
+house when James I. slept there. Think of that, my dear!"
+
+And so Mrs. Alwynn rambled on, recounting how Charles had shown her all
+the pictures himself, and the piazza where the orange and myrtle trees
+were, and how she and Mrs. Reynolds had gone for a drive together, "in
+a beautiful landau," etc., till they reached home.
+
+As a rule Ruth rather shrank from travelling with Mrs. Alwynn, who
+always journeyed in her best clothes, "because you never know whom you
+may not meet." To stand on a platform with her was to be made
+conspicuous, and Ruth generally found herself unconsciously going into
+half mourning for the day, when she went anywhere by rail with her aunt.
+To-day Mrs. Alwynn was more gayly dressed than ever, but as Ruth looked
+at her beaming face she felt nothing but a strange pleasure in the fact
+that Charles had not forgotten the little request which later events had
+completely effaced from her own memory. He, it seemed, had remembered,
+and, in spite of what had passed, had done what she asked him. She
+wished that she could have told him she was grateful. Alas! there were
+other things that she wished she could have told him; that she was sorry
+she had misjudged him; that she understood him better now. But what did
+it matter? What did it matter? She was going to marry Dare, and _he_ was
+the person whom she must try to understand for the remainder of her
+natural life. She thought a little wearily that she could understand
+_him_ without trying.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+
+The 18th of October had arrived. Slumberleigh Hall was filling. The
+pheasants, reprieved till then, supposed it was only for partridge
+shooting, and thinking no evil, ate Indian-corn, and took no thought for
+the annual St. Bartholomew of their race.
+
+Mabel Thursby had met Ruth out walking that day, and had informed her
+that Charles was to be one of the guns, also Dare, though, as she
+remembered to add, suspecting Dare admired Ruth, the latter was a bad
+shot, and was only asked out of neighborly feeling.
+
+After parting with Mabel, Ruth met, almost at her own gate, Ralph
+Danvers, who passed her on horseback, and then turned on recognizing
+her. Ralph's conversational powers were not great, and though he walked
+his horse beside her, he chiefly contented himself with assenting to
+Ruth's remarks until she asked after Molly.
+
+He at once whistled and flicked a fly off his horse's neck.
+
+"Sad business with Molly," he said; "and mother out for the day. Great
+grief in the nursery. Vic's dead!"
+
+"Oh, poor Molly!"
+
+"Died this morning. Fits. I say," with a sudden inspiration, "you
+wouldn't go over and cheer her up, would you? Mother's out. I'm out.
+Magistrates' meeting at D----."
+
+Ruth said she had nothing to do, and would go over at once, and Ralph
+nodded kindly at her, and rode on. He liked her, and it never occurred
+to him that it could be anything but a privilege to minister to any need
+of Molly's. He jogged on more happily after his meeting with Ruth, and
+only remembered half an hour later that he had completely forgotten to
+order the dog-cart to meet Charles, who was coming to Atherstone for a
+night before he went on to kill the Slumberleigh pheasants the following
+morning.
+
+Ruth set out at once over the pale stubble fields, glad of an object for
+a walk.
+
+Deep distress reigned meanwhile in the nursery at Atherstone. Vic, the
+much-beloved, the stoat pursuer, the would-be church-goer, Vic was dead,
+and Molly's soul refused comfort. In vain nurse conveyed a palpitating
+guinea-pig into the nursery in a bird-cage, on the narrow door of which
+remains of fur showed an unwilling entrance; Molly could derive no
+comfort from guinea-pigs.
+
+In vain was the new horse, with leather hoofs, with real hair, and a
+horse-hair tail--in vain was that token of esteem from Uncle Charles
+brought out of its stable, and unevenly yoked with a dappled pony
+planted on a green, oval lawn, into Molly's own hay-cart. Molly's woe
+was beyond the reach of hay-carts or horse-hair tails, however
+realistic. Like Hezekiah, she turned her face to the nursery wall, on
+which trains and railroads were depicted; and even when cook herself
+rose up out of her kitchen to comfort her with material consolations,
+she refused the mockery of a gingerbread nut, which could not restore
+the friend with whom previous gingerbread nuts had always been equally
+divided.
+
+Presently a step came along the passage, and Charles, who had found no
+one in the drawing-room, came in tired and dusty, and inclined to be
+annoyed at having had to walk up from the station.
+
+Molly flew to him, and flung her arms tightly round his neck.
+
+"Oh, Uncle Charles! Uncle Charles! Vic is dead!"
+
+"I am so sorry, Molly," taking her on his knee.
+
+Nurse and the nursery-maid and cook withdrew, leaving the two mourners
+alone together.
+
+"He is _dead_, Uncle Charles. He was quite well, and eating Albert
+biscuits with the dolls this morning, and now--" The rest was too
+dreadful, and Molly burst into a flood of tears, and burrowed with her
+head against the faithful waistcoat of Uncle Charles--Uncle Charles, the
+friend, the consoler of all the ills that Molly had so far been heir to.
+
+"Vic had a very happy life, Molly," said Charles, pressing the little
+brown head against his cheek, and vaguely wondering what it would be
+like to have any one to turn to in time of trouble.
+
+"I always kept trouble from him except that time I shut him in the
+door," gasped Molly. "I never took him out in a string, and he only wore
+his collar--that collar you gave him, that made him scratch so--on
+Sundays."
+
+"And he was not ill a long time. He did not suffer any pain?"
+
+"No, Uncle Charles, not much; but, though he did not say anything, his
+face looked worse than screaming, and he passed away very stiff in his
+hind-legs. Oh!" (with a fresh outburst), "when cook told me that her
+sister that was in a decline had gone, I never thought," (sob, sob!)
+"poor Vic would be the next."
+
+A step came along the passage, a firm light step that Charles knew, that
+made his heart beat violently.
+
+The door opened and a familiar voice said:
+
+"Molly! My poor Molly! I met father, and--"
+
+Ruth stood in the door-way, and stopped short. A wave of color passed
+over her face, and left it paler than usual.
+
+Charles looked at her over the mop of Molly's brown head against his
+breast. Their grave eyes met, and each thought how ill the other looked.
+
+"I did not know--I thought you were going to Slumberleigh to-day," said
+Ruth.
+
+"I go to-morrow morning," replied Charles. "I came here first."
+
+There was an awkward silence, but Molly came to their relief by a sudden
+rush at Ruth, and a repetition of the details of the death-bed scene of
+poor Vic for her benefit, for which both were grateful.
+
+"You ought to be thinking where he is to be buried, Molly," suggested
+Charles, when she had finished. "Let us go into the garden and find a
+place."
+
+Molly revived somewhat at the prospect of a funeral, and though Ruth was
+anxious to leave her with her uncle, insisted on her remaining for the
+ceremony. They went out together, Molly holding a hand of each, to
+choose a suitable spot in the garden. By the time the grave had been
+dug by Charles, Molly was sufficiently recovered to take a lively
+interest in the proceedings, and to insist on the attendance of the
+stable-cat, in deep mourning, when the remains of poor Vic, arrayed in
+his best collar, were lowered into their long home.
+
+By the time the last duties to the dead had been performed, and Charles,
+under Molly's direction, had planted a rose-tree on the grave, while
+Ruth surrounded the little mound with white pebbles, Molly's tea-time
+had arrived, and that young lady allowed herself to be led away by the
+nursery-maid, with the stable-cat in a close embrace, resigned, and even
+cheerful at the remembrance of those creature comforts of cook's, which
+earlier in the day she had refused so peremptorily.
+
+When Molly left them, Ruth and Charles walked together in silence to the
+garden-gate which led to the foot-path over the fields by which she had
+come. Neither had a word to say, who formerly had so much.
+
+"Good-bye," she said, without looking at him.
+
+He seemed intent on the hasp of the gate.
+
+There was a moment's pause.
+
+"I should like," said Ruth, hating herself for the formality of her
+tone, "to thank you before I go for giving Mrs. Alwynn so much pleasure.
+She still talks of her visit to you. It was kind of you to remember it.
+So much seems to have happened since then, that I had not thought of it
+again."
+
+At her last words Charles raised his eyes and looked at her with strange
+wistful intentness, but when Ruth had finished speaking he had no remark
+to make in answer; and as he stood, bareheaded by the gate, twirling the
+hasp and looking, as a hasty glance told her, so worn and jaded in the
+sunshine, she said "Good-bye" again, and turned hastily away.
+
+And all along the empty harvested fields, and all along the lanes, where
+the hips and haws grew red and stiff among the ruddy hedge-rows, Ruth
+still saw Charles's grave, worn face.
+
+That night she saw it still, as she sat in her own room, and listened to
+the whisper of the rain upon the roof, and the touch of its myriad
+fingers on the window-panes.
+
+"I cannot bear to see him look like that. I cannot bear it," she said,
+suddenly, and the storm which had been gathering so long, the clouds of
+which had darkened the sky for so many days, broke at last, with a
+strong and mighty wind of swift emotion which carried all before it.
+
+It was a relief to give way, to let the tempest do its worst, and remain
+passive. But when its force was spent at last, and it died away in gusts
+and flying showers, it left flood and wreckage and desolation behind.
+When Ruth raised her head and looked about her, all her landmarks were
+gone. There was a streaming glory in the heavens, but it shone on the
+ruin of all her little world below. She loved Charles, and she knew it.
+It seemed to her now as if, though she had not realized it, she must
+have loved him from the first; and with the knowledge came an
+overwhelming sense of utter misery that struck terror to her heart. She
+understood at last the meaning of the weariness and the restless
+misgivings of these last weeks. If heretofore they had spoken in
+riddles, they spoke plainly now. Every other feeling in the world seemed
+to have been swept away by a passion, the overwhelming strength of which
+she regarded panic-stricken. She seemed to have been asleep all her
+life, to have stirred restlessly once or twice of late, and now to have
+waked to consciousness and agony. Love, with women like Ruth, is a great
+happiness or a great calamity. It is with them indeed for better, for
+worse.
+
+Those whose feelings lie below the surface escape the hundred rubs and
+scratches which superficial natures are heir to; but it is the nerve
+which is not easily reached which when touched gives forth the sharpest
+pang. Nature, when she gives intensity of feeling, mercifully covers it
+well with a certain superficial coldness. Ruth had sometimes wondered
+why the incidents, the books, which called forth emotion in others,
+passed her by. The vehement passion which once or twice in her life she
+had involuntarily awakened in others had met with no response from
+herself. The sight of the fire she had unwittingly kindled only made her
+shiver with cold. She believed herself to be cold--always a dangerous
+assumption on the part of a woman, and apt to prove a broken reed in
+emergency.
+
+Charles knew her better than she knew herself. Her pride and unconscious
+humble-mindedness, her frankness with its underlying reserve, spoke of a
+strong nature, slow, perhaps, but earnest, constant, and, once roused,
+capable of deep attachment.
+
+And now the common lot had befallen her, the common lot of man and
+womankind since Adam first met Eve in the Garden of Eden. Ruth was not
+exempt.
+
+She loved Charles.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the dawn came up pale and tearful to wake the birds, it found her
+still sitting by her window, sitting where she had sat all night,
+looking with blank eyes at nothing. Creep into bed, Ruth, for already
+the sparrows are all waking, and their cheerful greetings to the new day
+add weariness to your weariness. Creep into bed, for soon the servants
+will be stirring, and before long Martha, who has slept all night, and
+thinks your lines have fallen to you in pleasant places and late hours,
+will bring the hot water.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+
+Reserved people pay dear for their reserve when they are in trouble,
+when the iron enters into their soul, and their eyes meet the eyes of
+the world tearless, unflinching, making no sign.
+
+Enviable are those whose sorrows are only pen and ink deep, who take
+every one into their confidence, who are comforted by sympathy, and fly
+to those who will weep with them. There is an utter solitude, a silence
+in the grief of a proud, reserved nature, which adds a frightful weight
+to its intensity; and when the night comes, and the chamber door is
+shut, who shall say what agonies of prayers and tears, what prostrations
+of despair, pass like waves over the soul to make the balance even?
+
+As a rule, the kindest and best of people seldom notice any alteration
+of appearance or manner in one of their own family. A stranger points it
+out, if ever it is pointed out, which, happily, is not often, unless, of
+course, in cases where advice has been disregarded, and the first
+symptom of ill health is jealously watched for and triumphantly hailed
+by those whose mission in life it is to say, "I told you so."
+
+Mrs. Alwynn, whose own complaints were of so slight a nature that they
+had to be constantly referred to to give them any importance at all, was
+not likely to notice that Ruth's naturally pale complexion had become
+several degrees too pale during the last two days, or that she had dark
+rings under her eyes. Besides, only the day before, had not Mrs. Alwynn,
+in cutting out a child's shirt, cut out at the same time her best
+drawing-room table-cloth as well, which calamity had naturally driven
+out of her mind every other subject for the time?
+
+Ruth had proved unsympathetic, and Mrs. Alwynn had felt her to be so.
+The next day, also, when Mrs. Alwynn had begun to talk over what she
+and Ruth were to wear that evening at a dinner-party at Slumberleigh
+Hall, Ruth had again shown a decided want of interest, and was not even
+to be roused by the various conjectures of her aunt, though repeated
+over and over again, as to who would most probably take her in to
+dinner, who would be assigned to Mr. Alwynn, and whether Ruth would be
+taken in by a married man or a single one. As it was quite impossible
+absolutely to settle these interesting points beforehand, Mrs. Alwynn's
+mind had a vast field for conjecture opened to her, in which she
+disported herself at will, varying the entertainment for herself and
+Ruth by speculating as to who would sit on the other side of each of
+them; "for," as she justly observed, "everybody has two sides, my dear;
+and though, for my part, I can talk to anybody--Members of Parliament,
+or bishops, or any one--still it is difficult for a young person, and if
+you feel dull, Ruth, you can always turn to the person on the other side
+with some easy little remark."
+
+Ruth rose and went to the window. It had rained all yesterday; it had
+been raining all the morning to-day, but it was fair now; nay, the sun
+was sending out long burnished shafts from the broken gray and blue of
+the sky. She was possessed by an unreasoning longing to get out of the
+house into the open air--anywhere, no matter where, beyond the reach of
+Mrs. Alwynn's voice. She had been fairly patient with her for many
+months, but during these two last wet days, a sense of sudden miserable
+irritation would seize her on the slightest provocation, which filled
+her with remorse and compunction, but into which she would relapse at a
+moment's notice. Every morning since her arrival, nine months ago, had
+Mrs. Alwynn returned from her house-keeping with the same cheerful
+bustle, the same piece of information: "Well, Ruth, I've ordered dinner,
+my dear. First one duty, and then another."
+
+Why had that innocent and not unfamiliar phrase become so intolerable
+when she heard it again this morning? And when Mrs. Alwynn wound up the
+musical-box, and the "Buffalo Girls" tinkled on the ear to relieve the
+monotony of a wet morning, why should Ruth have struggled wildly for a
+moment with a sudden inclination to laugh and cry at the same time,
+which resulted in two large tears falling unexpectedly, to her surprise
+and shame, upon her book.
+
+She shut the book, and recovering herself with an effort, listened
+patiently to Mrs. Alwynn's remarks until, early in the afternoon, the
+sky cleared. Making some excuse about going to see her old nurse at the
+lodge at Arleigh, who was still ill, she at last effected her escape out
+of the room and out of the house.
+
+The air was fresh and clear, though cold. The familiar fields and beaded
+hedge-rows, the red land, new ploughed, where the plovers hovered, the
+gray broken sky above, soothed Ruth like the presence of a friend, as
+Nature, even in her commonest moods, has ministered to many a one who
+has loved her before Ruth's time.
+
+Our human loves partake always of the nature of speculations. We have no
+security for our capital (which, fortunately, is seldom so large as we
+suppose), but the love of Nature is a sure investment, which she repays
+a thousand-fold, which she repays most prodigally when the heart is
+bankrupt and full of bitterness, as Ruth's heart was that day. For in
+Nature, as Wordsworth says, "there is no bitterness," that worst sting
+of human grief. And as Ruth walked among the quiet fields, and up the
+yellow aisles of the autumn glades to Arleigh, Nature spoke of peace to
+her--not of joy or of happiness as in old days, for she never lies as
+human comforters do, and these had gone out of her life; but of the
+peace that duty steadfastly adhered to will bring at last--the peace
+that after much turmoil will come in the end to those who, amid a Babel
+of louder tongues, hear and obey the low-pitched voices of conscience
+and of principle.
+
+For it never occurred to Ruth for a moment to throw over Dare and marry
+Charles. She had given her word to Dare, and her word was her bond. It
+was as much a matter of being true to herself as to him. It was very
+simple. There were no two ways about it in her mind. The idea of
+breaking off her engagement was not to be thought of. It would be
+dishonorable.
+
+We often think that if we had been placed in the same difficulties which
+we see overwhelm others, we could have got out of them. Just so; we
+might have squeezed, or wriggled, or crept out of a position from which
+another who would not stoop could not have escaped. People are
+differently constituted. Most persons with common-sense can sink their
+principles temporarily at a pinch; but others there are who go through
+life prisoners on parole to their sense of honor or duty. If escape
+takes the form of a temptation, they do not escape. And Ruth, walking
+with bent head beneath the swaying trees, dreamed of no escape.
+
+She soon reached the little lodge, the rusty gates of which barred the
+grass-grown drive to the shuttered, tenantless old house at a little
+distance. It was a small gray stone house of many gables, and low lines
+of windows, that if inhabited would have possessed but little charm,
+but which in its deserted state had a certain pathetic interest. The
+place had been to let for years, but no one had taken it; no one was
+likely to take it in the disrepair which was now fast sliding into ruin.
+
+The garden-beds were almost grown over with weeds, but blots of
+nasturtium color showed here and there among the ragged green, and a
+Virginia-creeper had done its gorgeous red-and-yellow best to cheer the
+gray stone walls. But the place had a dreary appearance even in the
+present sunshine; and after looking at it for a moment, Ruth went
+in-doors to see her old nurse. After sitting with her, and reading the
+usual favorite chapter in the big Bible, and answering the usual
+question of "Any news of Master Raymond?" in the usual way, Ruth got up
+to go, and the old woman asked her if she wanted the drawing-block which
+she had left with her some time ago with an unfinished sketch on it of
+the stables. She got it out, and Ruth looked at it. It was a slight
+sketch of an octagonal building with wide arches all round it, roofing
+in a paved path, on which, in days gone by, it had evidently been the
+pernicious custom to exercise the horses, whose stalls and loose boxes
+formed the centre of the building. The stable had a certain quaintness,
+and the sketch was at that delightful point when no random stroke has as
+yet falsified the promise that a finished drawing, however clever, so
+seldom fulfils.
+
+Ruth took it up, and looked out of the window. The sun was blazing out,
+ashamed of his absence for so long. She might as well finish it now. She
+was glad to be out of the way of meeting any one, especially the
+shooters, whose guns she had heard in the nearer Slumberleigh coverts
+several times that afternoon. The Arleigh woods she knew were to be kept
+till later in the month. She took her block and paint-box, and picking
+her way along the choked gravel walk and down the side drive to the
+stables, sat down on the bench for chopping wood which had been left in
+the place to which she had previously dragged it, and set to work. She
+was sitting under one of the arches out of the wind, and an obsequious
+yellow cat came out of the door of one of the nearest horse-boxes, in
+which wood was evidently stacked, and rubbed itself against her dress,
+with a reckless expenditure of hair.
+
+As Ruth stopped a moment, bored but courteous, to return its well-meant
+attentions by friction behind the ears, she heard a slight crackling
+among the wood in the stable. Rats abounded in the place, and she was
+just about to recall the cat to its professional duties, when her own
+attention was also distracted. She started violently, and grasped the
+drawing-block in both hands.
+
+Clear over the gravel, muffled but still distinct across the long wet
+grass, she could hear a firm step coming. Then it rang out sharply on
+the stone pavement. A tall man came suddenly round the corner, under the
+archway, and stood before her. It was Charles.
+
+The yellow cat, which had a leaning towards the aristocracy, left Ruth,
+and, picking its way daintily over the round stones towards him, rubbed
+off some more of its wardrobe against his heather shooting-stockings.
+
+"I hardly think it is worth while to say anything except the truth,"
+said Charles at last. "I have followed you here."
+
+As Ruth could say nothing in reply, it was fortunate that at the moment
+she had nothing to say. She continued to mix a little pool of Prussian
+blue and Italian pink without looking up.
+
+"I hurt my gun hand after luncheon, and had to stop shooting at Croxton
+corner. As I went back to Slumberleigh, across the fields below the
+rectory, I thought I saw you in the distance, and followed you."
+
+"Is your hand much hurt?"--with sudden anxiety.
+
+"No," said Charles, reddening a little. "It will stop my shooting for a
+day or two, but that is all."
+
+The colors were mixed again. Ruth, contrary to all previous conviction,
+added light red to the Italian pink. The sketch had gone rapidly from
+bad to worse, but the light red finished it off. It never, so to speak,
+held up its head again; but I believe she has it still somewhere, put
+away in a locked drawer in tissue-paper, as if it were very valuable.
+
+"I did not come without a reason," said Charles, after a long pause,
+speaking with difficulty. "It is no good beating about the bush. I want
+to speak to you again about what I told you three weeks ago. Have you
+forgotten what that was?"
+
+Ruth shook her head. _She had not forgotten._ Her hand began to tremble,
+and he sat down beside her on the bench, and, taking the brush out of
+her hand, laid it in its box.
+
+"Ruth," he said, gently, "I have not been very happy during the last
+three weeks; but two days ago, when I saw you again, I thought you did
+not look as if you had been very happy either. Am I right? Are you happy
+in your engagement with--Quite content? Quite satisfied? Still silent.
+Am I to have no answer?"
+
+"Some questions have no answers," said Ruth, steadily, looking away from
+him. "At least, the questions that ought not to be asked have none."
+
+"I will not ask any more, then. Perhaps, as you say, I have no right.
+You won't tell me whether you are unhappy, but your face tells me so in
+spite of you. It told me so two days ago, and I have thought of it every
+hour of the day and night since."
+
+She gathered herself together for a final effort to stop what she knew
+was coming, and said, desperately:
+
+"I don't know how it is. I don't mean it, and yet everything I say to
+you seems so harsh and unkind; but I think it would have been better not
+to come here, and I think it would be better, better for us both, if you
+would go away now."
+
+Charles's face became set and very white. Then he put his fortune to the
+touch.
+
+"You are right," he said. "I will go away--for good; I will never
+trouble you again, when you have told me that you do not love me."
+
+The color rushed into her face, and then died slowly away again, even
+out of the tightly compressed lips.
+
+There was a long silence, in which he waited for a reply that did not
+come. At last she turned and looked him in the face. Who has said that
+light eyes cannot be impassioned? Her deep eyes, dark with the utter
+blankness of despair, fell before the intensity of his. He leaned
+towards her, and with gentle strength put his arm round her, and drew
+her to him. His voice came in a broken whisper of passionate entreaty
+close to her ear.
+
+"Ruth, I love you, and you love me. We belong to each other. We were
+made for each other. Life is not possible apart. It must be together,
+Ruth, always together, always--" and his voice broke down entirely.
+
+Surely he was right. A love such as theirs overrode all petty barriers
+of every-day right and wrong, and was a law unto itself. Surely it was
+vain to struggle against Fate, against the soft yet mighty current which
+was sweeping her away beyond all landmarks, beyond the sight of land
+itself, out towards an infinite sea.
+
+And the eyes she loved looked into hers with an agony of entreaty, and
+the voice she loved spoke of love, spoke brokenly of unworthiness, and
+an unhappy past, and of a brighter future, a future with _her_.
+
+Her brain reeled; her reason had gone. Let her yield now. Surely, if
+only she could think, if the power to think had not deserted her, it
+was right to yield. The current was taking her ever swifter whither she
+knew not. A moment more and there would be no going back.
+
+She began to tremble, and, wrenching her hands out of his, pressed them
+before her eyes to shut out the sight of the earnest face so near her
+own. But she could not shut out his voice, and Charles's voice could be
+very gentle, very urgent.
+
+But at the eleventh hour another voice broke in on his, and spoke as one
+having authority. Conscience, if accustomed to be disregarded on common
+occasions, will rarely come to the fore with any decision in emergency;
+but the weakest do not put him in a place of command all their lives
+without at least one result--that he has learned the habit of speaking
+up and making himself attended to in time of need. He spoke now,
+urgently, imperatively. Her judgment, her reason were alike gone for the
+time, but, when she had paced the solemn aisles of the woods an hour ago
+in possession of them, had she then even thought of doing what she was
+on the verge of doing now? What had happened during that hour to reverse
+the steadfast resolve which she had made then? What she had thought
+right an hour ago remained right now. What she would have put far from
+her as dishonorable then remained dishonorable now, though she might be
+too insane to see it.
+
+Terror seized her, as of one in a dream who is conscious of impending
+danger, and struggles to awake before it is too late. She started to her
+feet, and, putting forcibly aside the hands that would have held her
+back, walked unsteadily towards the nearest pillar, and leaned against
+it, trembling violently.
+
+"Do not tempt me," she said, hoarsely. "I cannot bear it."
+
+He came and stood beside her.
+
+"I do not tempt you," he said. "I want to save you and myself from a
+great calamity before it is too late."
+
+"It is too late already."
+
+"No," said Charles, in a low voice of intense determination. "It is
+not--yet. It will be soon. It is still possible to go back. You are not
+married to him, and it is no longer right that you should marry him. You
+must give him up. There is no other way."
+
+"Yes," said Ruth, with vehemence. "There is another way. You have made
+me forget it; but before you came I saw it clearly. I can't think it out
+as I did then; but I know it is there. There is another way"--and her
+voice faltered--"to do what is right, and let everything else go."
+
+Charles saw for the first time, with a sudden frightful contraction of
+the heart, that her will was as strong as his own. He had staked
+everything on one desperate appeal to her feelings; he had carried the
+outworks, and now another adversary--her conscience--rose up between him
+and her.
+
+"A marriage without love is a sin," he said, quietly. "If you had lived
+in the world as long as I have, and had seen what marriage without love
+means, and what it generally comes to in the end, you would know that I
+am speaking the truth. You have no right to marry Dare if you care for
+me. Hesitate, and it will be too late! Break off your engagement now. Do
+you suppose," with sudden fire, "that we shall cease to love each other;
+that I shall be able to cease to love you for the rest of my life
+because you are Dare's wife? What is done can't be undone. Our love for
+each other can't. It is no good shutting your eyes to that. Look the
+facts in the face, and don't deceive yourself into thinking that the
+most difficult course is necessarily the right one."
+
+He turned from her, and sat down on the bench again, his chin in his
+hands, his haggard eyes fastened on her face. He had said his last word,
+and she felt that when she spoke it would be her last word too. Neither
+could bear much more.
+
+"All you say sounds right, _at first_," she said, after a long silence,
+and as she spoke Charles's hands dropped from his face and clinched
+themselves together; "but I cannot go by what any one thinks unless I
+think so myself as well. I can't take other people's judgments. When God
+gave us our own, he did not mean us to shirk using it. What you say is
+right, but there is something which after a little bit seems more
+right--at least, which seems so to me. I cannot look at the future. I
+can only see one thing distinctly, now in the present, and that is that
+I cannot break my word. I never have been able to see that a woman's
+word is less binding than a man's. When I said I would marry him, it was
+of my own free-will. I knew what I was doing, and it was not only for
+his sake I did it. It is not as if he believed I cared for him very
+much. Then, perhaps--but he knows I don't, and--he is different from
+other men--he does not seem to mind. I knew at the time that I accepted
+him for the sake of other things, which are just the same now as they
+were then: because he was poor and I had money; because I felt sure he
+would never do much by himself, and I thought I could help him, and my
+money would help too; because the people at Vandon are so wretched, and
+their cottages are tumbling down, and there is no one who lives among
+them and cares about them. I can't make it clear, and I did hesitate;
+but at the time it seemed wrong to hesitate. If it seemed so right then,
+it cannot be all wrong now, even if it has become hard. I cannot give it
+all up. He is building cottages that I am to pay for, that I asked to
+pay for. He cannot. And he has promised so many people their houses
+shall be put in order, and they all believe him. And he can't do it. If
+I don't, it will not be done; and some of them are very old--and--and
+the winter is coming." Ruth's voice had become almost inaudible. "Oh,
+Charles! Charles!" she said, brokenly, "I cannot bear to hurt you. God
+knows I love you. I think I shall always love you, though I shall try
+not. But I cannot go back now from what I have undertaken. I cannot
+break my word. I cannot do what is wrong, even for you. Oh, God! not
+even for you!"
+
+She knelt down beside him, and took his clinched hands between her own;
+but he did not stir.
+
+"Not even for you," she whispered, while two hot tears fell upon his
+hands. In another moment she had risen swiftly to her feet, and had left
+him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+
+Charles sat quite still where Ruth had left him, looking straight in
+front of him. He had not thought for a moment of following her, of
+speaking to her again. Her decision was final, and he knew it. And now
+he also knew how much he had built upon the wild new hope of the last
+two days.
+
+Presently a slight discreet cough broke upon his ear, apparently close
+at hand.
+
+He started up, and, wheeling round in the direction of the sound, called
+out, in sudden anger, "Who is there?"
+
+If there is a time when we feel that a fellow-creature is entirely out
+of harmony with ourselves, it is when we discover that he has overheard
+or overseen us at a moment when we imagined we were alone, or--almost
+alone.
+
+Charles was furious.
+
+"Come out!" he said, in a tone that would have made any ordinary
+creature stay as far _in_ as it could. And hearing a slight crackling
+in the nearest horse-box, of which the door stood open, he shook the
+door violently.
+
+"Come out," he repeated, "this instant!"
+
+"Stop that noise, then," said a voice sharply from the inside, "and keep
+quiet. By ----, a violent temper, what a thing it is; always raising a
+dust, and kicking up a row, just when it's least wanted."
+
+The voice made Charles start.
+
+"Great God!" he said, "it's not--"
+
+"Yes, it is," was the reply; "and when you have taken a seat on the
+farther end of that bench, and recovered your temper, I'll show, and not
+before."
+
+Charles walked to the bench and sat down.
+
+"You can come out," he said, in a carefully lowered voice, in which
+there was contempt as well as anger.
+
+Accordingly there was a little more crackling among the fagots, and a
+slight, shabbily dressed man came to the door and peered warily out,
+shading his blinking eyes with his hand.
+
+"If there is a thing I hate," he said, with a curious mixture of
+recklessness and anxiety, "it is a noise. Sit so that you face the left,
+will you, and I'll look after the right, and if you see any one coming
+you may as well mention it. I am only at home to old friends."
+
+He took his hand from his eyes as they became more accustomed to the
+light, and showed a shrewd, dissipated face, that yet had a kind of
+ruined good looks about it, and, what was more hateful to Charles than
+anything else, a decided resemblance to Ruth. Though he was shabby in
+the extreme, his clothes sat upon him as they always and only do sit
+upon a gentleman; and, though his face and voice showed that he had
+severed himself effectually from the class in which he had been born, a
+certain unsuitability remained between his appearance and his evidently
+disreputable circumstances. When Charles looked at him he was somehow
+reminded of a broken-down thorough-bred in a hansom cab.
+
+"It is a quiet spot," remarked Raymond Deyncourt, for he it was,
+standing in the door-way, his watchful eyes scanning the deserted
+court-yard and strip of green. "A retired and peaceful spot. I'm sorry
+if my cough annoyed you, coming when it did, but I thought you seemed
+before to be engaged in conversation which I felt a certain diffidence
+in interrupting."
+
+"So you listened, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes, I listened. I did not hear as much as I could have wished, but it
+was your best manner, Danvers. You certainly have a gift, though you
+dropped your voice unnecessarily once or twice, I thought. If I had had
+your talents, I should not be here now. Eh? Dear me! you can swear
+still, can you? How refreshing. I fancied you had quite reformed."
+
+"Why are you here now?" asked Charles, sternly.
+
+Raymond shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Why are you here?" continued Charles, bitterly, "when you swore to me
+in July that if I would pay your passage out again to America you would
+let her alone in future? Why are you here, when I wrote to tell you that
+she had promised me she would never give you money again without advice?
+But I might have known you could break a promise as easily as make one.
+I might have known you would only keep it as long as it suited
+yourself."
+
+"Well, now, I'm glad to hear you say that," said Raymond, airily,
+"because it takes off any feeling of surprise I was afraid you might
+feel at seeing me back here. There's nothing like a good understanding
+between friends. I'm precious hard up, I can tell you, or I should not
+have come; and when a fellow has got into as tight a place as I have he
+has got to think of other things besides keeping promises. Have you seen
+to-day's papers?" with sudden eagerness.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Any news about the 'Frisco forgery case?" and Raymond leaned forward
+through the door, and spoke in a whisper.
+
+"Nothing much," said Charles, trying to recollect. "Nothing new to-day,
+I think. You know they got one of them two days ago, followed him down
+to Birmingham, and took him in the train."
+
+Raymond drew in his breath.
+
+"I don't hold with trains," he said, after a pause; "at least, not with
+passengers. I told him as much at the time. And the--the other
+one--Stephens? Any news of him?"
+
+"Nothing more about him, as far as I can remember. They were both traced
+together from Boston to London, but there they parted company. Stephens
+is at large still."
+
+"Is he?" said Raymond. "By George, I'm glad to hear it! I hope he'll
+keep so, that's all. I am glad I left that fool. He'd not my notions at
+all. We split two days ago, and I made tracks for the old diggings; got
+down as far as Tarbury under a tarpaulin in a goods train--there's some
+sense in a goods train--and then lay close by a weir of the canal, and
+got aboard a barge after dark. Nothing breaks a scent like a barge. And
+it went the right way for my business too, and travelled all night. I
+kept close all next day, and then struck across country for this place
+at night. If I hadn't known the lie of the land from a boy, when I used
+to spend the holidays with old Alwynn, I couldn't have done it, or if
+I'd been as dog lame as I was in July; but I was pushed for time, and I
+footed it up here, and got in just before dawn. And not too soon either,
+for I'm cleaned out, and food is precious hard to come by if you don't
+care to go shopping for it. I am only waiting till it's dark to go and
+get something from the old woman at the lodge. She looked after me
+before, but it wasn't so serious then as it is now."
+
+"It will be penal servitude for life this time for--Stephens," said
+Charles.
+
+"Yes," said Raymond, thoughtfully. "It's playing deuced high. I knew
+that at the time, but I thought it was worth it. It was a beautiful
+thing, and there was a mint of money in it if it had gone straight--a
+mint of money;" and he shook his head regretfully. "But the luck is
+bound to change in the end," he went on, after a moment of mournful
+retrospection. "You'll see, I shall make my pile yet, Danvers. One can't
+go on turning up tails all the time."
+
+"You will turn them up once too often," said Charles, "and get your
+affairs wound up for you some day in a way you won't like. But I suppose
+it's no earthly use my saying anything."
+
+"Not much," replied the other. "I guess I've heard it all before. Don't
+you remember how you held forth that night in the wood? You came out too
+strong. I felt as if I were in church; but you forked out handsomely at
+the collection afterwards. I will say that for you."
+
+"And what are you going to do now you've got here?" interrupted Charles,
+sharply.
+
+"Lie by."
+
+"How long?"
+
+"Perhaps a week, perhaps ten days. Can't say."
+
+"And after that?"
+
+"After that, some one, I don't say who, but some one will have to
+provide me with the 'ready' to nip across to France. I have friends in
+Paris where I can manage to scratch along for a bit till things have
+blown over."
+
+Charles considered for a few moments, and then said:
+
+"Are you going to dun your sister for money again, or give her another
+fright by lying in wait for her? Of course, if you broke your word
+about coming back, you might break it about trying to get money out of
+her."
+
+"I might," assented Raymond; "in fact, I was on the point of making my
+presence known to her, and suggesting a pecuniary advance, when you came
+up. I don't know at present what I shall do, as I let that opportunity
+slip. It just depends."
+
+Charles considered again.
+
+"It's a pity to trouble her, isn't it?" said Raymond, his shrewd eyes
+watching him; "and women are best out of money-matters. Besides, if she
+has promised you she won't pay up without advice, she'll stick to it.
+Nothing will turn her when she once settles on anything, if she is at
+all like what she used to be. She has got dollars of her own. You had
+better settle with me, and pay yourself back when you are married. Dear
+me! There's no occasion to look so murderous. I suppose I'm at liberty
+to draw my own conclusions."
+
+"You had better draw them a little more carefully in future," said
+Charles, savagely. "Your sister is engaged to be married to a man
+without a sixpence."
+
+"By George," said Raymond, "that won't suit my book at all. I'd
+rather"--with another glance at Charles--"I'd rather she'd marry a man
+with money."
+
+If Charles was of the same opinion he did not express it. He remained
+silent for a few minutes to give weight to his last remark, and then
+said, slowly:
+
+"So you see you won't get anything more from that quarter. You had
+better make the most you can out of me."
+
+Raymond nodded.
+
+"The most you will get, in fact, I may say _all_ you will get from me,
+is enough ready money to carry you to Paris, and a check for twenty
+pounds to follow, when I hear you have arrived there."
+
+"It's mean," said Raymond; "it's cursed mean; and from a man like you,
+too, whom I feel for as a brother. I'd rather try my luck with Ruth.
+She's not married yet, anyway."
+
+"You will do as you like," said Charles, getting up. "If I find you have
+been trying your luck with her, as you call it, you won't get a farthing
+from me afterwards. And you may remember, she can't help you without
+consulting her friends. And your complaint is one that requires absolute
+quiet, or I'm very much mistaken."
+
+Raymond bit his finger, and looked irresolute.
+
+"To-day is Wednesday," said Charles; "on Saturday I shall come back
+here in the afternoon, and if you have come to my terms by that time you
+can cough after I do. I shall have the money on me. If you make any
+attempt to write or speak to your sister, I shall take care to hear of
+it, and you need not expect me on Saturday. That is the last remark I
+have to make, so good-afternoon;" and, without waiting for a reply,
+Charles walked away, conscious that Raymond would not dare either to
+call or run after him.
+
+He walked slowly along the grass-grown road that led into the
+carriage-drive, and was about to let himself out of the grounds by a
+crazy gate, which rather took away from the usefulness of the large iron
+locked ones at the lodge, when he perceived an old man with a pail of
+water fumbling at it. He did not turn as Charles drew near, and even
+when the latter came up with him, and said "Good-afternoon," he made no
+sign. Charles watched him groping for the hasp, and, when he had got the
+gate open, feel about for the pail of water, which when he found he
+struck against the gate-post as he carried it through. Charles looked
+after the old man as he shambled off in the direction of the lodge.
+
+"Blind and deaf! He'll tell no tales, at any rate," he said to himself.
+"Raymond is in luck there."
+
+It had turned very cold; and, suddenly remembering that his absence
+might be noticed, he set off through the woods to Slumberleigh at a good
+pace. His nearest way took him through the church-yard and across the
+adjoining high-road, on the farther side of which stood the little
+red-faced lodge, which belonged to the great new red-faced seat of the
+Thursbys at a short distance. He came rapidly round the corner of the
+old church tower, and was already swinging down the worn sandstone steps
+which led into the road, when he saw below him at the foot of the steps
+a little group of people standing talking. It was Mr. Alwynn and Ruth
+and Dare, who had evidently met them on his return from shooting, and
+who, standing at ease with one elegantly gaitered leg on the lowest
+step, and a cartridge-bag slung over his shoulders in a way that had
+aroused Charles's indignation earlier in the day, was recounting to
+them, with vivid action of the hands on an imaginary gun, his own
+performances to right and left at some particularly hot corner.
+
+Mr. Alwynn was listening with a benignant smile. Charles saw that Ruth
+was leaning heavily against the low stone-wall. Before he had time to
+turn back, Mr. Alwynn had seen him, and had gone forward a step to meet
+him, holding out a welcoming hand. Charles was obliged to stop a moment
+while his hand was inquired after, and a new treatment, which Mr.
+Alwynn had found useful on a similar occasion, was enjoined upon him. As
+they stood together on the church steps a fly, heavily laden with
+luggage, came slowly up the road towards them.
+
+"What," said Mr. Alwynn, "more visitors! I thought all the Slumberleigh
+party arrived yesterday."
+
+The fly plodded past the Slumberleigh lodge, however, and as it reached
+the steps a shrill voice suddenly called to the driver to stop. As it
+came grinding to a stand-still, the glass was hastily put down, and a
+little woman with a very bold pair of black eyes, and a somewhat
+laced-in figure, got out and came towards them.
+
+"Well, Mr. Dare!" she said, in a high distinct voice, with a strong
+American accent. "I guess you did not expect to see me riding up this
+way, or you'd have sent the carriage to bring your wife up from the
+station. But I'm not one to bear malice; so if you want a lift home
+to--what's the name of your fine new place?--you can get in, and ride up
+along with me."
+
+Dare looked straight in front of him. No one spoke. Her quick eye
+glanced from one to another of the little group, and she gave a short
+constrained laugh.
+
+"Well," she said, "if you ain't coming, you can stop with your friends.
+I've had a deal of travelling one way and another, and I'll go on
+without you." And, turning quickly away, she told the driver in the same
+distinct high key to go on to Vandon, and got into the fly again.
+
+The grinning man chucked at the horse's bridle, and the fly rattled
+heavily away.
+
+No one spoke as it drove away. Charles glanced once at Ruth; but her set
+white face told him nothing. As the fly disappeared up the road, Dare
+moved a step forward. His face under his brown skin was ashen gray. He
+took off his cap, and extending it at arm's-length, not towards the sky,
+but, like a good churchman, towards the church, outside of which, as he
+knew, his Maker was not to be found, he said, solemnly, "I swear before
+God what she says is one--great--_lie_!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+
+If conformity to type is indeed the one great mark towards which
+humanity should press, Mrs. Thursby may honestly be said to have
+attained to it. Everything she said or did had been said or done before,
+or she would never have thought of saying or doing it. Her whole life
+was a feeble imitation of the imitative lives of others; in short, it
+was the life of the ordinary country gentlewoman, who lives on her
+husband's property, and who, as Augustus Hare says, "has never looked
+over the garden-wall."
+
+We do not mean to insinuate for a moment that the utmost energy and
+culture are not occasionally to be met with in the female portion of
+that interesting mass of our fellow-creatures who swell the large
+volumes of the "Landed Gentry." Among their ranks are those who come
+boldly forward into the full glare of public life; and, conscious of a
+genius for enterprise, to which an unmarried condition perhaps affords
+ampler scope, and which a local paper is ready to immortalize, become
+secretaries of ladies' societies, patronesses of flower shows, breeders
+of choice poultry, or even associates of floral leagues of the highest
+political importance. That such women should and do exist among us, the
+conscious salt-cellars of otherwise flavorless communities, is a fact
+for which we cannot be too thankful; and if Mrs. Thursby was not one of
+these aspiring spirits, with a yearning after "the mystical better
+things," which one of the above pursuits alone can adequately satisfy,
+it was her misfortune and not her fault.
+
+It was her nature, as we have said, servilely to copy others. Her
+conversation was all that she could remember of what she had heard from
+others, her present dinner-party, as regards food, was a cross between
+the two last dinner-parties she had been to. The dessert, however,
+conspicuous by its absence, conformed strictly to a type which she had
+seen in a London house in June.
+
+Her dinner-party gave her complete satisfaction, which was fortunate,
+for to the greater number of the eighteen or twenty people who had been
+indiscriminately herded together to form it, it was (with the exception
+of Mrs. Alwynn) a dreary or at best an uninteresting ordeal; while to
+four people among the number, the four who had met last on the church
+steps, it was a period of slow torture, endured with varying degrees of
+patience by each, from the two soups in the beginning, to the peaches
+and grapes at the long-delayed and bitter end.
+
+Ruth, whose self-possession never wholly deserted her, had reached a
+depth of exhausted stupor, in which the mind is perfectly oblivious of
+the impression it is producing on others. By an unceasing effort she
+listened and answered and smiled at intervals, and looked exceedingly
+distinguished in the pale red gown which she had put on to please her
+aunt; but the color of which only intensified the unnatural pallor of
+her complexion. The two men whom she sat between found her a
+disappointing companion, cold and formal in manner. At any other time
+she would have been humiliated and astonished to hear herself make such
+cut-and-dried remarks, such little trite observations. She was sitting
+opposite Charles, and she vaguely wondered once or twice, when she saw
+him making others laugh, and heard snatches of the flippant talk which
+was with him, as she knew now, a sort of defensive armor, how he could
+manage to produce it; while Charles, half wild with a mad surging hope
+that would not be kept down by any word of Dare's, looked across at her
+as often as he dared, and wondered in his turn at the tranquil dignity,
+the quiet ordered smile of the face which a few hours ago he had seen
+shaken with emotion.
+
+Her eyes met his for a moment. Were they the same eyes that but now had
+met his, half blind with tears? He felt still the touch of those tears
+upon his hand. He hastily looked away again, and plunged headlong into
+an answer to something Mabel was saying to him on her favorite subject
+of evolution. All well-brought-up young ladies have a subject nowadays,
+which makes their conversation the delightful thing it is; and Mabel, of
+course, was not behind the fashion.
+
+"Yes," Ruth heard Charles reply, "I believe with you we go through many
+lives, each being a higher state than the last, and nearer perfection.
+So a man passes gradually through all the various grades of the
+nobility, soaring from the lowly honorable upward into the duke, and
+thence by an easy transition into an angel. Courtesy titles, of course,
+present a difficulty to the more thoughtful; but, as I am sure you will
+have found, to be thoughtful always implies difficulty of some kind."
+
+"It does, indeed," said Mabel, puzzled but not a little flattered. "I
+sometimes think one reads too much; one longs so for deep books--Korans,
+and things. I must confess,"--with a sigh--"I can't interest myself in
+the usual young lady's library that other girls read."
+
+"Can't you?" replied Charles. "Now, I can. I study that department of
+literature whenever I have the chance, and I have generally found that
+the most interesting part of a young lady's library is to be found in
+that portion of the book-shelf which lies between the rows of books and
+the wall. Don't you think so, Lady Carmian?" (to the lady on his other
+side). "I assure you I have made the most delightful discoveries of this
+description. Cheap editions of Ouida, Balzac's works, yellow backs of
+the most advanced order, will, as a rule, reward the inquirer, who
+otherwise might have had to content himself with 'The Heir of
+Redclyffe,' the Lily Series, and Miss Strickland's 'Queens of England.'"
+
+Charles's last speech had been made in a momentary silence, and directly
+it was finished every woman, old and young, except Lady Carmian and
+Ruth, simultaneously raised a disclaiming voice, which by its vehemence
+at once showed what an unfounded assertion Charles had made. Lady
+Carmian, a handsome young married woman, only smiled languidly, and,
+turning the bracelet on her arm, told Charles he was a cynic, and that
+for her own part, when in robust health, she liked what little she read
+"strong;" but in illness, or when Lord Carmian had been unusually
+trying, she always fell back on a milk-and-water diet. Mrs. Thursby,
+however, felt that Charles had struck a blow at the sanctity of home
+life, and (for she was one of those persons whose single talent is that
+of giving a personal turn to any remark) began a long monotonous recital
+of the books she allowed her own daughters to read, and how they were
+kept, which proved the extensive range of her library, not in
+book-shelves, but in a sliding book-stand, which contracted or expanded
+at will.
+
+Long before she had finished, however, the conversation at the other end
+of the table had drifted away to the topic of the season among sporting
+men, namely the poachers, who, since their raid on Dare's property, had
+kept fairly quiet, but who were sure to start afresh now that the
+pheasant shooting had begun; and from thence to the recent forgery case
+in America, which was exciting every day greater attention in England,
+especially since one of the accomplices had been arrested the day before
+in Birmingham station, and the principal offender, though still at
+large, was, according to the papers, being traced "by means of a clew in
+the possession of the police."
+
+Charles knew how little that sentence meant, but he found that it
+required an effort to listen unmoved to the various conjectures as to
+the whereabouts of Stephens, in which Ruth, as the conversation became
+general, also joined, volunteering a suggestion that perhaps he might be
+lurking somewhere in Slumberleigh woods, which were certainly very
+lonely in places, and where, as she said, she had been very much alarmed
+by a tramp in the summer.
+
+Mrs. Thursby, like an echo, began from the other end of the table
+something vague about girls being allowed to walk alone, her own
+daughters, etc., and so the long dinner wore itself out. Dare was the
+only one of the little party who had met on the church steps who
+succumbed entirely. Mr. Alwynn, who looked at him and Ruth with pathetic
+interest from time to time, made laudable efforts, but Dare made none.
+He had taken in to dinner the younger Thursby girl, a meek creature,
+without form and void, not yet out, but trembling in a high muslin, on
+the verge, who kept her large and burning hands clutched together under
+the table-cloth, and whose conversation was upon bees. Dare pleaded a
+gun headache, and hardly spoke. His eyes constantly wandered to the
+other end of the table, where, far away on the opposite side, half
+hidden by ferns and flowers, he could catch a glimpse of Ruth. After
+dinner he did not come into the drawing-room, but went off to the
+smoking-room, where he paced by himself up and down, up and down,
+writhing under the torment of a horrible suspense.
+
+Outside the moon shone clear and high, making a long picturesque shadow
+of the great prosaic house upon the wide gravel drive. Dare leaned
+against the window-sill and looked out. "Would she give him up?" he
+asked himself. Would she believe this vile calumny? Would she give him
+up? And as he stood the Alwynns' brougham came with two gleaming eyes
+along the drive and drew up before the door. He resolved to learn his
+fate at once. There had been no possibility of a word with Ruth on the
+church steps. Before he had known where he was, he and Charles had been
+walking up to the Hall together, Charles discoursing lengthily on the
+impropriety of wire fencing in a hunting country. But now he must and
+would see her. He rushed down-stairs into the hall, where young Thursby
+was wrapping Ruth in her white furs, while Mr. Thursby senior was
+encasing Mrs. Alwynn in a species of glorified ulster of red plush which
+she had lately acquired. Dare hastily drew Mr. Alwynn aside and spoke a
+few words to him. Mr. Alwynn turned to his wife, after one rueful glance
+at his thin shoes, and said:
+
+"I will walk up. It is a fine night, and quite dry underfoot."
+
+"And a very pleasant party it has been," said Mrs. Alwynn, as she and
+Ruth drove away together, "though Mrs. Thursby has not such a knack with
+her table as some. Not that I did not think the chrysanthemums and white
+china swans were nice, very nice; but, you see, as I told her, I had
+just been to Stoke Moreton, where things were very different. And you
+looked very well, my dear, though not so bright and chatty as Mabel; and
+Mrs. Thursby said she only hoped your waist was natural. The idea! And I
+saw Lady Carmian notice your gown particularly, and I heard her ask who
+you were, and Mrs. Thursby said--so like her--you were their clergyman's
+niece. And so, my dear, I was not going to have you spoken of like that,
+and a little later on I just went and sat down by Lady Carmian, just
+went across the room, you know, as if I wanted to be nearer the music,
+and we got talking, and she was rather silent at first, but presently,
+when I began to tell her all about you, and who you were, she became
+quite interested, and asked such funny questions, and laughed, and we
+had quite a nice talk."
+
+And so Mrs. Alwynn chatted on, and Ruth, happily hearing nothing, leaned
+back in her corner and wondered whether the evening were ever going to
+end. Even when she had bidden her aunt "Good-night," and, having
+previously told her maid not to sit up for her, found herself alone in
+her own room at last--even then it seemed that this interminable day was
+not quite over. She was standing by the dim fire, trying to gather up
+sufficient energy to undress, when a quiet step came cautiously along
+the passage, followed by a low tap at her door. She opened it
+noiselessly, and found Mr. Alwynn standing without.
+
+"Ruth," he said, "Dare has walked up with me. He is in the most dreadful
+state. I am sure I don't know what to think. He has said nothing further
+to me, but he is bent on seeing you for a moment. It's very late, but
+still--could you? He's in the drawing-room now. My poor child, how ill
+you look! Shall I tell him you are too tired to-night to see any one?"
+
+"I would rather see him," said Ruth, her voice trembling a little; and
+they went down-stairs together. In the hall she hesitated a moment. She
+was going to learn her fate. Had her release come? Had it come at the
+eleventh hour? Her uncle looked at her with kind, compassionate eyes,
+and hers fell before his as she thought how different her suspense was
+to what he imagined. Suddenly--and such demonstrations were very rare
+with her--she put her arms round his neck and pressed her cheek against
+his.
+
+"Oh, Uncle John! Uncle John!" she gasped, "it is not what you think."
+
+"I pray God it may not be what I suppose," he said, sadly, stroking her
+head. "One is too ready to think evil, I know. God forgive me if I have
+judged him harshly. But go in, my dear;" and he pushed her gently
+towards the drawing-room.
+
+She went in and closed the door quietly behind her.
+
+Dare was leaning against the mantle-piece, which was draped in Mrs.
+Alwynn's best manner, with Oriental hangings having bits of glass woven
+in them. He was looking into the curtained fire, and did not turn when
+she entered. Even at that moment she noticed, as she went towards him,
+that his elbow had displaced the little family of china hares on a plush
+stand which Mrs. Alwynn had lately added to her other treasures.
+
+"I think you wished to see me," she said, as calmly as she could.
+
+He faced suddenly round, his eyes wild, his face quivering, and coming
+close up to her, caught her hand and grasped it so tightly that the pain
+was almost more than she could bear.
+
+"Are you going to give me up?" he asked, hoarsely.
+
+"I don't know," she said; "it depends on yourself, on what you are, and
+what you have been. You say she is not your wife?"
+
+"I swear it."
+
+"You need not do so. Your word is enough."
+
+"I swear she is not my wife."
+
+"One question remains," said Ruth, firmly, a flame of color mounting to
+her neck and face. "You say she is not your wife. Ought you to make her
+so?"
+
+"No," said Dare, passionately; "I owe her nothing. She has no claim upon
+me. I swear--"
+
+"Don't swear. I said your word was enough."
+
+But Dare preferred to embellish his speech with divers weighty
+expressions, feeling that a simple affirmation would never carry so much
+conviction to his own mind, or, consequently, to another, as an oath.
+
+A momentary silence followed.
+
+"You believe what I say, Ruth?"
+
+"Yes," with an effort.
+
+"And you won't give me up because evil is spoken against me?"
+
+"No."
+
+"And all is the same as before between us?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Dare burst into a torrent of gratitude, but she broke suddenly away from
+him, and went swiftly up-stairs again to her own room.
+
+The release had not come. She laid her head down upon the table, and
+Hope, which had ventured back to her for one moment, took her lamp and
+went quite away, leaving the world very dark.
+
+There are turning-points in life when a natural instinct is a surer
+guide than noble motive or high aspiration, and consequently the more
+thoughtful and introspective nature will sometimes fall just where a
+commonplace one would have passed in safety. Ruth had acted for the
+best. When for the first time in her life she had been brought into
+close contact with a life spent for others, its beauty had appealed to
+her with irresistible force, and she had willingly sacrificed herself to
+an ideal life of devotion to others.
+
+    "But we are punished for our purest deeds,
+    And chasten'd for our holiest thoughts."
+
+And she saw now that if she had obeyed that simple law of human nature
+which forbids a marriage in which love is not the primary consideration,
+if she had followed that simple humble path, she would never have
+reached the arid wilderness towards which her own guidance had led her.
+
+For her wilful self-sacrifice had suddenly paled and dwindled down
+before her eyes into a hideous mistake--a mistake which yet had its
+roots so firmly knit into the past that it was hopeless to think of
+pulling it up now. To abide by a mistake is sometimes all that an
+impetuous youth leaves an honorable middle age to do. Poor middle age,
+with its clear vision, that might do and be so much if it were not for
+the heavy burdens, grievous to be borne, which youth has bound upon its
+shoulders.
+
+And worse than the dreary weight of personal unhappiness, harder to bear
+than the pang of disappointed love, was the aching sense of failure, of
+having misunderstood God's intention, and broken the purpose of her
+life. For some natures the cup of life holds no bitterer drop than this.
+
+Ruth dimly saw the future, the future which she had chosen, stretching
+out waste and barren before her. The dry air of the desert was on her
+face. Her feet were already on its sandy verge. And the iron of a great
+despair entered into her soul.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+
+Dare left Slumberleigh Hall early the following morning, and drove up to
+the rectory on his way to Vandon. After being closeted with Mr. Alwynn
+in the study for a short time, they both came out and drove away
+together. Ruth, invisible in her own room with a headache, her only
+means of defence against Mrs. Alwynn's society, heard the coming and the
+going, and was not far wrong in her surmise that Dare had come to beg
+Mr. Alwynn to accompany him to Vandon--being afraid to face alone the
+mysterious enemy intrenched there.
+
+No conversation was possible in the dog-cart, with the groom on the back
+seat thirsting to hear any particulars of the news which had spread like
+wildfire from Vandon throughout the whole village the previous
+afternoon, and which was already miraculously flying from house to house
+in Slumberleigh this morning, as things discreditable do fly among a
+Christian population, which perhaps "thinks no evil," but repeats it
+nevertheless.
+
+There was not a servant in Dare's modest establishment who was not on
+the lookout for him on his return. The gardener happened to be tying up
+a plant near the front door; the house-maids were watching unobserved
+from an upper casement; the portly form of Mrs. Smith, the house-keeper,
+was seen to glide from one of the unused bedroom windows; the butler
+must have been waiting in the hall, so prompt was his appearance when
+the dog-cart drew up before the door.
+
+Another pair of keen black eyes was watching too, peering out through
+the chinks between the lowered Venetian blinds in the drawing-room; was
+observing Dare intently as he got out, and then resting anxiously on his
+companion. Then the owner of the eyes slipped away from the window, and
+went back noiselessly to the fire.
+
+Dare ordered the dog-cart to remain at the door, flung down his hat on
+the hall-table, and, turning to the servant who was busying himself in
+folding his coat, said, sharply, "Where is the--the person who arrived
+here yesterday?"
+
+The man replied that "she" was in the drawing-room. The drawing-room
+opened into the hall. Dare led the way, suppressed fury in his face,
+looking back to see whether Mr. Alwynn was following him. The two men
+went in together and shut the door.
+
+The enemy was intrenched and prepared for action.
+
+Mrs. Dare, as we must perforce call her for lack of any other
+designation rather than for any right of hers to the title, was seated
+on a yellow brocade ottoman, drawn up beside a roaring fire, her two
+smart little feet resting on the edge of the low brass fender, and a
+small work-table at her side, on which an elaborate medley of silks and
+wools was displayed. Her attitude was that of a person at home,
+aggressively at home. She was in the act of threading a needle when Dare
+and Mr. Alwynn came in, and she put down her work at once, carefully
+replacing the needle in safety, as she rose to receive them, and held
+out her hand, with a manner the assurance of which, if both men had not
+been too much frightened to notice it, was a little overdone.
+
+Dare disregarded her gesture of welcome, and she sat down again, and
+returned to her work, with a laugh that was also a little overdone.
+
+"What do you mean by coming here?" he said, his voice hoarse with a
+furious anger, which the sight of her seemed to have increased a
+hundred-fold.
+
+"Because it is my proper place," she replied, tossing her head, and
+drawing out a long thread of green silk; "because I have a right to
+come."
+
+"You lie!" said Dare, fiercely, showing his teeth.
+
+"Lord, Alfred!" said Mrs. Dare, contemptuously, "don't make a scene
+before strangers. We've had our tiffs before now, and shall have again,
+I suppose. It's the natur' of married people to fall out; but there's no
+call to carry on before friends. Push up that lounge nearer the fire.
+Won't the other gentleman," turning to Mr. Alwynn, "come and warm
+himself? I'm sure it's cold enough."
+
+Mr. Alwynn, who was a man of peace, devoutly wished he were at home
+again in his own study.
+
+"It is a cold morning," he said; "but we are not here to discuss the
+weather."
+
+He stopped short. He had been hurried here so much against his will, and
+so entirely without an explanation, that he was not quite sure what he
+had come to discuss, or how he could best support his friend.
+
+"What do you want?" said Dare, in the same suppressed voice, without
+looking at her.
+
+"My rights," she said, incisively; "and, what's more, I mean to have
+'em. I've not come over from America for nothing, I can tell you that;
+and I've not come on a visit neither. I've come to stay."
+
+"What are these rights you talk of?" asked Mr. Alwynn, signing to Dare
+to restrain himself.
+
+"As his wife, sir. I am his wife, as I can prove. I didn't come without
+my lines to show. I didn't come on a speculation, to see if he'd a fancy
+to have me back. No, afore I set my foot down anywheres I look to see as
+it's solid walking."
+
+"Show your proof," said Mr. Alwynn.
+
+The woman ostentatiously got out a red morocco letter case, and produced
+a paper which she handed to Mr. Alwynn.
+
+It was an authorized copy of a marriage register, drawn out in the usual
+manner, between Alfred Dare, bachelor, English subject, and Ellen, widow
+of the late Jaspar Carroll, of Neosho City, Kansas, U.S.A. The marriage
+was dated seven years back.
+
+The names of Dare and Carroll swam before Mr. Alwynn's eyes. He glanced
+at the paper, but he could not read it.
+
+"Is this a forgery, Dare?" he asked, holding it towards him.
+
+"No," said Dare, without looking at it; "it is right. But that is not
+all. Now," turning to the woman, who was watching him triumphantly,
+"show the other paper--the divorce."
+
+"I made inquiries about that," she replied, composedly. "I wasn't going
+to be fooled by that 'ere, so I made inquiries from one as knows. The
+divorce is all very well in America; but it don't count in England."
+
+Dare's face turned livid. Mr. Alwynn's flushed a deep red. He sat with
+his eyes on the ground, the paper in his hand trembling a little.
+Indignation against Dare, pity for him, anxiety not to judge him
+harshly, struggled for precedence in his kind heart, still beating
+tumultuously with the shock of Dare's first admission. He felt rather
+than saw him take the paper out of his hand.
+
+"I shall keep this," Dare said, putting it in his pocket-book; and then,
+turning to the woman again, he said, with an oath, "Will you go, or will
+you wait till you are turned out?"
+
+"I'll wait," she replied, undauntedly. "I like the place well enough."
+
+She laughed and took up her work, and, after looking at her for a
+moment, he flung out of the room, followed by Mr. Alwynn.
+
+The defeat was complete; nay, it was a rout.
+
+The dog-cart was still standing at the door. The butler was talking to
+the groom; the gardener was training some new shoots of ivy against the
+stone balustrade.
+
+Dare caught up his hat and gloves, and ordered that his portmanteau,
+which had been taken into the hall, should be put back into the
+dog-cart. As it was being carried down he looked at his watch.
+
+"I can catch the mid-day express for London," he said. "I can do it
+easily."
+
+Mr. Alwynn made no reply.
+
+"Get in," continued Dare, feverishly; "the portmanteau is in."
+
+"I think I will walk home," said Mr. Alwynn, slowly. It gave him
+excruciating pain to say anything so severe as this; but he got out the
+words nevertheless.
+
+Dare looked at him in astonishment.
+
+"Get in," he said again, quickly. "I must speak to you. I will drive you
+home. I have something to say."
+
+Mr. Alwynn never refused to hear what any one had to say. He went slowly
+down the steps, and got into the cart, looking straight in front of him,
+as his custom was when disturbed in mind. Dare followed.
+
+"I shall not want you, James," he said to the groom, his foot on the
+step.
+
+At this moment the form of Mrs. Smith, the house-keeper, appeared
+through the hall door, clothed in all the awful majesty of an upper
+servant whose dignity has been outraged.
+
+"Sir," she said, in a clear not to say a high voice, "asking your
+pardon, sir, but am I, or am I not, to take my orders from--"
+
+Goaded to frenzy, Dare poured forth a volley of horrible oaths French
+and English, and, seizing up the reins, drove off at a furious rate.
+
+The servants remained standing about the steps, watching the dog-cart
+whirl rapidly away.
+
+"He's been to church with her," said the gardener, at last. "I said all
+along she'd never have come, unless she had her lines to show. I ha'n't
+cut them white grapes she ordered yet; but I may as well go and do it."
+
+"Well," said Mrs. Smith, "grapes or no grapes, I'll never give up the
+keys of the linen cupboards to the likes of her, and I'm not going to
+have any one poking about among my china. I've not been here twenty
+years to be asked for my lists in that way, and the winter curtains
+ordered out unbeknownst to me;" and Mrs. Smith retreated to the
+fastnesses of the house-keeper's room, whither even the audacious enemy
+had not yet ventured to follow her.
+
+Meanwhile, Mr. Alwynn and Dare drove at moderated speed along the road
+to Slumberleigh. For some time neither spoke.
+
+"I beg your pardon," said Dare at last. "I lost my head. I became
+enraged. Before a clergyman and a lady, I know well, it is not permitted
+to swear."
+
+"I can overlook that," said Mr. Alwynn; "but," turning very red again,
+"other things I can't."
+
+Dare began to flourish his whip, and become excited again.
+
+"I will tell you all," he said with effusion--"every word. You have a
+kind heart. I will confide in you."
+
+"I don't want confidences," said Mr. Alwynn. "I want straight-forward
+answers to a few simple questions."
+
+"I will give them, these answers. I keep nothing back from a friend."
+
+"Then, first. Did you marry that woman?"
+
+"Yes," said Dare, shrugging his shoulders. "I married her, and often
+afterwards, almost at once, I regretted it; but _que voulez-vous_, I was
+young. I had no experience. I was but twenty-one."
+
+Mr. Alwynn stared at him in astonishment at the ease with which the
+admission was made.
+
+"How long afterwards was it that you were divorced from her?"
+
+"Two years. Two long years."
+
+"For what reason?"
+
+"Temper. Ah! what a temper. Also because I left her for one year. It was
+in Kansas, and in Kansas it is very easy to marry, and also to be
+divorced."
+
+"It is a disgraceful story," said Mr. Alwynn, in great indignation.
+
+"Disgraceful!" echoed Dare, excitedly. "It is more than disgraceful. It
+is abominable. You do not know all yet. I will tell you. I was young; I
+was but a boy. I go to America when I am twenty-one, to travel, to see
+the world. I make acquaintances. I get into a bad set, what you call
+undesirable. I fall in love. I walk into a net. She was pretty, a pretty
+widow, all love, all soul; without friends. I protect her. I marry her.
+I have a little money. I have five thousand pounds. She knew that. She
+spent it. I was a fool. In a year it was gone." Dare's face had become
+white with rage. "And then she told me why she married me. I became
+enraged. There was a quarrel, and I left her. I had no more money. She
+left me alone, and a year after we are divorced. I never see her or hear
+of her again. I return to Europe. I live by my voice in Paris. It is
+five years ago. I have bought my experience. I put it from my mind. And
+now"--his hands trembled with anger--"now that she thinks I have money
+again, now, when in some way she hears how I have come to Vandon, she
+dares to came back and say she is my wife."
+
+"Dare," said Mr. Alwynn, sternly, "what excuse have you for never
+mentioning this before--before you became engaged to Ruth?"
+
+"What!" burst out Dare, "tell Ruth! Tell _her_! _Quelle idée._ I would
+never speak to her of what might give her pain. I would keep all from
+her that would cause her one moment's grief. Besides," he added,
+conclusively, "it is not always well to talk of what has gone before. It
+is not for her happiness or mine. She has been, one sees it well,
+brought up since a young child very strictly. About some things she has
+fixed ideas. If I had told her of these things which are passed away and
+gone, she might not,"--and Dare looked gravely at Mr. Alwynn--"she might
+not think so well of me."
+
+This view of the case was quite a new one to Mr. Alwynn. He looked back
+at Dare with hopeless perplexity in his pained eyes. To one who
+throughout life has regarded the supremacy of certain truths and
+principles of actions as fixed, and recognized as a matter of course by
+all the world, however imperfectly obeyed by individuals, the discovery
+comes as a shock, which is at the moment overwhelming, when these same
+truths and principles are seen to be entirely set aside, and their very
+existence ignored by others.
+
+Where there is no common ground on which to meet, speech is unavailing
+and mere waste of time. It is like shouting to a person at a distance
+whom it is impossible to approach. If he notices anything it will only
+be that, for some reasons of your own, you are making a disagreeable
+noise.
+
+As Mr. Alwynn looked back at Dare his anger died away within him, and a
+dull pain of deep disappointment and sense of sudden loneliness took its
+place. Dare and he seemed many miles apart. He felt that it would be of
+no use to say anything; and so, being a man, he held his peace.
+
+Dare continued talking volubly of how he would get a lawyer's opinion at
+once in London; of his certainty that the American wife had no claim
+upon him; of how he would go over to America, if necessary, to establish
+the validity of his divorce; but Mr. Alwynn heard little or nothing of
+what he said. He was thinking of Ruth with distress and
+self-upbraiding. He had been much to blame, of course.
+
+Dare's mention of her name recalled his attention.
+
+"She is all goodness," he was saying. "She believes in me. She has
+promised again that she will marry me--since yesterday. I trust her as
+myself; but it is a grief which as little as possible must trouble her.
+You will not say anything to her till I come back, till I return with
+proof that I am free, as I told her? You will say nothing?"
+
+Dare had pulled up at the bottom of the drive to the rectory.
+
+"Very well," said Mr. Alwynn, absently, getting slowly out. He seemed
+much shaken.
+
+"I will be back perhaps to-night, perhaps to-morrow morning," called
+Dare after him.
+
+But Mr. Alwynn did not answer.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dare's business took him a shorter time than he expected, and the same
+night found him hurrying back by the last train to Slumberleigh. It was
+a wild night. He had watched the evening close in lurid and stormy
+across the chimneyed wastes of the black country, until the darkness
+covered all the land, and wiped out even the last memory of the dead day
+from the western sky.
+
+Who, travelling alone at night, has not watched the glimmer of light
+through cottage windows as he hurries past; has not followed with
+keenest interest for one brief second the shadow of one who moves
+within, and imagination picturing a mysterious universal happiness
+gathered round these twinkling points of light, has not experienced a
+strange feeling of homelessness and loneliness?
+
+Dare sat very still in the solitude of the empty railway carriage, and
+watched the little fleeting, mocking lights with a heavy heart. They
+meant _homes_, and he should never have a home now. Once he saw a door
+open in a squalid line of low houses, and the figure of a man with a
+child in his arms stand outlined in the door-way against the ruddy light
+within. Dare felt an unreasoning interest in that man. He found himself
+thinking of him as the train hurried on, wondering whether his wife was
+there waiting for him, and whether he had other children besides the one
+he was carrying. And all the time, through his idle musings, he could
+hear one sentence ringing in his ears, the last that his lawyer had said
+to him after the long consultation of the afternoon.
+
+"I am sorry to tell you that you are incontestably a married man."
+
+Everything repeated it. The hoofs of the cab-horse that took him to the
+station had hammered it out remorselessly all the way. The engine had
+caught it up, and repeated it with unvarying, endless iteration. The
+newspapers were full of it. When Dare turned to them in desperation he
+saw it written in large letters across the sham columns. There was
+nothing but that anywhere. It was the news of the day. Sick at heart,
+and giddy from want of food, he sat crouched up in the corner of his
+empty carriage, and vaguely wished the train would journey on for ever
+and ever, nervously dreading the time when he should have to get out and
+collect his wandering faculties once more.
+
+The old lawyer had been very kind to the agitated, incoherent young man
+whose settlements he was already engaged in drawing up. At first,
+indeed, it had seemed that the marriage would not be legally
+binding--the marriage and divorce having both taken place in Kansas,
+where the marriage laws are particularly lax--and he seemed inclined to
+be hopeful; but as he informed himself about the particulars of the
+divorce his face became grave and graver. When at last Dare produced the
+copy of the marriage register, he shook his head.
+
+"'Alfred Dare, bachelor and English subject,'" he said. "That 'English
+subject' makes a difficulty to start with. You had never, I believe, any
+intention of acquiring what in law we call an American domicil? and,
+although the technicalities of this subject are somewhat complicated, I
+am afraid that in your case there is little, if any, doubt. The English
+courts are very jealous of any interference by foreigners with the
+status of an Englishman; and though a divorce legally granted by a
+competent tribunal for an adequate cause might--I will not say would--be
+held binding everywhere, there can be no doubt that where in the eyes of
+our law the cause is _not_ adequate, our courts would refuse to
+recognize it. Have you a copy of the register of divorce as well?"
+
+"No."
+
+"It is unfortunate; but no doubt you can remember the grounds on which
+it was granted."
+
+"Incompatibility of temper, and she said I had deserted her. I had left
+her the year before. We both agreed to separate."
+
+The lawyer shook his head.
+
+"What's incompatibility?" he said. "What's a year's absence? Nothing in
+the eyes of an Englishman. Nothing in the law of this country."
+
+"But the divorce was granted. It was legal. There was no question,"
+said Dare, eagerly. "I was divorced in the same State as where I
+married. I had lived there more than a year, which was all that was
+necessary. No difficulty was made at the time."
+
+"No. Marriage is slipped into and slipped out of again with gratifying
+facility in America, and Kansas is notorious for the laxity prevailing
+there as regards marriage and divorce. It will be advisable to take the
+opinion of counsel on the matter, but I can hold out very little hope
+that your divorce would hold good, even in America. You see, you are
+entered as a British subject on the marriage register, and I imagine
+these words must have been omitted in the divorce proceedings, or some
+difficulty would have been raised at the time, unless your residence in
+Kansas made it unnecessary. But, even supposing by American law you are
+free, that will be of no avail in England, for by the law of England,
+which alone concerns you, I regret to be obliged to tell you that you
+are incontestably a married man."
+
+And in spite of frantic reiterations, of wild protests on the part of
+Dare, as if the compassionate old man represented the English law, and
+could mould it at his pleasure, the lawyer's last word remained in
+substance the same, though repeated many times.
+
+"Whether you are at liberty or not to marry again in America, I am
+hardly prepared to say. I will look into the subject and let you know;
+but in England I regret to repeat that you are a married man."
+
+Dare groaned in body and in spirit as the words came back to him; and
+his thoughts, shrinking from the despair and misery at home, wandered
+aimlessly away, anywhere, hither and thither, afraid to go back, afraid
+to face again the desolation that sat so grim and stern in solitary
+possession.
+
+The train arrived at Slumberleigh at last, and he got out, and shivered
+as the driving wind swept across the platform. It surprised him that
+there was a wind, although at every station down the line he had seen
+people straining against it. He gave up his ticket mechanically, and
+walked aimlessly away into the darkness, turning with momentary
+curiosity to watch the train hurry on again, a pillar of fire by night,
+as it had been a pillar of smoke by day.
+
+He passed the blinking station inn, forgetting that he had put up his
+dog-cart there to await his return, and, hardly knowing what he did,
+took from long habit the turn for Vandon.
+
+It was a wild night. The wind was driving the clouds across the moon at
+a tremendous rate, and sweeping at each gust flights of spectre leaves
+from the swaying trees. It caught him in the open of the bare high-road,
+and would not let him go. It opposed him, and buffeted him at every
+turn; but he held listlessly on his way. His feet took him, and he let
+them take him whither they would. They led him stumbling along the dim
+road, the dust of which was just visible like a gray mist before him,
+until he reached the bridge by the mill. There his feet stopped of their
+own accord, and he went and leaned against the low stone-wall, looking
+down at the sudden glimpses of pale hurried water and trembling reed.
+
+The moon came out full and strong in temporary victory, and made black
+shadows behind the idle millwheel and open mill-race, and black shadows,
+black as death, under the bridge itself. Dare leaned over the wall to
+watch the mysterious water and shadow run beneath. As he looked, he saw
+the reflection of a man in the water watching him. He shook his fist
+savagely at it, and it shook its fist amid a wavering of broken light
+and shadow back at him. But it did not go away; it remained watching
+him. There was something strange and unfamiliar about the river
+to-night. It had a voice, too, which allured and repelled him--a voice
+at the sound of which the grim despair within him stirred ominously at
+first, and then began slowly to rise up gaunt and terrible; began to
+move stealthily, but with ever-increasing swiftness through the deserted
+chambers of his heart.
+
+No strong abiding principle was there to do battle with the enemy. The
+minor feelings, sensibilities, emotions, amiable impulses, those
+courtiers of our prosperous days, had all forsaken him and fled. Dare's
+house in his hour of need was left unto him desolate.
+
+And the river spoke in a guilty whisper, which yet the quarrel of the
+wind and the trees could not drown, of deep places farther down, where
+the people were never found, people who--But there were shallows, too,
+he remembered, shallow places among the stones where the trout were. If
+anybody were drowned, Dare thought, gazing down at the pale shifting
+moon in the water, he would be found there, perhaps, or at any rate, his
+hat--he took his hat off, and held it tightly clinched in both his
+hands--his hat would tell the tale.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+
+Charles left Slumberleigh Hall a few hours later than Dare had done, but
+only to go back to Atherstone. He could not leave the neighborhood. This
+burning fever of suspense would be unbearable at any other place, and in
+any case he must return by Saturday, the day on which he had promised to
+meet Raymond. His hand was really slightly injured, and he made the most
+of it. He kept it bound up, telegraphed to put off his next shooting
+engagement on the strength of it, and returned to Atherstone, even
+though he was aware that Lady Mary had arrived there the day before, on
+her way home to her house in London.
+
+Ralph and Evelyn were accustomed to sudden and erratic movements on the
+part of Charles, and to Molly he was a sort of archangel, who might
+arrive out of space at any moment, untrammelled by such details as
+distance, trains, time, or tide. But to Lady Mary his arrival was a
+significant fact, and his impatient refusal to have his hand
+investigated was another. Her cold gray eyes watched him narrowly, and,
+conscious that they did so, he kept out of her way as much as possible,
+and devoted himself to Molly more than ever.
+
+He was sailing a mixed fleet of tin ducks and fishes across the tank by
+the tool shed, under her supervision, on the afternoon of the day he had
+arrived, when Ralph came to find him in great excitement. His keeper had
+just received private notice from the Thursbys' keeper that a raid on
+the part of a large gang of poachers was expected that night in the
+parts of the Slumberleigh coverts that had not yet been shot over, and
+which adjoined Ralph's own land.
+
+"Whereabout will that be?" said Charles, inattentively, drawing his
+magnet slowly in front of the fleet.
+
+"Where?" said Ralph, excitedly, "why, round by the old house, round by
+Arleigh, of course. Thursby and I have turned down hundreds of pheasants
+there. Don't you remember the hot corner by the coppice last year, below
+the house, where we got forty at one place, and how the wind took them
+as they came over?"
+
+"Near _Arleigh_?" repeated Charles, with sudden interest.
+
+"Uncle Charles," interposed Molly, reproachfully, "don't let all the
+ducks stick onto the magnet like that. I told you not before. Make it go
+on in front."
+
+But Charles's attention had wandered from the ducks.
+
+"Yes," continued Ralph, "near Arleigh. There was a gang of poachers
+there last year, and the keepers dared not attack them they were so
+strong, though they were shooting right and left. But we'll be even with
+them this year. My men are going, and I shall go with them. You had
+better come too, and join the fun. The more the better."
+
+"Why should I go?" said Charles, listlessly. "Am I my brother's keeper,
+or even his underkeeper? Molly, don't splash your uncle's wardrobe.
+Besides, I expect it is a false alarm or a blind."
+
+"False alarm!" retorted Ralph. "I tell you Thursby's head keeper,
+Shaw--you know Shaw--saw a man himself only last night in the Arleigh
+coverts; came upon him suddenly, reconnoitring, of course; for to-night,
+and would have collared him too if the moon had not gone in, and when it
+came out again he was gone."
+
+"Of course, and he will warn off the rest to-night."
+
+"Not a bit of it. He never saw Shaw. Shaw takes his oath he didn't see
+him. I'll lay any odds they will beat those coverts to-night, and, by
+George! we'll nail some of them, if we have an ounce of luck."
+
+Ralph's sporting instinct, to which even the fleeting vision of a chance
+weasel never appealed in vain, was now thoroughly aroused, and even
+Charles shared somewhat in his excitement.
+
+How could he warn Raymond to lie close? The more he thought of it the
+more impossible it seemed. It was already late in the afternoon. He
+could not, for Raymond's sake, risk being seen hanging about in the
+woods near Arleigh for no apparent reason, and Raymond was not expecting
+to see him in any case for two days to come, and would probably be
+impossible to find. He could do nothing but wait till the evening came,
+when he might have some opportunity, if the night were only dark enough,
+of helping or warning him.
+
+The night was dark enough when it came; but it was unreliable. A tearing
+autumn wind drove armies of clouds across the moon, only to sweep them
+away again at a moment's notice. The wind itself rose and fell, dropped
+and struggled up again like a furious wounded animal.
+
+"It will drop at midnight," said Ralph to Charles below his breath, as
+they walked in the darkness along the road towards Slumberleigh; "and
+the moon will come out when the wind goes. I have told Evans and Brooks
+to go by the fields, and meet us at the cross-roads in the low woods. It
+is a good night for us. We don't want light yet a while; and the more
+row the wind kicks up till we are in our places ready for them the
+better."
+
+They walked on in silence, nearly missing in the dark the turn for
+Slumberleigh, where the road branched off to Vandon.
+
+"We must be close upon the river by this time," said Ralph; "but I can't
+hear it for the wind."
+
+The moon came out suddenly, and showed close on their right the mill
+blocking out the sky, and the dark sweep of the river below, between
+pale wastes of flooded meadow. Upon the bridge, leaning over the wall,
+stood the figure of a man, bareheaded, with his hat in his hands.
+
+He could not see his face, but something in his attitude struck Charles
+with a sudden chill.
+
+"By ----," he said, below his breath, plucking Ralph's arm, "there's
+mischief going on there!"
+
+Ralph did not hear, and in another moment Charles was thankful he had
+not done so.
+
+The man raised himself a little, and the light fell full on his white
+desperate face. He was feeling up and down the edge of the stone-parapet
+with his hands. As he moved, Charles recognized him, and drew in his
+breath sharply.
+
+"Who is that?" said Ralph, his obtuser faculties perceiving the man for
+the first time.
+
+Charles made no answer, but began to whistle loudly one of the tunes of
+the day. He saw Dare give a guilty start, and, catching at the wall for
+support, lean heavily against it as he looked wildly down the road,
+where the shadow of the trees had so far served to screen the approach
+of Charles and Ralph, who now emerged into the light, or at least would
+have done so, if the moonlight had not been snatched away at that
+moment.
+
+"Holloa, Dare!" said Ralph, cheerfully, through the darkness, "I saw
+you. What are you up to standing on the bridge at midnight, with the
+clock striking the hour, and all that sort of thing; and what have you
+done with your hat--dropped it into the water?"
+
+Dare muttered something unintelligible, and peered suspiciously through
+the darkness at Charles.
+
+The moon made a feint at coming out again, which came to nothing, but
+which gave Charles a moment's glimpse of Dare's convulsed face. And the
+grave penetrating glance that met his own so fixedly told Dare in that
+moment that Charles had guessed his business on the bridge. Both men
+were glad of the returning darkness, and of the presence of Ralph.
+
+"Come along with us," the latter was saying to Dare, explaining the
+errand on which they were bound; and Dare, stupefied with past emotion,
+and careless of what he did or where he went, agreed.
+
+It was less trouble to agree than to find a reason for refusing. He
+mechanically put on his hat, which he had unconsciously crushed together
+a few minutes before, in a dreadful dream from which even now he had not
+thoroughly awaked. And, still walking like a man in a dream, he set off
+with the other two.
+
+"There was suicide in his face," thought Charles, as he swung along
+beside his brother. "He would have done it if we had not come up. Good
+God! can it be that it is all over between him and Ruth?" The blood
+rushed to his head, and his heart began to beat wildly. He walked on in
+silence, seeing nothing, hearing nothing. Raymond and the poachers were
+alike forgotten.
+
+It was not until a couple of men joined them silently in the woods, and
+others presently rose up out of the darkness, to whisper directions and
+sink down again, that Charles came to himself with a start, and pulled
+himself together.
+
+The party had halted. It was pitch-dark, and he was conscious of
+something towering up above him, black and lowering. It was the ruined
+house of Arleigh.
+
+"You and Brooks wait here, and keep well under the lea of the house,"
+said Ralph, in a whisper. "If the moon comes out, get into the shadow of
+the wall. Don't shout till you're sure of them. Shaw is down by the
+stables. Dare and Evans you both come on with me. Shaw's got two men at
+the end of the glade, but it's the nearest coverts he is keenest on,
+because they can get a horse and cart up close to take the game, and get
+off sharp if they are surprised. They did last year. Don't stir if you
+hear wheels. Wait for them." And with this parting injunction Ralph
+disappeared noiselessly with Dare and the other keeper in the direction
+of the stables.
+
+Ralph had been right. The wind was dropping. It came and went fitfully,
+returning as if from great distances, and hurrying past weak and
+impotent, leaving sudden silences behind. Charles and his companion, a
+strapping young underkeeper, evidently anxious to distinguish himself,
+waited, listening intently in the intervals of silence. The ivy on the
+old house shivered and whispered over their heads, and against one of
+the shuttered windows near the ground some climbing plant, torn loose by
+the wind, tapped incessantly, as if calling to the ghosts within.
+Charles glanced ever and anon at the sky. It showed no trace of
+clearing--as yet. He was getting cramped with standing. He wished he had
+gone on to the stables. His anxiety for Raymond was sharpened by this
+long inaction. He seemed to have been standing for ages. What were the
+others doing? Not a sound reached him between the lengthening pauses of
+the wind. His companion stood drawn up motionless beside him; and so
+they waited, straining eye and ear into the darkness, conscious that
+others were waiting and listening also.
+
+_At last_ in the distance came a faint sound of wheels. Charles and
+Brooks instinctively drew a long breath; and Charles for the first time
+believed the alarm of poachers had not been a false one after all. It
+was the faintest possible sound of wheels. It would hardly have been
+heard at all but for some newly broken stones over which it passed.
+Then, without coming nearer, it stopped.
+
+Charles listened intently. The wind had dropped down dead at last, and
+in the stillness he felt as if he could have heard a mouse stir miles
+away. But all was quiet. There was no sound but the tremulous whisper of
+the ivy. The spray near the window had ceased its tapping against the
+shutter, and was listening too. Slowly the moon came out, and looked on.
+
+And then suddenly, from the direction of the stables, came a roar of
+men's voices, a sound of bursting and crashing through the under-wood, a
+thundering of heavy feet, followed by a whirring of frightened birds
+into the air. Brooks leaned forward breathing hard, and tightening his
+newly moistened grip on his heavy knotted stick.
+
+Another moment and a man's figure darted across the open, followed by a
+chorus of shouts, and Charles's heart turned sick within him. It was
+Raymond.
+
+"Cut him off at the gate, Charles," roared Ralph from behind; "down to
+the left."
+
+There was not a second for reflection. As Brooks rushed headlong
+forward, Charles hurriedly interposed his stick between his legs, and
+leaving him to flounder, started off in pursuit.
+
+"Down to your left," cried a chorus of voices from behind, as he shot
+out of the shadow of the house; for Charles was some way ahead of the
+rest owing to his position.
+
+He could hear Raymond crashing in front; then he saw him again for a
+moment in a strip of open, running as a man does who runs for his life,
+with a furious recklessness of all obstacles. Charles saw he was making
+for the rocky thickets below the house, where the uneven ground and the
+bracken would give him a better chance. Did he remember the deep sunken
+wall which, broken down in places, still separated the wilderness of the
+garden from the wilderness outside? Charles was lean and active, and he
+soon out-distanced the other pursuers, but a man is hard to overtake who
+has such reasons for not being overtaken as Raymond, and do what he
+would he could not get near him. He bore down to the left, but Raymond
+seemed to know it, and, edging away again, held for the woods a little
+higher up. Charles tacked, and then as he ran he saw that Raymond was
+making with headlong blindness through the shrubbery direct for the deep
+sunk wall which bounded the Arleigh grounds. Would he see it in the
+uncertain light? He must be close upon it now. He was running like a
+madman. As Charles looked he saw him pitch suddenly forward out of sight
+and heard a heavy fall. If Charles ever ran in his life, it was then. As
+he swiftly let himself drop over the wall, lower than Raymond had taken
+it, he saw Ralph and Dare, followed by the others, come streaming down
+the slope in the moonlight, spreading as they came. It was now or never.
+He rushed up the fosse under cover of the wall, and almost stumbled over
+a prostrate figure, which was helplessly trying to raise itself on its
+hands and knees.
+
+"Danvers, it's me," gasped Raymond, turning a white tortured face feebly
+towards him. "Don't let those devils get me."
+
+"Keep still," panted Charles, pushing him down among the bracken. "Lie
+close under the wall, and make for the house again when it's quiet;" And
+darting back under cover of the wall, to the place where he had dropped
+over it, he found Dare almost upon him, and rushed headlong down the
+steep rocky descent, roaring at the top of his voice, and calling wildly
+to the others. The pursuit swept away through the wood, down the hill,
+and up the sandy ascent on the other side; swept almost over the top of
+Charles, who had flung himself down, dead-beat and gasping for breath,
+at the bottom of the gully.
+
+He heard the last of the heavy lumbering feet crash past him, and heard
+the shouting die away before he stiffly dragged himself up again, and
+began to struggle painfully back up the slippery hill-side, down which
+he had rushed with a whole regiment of loose and hopping stones ten
+minutes before. He regained the wall at last, and crept back to the
+place where he had left Raymond. It was with a sigh of relief that he
+found that he was gone. No doubt he had got into safety somewhere,
+perhaps in the cottage itself, where no one would dream of looking for
+him. He stumbled along among the loose stones by the wall till he came
+to the place by the gate where it was broken down, and clambering up,
+for the gate was locked, made his way back through the shrubberies, and
+desolate remains of garden, towards the point near the house where
+Raymond had first broken cover. As he came round a clump of bushes his
+heart gave a great leap, and then sank within him.
+
+Three men were standing in the middle of the lawn in the moonlight,
+gathered round something on the ground. Seized by a horrible misgiving,
+he hurried towards them. At a little distance a dog-cart was being
+slowly led over the grass-grown drive towards the house.
+
+"What is it? Any one hurt?" he asked, hoarsely, joining the little
+group; but as he looked he needed no answer. One glance told him that
+the prostrate, unconscious figure on the ground, with blood slowly
+oozing from the open mouth, was Raymond Deyncourt.
+
+"Great God! the man's dying," he said, dropping on his knees beside him.
+
+"He's all right, sir; he'll come to," said a little brisk man, in a
+complacent, peremptory tone. "It's only the young chap,"--pointing to
+the bashful but gratified Brooks--"as crocked him over the head a bit
+sharper than needful. Here, Esp,"--to the grinning Slumberleigh
+policeman, whom Charles now recognized, "tell the lad to bring up the
+'orse and trap over the grass. We shall have a business to shift him as
+it is."
+
+"Is he a poacher?" asked Charles. "He doesn't look like it."
+
+"Lord! no, sir," replied the little man, and Charles's heart went
+straight down into his boots and stayed there. "I'm come down from
+Birmingham after him. He's no poacher. The police have wanted him very
+special for some time for the Francisco forgery case."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+
+Charles watched the detective and the policeman hoist Raymond into the
+dog-cart and drive away, supporting him between them. No doubt it had
+been the wheels of that dog-cart which they had heard in the distance.
+Then he turned to Brooks.
+
+"How is it you remained behind?" he asked, sharply.
+
+Brooks's face fell, and he explained that just as he was starting in the
+pursuit he had caught his legs on "Sir Chawles sir's" stick, and "barked
+hisself."
+
+"I remember," said Charles. "You got in my way. You should look out
+where you are going. You may as well go and find my stick."
+
+The poor victim of duplicity departed rather crestfallen, and at this
+moment Dare came up.
+
+"We have lost him," he said, wiping his forehead. "I don't know what has
+become of him."
+
+"He doubled back here," said Charles. "I followed, but you all went on.
+The police have got him. He was not a poacher after all, so they said."
+
+"Ah!" said Dare. "They have him? I regret it. He ran well. I could wish
+he had escaped. I was in the door-way of a stable watching a long time,
+and all in a moment he rushed past me out of the door. The policeman was
+seeking within when he came out, but though he touched me I could not
+stop him. And now," with sudden weariness as his excitement evaporated,
+"all is, then, over for the night? And the others? Where are they? Do we
+wait for them here?"
+
+"We should wait some time if we did," replied Charles. "Ralph is certain
+to go on to the other coverts. He has poachers on the brain. Probably
+the rumor that they were coming here was only a blind, and they are
+doing a good business somewhere else. I am going home. I have had enough
+enjoyment for one evening. I should advise you to do the same."
+
+Dare winced, and did not answer, and Charles suddenly remembered that
+there were circumstances which might make it difficult for him to go
+back to Vandon.
+
+They walked away together in silence. Dare, who had been wildly excited,
+was beginning to feel the reaction. He was becoming giddy and faint with
+exhaustion and want of food. He had eaten nothing all day. They had not
+gone far when Charles saw that he stumbled at every other step.
+
+"Look out," he said once, as Dare stumbled more heavily than usual,
+"you'll twist your ankle on these loose stones if you're not more
+careful."
+
+"It is so dark," said Dare, faintly.
+
+The moon was shining brightly at the moment, and as Charles turned to
+look at him in surprise, Dare staggered forward, and would have
+collapsed altogether if he had not caught him by the arm.
+
+"Sit down," he said, authoritatively. "Here, not on me, man, on the
+bank. Always sit down when you can't stand. You have had too much
+excitement. I felt the same after my first Christmas-tree. You will be
+better directly."
+
+Charles spoke lightly, but he knew from what he had seen that Dare must
+have passed a miserable day. He had never liked him. It was impossible
+that he should have done so. But even his more active dislike of the
+last few months gave way to pity for him now, and he felt almost ashamed
+at the thought that his own happiness was only to be built on the ruin
+of poor Dare's.
+
+He made him swallow the contents of his flask, and as Dare choked and
+gasped himself back into the fuller possession of his faculties, and
+experienced the benign influences of whiskey, entertained at first
+unawares, his heart, always easily touched, warmed to the owner of the
+silver flask, and of the strong arm that was supporting him with an
+unwillingness he little dreamed of. His momentary jealousy of Charles in
+the summer had long since been forgotten. He felt towards him now, as
+Charles helped him up, and he proceeded slowly on his arm, as a friend
+and a brother.
+
+Charles, entirely unconscious of the noble sentiments which he and his
+flask had inspired, looked narrowly at his companion, as they neared the
+turn for Atherstone, and said with some anxiety:
+
+"Where are you going to-night?"
+
+Dare made no answer. He had no idea where he was going.
+
+Charles hesitated. He could not let him walk back alone to Vandon--over
+the bridge. It was long past midnight. Dare's evident inability to think
+where to turn touched him.
+
+"Can I be of any use to you?" he said, earnestly. "Is there anything I
+can do? Perhaps, at present, you would rather not go to Vandon."
+
+"No, no," said Dare, shuddering; "I will not go there."
+
+Charles felt more certain than ever that it would not be safe to leave
+him to his own devices, and his anxiety not to lose sight of him in his
+present state gave a kindness to his manner of which he was hardly
+aware.
+
+"Come back to Atherstone with me," he said, "I will explain it to Ralph
+when he comes in. It will be all right."
+
+Dare accepted the proposition with gratitude. It relieved him for the
+moment from coming to any decision. He thanked Charles with effusion,
+and then--his natural impulsiveness quickened by the quantity of raw
+spirits he had swallowed, by this mark of sympathy, by the moonlight, by
+Heaven knows what that loosens the facile tongue of unreticence--then
+suddenly, without a moment's preparation, he began to pour forth his
+troubles into Charles's astonished and reluctant ears. It was vain to
+try to stop him, and, after the first moment of instinctive recoil,
+Charles was seized by a burning curiosity to know all where he already
+knew so much, to put an end to this racking suspense.
+
+"And that is not the worst," said Dare, when he had recounted how the
+woman he had seen on the church steps was in very deed the wife she
+claimed to be. "That is not the worst. I love another. We are affianced.
+We are as one. I bring sorrow upon her I love."
+
+"She knows, then?" asked Charles, hoarsely, hating himself for being
+such a hypocrite, but unable to refrain from putting a leading question.
+
+"She knows that some one--a person--is at Vandon," replied Dare, "who
+calls herself my wife, but I tell her it is not true and she, all
+goodness, all heavenly calm, she trusts me, and once again she promises
+to marry me if I am free, as I tell her, as I swear to her."
+
+Charles listened in astonishment. He saw Dare was speaking the truth,
+but that Ruth could have given such a promise was difficult to believe.
+He did not know, what Dare even had not at all realized, that she had
+given it in the belief that Dare, from his answers to her questions, had
+never been married to the woman at all, in the belief that she was a
+mere adventuress seeking to make money out of him by threatening a
+scandalous libel, and without the faintest suspicion that she was his
+divorced wife, whether legally or illegally divorced.
+
+Dare had understood the promise to depend on the legality or illegality
+of that divorce, and told Charles so in all good faith. With an
+extraordinary effort of reticence he withheld the name of his affianced,
+and pressing Charles's arm, begged him to ask no more. And Charles,
+half-sorry, half-contemptuous, wholly ashamed of having allowed such a
+confidence to be forced upon him, marched on in silence, now divided
+between mortal anxiety for Raymond and pity for Dare, now striving to
+keep down a certain climbing rapturous emotion which would not be
+suppressed.
+
+One of the servants had waited up for their return, and, after getting
+Dare something to eat, Charles took him up to the room which had been
+prepared for himself, and then, feeling he had done his duty by him, and
+that he was safe for the present, went back to smoke by the smoking-room
+fire till Ralph came in, which was not till several hours later. When he
+did at last return it was in triumph. He was dead-beat, voiceless, and
+foot-sore; but a sense of glory sustained him. Four poachers had been
+taken red-handed in the coverts farthest from Arleigh. The rumor about
+Arleigh had, of course, been a blind; but he, Ralph, thank Heaven, was
+not to be taken in in such a hurry as all that! He could look after his
+interests as well as most men. In short, he was full of glorification to
+the brim, and it was only after hearing a hoarse and full account of the
+whole transaction several times over that Charles was able in a pause
+for breath to tell him that he had offered Dare a bed, as he was quite
+tired out, and was some distance from Vandon.
+
+"All right. Quite right," said Ralph, unheeding; "but you and he missed
+the best part of the whole thing. Great Scot! when I saw them come
+dodging round under the Black Rock and--" He was off again; and Charles
+doubted afterwards, as he fell asleep in his arm-chair by the fire,
+whether Ralph, already slumbering peacefully opposite him, had paid the
+least attention to what he had told him, and would not have entirely
+forgotten it in the morning. And, in fact, he did, and it was not until
+Evelyn desired, with dignity, on the morrow, that another time
+unsuitable persons should not be brought at midnight to _her_ house,
+that he remembered what had happened.
+
+Charles, who was present, immediately took the blame upon himself, but
+Evelyn was not to be appeased. By this time the whole neighborhood was
+ringing with the news of the arrival of a foreign wife at Vandon, and
+Evelyn felt that Dare's presence in her blue bedroom, with crockery and
+crewel-work curtains to match, compromised that apartment and herself,
+and that he must incontinently depart out of it. It was in vain that
+Ralph and even Charles expostulated. She remained unmoved. It was not,
+she said, as if she had been unwilling to receive him, in the first
+instance, as a possible Roman Catholic, though many might have blamed
+her for that, and perhaps she _had_ been to blame; but she had never,
+no, never, had any one to stay that anybody could say anything about.
+(This was a solemn fact which it was impossible to deny.) Ralph might
+remember her own cousin, Willie Best, and she had always liked Willie,
+had never been asked again after that time--Ralph chuckled--that time he
+knew of. She was very sorry, and she quite understood all Charles meant,
+and she quite saw the force of what he said; but she could not allow
+people to stay in the house who had foreign wives that had been kept
+secret. What was poor Willie, who had only--Ralph need not laugh; there
+was nothing to laugh at--what was Willie to this? She must be
+consistent. She could see Charles was very angry with her, but she could
+not encourage what was wrong, even if he was angry. In short, Dare must
+go.
+
+But, when it came to the point, it was found that Dare could not go.
+Nothing short of force would have turned the unwelcome guest out of the
+bed in the blue bedroom, from which he made no attempt to rise, and on
+which he lay worn-out and feverish, in a stupor of sheer mental and
+physical exhaustion.
+
+Charles and Ralph went and looked at him rather ruefully, with masculine
+helplessness, and the end of it was that Evelyn, in nowise softened, for
+she was a good woman, had to give way, and a doctor was sent for.
+
+"Send for the man in D----. Don't have the Slumberleigh man," said
+Charles; "it will only make more talk;" and the doctor from D---- was
+accordingly sent for.
+
+He did not arrive till the afternoon, and after he had seen Dare, and
+given him a sleeping draught, and had talked reassuringly of a mental
+shock and a feverish temperament he apologized for his delay in coming.
+He had been kept, he said, drawing on his gloves as he spoke, by a very
+serious case in the police-station at D----. A man had been arrested on
+suspicion the previous night, and he seemed to have sustained some fatal
+internal injury. He ought to have been taken to the infirmary at once;
+but it had been thought he was only shamming when first arrested, and
+once in the police-station he could not be moved, and--the doctor took
+up his hat--he would probably hardly outlive the day.
+
+"By-the-way," he added, turning at the door, "he asked over and over
+again, while I was with him, to see you or Mr. Danvers. I'm sure I
+forget which, but I promised him I would mention it. Nearly slipped my
+memory, all the same. He said one of you had known him in his better
+days, at--Oxford, was it?"
+
+"What name?" asked Charles.
+
+"Stephens," replied the doctor. "He seemed to think you would remember
+him."
+
+"Stephens," said Charles, reflectively. "Stephens! I once had a valet of
+that name, and a very good one he was, who left my service rather
+abruptly, taking with him numerous portable memorials of myself,
+including a set of diamond studs. I endeavored at the time to keep up my
+acquaintance with him; but he took measures effectually to close it. In
+fact, I have never heard of him from that day to this."
+
+"That's the man, no doubt," replied the doctor. "He has--er--a sort of
+look about him as if he might have been in a gentleman's service once;
+seen-better-days-sort of look, you know."
+
+Charles said he should be at D---- in the course of the afternoon, and
+would make a point of looking in at the police-station; and a quarter of
+an hour later he was driving as hard as he could tear in Ralph's high
+dog-cart along the road to D----. It was a six-mile drive, and he
+slackened as he reached the straggling suburbs of the little town, lying
+before him in a dim mist of fine rain and smoke.
+
+Arrived at the dismal building which he knew to be the police-station,
+he was shown into a small room hung round with papers, where the warden
+was writing, and desired, with an authority so evidently accustomed to
+obedience that it invariably insured it, to see the prisoner. The
+prisoner, he said, at whose arrest he had been present, had expressed a
+wish to see him through the doctor; and as the warden demurred for the
+space of one second, Charles mentioned that he was a magistrate and
+justice of the peace, and sternly desired the confused official to show
+him the way at once. That functionary, awed by the stately manner which
+none knew better than Charles when to assume, led the way down a narrow
+stone passage, past numerous doors behind one of which a banging sound,
+accompanied by alcoholic oaths, suggested the presence of a freeborn
+Briton chafing under restraint.
+
+"I had him put up-stairs, sir," said the warden, humbly. "We didn't know
+when he came in as it was a case for the infirmary; but seeing he was
+wanted for a big thing, and poorly in his 'ealth, I giv' him one of the
+superior cells, with a mattress and piller complete."
+
+The man was evidently afraid that Charles had come as a magistrate to
+give him a reprimand of some kind, for, as he led the way up a narrow
+stone staircase, he continued to expatiate on the luxury of the
+"mattress and piller," on the superiority of the cell, and how a nurse
+had been sent for at once from the infirmary, when, owing to his own
+shrewdness, the prisoner was found to be "a hospital case."
+
+"The doctor wouldn't have him moved," he said, opening a closed door in
+a long passage full of doors, the rest of which stood open. "It's not
+reg'lar to have him in here, sir, I know; but the doctor wouldn't have
+him moved."
+
+Charles passed through the door, and found himself in a narrow
+whitewashed cell, with a bed at one side, over which an old woman in the
+dress of a hospital nurse was bending.
+
+"You can come out, Martha," said the warden. "The gentleman's come to
+see 'im."
+
+As the old woman disappeared, courtesying, he lingered to say, in a
+whisper, "Do you know him, sir?"
+
+"Yes," said Charles, looking fixedly at the figure on the bed. "I
+remember him. I knew him years ago, in his better days. I dare say he
+will have something to tell me."
+
+"If it should be anything as requires a witness," continued the
+man--"he's said a deal already, and it's all down in proper form--but if
+there's anything more----"
+
+"I will let you know," said Charles, looking towards the door, and the
+warden took the hint and went out of it, closing it quietly.
+
+Charles crossed the little room, and, sitting down in the crazy chair
+beside the bed, laid his hand gently on the listless hand lying palm
+upward on the rough gray counterpane.
+
+"Raymond," he said; "it is I, Danvers."
+
+The hand trembled a little, and made a faint attempt to clasp his.
+Charles took the cold, lifeless hand, and held it in his strong gentle
+grasp.
+
+"It is Danvers," he said again.
+
+The sick man turned his head slowly on the pillow, and looked fixedly at
+him. Death's own color, which imitation can never imitate, nor ignorance
+mistake, was stamped upon that rigid face.
+
+"I'm done for," he said with a faint smile, which touched the lips but
+did not reach the solemn far-reaching eyes.
+
+Charles could not speak.
+
+"You said I should turn up tails once too often," continued Raymond,
+with slow halting utterance, "and I've done it. I knew it was all up
+when I pitched over that d----d wall onto the stones. I felt I'd killed
+myself."
+
+"How did they get you?" said Charles.
+
+"I don't know," replied Raymond, closing his eyes wearily, as if the
+subject had ceased to interest him. "I think I tried to creep along
+under the wall towards the place where it is broken down, when I fancy
+some one came over long after the others and knocked me on the head."
+
+Charles reflected with sudden wrath that Brooks, no doubt, had been the
+man, and how much worse than useless his manoeuvre with the stick had
+been.
+
+"I did my best," he said, humbly.
+
+"Yes," replied the other; "and I would not have forgotten it, either,
+if--if there had been any time to remember it in; but there won't be.
+I've owned up," he continued, in a labored whisper. "Stephens has made a
+full confession. You'll have it in all the papers to-morrow. And while I
+was at it I piled on some more I never did, which will get friends over
+the water out of trouble. Tom Flavell did me a good turn once, and he's
+been in hiding these two years for--well, it don't much matter what, but
+I've shoved that in with the rest, though it was never in my
+line--never. He'll be able to go home now."
+
+"Have not you confessed under your own name?"
+
+"No," replied Raymond, with a curious remnant of that pride of race at
+which it is the undisputed privilege of low birth and a plebeian
+temperament to sneer. "I won't have my own name dragged in. I dropped it
+years ago. I've confessed as Stephens, and I'll die and be buried as
+Stephens. I'm not going to disgrace the family."
+
+There was a constrained silence of some minutes.
+
+"Would you like to see your sister?" asked Charles; but Raymond shook
+his head with feeble decision.
+
+"That man!" he said, suddenly, after a long pause. "That man in the
+door-way! How did he come there?"
+
+"There is no man in the door-way," said Charles, reassuringly. "There is
+no one here but me."
+
+"Last night," continued Raymond, "last night in the stables. I watched
+him stand in the door-way."
+
+Charles remembered how Dare had said Raymond had bolted out past him.
+
+"That was Dare," he said; "the man who was to have been your
+brother-in-law."
+
+"Ah!" said Raymond with evident unconcern. "I thought I'd seen him
+before. But he's altered. He's grown into a man. So he is to marry Ruth,
+is he?"
+
+"Not now. He was to have done, but a divorced wife from America has
+turned up. She arrived at Vandon the day before yesterday. It seems the
+divorce in America does not hold in England."
+
+Raymond started.
+
+"The old fox," he said, with feeble energy. "Tracked him out, has she?
+We used to call them fox and goose when she married him. By ----, she
+squeezed every dollar out of him before she let him go, and now she's
+got him again, has she? She always was a cool hand. The old fox," he
+continued, with contempt and admiration in his voice. "She's playing a
+bold game, and the luck is on her side, but she's no more his wife than
+I am, and she knows that perfectly well."
+
+"Do you mean that the divorce was----"
+
+"Divorce, bosh!" said Raymond, working himself up into a state of feeble
+excitement frightful to see. "I tell you she was never married to him
+legally. She called herself a widow when she married Dare, but she had a
+husband living, Jasper Carroll, serving his time at Baton Rouge Jail,
+down South, all the time. He died there a year afterwards, but hardly a
+soul knows it to this day; and those that do don't care about bringing
+themselves into public notice. They'll prefer hush-money, if they find
+out what she's up to now. The prison register would prove it directly.
+But Dare will never find it out. How should he?"
+
+Raymond sank back speechless and panting. A strong shudder passed over
+him, and his breath seemed to fail.
+
+"It's coming," he whispered, hoarsely. "That lying doctor said I had
+several hours, and I feel it coming already."
+
+"Danvers," he continued, hurriedly, "are you still there?" Then, as
+Charles bent over him, "Closer; bend down. I want to see your face. Keep
+your own counsel about Dare. There's no one to tell if you don't. He's
+not fit for Ruth. You can marry her now. I saw what I saw. She'll take
+you. And some day--some day, when you have been married a long time,
+tell her I'm dead; and tell her--about Flavell, and how I owned to
+it--but that I did not do it. I never sank so low as that." His voice
+had dropped to a whisper which died imperceptibly away.
+
+"I will tell her," said Charles; and Raymond turned his face to the
+wall, and spoke no more.
+
+The struggle had passed, and for the moment death held aloof; but his
+shadow was there, lying heavy on the deepening twilight, and darkening
+all the little room. Raymond seemed to have sunk into a stupor, and at
+last Charles rose silently and went out.
+
+He was dimly conscious of meeting some one in the passage, of answering
+some question in the negative, and then he found himself gathering up
+the reins, and driving through the narrow lighted streets of D---- in
+the dusk, and so away down the long flat high-road to Atherstone.
+
+A white mist had risen up to meet the darkness, and had shrouded all the
+land. In sweeps and curves along the fields a gleaming pallor lay of
+heavy dew upon the grass, and on the road the long lines of dim water in
+the ruts reflected the dim sky.
+
+Carts lumbered past him in the darkness once or twice, the men in them
+peering back at his reckless driving; and once a carriage with lamps
+came swiftly up the road towards him, and passed him with a flash,
+grazing his wheel. But he took no heed. Drive as quickly as he would
+through mist and darkness, a voice followed him, the voice of a pursuing
+devil close at his ear, whispering in the halting, feeble utterance of a
+dying man:
+
+"Keep your own counsel about Dare. There is no one to tell if you
+don't."
+
+Charles shivered and set his teeth. High on the hill among the trees the
+distant lights of Slumberleigh shone like glowworms through the mist. He
+looked at them with wild eyes. She was there, the woman who loved him,
+and whom he passionately loved. He could stretch forth his hand to take
+her if he would. His breath came hard and thick. A hand seemed clutching
+and tearing at his heart. And close at his ear the whisper came:
+
+_"There is no one to tell if you don't."_
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+
+It was close on dressing-time when Charles came into the drawing-room,
+where Evelyn and Molly were building castles on the hearth-rug in the
+ruddy firelight. After changing his damp clothes, he had gone to the
+smoking-room, but he had found Dare sitting there in a vast
+dressing-gown of Ralph's, in a state of such utter dejection, with his
+head in his hands, that he had silently retreated again before he had
+been perceived. He did not want to see Dare just now. He wished he were
+not in the house.
+
+Quite oblivious of the fact that he was not in Evelyn's good graces, he
+went and sat by the drawing-room fire, and absently watched Molly
+playing with her bricks. Presently, when the dressing-bell rang, Evelyn
+went away to dress, and Molly, tired of her castles, suggested that she
+might sit on his knee.
+
+He let her climb up and wriggle and finally settle herself as it seemed
+good to her, but he did not speak; and so they sat in the firelight
+together, Molly's hand lovingly stroking his black velvet coat. But her
+talents lay in conversation, not in silence, and she soon broke it.
+
+"You do look beautiful to-night, Uncle Charles."
+
+"Do I?" without elation.
+
+"Do you know, Uncle Charles, Ninny's sister with the wart on her cheek
+has been to tea? She's in the nursery now. Ninny says she's to have a
+bite of supper before she goes."
+
+"You don't say so?"
+
+"And we had buttered toast to tea, and she said you were the most
+splendid gentleman she ever saw."
+
+Charles did not answer. He did not even seem to have heard this
+interesting tribute to his personal appearance. Molly felt that
+something must be gravely amiss, and, laying her soft cheek against his,
+she whispered, confidentially:
+
+"Uncle Charles, are you uncomferable inside?"
+
+There was a long pause.
+
+"Yes, Molly," at last, pressing her to him.
+
+"Is it there?" said Molly, sympathetically, laying her hand on the front
+portion of her amber sash.
+
+"No, Molly; I only wish it were."
+
+"It's not the little green pears, then," said Molly, with the sigh of
+experience, "because it's always _just_ there, _always_, with them. It
+was again yesterday. They're nasty little pears,"--with a touch of
+personal resentment.
+
+Uncle Charles smiled at last, but it was not quite his usual smile.
+
+"Miss Molly," said a voice from the door, "your mamma has sent for you."
+
+"It's not bedtime yet."
+
+"Your mamma says you are to come at once," was the reply.
+
+Molly, knowing from experience that an appeal to Charles was useless on
+these occasions, wriggled down from her perch rather reluctantly, and
+bade her uncle "Good-night."
+
+"Perhaps it will be better to-morrow," she said, consolingly.
+
+"Perhaps," he said, nodding at her; and he took her little head between
+his hands, and kissed her. She rubbed his kiss off again, and walked
+gravely away. She could not be merry and ride in triumph up-stairs on
+kind curvetting Sarah's willing back, while her friend was "uncomferable
+inside." There was no galloping down the passage that night, no
+pleasantries with the sponge in Molly's tub, no last caperings in light
+attire. Molly went silently to bed, and as on a previous occasion when
+in great anxiety about Vic, who had thoughtlessly gone out in the
+twilight for a stroll, and had forgotten the lapse of time, she added a
+whispered clause to her little petitions which the ear of "Ninny" failed
+to catch.
+
+Charles recognized, in the way Evelyn had taken Molly from him, that she
+was not yet appeased. It should be remembered, in order to do her
+justice, that a good woman's means of showing a proper resentment are so
+straitened and circumscribed by her conscience that she is obliged, from
+actual want of material, to resort occasionally to little acts of
+domestic tyranny, small in themselves as midge bites, but, fortunately
+for the cause of virtue, equally exasperating. Indeed, it is improbable
+that any really good woman would ever so far forget herself as to lose
+her temper, if she were once thoroughly aware how much more irritating
+in the long-run a judicious course of those small persecutions may be
+made, which the tenderest conscience need not scruple to inflict.
+
+Charles was unreasonably annoyed at having Molly taken from him. As he
+sat by the fire alone, tired in mind and body, a hovering sense of
+cold, and an intense weariness of life took him; and a great longing
+came over him like a thirst--a longing for a little of the personal
+happiness which seemed to be the common lot of so many round him; for a
+home where he had now only a house; for love and warmth and
+companionship, and possibly some day a little Molly of his own, who
+would not be taken from him at the caprice of another.
+
+The only barrier to the fulfilment of such a dream had been a
+conscientious scruple of Ruth's, to which at the time he had urged upon
+her that she did wrong to yield. That barrier was now broken down; but
+it ought never to have existed. Ruth and he belonged to each other by
+divine law, and she had no right to give herself to any one else to
+satisfy her own conscience. And now--all would be well. She was absolved
+from her promise. She had been wrong to persist in keeping it, in his
+opinion; but at any rate she was honorably released from it now. And she
+would marry him.
+
+And that _second_ promise, which she had made to Dare, that she would
+still marry him if he were free to marry?
+
+Charles moved impatiently in his chair. From what exaggerated sense of
+duty she had made that promise he knew not; but he would save her from
+the effects of her own perverted judgment. He knew what Ruth's word
+meant, since he had tried to make her break it. He knew that she had
+promised to marry Dare if he were free. He knew that, having made that
+promise, she would keep it.
+
+It would be mere sentimental folly on his part to say the word that
+would set Dare free. Even if the American woman were not his wife in the
+eye of the law, she had a moral claim upon him. The possibility of
+Ruth's still marrying Dare was too hideous to be thought of. If her
+judgment was so entirely perverted by a morbid conscientious fear of
+following her own inclination that she could actually give Dare that
+promise, directly after the arrival of the adventuress, Charles would
+take the decision out of her hands. As she could not judge fairly for
+herself, he would judge for her, and save her from herself.
+
+For her sake as much as for his own he resolved to say nothing. He had
+only to keep silence.
+
+_"There's no one to tell if you don't."_
+
+The door opened, and Charles gave a start as Dare came into the room. He
+was taken aback by the sudden rush of jealous hatred that surged up
+within him at his appearance. It angered and shamed him, and Dare, much
+shattered but feebly cordial, found him very irresponsive and silent for
+the few minutes that remained before the dinner-bell rang, and the
+others came down.
+
+It was not a pleasant meal. If Dare had been a shade less ill, he must
+have noticed the marked coldness of Evelyn's manner, and how Ralph
+good-naturedly endeavored to make up for it by double helpings of soup
+and fish, which he was quite unable to eat. Charles and Lady Mary were
+never congenial spirits at the best of times, and to-night was not the
+best. That lady, after feebly provoking the attack, as usual, sustained
+some crushing defeats, mainly couched in the language of Scripture,
+which was, as she felt with Christian indignation, turning her own
+favorite weapon against herself, as possibly Charles thought she
+deserved, for putting such a weapon to so despicable a use.
+
+"I really don't know," she said, tremulously, afterwards in the
+drawing-room, "what Charles will come to if he goes on like this. I
+don't mind"--venomously--"his tone towards myself. That I do not regard;
+but his entire want of reverence for the Church and apostolic
+succession; his profane remarks about vestments; in short, his entire
+attitude towards religion gives me the gravest anxiety."
+
+In the dining-room the conversation flagged, and Charles was beginning
+to wonder whether he could make some excuse and bolt, when a servant
+came in with a note for him. It was from the doctor in D----, and ran as
+follows:
+
+    "DEAR SIR,
+
+    "I have just seen (6.30 P.M.) Stephens again. I found him in a
+    state of the wildest excitement, and he implored me to send you
+    word that he wanted to see you again. He seemed so sure that you
+    would go if you knew he wished it, that I have commissioned
+    Sergeant Brown's boy to take this. He wished me to say 'there
+    was something more.' If there is any further confession he
+    desires to make, he has not much time to do it in. I did not
+    expect he would have lasted till now. As it is, he is going
+    fast. Indeed, I hardly think you will be in time to see him; but
+    I promised to give you this message.
+
+    Yours faithfully,
+    R. WHITE."
+
+"I must go," Charles said, throwing the note across to Ralph. "Give the
+boy half a crown, will you? I suppose I may take Othello?" and before
+Ralph had mastered the contents of the note, and begun to fumble for a
+half-crown, Charles was saddling Othello himself, without waiting for
+the groom, and in a few minutes was clattering over the stones out of
+the yard.
+
+There was just light enough to ride by, and he rode hard. What was
+it--what could it be that Raymond had still to tell him? He felt certain
+it had something to do with Ruth, and probably Dare. Should he arrive in
+time to hear it? There at last were the lights of D---- in front of him.
+Should he arrive in time? As he pulled up his steaming horse before the
+police-station his heart misgave him.
+
+"Am I too late?" he asked of the man who came to the door.
+
+He looked bewildered.
+
+"Stephens! Is he dead?"
+
+The man shook his head.
+
+"They say he's a'most gone."
+
+Charles threw the rein to him, and hurried in-doors. He met some one
+coming out, the doctor probably, he thought afterwards, who took him
+up-stairs, and sent away the old woman who was in attendance.
+
+"I can't do anything more," he said, opening the door for him. "Wanted
+elsewhere. Very good of you, I'm sure. Not much use, I'm afraid.
+Good-night. I'll tell the old woman to be about."
+
+A dim lamp was burning on the little corner cupboard near the door, and,
+as Charles bent over the bed, he saw in a moment, even by that pale
+light, that he was too late.
+
+Life was still there, if that feeble tossing could be called life; but
+all else was gone. Raymond's feet were already on the boundary of the
+land where all things are forgotten; and, at the sight of that dim
+country, memory, affrighted, had slipped away and left him.
+
+Was it possible to recall him to himself even yet?
+
+"Raymond," he said, in a low distinct voice, "what is it you wish to
+say? Tell me quickly what it is."
+
+But the long agony of farewell between body and soul had begun, and the
+eyes that seemed to meet his with momentary recognition only looked at
+him in anguish, seeking help and finding none, and wandered away again,
+vainly searching for that which was not to be found.
+
+Charles could do nothing, but he had not the heart to leave him to
+struggle with death entirely alone, and so, in awed and helpless
+compassion, he sat by him through one long hour after another, waiting
+for the end which still delayed, his eyes wandering ever and anon from
+the bed to the high grated window, or idly spelling out the different
+names and disparaging remarks that previous occupants had scratched and
+scrawled over the whitewashed walls.
+
+And so the hours passed.
+
+At last, all in a moment, the struggle ceased. The dying man vainly
+tried to raise himself to meet what was coming, and Charles put his
+strong arm round him and held him up. He knew that consciousness
+sometimes returns at the moment of death.
+
+"Raymond," he whispered, earnestly. "Raymond."
+
+A tremor passed over the face. The lips moved. The homeless, lingering
+soul came back, and looked for the last time fixedly and searchingly at
+him out of the dying eyes, and then--seeing no help for it--went
+hurriedly on its way, leaving the lips parted to speak, leaving the
+deserted eyes vacant and terrible, until after a time Charles closed
+them.
+
+He had gone without speaking. Whatever he had wished to say would remain
+unsaid forever. Charles laid him down, and stood a long time looking at
+the set face. The likeness to Raymond seemed to be fading away under the
+touch of the Mighty Hand, but the look of Ruth, the better look,
+remained.
+
+At last he turned away and went out, stopping to wake the old nurse,
+heavily asleep in the passage. His horse was brought round for him from
+somewhere, and he mounted and rode away. He had no idea how long he had
+been there. It must have been many hours, but he had quite lost sight of
+time. It was still dark, but the morning could not be far off. He rode
+mechanically, his horse, which knew the road, taking him at its own
+pace. The night was cold, but he did not feel it. All power of feeling
+anything seemed gone from him. The last two days and nights of suspense
+and high-strung emotion seemed to have left him incapable of any further
+sensation at present beyond that of an intense fatigue.
+
+He rode slowly, and put up his horse with careful absence of mind. The
+eastern horizon was already growing pale and distinct as he found his
+way in-doors through the drawing-room window, the shutter of which had
+been left unhinged for him by Ralph, according to custom when either of
+them was out late. He went noiselessly up to his room, and sat down.
+After a time he started to find himself still sitting there; but he
+remained without stirring, too tired to move, his elbows on the table,
+his chin in his hands. He felt he could not sleep if he were to drag
+himself into bed. He might just as well stay where he was.
+
+And as he sat watching the dawn his mind began to stir, to shake off its
+lethargy and stupor, to struggle into keener and keener consciousness.
+
+There are times, often accompanying great physical prostration, when a
+veil seems to be lifted from our mental vision. As in the Mediterranean
+one may glance down suddenly on a calm day, and see in the blue depths
+with a strange surprise the sea-weed and the rocks and the fretted sands
+below, so also in rare hours we see the hidden depths of the soul, over
+which we have floated in heedless unconsciousness so long, and catch a
+glimpse of the hills and the valleys of those untravelled regions.
+
+Charles sat very still with his chin in his hands. His mind did not
+work. It looked right down to the heart of things.
+
+There is, perhaps, no time when mental vision is so clear, when the mind
+is so sane, as when death has come very near to us. There is a light
+which he brings with him, which he holds before the eyes of the dying,
+the stern light, seldom seen, of reality, before which self-deception
+and meanness, and that which maketh a lie, cower in their native
+deformity and slip away.
+
+And death sheds at times a strange gleam from that same light upon the
+souls of those who stand within his shadow, and watch his kingdom
+coming. In an awful transfiguration all things stand for what they are.
+Evil is seen to be evil, and good to be good. Right and wrong sunder
+more far apart, and we cannot mistake them as we do at other times. The
+debatable land stretching between them--that favorite resort of
+undecided natures--disappears for a season, and offers no longer its
+false refuge. The mind is taken away from all artificial supports, and
+the knowledge comes home to the soul afresh, with strong conviction that
+"truth is our only armor in all passages of life," as with awed hearts
+we see it is the only armor in the hour of death, the only shield that
+we may bear away with us into the unknown country.
+
+Charles shuddered involuntarily. His decision of the afternoon to keep
+secret what Raymond had told him was gradually but surely assuming a
+different aspect. What was it, after all, but a suppression of truth--a
+kind of lie? What was it but doing evil that good might come?
+
+It was no use harping on the old string of consequences. He saw that he
+had resolved to commit a deliberate sin, to be false to that great
+principle of life--right for the sake of right, truth for the love of
+truth--by which of late he had been trying to live. So far it had not
+been difficult, for his nature was not one to do things by halves, but
+now--
+
+Old voices out of the past, which he had thought long dead, rose out of
+forgotten graves to urge him on. What was he that he should stick at
+such a trifle? Why should a man with his past begin to split hairs?
+
+And conscience said nothing, only pointed, only showed, with a clearness
+that allowed of no mistake, that he had come to a place where two roads
+met.
+
+Charles's heart suffered then "the nature of an insurrection." The old
+lawless powers that had once held sway, and had been forced back into
+servitude under the new rule of the last few years of responsibility and
+honor, broke loose, and spread like wildfire throughout the kingdom of
+his heart.
+
+The struggle deepened to a battle fierce and furious. His soul was rent
+with a frenzy of tumult, of victory and defeat ever changing sides, ever
+returning to the attack.
+
+Can a kingdom divided against itself stand?
+
+He sat motionless, gazing with absent eyes in front of him.
+
+And across the shock of battle, and above the turmoil of conflicting
+passions, Ruth's voice came to him. He saw the pale spiritual face, the
+deep eyes so full of love and anguish, and yet so steadfast with a great
+resolve. He heard again her last words, "I cannot do what is wrong, even
+for you."
+
+He stretched out his hands suddenly.
+
+"You would not, Ruth," he said, half aloud; "you would not. Neither will
+I do what I know to be wrong for you, so help me God! not even for you."
+
+The dawn was breaking, was breaking clear and cold, and infinitely far
+away; was coming up through unfathomable depths and distances, through
+gleaming caverns and fastnesses of light, like a new revelation fresh
+from God. But Charles did not see it, for his head was down on the
+table, and he was crying like a child.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+
+Dare was down early the following morning, much too early for the
+convenience of the house-maids, who were dusting the drawing-room when
+he appeared there. He was usually as late as any of the young and gilded
+unemployed who feel it incumbent on themselves to show by these public
+demonstrations their superiority to the rules and fixed hours of the
+working and thinking world, with whom, however, their fear of being
+identified is a groundless apprehension. But to-day Dare experienced a
+mournful satisfaction in being down so early. He felt the underlying
+pathos of such a marked departure from his usual habits. It was obvious
+that nothing but deep affliction or cub-hunting could have been the
+cause, and the cub-hunting was over. The inference was not one that
+could be missed by the meanest capacity.
+
+He took up the newspaper with a sigh, and settled himself in front of
+the blazing fire, which was still young and leaping, with the enthusiasm
+of dry sticks not quite gone out of it.
+
+Charles heard Dare go down just as he finished dressing, for he too was
+early that morning. There was more than half an hour before
+breakfast-time. He considered a moment, and then went down-stairs. Some
+resolutions once made cannot be carried out too quickly.
+
+As he passed through the hall he looked out. The mist of the night
+before had sought out every twig and leaflet, and had silvered it to
+meet the sun. The rime on the grass looked cool and tempting. Charles's
+head ached, and he went out for a moment and stood in the crisp still
+air. The rooks were cawing high up. The face of the earth had not
+altered during the night. It shimmered and was glad, and smiled at his
+grave, care-worn face.
+
+"Hallo!" called a voice; and Ralph's head, with his hair sticking
+straight out on every side, was thrust out of a window. "I say, Charles,
+early bird you are!"
+
+"Yes," said Charles, looking up and leisurely going in-doors again; "you
+are the first worm I have seen."
+
+He found Dare, as he expected, in the drawing-room, and proceeded at
+once to the business he had in hand.
+
+"I am glad you are down early," he said. "You are the very man I want."
+
+"Ah!" replied Dare, shaking his head, "when the heart is troubled there
+is no sleep, none. All the clocks are heard."
+
+"Possibly. I should not wonder if you heard another in the course of
+half an hour, which will mean breakfast. In the mean time----"
+
+"I want no breakfast. A sole cup of----"
+
+"In the mean time," continued Charles, "I have some news for you." And,
+disregarding another interruption, he related as shortly as he could the
+story of Stephens's recognition of him in the door-way, and the
+subsequent revelations in the prison concerning Dare's marriage.
+
+"Where is this man, this Stephens?" said Dare, jumping up. "I will go to
+him. I will hear from his own mouth. Where is he?"
+
+"I don't know," replied Charles, curtly. "It is a matter of opinion. He
+is dead!"
+
+Dare looked bewildered, and then sank back with a gasp of disappointment
+into his chair.
+
+Charles, whose temper was singularly irritable this morning, repeated
+with suppressed annoyance the greater part of what he had just said, and
+proved to Dare that the fact that Stephens was dead would in no way
+prevent the illegality of his marriage being proved.
+
+When Dare had grasped the full significance of that fact he was quite
+overcome.
+
+"Am I, then," he gasped--"is it true?--am I free--to marry?"
+
+"Quite free."
+
+Dare burst into tears, and, partially veiling with one hand the manly
+emotion that had overtaken him, he extended the other to Charles, who
+did not know what to do with it when he had got it, and dropped it as
+soon as he could. But Dare, like many people whose feelings are all on
+the surface, and who are rather proud of displaying them, was slow to
+notice what was passing in the minds of others.
+
+He sprang to his feet, and began to pace rapidly up and down.
+
+"I will go after breakfast--at once--immediately after breakfast, to
+Slumberleigh Rectory."
+
+"I suppose, in that case, Miss Deyncourt is the person whose name you
+would not mention the other day?"
+
+"She is," said Dare. "You are right. It is she. We are betrothed. I will
+fly to her after breakfast."
+
+"You know your own affairs best," said Charles, whose temper had not
+been improved by the free display of Dare's finer feelings; "but I am
+not sure you would not do well to fly to Vandon first. It is best to be
+off with the old love, I believe, before you are on with the new."
+
+"She must at once go away from Vandon," said Dare, stopping short. "She
+is a scandal, the--the old one. But how to make her go away?"
+
+It was in vain for Charles to repeat that Dare must turn her out. Dare
+had premonitory feelings that he was quite unequal to the task.
+
+"I may tell her to go," he said, raising his eyebrows. "I may be firm as
+the rock, but I know her well; she is more obstinate than me. She will
+not go."
+
+"She must," said Charles, with anger. "Her presence compromises Miss
+Deyncourt. Can't you see that?"
+
+Dare raised his eyebrows. A light seemed to break in on him.
+
+"Any fool can see that," said Charles, losing his temper.
+
+Dare saw a great deal--many things besides that. He saw that if a
+friend, a trusted friend, were to manage her dismissal, it would be more
+easy for that friend than for one whose feelings at the moment might
+carry him away. In short, Charles was the friend who was evidently
+pointed out by Providence for that mission.
+
+Charles considered a moment. He began to see that it would not be done
+without further delays and scandal unless he did it.
+
+"She must and shall go at once, even if I have to do it," he said at
+last, looking at Dare with unconcealed contempt. "It is not my affair,
+but I will go, and you will be so good as to put off the flying over to
+Slumberleigh till I come back. I shall not return until she has left the
+house." And Charles marched out of the room, too indignant to trust
+himself a moment longer with the profusely grateful Dare.
+
+"That man must go to-day," said Evelyn, after breakfast, to her husband,
+in the presence of Lady Mary and Charles. "While he was ill I overlooked
+his being in the house; but I will not suffer him to remain now he is
+well."
+
+"You remove him from all chance of improvement," said Charles, "if you
+take him away from Aunt Mary, who can snatch brands from the burning, as
+we all know; but I am going over to Vandon this morning, and if you wish
+it I will ask him if he would like me to order his dog-cart to come for
+him. I don't suppose he is very happy here, without so much as a
+tooth-brush that he can call his own."
+
+"You are going to Vandon?" asked both ladies in one voice.
+
+"Yes. I am going on purpose to dislodge an impostor who has arrived
+there, who is actually believed by some people (who are not such
+exemplary Christians as ourselves, and ready to suppose the worst) to be
+his wife."
+
+Lady Mary and Evelyn looked at each other in consternation, and Charles
+went off to see how Othello was after his night's work, and to order the
+dog-cart, Ralph calling after him, in perfect good-humor, that "a
+fellow's brother got more out of a fellow's horses than a fellow did
+himself."
+
+Dare waylaid Charles on his return from the stables, and linked his arm
+in his. He felt the most enthusiastic admiration for the tall reserved
+Englishman who had done him such signal service. He longed for an
+opportunity of showing his gratitude to him. It was perhaps just as well
+that he was not aware how very differently Charles regarded himself.
+
+"You are just going?" Dare asked.
+
+"In five minutes."
+
+Charles let his arm hang straight down, but Dare kept it.
+
+"Tell me, my friend, one thing." Dare had evidently been turning over
+something in his mind. "This poor unfortunate, this Stephens, why did he
+not tell you all this the _first_ time you went to see him in the
+afternoon?"
+
+"He did."
+
+"What?" said Dare, looking hard at him. "He _did_, and you only tell me
+this morning! You let me go all through the night first. Why was this?"
+
+Charles did not answer.
+
+"I ask one thing more," continued Dare. "Did you divine two nights ago,
+from what I said in a moment of confidence, that Miss Deyncourt was
+the--the--"
+
+"Of course I did," said Charles, sharply. "You made it sufficiently
+obvious."
+
+"Ah!" said Dare. "Ah!" and he shut his eyes and nodded his head several
+times.
+
+"Anything more you would like to know?" asked Charles, inattentive and
+impatient, mainly occupied in trying to hide the nameless exasperation
+which invariably seized him when he looked at Dare, and to stifle the
+contemptuous voice which always whispered as he did so, "And you have
+given up Ruth to him--to _him_!"
+
+"No, no, no!" said Dare, shaking his head gently, and regarding him the
+while with infinite interest through his half-closed eyelids.
+
+The dog-cart was coming round, and Charles hastily turned from him, and,
+getting in, drove quickly away. Whatever Dare said or did seemed to set
+his teeth on edge, and he lashed up the horse till he was out of sight
+of the house.
+
+Dare, with arms picturesquely folded, stood looking after him with mixed
+feelings of emotion and admiration.
+
+"One sees it well," he said to himself. "One sees now the reason of many
+things. He kept silent at first, but he was too good, too noble. In the
+night he considered; in the morning he told all. I wondered that he went
+to Vandon; but he did it not for me. It was for her sake."
+
+Dare's feelings were touched to the quick.
+
+How beautiful! how pathetic was this _dénouement_! His former admiration
+for Charles was increased a thousand-fold. _He also loved!_ Ah! (Dare
+felt he was becoming agitated.) How sublime, how touching was his
+self-sacrifice in the cause of honor! He had been gradually working
+himself up to the highest pitch of pleasurable excitement and emotion;
+and now, seeing Ralph the prosaic approaching, he fled precipitately
+into the house, caught up his hat and stick, hardly glancing at himself
+in the hall-glass, and, entirely forgetting his promise to Charles to
+remain at Atherstone till the latter returned from Vandon, followed the
+impulse of the moment, and struck across the fields in the direction of
+Slumberleigh.
+
+Charles, meanwhile, drove on to Vandon. The stable clock, still
+partially paralyzed from long disuse, was laboriously striking eleven as
+he drew up before the door. His resounding peal at the bell startled the
+household, and put the servants into a flutter of anxious expectation,
+while the sound made some one else, breakfasting late in the
+dining-room, pause with her cup midway to her lips and listen.
+
+"There is a train which leaves Slumberleigh station for London a little
+after twelve, is not there?" asked Charles, with great distinctness, of
+the butler as he entered the hall. He had observed as he came in that
+the dining-room door was ajar.
+
+"There is, Sir Charles. Twelve fifteen," replied the man, who recognized
+him instantly, for everybody knew Charles.
+
+"I am here as Mr. Dare's friend, at his wish. Tell Mr. Dare's coachman
+to bring round his dog-cart to the door in good time to catch that
+train. Will it take luggage?"
+
+"Yes, Sir Charles," with respectful alacrity.
+
+"Good! And when the dog-cart appears you will see that the boxes are
+brought down belonging to the person who is staying here, who will leave
+by that train."
+
+"Yes, Sir Charles."
+
+"If the policeman from Slumberleigh should arrive while I am here, ask
+him to wait."
+
+"I will, Sir Charles."
+
+"I don't suppose," thought Charles, "he will arrive, as I have not sent
+for him; but, as the dining-room door happens to be ajar, it is just as
+well to add a few artistic touches."
+
+"Is this person in the drawing-room?" he continued aloud.
+
+The man replied that she was in the dining-room, and Charles walked in
+unannounced, and closed the door behind him.
+
+He had at times, when any action of importance was on hand, a certain
+cool decision of manner that seemed absolutely to ignore the possibility
+of opposition, which formed a curious contrast with his usual careless
+demeanor.
+
+"Good-morning," he said, advancing to the fire. "I have no doubt that my
+appearance at this early hour cannot be a surprise to you. You have, of
+course, anticipated some visit of this kind for the last few days. Pray
+finish your coffee. I am Sir Charles Danvers. I need hardly add that I
+am justice of the peace in this county, and that I am here officially on
+behalf of my friend, Mr. Dare."
+
+The little woman, who had risen, and had then sat down again at his
+entrance, eyed him steadily. There was a look in her dark bead-like eyes
+which showed Charles why Dare had been unable to face her. The look,
+determined, cunning, watchful, put him on his guard, and his manner
+became a shade more unconcerned.
+
+"Any friend of my husband's is welcome," she said.
+
+"There is no question for the moment about your husband, though no doubt
+a subject of peculiar interest to yourself. I was speaking of Mr. Dare."
+
+She rose to her feet, as if unable to sit while he was standing.
+
+"Mr. Dare is my husband," she said, with a little gesture of defiance,
+tapping sharply on the table with a teaspoon she held in her hand.
+
+Charles smiled blandly, and looked out of the window.
+
+"There is evidently some misapprehension on that point," he observed,
+"which I am here to remove. Mr. Dare is at present unmarried."
+
+"I am his wife," reiterated the woman, her color rising under her rouge.
+"I am, and I won't go. He dared not come himself, a poor coward that he
+is, to turn his wife out-of-doors. He sent you; but it's no manner of
+use, so you may as well know it first as last. I tell you nothing shall
+induce me to stir from this house, from my home, and you needn't think
+you can come it over me with fine talk. I don't care a red cent what you
+say. I'll have my rights."
+
+"I am here," said Charles, "to see that you get them, Mrs.--_Carroll_."
+
+There was a pause. He did not look at her. He was occupied in taking a
+white thread off his coat.
+
+"Carroll's dead," she said, sharply.
+
+"He is. And your regret at his loss was no doubt deepened by the unhappy
+circumstances in which it took place. He died in jail."
+
+"Well, and if he did--"
+
+"Died," continued Charles, suddenly fixing his keen glance upon her,
+"nearly a year after your so-called marriage with Mr. Dare."
+
+"It's a lie," she said, faintly; but she had turned very white.
+
+"No, I _think_ not. My information is on reliable authority. A slight
+exertion of memory on your part will no doubt recall the date of your
+bereavement."
+
+"You can't prove it."
+
+"Excuse me. You have yourself kindly furnished us with a copy of the
+marriage register, with the date attached, without which I must own we
+might have been momentarily at a loss. I need now only apply for a copy
+of the register of the decease of Jasper Carroll, who, as you do not
+deny, died under personal restraint in jail; in Baton Rouge Jail in
+Louisiana, I have no doubt you intended to add."
+
+She glared at him in silence.
+
+"Some dates acquire a peculiar interest when compared," continued
+Charles, "but I will not detain you any longer with business details of
+this kind, as I have no doubt that you will wish to superintend your
+packing."
+
+"I won't go."
+
+"On the contrary, you will leave this house in half an hour. The
+dog-cart is ordered to take you to the station."
+
+"What if I refuse to go?"
+
+"Extreme measures are always to be regretted, especially with a lady,"
+said Charles. "Nothing, in short, would be more repugnant to me; but I
+fear, as a magistrate, it would be my duty to--" And he shrugged his
+shoulders, wondering what on earth could be done for the moment if she
+persisted. "But," he continued, "motives of self-interest suggest the
+advisability of withdrawing, even if I were not here to enforce it. When
+I take into consideration the trouble and expense you have incurred in
+coming here, and the subsequent disappointment of the affections, a
+widow's affections, I feel justified in offering, though without my
+friend's permission, to pay your journey back to America, an offer which
+any further unpleasantness or delay would of course oblige me to
+retract."
+
+She hesitated, and he saw his advantage and kept it.
+
+"You have not much time to lose," he said, laying his watch on the
+table, "unless you would prefer the house-keeper to do your packing for
+you. No? I agree with you. On a sea voyage especially, one likes to know
+where one's things are. If I give you a check for your return journey, I
+shall, of course, expect you to sign a paper to the effect that you have
+no claim on Mr. Dare, that you never were his legal wife, and that you
+will not trouble him in future. You would like a few moments for
+reflection? Good! I will write out the form while you consider, as there
+is no time to be lost."
+
+He looked about for writing materials, and, finding only an ancient
+inkstand and pen, took a note from his pocket-book and tore a blank
+half-sheet off it. His quiet deliberate movements awed her as he
+intended they should. She glanced first at him writing, then at the gold
+watch on the table between them, the hours of which were marked on the
+half-hunting face by alternate diamonds and rubies, each stone being the
+memorial of a past success in shooting-matches. The watch impressed her;
+to her practised eye it meant a very large sum of money, and she knew
+the power of money; but the cool, unconcerned manner of this tall,
+keen-eyed Englishman impressed her still more. As she looked at him he
+ceased writing, got out a check, and began to fill it in.
+
+"What Christian name?" he asked, suddenly.
+
+"Ellen," she replied, taken aback.
+
+"Payable to order or bearer?"
+
+"Bearer," she said, confused by the way he took her decision for
+granted.
+
+"Now," he said, authoritatively, "sign your name there;" and he pushed
+the form he had drawn up towards her. "I am sorry I cannot offer you a
+better pen."
+
+She took the pen mechanically and signed her name--_Ellen Carroll_.
+Charles's light eyes gave a flash as she did it.
+
+"Manner is everything," he said to himself. "I believe the mention of
+that imaginary policeman may have helped, but a little stage effect did
+the business."
+
+"Thank you," he said, taking the paper, and, after glancing at the
+signature, putting it in his pocket-book. "Allow me to give you
+this"--handing her the check. "And now I will ring for the house-keeper,
+for you will barely have time to make the arrangements for your journey.
+I can allow you only twenty minutes." He rang the bell as he spoke.
+
+She started up as if unaware how far she had yielded. A rush of angry
+color flooded her face.
+
+"I won't have that impertinent woman touching my things."
+
+"That is as you like," said Charles, shrugging his shoulders; "but she
+will be in the room when you pack. It is my wish that she should be
+present." Then turning to the butler, who had already answered the bell,
+"Desire the house-keeper to go to Mrs. Carroll's rooms at once, and to
+give Mrs. Carroll any help she may require."
+
+Mrs. Carroll looked from the butler to Charles with baffled hatred in
+her eyes. But she knew the game was lost, and she walked out of the room
+and up-stairs without another word, but with a bitter consciousness in
+her heart that she had not played her cards well, that, though her
+downfall was unavoidable, she might have stood out for better terms for
+her departure. She hated Dare, as she threw her clothes together into
+her trunks, and she hated Mrs. Smith, who watched her do so with folded
+hands and with a lofty smile; but most of all she hated Charles, whose
+voice came up to the open window as he talked to Dare's coachman,
+already at the door, about splints and sore backs.
+
+Charles felt a momentary pity for the little woman when she came down at
+last with compressed lips, casting lightning glances at the grinning
+servants in the background, whom she had bullied and hectored over in
+the manner of people unaccustomed to servants, and who were rejoicing in
+the ignominy of her downfall.
+
+Her boxes were put in--not carefully.
+
+Charles came forward and lifted his cap, but she would not look at him.
+Grasping a little hand-bag convulsively, she went down the steps, and
+got up, unassisted, into the dog-cart.
+
+"You have left nothing behind, I hope?" said Charles, civilly, for the
+sake of saying something.
+
+"She have left nothing," said Mrs. Smith, swimming forward with dignity,
+"and she have also took nothing. I have seen to that, Sir Charles."
+
+"Good-bye, then," said Charles. "Right, coachman."
+
+Mrs. Carroll's eyes had been wandering upward to the old house rising
+above her with its sunny windows and its pointed gables. Perhaps, after
+all the sordid shifts and schemes of her previous existence, she had
+imagined she might lead an easier and a more respectable life within
+those walls. Then she looked towards the long green terraces, the
+valley, and the forest beyond. Her lip trembled, and turning suddenly,
+she fixed her eyes with burning hatred on the man who had ousted her
+from this pleasant place.
+
+Then the coachman whipped up his horse, the dog-cart spun over the
+smooth gravel between the lines of stiff, clipped yews, and she was
+gone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+
+Mr. Alwynn had returned from his eventful morning call at Vandon very
+grave and silent. He shook his head when Ruth came to him in the study
+to ask what the result had been, and said Dare would tell her himself on
+his return from London, whither he had gone on business.
+
+Ruth went back to the drawing-room. She had not strength or energy to
+try to escape from Mrs. Alwynn. Indeed it was a relief not to be alone
+with her own thoughts, and to allow her exhausted mind to be towed along
+by Mrs. Alwynn's, the bent of whose mind resembled one of those
+mechanical toy animals which, when wound up, will run very fast in any
+direction, but if adroitly turned, will hurry equally fast the opposite
+way. Ruth turned the toy at intervals, and the morning was dragged
+through, Mrs. Alwynn in the course of it exploring every realm--known to
+her--of human thought, now dipping into the future, and speculating on
+spring fashions, now commenting on the present, now dwelling fondly on
+the past, the gayly dressed, officer-adorned past of her youth.
+
+There was a meal, and after that it was the afternoon. Ruth supposed
+that some time there would be another meal, and then it would be
+evening, but it was no good thinking of what was so far away. She
+brought her mind back to the present. Mrs. Alwynn had just finished a
+detailed account of a difference of opinion between herself and the
+curate's wife on the previous day.
+
+"And she had not a word to say, my dear, not a word--quite _hors de
+combat_--so I let the matter drop. And you remember that beautiful pig
+we killed last week? You should have gone to look at it hanging up,
+Ruth, rolling in fat, it was. Well, it is better to give than to
+receive, so I shall send her one of the pork-pies. And if you will get
+me one of those round baskets which I took the dolls down to the
+school-feast in--they are in the lowest shelf of the oak chest in the
+hall--I'll send it down to her at once."
+
+Ruth fetched the basket and put it down by her aunt. Reminiscences of
+the school-feast still remained in it, in the shape of ends of ribbon
+and lace, and Mrs. Alwynn began to empty them out, talking all the time,
+when she suddenly stopped short, with an exclamation of surprise.
+
+"Goodness! Well, now! I'm sure! Ruth!"
+
+"What is it, Aunt Fanny?"
+
+"Why, my dear, if there isn't a letter for you under the odds and ends,"
+holding it up and gazing resentfully at it; "and now I remember, a
+letter came for you on the morning of the school-feast, and I said to
+John, 'I sha'n't forward it, because I shall see Ruth this afternoon,'
+and, dear me! I just popped it into the basket, for I thought you would
+like to have it, and you know how busy I was, Ruth, that day, first one
+thing and then another, so much to think of--and--_there it is_."
+
+"I dare say it is of no importance," said Ruth, taking it from her,
+while Mrs. Alwynn, repeatedly wondering how such a thing could have
+happened to a person so careful as herself, went off with her basket to
+the cook.
+
+When she returned in a few minutes she found Ruth standing by the
+window, the letter open in her hand, her face without a vestige of
+color.
+
+"Why, Ruth," she said, actually noticing the alteration in her
+appearance, "is your head bad again?"
+
+Ruth started violently.
+
+"Yes--no. I mean--I think I will go out. The fresh air--"
+
+She could not finish the sentence.
+
+"And that tiresome letter--did it want an answer?"
+
+"None," said Ruth, crushing it up unconsciously.
+
+"Well, now," said Mrs. Alwynn, "that's a good thing, for I'm sure I
+shall never forget the way your uncle was in once, when I put a letter
+of his in my pocket to give him (it was a plum-colored silk, Ruth, done
+with gold beads in front), and then I went into mourning for my poor
+dear Uncle James--such an out-of-the-common person he was, Ruth, and
+such a beautiful talker--and it was not till six months later--niece's
+mourning, you know--that I had the dress on again--and a business I had
+to meet it, for all my gowns seem to shrink when they are put by--and I
+put my hand in the pocket, and--"
+
+But Ruth had disappeared.
+
+Mrs. Alwynn was perfectly certain at last that something must be wrong
+with her niece. Earlier in the day she had had a headache. Reasoning by
+analogy, she decided that Ruth must have eaten something at Mrs.
+Thursby's dinner-party which had disagreed with her. If any one was ill,
+she always attributed it to indigestion. If Mr. Alwynn coughed, or if
+she read in the papers that royalty had been unavoidably prevented
+attending some function at which its presence had been expected, she
+instantly put down both mishaps to the same cause; and when Mrs. Alwynn
+had come to a conclusion it was not her habit to keep it to herself.
+
+She told Lady Mary the exact state in which, reasoning always by
+analogy, she knew Ruth's health must be, when that lady drove over that
+afternoon in the hope of seeing Ruth, partly from curiosity, or, rather,
+a Christian anxiety respecting the welfare of others, and partly, too,
+from a real feeling of affection for Ruth herself. Mrs. Alwynn bored her
+intensely; but she sat on and on in the hope of Ruth's return, who had
+gone out, Mrs. Alwynn agreeing with every remark she made, and treating
+her with that pleased deference of manner which some middle-class
+people, not otherwise vulgar, invariably drop into in the presence of
+rank; a Scylla which is only one degree better than the Charybdis of
+would-be ease of manner into which others fall. If ever the enormous
+advantages of noble birth and ancient family, with all their attendant
+heirlooms and hereditary instincts of refinement, chivalrous feeling,
+and honor, become in future years a mark for scorn (as already they are
+a mark for the envy that calls itself scorn), it will be partly the
+fault of the vulgar adoration of the middle classes. Mrs. Alwynn being,
+as may possibly have already transpired in the course of this narrative,
+a middle-class woman herself, stuck to the hereditary instincts of _her_
+class with a vengeance, and when Ruth at last came in Lady Mary was
+thankful.
+
+Her cold, pale eyes lighted up a little as she greeted Ruth, and looked
+searchingly at her. She saw by the colorless lips and nervous
+contraction of the forehead, and by the bright, restless fever of the
+eyes that had formerly been so calm and clear, that something was
+amiss--terribly amiss.
+
+"I've been telling Lady Mary how poorly you've been, Ruth, ever since
+Mrs. Thursby's dinner-party," said Mrs. Alwynn, by way of opening the
+conversation.
+
+But in spite of so auspicious a beginning the conversation flagged. Lady
+Mary made a few conventional remarks to Ruth, which she answered, and
+Mrs. Alwynn also; but there was a constraint which every moment
+threatened a silence. Lady Mary proceeded to comment on the poaching
+affray of the previous night, and the arrest of a man who had been
+seriously injured; but at her mention of the subject Ruth became so
+silent, and Mrs. Alwynn so voluble, that she felt it was useless to stay
+any longer, and had to take her leave without a word with Ruth.
+
+"Something is wrong with that girl," she said to herself, as she drove
+back to Atherstone. "I know what it is. Charles has been behaving in his
+usual manner, and as there is no one else to point out to him how
+infamous such conduct is, I shall have to do it myself. Shameful! That
+charming, interesting girl! And yet, and yet, there was a look in her
+face more like some great anxiety than disappointment. If she had had a
+disappointment, I do not think she would have let any one see it. Those
+Deyncourts are all too proud to show their feelings, though they have
+got them, too, somewhere. Perhaps, on the whole, considering how
+excessively disagreeable and scriptural Charles can be, and what
+unexpected turns he can give to things, I had better say nothing to him
+at present."
+
+The moment Lady Mary had left the house, Ruth hurried to her uncle's
+study. He was not there. He had not yet come in. She gave a gesture of
+despair, and flung herself down in the old leather chair opposite to his
+own, on which many a one had sat who had come to him for help or
+consolation. All the buttons had been gradually worn off that chair by
+restless or heavy visitors. Some had been lost, but others--the greater
+part, I am glad to say--Mr. Alwynn had found and had deposited in a
+Sèvres cup on the mantle-piece, till the wet afternoon should come when
+he and his long packing-needle should restore them to their home.
+
+The room was very quiet. On the mantle-piece the little conscientious
+silver clock ticked, orderly, gently (till Ruth could hardly bear the
+sound), then hesitated, and struck a soft, low tone. She started to her
+feet, and paced up and down, up and down. Would he never come in? She
+dared not go out to look for him for fear of missing him. Why did not he
+come back when she wanted him so terribly? She sat down again. She
+tried to be patient. It was no good. Would he never come?
+
+She heard a sound, rushed out to meet him in the passage, and pulled him
+into the study.
+
+"Uncle John," she gasped, holding out a letter in her shaking hand.
+"That man who was taken up last night was--Raymond. He is in prison. He
+is ill. Let us go to him," and she explained as best she could that a
+letter had only just been found written to her by Raymond in July,
+warning her he was in the neighborhood of Arleigh, near the old nurse's
+cottage, and that she might see him at any moment, and must have money
+in readiness. The instant she had read the letter she rushed up to
+Arleigh, to see her old nurse, and met her coming down, in great
+agitation, to tell her that Raymond, whom she had shielded once before
+under promise of secrecy, had been arrested the night before.
+
+In a quarter of an hour Mr. Alwynn and Ruth were driving swiftly through
+the dusk, in a close carriage, in the direction of D----. On their way
+they met a dog-cart driving as quickly in the opposite direction which
+grazed their wheel as it passed; and Ruth, looking out, caught a
+glimpse, by the flash of their lamps, of Charles's face, with a look
+upon it so fierce and haggard that she shivered in nameless foreboding
+of evil, wondering what could have happened to make him look like that.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+
+It was still early on the following morning that Dare, forgetting, as we
+have seen, his promise to Charles, arrived at Slumberleigh Rectory--so
+early that Mrs. Alwynn was still ordering dinner, or, in other words,
+was dashing from larder to scullery, from kitchen to dairy, with her
+usual energy. He was shown into the empty drawing-room, where, after
+pacing up and down, he was reduced to the society of a photograph album,
+which, in his present excited condition, could do little to soothe the
+tumult of his mind. Not that any discredit should be thrown on Mrs.
+Alwynn's album, a gorgeous concern with a golden "Fanny" embossed on it,
+which afforded her infinite satisfaction, inside which her friends'
+portraits appeared to the greatest advantage, surrounded by birds and
+nests and blossoms of the most vivid and life-like coloring. Mr. Alwynn
+was encompassed on every side by kingfishers and elaborate bone nests,
+while Ruth's clear-cut face looked out from among long-tailed tomtits,
+arranged one on each side of a nest crowded with eggs, on which a strong
+light had been thrown.
+
+Dare was still looking at Ruth's photograph, when Mr. Alwynn came in.
+
+"Do you wish to speak to Ruth?" he asked, gravely.
+
+"Now, at once." Dare was surprised that Mr. Alwynn, with whom he had
+been so open, should be so cold and unsympathetic in manner. The
+alteration and alienation of friends is certainly one of the saddest and
+most inexplicable experiences of this vale of tears.
+
+"You will find her in the study," continued Mr. Alwynn. "She is
+expecting you. I have told her nothing, according to your wish. I hope
+you will explain everything to her in full, that you will keep nothing
+back."
+
+"I will explain," said Dare; and he went, trembling with excitement,
+into the study. Fired by Charles's example, he had made a sublime
+resolve as he skimmed across the fields, made it in a hurry, in a moment
+of ecstasy, as all his resolutions were made. He felt he had never acted
+such a noble part before. He only feared the agitation of the moment
+might prevent him doing himself justice.
+
+Ruth rose as he came in, but did not speak. A swift spasm passed over
+her face, leaving it very stern, very fixed, as he had never seen it, as
+he had never thought of seeing it. An overwhelming suspense burned in
+the dark, lustreless eyes which met his own. He felt awed.
+
+"Well?" she said, pressing her hands together, and speaking in a low
+voice.
+
+"Ruth," said Dare, solemnly, laying his outspread hand upon his breast
+and then extending it in the air, "I am free."
+
+Ruth's eyes watched him like one in torture.
+
+"How?" she said, speaking with difficulty. "You said you were free
+before."
+
+"Ah!" replied Dare, raising his forefinger, "I said so, but it was an
+error. I go to Vandon, and she will not go away. I go to London to my
+lawyer, and he says she is my wife."
+
+"You told me she was not."
+
+"It was an error," repeated Dare. "I had formerly been a husband to her,
+but we had been divorced; it was finished, wound up, and I thought she
+was no more my wife. There is in the English law something extraordinary
+which I do not comprehend, which makes an American divorce to remain a
+marriage in England."
+
+"Go on," said Ruth, shading her eyes with her hand.
+
+"I come back to Vandon," continued Dare, in a suppressed voice, "I come
+back overwhelmed, broken down, crushed under feet; and then,"--he was
+becoming dramatic, he felt the fire kindling--"I meet a friend, a noble
+heart, I confide in him. I tell all to Sir Charles Danvers,"--Ruth's
+hand was trembling--"and last night he finds out by a chance that she
+was not a true widow when I marry her, that her first husband was yet
+alive, that I am free. This morning he tells me all, and I am here."
+
+Ruth pressed her hands before her face, and fairly burst into tears.
+
+He looked at her in astonishment. He was surprised that she had any
+feelings. Never having shown them to the public in general, like
+himself, he had supposed she was entirely devoid of them. She now
+appeared quite _émue_. She was sobbing passionately. Tears came into his
+own eyes as he watched her, and then a light dawned upon him for the
+second time that day. Those tears were not for him. He folded his arms
+and waited. How suggestive in itself is a noble attitude!
+
+After a few minutes Ruth overcame her tears with a great effort, and,
+raising her head, looked at him, as if she expected him to speak. The
+suspense was gone out of her dimmed eyes, the tension of her face was
+relaxed.
+
+"I am free," repeated Dare, "and I have your promise that if I am free
+you will still marry me."
+
+Ruth looked up with a pained but resolute expression, and she would have
+spoken if he had not stopped her by a gesture.
+
+"I have your promise," he repeated. "I tell my friend, Sir Charles
+Danvers, I have it. He also loves. He does not tell me so; he is not
+open with me, as I with him, but I see his heart. And yet--figure to
+yourself--he has but to keep silence, and I must go away, I must give up
+all. I am still married--_Ou!_--while he--But he is noble, he is
+sublime. He sacrifices love on the altar of honor, of truth. He tells
+all to me, his rival. He shows me I am free. He thinks I do not know his
+heart. But it is not only he who can be noble." (Dare smote himself upon
+the breast.) "I also can lay my heart upon the altar. Ruth,"--with great
+solemnity--"do you love him even as he loves you?"
+
+There was a moment's pause.
+
+"I do," she said, firmly, "with my whole heart."
+
+"I knew it. I divined it. I sacrifice myself. I give you back your
+promise. I say farewell, and voyage in the distance. I return no more to
+Vandon. There is no longer a home for me in England. I leave only behind
+with you the poor heart you have possessed so long!"
+
+Dare was so much affected by the beauty of this last sentence that he
+could say no more, but even at that moment, as he glanced at Ruth to see
+what effect his eloquence had upon her, she looked so pallid and thin
+(her beauty was so entirely eclipsed) that the sacrifice did not seem
+quite so overwhelming, after all.
+
+She struggled to speak, but words failed her.
+
+He took her hands and kissed them, pressed them to his heart (it was a
+pity there was no one there to see), endeavored to say something more,
+and then rushed out of the room.
+
+She stood like one stunned after he had left her. She saw him a moment
+later cross the garden, and flee away across the fields. She knew she
+had seen that gray figure and jaunty gray hat for the last time; but she
+hardly thought of him. She felt she might be sorry for him presently,
+but not now.
+
+The suspense was over. The sense of relief was too overwhelming to admit
+of any other feeling at first. She dropped on her knees beside the
+writing-table, and locked her hands together.
+
+"_He told_," she whispered to herself. "Thank God! Thank God!"
+
+Two happy tears dropped onto Mr. Alwynn's old leather blotting-book,
+that worn cradle of many sermons.
+
+Was this the same world? Was this the same sun which was shining in upon
+her? What new songs were the birds practising outside? A strange
+wonderful joy seemed to pervade the very air she breathed, to flood her
+inmost soul. She had faced her troubles fairly well, but at this new
+great happiness she did not dare to look; and with a sudden involuntary
+gesture she hid her face in her hands.
+
+It would be rash to speculate too deeply on the nature of Dare's
+reflections as he hurried back to Atherstone; but perhaps, under the
+very real pang of parting with Ruth, he was sustained by a sense of the
+magnanimity of what, had he put it into words, he would have called his
+attitude, and possibly also by a lurking conviction, which had assisted
+his determination to resign her that life at Vandon, after the episode
+of the American wife's arrival, would be a social impossibility,
+especially to one anxious and suited to shine in society. Be that how it
+may, whatever had happened to influence him most of the chance emotion
+of the moment, it would be tolerably certain that in a few hours he
+would be sorry for what he had done. He was still, however, in a state
+of mental exaltation when he reached Atherstone, and began fumbling
+nervously with the garden-gate. Charles, who had been stalking up and
+down the bowling-green, went slowly towards him.
+
+"What on earth do you mean by going off in that way?" he asked, coldly.
+
+"Ah!" said Dare, perceiving him, "and she--the--is she gone?"
+
+"Yes, half an hour ago. Your dog-cart has come back from taking her to
+the station, and is here now."
+
+Dare nodded his head several times, and stood looking at him.
+
+"I have been to Slumberleigh," he said.
+
+"Yes, contrary to agreement."
+
+"My friend," Dare said, seizing the friend's limp, unresponsive hand and
+pressing it, "I know now why you keep silence last night. I reason with
+myself. I see you love her. Do not turn away. I have seen her. I have
+given her back her promise. I give her up to you whom she loves; and
+now--I go away, not to return."
+
+And then, in the full view of the Atherstone windows, of the butler, and
+of the dog-cart at the front door, Dare embraced him, kissing the
+blushing and disconcerted Charles on both cheeks. Then, in a moment,
+before the latter had recovered his self-possession, Dare had darted to
+the dog-cart, and was driving away.
+
+Charles looked after him in mixed annoyance and astonishment, until he
+noticed the butler's eye upon him, when he hastily retreated, with a
+heightened complexion, to the shrubberies.
+
+
+
+
+CONCLUSION.
+
+
+It was the last day of October, about a week after a certain very quiet
+little funeral had taken place in the D---- Cemetery. The death of
+Raymond Deyncourt had appeared in the papers a day or two afterwards,
+without mention of date or place, and it was generally supposed that it
+had taken place some considerable time previously, without the knowledge
+of his friends.
+
+Charles had been sitting for a long time with Mr. Alwynn, and after he
+left the rectory he took the path over the fields in the direction of
+the Slumberleigh woods.
+
+The low sun was shining redly through a golden haze, was sending long
+burning shafts across the glade where Charles was pacing. He sat down at
+last upon a fallen tree to wait for one who should presently come by
+that way.
+
+It was a still, clear afternoon, with a solemn stillness that speaks of
+coming change. Winter was at hand, and the woods were transfigured with
+a passing glory, like the faces of those who depart in peace when death
+draws nigh.
+
+Far and wide in the forest the bracken was all aflame--aflame beneath
+the glowing trees. The great beeches had turned to bronze and ruddy
+gold, and had strewed the path with carpets glorious and rare, which the
+first wind would sweep away. Upon the limes the amber leaves still hung,
+faint yet loath to go, but the horse-chestnut had already dropped its
+garment of green and yellow at its feet.
+
+A young robin was singing at intervals in the silence, telling how the
+secrets of the nests had been laid bare, singing a requiem on the dying
+leaves and the widowed branches, a song new to him, but with the old
+plaintive rapture in it that his fathers had been taught before him
+since the world began.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She came towards him down the yellow glade through the sunshine and the
+shadow, with a spray of briony in her hand. Neither spoke. She put her
+hands into the hands that were held out for them, and their eyes met,
+grave and steadfast, with the light in them of an unalterable love. So
+long they had looked at each other across a gulf. So long they had stood
+apart. And now, at last--at last--they were together. He drew her close
+and closer yet. They had no words. There was no need of words. And in
+the silence of the hushed woods, and in the silence of a joy too deep
+for speech, the robin's song came sweet and sad.
+
+"Charles!"
+
+"Ruth!"
+
+"I should like to tell you something."
+
+"And I should like to hear it."
+
+"I know what Raymond told you to conceal. I went to him just after you
+did. We passed you coming back. He did not know me at first. He thought
+I was you, and he kept repeating that you must keep your own counsel,
+and that, unless you showed Mr. Dare's marriage was illegal, he would
+never find it out. At last, when he suddenly recognized me, he seemed
+horror-struck, and the doctor came in and sent me away."
+
+Charles knew now why Raymond had sent for him the second time.
+
+There was a long pause.
+
+"Ruth, did you think I should tell?"
+
+"I hoped and prayed you would, but I knew it would be hard, because I do
+believe you actually thought at the time I should still consider it my
+duty to marry Mr. Dare. I never should have done such a thing after what
+had happened. I was just going to tell him so when he began to give me
+up, and it evidently gave him so much pleasure to renounce me nobly in
+your favor that I let him have it his own way, as the result was the
+same. My great dread, until he came, was that you had not spoken. I had
+been expecting him all the previous evening. Oh, Charles, Charles! I
+waited and watched for his coming as I had never done before. Your
+silence was the only thing I feared, because it was the only thing that
+could have come between us."
+
+"God forgive me! I meant at first to say nothing."
+
+"Only at first," said Ruth, gently; and they walked on in silence.
+
+The sun had set. A slender moon had climbed unnoticed into the southern
+sky amid the shafts of paling fire which stretched out across the whole
+heaven from the burning fiery furnace in the west. Across the gray dim
+fields voices were calling the cattle home.
+
+Charles spoke again at last in his usual tone.
+
+"You quite understand, Ruth, though I have not mentioned it so far, that
+you are engaged to marry me?"
+
+"I do. I will make a note of it if you wish."
+
+"It is unnecessary. I shall be happy, when I am at leisure to remind you
+myself. Indeed, I may say I shall make a point of doing so. There does
+not happen to be any one else whom you feel it would be your duty to
+marry?"
+
+"I can't think of any one at the moment. Charles, you never _could_ have
+believed I would marry _him_, after all?"
+
+"Indeed, I did believe it. Don't I know the stubbornness of your heart?
+You see, you are but young, and I make excuses for you; but, after you
+have been the object of my special and judicious training for a few
+years, I quite hope your judgment may improve considerably."
+
+"I trust it will, as I see from your remarks--it will certainly be all
+we shall have to guide us both."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+POSTSCRIPT.--Lady Mary would not allow even Providence any of the credit
+of Charles's engagement; she claimed the whole herself. She called
+Evelyn to witness that from the first it had been her work entirely. She
+only allowed Charles himself a very secondary part in the great event,
+to which she was apt to point in later years as the crowning work of a
+life devoted--under Church direction--to the temporal and spiritual
+welfare of her fellow-creatures; and Charles avers that a mention of it
+in the long list of her virtues will some day adorn the tombstone which
+she has long since ordered to be in readiness.
+
+Molly was disconsolate for many days, but work, that panacea of grief,
+came to the rescue, and it was not long before she was secretly and
+busily engaged on a large kettle-holder, with kettle and motto entwined,
+for Charles's exclusive use, without which she had been led to
+understand his establishment would be incomplete. When this work of art
+was finished her feelings had become so far modified towards Ruth that
+she consented to begin another very small and inferior one--merely a
+kettle on a red ground--for that interloper, but whether it was ever
+presented is not on record.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Vandon is to let. The grass has grown up again through the niches of the
+stone steps. The place looks wild and deserted. Mr. Alwynn comes
+sometimes, and looks up at its shuttered windows and trailing, neglected
+ivy, but not often, for it gives him a strange pang at the heart. And as
+he goes home the people come out of the dilapidated cottages, and ask
+wistfully when the new squire is coming back.
+
+But Mr. Alwynn does not know.
+
+
+  THE END.
+
+
+ *       *       *       *       *
+
+TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS CORRECTED
+
+The following typographical errors in the text were corrected as
+detailed here.
+
+In the text: " ... Mrs. Alwynn had the delight of taking her completely
+..." the word "competely" was corrected to "completely."
+
+In the text: "You evidently imagine that I have gone in for the
+fashionable creed of the young man" the word "fashionble" was corrected
+to "fashionable."
+
+In the text: "Molly, tired of her castles, suggested that she might sit
+on his knee," the word "hnee" was corrected to "knee."
+
+In the text: " ... Molly has formed a habit of expressing herself with
+unnecessary freedom." the word "Mary" was changed to "Molly."
+
+In the text: " ... as it reached the steps a shrill voice suddenly
+called" the word "suddedly" was corrected to "suddenly."
+
+In the text: "I considered her to be a pink-and-white nonentity... " the
+word "nonenity" was corrected to "nonentity."
+
+In the text: " ... pressing invitation to to come down... " the word
+"to" is repeated and one instance was removed.
+
+Misspelt proper names were also corrected: "Thurshy" was corrected to
+"Thursby," "Alywnn" was corrected to "Alwynn," and "Eveyln" was
+corrected to "Evelyn."
+
+Some punctuation was also regularized.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+BY LAFCADIO HEARN.
+
+TWO YEARS IN THE FRENCH WEST INDIES. By LAFCADIO HEARN. pp. 517.
+Copiously Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth. $2 00.
+
+THE CRIME OF SYLVESTRE BONNARD. By ANATOLE FRANCE. The Translation and
+Introduction by LAFCADIO HEARN. 8vo, Paper, 50 cents.
+
+CHITA: A Memory of Last Island. By LAFCADIO HEARN. pp. vi., 204. Post
+8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 00.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To such as are unfamiliar with Mr. Hearn's writings, "Chita" will be a
+revelation of how near language can approach the realistic power of
+actual painting. His very words seem to have color--his pages glow--his
+book is a kaleidoscope.--_N.Y. Mail and Express._
+
+A powerful story, rich in descriptive passages.... The tale is a tragic
+one, but it shows remarkable imaginative force, and is one that will not
+soon be forgotten by the reader.--_Saturday Evening Gazette_, Boston.
+
+Lafcadio Hearn's exquisite story.... A tale full of poetry and vivid
+description that nobody will want to miss.--_N.Y. Sun._
+
+A pathetic little tale, simple but deeply touching, and told with the
+beauty of phrasing and the deep and subtle sympathy of the
+poet.--_Chicago Times._
+
+There is no page--no paragraph even--but holds more of vital quality
+than would suffice to set up an ordinary volume.--_The Epoch_, N.Y.
+
+... A wonderfully sustained effort in imaginative prose, full of the
+glamour and opulent color of the tropics and yet strong with the salt
+breath of the sea.--_San Francisco Chronicle._
+
+Mr. Hearn is a poet, and in "Chita" he has produced a prose poem of much
+beauty.... His style is tropical, full of glow and swift movement and
+vivid impressions, reflecting strong love and keen sympathetic
+observation of nature, picturesque and flexible, luxuriant in imagery,
+and marked by a delicate perception of effective values.--_N.Y.
+Tribune._
+
+In the too few pages of this wonderful little book tropical Nature finds
+a living voice and a speech by which she can make herself known. All the
+splendor of her skies and the terrors of her seas make to themselves a
+language. So living a book has scarcely been given to our
+generation.--_Boston Transcript._
+
+
+PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK.
+
+_The above works sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the
+United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price._
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+THE ODD NUMBER.
+
+Thirteen Tales by GUY DE MAUPASSANT. The Translation by JONATHAN
+STURGES. An Introduction by HENRY JAMES. pp. xviii., 226. 16mo, Cloth,
+Ornamental, $1 00.
+
+
+The tales included in "The Odd Number" are little masterpieces, and done
+into very clear, sweet, simple English.--WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS.
+
+There is a charming individuality in each of these fascinating little
+tales; something elusive and subtle in every one, something quaint or
+surprising, which catches the fancy and gives a sense of satisfaction
+like that felt when one discovers a rare flower in an unexpected place.
+I predict that "The Odd Number" will soon be found lying in the corner
+of the sofa or on the table in the drawing-rooms of cultivated women
+everywhere.--MARGARET E. SANGSTER.
+
+Masterpieces.... Nothing can exceed the masculine firmness, the quiet
+force, of his own style, in which every phrase is a close sequence,
+every epithet a paying piece, and the ground is completely cleared of
+the vague, the ready-made, and the second-best. Less than any one to-day
+does he beat the air, more than any one does he hit out from the
+shoulder.... He came into the literary world, as he has himself related,
+under the protection of the great Flaubert. This was but a dozen years
+ago--for Guy de Maupassant belongs, among the distinguished Frenchmen of
+his period, to the new generation.--HENRY JAMES.
+
+As a rule I do not take kindly to translations. They are apt to resemble
+the originals as canned or dried fruits resemble fresh. But Mr. Sturges
+has preserved flavor and juices in this collection. Each story is a
+delight. Some are piquant, some pathetic--all are fascinating.--MARION
+HARLAND.
+
+What pure and powerful outlines, what lightness of stroke, and what
+precision; what relentless truth, and yet what charm! "The Beggar," "La
+Mère Sauvage," "The Wolf," grim as if they had dropped out of the
+mediæval mind; "The Necklace," with its applied pessimism; the
+tremendous fire and strength of "A Coward"; the miracle of splendor in
+"Moonlight"; the absolute perfection of a short story in
+"Happiness"--how various the view, how daring the touch! What freshness,
+what invention, and what wit! They are beautiful and heart-breaking
+little masterpieces, and "The Odd Number" makes one feel that Guy de
+Maupassant lays his hand upon the sceptre which only Daudet
+holds.--HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD.
+
+
+PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK.
+
+_The above work sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the United
+States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price._
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+MARÍA:
+
+A South American Romance. By JORGE ISAACS. Translated by ROLLO OGDEN. An
+Introduction by THOMAS A. JANVIER. pp. xvi., 302. 16mo, Cloth,
+Ornamental, $1 00. (_The Odd Number Series._)
+
+The great forests of cotton-wood, palms, and other tropical plants, the
+almost impassable rivers, the rich flowers which seem to spread their
+fragrance over every page, make a fascinating background to a story of
+tender sentiment.--_Boston Journal._
+
+Jorge Isaacs has given such a picture of home life, and of pure, almost
+ideal love in a Spanish American home, as to prove him a poetical genius
+and certainly a most charming romancer.... Simple and unaffected in
+style, yet with a sublime pathos, it is without doubt worthy to be
+ranked with "Paul and Virginia" among the classics.--_Presbyterian
+Banner_, Pittsburg.
+
+A treasure in romance which should at once take a well-deserved place in
+the front rank of modern fiction.--_North American_, Phila.
+
+It bears all the evidence of truthful portrayal of the Spanish American
+home, and the story is told so pleasingly and ingeniously as to make the
+chapters delightful.--_Chicago Inter-Ocean._
+
+Distinguished by a freshness and simplicity which recall some of the
+French sentimental novelists of the eighteenth century, and especially
+Bernardin St. Pierre.--_N.Y. Tribune._
+
+No novel reader will fail to read this beautiful story, which should
+find its way wherever the beautiful and the pure in literature are
+respected and loved.--_Catholic Review_, N.Y.
+
+The charm of the book is its simplicity and purity.... The author is a
+literary artist; his style is clear and winning, his thought
+stimulating, his purpose healthful. The story of love is told with much
+sweetness and pathos, while the descriptive passages display singular
+strength and sympathy for nature.--_Jewish Messenger_, N.Y.
+
+"María" is read and admired through all of South America. It would be
+difficult to find an educated South American who is not familiar with
+this idyllic story.--Judge JOSÉ ALFONSO, Chilian Delegate to the
+Pan-American Congress.
+
+_María: Novela Americana_ is one of the most charming stories I have
+ever read, and worthy the leading author of any country.--W.H. BISHOP,
+in _Scribner's Magazine._
+
+Aside altogether from the broad glimpses it gives of a life whereof we
+Northern Americans know absolutely nothing, it is a beautiful story, sad
+in its ending, but free from any tinge of coarseness or sensationalism,
+pure, sweet, warm with human love and tenderness.--_Chicago Times._
+
+
+PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK.
+
+_The above work will be sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of
+the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price._
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+BY CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER.
+
+
+A LITTLE JOURNEY IN THE WORLD. A Novel. pp. iv., 396. Post 8vo, Half
+Leather, $1 50.
+
+
+STUDIES IN THE SOUTH AND WEST, with Comments on Canada. pp. iv., 484.
+Post 8vo, Half Leather, $1 75.
+
+A witty, instructive book, as brilliant in its pictures as it is warm in
+its kindness; and we feel sure that it is with a patriotic impulse that
+we say that we shall be glad to learn that the number of its readers
+bears some proportion to its merits and its power for good.--_N.Y.
+Commercial Advertiser._
+
+Sketches made from studies of the country and the people upon the
+ground.... They are the opinions of a man and a scholar without
+prejudices, and only anxious to state the facts as they were.... When
+told in the pleasant and instructive way of Mr. Warner the studies are
+as delightful as they are instructive.--_Chicago Inter-Ocean._
+
+Perhaps the most accurate and graphic account of these portions of the
+country that has appeared, taken all in all.... It is a book most
+charming--a book that no American can fail to enjoy, appreciate, and
+highly prize.--_Boston Traveller._
+
+
+THEIR PILGRIMAGE. Richly Illustrated by C.S. REINHART. pp. viii., 364.
+Post 8vo, Half Leather, $2 00.
+
+Mr. Warner's pen-pictures of the characters typical of each resort, of
+the manner of life followed at each, of the humor and absurdities
+peculiar to Saratoga, or Newport, or Bar Harbor, as the case may be, are
+as good-natured as they are clever. The satire, when there is any, is of
+the mildest, and the general tone is that of one glad to look on the
+brightest side of the cheerful, pleasure-seeking world with which he
+mingles.--_Christian Union, N.Y._
+
+Mr. Reinhart's spirited and realistic illustrations are very attractive,
+and contribute to make an unusually handsome book. We have already
+commented upon the earlier chapters of the text; and the happy blending
+of travel and fiction which we looked forward to with confidence did, in
+fact, distinguish this story among the serials of the year.--_N.Y.
+Evening Post._
+
+
+PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK.
+
+_Any of the above works sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of
+the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price._
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+BY W.D. HOWELLS.
+
+A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. Illustrated. 8vo, Paper, 75 cents; 12mo,
+Cloth, 2 vols., $2 00.
+
+MODERN ITALIAN POETS. Essays and Versions. With Portraits. 12mo, Half
+Cloth, $2 00.
+
+A portfolio of delightsome studies among the Italian poets; musings in a
+golden granary full to the brim with good things.... We venture to say
+that no acute and penetrating critic surpasses Mr. Howells in true
+insight, in polished irony, in effective and yet graceful treatment of
+his theme, in that light and indescribable touch that lifts you over a
+whole sea of froth and foam, and fixes your eye, not on the froth and
+foam, but on the solid objects, the true heart and soul of the
+theme.--_Critic_, N.Y.
+
+
+ANNIE KILBURN. 12mo, Cloth, $1 50.
+
+Mr. Howells has certainly never given us in one novel so many portraits
+of intrinsic interest. Annie Kilburn herself is a masterpiece of quietly
+veracious art--the art which depends for its effect on unswerving
+fidelity to the truth of Nature.... It certainly seems to us the very
+best book that Mr. Howells has written.--_Spectator_, London.
+
+
+APRIL HOPES. 12mo, Cloth, $1 50.
+
+Mr. Howells never wrote a more bewitching book. It is useless to deny
+the rarity and worth of the skill that can report so perfectly and with
+such exquisite humor all the fugacious and manifold emotions of the
+modern maiden and her lover.--_Philadelphia Press._
+
+
+THE MOUSE-TRAP, and Other Farces. Post 8vo, Cloth, $1 00.
+
+Mr. Howells's gift of lively appreciation of the humors that lie on the
+surface of conduct and conversation, and his skill in reproducing them
+in literary form, make him peculiarly successful in his attempts at
+graceful, delicately humorous dialogue.... He can make his characters
+talk delightful badinage, or he can make them talk so characteristically
+as to fill the reader with silent laughter over their complete
+unconsciousness of their own absurdity.--_Boston Advertiser._
+
+
+PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK.
+
+_Any of the above works sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of
+the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price._
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+STEPNIAK'S WORKS.
+
+
+THE CAREER OF A NIHILIST. A Novel. 16mo, Cloth, 75 cents.
+
+THE RUSSIAN PEASANTRY: Their Agrarian Condition, Social Life, and
+Religion. 16mo, Cloth, $1 25.
+
+All thinking and disinterested people for whom Russia has an interest
+should read this volume not only for Russia's sake, but for our
+own.--_N.Y. Times._
+
+An absorbingly interesting volume.... Stepniak deserves the gratitude of
+his country and all mankind for painting Russian life as it is, and
+pointing out a practicable solution of its worst distresses.--_Literary
+World_, Boston.
+
+Altogether Stepniak's best book.--_St. James's Gazette_, London.
+
+A deeply interesting study of a subject full of strange new
+elements.--_N.Y. Tribune._
+
+For the student of Russia the book is invaluable. It contains more
+information, and gives us a better insight into the economic and
+domestic conditions of life among the peasants, and in Russia generally,
+than in any other book we know.--_The Academy_, London.
+
+
+RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. Illustrated. 4to, Paper, 20 cents.
+
+The book is very bold and very brilliant; it rests very largely on the
+author's personal experience, and no student of Russia should leave it
+unread or unnoticed.--_Boston Beacon._
+
+A graphic and startling picture of the despotism that rules the
+Muscovite nation, drawn by the pen of one of the ablest and most
+pronounced Nihilists of the day.--_Chicago Journal._
+
+
+THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD; or, Russia in Her Relation to Neighboring
+Countries. 4to, Paper, 20 cts.
+
+The author writes with a calmness and precision not generally associated
+with the class of revolutionists to which he belongs.--_N.Y. Sun._
+
+Stepniak gives a comprehensive view of the matter which he discusses,
+and his work is valuable as furnishing "the true inwardness" of affairs
+in the empire of the Tzar.--_Christian Advocate_, Cincinnati.
+
+
+PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK.
+
+_Any of the above works sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of
+the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+SEBASTOPOL.
+
+By Count LEO TOLSTOÏ. Translated by F.D. MILLET from the French (_Scenes
+du Siége de Sebastopol_). With Introduction by W.D. HOWELLS. With
+Portrait. 16mo, Cloth, 75 cents.
+
+In his Sebastopol sketches Tolstoï is at his best, and perhaps no more
+striking example of his manner and form can be found.--_N.Y. Tribune._
+
+There is much strong writing in the book; indeed, it is strength itself,
+and there is much tenderness as well.--_Boston Traveller._
+
+Its workmanship is superb, and morally its influence should be
+immense.--_Boston Herald._
+
+It carries us from the shams of society to the realities of war, and
+sets before us with a graphic power and minuteness the inner life of
+that great struggle in which Count Tolstoï took part.... A thrilling
+tale of besieged Sebastopol. All is intensely real, intensely life-like,
+and doubly striking from its very simplicity. We have before our eyes
+war as it really is.--_N.Y. Times._
+
+The various incidents of the siege which he selects in order to present
+it in its different aspects form a graphic whole which can never be
+forgotten by any one who has once read it, and it must be read to be
+appreciated.--_Nation_, N.Y.
+
+The descriptions, it is needless to say, are masterly. No novelist has
+ever before succeeded in thus depicting the emotions and utterances of
+the soldier in battle.--_Boston Beacon._
+
+A powerful appeal against warfare, written in that wonderful style which
+lends life and character to the most trivial incidents he describes. It
+is a fascinating book, and one of its chief merits is the introspective
+art and analytical power which every page reveals.... This is the most
+nervous and dramatic production of Tolstoï that has been rendered into
+English.--_N.Y. Sun._
+
+It is, undoubtedly, the most graphic and powerful of Tolstoï's works
+that has been given to the American reading public.... It should be read
+and pondered by Christians, philanthropists, statesmen--by every one who
+can think.--_Chicago Interior._
+
+The profound realism of the book, its native, organic strength, will
+make it one of the great books of the day. Certainly the underlying, the
+ever-present horrors of war have seldom been so strikingly set
+forth.--_St. Louis Republican._
+
+
+PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK.
+
+_The above work sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the United
+States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price._
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+By CAPT. CHARLES KING.
+
+A WAR-TIME WOOING. Illustrated by R.F. ZOGBAUM. pp. iv., 196. Post 8vo,
+Cloth, $1 00.
+
+BETWEEN THE LINES. A Story of the War. Illustrated by GILBERT GAUL. pp.
+iv., 312. Post 8vo, Cloth, $1 25.
+
+In all of Captain King's stories the author holds to lofty ideals of
+manhood and womanhood, and inculcates the lessons of honor, generosity,
+courage, and self-control.--_Literary World_, Boston.
+
+The vivacity and charm which signally distinguish Captain King's pen....
+He occupies a position in American literature entirely his own.... His
+is the literature of honest sentiment, pure and tender.... His heroes
+and his charming heroines are the product of the army, and it is
+pleasant to meet, even in this intangible way, women who can break their
+hearts and men who would die rather than sacrifice their honor.--_N.Y.
+Press._
+
+A romance by Captain King is always a pleasure, because he has so
+complete a mastery of the subjects with which he deals.... Captain King
+has few rivals in his domain.... The general tone of Captain King's
+stories is highly commendable. The heroes are simple, frank, and
+soldierly; the heroines are dignified and maidenly in the most
+unconventional situations.--_Epoch_, N.Y.
+
+All Captain King's stories are full of spirit and with the true ring
+about them.--_Philadelphia Item._
+
+Captain King's stories of army life are so brilliant and intense, they
+have such a ring of true experience, and his characters are so life-like
+and vivid that the announcement of a new one is always received with
+pleasure.--_New Haven Palladium._
+
+Captain King is a delightful story-teller.--_Washington Post._
+
+In the delineation of war scenes Captain King's style is crisp and
+vigorous, inspiring in the breast of the reader a thrill of genuine
+patriotic fervor.--_Boston Commonwealth._
+
+Captain King is almost without a rival in the field he has chosen....
+His style is at once vigorous and sentimental in the best sense of that
+word, so that his novels are pleasing to young men as well as young
+women.--_Pittsburgh Bulletin._
+
+It is good to think that there is at least one man who believes that all
+the spirit of romance and chivalry has not yet died out of the world,
+and that there are as brave and honest hearts to-day as there were in
+the days of knights and paladins.--_Philadelphia Record._
+
+PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK.
+
+_Either of the above works sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of
+the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price._
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+BY THEODORE CHILD.
+
+DELICATE FEASTING. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 25.
+
+Will be found invaluable in many a household where the mistress (or the
+master himself) takes an interest in preparing the supplies that come to
+the table.--_N.Y. Journal of Commerce._
+
+Recognizing the fact that the wise man does not live to eat, but rather
+eats to live, the author furnishes such rules as will enable cooks to
+make what is eaten palatable and healthful. People that give dinners
+will here find much assistance.--_Troy Press._
+
+The most hard-headed cook will acknowledge the pith, pointedness, and
+lucidity of Mr. Child's chapters on the chemistry of cookery, on the
+methods of preparing meats or vegetables, on acetaria, soups, and
+sauces; while the closing chapters on dining tables, dining-room
+decoration, table service, art in eating and on being invited to dine,
+have, to all who would further the amenities of civilization, a value
+that needs no comment.--_Brooklyn Times._
+
+A more sensible and delightful book of its kind would be difficult to
+name.... We cannot open this entertaining volume at any page without
+finding matter to instruct, or at least to invite reflection. The
+aphorisms on the gastronomic art, original or gathered from the highest
+authorities on the subject, are thoroughly sound.--_N.Y. Sun._
+
+
+
+SUMMER HOLIDAYS. Travelling Notes in Europe. Post 8vo, Cloth,
+Ornamental, $1 25.
+
+A delightful book of notes of European travel.... Mr. Child is an art
+critic, and takes us into the picture-galleries, but we never get any
+large and painful doses of art information from this skilful and
+discriminating guide. There is not a page of his book that approaches to
+dull reading.--_N.Y. Sun._
+
+Mr. Child is a shrewd observer and writer of an engaging style. He
+interests the reader with abundant information, and pleases him by his
+lively manner in communicating it.--_Hartford Courant._
+
+Mr. Child is a very agreeable travelling companion, and his choice of
+places for a summer ramble is excellent.... The French chapters--on
+Limoges, Reims, Aix-les-Bains, and especially the voyage on French
+rivers--are abundant in novelty and odd bits of interest, as well as in
+beauty of scene and sympathy.--_Nation_, N.Y.
+
+A very pleasant volume of sketches by an accomplished traveller, who
+knows how to see and how to describe, and who can give real information
+without wearisome detail.--_Providence Journal._
+
+
+PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK.
+
+_The above works will be sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of
+the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price._
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+BEN-HUR: A TALE OF THE CHRIST.
+
+By LEW WALLACE. New Edition, pp. 552. 16mo, Cloth, $1 50.
+
+Anything so startling, new, and distinctive as the leading feature of
+this romance does not often appear in works of fiction.... Some of Mr.
+Wallace's writing is remarkable for its pathetic eloquence. The scenes
+described in the New Testament are rewritten with the power and skill of
+an accomplished master of style.--_N.Y. Times._
+
+Its real basis is a description of the life of the Jews and Romans at
+the beginning of the Christian era, and this is both forcible and
+brilliant.... We are carried through a surprising variety of scenes; we
+witness a sea-fight, a chariot-race, the internal economy of a Roman
+galley, domestic interiors at Antioch, at Jerusalem, and among the
+tribes of the desert; palaces, prisons, the haunts of dissipated Roman
+youth, the houses of pious families of Israel. There is plenty of
+exciting incident; everything is animated, vivid, and glowing.--_N.Y.
+Tribune._
+
+From the opening of the volume to the very close the reader's interest
+will be kept at the highest pitch, and the novel will be pronounced by
+all one of the greatest novels of the day.--_Boston Post._
+
+It is full of poetic beauty, as though born of an Eastern sage, and
+there is sufficient of Oriental customs, geography, nomenclature, etc.,
+to greatly strengthen the semblance.--_Boston Commonwealth._
+
+"Ben-Hur" is interesting, and its characterization is fine and strong.
+Meanwhile it evinces careful study of the period in which the scene is
+laid, and will help those who read it with reasonable attention to
+realize the nature and conditions of Hebrew life in Jerusalem and Roman
+life at Antioch at the time of our Saviour's advent.--_Examiner_, N.Y.
+
+It is really Scripture history of Christ's time clothed gracefully and
+delicately in the flowing and loose drapery of modern fiction.... Few
+late works of fiction excel it in genuine ability and interest.--_N.Y.
+Graphic._
+
+One of the most remarkable and delightful books. It is as real and warm
+as life itself, and as attractive as the grandest and most heroic
+chapters of history.--_Indianapolis Journal._
+
+The book is one of unquestionable power, and will be read with unwonted
+interest by many readers who are weary of the conventional novel and
+romance.--_Boston Journal._
+
+
+PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK.
+
+_The above work sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the United
+States or Canada, on receipt of the price._
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles
+Danvers, by Mary Cholmondeley
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+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DANVERS JEWELS ***
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+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
+  <head>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
+    <title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Danvers Jewels and Sir Charles
+    Danvers, by Mary Cholmondeley.
+    </title>
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers, by 
+Mary Cholmondeley
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers
+
+Author: Mary Cholmondeley
+
+Release Date: August 10, 2006 [EBook #19020]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DANVERS JEWELS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Geetu Melwani, Suzanne Shell and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+<p class="tr"> <b>Transcriber's notes.</b><br />
+<br />A number of typographical errors found in the
+original text have been corrected in this version. A <a href="#note">list</a> of these
+errors is found at the end (before the advertisments from the
+original book).</p>
+
+
+
+
+<h1>The Danvers Jewels<br />
+
+and<br />
+
+Sir Charles Danvers</h1>
+
+<h3>by</h3>
+
+<h2>Mary Cholmondeley</h2>
+
+
+
+
+<p class="center">NEW YORK</p>
+
+<p class="center">HARPER &amp; BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE</p>
+
+<p class="center">1890</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">TO MY SISTER</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">"DI"</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">I AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATE THE STORY</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">WHICH SHE HELPED ME</span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;">TO WRITE</span><br />
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>TABLE OF CONTENTS.</h2>
+
+<table class="index" summary="contents">
+<tr>
+<td colspan ="2"><a href="#THE_DANVERS_JEWELS"><b>THE DANVERS JEWELS.</b></a></td><td class ="number"><b>Page 9</b></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan ="2"> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_I"><b>CHAPTER I.</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan ="2"> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_II"><b>CHAPTER II.</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan ="2"> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_III"><b>CHAPTER III.</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan ="2"> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_IV"><b>CHAPTER IV.</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan ="2"> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_V"><b>CHAPTER V.</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan ="2"> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_VI"><b>CHAPTER VI.</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan ="2"> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_VII"><b>CHAPTER VII.</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan ="2"> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII"><b>CHAPTER VIII.</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan ="2"> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_IX"><b>CHAPTER IX.</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan ="2"> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_X"><b>CHAPTER X</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan ="2"> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XI"><b>CHAPTER XI.</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan ="2"> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XII"><b>CHAPTER XII.</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan ="2"> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XIII"><b>CHAPTER XIII.</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan ="2"> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="#CONCLUSION"><b>CONCLUSION.</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr><td>&nbsp; &nbsp;</td></tr><tr>
+<td colspan ="2"><a href="#SIR_CHARLES_DANVERS"><b>SIR CHARLES DANVERS.</b></a></td><td class ="number"><b>Page 93</b></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan ="2"> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_Ib"><b>CHAPTER I.</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan ="2"> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_IIb"><b>CHAPTER II.</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan ="2"> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_IIIb"><b>CHAPTER III.</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan ="2"> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_IVb"><b>CHAPTER IV.</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan ="2"> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_Vb"><b>CHAPTER V.</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan ="2"> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_VIb"><b>CHAPTER VI.</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan ="2"> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_VIIb"><b>CHAPTER VII.</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan ="2"> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_VIIIb"><b>CHAPTER VIII.</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan ="2"> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_IXb"><b>CHAPTER IX.</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan ="2"> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_Xb"><b>CHAPTER X.</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan ="2"> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XIb"><b>CHAPTER XI.</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan ="2"> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XIIb"><b>CHAPTER XII.</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan ="2"> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XIIIb"><b>CHAPTER XIII.</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan ="2"> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XIVb"><b>CHAPTER XIV.</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan ="2"> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XV"><b>CHAPTER XV.</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan ="2"> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XVI"><b>CHAPTER XVI.</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan ="2"> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XVII"><b>CHAPTER XVII.</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan ="2"> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII"><b>CHAPTER XVIII.</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan ="2"> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XIX"><b>CHAPTER XIX.</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan ="2"> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XX"><b>CHAPTER XX.</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan ="2"> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XXI"><b>CHAPTER XXI.</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan ="2"> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XXII"><b>CHAPTER XXII.</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan ="2"> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII"><b>CHAPTER XXIII.</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan ="2"> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV"><b>CHAPTER XXIV.</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan ="2"> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XXV"><b>CHAPTER XXV.</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan ="2"> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI"><b>CHAPTER XXVI.</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan ="2"> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII"><b>CHAPTER XXVII.</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan ="2"> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII"><b>CHAPTER XXVIII.</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan ="2"> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX"><b>CHAPTER XXIX.</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan ="2"> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XXX"><b>CHAPTER XXX.</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan ="2"> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI"><b>CHAPTER XXXI.</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td colspan ="2"> &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="#CONCLUSIONb"><b>CONCLUSION.</b></a></td>
+</tr><tr><td>&nbsp; &nbsp;</td></tr><tr>
+<td colspan ="2"><a href="#ADS"><b>ADVERTISMENTS PRINTED AT THE BACK OF THE BOOK.</b></a></td>
+</tr></table>
+
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="THE_DANVERS_JEWELS" id="THE_DANVERS_JEWELS"></a>THE DANVERS JEWELS.</h2>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2>
+
+
+<p>I was on the point of leaving India and returning to England when he
+sent for me. At least, to be accurate&mdash;and I am always accurate&mdash;I was
+not quite on the point, but nearly, for I was going to start by the mail
+on the following day. I had been up to Government House to take my leave
+a few days before, but Sir John had been too ill to see me, or at least
+he had said he was. And now he was much worse&mdash;dying, it seemed, from
+all accounts; and he had sent down a native servant in the noon-day heat
+with a note, written in his shaking old hand, begging me to come up as
+soon as it became cooler. He said he had a commission which he was
+anxious I should do for him in England.</p>
+
+<p>Of course I went. It was not very convenient, because I had to borrow
+one of our fellows' traps, as I had sold my own, and none of them had
+the confidence in my driving which I had myself. I was also obliged to
+leave the packing of my collection of Malay <i>krises</i> and Indian
+<i>kookeries</i> to my bearer.</p>
+
+<p>I wondered as I drove along why Sir John had sent for me. Worse, was he?
+Dying? And without a friend. Poor old man! He had done pretty well in
+this world, but I was afraid he would not be up to much once he was out
+of it; and now it seemed he was going. I felt sorry for him. I felt more
+sorry when I saw him&mdash;when the tall, long-faced A.D.C. took me into his
+room and left us. Yes, Sir John was certainly going. There was no
+mistake about it. It was written in every line of his drawn fever-worn
+face, and in his wide fever-lit eyes, and in the clutch of his long
+yellow hands upon his tussore silk dressing-gown. He looked a very sick
+bad old man as he lay there on his low couch, placed so as to court the
+air from without, cooled by its passage through damped grass screens,
+and to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> receive the full strength of the punka, pulled by an invisible
+hand outside.</p>
+
+<p>"You go to England to-morrow?" he asked, sharply.</p>
+
+<p>It was written even in the change of his voice, which was harsh, as of
+old, but with all the strength gone out of it.</p>
+
+<p>"By to-morrow's mail," I said. I should have liked to say something
+more&mdash;something sympathetic about his being ill and not likely to get
+better; but he had always treated me discourteously when he was well,
+and I could not open out all at once now that he was ill.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here, Middleton," he went on; "I am dying, and I know it. I don't
+suppose you imagined I had sent for you to bid you a last farewell
+before departing to my long home. I am not in such a hurry to depart as
+all that, I can tell you; but there is something I want done&mdash;that I
+want you to do for me. I meant to have done it myself, but I am down
+now, and I must trust somebody. I know better than to trust a clever
+man. An honest fool&mdash;But I am digressing from the case in point. I have
+never trusted anybody all my life, so you may feel honored. I have a
+small parcel which I want you to take to England for me. Here it is."</p>
+
+<p>His long lean hands went searching in his dressing-gown, and presently
+produced an old brown bag, held together at the neck by a string.</p>
+
+<p>"See here!" he said; and he pushed the glasses and papers aside from the
+table near him and undid the string. Then he craned forward to look
+about him, laying a spasmodic clutch on the bag. "I'm watched! I know
+I'm watched!" he said in a whisper, his pale eyes turning slowly in
+their sockets. "I shall be killed for them if I keep them much longer,
+and I won't be hurried into my grave. I'll take my own time."</p>
+
+<p>"There is no one here," I said, "and no one in sight except Cathcart,
+smoking in the veranda, and I can only see his legs, so he can't see
+us."</p>
+
+<p>He seemed to recover himself, and laughed. I had never liked his laugh,
+especially when, as had often happened, it had been directed against
+myself; but I liked it still less now.</p>
+
+<p>"See here!" he repeated, chuckling; and he turned the bag inside out
+upon the table.</p>
+
+<p>Such jewels I had never seen. They fell like cut flame upon the marble
+table&mdash;green and red and burning white. A large diamond rolled and fell
+upon the floor. I picked it up and put it back among<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> the confused blaze
+of precious stones, too much astonished for a moment to speak.</p>
+
+<p>"Beautiful! aren't they?" the old man chuckled, passing his wasted hands
+over them. "You won't match that necklace in any jeweller's in England.
+I tore it off an old she-devil of a Rhanee's neck after the Mutiny, and
+got a bite in the arm for my trouble. But she'll tell no tales. He! he!
+he! I don't mind saying now how I got them. I am a humble Christian, now
+I am so near heaven&mdash;eh, Middleton? He! he! You don't like to contradict
+me. Look at those emeralds. The hasp is broken, but it makes a pretty
+bracelet. I don't think I'll tell you how the hasp got broken&mdash;little
+accident as the lady who wore it gave it to me. Rather brown, isn't it,
+on one side? but it will come off. No, you need not be afraid of
+touching it, it isn't wet. He! he! And this crescent. Look at those
+diamonds. A duchess would be proud of them. I had them from a private
+soldier. I gave him two rupees for them. Dear me! how the sight of them
+brings back old times. But I won't leave them out any longer. We must
+put them away&mdash;put them away." And the glittering mass was gathered up
+and shovelled back into the old brown bag. He looked into it once with
+hungry eyes, and then he pulled the string and pushed it over to me.
+"Take it," he said. "Put it away now. Put it away," he repeated, as I
+hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>I put the bag into my pocket. He gave a long sigh as he watched it
+disappear.</p>
+
+<p>"Now what you have got to do with that bag," he said, a moment
+afterwards, "is to take it to Ralph Danvers, the second son of Sir
+George Danvers, of Stoke Moreton, in D&mdash;&mdash;shire. Sir George has got two
+sons. I have never seen him or his sons, but I don't mean the eldest to
+have them. He is a spendthrift. They are all for Ralph, who is a steady
+fellow, and going to marry a nice girl&mdash;at least, I suppose she is a
+nice girl. Girls who are going to be married always <i>are</i> nice. Those
+jewels will sweeten matrimony for Mr. Ralph, and if she is like other
+women it will need sweetening. There, now you have got them, and that is
+what you have got to do with them. There is the address written on this
+card. With my compliments, you perceive. He! he! I don't suppose they
+will remember who I am."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you no relations?" I asked; for I am always strongly of opinion
+that property should be bequeathed to relatives, especially near
+relatives, rather than to entire strangers.</p>
+
+<p>"None," he replied, "not even poor relations. I have no deserv<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>ing
+nephew or Scotch cousin. If I had, they would be here at this moment
+smoothing the pillow of the departing saint, and wondering how much they
+would get. You may make your mind easy on that score."</p>
+
+<p>"Then who is this Ralph whom you have never seen, and to whom you are
+leaving so much?" I asked, with my usual desire for information.</p>
+
+<p>He glared at me for a moment, and then he turned his face away.</p>
+
+<p>"D&mdash;&mdash;n it! What does it matter, now I'm dying?" he said. And then he
+added, hoarsely, "I knew his mother."</p>
+
+<p>I could not speak, but involuntarily I put out my hand and took his
+leaden one and held it. He scowled at me, and then the words came out,
+as if in spite of himself&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"She&mdash;if she had married me, who knows what might&mdash;But she married
+Danvers. She called her second son Ralph. My first name is Ralph." Then,
+with a sudden change of tone, pulling away his hand, "There! now you
+know all about it! Edifying, isn't it? These death-bed scenes always
+have an element of interest, haven't they? <i>Good</i>-evening"&mdash;ringing the
+bell at his elbow&mdash;"I can't say I hope we shall meet again. It would be
+impolite. No, don't let me keep you. Good-bye again."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye, Sir John," I said, taking his impatient hand and shaking it
+gently; "God bless you."</p>
+
+<p>"Thankee," grinned the old man, with a sardonic chuckle; "if anything
+could do me good that will, I'm sure. Good-bye."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>As I breakfasted next morning, previously to my departure, I could not
+help reflecting on the different position in which I was now returning
+to England, as a colonel on long leave, to that in which I had left it
+many&mdash;I do not care to think how many&mdash;years ago, the youngest ensign in
+the regiment.</p>
+
+<p>It was curious to remember that in my youth I had always been considered
+the fool of the family; most unjustly so considered when I look back at
+my quick promotion owing to casualties, and at my long and prosperous
+career in India, which I cannot but regard as the result of high
+principles and abilities, to say the least of it, of not the meanest
+order. On the point of returning to England, the trust Sir John had with
+his usual shrewdness reposed in me was an additional proof, if proof
+were needed, of the confidence I had inspired in him&mdash;a confidence which
+seemed to have ripened suddenly at the end of his life, after many years
+of hardly concealed mockery and derision.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> Just as I was finishing my
+reflections and my breakfast, Dickson, one of the last joined
+subalterns, came in.</p>
+
+<p>"This is very awful," he said, so gravely that I turned to look at him.</p>
+
+<p>"What is awful?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you know?" he replied. "Haven't you heard about&mdash;Sir John&mdash;last
+night?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dead?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>He nodded; and then he said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Murdered in the night! Cathcart heard a noise and went in, and stumbled
+over him on the floor. As he came in he saw the lamp knocked over, and a
+figure rush out through the veranda. The moon was bright, and he saw a
+man run across a clear space in the moonlight&mdash;a tall, slightly built
+man in native dress, but not a native, Cathcart said; that he would take
+his oath on, by his build. He roused the house, but the man got clean
+off, of course."</p>
+
+<p>"And Sir John?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sir John was quite dead when Cathcart got back to him. He found him
+lying on his face. His arms were spread out, and his dressing-gown was
+torn, as if he had struggled hard. His pockets had been turned inside
+out, his writing-table drawers forced open, the whole room had been
+ransacked; yet the old man's gold watch had not been touched, and some
+money in one of the drawers had not been taken. What on earth is the
+meaning of it all?" said young Dickson, below his breath. "What was the
+thief after?"</p>
+
+<p>In a moment the truth flashed across my brain. I put two and two
+together as quickly as most men, I fancy. <i>The jewels!</i> Some one had got
+wind of the jewels, which at that moment were reposing on my own person
+in their old brown bag. Sir John had been only just in time.</p>
+
+<p>"What was he looking for?" continued Dickson, walking up and down. "The
+old man must have had some paper or other about him that he wanted to
+get hold of. But what? Cathcart says that nothing whatever has been
+taken, as far as he can see at present."</p>
+
+<p>I was perfectly silent. It is not every man who would have been so in my
+place, but I was. I know when to hold my tongue, thank Heaven!</p>
+
+<p>Presently the others came in, all full of the same subject, and then
+suddenly I remembered that it was getting late; and there was a bustle
+and a leave-taking, and I had to post off before I could hear more. Not,
+however, that there was much more to hear, for every<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>thing seemed to be
+in the greatest confusion, and every species of conjecture was afloat as
+to the real criminal, and the motive for the crime. I had not much time
+to think of anything during the first day on board; yet, busy as I was
+in arranging and rearranging my things, poor old Sir John never seemed
+quite absent from my mind. His image, as I had last seen him, constantly
+rose before me, and the hoarse whisper was forever sounding in my ears,
+"I'm watched! I know I'm watched!" I could not get him out of my head. I
+was unable to sleep the first night I was on board, and, as the long
+hours wore on, I always seemed to see the pale searching eyes of the
+dead man; and above the manifold noises of the steamer, and the
+perpetual lapping of the calm water against my ear, came the whisper,
+"I'm watched! I know I'm watched!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2>
+
+
+<p>I was all right next day. I suppose I had had what women call <i>nerves</i>.
+I never knew what nerves meant before, because no two women I ever met
+seemed to have the same kind. If it is slamming a door that upsets one
+woman's nerves, it may be coming in on tiptoe that will upset another's.
+You never can tell. But I am sure it was nerves with me that first
+night; I know I have never felt so queer since. Oh yes I have,
+though&mdash;once. I was forgetting; but I have not come to that yet.</p>
+
+<p>We had a splendid passage home. Most of the passengers were in good
+spirits at the thought of seeing England again, and even the children
+were not so troublesome as I have known them. I soon made friends with
+some of the nicest people, for I generally make friends easily. I do not
+know how I do it, but I always seem to know what people really are at
+first sight. I always was rather a judge of character.</p>
+
+<p>There was one man on board whom I took a great fancy to from the first.
+He was a young American, travelling about, as Americans do, to see the
+world. I forget where he had come from&mdash;though I believe he told me&mdash;or
+why he was going to London; but a nicer young fellow I never met. He was
+rather simple and unsophisticated, and with less knowledge of the world
+than any man I ever knew; but he did not mind owning to it, and was as
+grateful as possible for any little hints which, as an older man who had
+not gone<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> through life with his eyes shut, I was of course able to give
+him. He was of a shy disposition I could see, and wanted drawing out;
+but he soon took to me, and in a surprisingly short time we became
+friends. He was in the next cabin to mine, and evidently wished so much
+to have been with me, that I tried to get another man to exchange; but
+he was grumpy about it, and I had to give it up, much to young Carr's
+disappointment. Indeed, he was quite silent and morose for a whole day
+about it, poor fellow. He was a tall handsome young man, slightly built,
+with the kind of sallow complexion that women admire, and I wondered at
+his preferring my company to that of the womankind on board, who were
+certainly very civil to him. One evening when I was rallying him on the
+subject, as we were leaning over the side (for though it was December it
+was hot enough in the Red Sea to lounge on deck), he told me that he was
+engaged to be married to a beautiful young American girl. I forget her
+name, but I remember he told it me&mdash;Dulcima Something&mdash;but it is of no
+consequence. I quite understood then. I always can enter into the
+feelings of others so entirely. I know when I was engaged myself once,
+long ago, I did not seem to care to talk to any one but her. She did not
+feel the same about it, which perhaps accounted for her marrying some
+one else, which was quite a blow to me at the time. But still I could
+fully enter into young Carr's feelings, especially when he went on to
+expatiate on her perfections. Nothing, he averred, was too good for her.
+At last he dropped his voice, and, after looking about him in the dusk,
+to make sure he was not overheard, he said:</p>
+
+<p>"I have picked up a few stones for her on my travels; a few sapphires of
+considerable value. I don't care to have it generally known that I have
+jewels about me, but I don't mind telling <i>you</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear fellow," I replied, laying my hand on his shoulder, and sinking
+my voice to a whisper, "not a soul on board this vessel suspects it, but
+so have I."</p>
+
+<p>It was too dark for me see his face, but I felt that he was much
+impressed by what I had told him.</p>
+
+<p>"Then <i>you</i> will know where I had better keep mine," he said, a moment
+later, with his impulsive boyish confidence. "How fortunate I told you
+about them. Some are of considerable value, and&mdash;and I don't know where
+to put them that they will be absolutely safe. I never carried about
+jewels with me before, and I am nervous about <i>losing</i> them, you
+understand." And he nodded significantly at me. "Now where would you
+advise me to keep them?"</p>
+
+<p>"On you," I said, significantly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"But where?"</p>
+
+<p>He was simpler than even I could have believed.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear boy," I said, hardly able to refrain from laughing, "do as I
+do; put them in a bag with a string to it. Put the string round your
+neck, and wear that bag under your clothes night and day."</p>
+
+<p>"At night as well?" he asked, anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course. You are just as likely to <i>lose</i> them, as you call it, in
+the night as in the day."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm very much obliged to you," he replied. "I will take your advice
+this very night. I say," he added, suddenly, "you would not care to see
+them, would you? I would not have any one else catch sight of them for a
+good deal, but I would show you them in a moment. Every one else is on
+deck just now, if you would like to come down into my cabin."</p>
+
+<p>I hardly know one stone from another, and never could tell a diamond
+from paste; but he seemed so anxious to show me what he had, that I did
+not like to refuse.</p>
+
+<p>"By all means," I said. And we went below.</p>
+
+<p>It was very dark in Carr's cabin, and after he had let me in he locked
+the door carefully before he struck a light. He looked quite pale in the
+light of the lamp after the red dusk of the warm evening on deck.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to have other fellows coming in," he said in a whisper,
+nodding at the door.</p>
+
+<p>He stood looking at me for a moment as if irresolute, and then he
+suddenly seemed to arrive at some decision, for he pulled a small parcel
+out of his pocket and began to open it.</p>
+
+<p>They really were not much to look at, though I would not have told him
+so for worlds. There were a few sapphires&mdash;one of a considerable size,
+but uncut&mdash;and some handsome turquoises, but not of perfect color. He
+turned them over with evident admiration.</p>
+
+<p>"They will look lovely, set in gold, as a bracelet on <i>her</i> arm," he
+said, softly. He was very much in love, poor fellow! And then he added,
+humbly, "But I dare say they are nothing to yours."</p>
+
+<p>I chuckled to myself at the thought of his astonishment when he should
+actually behold them; but I only said, "Would you like to see them, and
+judge for yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! if it is not giving you too much trouble," he exclaimed,
+gratefully, with shining eyes. "It's very kind of you. I did not like to
+ask. Have you got them with you?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I nodded, and proceeded to unbutton my coat.</p>
+
+<p>At that moment a voice was heard shouting down the companion-ladder:
+"Carr! I say, Carr, you are wanted!" and in another moment some one was
+hammering on the door.</p>
+
+<p>Carr sprang to his feet, looking positively savage.</p>
+
+<p>"Carr!" shouted the voice again. "Come out, I say; you are wanted!"</p>
+
+<p>"Button up your coat," he whispered, scowling suddenly; and with an oath
+he opened the door.</p>
+
+<p>Poor Carr! He was quite put out, I could see, though he recovered
+himself in a moment, and went off laughing with the man, who had been
+sent for him to take his part in a rehearsal which had been suddenly
+resolved on; for theatricals had been brewing for some time, and he had
+promised to act in them. I had not been asked to join, so I saw no more
+of him that night. The following morning, as I was taking an early turn
+on the deck, he joined me, and said, with a smile, as he linked his arm
+in mine, "I was put out last night, wasn't I?"</p>
+
+<p>"But you got over it in a moment," I replied. "I quite admired you; and,
+after all, you know&mdash;some other time."</p>
+
+<p>"No," he said, smiling still, "not some other time. I don't think I will
+see them&mdash;thanks all the same. They might put me out of conceit with
+what I have picked up for my little girl, which are the best I can
+afford."</p>
+
+<p>He seemed to have lost all interest in the subject, for he began to talk
+of England, and of London, about which he appeared to have that kind of
+vague half-and-half knowledge which so often proves misleading to young
+men newly launched into town life. When he found out, as he soon did,
+that I was, to a certain extent, familiar with the metropolis, he began
+to question me minutely, and ended by making me promise to dine with him
+at the Criterion, of which he had actually never heard, and go with him
+afterwards to the best of the theatres the day after we arrived in
+London.</p>
+
+<p>He wanted me to go with him the very evening we arrived, but on that
+point I was firm. My sister Jane, who was living with a hen canary
+(called Bob, after me, before its sex was known) in a small house in
+Kensington, would naturally be hurt if I did not spend my first evening
+in England with her, after an absence of so many years.</p>
+
+<p>Carr was much interested to hear that I had a sister, and asked
+innumerable questions about her. Was she young and lovely, or was she
+getting on? Did she live all by herself, and was I going to stay<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> with
+her for long? Was not Kensington&mdash;was that the name of the
+street?&mdash;rather out of the world? etc.</p>
+
+<p>I was pleased with the interest he took in any particulars about myself
+and my relations. People so seldom care to hear about the concerns of
+others. Indeed, I have noticed, as I advance in life, such a general
+want of interest on the part of my acquaintance in the minuti&aelig; of my
+personal affairs that of late I have almost ceased to speak of them at
+any length. Carr, however, who was of what I should call a truly
+domestic turn of character, showed such genuine pleasure in hearing
+about myself and my relations, that I asked him to call in London in
+order to make Jane's acquaintance, and accordingly gave him her address,
+which he took down at once in his note-book with evident satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>Our passage was long, but it proved most uneventful; and except for an
+occasional dance, and the theatricals before-mentioned, it would have
+been dull in the extreme. The theatricals certainly were a great
+success, mainly owing to the splendid acting of young Carr, who became
+afterwards a more special object of favor even than he was before. It
+was bitterly cold when we landed early in January at Southampton, and my
+native land seemed to have retired from view behind a thick veil of fog.
+We had a wretched journey up to London, packed as tight as sardines in a
+tin, much to the disgust of Carr, who accompanied me to town, and who,
+with his usual thoughtfulness, had in vain endeavored to keep the
+carriage to ourselves, by liberal tips to guards and porters. When we at
+last arrived in London he insisted on getting me a cab and seeing my
+luggage onto it, before he looked after his own at all. It was only when
+I had given the cabman my sister's address that he finally took his
+leave, and disappeared among the throng of people who were jostling each
+other near the luggage-vans.</p>
+
+<p>Curiously enough, when I arrived at my destination an odd thing
+happened. I got out at the green door of 23, Suburban Residences, and
+when the maid opened it, walked straight past her into the drawing-room.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Jane!" I cried.</p>
+
+<p>A pale middle-aged woman rose as I came in, and I stood aghast. It was
+not my sister. It was soon explained. She was a little pettish about it,
+poor woman! It seemed my sister had quite recently changed her house,
+and the present occupant had been put to some slight inconvenience
+before by people calling and leaving parcels after her departure. She
+gave me Jane's new address, which was only in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> the next street, and I
+apologized and made my bow at once. My going to the wrong house was such
+a slight occurrence that I almost forgot it at the time, until I was
+reminded of it by a very sad event which happened afterwards.</p>
+
+<p>Jane was delighted to see me. It seemed she had written to inform me of
+her change of address, but the letter did not reach me before I started
+for England with the Danvers jewels, about which I have been asked to
+write this account. Considering this <i>is</i> an account of the jewels, it
+is wonderful how seldom I have had occasion to mention them so far; but
+you may rest assured that all this time they were safe in their bag
+under my waiscoat; and knowing I had them there all right, I did not
+trouble my head much about them. I never was a person to worry about
+things.</p>
+
+<p>Still I had no wish to be inconvenienced by a hard packet of little
+knobs against my chest any longer than was necessary, and I wrote the
+same evening to Sir George Danvers, stating the bare facts of the case,
+and asking what steps he or his second son wished me to take to put the
+legacy in the possession of its owner. I had no notion of trusting a
+packet of such immense value to the newly organized Parcels Post. With
+jewels I consider you cannot be too cautious. Indeed, I told Jane so at
+the time, and she quite agreed with me.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2>
+
+
+<p>I did not much like the arrangement of Jane's new house when I came to
+stay in it. The way the two bedrooms, hers and mine, were shut off from
+the rest of the house by a door, barred and locked at night for fear of
+burglars, was, I thought, unpleasant, especially as, once in my room for
+the night, there was no possibility of getting out of it, the key of the
+door of the passage not being even allowed to remain in the lock, but
+retiring with Jane, the canary cage, and other valuables, into her own
+apartment. I remonstrated, but I soon found that Jane had not remained
+unmarried for nothing. She was decided on the point. The outer door
+would be locked as usual, and the key would be deposited under the
+pin-cushion in her room, as usual; and it was so.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning, as Jane and I went out for a stroll before luncheon,
+we had to pass the house to which I had driven by mistake the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> day
+before. To our astonishment, there was a crowd before the door, and a
+policeman with his back to it was guarding the entrance. The blinds were
+all drawn down. The image of the pale lonely woman, sitting by her
+little fire, whom I had disturbed the day before, came suddenly back to
+me with a strange qualm.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" I hurriedly asked a baker's boy, who was standing at an
+area railing, rubbing his chin against the loaf he was waiting to
+deliver. The boy grinned.</p>
+
+<p>"It's murder!" he said, with relish. "Burgilars in the night. I've
+supplied her reg'lar these two months. One quartern best white, one
+half-quartern brown every morning, French rolls occasional; but it's all
+up now." And he went off whistling a tune which all bakers' boys
+whistled about that time, called "My Grandfather's Timepiece," or
+something similar.</p>
+
+<p>A second policeman came up the street at this moment, and from him I
+learned all the little there was to know. The poor lady had not been
+murdered, it seemed, but, being subject to heart complaint, had died in
+the night of an acute attack, evidently brought on by fright. The maid,
+the only other person in the house, sleeping as maids-of-all-work only
+can, had heard nothing, and awoke in the morning to find her mistress
+dead in her bed, with the window and door open. "Strangely enough," the
+policeman added, "although nothing in the house had been touched, the
+lock of an unused bedroom had been forced, and the room evidently
+searched."</p>
+
+<p>Poor Jane was quite overcome. She seemed convinced that it was only by a
+special intervention of Providence that she had changed her house, and
+that her successor had been sacrificed instead of herself.</p>
+
+<p>"It might have been me!" she said over and over again that afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>Wishing to give a turn to her thoughts, I began to talk about Sir John's
+legacy, in which she had evinced the greatest interest the night before,
+and, greatly to her delight, showed her the jewels. I had not looked at
+them since Sir John had given them to me, and I was myself astonished at
+their magnificence, as I spread them out on the table under the
+gas-lamp. Jane exhausted herself in admiration; but as I was putting
+them away again, saying it was time for me to be dressing and going to
+meet Carr, who was to join me at the Criterion, she begged me on no
+account to take them with me, affirming that it would be much safer to
+leave them at home. I was firm, but she was firmer; and in the end I
+allowed her to lock <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> them up in the tea-caddy, where her small stock of
+ready money reposed.</p>
+
+<p>I met Carr as we had arranged, and we had a very pleasant evening. Poor
+Carr, who had seen the papers, had hardly expected that I should turn
+up, knowing the catastrophe of the previous night had taken place at the
+house I was going to, and was much relieved to hear that my sister had
+moved, and had thus been spared all the horror of the event.</p>
+
+<p>The dinner was good, the play better. I should have come home feeling
+that I had enjoyed myself thoroughly, if it had not been for a little
+adventure with our cab-driver that very nearly proved serious. We got a
+hansom directly we came out of the theatre, but instead of taking us to
+the direction we gave him, after we had driven for some distance I began
+to make out that the cabman was going wrong, and Carr shouted to him to
+stop; but thereupon he lashed up his horse, and away we went like the
+wind, up one street, and down another, till I had lost all idea where we
+were. Carr, who was young and active, did all he could; but the cabman,
+who, I am afraid, must have been intoxicated, took not the slightest
+notice, and continued driving madly, Heaven knows where. At last, after
+getting into a very dingy neighborhood, we turned up a crooked dark
+street, unlit by any lamp, a street so narrow that I thought every
+moment the cab would be overturned. In another moment I saw two men rush
+out of a door-way. One seized the horse, which was much blown by this
+time, and brought it violently to a stand-still, while the other flew at
+the cab, and catching Carr by the collar, proceeded to drag him out by
+main force. I suppose Carr did his best, but being only an American, he
+certainly made a very poor fight of it; and while I was laying into the
+man who had got hold of him, I was suddenly caught by the legs myself
+from the other side of the cab. I turned on my assailant, saw a heavy
+stick levelled at me, caught at it, missed it, beheld a series of
+fireworks, and remembered nothing more.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The first thing I heard on beginning to come to myself was a series of
+subdued but evidently heart-felt oaths; and I became sensible of an airy
+feeling, unpleasant in the extreme, proceeding from an open condition of
+coat and waistcoat quite unsuited to the time of year. A low chorus of
+muffled whispering was going on round me. As I groaned, involuntarily,
+it stopped.</p>
+
+<p>"He's coming to!" I heard Carr say. "Go and fetch some brandy." And I
+felt myself turned right side uppermost, and my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> hands were rubbed,
+while Carr, in a voice of the greatest anxiety, asked me how I felt. I
+was soon able to sit up, and to become aware that I had a splitting
+headache, and was staring at a tallow-candle stuck in a bottle. Having
+got so far I got a little farther, and on looking round found myself
+reclining on a sack in a corner of a disreputable-looking room, dingy
+with dirt, and faithful to the memory of bad tobacco. Then I suddenly
+remembered what had occurred. Carr saw that I did so, and instantly
+poured forth an account of how we had been rescued from a condition of
+great peril by the man to whom the house we were in belonged, to whom he
+hardly knew how to express his gratitude, and who was now gone for some
+brandy for me. He told me a great deal about it, but I was so dizzy that
+I forgot most of what he said, and it was not until our deliverer
+returned with the brandy that I became thoroughly aware of what was
+going forward. I could not help thinking, as I thanked the honest fellow
+who had come to our assistance, how easily one may be deceived by
+appearances, for a more forbidding-looking face, under its fur cap, I
+never saw. That of his son, who presently returned with a four-wheeler
+which Carr had sent for, was not more prepossessing. In fact, they were
+two as villanous-looking men as I had ever seen. After recompensing both
+with all our spare cash, we got ourselves hoisted stiffly into the cab,
+and Carr good-naturedly insisted on seeing me home, though he owned to
+feeling, as he put it, "rather knocked up by his knocking down." We were
+both far too exhausted to speak much, until Carr gave a start and a gasp
+and said, "By Jove!"</p>
+
+<p>"What?" I inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"They are gone!" he said, tremulously&mdash;"my sapphires. They are gone!
+Stolen! I had them in a bag round my neck, as you told me. They must
+have been taken from me when I was knocked down. I say," he added,
+quickly, "how about yours? Have you got them all right?"</p>
+
+<p>Involuntarily I raised my hand to my throat. A horrid qualm passed over
+me.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank Heaven!" I replied, with a sigh of relief. "They are safe at home
+with Jane. What a mercy! I might have lost them."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Might!</i>" said Carr. "You would have lost them to a dead certainty;
+mine <i>are</i> gone!" And he stamped, and clinched his fists, and looked
+positively furious.</p>
+
+<p>Poor Carr! I felt for him. He took the loss of his stones so to heart;
+and I am sure it was only natural. I parted from him at my own door, and
+was glad on going in to find Jane had stayed up for me.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> I soon figured
+in her eyes as the hero of a thrilling adventure, while her clever hands
+applied sticking-plaster <i>ad libitum</i>. We were both so full of the
+events of the evening, and the letter which I was to write to the
+<i>Times</i> about it the next day, that it never entered the heads of either
+of us, on retiring to bed, to remove Sir John's jewels from the
+tea-caddy into which they had been temporarily popped in the afternoon.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2>
+
+
+<p>I really think adventures, like misfortunes, never come single. Would
+you believe it? Our house was broken into that very night. Nothing
+serious came of it, wonderful to relate, owing to Jane's extraordinary
+presence of mind. She had been unable to sleep after my thrilling
+account of the cab accident, and had consoled herself by reading
+Baxter's "Saint's Rest" by her night-light, for the canary became
+restless and liable to sudden bursts of song if a candle were lighted.
+While so engaged she became aware of a subdued grating sound, which had
+continued for some time before she began to speculate upon it. While she
+was speculating it ceased, and after a short interval she distinctly
+heard a stealthy step upon the stair, and the handle of the passage door
+before-mentioned was gently, very gently turned.</p>
+
+<p>Jane has some of that quickness of perception which has been of such use
+to myself through life. In a moment she had grasped the situation. Some
+one was in the house. In another moment she was hanging out of her
+bedroom window, springing the policeman's rattle which she had had by
+her for years with a view to an emergency of this kind, and at the same
+time&mdash;for she was a capable woman&mdash;blowing a piercing strain on a
+cabman's whistle.</p>
+
+<p>To make a long story short, her extraordinary presence of mind was the
+saving of us. With her own eyes she saw two dark figures fly up our area
+steps and disappear round the corner, and when a policeman appeared on
+the scene half an hour later, he confirmed the fact that the house had
+been broken into, by showing us how an entrance had been effected
+through the kitchen window.</p>
+
+<p>There was of course no more sleep for us that night, and the remainder
+of it was passed by Jane in examining the house from top to bottom every
+half hour or so, owing to a rooted conviction on her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> part that a
+burglar might still be lurking on the premises, concealed in the
+cellaret, or the jam cupboard, or behind the drawing-room curtains.</p>
+
+<p>By that morning's post I heard, as I expected I should do, from Sir
+George Danvers, but the contents of the letter surprised me. He wrote
+most cordially, thanking me for my kindness in undertaking such a heavy
+responsibility (I am sure I never felt it to be so) for an entire
+stranger, and ended by sending me a pressing invitation to come down
+to Stoke Moreton that very day, that he and his son, whose future wife
+was also staying with them, might have the pleasure of making the
+acquaintance of one to whom they were so much indebted. He added that
+his eldest son Charles was also going down from London by a certain
+train that day, and that he had told him to be on the lookout for me at
+the station in case I was able to come at such short notice. I made up
+my mind to go, sent Sir George a telegram to that effect, and proceeded
+to fish up the jewels out of the tea-caddy.</p>
+
+<p>Jane, who had never ceased for one instant to comment on the event of
+the night, positively shrieked when she saw me shaking the bag free from
+tea-leaves.</p>
+
+<p>"Good gracious! the burglars," she exclaimed. "Why, they might have
+taken them if they had only known."</p>
+
+<p>Of course they had <i>not</i> known, as I had been particularly secret about
+them; but I wished all the same that I had not left them there all
+night, as Jane would insist, and continue insisting, that they had been
+exposed to great danger. I argued the matter with her at first; but
+women, I find, are impervious as a rule to masculine argument, and it is
+a mistake to reason with them. It is, in fact, putting the sexes for the
+moment on an equality to which the weaker one is unaccustomed, and
+consequently unsuited.</p>
+
+<p>A few hours later I was rolling swiftly towards Stoke Moreton in a
+comfortable smoking carriage, only occupied by myself and Mr. Charles
+Danvers, a handsome young fellow with a pale face and that peculiar
+tired manner which (though, as I soon found, natural to him) is so often
+affected by the young men of the day.</p>
+
+<p>"And so Ralph has come in for a legacy in diamonds," he said,
+listlessly, when we had exchanged the usual civilities, and had become,
+to a certain degree, acquainted. "Dear me! how these good steady young
+men prosper in the world. When last I heard from him he had prevailed
+upon the one perfect woman in the universe to consent to marry him, and
+his aunt (by-the-way, you will meet her there, too<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>&mdash;Lady Mary
+Cunningham) had murmured something vague but gratifying about
+testamentary intentions. A week later Providence fills his brimming cup
+with a legacy of jewels, estimated at&mdash;&mdash;" Charles opened his light
+sleepy eyes wide and looked inquiringly at me. "What are they estimated
+at?" he asked, as I did not answer.</p>
+
+<p>I really had no idea, but I shrugged my shoulders and looked wise.</p>
+
+<p>"Estimated at a fabulous sum," he said, closing his eyes again. "Ah! had
+they been mine, with what joyful alacrity should I have ascertained
+their exact money value. And mine they ought to have been, if the sacred
+law of primogeniture (that special Providence which watches over the
+interests of eldest sons) had been duly observed. Sir John had not the
+pleasure of my acquaintance, but I fear he must have heard some
+reports&mdash;no doubt entirely without foundation&mdash;respecting my career,
+which had induced him to pass me over in this manner. What a moral! My
+father and my aunt Mary are always delicately pointing out the
+difference between Ralph and myself. I wish I were a good young man,
+like Ralph. It seems to pay best in the long-run; but I may as well
+inform you, Colonel Middleton, of the painful fact that I am the black
+sheep of the family."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, come, come!" I remarked, uneasily.</p>
+
+<p>"I should not have alluded to the subject if you were not likely to
+become fully aware of it on your arrival, so I will be beforehand with
+my relations. I was brought up in the way I should go," he continued,
+with the utmost unconcern, as if commenting on something that did not
+affect him in the least; "but I did not walk in it, partly owing to the
+uncongenial companionship that it involved, especially that of my aunt
+Mary, who took up so much room herself in the narrow path that she
+effectually kept me out of it. From my earliest youth, also, I took
+extreme interest in the parable of the Prodigal, and as soon as it
+became possible I exemplified it myself. I may even say that I acted the
+part in a manner that did credit to a beginner; but the wind-up was
+ruined by the lamentable inability of others, who shall be nameless, to
+throw themselves into the spirit of the piece. At various intervals," he
+continued, always as if speaking of some one else, "I have returned
+home, but I regret to say that on each occasion my reception was not in
+any way what I could have wished. The flavor of a fatted calf is
+absolutely unknown to me; and so far from meeting me half-way, I have in
+extreme cases, when impelled homeward by urgent pecuniary
+considerations, found myself obliged to walk up from the station."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me! I hope it is not far," I said.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"A mere matter of three miles or so uphill," he resumed; "nothing to a
+healthy Christian, though trying to the trembling legs of the ungodly
+after a long course of husks. There, now I think you are quite <i>au fait</i>
+as to our family history. I always pity a stranger who comes to a house
+ignorant of little domestic details of this kind; he is apt to make
+mistakes." "Oh, pray don't mention it,"&mdash;as I murmured some words of
+thanks&mdash;"no trouble, I assure you; trouble is a thing I don't take.
+By-the-way, are you aware we are going straight into a nest of private
+theatricals at Stoke Moreton? To-night is the last rehearsal; perhaps I
+had better look over my part. I took it once years ago, but I don't
+remember a word of it." And after much rummaging in a magnificent
+silver-mounted travelling-bag, the Prodigal pulled out a paper book and
+carelessly turned over the leaves.</p>
+
+<p>I did not interrupt his studies, save by a few passing comments on the
+weather, the state of the country, and my own health, which, I am sorry
+to say, is not what it was; but as I only received monosyllabic answers,
+we had no more conversation worth mentioning till we reached Stoke
+Moreton.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Stoke Moreton is a fine old Elizabethan house standing on rising ground.
+As we drove up the straight wide approach between two rows of ancient
+fantastically clipped hollies, I was impressed by the stately dignity of
+the place, which was not lessened as we drew up before a great arched
+door-way, and were ushered into a long hall supported by massive pillars
+of carved white stone. A roaring log-fire in the immense fireplace threw
+a ruddy glow over the long array of armor and gleaming weapons which
+lined the walls, and made the pale winter twilight outside look bleak
+indeed. Charles, emerging slim and graceful out of an exquisite ulster,
+sauntered up to the fire, and asked where Sir George Danvers was. As he
+stood inside the wide fireplace, leaning against one of the pillars
+which supported the towering white stone chimney-piece, covered with
+heraldic designs and coats of arms, he looked a worthier representative
+of an ancient race than I fear he really was.</p>
+
+<p>"So they have put the stage at that end, in front of the pillars," he
+remarked, nodding at a wooden erection. "Quite right. I could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> not have
+placed it better myself. What, Brown? Sir George is in the drawing-room,
+is he? and tea, as I perceive, is going in at this moment. Come, Colonel
+Middleton." And we followed the butler to the drawing-room.</p>
+
+<p>I am not a person who easily becomes confused, but I must own I did get
+confused with the large party into the midst of which we were now
+ushered. I soon made out Sir George Danvers, a delicate, but
+irascible-looking old gentleman, who received me with dignified
+cordiality, but returned Charles's greeting with a certain formality and
+coldness which I was pained to see, family affection being, in my
+opinion, the chief blessing of a truly happy home. Charles I already
+knew, and with the second son, Ralph, a ruddy, smiling young man with
+any amount of white teeth, I had no difficulty; but after that I became
+hopelessly involved. I was introduced to an elderly lady whom I
+addressed for the rest of the evening as Lady Danvers, until Charles
+casually mentioned that his mother was dead, and that, until the
+Deceased Wife's Sister Bill was passed, he did not anticipate that his
+aunt Mary would take upon herself the position of step-mother to her
+orphaned nephews. The severe elderly lady, then, who beamed so sweetly
+upon Ralph, and regarded Charles with such manifest coldness, was their
+aunt Lady Mary Cunningham. She had known Sir John slightly in her youth,
+she said, as she graciously made room for me on her sofa, and she
+expressed a very proper degree of regret at his sudden death,
+considering that he had not been a personal friend in any way.</p>
+
+<p>"We all have our faults, Colonel Middleton," said Lady Mary, with a
+gentle sigh, which dislodged a little colony of crumbs from the front of
+her dress. "Sir John, like the rest of us, was not exempt, though I have
+no doubt the softening influence of age would have done much, since I
+knew him, to smooth acerbities of character which were unfortunately
+strongly marked in his early life."</p>
+
+<p>She had evidently not known Sir John in his later years.</p>
+
+<p>As she continued to talk in this strain I endeavored to make out which
+of the young ladies present was the one to whom Ralph was engaged. I was
+undecided as to which it was of the two to whom I had already been
+introduced. Girls always seem to me so very much alike, especially
+pretty girls; and these were both of them pretty. I do not mean that
+they resembled each other in the least, for one was dark and one was
+fair; but which was Miss Aurelia Grant, Ralph's <i>fianc&eacute;e</i>, and which was
+Miss Evelyn Derrick, a cousin of the family, I could not make out until
+later in the evening, when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> I distinctly saw Ralph kiss the fair one in
+the picture-gallery, and I instantly came to the conclusion that she was
+the one to whom he was engaged.</p>
+
+<p>I asked Charles if I were not right, as we stood in front of the
+hall-fire before the rest of the party had assembled for dinner, and he
+told me that I had indeed hit the nail on the head in this instance,
+though for his own part he never laid much stress himself on such an
+occurrence, having found it prove misleading in the extreme to draw any
+conclusion from it. He further informed me that Miss Derrick was the
+young lady with dark hair who had poured out tea, and whom he had
+favored with some of his conversation afterwards.</p>
+
+<p>I admired Ralph's taste, as did Charles, who had never seen his future
+sister-in-law before. Aurelia Grant was a charming little creature, with
+a curly head and a dimple, and a pink-and-white complexion, and a
+suspicion of an Irish accent when she became excited.</p>
+
+<p>Charles said he admired her complexion most because it was so thoroughly
+well done, and the coloring was so true to nature.</p>
+
+<p>I did not quite catch his meaning, but it certainly was a beautiful
+complexion; and then she was so bright and lively, and showed such
+pretty little teeth when she smiled! She was quite delightful. I did not
+wonder at Ralph's being so much in love with her, and Charles agreed
+with me.</p>
+
+<p>"There is nothing like a good complexion," he remarked, gravely. "One
+may be led away to like a pale girl with a mind for a time, but for
+permanent domestic happiness give me a good complexion, and&mdash;a dimple,"
+he added, as if it were an after-thought. "I feel I could not bestow my
+best affections on a woman without a dimple. Yes, indeed! Ralph has
+chosen well."</p>
+
+<p>Now I do not agree with Charles there, as I have always considered that
+a woman <i>should</i> have a certain amount of mind; just enough, in fact, to
+enable her to appreciate a superior one. I said as much to Charles; but
+he only laughed, and said it was a subject on which opinion had always
+varied.</p>
+
+<p>"How did he meet her?" I inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"On the Rigi, last summer," said Charles. "I am thinking of going there
+myself next year. Lovely orphan sat by Lady Mary at <i>table d'h&ocirc;te</i>. Read
+tracts presented by Lady Mary. Made acquaintance. Lovely orphan's
+travelling companion or governess discovered to be live sister of
+defunct travelling companion or governess of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> Lady Mary. Result, warm
+friendship. Ralph, like a dutiful nephew, appears on the scene.
+Fortnight of fine weather. Interesting expeditions. Romantic attachment,
+cemented by diamond and pearl ring from Hunt &amp; Roskell's. There is the
+whole story for you."</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn Derrick joined us as he finished speaking. She was a tall
+graceful girl, gentle and dignified in manner, with a pale refined face.
+She was pretty in a way, but not to compare to Aurelia. Evelyn had an
+anxious look about her, too. Now I do not approve of a girl looking
+grave; she ought to be bright and happy, with a smile for every one. It
+is all very well for us men, who have the work of the world to do, to
+look grave at times, but with women it is different; and a woman always
+looks her best when she smiles&mdash;at least, I think so.</p>
+
+<p>Then Aurelia came down, perfectly dazzling in white satin; then Sir
+George, then Ralph, giving an arm to Lady Mary, who suffered from
+rheumatism in her foot. Then came the gong, and there was a rustle down
+of more people, young and old, friends of the family who had come to
+act, or to see their sons and daughters act. As I never could get even
+their names right, I shall not attempt to give any account of them,
+especially as they are not of importance in any way.</p>
+
+<p>After dinner, on entering the drawing-room, I found that great
+excitement prevailed among the ladies respecting Sir John's jewels.
+About his sad fate and costly legacy they all seemed fully informed. I
+had myself almost forgotten the reason of my visit in my interest in my
+new surroundings, not having even as yet given up the jewels to Sir
+George Danvers or Ralph; but, at the urgent request of all the ladies at
+once, Ralph begged me to bring them down, to be seen and admired then
+and there, before the rehearsal began.</p>
+
+<p>"They will all be yours, you know," Ralph said to Aurelia. "You shall
+wear them on your wedding-day."</p>
+
+<p>"You are always talking about being married," said Aurelia, with a
+little pout. "I wish you would try and think of something else to say. I
+was quite looking forward to it myself until I came here, and now I am
+quite, <i>quite</i> tired of it beforehand."</p>
+
+<p>Ralph laughed delightedly, and Sir George reminding me that every one
+was dying of anxiety, himself included, I ran up-stairs to take the
+brown bag from around my neck, and in a few minutes returned with it in
+my hand. They were all waiting for me, Lady Mary drawn up in an
+arm-chair beside an ebony table, on which a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> small space near her had
+been cleared, Charles alone holding rather aloof, sipping his coffee
+with his back to the fire.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't jostle," he said, as they all crowded round me. "Evelyn, let me
+beg of you not to elbow forward in that unbecoming manner. Observe how
+Aunt Mary restrains herself. Take time, Middleton! your coffee is
+getting cold. Won't you drink it first?"</p>
+
+<p>As he finished speaking I turned the contents of the bag upon the table.
+The jewels in the bright lamp-light seemed to blaze and burn into the
+ebony of the table. There was a general gasp, a silence, and then a
+chorus of admiration. Charles came up behind me and looked over my
+shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"Good gracious!" said Lady Mary, solemnly. "Ralph, you are a rich man.
+Why, mine are nothing to them!" and she touched a diamond and emerald
+necklace on her own neck. "I never knew poor Sir John had so much good
+in him."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Ralph, Ralph!" cried Aurelia, clasping her little hands with a deep
+sigh. "And will they really be my very own?"</p>
+
+<p>Ralph assured her that they would, and that she should act in them the
+following night if she liked.</p>
+
+<p>I think there was not a woman present who did not envy Aurelia as Ralph
+took up a flashing diamond crescent and held it against her fair hair. I
+saw Evelyn turn away and begin to tear up a small piece of paper in her
+hand. Women are very jealous of each other, especially the nice, by
+which I mean the pretty, ones. I was sorry to see jealousy so plainly
+marked in such a charming looking girl as Evelyn; but women are all the
+same about jewels. Aurelia blushed and sparkled, and pouted when the
+clasp caught in her hair, and shook her little head impatiently, and was
+altogether enchanting.</p>
+
+<p>After the first burst of admiration had subsided, General Marston, an
+old Indian officer, who had been somewhat in the rear, came up, and
+looked long at the glittering mass upon the table.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you aware," he said at last to Ralph, pointing to the crescent,
+"that those diamonds are of enormous value? I have not seen such stones
+in any shop in London. I dare not say what that one crescent alone is
+worth, or that emerald bracelet. Jewels of such value as this are a
+grave responsibility." He stood, shaking his head a little and turning
+the crescent in his hand. "Wonderful!" he said. "Wonderful! Do not tear
+up that piece of rice-paper, Miss Derrick," he added, taking it from
+her. "The crescent was wrapped in it, and I will put it round it again.
+All these stones want polishing, and many of them resetting. They ought
+not to be tumbled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> together in this way in a bag, with nothing to
+prevent them scratching each other. See, Ralph, here is a clasp broken;
+and here are some loose stones; and this star has no clasp at all. You
+must take them up to some trustworthy jeweller, and have them thoroughly
+looked over."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose the second son was specially mentioned, Middleton?" said
+Charles, as I drew back to let the rest handle and admire.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course!" said Lady Mary, sharply; "and a very fortunate thing, too."</p>
+
+<p>"Very&mdash;for Ralph," he replied. "It is really providential that I am what
+I am. Why, I might have ruined the dear boy's prospects if I had paid my
+tailor's bill, and lived in the country among the buttercups and
+daisies. Ah! my dear aunt, I see you are about to remark how all things
+here below work together for good!"</p>
+
+<p>"I was not going to remark anything of the kind," retorted Lady Mary,
+drawing herself up; "but," she added, spitefully, "I do not feel the
+less rejoiced at Ralph's good fortune and prosperity when I see, as I so
+often do, the ungodly flourishing like a green bay-tree."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," said Charles, shaking his head, "if that is your own
+experience, I bow before it; but for my own part, I must confess I have
+not found it so. Flourish like a green bay-tree! No, Aunt Mary, it is a
+fallacy; they don't: I am sure I only wish they did. But I see the
+rehearsal is beginning. May I give you an arm to the hall?"</p>
+
+<p>The offer was entirely disregarded, and it was with the help of mine
+that Lady Mary retired from an unequal combat, which she never seemed
+able to resist provoking anew, and in which she was invariably worsted,
+causing her, as I could see, to regard Charles with the concentrated
+bitterness of which a severely good woman alone is capable.</p>
+
+<p>I soon perceived that Charles was on the same amicable terms with his
+father; that they rarely spoke, and that it was evidently only with a
+view to keeping up appearances that he was ever invited to the paternal
+roof at all. Between the brothers, however, in spite of so much to
+estrange them, a certain kindliness of feeling seemed to exist, which
+was hardly to have been expected under the circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>The rehearsal now began, and Sir George Danvers, who had remained behind
+to put by the jewels, and lock them up in his strong-box among his
+papers, came and sat down by me, again thanking<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> me for taking charge of
+them, though I assured him it had been very little trouble.</p>
+
+<p>"Not much trouble, perhaps, but a great responsibility," he said,
+courteously.</p>
+
+<p>"A soldier, Sir George," I replied, with a slight smile, "becomes early
+inured to the gravest responsibility. It is the air we breathe; it is
+taken as a matter of course."</p>
+
+<p>He looked keenly at me, and was silent, as if considering
+something&mdash;perhaps what I had said.</p>
+
+<p>I was delighted to find the play was one of those which I had seen acted
+during our passage home. There is nothing I like so much as knowing a
+play beforehand, because then one can always whisper to one's companion
+what is coming next. The stage, with all its adjustments, had been
+carefully arranged, the foot-lights were lighted, the piece began. All
+went well till nearly the end of the first act, when there was a cry
+behind the scenes of "Mr. Denis!" Mr. Denis should have rushed on, but
+Mr. Denis did not rush on. The play stopped. Mr. Denis was not in the
+library, the improvised greenroom; Mr. Denis did not appear when his
+name was called in stentorian tones by Ralph, or in pathetic falsetto by
+Charles. In short, Mr. Denis was not forthcoming. A rush up-stairs on
+the part of most of the young men brought to light the awful fact that
+Mr. Denis had retired to his chamber, a prey to sudden and acute
+indisposition.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me!" said Charles to Lady Mary, with a dismal shake of his head,
+"how precarious is life! Here to-day, and in bed to-morrow. Support your
+aunt Mary, my dear Evelyn; she wishes to retire to rest. Indeed, we may
+as well all go to bed, for there will be no more acting to-night without
+poor Denis. I only trust he may be spared to us till to-morrow, and that
+he may be well enough to die by my hand to-morrow evening."</p>
+
+<p>We all dispersed for the night in some anxiety. The play could not
+proceed without Mr. Denis, who took an important part; and Sir George
+ruefully informed me that all the neighboring houses had been filled for
+these theatricals, and that great numbers of people were expected. There
+was to be dancing afterwards, but the principal feature of the
+entertainment was the play. We all retired to rest, fervently hoping
+that the health of Mr. Denis might be restored by the following
+morning.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2>
+
+
+<p>But far from being better the following morning, Denis was much worse.
+Charles, who had sat up most of the night with him, and who came down to
+breakfast more cool and indifferent than ever, at once extinguished any
+hope that still remained that he would be able to take his part that
+night.</p>
+
+<p>Great was the consternation of the whole party. A vague feeling of
+resentment against Denis prevailed among the womankind, who, having all
+preserved their own healths intact for the occasion (and each by her own
+account was a chronic invalid), felt it was extremely inconsiderate, not
+to say indelicate, of "a great man like him" to spoil everything by
+being laid up at the wrong moment.</p>
+
+<p>But what was to be done? Denis was ill, and without Denis the play could
+not proceed. Must the whole thing be given up? There was a general
+chorus of lamentation.</p>
+
+<p>"I see no alternative," said Charles, "unless some Curtius will leap
+into the gulf, and go through the piece reading the part, and that is
+always a failure at the best of times."</p>
+
+<p>At that moment I had an idea; it broke upon me like a flash of
+lightning: <i>Valentine Carr</i>! I had seen him act the very part Denis was
+to have taken, in the theatricals on the steamer. How wonderfully
+fortunate that it should have occurred to me!</p>
+
+<p>I told Charles that I had a friend who had acted that part only the week
+before.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>You!</i>" cried Charles, losing all his customary apathy&mdash;"you don't say
+so! Great heavens, where is he? Out with him! Where is he at this
+moment? England, Ireland, Scotland, or Wales? Where is this treasure
+concealed?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Colonel Middleton! Oh, how delightful!" cried a number of gentle
+voices; and I was instantly surrounded, and all manner of questions put
+to me. Would he come? Was he tall? And oh! <i>had</i> he a beard? He had not
+a beard, had he? because it would not do for the part. Did he act well?
+When had he acted? Where had he acted?</p>
+
+<p>Sir George interrupted the torrent of interrogation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Do you think he would come?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I am almost sure he would," I said; "he is a great friend of mine."</p>
+
+<p>"It would be an exceedingly good-natured and friendly act," said Sir
+George. "Charles&mdash;no, I mean Ralph&mdash;bring a telegraph form, and if you
+will write a telegram at once, Middleton, I will send it to the station
+directly. We shall have an answer by twelve o'clock, and until then we
+will not give up all hope, though of course we must not count on your
+friend being able to come at such short notice."</p>
+
+<p>The telegram was written and despatched, Carr having given me an address
+where letters would find him, though he said he did not put up there. I
+sincerely hoped he would not be out of the way on this occasion, and I
+was not a little pleased when, a few hours later, I received a telegram
+in reply saying that he could come, and should arrive by the afternoon
+train which had brought me the day before.</p>
+
+<p>The spirits of the whole party revived. I (as is often the case) was in
+high favor with all. Even poor Denis, who had been very much depressed,
+was sufficiently relieved by the news&mdash;so Charles said&mdash;to smile over
+his beef-tea. Lady Mary, who appeared at luncheon-time, treated me with
+marked consideration. I had already laid them under an obligation, she
+said, graciously, by undertaking the care of the jewels, and now they
+were indebted to me a second time. Was Mr. Carr one of Lord Barrantyne's
+sons, or was he one of the Crampshire Carrs? She had known Lady Caroline
+Carr in her youth, but had not met her of late years. She seemed
+surprised when I told her that Carr was an American, and he sank, I
+could see, at once in her estimation; but she was kind enough to say
+that she was not a person who was prejudiced in any way by a man's
+nationality, and that she believed that very respectable people might be
+found among the Americans.</p>
+
+<p>The day passed in the usual preparations for an entertainment. If I went
+into the hall I was sure to run against gardeners carrying in quantities
+of hot-house plants, with which the front of the stage was being hidden
+from the foot-lights to the floor; if I wandered into the library I
+interrupted Aurelia and Ralph rehearsing their parts alone, with their
+heads very close together; if I hastily withdrew into the morning-room,
+it was only to find Charles upon his knees luring Evelyn to immediate
+flight, in soul-stirring accents, before an admiring audience of not
+unenvious young ladyhood.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Evelyn, I ask you as a favor," said Charles, as I came in,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> moving
+towards her on his knees, "will you come a little closer when I am down?
+I don't mind wearing out my knees the least in a good cause; but I owe
+it to myself, as a wicked baron in hired tights, not to cross the stage
+in that position. Any impression I make will be quite lost if I do; and
+unless you keep closer, I shall never be able to reach your hand and
+clasp it to a heart at least two yards away. Now,"&mdash;rising, and crossing
+over to the other side&mdash;"I shall begin again. 'Ah! but my soul's
+adored&mdash;'"</p>
+
+<p>"Is Middleton here?" asked a voice in the door-way. It was Sir George
+Danvers who had put his head into the room, and I went to him.</p>
+
+<p>"I say, Middleton," he began, twirling his stick, and looking rather
+annoyed, "it is excessively provoking. I never thought of it before, but
+I find there is not a bed in the house. Every cranny has been filled. It
+never occurred to me that we had not a room for your friend, now that he
+is kind enough to come. And it looks so rude, when it is so exceedingly
+good-natured of him to come at all."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, dear! anywhere will do," I said.</p>
+
+<p>"There is not even room for Ralph in the house," continued Sir George.
+"I have put him up at the lodge," pointing to a small house at the end
+of the drive, near the great entrance gates. "There is another nice
+little room leading out of his," he added, hesitating&mdash;"but really I
+don't like to suggest&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that will do perfectly!" I broke in. "Carr is not the sort of
+fellow to care a straw how he is put up. He will be quite content
+anywhere."</p>
+
+<p>"Come and see it," he said, leading the way out-of-doors. "I would have
+turned out Charles in a moment, and given Carr his room; but Denis is
+really rather ill, and Charles sees to him, as he is next door."</p>
+
+<p>I could not help saying how much I liked Charles.</p>
+
+<p>"Strangers always do," he replied, coldly, as we walked towards the
+lodge. "I constantly hear him spoken of as a most agreeable young man."</p>
+
+<p>"And he is so handsome."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," replied Sir George, in the same hard tone, "handsome and
+agreeable. I have no doubt he appears so to others; but I, who have had
+to pay the debts and hush up the scandals of my handsome and agreeable
+son, find Ralph, who has not a feature in his face, the better-looking
+of the two. I know Charles is head over ears in debt at this moment,
+but,"&mdash;with sudden acrimony&mdash;"he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> will not get another farthing from me.
+It is pouring water into a sieve."</p>
+
+<p>"Ralph is marrying a sweetly pretty creature," I said, with warmth,
+desirous of changing the subject.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, she is very pretty," said Sir George, without enthusiasm; "but I
+wish she had belonged to one of our county families. It is nothing in
+the way of connection. She has no relations to speak of&mdash;one uncle
+living in Australia, and another, whom she goes to on Saturday, in
+Ireland. There seems to be no money either. It is Lady Mary's doing. She
+took a fancy to her abroad; and to say the truth, I did not wish to
+object, for at one time there seemed to be an attraction between Ralph
+and his cousin Evelyn Derrick, which his aunt and I were both glad to
+think had passed over. I do not approve of marriages between cousins."</p>
+
+<p>We had reached the lodge by this time, and I was shown a tidy little
+room leading out of the one Ralph was occupying, in which I assured Sir
+George that Carr would be perfectly comfortable, much to the courteous
+old gentleman's relief, though I could see that he was evidently annoyed
+at not being able to put him up in the house.</p>
+
+<p>In the afternoon, towards five o'clock, Carr arrived. I went into the
+hall to meet him, and to bring him into the drawing-room myself. Just as
+we came in, and while I was introducing him to Sir George, Ralph and
+Aurelia, who were sitting together as usual, started a lovers' squabble.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh <i>my</i>!" said Ralph, suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>"It is all your fault. You jogged my elbow," came Aurelia's quick
+rejoinder.</p>
+
+<p>"My dearest love, I did <i>not</i>," returned Ralph, on his knees,
+pocket-handkerchief in hand.</p>
+
+<p>It appeared that between them they had managed to transfer Amelia's tea
+from her cup to the front of her dress.</p>
+
+<p>"You did; you know you did," she said, evidently ready to cry with
+vexation. "I was just going to drink, and you had your arm round the
+back of my&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Hush, Aurelia, I beg," expostulated Charles. "Aunt Mary and I are
+becoming embarrassed. It is not necessary to enter into particulars as
+to the exact locality of Ralph's arm."</p>
+
+<p>"Round the back of my chair," pouted Aurelia.</p>
+
+<p>"It is all right, Aunt Mary," called Charles, cheerfully, to that lady.
+"Only the back of her <i>chair</i>. We took alarm unnecessarily.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> Just as it
+should be. I have done the same myself with&mdash;a different chair."</p>
+
+<p>"He is <i>always</i> doing it," continued Aurelia, unmollified. "I have told
+him about it before. He made me drop a piece of bread and butter on the
+carpet only yesterday."</p>
+
+<p>"I ate it afterwards," humbly suggested Ralph, still on his knees, "and
+there were hairs in it. There were, indeed, Aurelia."</p>
+
+<p>"And now it is my tea-gown," continued Aurelia, giving way to the
+prettiest little outburst of temper imaginable. "I wish you would get up
+and go away, Ralph, and not come back. You are only making it worse by
+rubbing it in that silly way with your wet handkerchief."</p>
+
+<p>"Here is another," said Charles, snatching up Lady Mary's delicate
+cambric one, which was lying on her work-table, while I was in the act
+of introducing Carr to her; and before that lady's politeness to Carr
+would allow her to turn from him to expostulate, Charles was on his
+knees beside Ralph, wiping the offending stain.</p>
+
+<p>"'Out, d&mdash;&mdash;d spot!' or rather series of spots. What, Aurelia! you don't
+wish it rubbed any more? Good! I will turn my attention to the
+<i>Aubusson</i> carpet. Ha! triumph! Here at least I am successful. Aunt
+Mary, you have no conception how useful your handkerchief is. The amount
+of tea or dirt, or both, which is leaving the carpet and taking refuge
+in your little square of cambric will surprise you when you see it. Ah!"
+rising from his knees as I brought up Carr, having by this time
+presented him to Sir George. "Very happy to see you, Mr. Carr. Most kind
+of you to come. Evelyn, are you pouring out some tea for Mr. Carr?
+Nature requires support before a last rehearsal. May I introduce you to
+my cousin Miss Derrick?"</p>
+
+<p>After Carr had also been introduced to Aurelia, who, however, was still
+too much absorbed in her tea-gown to take much notice of him, he seemed
+glad to retreat to a chair by Evelyn, who gave him his tea, and talked
+pleasantly to him. He was very shy at first, but he soon got used to us,
+and many were the curious glances shot at him by the rest of the party
+as tea went on. There was to be a last rehearsal immediately afterwards,
+so that he might take part in it; and there was a general unacknowledged
+anxiety on the part of all the actors as to how he would bear that
+crucial test on which so much depended. I was becoming anxious myself,
+being in a manner responsible for him.</p>
+
+<p>"You're not nervous, are you?" I said, taking him aside when tea<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> was
+over. "Only act half as well as you did on the steamer and you will do
+capitally."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I am nervous," he replied, with a short uneasy laugh. "It is
+enough to make a fellow nervous to be set down among a lot of people
+whom he has never seen before&mdash;to act a principal part, too. I had no
+idea it was going to be such a grand affair or I would not have come. I
+only did it to please you."</p>
+
+<p>Of course I knew that, and I tried to reassure him, reminding him that
+the audience would not be critical, and how grateful every one was to
+him for coming.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me who some of the people are, will you?" he went on. "Who is that
+tall man with the fair mustache? He is looking at us now."</p>
+
+<p>"That is Charles, the eldest son," I replied; "and the shorter one, with
+the pleasant face, near the window, is Ralph, his younger brother."</p>
+
+<p>"That is a very good-looking girl he is talking to," he remarked. "I did
+not catch her name."</p>
+
+<p>"Hush!" I said. "That is Miss Grant, whom he is engaged to. They have
+just had a little tiff, and are making it up. He <i>does</i> talk to her a
+good deal. I have noticed it myself. Such a sweet creature!"</p>
+
+<p>"Is she going to act?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I replied. "They are going to begin at once. You need not dress.
+It is not a dress rehearsal."</p>
+
+<p>"I think I will go and get my boots off, though," said Carr. "Can you
+show me where I am?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid you are not in the house at all," I said. "The fact is&mdash;did
+not Sir George tell you?" And then I explained.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment his face fell, but it cleared instantly, though not before
+I had noticed it.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't mind?" I said, astonished. "You quite understand&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course, of course!" he interrupted. "It is all right, I have a cold,
+that is all; and I have to sing next week. I shall do very well. Pray
+don't tell your friends I have a cold. I am sure Sir George is kindness
+itself, and it might make him uneasy to think I was not in his house."</p>
+
+<p>The rehearsal now began, and in much trepidation I waited to see Carr
+come on. The moment he appeared all anxiety vanished; the other actors
+were reassured, and acted their best. A few<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> passages had to be
+repeated, a few positions altered, but it was obvious that Carr could
+act, and act well; though, curiously enough, he looked less
+gentlemanlike and well-bred when acting with Charles than he had done
+when he was the best among a very mixed set on the steamer.</p>
+
+<p>"You act beautifully, Mr. Carr!" said Aurelia, when it was over.
+"Doesn't he, Ralph?"</p>
+
+<p>"Doesn't he?" replied Ralph, hot but good-humored. "I am sure, Carr, we
+are most grateful to you."</p>
+
+<p>"So am I," said Charles. "Your death agonies, Carr, are a credit to
+human nature. No great vulgar writhings with legs all over the stage,
+like Denis; but a chaste, refined wriggle, and all was over. It is a
+pleasure to kill a man who dies in such a gentlemanlike manner. If only
+Evelyn will keep a little closer to me when I am on my wicked baronial
+knees, I shall be quite happy. You hear, Evelyn?"</p>
+
+<p>"How you can joke at this moment," said Evelyn, who looked pale and
+nervous, "I cannot think. I don't believe I shall be able to remember a
+word when it comes to the point."</p>
+
+<p>"Stage-fever coming on already," said Charles, in a different tone. "Ah!
+it is your first appearance, is it not? Go and rest now, and you will be
+all right when the time comes. I have a vision of a great success, and a
+call before the curtain, and bouquets, and other delights. Only go and
+rest now." And he went to light a candle for her. He seemed very
+thoughtful for Evelyn.</p>
+
+<p>It was the signal for all of us to disperse, the ladies to their rooms,
+the men to the only retreat left to them, the smoking-room. As Aurelia
+went up-stairs I saw her beckon Ralph and whisper to him:</p>
+
+<p>"Am I really to wear them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wear what, my angel? The jewels! Why, good gracious, I had quite
+forgotten them. Of course I want you to wear them."</p>
+
+<p>"So do I, dreadfully," she replied, with a killing glance over the
+balusters. "Only if I am, you must bring them down in good time, and put
+them on in the greenroom. I hope you have got them somewhere safe."</p>
+
+<p>"Safe as a church," replied Ralph, forgetting that in these days the
+simile was not a good one. "Father has them in his strong-box. I will
+ask him to get them out&mdash;at least all that could be worn&mdash;and I will
+give them a rub up before you wear them."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" said Charles, sadly, as we walked up-stairs, "if only I had known
+Sir John!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>It was nearly eight o'clock when I came down. The play was to begin at
+eight. The hall, which was brilliantly lighted, was one moving mass of
+black coats, with here and there a red one, and evening-dresses many
+colored&mdash;the people in them, chatting, bowing, laughing, being ushered
+to their places. Lady Mary and Sir George Danvers side by side received
+their guests at the foot of the grand staircase, Lady Mary, resplendent
+in diamond tiara and riviere, smiling as if she could never frown; Sir
+George upright, courteous, a trifle stiff, as most English country
+gentlemen feel it incumbent on themselves to be on such occasions.</p>
+
+<p>Presently the continual roll of the carriages outside ceased, the lamps
+were toned down, the orchestra struck up, and Sir George and Lady Mary
+took their seats, looking round with anxious satisfaction at the hall
+crowded with people. People lined the walls; chairs were being lifted
+over the heads of the sitting for some who were still standing; cushions
+were being arranged on the billiard-table at the back for a covey of
+white waistcoats who arrived late; the staircase was already crowded
+with servants; the whole place was crammed.</p>
+
+<p>I wondered how they were getting on behind the scenes, and slipping out
+of the hall, I traversed the great gold and white drawing-room, prepared
+for dancing, and peeped into the morning-room, which, with the adjoining
+library, had been given up to the actors. They were all assembled in the
+morning-room, however, waiting for one of the elder ladies who had not
+come down. The prompter was getting fidgety, and walking about. The two
+scene-shifters, pale, weary-looking men, who had come down with the
+scenery, were sitting in the wings, perfectly apathetic amid the general
+excitement. Charles and several other actors were standing round a
+footman who was opening champagne bottles at a surprising rate. I saw
+Charles take a glass to Evelyn, who was shivering with a sharp attack of
+stage-fever in an arm-chair, looking over her part. She smiled
+gratefully, but as she did so her eyes wandered to the other side of the
+room, where Ralph, on his knees before Aurelia, was fastening a diamond
+star in her dress. Diamonds, rubies, and emeralds flashed in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> her hair,
+and on her white neck and arms. Ralph was fixing the last ornament onto
+her shoulder with wire off a champagne bottle, there being no clasp to
+hold it in its place. I saw Evelyn turn away again, and Charles, who was
+watching her, suddenly went off to the fire, and began to complain of
+the cold, and of the thinness of his silk stockings.</p>
+
+<p>The elder lady&mdash;"the heavy mother," as Charles irreverently called
+her&mdash;now arrived; the orchestra, which was giving a final flourish, was
+begged in a hoarse whisper to keep going a few minutes longer; eyes were
+applied to the hole in the curtain, and then, every one being assembled,
+it was felt by all that the awful moment had come at last. A more
+miserable-looking set of people I never saw. I always imagined that the
+actors behind the scenes were as gay off the stage as on it; but I found
+to my astonishment that they were all suffering more or less from severe
+mental depression. Ralph and Aurelia were now sitting ruefully together
+on an ottoman beside the painting table, littered with its various
+rouges and creams and stage appliances. Even Charles, who had
+established Evelyn on a chair in the wings at the side she had to come
+on from, and was now drinking champagne with due regard to his
+paint&mdash;even Charles owned to being nervous.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish to goodness Mrs. Wright would begin!" he said. "Ah, there she
+goes!"&mdash;as she ascended the stage steps. "There goes the bell. We are in
+for it now. She starts, and I come on next. Up goes the curtain. Where
+the devil has my book got to?"</p>
+
+<p>In another moment he was in the wings, intent on his part; then I saw
+him throw down his book and go jauntily forward. A moment more, and
+there was a thunder of applause. All the actors looked at each other,
+and smiled a feeble smile.</p>
+
+<p>"He will do," said General Marston, the Indian officer, who, now in the
+dress of an old-fashioned livery servant, proceeded to mount the steps.
+It dawned upon me that I was missing the play, and I hurried back to
+find Charles convulsing the audience with the utmost coolness, and
+evidently enjoying himself exceedingly. Then Evelyn came on&mdash;But who
+cares to read a description of a play? It is sufficient to say that
+Aurelia looked charming, and many were the whispered comments on her
+magnificent jewels; but on the stage Evelyn surpassed her, as much as
+Aurelia surpassed Evelyn off it.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph and Carr did well, but Charles was the favorite with every one,
+from the Duchess of Crushington in the front seat to the scullery-maid
+on the staircase. He was so bold, so wicked, so insinuating,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> in his
+plumed cap and short cloak, so elegantly refined when he wiped his sword
+upon his second's handkerchief. He took every one's heart by storm.
+Ralph, who represented all the virtues, with rather thick ankles and a
+false mustache, was nowhere. When the curtain fell for the last time,
+amid great and continued applause, the "heavy mother," Ralph, Aurelia,
+all were well received as they passed before it; but Charles, who
+appeared last, was the hero of the evening.</p>
+
+<p>"He is engaged to his cousin, Miss Derrick, isn't he?" said a lady near
+me, in a loud whisper to a friend.</p>
+
+<p>"Hush! no. Charles can't marry. Head over ears in debt. They say <i>she</i>
+is attached to one of her cousins, but I forget which. I am not sure it
+was not the other one."</p>
+
+<p>"Then it is the second son who is going to be married, is it? I know I
+heard something about one of them being engaged."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, the second son is engaged to that good-looking girl in diamonds,
+who acted Florence Mordaunt. A lot of money, I believe, but not much in
+the way of family. Grandfather sold mouse-traps in Birmingham, so people
+say."</p>
+
+<p>"She looks like it!" replied the other, who had daughters out, and could
+not afford to let any praise of other girls pass. "No breeding or
+refinement; and she will be stout later, you will see."</p>
+
+<p>The play being over, a general movement now set in towards the
+drawing-room, where the band was already installed, and making its
+presence known by an inspiriting valse tune. In a few moments twenty,
+thirty, forty couples were swaying to the music; Aurelia in her acting
+costume was dancing away with Ralph in his red stockings; Carr with the
+"heavy mother," and Charles in prosaic evening-dress was flying past
+with Evelyn, who, now that she had effaced her beautiful stage
+complexion, looked pale and grave as ever.</p>
+
+<p>I suppose it was a capital ball. Every one seemed to enjoy it. I did not
+dance myself, but I liked watching the others; and after a time Charles,
+who had been dancing indefatigably with two school-room girls with
+pigtails, came and flung himself down on the other half of the ottoman
+on which I was sitting.</p>
+
+<p>"Three times with each!" he said, in a voice of extreme exhaustion. "No
+favoritism. I have done for to-night now."</p>
+
+<p>"What! Are you not going to dance any more?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, not unless Evelyn will give me another turn later, which she
+probably won't. There she goes with Lord Breakwater again. How I do
+dislike that young man! And look at Carr&mdash;valsing with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> Aurelia! He
+seems to be leaping on her feet a good deal, and she looks as if she
+were telling him so, does not she? There! they have subsided into the
+bay-window. I thought she would not stand it long. He does not dance as
+well as he acts. Heigh-ho! Come in to supper with me, Middleton. The
+supper-room will be emptier now, and I am dying of hunger. You must be
+the same, for you had no regular dinner any more than we had. Come
+along. We will get a certain little table for two that I know of, in the
+bay-window where I took the fair pigtail just now, to the evident
+anxiety of the parental chignon who was at the large table. We will have
+a good feed in peace and quietness."</p>
+
+<p>In a few minutes we were established in a quiet nook in the supper-room,
+which was now half empty, and were making short work of everything
+before us.</p>
+
+<p>"How well Carr acted!" said Charles at last, leaning back, and leisurely
+sipping his champagne. "I can think of something besides food now. Did
+not you think he acted well?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I said, "but you cut him out."</p>
+
+<p>"Did I!" said Charles, absently, beckoning to some lobster salad which
+was passing. "Have some? Do, Middleton. We can but die once. You won't?
+Well I will. Have you often seen Carr act before?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never," I said. "I never met him till I came on board the <i>Bosphorus</i>
+at&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed! Oh! I fancied you were quite old friends."</p>
+
+<p>"We made great friends on the steamer."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you see much of him in London?" he asked, filling up his glass and
+mine.</p>
+
+<p>"Not much, naturally," I said, laughing. "I was in London only two
+nights."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! I forgot. Very good of you, I am sure, to come down here so soon
+after your arrival. You would hardly have seen him at all since you
+landed, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Carr? Yes," I replied, thinking Charles's talk was becoming very vague;
+though when I rallied him about it next day he assured me it had been
+very much to the point indeed. "We dined and went to the play together,
+and had rather a nasty accident into the bargain on our way home."</p>
+
+<p>"What kind of accident?"</p>
+
+<p>I told him the particulars, which seemed to interest him very much.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And you had all those jewels of poor Sir John's with you, no doubt,"
+continued Charles. "You said you had them on you day and night. I wonder
+you were not relieved of them."</p>
+
+<p>"That is just what Carr said," I went on; "for he lost something of his,
+poor fellow. However, I had left them with Jane in a&mdash;in a <i>safe
+place</i>."</p>
+
+<p>I did not think it necessary to mention the tea-caddy.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! so Carr knew you had charge of them, did he?" said Charles. "Have
+some of these grapes, Middleton; the white ones are the best."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I said, "he was the only person who had any idea of such a thing.
+I am very careful, I can tell you; and I did not mean to have half the
+ship's company know that I had valuables to such an amount upon me. When
+I told Jane about them&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, then, Jane&mdash;I beg her pardon, Miss Middleton&mdash;was aware you had
+them with you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," I replied; "and she was quite astonished at them when I
+showed them to her."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope," continued Charles, with his charming smile&mdash;all the more
+charming because it was so rare&mdash;"that Miss Middleton will add me to the
+number of her friends some day. I live in London, you know; but I wonder
+at ladies caring to live there. No poultry or garden, to which the
+feminine mind usually clings."</p>
+
+<p>"Jane seems to like it," I said.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," replied Charles, meditatively. "I dare say she is very wise. A
+woman who lives alone is much safer in town than in an isolated house in
+the country, in case of fire, or thieves, or&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I don't know that," I said. "I don't see that they are so very
+safe. Why, only the night before I came down here&mdash;&mdash;" I stopped. I had
+looked up to catch a sudden glimpse of Carr's face, pale and uneasy,
+watching us in a mirror opposite. In a moment I saw his face turn
+smiling to another&mdash;Evelyn's, I think&mdash;and both were gone.</p>
+
+<p>Charles's light steel eyes were fixed full upon me.</p>
+
+<p>"'Only the night before you came down here,' you were saying," he
+remarked, leaning back and half shutting them as usual.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, only the night before I came down here our house was broken into;"
+and I gave him a short account of what had happened. "And only the night
+before <i>that</i>," I added, "a poor woman was murdered in Jane's old house.
+I remember it especially, because I went to the house by mistake, not
+knowing Jane had moved,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> and I saw her, poor thing, sitting by the fire.
+I don't see that living in town <i>is</i> so much safer for life and
+property, after all."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me! no. You are right, perfectly right," said Charles, dreamily.
+"Your sister's experience proves it. And that other poor creature&mdash;only
+the night before&mdash;and in Miss Middleton's former house, too. Well,
+Middleton," with a start, "I suppose we ought to be going back now. I
+have got all I want, if you have. I wonder what time it is? I'm dog
+tired."</p>
+
+<p>We re-entered the ball-room to find the last valse being played, and a
+crowd of people taking leave of Lady Mary.</p>
+
+<p>"Where's father?" asked Charles, as Ralph came up. "He ought to be here
+to say good-night."</p>
+
+<p>"He's gone to bed," said Ralph. "Aunt Mary sent him. He was quite done
+up. He has been on his legs all day. I expect he will be laid up
+to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>In a quarter of an hour the ball-room was empty, and Lady Mary, who was
+dragging herself wearily towards the hall as the last carriage rolled
+away, felt that she might safely restore the balance of her mind by a
+sudden lapse from the gracious and benevolent to the acid and severe.</p>
+
+<p>"To bed! to bed!" she kept repeating. "Where is Evelyn? I want her arm.
+General Marston, Colonel Middleton, will you have the goodness to go and
+glean up these young people? Mrs. Marston and Lady Delmour, you must
+both be tired to death. Let us go on, and they can follow."</p>
+
+<p>General Marston and I found a whole flock of the said young people in
+the library, candle in hand, laughing and talking, thinking they were
+going that moment, but not doing it, and all, in fact, listening to
+Charles, who was expounding a theory of his own respecting ball dresses,
+which seemed to meet with the greatest feminine derision.</p>
+
+<p>"First take your silk slip," he was saying as we came in. "There is
+nothing indiscreet in mentioning a slip; is there, Evelyn? I trust not;
+for I heard Lady Delmour telling Mrs. Wright that all well-brought-up
+young ladies had silk slips. Then&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"He exposes his ignorance more entirely every moment," said Evelyn. "Let
+us all go to bed, and leave him to hold forth to men who know as little
+as himself."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Ralph!" said Aurelia, pointing to the jewels on her neck and arms;
+"before we go I want you to take back these. I don't like keeping them
+myself; I am afraid of them." And she began to take them off and lay
+them on the table.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense, my pet; keep them yourself, and lock them up in your
+dressing-case." And Ralph held them towards her.</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't got a dressing-case," said Aurelia, pouting; "and my hat-box
+won't lock. I don't like having them. I wish you would keep them
+yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"Bother!" said Ralph; "and father has gone to bed. He can't put them
+back into his safe, and he keeps the key himself. Where is the bag they
+go in?"</p>
+
+<p>Aurelia said that she had seen him put it behind a certain jar on the
+chimney-piece in the morning-room, and Carr went for it, she following
+him with a candle, as all the lamps had been put out. They presently
+returned with it, and Ralph, who had been collecting all the jewels
+spread over the table, shovelled them in with little ceremony.</p>
+
+<p>"Bother!" he said again, looking round and swinging the bag; "what on
+earth am I to do with them? Ah, well, here goes!" and he opened a side
+drawer in a massive writing-table and shoved the bag in.</p>
+
+<p>"There!" he said, locking it, and putting the key in his pocket; "they
+will do very well there till to-morrow. Are you content now, Aurelia?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes," she said, "I am, if you are." And she bade us good-night and
+followed in the wake of the others, who were really under way at last.</p>
+
+<p>As we all tramped wearily up-stairs to the smoking-room I saw Charles
+draw Ralph aside and whisper something to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense!" I heard Ralph say. "Safe enough. Besides, who would suspect
+their being there? Just as safe as in the strong-box. Brahma lock. Won't
+be bothered any more about them."</p>
+
+<p>Charles shrugged his shoulders and marched off to bed. Ralph and Carr
+likewise went off shortly afterwards to their rooms in the lodge. Carr
+looked tired to death. I went down with them, at Ralph's request, to
+lock the door behind them, as all the servants had gone to bed.</p>
+
+<p>It was a fine night, still and cold, with a bright moon. It had
+evidently been snowing afresh, for there was not a trace of wheels upon
+the ground; but it had ceased now.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night!" called Ralph and Carr, as they went down the steps
+together. I watched the two figures for a moment in the moonlight, their
+footsteps making a double track in the untrodden snow. The cold was
+intense. I drew back shivering, and locked and bolted the door.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>It is very seldom I cannot sleep, but I could not that night. There was
+something in the intense quiet and repose of the great house, after all
+the excitement of the last few hours, that oppressed me. Everything
+seemed, as I lay awake, so unnaturally silent. There was not a sound in
+the wide grate, where the last ashes of the fire were silently giving up
+the ghost, not a rumble of wind in the old chimney which had had so much
+to say the night before. I tossed and turned, and vainly sought for
+sleep, now on this side, now on that. At last I gave up trying, half in
+the hope that it might steal upon me unawares. I thought of the play and
+the ball, of poor Charles and his debts&mdash;of anything and everything&mdash;but
+it was no good. In the midst of a jumble of disconnected ideas I
+suddenly found myself listening again to the silence&mdash;listening as if it
+had been broken by a sound which I had not heard. My watch ticked loud
+and louder on the dressing-table, and presently I gave quite a start as
+the distant stable clock tolled out the hour: One, two, three, four. I
+had gone to bed before three. Had I been awake only an hour? It seemed
+incredible. Getting up on tiptoe, vaguely afraid myself of breaking the
+silence, I noiselessly pushed aside the heavy curtains and looked out.</p>
+
+<p>The moon had set, but by the frosty starlight the outline of the great
+snow-laden trees and the wide sweep of white drive were still dimly
+visible. All was silent without as within. Not a branch moved or let
+fall its freight of snow. There was not a breath of wind stirring. I was
+on the point of getting back into bed, when I thought in the distance I
+heard a sound. I listened intently. No! I must have been mistaken. Ah!
+again, and nearer! I held my breath. I could distinctly hear a stealthy
+step coming up the stairs. My room was the nearest to the staircase end
+of the corridor, and any one coming up the stairs must pass my door.
+With a presence of mind which, I am glad to say, rarely deserts me, I
+blew out my candle, slipped to the door, and noiselessly opened it a
+chink.</p>
+
+<p>Some one was coming down the corridor with the lightness of a cat,
+candle in hand, as a faint light showed me. Another moment,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> and I saw
+Charles, pale and haggard, still in evening-dress, coming towards me. He
+was without his shoes. He passed my door and went noiselessly into his
+own room, a little farther down the passage. There was the faintest
+suspicion of a sound, as of a key being gently turned in the lock, and
+then all was still again, stiller than ever.</p>
+
+<p>What could Charles have been after? I wondered. He could not have been
+returning from seeing Denis, who was not only much better, but was in
+the room beyond his own. And why had he still got on his evening clothes
+at four o'clock in the morning? I determined to ask him about it next
+day, as I got back into bed again, and then, while wondering about it
+and trying to get warm, I fell fast asleep. I was only roused, after
+being twice called, to find that it was broad daylight, and to hear
+being carried down the boxes of many of the guests who were leaving by
+an early train.</p>
+
+<p>I was late, but not so late as some. Breakfast was still going on.
+Evelyn and Ralph had been up to see their friends off, but General and
+Mrs. Marston and Carr, who was staying on, came in after I did. Lady
+Mary and Aurelia were having breakfast in their own rooms. I think
+nothing is more dreary than a long breakfast-table, laid for large
+numbers, with half a dozen picnicking at it among the d&eacute;bris left by
+earlier ravages. Evelyn, behind the great silver urn, looked pale and
+preoccupied, and had very little to say for herself when I journeyed up
+to her end of the table and sat down by her. She asked me twice if I
+took sugar, and was not bright and alert and ready in conversation, as I
+think girls should be. Carr, too, was eating his breakfast in silence
+beside Mrs. Marston.</p>
+
+<p>It was not cheerful. And then Charles came in, listless and tired, and
+without an appetite. He sat down wearily on the other side of Evelyn,
+and watched her pour out his coffee without a word.</p>
+
+<p>"The Carews and Edmonts and Lady Delmour and her daughter have just
+gone," said Evelyn, "and Mr. Denis."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," replied Charles, seeming to pull himself together; "Denis came to
+my room before he went. He looked a wreck, poor fellow; but not worse
+than some of us. These late hours, these friskings with energetic young
+creatures in the school-room, these midnight revels, are too much for
+me. I feel a perfect wreck this morning, too."</p>
+
+<p>He certainly looked it.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you had bad letters?" said Evelyn, in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>He laughed a little&mdash;a grim laugh&mdash;and shook his head. "But I had
+yesterday," he added presently, in a low tone. "I shall have to try a
+change of air again soon, I am afraid."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I was just going to ask Charles what he had been doing walking about in
+his socks the night before, when the door opened, and Ralph, whose
+absence I had not noticed, came in. He looked much perturbed. It seemed
+his father had been taken suddenly and alarmingly ill while dressing. In
+a moment all was confusion. Evelyn precipitately left the room to go to
+him, while Charles rushed round to the stables to send a groom on
+horseback for the nearest doctor. Ralph followed him, and the remainder
+of the party gathered in a little knot round the fire, Mrs. Marston
+expressing the sentiment of each of us when she said that she thought
+visitors were very much in the way when there was illness in the house,
+and that she regretted that she and her husband had arranged to stay
+over Sunday, to-day being Friday.</p>
+
+<p>"So have I," said Carr; "but I am sure I had better have refused. A
+stranger in a sick-house is a positive nuisance. I think I shall go to
+town by an afternoon train, if there is one."</p>
+
+<p>"Upon my word I think we had better do the same," said Mrs. Marston.
+"What do you say, Arthur?" and she turned to her husband.</p>
+
+<p>"I must go to-day, anyhow&mdash;on business," said General Marston.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope no one is talking of leaving," said Charles, who had returned
+suddenly, rather out of breath.</p>
+
+<p>As he spoke his eyes were fixed on Carr.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, that is exactly what we were doing," said Mrs. Marston. "Nothing
+is so tiresome as having visitors on one's hands when there is illness
+in the house. Mr. Carr was thinking of going up to London by the
+afternoon train; and I have a very good mind to go away with Arthur,
+instead of staying on, and letting him come back here for me to-morrow,
+as we had intended."</p>
+
+<p>"Pray do not think of such a thing!" said Charles, really with
+unnecessary earnestness. "Mrs. Marston, pray do not alter your plans.
+Carr!" in a much sterner tone, "I must beg that you will not think of
+leaving us to-day. Your friend Colonel Middleton is staying on, and we
+cannot allow you to desert us so suddenly."</p>
+
+<p>It was more like a command than an invitation; but Carr, usually so
+quick to take a slight, did not seem to notice it, and merely said that
+he should be happy to go or stay, whichever was most in accordance with
+the wishes of others, and took up the newspaper. He and Charles did not
+seem to get on well. I could see that Charles had not seemed to take to
+him from the very first; and Carr certainly did not appear at ease in
+the house. Perhaps Charles felt<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> that he had rather failed in courtesy
+to him, for during the remainder of the morning he hardly let him out of
+his sight. He took him to see the stables, though Carr openly declared
+that he did not understand horses; he showed him his collection of Zulu
+weapons in the vestibule; he even started a game of billiards with him
+till the arrival of the doctor. I did not think Carr took his attentions
+in very good part, though he was too well-mannered to show it; but he
+looked relieved when Charles went up-stairs with the doctor, and pitched
+his cue into the rack at once, and came to the hall-fire where I was
+sitting, and where Aurelia presently joined us, fresh and smiling, in
+the prettiest of morning-gowns. Every one met in the hall. It was in the
+centre of the house, and every one coming up or down had to pass through
+it. Just now it was not so tempting an abode as usual, for the flowers
+and part of the stage had already been removed, and the bare boards,
+with their wooden supports, gave an air of discomfort to the whole
+place.</p>
+
+<p>Aurelia opened wide eyes of horror at hearing Sir George was ill. She
+even got out a tiny laced pocket-handkerchief; but before she had had
+time to weep much into it, and spoil her pretty eyes, the doctor
+reappeared, accompanied by Charles and Ralph, and we all learned to our
+great relief that Sir George, though undoubtedly ill, was not
+dangerously so at present, though the greatest care would be necessary.
+Lady Mary had undertaken the nursing of her brother-in-law, and in her
+the doctor expressed the same confidence which parents are wont to feel
+in a stern school-master. In the mean time the patient was to be kept
+very quiet, and on no account to be disturbed.</p>
+
+<p>When the doctor had left, Ralph and Aurelia, who had actually seen
+nothing of each other that morning, sauntered away together towards the
+library. Charles challenged Carr to finish his game of billiards, and
+Marston and I retired up-stairs to the smoking-room, where we could talk
+over our Indian experiences, and perhaps doze undisturbed. We might have
+been so occupied for half an hour or more when a flying step came up the
+stairs, the door was thrown open, and Ralph rushed into the room.</p>
+
+<p>"General Marston! Colonel Middleton!" he gasped out, breathing hard,
+"will you, both of you, come to my father's room at once? He has sent
+for you."</p>
+
+<p>"Good gracious! Is he worse?" I exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>"No. Hush! Don't ask anything, but just come,"&mdash;and he turned and led the
+way to Sir George Danvers's room.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>We followed in wondering silence, and, after passing along numerous
+passages, were ushered into a large oak-panelled room with a great
+carved bed in it, in the middle of which, bolt-upright, sat Sir George
+Danvers, pale as ivory, his light steel eyes (so like Charles's) seeming
+to be the only living thing about him.</p>
+
+<p>As we came in he looked at each of us in turn.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is Charles?" he said, speaking in a hoarse whisper.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me! Sir George," I said, sympathetically, "how you <i>have</i> lost
+your voice!"</p>
+
+<p>He looked at me for a moment, and then turned to Ralph again.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is Charles?" he asked a second time, in the same tone.</p>
+
+<p>"Here!" said a quiet voice. And Charles came in, and shut the door.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The two pairs of steel eyes met, and looked fixedly at each other.</p>
+
+<p>A tap came to the door.</p>
+
+<p>Sir George winced, and made a sign to Ralph, who rushed to it and bolted
+it.</p>
+
+<p>"I am coming in, George," said Lady Mary's voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Send her away," came a whisper from the bed.</p>
+
+<p>This was easier said than done. But it <i>was</i> done after a sufficiently
+long parley; and Lady Mary retired under the impression that Ralph was
+sitting alone with his father, who thought he might get a little sleep.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," whispered Sir George, motioning to Ralph.</p>
+
+<p>"The fact is," said Ralph, "the jewels are gone! They have been stolen
+in the night."</p>
+
+<p>He bolted out with this one sentence, and then was silent. Marston and I
+stared at him aghast.</p>
+
+<p>"Is there no mistake?" said Marston at last.</p>
+
+<p>"None," replied Ralph. "I put them in a drawer in the great inlaid
+writing-table in the library last night, before everybody. I went for
+them this morning, half an hour ago, at father's request. The lock was
+broken, and they were gone."</p>
+
+<p>There was another long silence.</p>
+
+<p>"I was a fool, of course, to put them there," resumed Ralph.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> "Charles
+told me so; but I thought they were as safe there as anywhere, if no one
+knew&mdash;and no one did except the house party."</p>
+
+<p>"Were any of the servants about?" asked Marston.</p>
+
+<p>"Not one. They had all gone to bed except one of the footmen, who was
+putting out the lamps in the supper-room, miles away."</p>
+
+<p>Another silence.</p>
+
+<p>"That is the dreadful part of it," burst out Ralph. "They must have been
+taken by some one staying in the house&mdash;some one who saw me put them
+there. The first thing I did was to send for the house-maids, and they
+assured me that they had found every shutter shut, and every door
+locked, this morning, as usual. Any one with time and wits <i>might</i> have
+got in through one of the library windows by taking out a pane and
+forcing the shutter. I suppose a practised hand might have done such a
+thing; but I went outside and there was not a footstep in the snow
+anywhere near the library windows, or, for that matter, anywhere near
+the house at all, except at the side and front doors, which are
+impracticable for any one to force an entrance by."</p>
+
+<p>"When did it leave off snowing?" asked Marston.</p>
+
+<p>"About three o'clock," replied Ralph. "It must have snowed heavily till
+then, for there was not a trace of all the carriage-wheels on the drive
+when we went out last night, but our footprints down to the lodge are
+clear in the snow now. There has been no snow since three o'clock this
+morning."</p>
+
+<p>"It all points to the same thing," said Charles, quietly, speaking for
+the first time. "The jewels were taken by some one staying in the
+house."</p>
+
+<p>"One of the servants&mdash;" began Marston.</p>
+
+<p>"No!" said Charles, cutting him short, "not one of the servants."</p>
+
+<p>"It is impossible it should have been one of them," said Ralph, after
+some thought. "First of all, none of them saw the jewels put into that
+drawer; and, secondly, how could they suspect me of hiding them in a
+place where I had never thought of putting them myself till that moment?
+Besides, that one drawer only was broken open&mdash;the centre drawer in the
+left-hand set of drawers. All the others were untouched, though they
+were all locked. No one who had not <i>seen</i> the jewels put in would have
+found them so easily. That is the frightful part of it."</p>
+
+<p>For a few minutes no one spoke. At last Marston raised his head from his
+hands.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"There is no way out of it," he said, very gravely. "The robbery was
+committed by one of the visitors staying in the house!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes!" said Charles.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes!" echoed a whisper from the bed.</p>
+
+<p>Charles looked up slowly and deliberately, and the eyes of father and
+son met again.</p>
+
+<p>"We do not often agree, father," he said, in a measured voice. "I mark
+this exception to the rule with pleasure."</p>
+
+<p>"When I had made out as much as this," continued Ralph, "father told me
+to call both of you and Charles, to consider what ought to be done
+before we make any move."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you an inventory of the jewels?" asked Marston at length.</p>
+
+<p>"None," said Sir George, "unless Middleton had one from Sir John."</p>
+
+<p>I thereupon recapitulated in full all the circumstances of the bequest,
+finally adding that Sir John had never so much as mentioned an
+inventory.</p>
+
+<p>"So much the better for the thief," said Marston, his chin in his hands.
+"It is not a case for a detective," he added.</p>
+
+<p>"I think not," said Charles.</p>
+
+<p>A kind of hoarse ghostly laugh came from the bed. "Charles is always
+right," whispered the sick man. "Quite unnecessary, I am sure."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I don't know," I said, feeling I had not yet been of as much
+assistance as I could have wished. "Now, I think detectives are of
+use&mdash;really useful, you know, in finding out things. There was a
+detective, I remember, trying to trace the people who murdered that poor
+lady at Jane's old house since my return."</p>
+
+<p>"But who could it have been? who could it have been?" burst out Ralph,
+unheeding. "They were all friends. It is frightful to suspect one of
+them. One could as easily suspect one's self. Which of them all could
+have done a thing like that? Out of them all, which was it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Carr!" replied Charles, quietly, looking full at his father.</p>
+
+<p>If a bomb-shell had fallen among us at that moment it could not have
+produced a greater effect than that one word, uttered so deliberately.
+Sir George started in his bed, and clutched at the bedclothes with both
+hands. My brain positively reeled. Carr! my friend Carr! introduced into
+the family by myself, was being accused by Charles. I was speechless
+with indignation.</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry, Middleton," continued Charles; "I know he is your<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> friend,
+but I can't help that. Carr took the jewels. I distrusted him from the
+moment he set foot in the house."</p>
+
+<p>"Where is he at this instant?" said Marston, getting up. "Is no one with
+him?"</p>
+
+<p>"There is no need to be anxious on his account," replied Charles. "I
+took him up to the smoking-room before I came here, and I turned the key
+in the door. The key is here." And he laid it on the table.</p>
+
+<p>Marston sat down again.</p>
+
+<p>"What are your grounds for suspecting Carr?" he asked. "Remember, this
+is a very serious thing, Charles, that you have done in locking him up,
+if you have not adequate reason for it."</p>
+
+<p>"You had better leave Carr alone, Charles," said Ralph, significantly.</p>
+
+<p>"Let him go on," said Sir George.</p>
+
+<p>"I have no proof," continued Charles; "I did not see him take them, but
+I am as certain of it as if I had seen it with my own eyes. The jewels
+could only have been stolen by some one staying in the house. That is
+certain. Who, excepting Carr, was a stranger among us? Who, excepting
+Carr&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Stop, Charles," said Ralph again. "Don't you know that Carr slept with
+me down at the lodge?"</p>
+
+<p>Charles turned on his brother and gripped his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean to say," he said, sharply, "that Carr did not sleep in the
+house last night?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me, Charles, that was an oversight on your part," came Sir
+George's whisper.</p>
+
+<p>"No," replied Ralph, "he did not. The house was full, and we had to put
+him in that second small room through mine in the lodge. If Carr had
+been dying to take them he had not the opportunity. He could not have
+left his room without passing through mine, and I never went to sleep at
+all. I had a sharp touch of neuralgia from the cold, which kept me awake
+all night."</p>
+
+<p>"He got out through the window," said Charles.</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense!" said Ralph, getting visibly angry; "you are only making
+matters worse by trying to put it on him. Remember the size of the
+window. Besides, you know how the lodge stands, built against the garden
+wall. When I came out this morning there was not a single footstep in
+the snow, except those we had made as we went there the night before. I
+noticed our footmarks particularly, because I had been afraid there
+would be more snow. No one could by any possibility have left the house
+during the night. Even Jones himself had not been out, for there was a
+little eddy of snow before<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> the back door, and I remember calling to him
+that he would want his broom."</p>
+
+<p>"The snow clinches the matter, Charles," said Marston, gravely. "You
+have made a mistake."</p>
+
+<p>"Quite unintentional, I'm sure," whispered Sir George.</p>
+
+<p>There was something I did not like about that whisper. It seemed to
+imply more than met the ear.</p>
+
+<p>Charles did not appear to hear him. He was looking fixedly before him,
+his hand had dropped from Ralph's shoulder, his face was quite gray.</p>
+
+<p>"Then," he said, slowly, as if waking out of a dream, "it was <i>not</i>
+Carr."</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Sir George; "I never thought it was."</p>
+
+<p>"Good God!" ejaculated Charles, sinking into a low chair by the fire,
+and shading his face with his hand. "Not Carr, after all!"</p>
+
+<p>But my indignation could not be restrained a moment longer. I had only
+been kept silent by repeated signs from Marston, and now I broke out.</p>
+
+<p>"And so, sir, you suspect my friend," I said, "and insult him in your
+father's house by turning the key on him. You endeavor to throw
+suspicion on a man who never injured you in the slightest degree. You
+insult <i>me</i> in insulting my friend, sir. Suspicion is not always such an
+easy thing to shake off as it has been in this instance. I, on my side,
+might ask what <i>you</i> were doing walking about the passages in your socks
+at four o'clock this morning? In your socks, sir, still in your evening
+clothes&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>I had spoken it anger, not thinking much what I was saying, and I
+stopped short, alarmed at the effect of my own words.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew it! I knew it!" gasped Sir George, in his hoarse, suffocated
+voice, and he fell back panting among his pillows.</p>
+
+<p>Charles took his hand from his face, and looked hard at me with a
+strange kind of smile.</p>
+
+<p>"At any rate we are quits, Middleton," he said. "You have done it now,
+and no mistake."</p>
+
+<p>I did not quite see what I had done, but it soon became apparent.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew it!" gasped out the sick man again; "I knew it from the first
+moment that he tried to throw suspicion on Carr."</p>
+
+<p>"Sir George," said Marston, gravely, "Charles made a mistake just now.
+Do not you, on your side, make another. Come, Charles," turning to the
+latter, who was now sitting erect, with flashing eyes, "tell us about
+it. What were you doing when Middleton saw you?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I was coming up-stairs," said Charles, haughtily.</p>
+
+<p>"From the library?" asked Sir George.</p>
+
+<p>Charles bit his lip and remained silent.</p>
+
+<p>I would not have spoken to him for a good deal at that moment. He looked
+positively dangerous.</p>
+
+<p>"From the library, of course," he said at last, controlling himself, and
+speaking with something of his old careless manner, "laden with the
+spoils of my midnight depredations. Parental fondness will supply all
+minor details, no doubt; so, as the subject is a delicate one for me, I
+will withdraw, that it may be discussed more fully in my absence."</p>
+
+<p>"Stop, Charles," said Marston; "the case is too serious for banter of
+this kind. My dear boy," he added, kindly, "I am glad to see you angry,
+but nevertheless, you must condescend to explain. The longer you allow
+suspicion to rest on yourself the longer it will be before it falls on
+the right person. Come, what were you doing in the passage at that time
+of night?"</p>
+
+<p>Charles was touched, I could see. A very little kindness was too much
+for him.</p>
+
+<p>"It is no good, Marston," he said, in quite a different voice&mdash;"I am not
+believed in this house."</p>
+
+<p>He turned away and leaned against the mantle-piece, looking into the
+fire. Ralph cleared his throat once or twice, and then suddenly went up
+to him, and laid his hand affectionately on his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"Fire away, old boy!" he said, in a constrained tone, and he choked
+again.</p>
+
+<p>Charles turned round and faced his brother, with the saddest smile I
+ever saw.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Ralph!" he said, "I will tell you everything, and then you can
+believe me or not, as you like. I have never told you a lie, have I?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not often," replied Ralph, unwillingly.</p>
+
+<p>"You at least are truth itself," said Charles, reddening; "and if you
+are biassed in your opinion of me, perhaps it is more the fault of that
+exemplary Christian, Aunt Mary, than your own. According to her, I have
+told lies enough to float a company or carry an election, and I never
+like to disappoint her expectations of me in that respect; but you I
+have never to my knowledge deceived, and I am not going to begin now."</p>
+
+<p>"You will be a clergyman yet," whispered the sick parent. "There is a
+good living in the family. Charles, I shall live to see the Rev<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>erend
+Charles Danvers in a surplice, preaching his first sermon on the ninth
+commandment."</p>
+
+<p>"At any rate, he is practising the fifth under difficulties at this
+moment," said Marston, as Charles winced and turned his back on the
+parental sick-bed. "Come, my boy, we are losing time."</p>
+
+<p>"Will somebody have the goodness to restrain Middleton if he gets
+excited?" said Charles. "I am afraid he won't like part of what I have
+got to say."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense, sir!" I replied, with warmth. "I hope I can restrain myself
+as well as any man, even under such provocation as I have lately
+received. You may depend on me, sir, that&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"We lose time," said Marston, seating himself by me, and cutting short
+what I was saying in an exceedingly brusque manner. "Come, Charles, you
+should not be interrupted."</p>
+
+<p>But he was. I interrupted him the whole time, in spite of continual
+efforts on the part of Marston to make me keep silence. I am not the man
+calmly to let pass black insinuations against the character of a friend.
+No, I stood up for him. I am glad to think how I stood up for him, not
+only metaphorically, but in the most literal sense of the term; for I
+found myself continually getting up, and Marston as often pulling me
+down again into my chair.</p>
+
+<p>"Am I to speak, or is Middleton?" said Charles at last, in despair. "I
+will do a solo, or I will keep silence; but really I am unequal to a
+duet."</p>
+
+<p>"Sir George," said Marston, "will you have the goodness to desire
+Colonel Middleton to be silent, or to leave the room till Charles has
+finished his story?"</p>
+
+<p>I was justly annoyed at Marston's manner of speaking of me, but as I had
+no intention to leave the room and miss what was going on, I merely
+bowed in answer to a civil request from Sir George, and took up an
+attitude of dignified silence. I felt that I had done my part in
+vindicating my friend; and after all, no one, evidently, was accustomed
+to believe what Charles said.</p>
+
+<p>"As I was saying," he continued, "I suspected Carr from the first. I did
+not like the look of him, and I purposely pumped Middleton about him
+last night at supper."</p>
+
+<p>I nearly burst out at the bare idea of Charles daring to say he had
+pumped me; but, as will be seen, he could twist anything that was said
+to such an extent that it was perfectly useless to contradict him any
+longer. I said not a single word, and he went on:</p>
+
+<p>"All Middleton told me confirmed me in my suspicions. Sir John<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> had been
+murdered the night before Middleton sailed for England, a whisper of the
+jewels having no doubt gone abroad. Carr came on board next day, and
+made friends with Middleton. Whether he had anything to do with the
+murder or not, God knows! but he found out&mdash;nay, Middleton openly told
+him&mdash;that he had jewels of great value in his possession, which he
+carried about on his person. Carr was the only person aware of that
+fact. What follows? Carr has Middleton's address in London. Middleton
+goes to the house, and finds that his sister has moved to the next
+street. That house to which he first went is broken into, and the poor
+woman in it is murdered, or dies of fright that same night. I mention
+this as coincidence number one. The following evening Middleton, having
+by chance left the jewels at home, dines, and goes to the theatre by
+appointment with Carr. Unique cab accident occurs, in which Middleton is
+knocked on the head and rendered unconscious. Coincidence number two.
+Miss Middleton's house is broken into that same night on Middleton's
+return to it. Coincidence number three. When I put all this together
+last night, remembering that Carr, by Middleton's own account, was the
+only person aware that he had jewels of great value in his keeping, I
+felt absolutely certain (as I feel still) that he had accepted the
+invitation, and come down from London solely for the purpose of stealing
+them. It was pure conjecture on my part, and I dared say nothing beyond
+begging Ralph not to leave the jewels in the library&mdash;which, however, he
+did. I went straight off to my room when the others went to smoke, but I
+did not go to bed. The more I thought it over the more certain I felt
+that Carr would not let slip such an opportunity, the more convinced
+that an attempt would be made that very night. I did not know that he
+was not sleeping in the house, but I knew Ralph was at the lodge, so I
+could not go and consult with him, as I should otherwise have done. I
+thought of going to Middleton, whose room was close to mine, but on
+second thoughts I gave up the idea. I am glad I did. At last I
+determined I would wait till the house was quiet, and that then I would
+go down alone, and watch in the library in the dark. I lay down on my
+bed in my clothes to wait, and then&mdash;I had been up most of the night
+before with Denis; I was dead beat with acting and dancing&mdash;by ill luck
+I fell asleep. When I woke up I found to my horror that it was close on
+four o'clock. I instantly slipped off my shoes, and crept out of my room
+and down the stairs. I could not get to the library from the hall, as
+the stage blocked the way, and I had to go all the way round by the
+drawing-room and morning-room.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> As I went I thought how easy it would be
+for Carr to force the lock of the drawer; and so, it flashed across me,
+could I. Oh, Ralph!" said Charles, "I went down solely to look after
+your property for you, but I <i>did</i> think of it. I hope I should not have
+done it, but I suddenly remembered how hard pressed I was for money, and
+I did think of the crescent, and how you would hardly miss it, and
+how&mdash;but what does it matter now? When I got to the library I found I
+was too late. The lock of the drawer had been forced, and it was empty.
+There was nothing for it but to go back to my room. I felt as certain
+that Carr had done it as that I am standing here; but I dared say
+nothing next morning, for fear of drawing an ever-ready parental
+suspicion on myself&mdash;which, however, Middleton did for me. All I could
+do was to keep Carr well in sight until the theft was found out, to
+prevent any possibility of his escaping, and then to accuse him. There!"
+said Charles, "that is the whole truth. Carr did not take the jewels;
+that is absolutely proved, and the sooner he is let out the better. Who
+took them Heaven only knows! I don't. But I know who meant to, and that
+was Carr."</p>
+
+<p>"Charles," said Ralph, with glistening eyes, "if ever I get them back
+you shall have the crescent."</p>
+
+<p>"A very neat little story altogether," said Sir George, "and the episode
+of temptation very effectively thrown in. It does you credit, my son,
+and is a great relief to your old father's mind."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, Charles," said Marston, getting up. "Sir George, it is close
+on luncheon-time, and Carr must be let out at once. Now that Charles has
+so completely cleared himself I don't see that anything more can be done
+for the moment; and of one thing I am certain, namely, that you are
+making yourself much worse, and must keep absolutely quiet for the rest
+of the day. If I may advise, I would suggest that Carr should be allowed
+to leave, as he wishes to do, by the afternoon train, and should not be
+pressed to stay. There is nothing more to be got out of him; and,
+considering the circumstances, I should say the sooner he is out of the
+house the better. As he has been wrongly suspected, I think the robbery
+had better not be mentioned to any one, even the ladies in the house,
+until after he has left."</p>
+
+<p>"Aurelia knows," said Ralph. "She was with me in the library. I left her
+crying bitterly about them."</p>
+
+<p>"Let her cry, if she will only hold her tongue," said Sir George, making
+a last effort to speak, but evidently at the extreme point of
+exhaustion. "And you, Marston, you are right about Carr. See that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> he
+goes this afternoon. There is nothing more to be done at present.
+Charles, you will remain here, though I have no doubt you have an
+engagement in London. I cannot spare you just yet."</p>
+
+<p>Charles bowed, and he and Marston went out. I remained a second behind
+with Ralph.</p>
+
+<p>"I see it quite clearly," said Sir George. "I know Charles. He is sharp
+enough. He saw Carr meant mischief, and he was beforehand with him; and
+<i>he</i> took what Carr meant to take. It was not badly imagined, but he
+should have made certain Carr was sleeping in the house. It all turned
+on that. He never reckoned on the possibility of Carr's being cleared."</p>
+
+<p>"Middleton is still here," said Ralph, significantly, who was pouring
+out something for his father.</p>
+
+<p>"Is he? I thought he was gone!" said Sir George, so sharply, that I
+considered it advisable to retire at once.</p>
+
+<p>Charles and Marston were talking together earnestly in the passage.</p>
+
+<p>"He does not believe a word I say," said Charles, as I joined them;
+"and, what is more, I could see he had told Ralph he suspected me before
+we came in. Did not you see how Ralph tried to stop me when he thought I
+was committing myself by accusing Carr, who, it seems, was quite out of
+the question? I am glad you cut it short, Marston. He was making himself
+worse every moment."</p>
+
+<p>"Come on with that key of yours, and let us go and let out Carr,"
+replied Marston, patting Charles kindly on the back, "or he will be
+kicking all the paint off the door."</p>
+
+<p>"Not he!" said Charles. "An honest man would have rung up the whole
+household and nearly battered the door down by this time, thinking it
+had been locked by mistake. Carr knows better."</p>
+
+<p>We had reached the smoking-room by this time, just as the gong was
+beginning to sound for luncheon, and under cover of the noise Charles
+fitted the key into the key-hole and unlocked the door. He and Marston
+went slowly in, talking on some indifferent subject, and I followed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+
+<p>The room seemed strangely quiet after the stormy interview in the
+sick-chamber which we had just left. The pale winter sunlight was
+stealing in aslant through the low windows. The fire had sunk to a deep
+red glow, and in an arm-chair drawn up in front of it, newspaper in
+hand, was Carr, evidently fast asleep.</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh, my prophetic soul!'" whispered Charles, nudging Marston; and then
+he went forward and shouted "Luncheon!" in a voice that would have waked
+the dead.</p>
+
+<p>Carr started up and rubbed his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I believe you have been here ever since I left you here, hours
+ago," said Charles, in a surprised tone, though really, under the
+circumstances, it did not require a great stretch of the imagination to
+suppose any such thing.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Carr, still rubbing his eyes. "Have you been gone long? I
+expect I fell asleep."</p>
+
+<p>"I rather thought you were inclined for a nap when I left you," replied
+Charles, airily; "and now let us go to luncheon."</p>
+
+<p>It was a very dismal meal. Lady Mary did not come down to it, and
+Aurelia sat with red eyes, tearful and silent. Ralph was evidently out
+of favor, for she hardly spoke to him, and snubbed him decidedly when he
+humbly tendered a peace-offering in the form of a potato. Evelyn, too,
+was silent, or made spasmodic attempts at conversation with Mrs.
+Marston, the only unconstrained person of the party. Evelyn and Aurelia
+had appeared together, and it was evident from Evelyn's expression that
+Aurelia had told her. What conversation there was turned upon Sir
+George's illness.</p>
+
+<p>"We must go by the afternoon train, my dear," said Marston down the
+table to his wife. "In Sir George's present state <i>all</i> visitors are an
+incubus."</p>
+
+<p>Carr looked up. "I think I ought to go, too," he said. "I wished to
+arrange to do so this morning, but Mr. Danvers," glancing at Charles,
+"would not hear of it. I am sure, when there is illness in a house,
+strangers are always in the way."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I have seen my father since then," replied Charles, "and I fear his
+illness is much more serious than I had any idea of. That being the
+case, I feel it would be wrong to press any one, even Middleton, to stay
+and share the tedium of a sick-house."</p>
+
+<p>After a few more civil speeches it was arranged that Carr should, after
+all, leave by the train which he had proposed in the morning. It was
+found that there was still time for him to do so, but that was all. He
+was evidently as anxious to be off as the Danverses were that he should
+go. The dog-cart was ordered, a servant despatched to the lodge in hot
+haste to pack his portmanteau, and in half an hour he was bidding us
+good-bye, evidently glad to say it. Poor fellow! He little guessed, as
+he shook hands with us, how shamefully he had been suspected, how
+villanously he had been traduced behind his back. Somehow or other I had
+not had a moment of conversation with him since the morning, or a single
+chance of telling him how I had stood up for him in his absence. Either
+Charles or Marston were always at hand, and when he took leave of me I
+could only shake his hand warmly, and tell him to come and see me again
+in town. I watched him spinning down the drive in the dog-cart, little
+thinking how soon I should see him again, and in what circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>"We shall have more snow," said Ralph, coming in-doors. "I feel it in
+the air."</p>
+
+<p>General and Mrs. Marston were the next to leave, starting an hour later,
+and going in the opposite direction. I saw Marston turn aside, when his
+wife was taking leave of the others, and go up to Charles. The young
+hand and the old one met, and were locked tight.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye, my dear boy," said Marston.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't go," said Charles, without looking up.</p>
+
+<p>"I must!" said Marston. "I am due at Kemberley to-night, on business;
+but," in a lower tone, "I shall come back to-morrow, in case I can be of
+any use."</p>
+
+<p>They were gone, and I was the only one remaining. It has occurred to me
+since that perhaps they expected me to go too, but I never thought of it
+at the time. I had been asked for a week, and to go before the end of it
+never so much as entered my head.</p>
+
+<p>There was no chance of going out. The early winter afternoon was already
+closing in, and a few flakes of snow were drifting like feathers in the
+heavy air, promising more to come. Every one seemed to have dispersed,
+Ralph up-stairs to his father, Charles out-of-doors somewhere in spite
+of the weather. I remembered that I had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> not written to Jane since I
+left London, and went into the library to do so. As I came in I saw
+Evelyn sitting in a low chair by the fire, gazing abstractedly into it.
+She started when she saw me, and on my saying I wished to write some
+letters, showed me a writing-table near the fire, with pens, ink, and
+paper.</p>
+
+<p>"You will find it very cold at the big table in the window," she said,
+looking at it with its broken drawer, a chink open, with a visible
+shudder.</p>
+
+<p>I installed myself near the fire, talking cheerfully the while, for it
+struck me she was a little low in her spirits. She did not make much
+response, and I was settling down to my letters when she suddenly said:</p>
+
+<p>"Colonel Middleton!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Miss Derrick."</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid I am interrupting your writing, but&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>I looked round. She was standing up, nervously playing with her rings.
+"But&mdash;I know I am not supposed to&mdash;but I know what happened last night;
+Aurelia told me."</p>
+
+<p>"It is very sad, isn't it?" I said. "But cheer up. I dare say we may get
+them back yet." And I nodded confidentially at her. "In the mean time,
+you know, you must not talk of it to any one."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you suspect any one in particular?" she asked, very earnestly,
+coming a step nearer.</p>
+
+<p>I hardly knew what to say. Carr, I need hardly mention, I had never
+suspected for a moment; but Charles&mdash;Marston had evidently believed what
+Charles had said, but I am by nature more cautious and less credulous
+than Marston. Besides, I had not forgiven Charles yet for trying to
+incriminate Carr. Not knowing what to say, I shrugged my shoulders and
+smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"You do suspect some one, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear young lady," I replied, "when jewels are stolen, one naturally
+suspects some one has taken them."</p>
+
+<p>"So I should imagine. Whom do you naturally suspect?"</p>
+
+<p>I could not tell her that I more than suspected Charles.</p>
+
+<p>"I know nothing for certain," I said.</p>
+
+<p>"But you have a suspicion?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have a suspicion."</p>
+
+<p>She went to the door to see if it were shut, and then came back and
+said, in a whisper:</p>
+
+<p>"So have I."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps we suspect the same person?" I said.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>She did not answer, but fixed her dark eyes keenly on mine. I had never
+noticed before how dark they were.</p>
+
+<p>I saw then that she knew, and that she suspected Charles, just as Sir
+George had done.</p>
+
+<p>I nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing is proved," I said.</p>
+
+<p>"I dared not say even as much as this before," she continued, hurriedly.
+"It is only the wildest, vaguest suspicion. I have nothing to take hold
+of. It is so horrible to suspect any one; but&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She stopped suddenly. Her quick ear had caught the sound of a distant
+step coming across the hall. In another moment Aurelia came in.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you there, Evelyn?" she said. "I was looking for you, to ask where
+the time-table lives. I want to look out my journey for to-morrow. Ralph
+ought to do it, but he is up-stairs," with a little pout.</p>
+
+<p>"You ought not to have quarrelled with him until he had made it out for
+you," said Evelyn, smiling. "It is a very cross journey, isn't it? Let
+me see. You are going to your uncle in Dublin, are not you? You had
+better go to London, and start from there. It will be the shortest way
+in the end."</p>
+
+<p>The two girls laid their heads together over the Bradshaw, Evelyn's
+dark-soft hair making a charming contrast to Aurelia's yellow curls. At
+last the journey was made out and duly written down, and a post-card
+despatched to the uncle in Dublin.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you seen Ralph anywhere?" asked Aurelia, when she had finished it.
+"I am afraid I was a little tiny wee bit cross to him this morning, and
+I am so sorry."</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn always seemed to stiffen when Aurelia talked about Ralph, and,
+under the pretext of putting her post-card in the letter-bag for her,
+she presently left the room, and did not return.</p>
+
+<p>Aurelia sat down on the hearth-rug, and held two plump little hands to
+the fire. It was quite impossible to go on writing to Jane while she was
+there, and I gave it up accordingly.</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad Evelyn is gone," she said, confidentially. "Do you know why I
+am glad?"</p>
+
+<p>I said I could not imagine.</p>
+
+<p>"Because," continued Aurelia, nodding gravely at me, "I want to have a
+very, very, <i>very</i> serious conversation with you, Colonel Middleton."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I said I should be charmed, inwardly wondering what that little curly
+head would consider to be serious conversation.</p>
+
+<p>"Really serious, you know," continued Aurelia, "not pretence. About
+that!" pointing with a pink finger at the inlaid writing-table. "You
+know I was with Ralph when he found it out, and I am afraid I was a
+little cross to him, only really it was so hard, and they were so
+lovely, and it <i>was</i> partly his fault, now, wasn't it, for leaving them
+there? He ought to have been more careful."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course he ought," I said. I would not have contradicted her for
+worlds.</p>
+
+<p>"And you know I am to be married next month; and Aunt Alice in Dublin,
+who is getting my things, says as it is to be a winter wedding I am to
+be married in a white <i>fris&eacute;</i> velvet, and I did think the diamonds would
+have looked so lovely with it. Wouldn't they?"</p>
+
+<p>I agreed, of course.</p>
+
+<p>"But I shall never be married in them now," she said, with a deep sigh.
+"And I was looking forward to the wedding so much, though I dare say I
+did tell a naughty little story when I said I was <i>not</i> to Ralph the
+other night. Of course Ralph is still left," she added, as an
+after-thought; "but it won't be so perfect, will it?"</p>
+
+<p>I was morally certain Charles would have to give them up, so I said,
+reassuringly:</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps you may be married in them, after all."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" she said, clasping her hands together, "do you really think so? Do
+you know anything? I have not seen Ralph since to ask him about it. Do
+you think we shall really get them back?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should not wonder."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Colonel Middleton, I see you know. You are a clever, wise man, and
+you have found out something. Who is it? Do tell me!"</p>
+
+<p>"Will you promise not to tell any one?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mayn't I tell Ralph? I tell him everything."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you may tell Ralph, because he knows already; but no one else,
+remember. The truth is, we are afraid it is Charles."</p>
+
+<p>There was a long pause.</p>
+
+<p>"I know Evelyn thinks so," said Aurelia, in a whisper, "though she tries
+not to show it, because&mdash;because&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Because what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, of course, you can't have helped seeing, can you, that she and
+Charles&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>I had not seen it; indeed, I had fancied at times that Evelyn had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> a
+leaning towards Ralph; but I never care to seem slower than others in
+noticing these things, so I nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"And then, you know, people can't be married that haven't any money; and
+Charles and Evelyn have none," said Aurelia. "Oh, I am glad Ralph is
+well off."</p>
+
+<p>A light was breaking in on me. Perhaps it was not Charles after all.
+Perhaps&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid Evelyn is very unhappy," continued Aurelia. "Her room is
+next to mine, and she walks up and down, and up and down, in the night.
+I hear her when I am in bed. Last night I heard her so late, so late
+that I had been to sleep and had waked up again. Do you know," and she
+crept close up to me with wide, awe-struck eyes, "I am going away
+to-morrow, and I don't like to say anything to any one but you; but I
+think Evelyn knows something."</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Derrick!" I said, beginning to suspect that she possibly knew a
+good deal more than any of us, and then suddenly remembering that she
+had been on the point of telling me something and had been interrupted.
+I was getting quite confused. She certainly would not have wished to
+confide in me if my new suspicion were correct. Considering there was a
+mystery, it was curious how every one seemed to know something very
+particular about it.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," replied Aurelia, nodding once or twice. "I am sure she knows
+something. I went into her room before luncheon, and she was sitting
+with her head down on the dressing-table, and when she looked up I saw
+she had been crying. I don't know what to say about it to Ralph; but you
+know,"&mdash;with a shake of the curls&mdash;"though people may think me only a
+silly little thing, yet I do notice things, Colonel Middleton. Aunt
+Alice in Dublin often says how quickly I notice things. And I thought,
+as you were staying on, and seemed to be a friend, I would tell you this
+before I went away, as you would know best what to do about it."</p>
+
+<p>Aurelia had more insight into character than I had given her credit for.
+She had hit upon the most likely person to follow out a clew, however
+slight, in a case that seemed becoming more and more complicated. I
+inwardly resolved that I would have it out with Miss Derrick that very
+evening. Lady Mary now came in, and servants followed shortly afterwards
+with lamps. The dreary twilight, with its dim whirlwinds of driving
+snow, was shut out, the curtains were drawn, and tea made its
+appearance. Evelyn presently returned, and Charles also, who civilly
+wished Lady Mary good-morning, not having seen her till then. She handed
+him his tea<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> without a word in reply. It was evident that she, also, was
+aware of the robbery, and it is hardly necessary to add that she
+suspected Charles.</p>
+
+<p>"How is my father?" he asked, taking no notice of the frigidity of her
+manner.</p>
+
+<p>"He is asleep at this moment," she replied. "Ralph is remaining with
+him."</p>
+
+<p>"He is better, then, I hope?"</p>
+
+<p>"He is in a very critical state, and is likely to remain in it. His
+illness was quite serious enough, without having it increased by one of
+his own household."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, I was afraid that had been the case," returned Charles. "I knew you
+had been doctoring him when he was out of sorts yesterday. But you must
+not reproach yourself, Aunt Mary. We are none of us infallible. No doubt
+you acted for the best at the time, and I dare say what you gave him may
+not do him any permanent injury."</p>
+
+<p>"If that is intended to be amusing," said Lady Mary, her teacup
+trembling in her hand, "I can only say that, in my opinion, wilfully
+misunderstanding a simple statement is a very cheap form of wit."</p>
+
+<p>"I am so glad to hear you say so," said Charles, rising, "as it was at
+your expense." With which Parthian shot he withdrew.</p>
+
+<p>I endeavored in vain to waylay Evelyn after tea, but she slipped away
+almost before it was over, and did not appear again till dinner-time. In
+the mean while my brain, fertile in expedients on most occasions, could
+devise no means by which I could speak to her alone, and without
+Charles's knowledge. I felt I must trust to chance.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2>
+
+
+<p>When I came down before dinner I found Ralph and Charles talking
+earnestly by the hall-fire, Ralph's hand on his brother's shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"You see we are no farther forward than we were," he was saying.</p>
+
+<p>"We shall have Marston back to-morrow," said Charles, as the gong began
+to sound. "We cannot take any step till then, especially if we don't
+want to put our foot in it. I have been racking<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> my brains all the
+afternoon without the vestige of a result. We must just hold our hands
+for the moment."</p>
+
+<p>Dinner was announced, and we waited patiently for a few minutes, and
+impatiently for a good many more, until Evelyn hurried down, apologizing
+for being late, and with a message from Lady Mary that we were not to
+wait for her, as she was dining up-stairs in her own room&mdash;a practice to
+which she seemed rather addicted.</p>
+
+<p>"And where is Aurelia?" asked Ralph.</p>
+
+<p>"She is not coming down to dinner either," said Evelyn. "She has a bad
+headache again, and is lying down. She asked me to tell you that she
+wishes particularly to see you this evening, as she is going away
+to-morrow, and if she is well enough she will come down to the
+morning-room at nine; indeed, she said she would come down anyhow."</p>
+
+<p>After Ralph's natural anxiety respecting his ladylove had been relieved,
+and he had been repeatedly assured that nothing much was amiss, we went
+in to dinner, and a more lugubrious repast I never remember being
+present at. The meals of the day might have been classified thus:
+breakfast <i>dismal</i>; luncheon, <i>dismaller</i> (or more dismal); dinner,
+<i>dismallest</i> (or most dismal). There really was no conversation. Even I,
+who without going very deep (which I consider is not in good taste) have
+something to say on almost every subject&mdash;even I felt myself nonplussed
+for the time being. Each of us in turn got out a few constrained words,
+and then relapsed into silence.</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn ate nothing, and her hand trembled so much when she poured out a
+glass of water that she spilled some on the cloth. I saw Charles was
+watching her furtively, and I became more and more certain that Aurelia
+was right, and that Evelyn knew something about the mystery of the night
+before. I must and would speak to her that very evening.</p>
+
+<p>"Bitterly cold," said Ralph, when at last we had reached the dessert
+stage. "It is snowing still, and the wind is getting up."</p>
+
+<p>In truth, the wind was moaning round the house like an uneasy spirit.</p>
+
+<p>"That sound in the wind always means snow," said Charles, evidently for
+the sake of saying something. "It is easterly, I should think. Yes,"
+after a pause, when another silence seemed imminent, "there goes the
+eight o'clock train. It must be quite a quarter of an hour late, though,
+for it has struck eight some time. I can hear it distinctly. The station
+is three miles away, and you never hear the train unless the wind is in
+the east."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Come, Charles, not three miles&mdash;two miles and a half," put in Ralph.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, two and a half from here down to the station, but certainly three
+from the station up here," replied Charles; and so silence was
+laboriously avoided by diligent small-talk until we returned to the
+drawing-room, thankful that there at least we could take up a book, and
+be silent if we wished. We all did wish it, apparently. Evelyn was
+sitting by a lamp when we came in, with a book before her, her elbow on
+the table, shading her face with a slender delicate hand. She remained
+motionless, her eyes fixed upon the page, but I noticed after some time
+that she had never turned it over. Charles may have read his newspaper,
+but if he did it was with one eye upon Evelyn all the time. Between
+watching them both I did not, as may be imagined, make much progress
+myself. How was I to manage to speak to Evelyn alone, and without
+Charles's knowledge?</p>
+
+<p>At last Ralph, who had gone into the morning-room, opened the
+drawing-room door and put his head in.</p>
+
+<p>"Aurelia has not come down yet, and it is a quarter past nine. I wish
+you would run up, Evelyn, and see if she is coming."</p>
+
+<p>"She is sure to come!" replied Evelyn, without raising her eyes. "She
+said she <i>must</i> see you."</p>
+
+<p>Ralph disappeared again, and the books and papers were studied anew with
+unswerving devotion. At the end of another ten minutes, however, the
+impatient lover reappeared.</p>
+
+<p>"It is half-past nine," he said, in an injured tone. "Do pray run up,
+Evelyn. I don't think she can be coming at all. I am afraid she is
+worse."</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn laid down her book and left the room. Ralph sauntered back into
+the morning-room, where we heard him beguiling his solitude with a few
+chords on the piano.</p>
+
+<p>Presently Evelyn returned. She was pale even to the lips, and her voice
+faltered as she said:</p>
+
+<p>"She has not gone to bed, for there is a light in her room; but she
+would not answer when I knocked, and the door is locked."</p>
+
+<p>"All of which circumstances are not sufficient to make you as white as a
+ghost," said Charles. "I think even if Aurelia has a headache, you would
+bear the occurrence with fortitude. My dear child, you do not act so
+well off the stage as on it. There is something on your mind. People
+don't upset water at dinner, and refuse all food except pellets of
+pinched bread, for nothing. What is it?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Evelyn sank into a chair, and covered her face with her trembling hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I thought so," said Charles, kneeling down by her, and gently
+withdrawing her hands. "Come, Evelyn, what is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I dare not say." And she turned away her face, and tried to disengage
+her hands, but Charles held them firmly.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it about what happened last night?" he asked, in a tone that was
+kind, but that evidently intended to have an answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"And do you know that I am suspected?"</p>
+
+<p>"You, Charles? Never!" she cried, starting up.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I. Suspected by my own father. So, if you know anything,
+Evelyn&mdash;which I see you do&mdash;it is your duty to tell us, and to help us
+in every way you can."</p>
+
+<p>He had let go her hands now, and had risen.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know anything for certain," she said, "but&mdash;but we soon shall.
+Aurelia knows, and she is going to tell Ralph."</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Grant!" I exclaimed. "She knew nothing at tea-time. She was asking
+me about it."</p>
+
+<p>"It is since then," continued Evelyn. "I went up to her room before
+dinner to ask her for a fan that I had lent her. She was packing some of
+her things, and the floor was strewn with packing-paper and parcels. She
+gave me my fan, and was going on putting her things together, talking
+all the time, when she asked me to hand her a glove-box on the
+dressing-table. As I did so my eye fell on a piece of paper lying
+together with others, and I instantly recognized it as the same that had
+been wrapped round the diamond crescent when Colonel Middleton first
+showed us the jewels. I should never have noticed it&mdash;for though it was
+rice paper, it looked just like the other pieces strewn about&mdash;if I had
+not seen two little angular tears, which I suddenly remembered making in
+it myself when General Marston asked me not to pull it to pieces, which
+I suppose I had been absently doing. I made some sort of exclamation of
+surprise, and Aurelia turned round sharply, and asked me what was the
+matter. As I did not answer, she left her packing and came to the table.
+She saw in a moment what I was looking at. I had turned as red as fire,
+and she was quite white. 'I did not mean you to see that,' she said, at
+last, quietly taking up the paper. 'I meant no one to know until I had
+shown it to Ralph. <i>Do you know where I found it?</i>' and she looked hard
+at me. I could only shake my head. I was too much ashamed of a suspicion
+I had had to be able to get<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> out a word. 'I am very sorry,' continued
+Aurelia, 'but I am afraid it will be my duty to tell Ralph, whatever the
+consequences may be. I have been thinking it over, and I think he ought
+to know. I am going to show it him to-night after dinner,' and she put
+it in her pocket, and then began to cry. I did not know what to say or
+do, I was so frightened at the thought of what was coming; and, as the
+dressing-bell rang at that moment, I was just leaving the room when she
+called me back.</p>
+
+<p>"'I can't come down to dinner,' she said. 'I hate Ralph to see me with
+red eyes. Tell him I shall come down afterwards, at nine o'clock, and
+that I want to see him particularly; only don't tell him what it is
+about, or mention it to any one else. I did not mean any one to know
+till he did.'</p>
+
+<p>"She began to cry afresh, and I made her lie down and put a shawl over
+her, and then left her, as I had still to dress, and I knew that Aunt
+Mary was not coming down. I was late as it was."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that all?" said Charles, who had been listening intently.</p>
+
+<p>"All," replied Evelyn. "We shall soon know the worst now."</p>
+
+<p>"Very soon," said Charles. "Ralph may come in here at any moment. Evelyn
+and Middleton, will you have the goodness to come with me?" And he led
+the way into the hall.</p>
+
+<p>We could hear Ralph in the next room, humming over an old Irish melody,
+with an improvised accompaniment.</p>
+
+<p>"Now show me her room," said Charles, "and please be quick about it."</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn looked at him astonished, and then led the way up-stairs, along
+the picture-gallery to another wing of the house. She stopped at last
+before a door at the end of a passage, dimly lighted by a lamp at the
+farther end. There was a light under the door, and a bright chink in the
+key-hole, but though we listened intently we could hear nothing stirring
+within.</p>
+
+<p>"Knock again," said Charles to Evelyn. "Louder!" as her hand failed her.</p>
+
+<p>There was no answer. As we listened the light within disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>"Bring that lamp from the end of the passage," said Charles to Evelyn,
+and she brought it.</p>
+
+<p>"Hold it there," he said; "and you, Middleton, stand aside."</p>
+
+<p>He took a few steps backward, and then flung himself against the door
+with his whole force. It cracked and groaned, but resisted.</p>
+
+<p>"The lock is old. It is bound to go," he said, panting a little.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Really, Charles," I remonstrated&mdash;"a lady's private apartment! Miss
+Derrick, I wonder you allow this."</p>
+
+<p>Charles retreated again, and then made a fresh and even fiercer
+onslaught on the door. There was a sound of splintering wood and of
+bursting screws, and in another moment the door flew open inward, and
+Charles was precipitated head-foremost into the room, his evening-pumps
+flourishing wildly in the air. In an instant he was on his feet again,
+gasping hard, and had seized the lamp out of Evelyn's hand. Before I had
+time to remonstrate on the liberty that he was taking, we were all three
+in the room.</p>
+
+<p>It was empty!</p>
+
+<p>In one corner stood a box, half packed, with various articles of
+clothing lying by it. On the dressing-table was a whole medley of little
+feminine knick-knacks, with a candlestick in the midst, the dead wick
+still smoking in the socket, and accounting for the disappearance of the
+light a few minutes before. The fire had gone out, but on a chair by it
+was laid a little black lace evening-gown, evidently put out to be worn;
+while over the fender a dainty pair of silk stockings had been hung, and
+two diminutive black satin shoes were waiting on the hearth-rug. The
+whole aspect of the room spoke of a sudden and precipitate flight.</p>
+
+<p>"Bolted!" said Charles, when he had recovered his breath. "And so the
+mystery is out at last! I might have known there was a woman at the
+bottom of it. Unpremeditated, though," he continued, looking round. "She
+meant to have gone to-morrow; but your recognition of that paper
+frightened her, though she turned it off well to gain time. No fool
+that! She had only an hour, and she made the most of it, and got off, no
+doubt, while we were at dinner, by the 8.2 London train, which is the
+last to-night; and after the telegraph office was closed, too! She knew
+nothing could be done till to-morrow. She has more wit than I gave her
+credit for."</p>
+
+<p>"I distrusted her before, though I had no reason for it, but I never
+thought she was gone," said Evelyn, trembling violently, and still
+looking round the room.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew it," said Charles, "from the moment I saw the light through the
+key-hole. A key-hole with a key in it would not have shown half the
+amount of light through it; and a locked door without a key in it is
+safe to have been locked <i>from the outside</i>. Had she a maid with her?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," replied Evelyn, "she used to come to me next door when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> she wanted
+help&mdash;but not often&mdash;because I think she knew I did not like her, though
+I tried not to show it."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we have seen the last of her, or I am much mistaken," said
+Charles. "And now," he added, compressing his lips, "I suppose I must go
+and tell Ralph."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Ralph! Ralph!" gasped Evelyn, with a sudden sob; "and he was so
+fond of her!"</p>
+
+<p>"And so you distrusted her before, Evelyn? And why did you not mention
+that fact a little sooner?"</p>
+
+<p>"Without any reason for it? And when Ralph&mdash;Oh, I couldn't! I couldn't!"
+said the girl, crimsoning.</p>
+
+<p>Charles gazed intently at her as she turned away, pressing her hands
+tightly together, and evidently struggling with some sudden emotion for
+which there really was no apparent reason. She was overwrought, I
+suppose; and indeed the exertion of breaking in the door had been rather
+too much for Charles too; for, now that the excitement was over, his
+hand shook so much that he had to put down the lamp, and even his voice
+trembled a little as he said:</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think Ralph is very much to be pitied. He has had a narrow
+escape."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't come down again, either of you," he continued a moment later, in
+his usual voice. "I had better go and get it over at once. He will be
+wondering what has become of us if I wait much longer. Evelyn,
+good-night. Good-night, Middleton. If it is too early for you to go to
+bed, you will find a fire in the smoking-room."</p>
+
+<p>I bade Evelyn good-night, and followed Charles down the corridor. He
+replaced the lamp with a hand that was steady enough now, and went
+slowly across the picture-gallery. The way to my room led me through it
+also. Involuntarily I stopped at the head of the great carved staircase
+which led into the hall, and watched him going down, step by step, with
+lagging tread. From the morning-room came the distant sound of a piano,
+and a man's voice singing to it; singing softly, as though no Nemesis
+were approaching; singing slowly, as if there were time enough and to
+spare. But Nemesis had reached the bottom of the staircase; Nemesis,
+with a heavy step, was going across the silent hall&mdash;was even now
+opening the door of the morning-room. The door was gently closed again,
+and then, in the middle of a bar, the music stopped.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>I passed an uneasy night. The wind moaned wearily round the house, at
+one moment seeming to die away altogether, at another returning with
+redoubled fury, roaring down the wide chimney, shaking the whole
+building. It dropped completely towards dawn, and after hours of fitful
+slumber I slept heavily.</p>
+
+<p>In the gray of the early morning I was awakened by some one coming into
+my room, and started up to find Charles standing by my bedside, dressed,
+and with a candle in his hand. His face was worn and haggard from want
+of sleep.</p>
+
+<p>"I have come to speak to you before I go, Middleton," he said, when I
+was thoroughly awake. "Ralph and I are off by the early train. Will you
+tell my father that we may not be able to return till to-morrow, if
+then; and may I count upon you to keep all you saw and heard secret till
+after our return?"</p>
+
+<p>"Where are you going?"</p>
+
+<p>"To London. We start in twenty minutes. I don't think it is the least
+use, but Ralph insists on going, and I cannot let him go alone."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Charles," I said (all my anger had vanished at the sight of his
+worn face), "I will accompany you."</p>
+
+<p>"Not for worlds!" he replied, hastily. "It would be no good. Indeed, I
+should not wish it."</p>
+
+<p>But I knew better.</p>
+
+<p>"An old head is often of use," I replied, rapidly getting into my
+clothes. "You may count on me, Charles. I shall be ready in ten
+minutes."</p>
+
+<p>Charles made some pretence at annoyance, but I was not to be dissuaded.
+I knew very well how invaluable the judgment of an elder man of
+experience could be on critical occasions; and besides, I always make a
+point of seeing everything I can, on all occasions. In ten minutes I was
+down in the dining-room, where, beside a spluttering fire, the brothers,
+both heavily booted and ulstered, were drinking coffee by candle-light.
+A hastily laid breakfast was on the table, but it had not been touched.
+The gray morning light was turning<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> the flame of the candles to a rusty
+yellow, and outside, upon the wide stone sills, the snow lay high
+against the panes.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph was sitting with bent head by the fire, stick and cap in hand, his
+heavy boot beating the floor impatiently. He looked up as I came in, but
+did not speak. The ruddy color in his cheeks was faded, his face was
+drawn and set. He looked ten years older.</p>
+
+<p>"We ought to be off," he said at last, in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>"No hurry," replied Charles; "finish your coffee."</p>
+
+<p>I hastily drank some also, and told Charles that I was coming with them.</p>
+
+<p>"No!" said Charles.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes!" I replied. "You are going to London, and so am I. I have decided
+to curtail my visit by a few days, under the circumstances. I shall
+travel up with you. My luggage can follow."</p>
+
+<p>As soon as Charles grasped the idea that I was not going to return to
+Stoke Moreton his opposition melted away; he even seemed to hail my
+departure with a certain sense of relief.</p>
+
+<p>"As you like," he said. "You can leave at this unearthly hour if you
+wish, and travel with us as far as Paddington."</p>
+
+<p>I nodded, and went after my great-coat. Of course I had not the
+slightest intention of leaving them at Paddington; but I felt that the
+time had not arrived to say so.</p>
+
+<p>"Here comes the dog-cart," said Charles, as I returned.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph was already on his feet. But the dog-cart, with its great bay
+horse, could not be brought up to the door. The snow had drifted heavily
+before the steps, and right up into the archway, and the cart had to go
+round to the back again before we could get in and start. Charles took
+the reins, and his brother got up beside him. The groom and I squeezed
+ourselves into the back seat. I could see that I was only allowed to
+come on sufferance, and that at the last moment they would have been
+willing to dispense with my presence. However, I felt that I should
+never have forgiven myself if I had let them go alone. Charles was not
+thirty, and Ralph several years younger. An experienced man of fifty to
+consult in case of need might be of the greatest assistance in an
+emergency.</p>
+
+<p>"Quicker!" said Ralph; "we shall miss the train."</p>
+
+<p>"No quicker, if we mean to catch it," said Charles. "I allowed ten
+minutes extra for the snow. We shall do it if we go quietly, but not if
+I let him go. An upset would clinch the matter."</p>
+
+<p>We drove noiselessly through the great gates with their stone lions on
+either side, rampant in wreaths of snow, and up the village<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> street,
+where life was hardly stirring yet. The sun was rising large and red, a
+ball of dull fire in the heavy sky. It seemed to be rising on a dead
+world. Before us (only to be seen on my part by craning round) stretched
+the long white road. At intervals, here and there among the shrouded
+fields, lay cottages half hidden by a white network of trees. Groups of
+yellow sheep stood clustered together under hedge-rows, motionless in
+the low mist, and making no sound. A lonely colt, with tail erect, ran
+beside us on the other side of the hedge as far as his field would allow
+him, his heavy hoofs falling noiseless in the snow. The cold was
+intense.</p>
+
+<p>"There will be a drift at the bottom of Farrow hill," said Ralph; "we
+shall be late for the train."</p>
+
+<p>And in truth, as we came cautiously down the hill, on turning a corner
+we beheld a smooth sheet of snow lapping over the top of the hedge on
+one side, like iced sugar on a cake, and sloping downward to the ditch
+on the other side of the road.</p>
+
+<p>"Hold on!" cried Charles, as I stood up to look; and in another moment
+we were pushing our way through the snow, keeping as near the ditch as
+possible&mdash;too near, as it turned out. But it was not to be. A few yards
+in front of us lay the road&mdash;snowy, but practicable; but we could not
+reach it. We swayed backward and forward; we tilted up and down; Charles
+whistled, and made divers consolatory and encouraging sounds to the bay
+horse; but the bay horse began to plunge&mdash;he made a side movement&mdash;one
+wheel crunched down through the ice in the ditch, and all was over&mdash;at
+least, all in the cart were. We fell soft&mdash;I most providentially
+alighting on the groom, who was young, and inclined to be plump, and
+thus breaking a fall which to a heavy man of my age might have been
+serious. Charles and Ralph were up in a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought I could not do it; but it was worth a trial," said Charles,
+shaking himself. "George, look after the horse and cart, and take them
+straight back. Now, Ralph, we must run for it if we mean to catch the
+train. Middleton, you had better go back in the cart." And off they set,
+plunging through the snow without further ceremony. I watched the two
+dark figures disappearing, aghast with astonishment. They were
+positively leaving me behind! In a moment my mind was made up; and,
+leaving the gasping young groom to look after the horse and cart, I set
+off to run too. It was only a chance, of course; but in this weather the
+train might be late. It was all the way downhill. I thought I could do
+it, and I did. My feet were balled with snow; I was hotter than I had
+been for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> years; I was completely out of breath; but when I puffed into
+the little road-side station, five minutes after the train was due, I
+could see that it was not yet in, and that Ralph and Charles were
+waiting on the platform.</p>
+
+<p>"My word, Middleton!" said Charles, coming to meet me. "I thought I had
+seen the last of you when I left you reclining on George in the drift. I
+do believe you have got yourself into this state of fever-heat purely to
+be of use to us two; and I treated you very cavalierly, I am sure. Let
+by-gones be by-gones, and let us shake hands while you are in this
+melting mood."</p>
+
+<p>I could not speak, but we shook hands cordially; and I hurried off to
+get my ticket.</p>
+
+<p>"You can only book to Tarborough!" he called after me, "where we change,
+and catch the London express."</p>
+
+<p>The station-master gave me my ticket, and then approached Charles, and
+touched his cap.</p>
+
+<p>"Might any of you gentlemen be going to London, sir?" he inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"All three of us."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think you will get on, sir. The news came down this morning
+that the evening express from Tarborough last night was thrown off the
+rails by a drift, and got knocked about, and I don't expect the line is
+clear yet. There will be no trains running till later in the day, I am
+afraid."</p>
+
+<p>"The night express?" said Ralph, suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean the 9 train, which you can catch by the 8.2 from here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"She was in it!" said Ralph, in a hoarse voice, as the man walked away.</p>
+
+<p>"How late the train is!" said Charles; "quarter of an hour already. I
+say, Jervis," calling after him, "any particulars about the accident?
+Serious?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh dear no, sir, not to my knowledge. Never heard of anything but that
+the train had been upset, and had stopped the traffic."</p>
+
+<p>"Not many people travelling in such weather, at any rate. I dare say
+there was not a creature who went from here by the last train last
+night?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only two, sir. One of the young gentlemen from the rectory, and a young
+lady, who was very near late, poor thing, and all wet with snow. Ah,
+there she is, at last!" as the train came in sight;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> and he went through
+the ceremony of ringing the bell, although we were the only travellers
+on the platform.</p>
+
+<p>It was only an hour's run to Tarborough, where we were to join the main
+line.</p>
+
+<p>"What are we to do now?" said Charles, as the chimneys of Tarborough
+hove in sight, and the train slackened. "Ten to one we shall not be able
+to get on to London!"</p>
+
+<p>"Nor she either," said Ralph. "I shall see her! I shall see her here!"</p>
+
+<p>There was an air of excitement about the whole station as we drew up
+before the platform. Groups of railway officials were clustered
+together, talking eagerly; the bar-maids were all looking out of the
+refreshment-room door; policemen were stationed here and there; and
+outside the iron gates of the station a little crowd of people were
+waiting in the trodden yellow snow, peering through the bars.</p>
+
+<p>We got out, and Charles went up to a respectable-looking man in black,
+evidently an official of some consequence, and asked what was the
+matter. The man informed him that a special had been sent down the line
+with workmen to clear the rails, and that its return, with the
+passengers in the ill-fated express, was expected at any moment.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't mean to say the wretched passengers have been there all
+night?" exclaimed Charles. From the man's account it appeared that the
+travellers had taken refuge in a farm near the scene of the accident,
+and, the snow-storm continuing very heavily, it had not been thought
+expedient to send a train down the line to bring them away till after
+daybreak. "It has been gone an hour," he said, looking at the clock;
+"and it is hardly nine yet. Considering how late we received notice of
+the accident&mdash;for the news had to travel by night, and on foot for a
+considerable distance&mdash;I don't think there has been much delay."</p>
+
+<p>"Will all the passengers come back by this train?" asked Ralph.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes sir."</p>
+
+<p>"We will wait," said Ralph; and he went and paced up and down the most
+deserted part of the platform. The man followed him with his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Anxious about friends, sir?" he asked Charles.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I heard Charles say, as I went off to warm myself by the
+waiting-room fire, keeping a sharp lookout for the arrival of the train.
+When I came out some time later, wondering if it were ever going to
+arrive at all, I found Charles and the man in black walking<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> up and down
+together, evidently in earnest conversation. When I joined them they
+ceased talking (I never can imagine why people generally do when I come
+up), and the latter said that he would make inquiry at the
+booking-office, and left us.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is that man?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"How should I know?" said Charles, absently. "He says he has been a
+London detective till just lately, but he is an inspector of police now.
+Well?" as the man returned.</p>
+
+<p>"Booking-clerk can't remember, sir; but the clerk at the telegraph
+office remembers a young lady leaving a telegram last night, to be sent
+on first thing this morning."</p>
+
+<p>"Has it been sent yet?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir; some time."</p>
+
+<p>"Where was it sent to?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is against rules, sir. The clerk has no right to give information.
+Anyhow, it is as good as certain, from what you say, that the party was
+in the train, and at all events you will not be kept in doubt much
+longer;" and he pointed to the long-expected puff of white smoke in the
+direction in which all eyes had been so anxiously turned. The train came
+slowly round a broad curve and crawled into the station. Ralph had come
+up, and his eyes were fixed intently upon it. The hand he laid on
+Charles's arm shook a little as he whispered, in a hoarse voice, "I must
+speak to her alone before anything is said."</p>
+
+<p>"You shall," replied Charles; and he moved forward a little, and waited
+for the passengers to alight. I felt that any chance of escape which lay
+in eluding those keen light eyes would be small indeed.</p>
+
+<p>Then ensued a scene of confusion, a Babel of tongues, as the passengers
+poured out upon the platform. "What was the meaning of it all?" hotly
+demanded an infuriated little man before he was well out of the
+carriage. "Why had a train been allowed to start if it was to be
+overturned by a snow-drift? What had the company been about not to make
+itself aware of the state of the line? What did the railway officials
+mean by&mdash;" etc. But he was not going to put up with such scandalous
+treatment. He should cause an inquiry to be made; he should write to the
+<i>Times</i>, he should&mdash;in short, he behaved like a true Englishman in
+adverse circumstances, and poured forth abuse like water. Others
+followed&mdash;some angry, some silent, all cold and miserable. A stout woman
+in black, who had been sent for to a dying child, was weeping aloud; a
+dazed man with bound-up head and a terrified wife were pounced upon
+imme<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>diately by expectant friends, and borne off with voluble sympathy.
+One or two people slightly hurt were helped out after the others. The
+train was emptied at last. Aurelia was not there. Charles went down the
+length of the train looking into each carriage, and then came back,
+answering Ralph's glance with a shake of the head. The man in black, who
+seemed to have been watching him, came up.</p>
+
+<p>"Have <i>all</i> come back by this train?" Charles asked.</p>
+
+<p>"All, sir, except,"&mdash;and he hesitated&mdash;"except a few. The doctor who went
+has not returned; and the guard says there were some of the passengers,
+badly hurt, that he would not allow to be moved from the farm when the
+train came for them. The engine-driver and one or two others were&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Charles made a sign to him to be silent.</p>
+
+<p>"How far is it?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Twenty miles, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Are the roads practicable?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir. At least they would be very uncertain once you got into the
+lanes."</p>
+
+<p>"We can walk along the line," said Ralph. "That must be clear. Let us
+start at once."</p>
+
+<p>"Could not the station-master send us down on an engine?" asked Charles.
+"We would pay well for it."</p>
+
+<p>The police-inspector shook his head, but Charles went off to inquire,
+nevertheless, and he followed him. I thought him a very pushing,
+inquisitive kind of person. I have always had a great dislike to the
+idle curiosity which is continually prying into the concerns of others.
+Ralph and I walked up and down, up and down, the now deserted platform.
+I spoke to him once or twice, but he hardly answered; and after a time I
+gave it up, and we paced in silence.</p>
+
+<p>At last Charles returned. His request for an engine had been refused,
+but a further relay of workmen was being sent down the line in a couple
+of hours' time, and he had obtained leave for himself and us to go with
+them. After two long interminable hours of that everlasting pacing we
+found ourselves in an open truck, full of workmen, steaming slowly out
+of the station. At the last moment the man in black jumped in, and
+accompanied us.</p>
+
+<p>The pace may have been great, but to us it seemed exasperatingly slow,
+and in the open truck the cold was piercing. The workmen, who laughed
+and talked among themselves, appeared to take no notice of it; but I saw
+that Charles was shivering, and presently he made his brother light his
+pipe, and began to smoke hard himself.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Ralph's pipe, however, went out unheeded in his fingers. He sat quite
+still with his back against the side of the truck, his eyes fixed upon
+the gray horizon. Once he turned suddenly to his brother, and said, as
+if unable to keep silence on what was in his mind, "What was her
+object?"</p>
+
+<p>Charles shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"They were hers already!" he went on. "She would have had them all. If
+she had had debts, I would have paid them. What could her object have
+been?" And seemingly, without expecting a reply, he relapsed into
+silence.</p>
+
+<p>We had left the suburbs now, and were passing through a lonely country.
+Here and there a village of straggling cottages met the eye, clustering
+round their little church. In places the hedge-rows alone marked the lie
+of the hidden lanes; in others men were digging out the roads through
+drifts of snow, and carts and horses were struggling painfully along. In
+one place a little walking funeral was laboring across the fields from a
+lonely cottage, in the direction of the church, high on the hill, the
+bell of which was tolling through the quiet air. The sound reached us as
+we passed, and seemed to accompany us on our way. I heard the men
+talking among themselves that there had been no snow-storm like to this
+for thirty years; and as they spoke some of them began shading their
+eyes, and trying to look in the direction in which we were going.</p>
+
+<p>We had now reached a low waste of unenclosed land, with sedge and gorse
+pricking up everywhere through the snow, and with long lines of pollards
+marking the bed of a frozen stream. Near the line was a deserted
+brick-kiln, surrounded by long uneven mounds and ridges of ice, with
+three poplars mounting guard over it. Flights of rooks hung over the
+barren ground, and wheeled in the air with discordant clamor as we
+passed&mdash;the only living moving things in the utter desolation of the
+scene. As I looked there was an exclamation from one of the workmen, and
+the engine began to slacken. We were there at last.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The engine and trucks stopped, the men shouldered their tools and
+tumbled out, and we followed them. A few hundred paces in front of us
+was a railway bridge, over which a road passed, and under which the rail
+went at a sharp curve. The snow had drifted heavily against the bridge,
+with its high earth embankment, making manifest at a glance the cause of
+the disaster.</p>
+
+<p>The bridge was crowded with human figures, and on the line below men
+were working in the drift, amid piles of d&eacute;bris and splintered wood. The
+wrecked train had all been slightly draped in snow; the engine alone,
+barely cold, lying black and grim, like some mighty giant, formidable in
+death. A sheet of glass ice near it showed how the boiler had burst.
+Some of the hindermost carriages were still standing, or had fallen
+comparatively uninjured; but others seemed to have leaped upon their
+fellows, and ploughed right through them into the drift. It was well
+that it began to snow as we reached the spot. There were traces of
+dismal smears on the white ground which it would be seemly to hide.</p>
+
+<p>Our friend in black went forward and asked a few questions of the man in
+charge, and presently returned.</p>
+
+<p>"The remainder of the passengers are at the farm," he said, pointing to
+a house at a little distance; and without further delay we began to
+scramble up the steep embankment, and clamber over the stone-wall of the
+bridge into the road. My mind was full of other things, but I remember
+still the number of people assembled on the bridge, and how a man was
+standing up in his donkey-cart to view the scene. It was Saturday, and
+there were quantities of village school-boys sitting astride on the low
+wall, or perched on adjacent hurdles, evidently enjoying the spectacle,
+jostling, bawling, eating oranges, and throwing the peel at the engine.
+Some older people touched their hats sympathetically, and one went and
+opened a gate for us into a field, through which many feet seemed to
+have come and gone; but for the greater number the event was evidently
+regarded as an interesting variation in the dull routine of every-day
+life; and to the school-boys it was an undoubted treat.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Ralph and Charles walked on in front, following the track across the
+field. It was not particularly heavy walking after what we had had
+earlier in the day, but Ralph stumbled perpetually, and presently
+Charles drew his arm through his own, and the two went on together, the
+police-inspector following with me.</p>
+
+<p>In a few minutes we reached the farm, and entered the farm-yard, which
+was the nearest way to the house. A little knot of calves, intrenched on
+a mound of straw in the centre of the yard, lowered their heads and
+looked askance at us as we came in, and a party of ducks retreated
+hastily from our path with a chorus of exclamations, while a thin collie
+dog burst out of a barrel at the back door, and made a series of
+gymnastics at the end of a chain, barking hoarsely, as if he had not
+spared himself of late.</p>
+
+<p>An elderly woman with red arms met us at the door, and, on a whisper
+from the police-inspector, first shook her head, and then, in answer to
+a further whisper, nodded at another door, and, a voice calling her from
+within, hastily disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>The inspector opened the door she had indicated and went in, I with him.
+Charles, who had grown very grave, hung back with Ralph, who seemed too
+much dazed to notice anything in heaven above or the earth beneath. The
+door opened into an out-house, roughly paved with round stones, where
+barrels, staves, and divers lumber had been put away. There was straw in
+the farther end of it, out of which a yellow cat raised two gleaming
+eyes, and then flew up a ladder against the wall, and disappeared among
+the rafters. In the middle of the floor, lying a little apart, were
+three figures with sheets over them. Instinctively we felt that we were
+in the presence of death. I looked back at Charles and Ralph, who were
+still standing outside in the falling snow. Charles was bareheaded, but
+Ralph was looking absently in front of him, seeming conscious of
+nothing. The inspector made me a sign. He had raised one of the sheets,
+and now withdrew it altogether. My heart seemed to stand still. <i>It was
+Aurelia!</i> Aurelia changed in the last great change of all, but still
+Aurelia. The fixed artificial color in the cheek consorted ill with the
+bloodless pallor of the rest of the face, which was set in a look of
+surprise and terror. She was altered beyond what should have been. She
+looked several years older. But it was still Aurelia. Those little
+gloved hands, tightly clinched, were the same which she had held to the
+library fire as we talked the day before; even the dress was the same.
+Alas! she had been in too great a hurry to change it before she left, or
+her thin shoes. Poor little Aurelia!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> And then&mdash;I don't know how it was,
+but in another moment Ralph was kneeling by her, bending over her,
+taking the stiffened hands in his trembling clasp, imploring the deaf
+ears to hear him, calling wildly to the pale lips to speak to him, which
+had done with human speech. I could not bear it, and I turned away and
+looked out through the open door at the snow falling. The inspector came
+and stood beside me. In the silence which followed we could hear Charles
+speaking gently from time to time; and when at last we both turned
+towards them again, Ralph had flung himself down on an old bench at the
+farther end of the out-house, with his back turned towards us, his arms
+resting on a barrel, and his head bowed down upon them. He neither spoke
+nor moved.</p>
+
+<p>Charles left him, and came towards us, and he and the inspector spoke
+apart for a moment, and then the latter dropped on his knees beside the
+dead woman, and, after looking carefully at a dark stain on one of the
+wrists, turned back the sleeve. Crushed deep into the round white arm
+gleamed something bright. It was an emerald bracelet which we both knew.
+Charles cast a hasty glance at Ralph, but he had not moved, and he drew
+me beside him, so as to interpose our two figures between him and the
+inspector. The latter quietly turned down the sleeve and recomposed the
+arm.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew she would have them on her, if she had them at all," he said, in
+a low voice. "We need look no farther at present. Not one will be
+missing. They are all there."</p>
+
+<p>He gazed long and earnestly at the dead face, and then to my horror he
+suddenly unfastened the little hat. I made an involuntary movement as if
+to stop him, but Charles laid an iron grip upon me, and motioned to me
+to be still. The stealthy hand quietly pushed back the fair curls upon
+the forehead, and in another moment they fell still farther back,
+showing a few short locks of dark hair beneath them, which so completely
+altered the dead face that I could hardly recognize it as belonging to
+the same person. The inspector raised his head, and looked significantly
+at Charles. Then he quietly drew forward the yellow hair over the
+forehead again, replaced the hat, and rose to his feet. Charles and I
+glanced apprehensively at Ralph, but he had not stirred. As we looked, a
+hurried step came across the yard, a hand raised the latch of the door,
+and some one entered abruptly. It was Carr. For one moment he stood in
+the door-way, for one moment his eyes rested horror-struck on the dead
+woman, then darted at us, from us to the inspector, who was coolly
+watching him, and&mdash;he was gone! gone as suddenly as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> he had come; gone
+swiftly out again into the falling snow, followed by the wild barking of
+the dog.</p>
+
+<p>Charles, who had had his back to the door, turned in time to see him,
+and he made a rush for the door, but the inspector flung himself in his
+way, and held him forcibly.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me go! Let me get at him!" panted Charles, struggling furiously.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall do no such thing, sir. It can do no good, and might do harm. He
+is armed, and you are not; and he would not be over-scrupulous if he
+were pushed. Besides, what can you accuse him of? Intent to rob? For he
+did not do it. If you have lost anything, remember, you have found it
+again. If you caught him a hundred times, you have no hold on him. I
+know him of old."</p>
+
+<p>"You?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; I have known him by sight long enough. He is not a new hand by any
+means&mdash;nor she either, as to that, poor thing."</p>
+
+<p>"But what on earth brought him here?"</p>
+
+<p>"He was waiting for news of her in London, most likely, and he knew she
+would have the jewels on her, and came down when he got wind of the
+accident."</p>
+
+<p>"Knew she would have the jewels! Then do you mean to say there was
+collusion between the two?"</p>
+
+<p>The inspector glanced furtively at Ralph, but he had never stirred, or
+raised his head since he had laid it down on his clinched hands.</p>
+
+<p>"They are both well known to the police," he said at last, "and I think
+it probable there was collusion between them, considering they were <i>man
+and wife</i>."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CONCLUSION" id="CONCLUSION"></a>CONCLUSION.</h2>
+
+
+<p>I am told that I ought to write something in the way of a conclusion to
+this account of the Danvers jewels, as if the end of the last chapter
+were not conclusion enough. Charles, who has just read it, says
+especially that his character requires what he calls "an elegant
+finish," and suggests that a slight indication of a young and lovely
+heiress in connection with himself would give pleasure to the thoughtful
+reader. But I do not mean at the last moment to depart from the exact
+truth, and dabble in fiction just to make a suit<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>able conclusion. If I
+must write something more, I must beg that it will be kept in mind that
+if further details concerning the robbery are now added against my own
+judgment, they will rest on Charles's authority&mdash;not mine&mdash;as anything I
+afterwards heard was only through Charles, whose information I never
+consider reliable in the least degree.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>It was not till three months later that I saw him again, on a wet April
+afternoon. I was still living in London with Jane when he came to see
+me, having just returned from a long tour abroad with Ralph.</p>
+
+<p>Sir George, he said, was quite well again, but the coolness between
+himself and his father had dropped almost to freezing-point since it had
+come to light that he had been innocent after all. His father could not
+forgive his son for putting him in the wrong.</p>
+
+<p>"I seldom disappoint him in matters of this kind," he said. "Indeed, I
+may say I have, as a rule, surpassed his expectations, and I must be
+careful never to fall short of them in this way again. But ah! Miss
+Middleton, I am sure you will agree with me how difficult it is to
+preserve an even course without relaxing a little at times."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Mr. Charles," said Jane, beaming at him over her knitting, but
+not quite taking him in the manner he intended, "you are young yet, but
+don't be downhearted. I am sure by your face that as you grow older
+these deviations, which you so properly regret, will grow fewer and
+fewer, until, as life goes on, they will gradually cease altogether."</p>
+
+<p>"I consider it not improbable myself," said Charles, with a faint smile,
+and he changed the conversation. I really cannot put down here all that
+he proceeded to say in the most cold-blooded manner concerning Carr and
+Aurelia, or as he <i>would</i> call them, Mr. and Mrs. Brown, <i>alias</i>
+Sinclair, <i>alias</i> Tibbits. I for one don't believe a word of it; and I
+don't see how he could have found it all out, as he said he had, through
+the police, and people of that kind. I don't consider it is at all
+respectable consorting with the police in that way; but then Charles
+never was respectable, as I told Jane after he left, arousing excited
+feelings on her part which made me regret having mentioned it.</p>
+
+<p>According to him, Carr, who had never been seen or heard of since the
+day after the accident, was a professional thief, who had probably gone
+to &mdash;&mdash; in India with the express design of obtaining possession of Sir
+John's jewels, which had, till near the time of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> death, been safely
+stowed away in a bank in Calcutta. He and his wife usually worked
+together; but on this occasion she had, by means of her engaging manners
+and youthful appearance, struck up an acquaintance abroad with Lady Mary
+Cunningham, who, it will be remembered, had jewels of considerable
+value, with a view to those jewels. Ralph she had used as her tool, and
+engaged herself to him in the expectation that on her return to England
+she might, by means of her intimacy with the family, have an opportunity
+of taking them&mdash;Lady Mary having left them, while abroad, with her
+banker in London. The opportunity came while she was at Stoke Moreton;
+but in the mean while Sir John's priceless legacy had arrived, having
+eluded her husband's vigilance. (That certainly was true. The jewels
+were safe enough as long as I had anything to do with them.) Her
+husband, who followed them, saw that he was suspected, and threw the
+game into her hands, devoting himself entirely to putting his own
+innocence beyond a doubt; in which, with Ralph's assistance, he
+succeeded.</p>
+
+<p>"I see now," continued Charles, "why she spilled her tea when Carr
+arrived. She was taken by surprise on seeing him enter the room, having
+had, probably, no idea that he was the friend whom you had telegraphed
+for. I suspect, too, that same evening, after the ball, when she and
+Carr went together to find the bag, it was to have a last word to enable
+them to play into each other's hands, being aware, if I remember
+rightly, that father had gone to bed in company with the key of the
+safe, and that, consequently, the jewels might be left within easier
+reach than usual. No doubt she weighed the matter in her own mind, and
+decided to give up all thought of Lady Mary's jewels, and to secure
+those which were ten times their value. She could not have taken both
+without drawing suspicion upon herself. Like a wise woman she left the
+smaller, and went in for the larger prize; a less clever one would have
+tried for both, and have failed. She failed, it is true, by an
+oversight. She could never have noticed that the piece of paper wrapped
+round the crescent was peculiar in any way, or she would not have left
+it on the table among the others. She turned it off well when Evelyn
+recognized it, and made the most of her time. She was within an ace of
+success, but fate was against her. And Carr lost no time, either, for
+that matter; for I have since found out that the telegram she sent was
+to Birmingham, where he was no doubt hiding, bidding him meet her in
+London earlier than had been arranged. Of course he set off for the
+scene of the accident directly he heard of it, having received no
+further<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> communication from her. We arrived only ten minutes before him.
+For my part, I admired <i>her</i> more than I ever did before, when the truth
+about her came out. I considered her to be a pink-and-white nonentity,
+without an idea beyond a neat adjustment of pearl-powder, and then found
+that she possessed brains enough to outwit two minds of no mean calibre,
+namely, yours, Middleton, and my own. Evelyn was the only person who had
+the slightest suspicion of her, and that hardly amounted to more than an
+instinct, for she owned that she had no reason to show for it."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder Lady Mary was so completely taken in by her to start with," I
+said.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't," replied Charles. "I have even heard of elderly men being
+taken in by young ones. Besides, suspicious people are always liable to
+distrust their own nearest relatives, especially their prepossessing
+nephews, and then lay themselves open to be taken in by entire
+strangers. She wanted to get Ralph married, and she took a fancy to this
+girl, who was laying herself out to be taken a fancy to. In short, she
+trusted to her own judgment, and it failed her, as usual. I wrote very
+kindly to her from abroad, telling her how sincerely I sympathized with
+her in her distress at finding how entirely her judgment had been at
+fault, how lamentably she had been deceived from first to last, and how
+much trouble she had been the innocent means of bringing on the family.
+I have had no reply. Dear Aunt Mary! That reminds me that she is in
+London now; and I think a call from me, and a personal expression of
+sympathy, might give her pleasure." And he rose to take his leave.</p>
+
+<p>I had let Charles go without contradicting a word he had said, because,
+unfortunately, I was not in a position to do so. As I have said before,
+I am not given to suspecting a friend, even though appearances may be
+against him; and I still believed in Carr's innocence, though I must own
+that I was sorry that he never answered any of the numerous letters I
+wrote to him, or ever came to see me in London, as I had particularly
+asked him to do. Of course I did not believe that he was married to
+Aurelia, for it was only on the word of a stranger and a
+police-inspector, while I knew from his own lips that he was engaged to
+a countrywoman of his own. However, be that how it may, my own rooted
+conviction at the time, which has remained unshaken ever since, is that
+in some way he became aware that he was unjustly suspected, and being,
+like all Americans, of a sensitive nature, he retired to his native
+land. Anyhow, I have never seen or heard anything of him since. I am
+aware that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> Jane holds a different opinion, but then Charles had
+prejudiced her against him&mdash;so much so that it has ended by becoming a
+subject on which we do not converse together.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>I saw Charles again a few months later on a sultry night in July. I was
+leaving town the next day to be present at Ralph's wedding, and Jane and
+I were talking it over towards ten o'clock, the first cool time in the
+day, when he walked in. He looked pale and jaded as he sat down wearily
+by us at the open window and stroked the cat, which was taking the air
+on the sill. He said that he felt the heat, and he certainly look very
+much knocked up. I do not feel heat myself, I am glad to say.</p>
+
+<p>"I am going abroad to-morrow," he said, after a few remarks on other
+subjects. "It is not merely a question of pleasure, though I shall be
+glad to be out of London; but I have of late become an object of such
+increasing interest to those who possess my autograph that I have
+decided on taking change of air for a time."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean to say you are not going down to Stoke Moreton for Ralph's
+wedding?" I exclaimed. "I thought we should have travelled together, as
+we once did six months ago."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't go," said Charles, almost sharply. "I have told Ralph so."</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure he will be very much disappointed, and Evelyn too; and the
+wedding being from her uncle's house, as she has no home of her own,
+will make your absence all the more marked."</p>
+
+<p>"It <i>must</i> be marked, then; but the young people will survive it, and
+Aunt Mary will be thankful. She has not spoken to me since I made that
+little call upon her in the spring. When I pass her carriage in the Row
+she looks the other way."</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad Ralph has consoled himself," I said. "A good and charming
+woman like Evelyn, and a nice steady fellow like Ralph, are bound to be
+happy together."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Charles, "I suppose they are. She deserves to be happy. She
+always liked Ralph, and he <i>is</i> a good fellow. The model young men make
+all the running nowadays. In novels the good woman always marries the
+scapegrace, but it does not seem to be the case in real life."</p>
+
+<p>"Anyhow, not in this instance," I remarked, cheerfully.</p>
+
+<p>"No, not in this instance, as you so justly observe," he replied, with a
+passing gleam of amusement in his restless, tired eyes. "And now,"
+producing a small packet, "as I am not going myself, I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> want to give my
+wedding-present to the bride into your charge. Perhaps you will take it
+down to-morrow, and give it into her own hands, with my best wishes."</p>
+
+<p>"Might we see it first?" said Jane, with all a woman's curiosity,
+evidently scenting a jewel-case from afar.</p>
+
+<p>Charles unwrapped a small morocco case, and, touching a spring, showed
+the diamond crescent, beautifully reset and polished, blazing on its red
+satin couch.</p>
+
+<p>"Ralph said I should have it, and he sent it me some time since," he
+said, turning it in his hand; "but it seems a pity to fritter it away in
+paying bills; and," in a lower tone, "I should like to give it to
+Evelyn. I hear she has refused to wear any of Sir John's jewels on her
+wedding-day, but perhaps, if you were to ask her&mdash;she and I are old
+friends&mdash;she might make an exception in favor of the crescent."</p>
+
+<p>And she did.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span></p>
+
+<h4>The End.</h4>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="SIR_CHARLES_DANVERS" id="SIR_CHARLES_DANVERS"></a>SIR CHARLES DANVERS.</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_Ib" id="CHAPTER_Ib"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span></p>
+<p>"Dear heart, Miss Ruth, my dear, now don't ye be a-going yet, and me
+that hasn't set eyes on ye this month and more&mdash;and as hardly hears a
+body speak from morning till night."</p>
+
+<p>"Come, come, Mrs. Eccles, I am always finding people sitting here. I
+expect to see the latch go every minute."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, and if they do; and some folks are always a-dropping in, and
+a-setting theirselves down, and a clack-clacking till a body can't get a
+bit of peace! And the things they say! Eh? Miss Ruth, the things I have
+heard folks say, a setting as it might be there, in poor Eccles his old
+chair by the chimley, as the Lord took him in."</p>
+
+<p>To the uninitiated, Mrs. Eccles's allusion might have seemed to refer to
+photography. But Ruth knew better; a visitation from the Lord being
+synonymous in Slumberleigh Parish with a fall from a ladder, a stroke of
+paralysis, or the midnight cart-wheel that disabled Brown when returning
+late from the Blue Dragon "not quite hisself."</p>
+
+<p>"Lor'!" resumed Mrs. Eccles, with an extensive sigh, "there's a deal of
+talk in the village now," glancing inquisitively at the visitor, "about
+him as succeeds to old Mr. Dare; but I never listen to their tales."</p>
+
+<p>They made a pleasant contrast to each other, the neat old woman, with
+her shrewd spectacled eyes and active, hard-worked fingers, and the
+young girl, tranquil, graceful, sitting in the shadow, with her slender
+ungloved hands in her lap.</p>
+
+<p>They were not sitting in the front parlor, because Ruth was an old
+acquaintance; but Mrs. Eccles <i>had</i> a front parlor&mdash;a front parlor with
+the bottled-up smell in it peculiar to front parlors; a parlor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> with a
+real mahogany table, on which photograph albums and a few select volumes
+were symmetrically arranged round an inkstand, nestling in a very choice
+wool-work mat; a parlor with wax-flowers under glass shades on the
+mantle-piece, and an avalanche of paper roses and mixed paper herbs in
+the fireplace.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth knew that sacred apartment well. She knew the name of each of the
+books; she had expressed a proper admiration for the wax-flowers; she
+had heard, though she might have forgotten, for she was but young, the
+price of the "real Brussels" carpet, and so she might safely be
+permitted to sit in the kitchen, and watch Mrs. Eccles darning her son's
+socks.</p>
+
+<p>I am almost afraid Ruth liked the kitchen best, with its tiled floor and
+patch of afternoon sun; with its tall clock in the corner, its line of
+straining geraniums in the low window-shelf, and its high mantle-piece
+crowned by two china dogs with red lozenges on them, holding baskets in
+their mouths.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, a deal of talk there is, but nobody rightly seems to know anything
+for certain," continued Mrs. Eccles, spreading out her hand in the heel
+of a fresh sock, and pouncing on a modest hole. "Ye see, we never gave a
+thought to <i>him</i>, with that great hearty Mr. George, his eldest brother,
+to succeed when the old gentleman went. And such a fine figure of a man
+in his clothes as poor Mr. George used to be, and such a favorite with
+his old uncle. And then to be took like that, horseback riding at polar,
+only six weeks after the old gentleman. But I can't hear as anybody's
+set eyes on his half-brother as comes in for the property now. He never
+came to Vandon in his uncle's lifetime. They say old Mr. Dare couldn't
+bide the French madam as his brother took when his first wife died&mdash;a
+foreigner, with black curls; it wasn't likely. He was always partial to
+Mr. George, and he took him up when his father died; but he never would
+have anything to say to this younger one, bein' nothin' in the world, so
+folks say, but half a French, and black, like his mother. I wonder
+now&mdash;" began Mrs. Eccles, tentatively, with her usual love of
+information.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder, now," interposed Ruth, quietly, "how the rheumatism is
+getting on? I saw you were in church on Sunday evening."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, my dear," began Mrs. Eccles, readily diverted to a subject of such
+interest as herself. "Yes, I always come to the evening service now,
+though I won't deny as the rheumatics are very pinching at times. But,
+dear Lord! I never come up to the stalls near the chancel, so you ain't
+likely to see me. To see them Harrises always<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> a-goin' up to the very
+top, it does go agen me. I don't say as it's everybody as ought to take
+the lowest place. The Lord knows I'm not proud, but I won't go into them
+chairs down by the font myself; but to see them Harrises, that to my
+certain knowledge hasn't a bite of butcher's meat in their heads but
+onst a week, a-settin' theirselves up&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Mrs. Eccles, you know perfectly well all the seats are free in the
+evening."</p>
+
+<p>"And so they may be, Miss Ruth, my dear&mdash;and don't ye be a-getting up
+yet&mdash;and good Christians, I'm sure, the quality are to abide it. And it
+did my heart good to hear the Honorable John preaching as he did in his
+new surplice (as Widder Pegg always puts too much blue in the surplices
+to my thinking), all about rich and poor, and one with another. A
+beautiful sermon it was; but I wouldn't come up like they Harrises.
+There's things as is suitable, and there's things as is not. No, I keep
+to my own place; and I had to turn out old Bessie Pugh this very last
+Sunday night, as I found a-cocked up there, tho' I was not a matter of
+five minutes late. Bessie Pugh always was one to take upon herself, and,
+as I often says to her, when I hear her a-goin' on about free grace and
+the like, 'Bessie,' I says, 'if I was a widder on the parish, and not so
+much as a pig to fat up for Christmas, and coming to church reg'lar on
+Loaf Sunday, which it's not that I ain't sorry for ye, but <i>I</i> wouldn't
+take upon myself, if I was you, to talk of things as I'd better leave to
+them as is beholden to nobody and pays their rent reg'lar. I've no
+patience&mdash;But eh, dear Miss Ruth! look at that gentleman going down the
+road, and the dog too. Why, ye haven't so much as got up! He's gone. He
+was a foreigner, and no mistake. Why, good Lord! there he is coming back
+again. He's seen me through the winder. Mercy on us! he's opening the
+gate; he's coming to the door!"</p>
+
+<p>As she spoke, a shadow passed before the window, and some one knocked.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Eccles hastily thrust her darning-needle into the front of her
+bodice, the general <i>rendezvous</i> of the pins and needles of the
+establishment, and proceeded to open the door and plant herself in front
+of it.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth caught a glimpse of an erect light gray figure in the sunshine,
+surmounted by a brown face, and the lightest of light gray hats. Close
+behind stood a black poodle of a dignified and self-engrossed
+deportment, wearing its body half shaved, but breaking out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> in ruffles
+round its paws, and a tuft at the end of a stiffly undemonstrative tail.</p>
+
+<p>"The key of the church is kep' at Jones's, by the pump," said Mrs.
+Eccles, in the brusque manner peculiar to the freeborn Briton when
+brought in contact with a foreigner.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, madam," was the reply, in the most courteous of tones, and
+the gray hat was off in a moment, showing a very dark, cropped head,
+"but I do not look for the church. I only ask for the way to the house
+of the pastor, Mr. Alwynn."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Eccles gave full and comprehensive directions in a very high key,
+accompanied by much gesticulation, and then the gray hat was replaced,
+and the gray figure, followed by the black poodle, marched down the
+little garden path again, and disappeared from view.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Eccles drew a long breath, and turned to her visitor again.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, my dear, and did ye ever see the like of that? And his head, Miss
+Ruth! Did ye take note of his head? Not so much as a shadder of a
+parting. All the same all the way over; and asking the way to the
+rectory. Why, you ain't never going yet? Well, good-bye, my dear, and
+God bless ye! And now," soliloquized Mrs. Eccles, as Ruth finally
+escaped, "I may as well run across to Jones's, and see if <i>they</i> know
+anything about the gentleman, and if he's put up at the inn."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>It was a glorious July afternoon, but it was hot. The roads were white,
+and the tall hedge-rows gray with dust. A wagon-load of late hay, with a
+swarm of children just out from school careering round it, was coming up
+the road in a dim cloud of dust. Ruth, who had been undecided which way
+to take, beat a hasty retreat towards the church-yard, deciding that, if
+she must hesitate, to do so among cool tombstones in the shade. She
+glanced up at the church clock, as she selected her tombstone under one
+of the many yew-trees in the old church-yard. Half-past four, and
+already an inner voice was suggesting <i>tea!</i> To miss five o'clock tea on
+a thirsty afternoon like this was not to be thought of for a moment. She
+had no intention of going back to tea at Atherstone, where she was
+staying with her cousins, Mr. and Mrs. Danvers. Two alternatives
+remained. Should she go to Slumberleigh Hall, close by, and see the
+Thursbys, who she knew had all returned from London yesterday, or should
+she go across the fields to Slumberleigh Rectory, and have tea with
+Uncle John and Aunt Fanny?</p>
+
+<p>She knew that Sir Charles Danvers, Ralph Danvers's elder brother,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> was
+expected at Atherstone that afternoon. His aunt, Lady Mary Cunningham,
+was also staying there, partly with a view of meeting him. Ralph Danvers
+had not seen his brother, nor Lady Mary her nephew, for some time, and,
+judging by the interest they seemed to feel in his visit, Ruth had
+determined not to interrupt a family meeting, in which she imagined she
+might be <i>de trop</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"My fine tact," she thought, "will enable them to have a quiet talk
+among themselves till nearly dinner-time. But I must not neglect myself
+any longer. The Hall is the nearer, and the drive is shady; but, to put
+against that, Mabel will insist on showing me her new gowns, and Mrs.
+Thursby will make her usual remarks about Aunt Fanny. No; in spite of
+that burning expanse of glebe, I will go to tea at the rectory. I have
+not seen Uncle John for a week, and&mdash;who knows?&mdash;perhaps Aunt Fanny may
+be out."</p>
+
+<p>So the gloves were put on, the crisp white dress shaken out, the parasol
+put up, and Ruth took the narrow church path across the fields up to
+Slumberleigh Rectory.</p>
+
+<p>For many years since the death of her parents, Ruth Deyncourt had lived
+with her grandmother, a wealthy, witty, and wise old lady, whose house
+had been considered one of the pleasantest in London by those to whom
+pleasant houses are open.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Deyncourt, a beauty in her youth, a beauty in middle life, a beauty
+in her old age, had seen and known all the marked men of the last two
+generations, and had reminiscences to tell which increased in point and
+flavor, like old wine, the longer they were kept. She had frequented as
+a girl the Misses Berrys' drawing-room, and people were wont to say that
+hers was the nearest approach to a <i>salon</i> which remained after the
+Misses Berry disappeared. She had married a grave politician, a rising
+man, whom she had pushed into a knighthood, and at one time into the
+ministry. If he had died before he could make her the wife of a premier,
+the disappointment had not been without its alleviations. She had never
+possessed much talent for domestic life, and, the yoke once removed, she
+had not felt the least inclination to take it upon herself again. As a
+widow, her way through life was one long triumphal procession. She had
+daughters&mdash;dull, tall, serious girls, with whom she had nothing in
+common, whom she educated well, brought out, laced in, and then married,
+one after another, relinquishing the last with the utmost cheerfulness,
+and refusing the condolences of friends on her lonely position with her
+usual frankness.</p>
+
+<p>But her son, her only son, she had loved. He was like her, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>
+understood her, and was at ease with her, as her daughters had never
+been. The trouble of her life was the death of her son. She got over it,
+as she got over everything; but when several years afterwards his widow,
+with whom, it is hardly necessary to say, she was not on speaking terms,
+suddenly died (being a faint-hearted, feeble creature), Lady Deyncourt
+immediately took possession of her grandchildren&mdash;a boy and two
+girls&mdash;and proceeded as far as in her lay to ruin the boy for life.</p>
+
+<p>"A woman," she was apt to remark in after years, "is not intended by
+nature to manage any man except her husband. I am a warning to the
+mothers, aunts, and grandmothers, particularly the grandmothers, of the
+future. A husband is a sufficient field for the employment of a woman's
+whole energies. I went beyond my sphere, and I am punished."</p>
+
+<p>And when Raymond Deyncourt finally disappeared in America for the last
+time, having been fished up therefrom on several occasions, each time in
+worse case than the last, she excommunicated him, and cheerfully altered
+her will, dividing the sixty thousand pounds she had it in her power to
+leave, between her two granddaughters, and letting the fact become
+known, with the result that Anna was married by the end of her second
+season; and if at the end of five seasons Ruth was still unmarried, she
+had, as Lady Deyncourt took care to inform people, no one to thank for
+it but herself.</p>
+
+<p>But in reality, now that Anna was provided for, Lady Deyncourt was in no
+hurry to part with Ruth. She liked her as much as it was possible for
+her to like any one&mdash;indeed, I think she even loved her in a way. She
+had taken but small notice of her while she was in the school-room, for
+she cared little about girls as a rule; but as she grew up tall, erect,
+with the pale, stately beauty of a lily, Lady Deyncourt's heart went out
+to her. None of her own daughters had been so distinguished-looking, so
+ornamental. Ruth's clothes always looked well on her, and she had a
+knack of entertaining people, and much taste in the arrangement of
+flowers. Though she had inherited the Deyncourt earnestness of
+character, together with their dark serious eyes, and a certain annoying
+rigidity as to right and wrong, these defects were counterbalanced by
+flashes of brightness and humor which reminded Lady Deyncourt of herself
+in her own brilliant youth, and inclined her to be lenient, when in her
+daughters' cases she would have been sarcastic. The old woman and the
+young one had been great friends, and not the less so, perhaps, because
+of a tacit understanding which existed between them that certain
+sub<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>jects should be avoided, upon which, each instinctively felt, they
+were not likely to agree. And if the shrewd old woman of the world ever
+suspected the existence of a strength of will and depth of character in
+Ruth such as had, in her own early life, been a source of annoyance and
+perplexity to herself in her dealings with her husband, she was skilful
+enough to ignore any traces of it that showed themselves in her
+granddaughter, and thus avoided those collisions of will, the result of
+which she felt might have been doubtful.</p>
+
+<p>And so Ruth had lived a life full of varied interests, and among
+interesting people, and had been waked up suddenly in a gray and frosted
+dawn to find that chapter of her life closed. Lady Deyncourt, who never
+thought of travelling without her maid and footman, suddenly went on a
+long journey alone one wild January morning, starting, without any
+previous preparation, for a land in which she had never professed much
+interest heretofore. It seemed a pity that she should have to die when
+she had so thoroughly acquired the art of living, with little trouble to
+herself, and much pleasure to others; but so it was.</p>
+
+<p>And then, in Ruth's confused remembrance of what followed, all the world
+seemed to have turned to black and gray. There was no color anywhere,
+where all had been color before. Miles of black cloth and crape seemed
+to extend before her; black horses came and stamped black hoof-marks in
+the snow before the door. Endless arrangements had to be made, endless
+letters to be written. Something was carried heavily down-stairs, all in
+black, scoring the wall at the turn on the stairs in a way which would
+have annoyed Lady Deyncourt exceedingly if she had been there to see it,
+but she had left several days before it happened. The last pale shadow
+of the kind, gay little grandmother was gone from the great front
+bedroom up-stairs. Mr. Alwynn, one of Ruth's uncles, came up from the
+country and went to the funeral, and took Ruth away afterwards. Her own
+sister Anna was abroad with her husband, her brother Raymond had not
+been heard of for years. As she drove away from the house, and looked up
+at the windows with wide tearless eyes, she suddenly realized that this
+departure was final, that there would be no coming back, no home left
+for her in the familiar rooms where she and another had lived so long
+together.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Alwynn was by her side in the carriage, patting her cold hands and
+telling her not to cry, which she felt no inclination to do; and then,
+seeing the blank pallor in her face, he suddenly found himself fumbling
+for his own pocket-handkerchief.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IIb" id="CHAPTER_IIb"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2>
+
+
+<p>On this particular July afternoon Mr. Alwynn, or, as his parishioners
+called him, "The Honorable John," was sitting in his arm-chair in the
+little drawing-room of Slumberleigh Rectory. Mrs. Honorable John was
+pouring out tea; and here, once and for all, let it be known that meals,
+particularly five o'clock tea, will occupy a large place in this
+chronicle, not because of any importance especially attaching to them,
+but because in the country, at least in Slumberleigh, the day is not
+divided by hours but by the meals that take place therein, and to write
+of Slumberleigh and its inhabitants with disregard to their divisions of
+time is "impossible, and cannot be done."</p>
+
+<p>So I repeat, boldly, Mr. and Mrs. Alwynn were at tea. They were alone
+together, for they had no children, and Ruth Deyncourt, who had been
+living with them since her grandmother's death in the winter, was now
+staying with her cousin, Mrs. Ralph Danvers, at Atherstone, a couple of
+miles away.</p>
+
+<p>If it had occasionally crossed Mr. Alwynn's mind during the last few
+months that he would have liked to have a daughter like Ruth, he had
+kept the sentiment to himself, as he did most sentiments in the company
+of his wife, who, while she complained of his habit of silence, made up
+for it nobly herself at all times and in all places. It had often been
+the subject of vague wonder among his friends, and even at times to Mr.
+Alwynn himself, how he had come to marry "Fanny, my love." Mr. Alwynn
+dearly loved peace and quiet, but these dwelt not under the same roof
+with Mrs. Alwynn. Nay, I even believe, if the truth were known, he liked
+order and tidiness, judging by the exact arrangement of his own study,
+and the rueful glances he sometimes cast at the litter of wools and
+letters on the newspaper-table, and the gay garden hats and goloshes,
+hidden, but not concealed, under the drawing-room sofa. Conversation
+about the dearness of butchers' meat and the enormities of servants
+palled upon him, I think, after a time, but he had taken his wife's
+style of conversation for better for worse when he took her gayly
+dressed self under<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> those ominous conditions, and he never showed
+impatience. He loved his wife, but I think it grieved him when
+smart-colored glass vases were strewn among the cherished bits of old
+china and enamel which his soul loved. He did not like
+chromo-lithographs, or the framed photographs which Mrs. Alwynn called
+her "momentums of travel," among his rare old prints, either. He bore
+them, but after their arrival in company with large and inappropriate
+nails, and especially after the cut-glass candlesticks appeared on the
+drawing-room chimney-piece, he ceased to make his little occasional
+purchases of old china and old silver. The curiosity shops knew him no
+more, or if he still at times brought home some treasure in his hat-box,
+on his return from Convocation, it was unpacked and examined in private,
+and a little place was made for it among the old Chelsea figures on the
+bookcase in his study, which had stood, ever since he had inherited them
+from his father, on the drawing-room mantle-piece, but had been silently
+removed when a pair of comic china elephants playing on violins had
+appeared in their midst.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Alwynn sighed a little when he looked at them this afternoon, and
+shook his head; for had he not brought back in his empty soup-tin an old
+earthen-ware cow of Dutch extraction, which he had long coveted on the
+shelf of a parishioner? He had bought it very dear, for when in all his
+life had he ever bought anything cheap? And now, as he was tenderly
+wiping a suspicion of beef-tea off it, he wondered, as he looked round
+his study, where he could put it. Not among the old Oriental china,
+where bits of Wedgwood had already elbowed in for want of room
+elsewhere. Among his Lowestoft cups and saucers? Never! He would rather
+not have it than see it there. He had a vision of a certain bracket,
+discarded from the hall, and put aside by his careful hands in the
+lowest drawer of the cupboard by the window, in which he kept little
+stores of nails and string and brown paper, among which "Fanny, my love"
+performed fearful ravages when minded to tie up a parcel.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Alwynn nailed up the bracket under an old etching and placed the cow
+thereon, and, after contemplating it over his spectacles, went into the
+drawing-room to tea with his wife.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Alwynn was a stout, florid, good-humored-looking woman, with a
+battered fringe, considerably younger than her husband in appearance,
+and with a tendency to bright colors in dress.</p>
+
+<p>"Barnes is very poorly, my dear," said Mr. Alwynn, patiently fishing out
+one of the lumps of sugar which his wife had put in his tea. He took one
+lump, but she took two herself, and conse<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>quently always gave him two.
+"I should say a little strong soup would&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>At this juncture the front door-bell rang, and a moment afterwards "Mr.
+Dare" was announced.</p>
+
+<p>The erect, light gray figure which had awakened the curiosity of Mrs.
+Eccles came in close behind the servant. Mrs. Alwynn received a deep bow
+in return for her look of astonishment; and then, with an eager
+exclamation, the visitor had seized both Mr. Alwynn's hands, regardless
+of the neatly folded slice of bread and butter in one of them, and was
+shaking them cordially.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Alwynn looked for a moment as astonished as his wife, and the blank,
+deprecating glance he cast at his visitor showed that he was at a loss.</p>
+
+<p>The latter let go his hands and spread his own out with a sudden
+gesture.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, you do not know me," he said, speaking rapidly; "it is twenty years
+ago, and you have forgotten. You do not remember Alfred Dare, the little
+boy whom you saw last in sailing costume, the little boy for whom you
+cut the whistles, the son of your old friend, Henry Dare?"</p>
+
+<p>"Good gracious!" ejaculated Mr. Alwynn, with a sudden flash of memory.
+"Henry's other son. I remember now. It <i>is</i> Alfred, and I remember the
+whistles too. You have your mother's eyes. And, of course, you have come
+to Vandon now that your poor brother&mdash;We have all been wondering when
+you would turn up. My dear boy, I remember you perfectly now; but it is
+a long time ago, and you have changed very much."</p>
+
+<p>"Between eight years and twenty-eight there is a great step," replied
+Dare, with a brilliant smile. "How could I expect that you should
+remember all at once? But <i>you</i> are not changed. I knew you the first
+moment. It is the same kind, good face which I remember well."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Alwynn blushed a faint blush, which any word of praise could always
+call up; and then, reminded of the presence of Mrs. Alwynn by a short
+cough, which that lady always had in readiness wherewith to recall him
+to a sense of duty, he turned to her and introduced Dare.</p>
+
+<p>Dare made another beautiful bow; and while he accepted a cup of tea from
+Mrs. Alwynn, Mr. Alwynn had time to look attentively at him with his
+mild gray eyes. He was a slight, active-looking young man of middle
+height, decidedly un-English in appearance<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> and manner, with dark roving
+eyes, mustaches very much twirled up, and a lean brown face, that was
+exceedingly handsome in a style to which Mr. Alwynn was not accustomed.</p>
+
+<p>And this was Henry Dare's second son, the son by his French wife, who
+had been brought up abroad, of whom no one had ever heard or cared to
+hear, who had now succeeded, by his half-brother's sudden death, to
+Vandon, a property adjoining Slumberleigh.</p>
+
+<p>The eager foreign face was becoming familiar to Mr. Alwynn. Dare was
+like his mother; but he sat exactly as Mr. Alwynn had seen his father
+sit many a time in that very chair. The attitude was the same. Ah, but
+that flourish of the brown hands! How unlike anything Henry would have
+done! And those sudden movements! He was roused by Dare turning quickly
+to him again.</p>
+
+<p>"I am telling Mrs. Alwynn of my journey here," he began; "of how I miss
+my train; of how I miss my carriage, sent to meet me from the inn; of
+how I walk on foot up the long hills; and when I get there they think I
+am no longer coming. I arrived only last night at Vandon. To-day I walk
+over to see my old friend at Slumberleigh."</p>
+
+<p>Dare leaned forward, laying the tips of his fingers lightly against his
+breast.</p>
+
+<p>"You seem to have had a good deal of walking," said Mr. Alwynn, rather
+taken aback, but anxious to be cordial; "but, at any rate, you will not
+walk back. You must stay the night, now you are here; mustn't he,
+Fanny?"</p>
+
+<p>Dare was delighted&mdash;beaming. Then his face became overcast. His eyebrows
+went up. He shook his head. Mr. and Mrs. Alwynn were most kind, but&mdash;he
+became more and more dejected&mdash;a bag, a simple valise&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>It could be sent for.</p>
+
+<p>Ah! Mr. Alwynn was too good. He revived again. He showed his even white
+teeth. He was about to resume his tea, when suddenly a tall white figure
+came lightly in through the open French window, and a clear voice began:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Uncle John, there is such a heathen of a black poodle making
+excavations in the flower-beds! Do&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Ruth stopped suddenly as her eyes fell upon the stranger. Dare rose
+instinctively.</p>
+
+<p>"This is Mr. Dare, Ruth," said Mr. Alwynn. "He has just arrived at
+Vandon."</p>
+
+<p>Ruth bowed. Dare surpassed himself, and was silent. All his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> smiles and
+flow of small-talk had suddenly deserted him. He began patting his dog,
+which had followed Ruth in-doors, and a moment of constraint fell upon
+the little party.</p>
+
+<p>"She is shy," said Dare to himself. "She is adorably shy."</p>
+
+<p>Ruth's quiet, self-possessed voice dispelled that pleasing illusion.</p>
+
+<p>"I have had a very exhausting afternoon with Mrs. Eccles, Aunt Fanny,
+and I have come to you for a cup of tea before I go back to Atherstone."</p>
+
+<p>"Why did you walk so far this hot afternoon, my dear? and how are Mrs.
+Danvers and Lady Mary? and is any one else staying there? and, my dear,
+<i>are</i> the dolls finished?"</p>
+
+<p>"They are," said Ruth. "They are all outrageously fashionable. Even
+Molly is satisfied. There is to be a school-feast here to-morrow," she
+added, turning to Dare, who appeared bewildered at the turn the
+conversation was taking. "All our energies for the last fortnight have
+been brought to bear on dolls. We have been dressing dolls morning,
+noon, and night."</p>
+
+<p>"When is it to be, this school-feast?" said Dare, eagerly. "I will buy
+one&mdash;three dolls!"</p>
+
+<p>After a lengthy explanation from Mrs. Alwynn as to the nature of a
+school-feast as distinct from a bazaar, Ruth rose to go, and Mr. Alwynn
+offered to accompany her part of the way.</p>
+
+<p>"And so that is the new Mr. Dare about whom we have all been
+speculating," she said, as they strolled across the fields together. "He
+is not like his half-brother."</p>
+
+<p>"No; he seems to be entirely a Frenchman. You see, he was educated
+abroad, and that makes a great difference. He was a very nice little boy
+twenty years ago. I hope he will turn out well, and do his duty by the
+place."</p>
+
+<p>The neighboring property of Vandon, with its tumble-down cottages, its
+neglected people, and hard agent, were often in Mr. Alwynn's thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Uncle John, he will, he must! You must help him and advise," said
+Ruth, eagerly. "He ought to stay and live on the place, and look into
+things for himself."</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid he will be poor," said Mr. Alwynn, meditatively.</p>
+
+<p>"Anyhow, he will be richer than he was before," urged Ruth, "and it is
+his duty to do something for his own people."</p>
+
+<p>When Ruth had said it was a duty, she imagined, like many another young
+soul before her, that nothing remained to be said, having yet to learn
+how much beside often remained to be done.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"We shall see," said Mr. Alwynn, who had seen something of his
+fellow-creatures; and they walked on together in silence.</p>
+
+<p>The person whose duty Ruth had been discussing so freely looked after
+the two retreating figures till they disappeared, and then turned to
+Mrs. Alwynn.</p>
+
+<p>"You and Mr. Alwynn also go to the school-feast to-morrow?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Alwynn, a little nettled, explained that of course she went, that
+it was her <i>own</i> school-feast, that Mrs. Thursby, at the Hall, had
+nothing to do with it. (Dare did not know who Mrs. Thursby was, but he
+listened with great attention.) She, Mrs. Alwynn, gave it herself. Her
+own cook, who had been with her five years, made the cakes, and her own
+donkey-cart conveyed the same to the field where the repast was held.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Deyncourt, will she be there?" asked Dare.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Alwynn explained that all the neighborhood, including the Thursbys,
+would be there; that she made a point of asking the Thursbys.</p>
+
+<p>"I also will come," said Dare, gravely.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IIIb" id="CHAPTER_IIIb"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Atherstone was a rambling, old-fashioned, black-and-white house, half
+covered with ivy, standing in a rambling, old-fashioned garden&mdash;a
+charming garden, with clipped yews, and grass paths, and straggling
+flowers and herbs growing up in unexpected places. In front of the
+house, facing the drawing-room windows, was a bowling-green, across
+which, at this time of the afternoon, the house had laid a cool green
+shadow.</p>
+
+<p>Two ladies were sitting under its shelter, each with her work.</p>
+
+<p>It was hot still, but the shadows were deepening and lengthening. Away
+in the sun hay was being made and carried, with crackings of whips and
+distant voices. Beyond the hay-fields lay the silver band of the river,
+and beyond again the spire of Slumberleigh Church, and a glimpse among
+the trees of Slumberleigh Hall.</p>
+
+<p>"Ralph has started in the dog-cart to meet Charles. They ought to be
+here in half an hour, if the train is punctual," said Mrs. Ralph.</p>
+
+<p>She was a graceful woman, with a placid, gentle face. She might be
+thirty, but she looked younger. With her pleasant home and her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> pleasant
+husband, and her child to be mildly anxious about, she might well look
+young. She looked particularly so now as she sat in her fresh cotton
+draperies, winding wool with cool, white hands.</p>
+
+<p>The handiwork of some women has a hard, masculine look. If they sew, it
+is with thick cotton in some coarse material; if they knit, it is with
+cricket-balls of wool, which they manipulate into wiry stockings and
+comforters. Evelyn's wools, on the contrary, were always soft, fleecy,
+liable to weak-minded tangles, and so turning, after long periods of
+time, into little feminine futilities for which it was difficult to
+divine any possible use.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Mary Cunningham, her husband's aunt, made no immediate reply to her
+small remark. Evelyn Danvers was not a little afraid of that lady, and,
+in truth, Lady Mary, with her thin face and commanding manner, was a
+very imposing person. Though past seventy, she sat erect in her chair,
+her stick by her side, some elaborate embroidery in her delicate old
+ringed hands. Her pale, colorless eyes were as keen as ever. Her white
+hair was covered by a wonderful lace cap, which no one had ever
+succeeded in imitating, that fell in soft lappets and graceful folds
+round the severe, dignified face. Molly, Evelyn's little daughter, stood
+in great awe of Lady Mary, who had such a splendid stick with a silver
+crook of her very own, and who made remarks in French in Molly's
+presence which that young lady could not understand, and felt that it
+was not intended she should. She even regarded with a certain veneration
+the cap itself, which she had once met in equivocal circumstances,
+journeying with a plait of white hair towards Lady Mary's rooms.</p>
+
+<p>It was the first time since their marriage, of which she had not
+approved, that Lady Mary had paid a visit to Ralph and Evelyn at
+Atherstone. Lady Mary had tried to marry Ralph, in days gone by, to a
+woman who&mdash;but it was an old story and better forgotten. Ralph had
+married his first cousin when he had married Evelyn, and Lady Mary had
+strenuously objected to the match, and had even gone so far as to
+threaten to alter certain clauses in her will, which she had made in
+favor of Ralph, her younger nephew, at a time when she was at daggers
+drawn with her eldest nephew, Charles, now Sir Charles Danvers. But that
+was an old story, too, and better forgotten.</p>
+
+<p>When Charles succeeded his father some three years ago, and when, after
+eight years, Molly had still remained an only child, and one of the
+wrong kind, of no intrinsic value to the family, Lady Mary decided that
+by-gones should be by-gones, and became formally recon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span>ciled to Charles,
+with whom she had already found it exceedingly inconvenient, and
+consequently unchristian, not to be on speaking terms. As long as he was
+the scapegrace son of Sir George Danvers her Christian principles
+remained in abeyance; but when he suddenly succeeded to the baronetcy
+and Stoke Moreton, the air of which suited her so well, and, moreover,
+to that convenient <i>pied &agrave; terre</i>, the house in Belgrave Square, she
+allowed feelings, which she said she had hitherto repressed with
+difficulty, their full scope, expressed a Christian hope that, now that
+he had come to this estate, Charles would put away Bohemian things, and
+instantly set to work to find a suitable wife for him.</p>
+
+<p>At first Lady Mary felt that the task which she had imposed upon herself
+would (D.V.) be light indeed. Charles received her overtures with the
+same courteous demeanor which had been the chief sting of their former
+warfare. He paid his creditors, no one knew how, for his father had left
+nothing to him unentailed; and once out of money difficulties, he seemed
+in no hurry to plunge into them again. If he had not as yet thoroughly
+taken up the life of an English country gentleman, for want of that
+necessary adjunct which Lady Mary was so anxious to supply, at least he
+lived in England and in good society. In short, Lady Mary was fond of
+telling her friends Charles had entirely reformed, hinting, at the same
+time, that she had been the humble instrument, in the hands of an
+all-wise Providence, which had turned him back into the way in which the
+English aristocracy should walk, and from which he had deviated so long.
+But one thing remained&mdash;to marry him. Every one said Charles <i>must</i>
+marry. Lady Mary did not say it, but with her whole soul she meant it.
+What she intended to do, she, as a rule, performed&mdash;occasionally at the
+expense of those who were little able to afford it, but still the thing
+was (always, of course, by the co-operation of Providence) done. Ralph
+certainly had proved an exception to the rule. He had married Evelyn
+against Lady Mary's will, and consequently without the blessing of
+Providence. After that, of course, she had never expected there would be
+a son, and with each year her anxiety to see Charles safely married had
+increased. He had seemed so amenable that at first she could hardly
+believe that the steed which she had led to waters of such divers merit
+would refuse to drink from any of them. If rank had no charm for him,
+which apparently it had not, she would try beauty. When beauty failed,
+even beauty with money in its hand, Lady Mary hesitated, and then fell
+back on goodness. But either the goodness was not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> good enough, or, as
+Lady Mary feared, it was not sufficiently High Church to be really
+genuine: even goodness failed. For three years she had strained every
+nerve, and at the end of them she was no nearer the object in view than
+when she began.</p>
+
+<p>An inconvenient death of a sister, with whom she had long since
+quarrelled about church matters (and who had now gone where her folly in
+differing from Lady Mary would be fully, if painfully, brought home to
+her), had prevented Lady Mary continuing her designs this year in
+London. But if thwarted in one direction, she knew how to throw her
+energies into another. The first words she uttered indicated what that
+direction was.</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn's little remark about the dog-cart, which had gone to meet
+Charles, had so long remained without any response that she was about to
+coin another of the same stamp, when Lady Mary suddenly said, with a
+decision that was intended to carry conviction to the heart of her
+companion:</p>
+
+<p>"It is an exceedingly suitable thing."</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn evidently understood what it was that was so suitable, but she
+made no reply.</p>
+
+<p>"A few years ago," continued Lady Mary, "I should have looked higher. I
+should have thought Charles might have done better, but&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"He never could do better than&mdash;than&mdash;" said Evelyn, with a little mild
+flutter. "There is no one in the world more&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, my dear&mdash;of course we all know that," returned the elder
+lady. "She is much too good for him, and all the rest of it. A few years
+ago, I was saying, I might not have regarded it quite in the light I do
+now. Charles, with his distinguished appearance and his position, might
+have married anybody. But time passes, and I am becoming seriously
+anxious about him; I am, indeed. He is eight-and-thirty. In two years he
+will be forty; and at forty you never know what a man may not do. It is
+a critical age, even when they are married. Until he is forty, a man may
+be led under Providence into forming a connection with a woman of
+suitable age and family. After that age he will never look at any girl
+out of her teens, and either perpetrates a folly or does not marry at
+all. If the Danvers family is not to become extinct, or to be dragged
+down by a <i>m&eacute;salliance</i>, measures must be taken at once."</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn winced at the allusion to the extinction of the Danvers family,
+of which Charles and Ralph were the only representatives. She felt
+keenly having failed to give Ralph a son, and the sudden<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> smart of the
+old hurt added a touch of sharpness to her usually gentle voice as she
+said, "I cannot see what <i>has</i> been left undone."</p>
+
+<p>"No, my dear," said Lady Mary, more suavely, "you have fallen in with my
+views most sensibly. I only hope Ralph&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Ralph knows nothing about it."</p>
+
+<p>"Quite right. It is very much better he should not. Men never can be
+made to look at things in their proper light. They have no power of
+seeing an inch in front of them. Even Charles, who is less dense than
+most men, has never been allowed to form an idea of the plans which from
+time to time I have made for him. Nothing sets a man more against a
+marriage than the idea that it has been put in his way. They like to
+think it is all their own doing, and that the whole universe will be
+taken by surprise when the engagement is given out. Charles is no
+exception to the rule. Our duty is to provide a wife for him, and then
+allow him to think his own extraordinary cleverness found her for
+himself. How old is this cousin of yours, Miss Deyncourt?"</p>
+
+<p>"About three-and-twenty."</p>
+
+<p>"Exceedingly suitable. Young, and yet not too young. She is not
+beautiful, but she is decidedly handsome, and very high-bred-looking,
+which is better than beauty. I know all about her family; good blood on
+both sides; no worsted thread. I forget if there is any money."</p>
+
+<p>This was a pious fraud on Lady Mary's part, as she was, of course, aware
+of the exact sum.</p>
+
+<p>"Lady Deyncourt left her thirty thousand pounds," said Evelyn,
+unwillingly. She hated herself for the part she was taking in her aunt's
+plans, although she had been so unable to support her feeble opposition
+by any show of reason that it had long since melted away before the
+consuming fire of Lady Mary's determined authority.</p>
+
+<p>"Twelve hundred a year," said that lady. "I fear Lady Deyncourt was far,
+very far, from the truth, but she seems to have made an equitable will.
+I am glad Miss Deyncourt is not entirely without means; and she has
+probably something of her own as well. The more I see of that girl the
+more convinced I am that she is the very wife for Charles. There is no
+objection to the match in any way, unless it lies in that disreputable
+brother, who seems to have entirely disappeared. Now, Evelyn, mark my
+words. You invited her here at my wish, after I saw her with that
+dreadful Alwynn woman at the flower-show. You will never regret it. I am
+seventy-five years of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> age, and I have seen something of men and women.
+Those two will suit."</p>
+
+<p>"Here comes the dog-cart," said Evelyn, with evident relief.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is Miss Deyncourt?"</p>
+
+<p>"She went off to Slumberleigh some time ago. She said she was going to
+the rectory, I believe."</p>
+
+<p>"It is just as well. Ah! here is Charles."</p>
+
+<p>A tall, distinguished-looking man in a light overcoat came slowly round
+the corner of the house as she spoke, and joined them on the lawn.
+Evelyn went to meet him with, evident affection, which met with as
+evident a return, and he then exchanged a more formal greeting with his
+aunt.</p>
+
+<p>"Come and sit down here," said Evelyn, pulling forward a garden-chair.
+"How hot and tired you look!"</p>
+
+<p>"I am tired to death, Evelyn. I went to London in May a comparatively
+young man. Aunt Mary said I ought to go, and so, of course, I went. I
+have come back not only sadder and wiser&mdash;that I would try to bear&mdash;but
+visibly aged."</p>
+
+<p>He took off his hat as he spoke, and wearily pushed back the hair from
+his forehead. Lady Mary looked at him over her spectacles with grave
+scrutiny. She had not seen her nephew for many months, and she was not
+pleased with what she saw. His face looked thin and worn, and she even
+feared she could detect a gray hair or two in the light hair and
+mustache. His tired, sarcastic eyes met hers.</p>
+
+<p>"I was afraid you would think I had <i>gone off</i>," he said, half shutting
+his eyes in the manner habitual to him. "I fear I took your exhortations
+too much to heart, and overworked myself in the good cause."</p>
+
+<p>"A season is always an exhausting thing," said Lady Mary; "and I dare
+say London is very hot now."</p>
+
+<p>"Hot! It's more than hot. It is a solemn warning to evil-doers; a
+foretaste of a future state."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose everybody has left town by this time?" continued Lady Mary,
+who often found it necessary even now to ignore parts of her nephew's
+conversation.</p>
+
+<p>"By everybody I know you mean <i>one</i> family. Yes, they are gone. Left
+London to-day. Consequently, I also conveyed my remains out of town,
+feeling that I had done my duty."</p>
+
+<p>"Where is Ralph?" asked Evelyn, rising, dimly conscious that Charles and
+his aunt were conversing in an unknown tongue, and feeling herself <i>de
+trop</i>.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I left him in the shrubbery. A stoat crossed the road before the
+horse's nose as we drove up, and Ralph, who seems to have been specially
+invented by Providence for the destruction of small vermin, was in
+attendance on it in a moment. I had seen something of the kind before,
+so I came on."</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn laid down her work, and went across the lawn, and round the
+corner of the house, in the direction of the shrubbery, from which the
+voice of her lord and master "rose in snatches," as he plunged in and
+out among the laurels.</p>
+
+<p>"And how is Lord Hope-Acton?" continued Lady Mary, with an air of
+elaborate unconcern. "I used to know him in old days as one of the best
+waltzers in London. I remember him very slim and elegant-looking; but I
+suppose he is quite elderly now, and has lost his figure? or so some one
+was saying."</p>
+
+<p>"Not lost, but gone before, I should say, to judge by appearances," said
+Charles, meditatively, gazing up into the blue of the summer sky.</p>
+
+<p>The mixed impiety and indelicacy of her nephew's remark caused a sudden
+twitch to the High Church embroidery in Lady Mary's hand; but she went
+on a moment later in her usual tone:</p>
+
+<p>"And Lady Hope-Acton. Is she in stronger health?"</p>
+
+<p>"I believe she was fairly well; not robust, you know, but, like other
+fond mothers with daughters out, 'faint yet pursuing.'"</p>
+
+<p>Lady Mary bit her lip; but long experience had taught her that it was
+wiser to refrain from reproof, even when it was so urgently needed.</p>
+
+<p>"And their daughter, Lady Grace. How beautiful she is! Was she looking
+as lovely as usual?"</p>
+
+<p>"More so," replied Charles, with conviction. "Her nose is even
+straighter, her eyelashes even longer than they were last summer. I do
+not hesitate to say that her complexion is&mdash;all that her fancy paints
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"You are so fond of joking, Charles, that I don't know when you are
+serious. And you saw a good deal of her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I did. I leaned on the railings in the Row, and watched her
+riding with Lord Hope-Acton, whose personal appearance you feel such an
+interest in. At the meeting of the four-in-hands, was not she on the
+box-seat beside me? At Henley, were we not in the same boat? At
+Hurlingham, did we not watch polo together, and together drink our tea?
+At Lord's, did not I tear her new muslin garment in helping her up one
+of those poultry-ladders<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> on the Torringtons' drag? Have I not taken her
+in to dinner five several times? Have I not danced with her at balls
+innumerable? Have I not, in fact, seen as much of her as&mdash;of several
+others?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Charles!" said Lady Mary, "I wish you would talk seriously for one
+moment, and not in that light way. Have you spoken?"</p>
+
+<p>"In a light way, I should say I had spoken a good deal; but <i>seriously</i>,
+no. I have never ventured to be serious."</p>
+
+<p>"But you will be. After all this, you <i>will</i> ask her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Aunt Mary," replied Charles, with gentle reproach, "a certain delicacy
+should be observed in probing the exact state of a man's young
+affections. At five-and-thirty (I know I am five-and-thirty, because you
+have told people so for the last three years) there exists a certain
+reticence in the youthful heart which declines to lay bare its inmost
+feelings even for an aunt to&mdash;we won't say peck at, but speculate upon.
+I have told you all I know. I have done what I was bidden to do, up to a
+certain point. I am now here to recruit, and restore my wasted energies,
+and possibly to heal (observe, I say possibly) my wounded affections in
+the intimacy of my family circle. That reminds me that that little
+ungrateful imp Molly has not yet made the slightest demonstration of joy
+at my arrival. Where is she?" and without waiting for an answer, which
+he was well aware would not be forthcoming, Charles rose and strolled
+towards the house with his hands behind his back.</p>
+
+<p>"Molly!" he called, "Molly!" standing bareheaded in the sunshine, under
+a certain latticed window, the iron bars of which suggested a nursery
+within.</p>
+
+<p>There was a sudden answering cackle of delight, and a little brown head
+was thrust out amid the ivy.</p>
+
+<p>"Come down this very moment, you little hard-hearted person, and embrace
+your old uncle."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm comin', Uncle Charles, I'm comin';" and the brown head disappeared,
+and a few seconds later a white frock and two slim black legs rushed
+round the corner, and Molly precipitated herself against the waistcoat
+of "Uncle Charles."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean by not coming down and paying your respects sooner?"
+he said, when the first enthusiasm of his reception was over, looking
+down at Molly with a great kindness in the keen light eyes which had
+looked so apathetic and sarcastic a moment before.</p>
+
+<p>As he spoke, Ralph Danvers, a square, ruddy man in gray knickerbockers,
+came triumphantly round from the shrubbery, holding by its tail a minute
+corpse with out-stretched arms and legs.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Got him!" he said, smiling, and wiping his brow with honest pride.
+"See, Charles? See, Molly? Got him!"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't bring it here, Ralph, please. We are going to have tea," came
+Evelyn's gentle voice from the lawn; and Ralph and the terrier Vic
+retired to hang the body of the slain upon a fir-tree on the back
+premises, the recognized long home of stoats and weasels at Atherstone.</p>
+
+<p>Molly, in the presence of Lady Mary and the stick with the silver crook,
+was always more or less depressed and shy. She felt the pale cold eye of
+that lady was upon her, as indeed it generally was, if she moved or
+spoke. She did not therefore join in the conversation as freely as was
+her wont in the family circle, but sat on the grass by her uncle,
+watching him with adoring eyes, trying to work the signet ring off his
+big little finger, which in the memory of man&mdash;of Molly, I mean&mdash;had
+never been known to work off, while she gave him the benefit of small
+pieces of local and personal news in a half whisper from time to time as
+they occurred to her.</p>
+
+<p>"Cousin Ruth is staying here, Uncle Charles."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed," said Charles, absently.</p>
+
+<p>His eyes had wandered to Evelyn taking Ralph his cup of tea, and giving
+him a look with it which he returned&mdash;the quiet, grave look of mutual
+confidence which sometimes passes between married people, and which for
+the moment makes the single state seem very single indeed.</p>
+
+<p>Molly saw that he had not heard, and that she must try some more
+exciting topic in order to rivet his attention.</p>
+
+<p>"There was a mouse at prayers yesterday, Uncle Charles."</p>
+
+<p>"There <i>wasn't</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Charles was attending again now.</p>
+
+<p>Molly gave an exact account of the great event, and of how "Nanny" had
+gathered her skirts round her, and how James had laughed, only father
+did not see him, and how&mdash;There was a great deal more, and the story
+ended tragically for the mouse, whose final demise under a shovel, when
+prayers were over, Molly described in graphic detail.</p>
+
+<p>"And how are the guinea-pigs?" asked Charles, putting down his cup.</p>
+
+<p>"Come and see them," whispered Molly, insinuating her small hand
+delightedly into his big one; and they went off together, each happy in
+the society of the other. Charles was introduced to the guinea-pigs,
+which had multiplied exceedingly since he had presented<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> them, the one
+named after him being even then engaged in rearing a large family.</p>
+
+<p>Then, after Molly had copiously watered her garden, and Charles's
+unsuspecting boots at the same time, objects of interest still remained
+to be seen and admired; confidences had to be exchanged; inner pockets
+in Charles's waistcoat to be explored; and it was not till the
+dressing-bell and the shrill voice of "Nanny" from an upper window
+recalled them, that the friends returned towards the house.</p>
+
+<p>As they turned to go in-doors Charles saw a tall white figure skimming
+across the stretches of low sunshine and long shadow in the field beyond
+the garden, and making swiftly for the garden gate.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Molly! Molly!" he said, in a tone of sudden consternation,
+squeezing the little brown hand in his. "<i>Who</i> is that?"</p>
+
+<p>Molly looked at him astonished. A moment ago Uncle Charles had been
+talking merrily, and now he looked quite sad.</p>
+
+<p>"It's only Ruth," she said, reassuringly.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is Ruth?"</p>
+
+<p>"Cousin Ruth," replied Molly. "I told you she was here."</p>
+
+<p>"She's not <i>staying</i> here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, she is. She is rather nice, only she says the guinea-pigs smell
+nasty, which isn't true. She <i>will</i> be late,"&mdash;with evident
+concern&mdash;"if she is going to be laced up; and I know she is, because I
+saw it on her bed. She doesn't see us yet. Let us go and meet her."</p>
+
+<p>"Run along, then," said Charles, in a lone of deep dejection, loosing
+Molly's hand. "I think I'll go in-doors."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IVb" id="CHAPTER_IVb"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2>
+
+
+<p>"I've done Uncle Charles a button-hole, and put it in his water-bottle,"
+said Molly, in an important <i>affair&eacute;</i> whisper, as she came into Ruth's
+room a few minutes before dinner, where Ruth and her maid were
+struggling with a black-lace dress. "Mrs. Jones, you must be very quick.
+Why do you have pins in your mouth, Mrs. Jones? James has got his coat
+on, and he is going to ring the bell in one minute. I told him you had
+only just got your hair done; but he said he could not help that. Uncle
+Charles,"&mdash;peeping through the door&mdash;"is going down now, and he's got on
+a beautiful white waistcoat. He's brought that nice Mr. Brown with him
+that unpacks his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> things and plays on the concertina. Ah! there's the
+bell;" and Molly hurried down to give a description of the exact stage
+at which Ruth's toilet had arrived, which Ruth cut short by appearing
+hard upon her heels.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a shame to come in-doors now, isn't it?" said Charles, as he was
+introduced and took her in to dinner in the wake of Lady Mary and Ralph.
+"Just the first cool time of the day."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it?" said Ruth, still rather pink with her late exertions. "When I
+heard the dressing-bell ring across the fields, and the last gate would
+not open, and I found the railings through which I precipitated myself
+had been newly painted, I own I thought it had never been so hot all
+day."</p>
+
+<p>"How trying it is to be forgotten!" said Charles, after a pause. "We
+have met before, Miss Deyncourt; but I see you don't remember me. I gave
+you time to recollect me by throwing out that little remark about the
+weather, but it was no good."</p>
+
+<p>Ruth glanced at him and looked puzzled.</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid I don't," she said at last. "I have seen you playing polo
+once or twice, and driving your four-in-hand; but I thought I only knew
+you by sight. When did we meet before?"</p>
+
+<p>"You have no recollection of a certain ball after some theatricals at
+Stoke Moreton, which you and your sister came to as little girls in
+pigtails?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I remember that. And were you there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Was I there? Oh, the ingratitude of woman! Did not I dance three times
+with each of you, and suggest chicken at supper instead of lobster
+salad? Does not the lobster salad awaken memories? Surely you have not
+forgotten that?"</p>
+
+<p>Ruth began to smile.</p>
+
+<p>"I remember now. So you were the kind man, name unknown, who took such
+care of Anna and me? How good-natured you were!"</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks! You evidently do remember now, if you say that. I recognized
+you at once, when I saw you again, by your likeness to your brother
+Raymond. You were very like him then, but much more so now. How is he?"</p>
+
+<p>Ruth's dark gray eyes shot a sudden surprised glance at him. People had
+seldom of late inquired after Raymond.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe he is quite well," she replied, in a constrained tone. "I
+have not heard from him for some time."</p>
+
+<p>"It is some years since I met him," said Charles, noting but ignoring
+her change of tone. "I used to see a good deal of him before<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> he went
+to&mdash;was it America? I heard from him about three years ago. He was
+prospecting, I think, at that time."</p>
+
+<p>Ruth remembered that Charles had succeeded his father about three years
+ago. She remembered also Raymond's capacities for borrowing. A sudden
+instinct told her what the drift of that letter had been. The blood
+rushed into her face.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he didn't&mdash;did he?"</p>
+
+<p>The other three people were talking together; Lady Mary, opposite, was
+joining with a bland smile of inward satisfaction in the discussion
+between Ralph and Evelyn as to the rival merits of "Cochin Chinas" and
+"Plymouth Rocks."</p>
+
+<p>"If he did," said Charles, quietly, "it was only what we had often done
+for each other before. There was a time, Miss Deyncourt, when your
+brother and I both rowed in the same boat; and both, I fancy, split on
+the same rock. It was not so long since&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>There was a sudden silence. The chicken question was exhausted. It
+dropped dead. Charles left his sentence unfinished, and, turning to his
+brother, the conversation became general.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>In the evening, when the others had said good-night, Charles and Ralph
+went out into the cool half-darkness to smoke, and paced up and down on
+the lawn in the soft summer night. The two brothers had not met for some
+time, and in an undemonstrative way they had a genuine affection for
+each other, which showed itself on this occasion in walking about
+together without exchanging a word.</p>
+
+<p>At last Charles broke the silence. "I thought, when I settled to come
+down here, you said you would be alone!" There was a shade of annoyance
+in his tone.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, now, that is just what I said at the time," said Ralph, sleepily,
+with a yawn that would have accommodated a Jonah, "only I was told I did
+not understand. They always say I don't understand if they're set on
+anything. I thought you wanted a little peace and quietness. I said so;
+but Aunt Mary settled we must have some one. I say, Charles," with a
+chuckle of deep masculine cunning, "you just look out. There's some
+mystery up about Ruth. I believe Aunt Mary got Evelyn to ask her here
+with an eye to business."</p>
+
+<p>"I would not do Aunt Mary the injustice to doubt <i>that</i> for a moment,"
+replied Charles, rather bitterly; and they relapsed into silence and
+smoke.</p>
+
+<p>Presently Ralph, who had been out all day, yawned himself into the
+house, and left Charles to pace up and down by himself.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>If Lady Mary, who was at that moment composing herself to slumber in the
+best spare bedroom, had heard the gist of Ralph's remarks to his
+brother, I think she would have risen up and confronted him then and
+there on the stairs. As it was, she meditated on her couch with much
+satisfaction, until the sleep of the just came upon her, little recking
+that the clumsy hand of brutal man had even then torn the veil from her
+carefully concealed and deeply laid feminine plans.</p>
+
+<p>Charles, meanwhile, remained on the lawn till late into the night. After
+two months of London smuts and London smoke and London nights, the calm
+scented darkness had a peculiar charm for him. The few lights in the
+windows were going out one by one, and thousands and thousands were
+coming out in the quiet sky. Through the still air came the sound of a
+corn-crake perpetually winding up its watch at regular intervals in a
+field hard by. A little desultory breeze hovered near, and just roused
+the sleepy trees to whisper a good-night. And Charles paced and paced,
+and thought of many things.</p>
+
+<p>Only last night! His mind went back to the picture-gallery where he and
+Lady Grace had sat, amid a grove of palms and flowers. Through the open
+archway at a little distance came a flood of light, and a surging echo
+of plaintive, appealing music. It was late, or rather early, for morning
+was looking in with cold, dispassionate eyes through the long windows.
+The gallery was comparatively empty for a London gathering, for the
+balconies and hall were crowded, and the rooms were thinning. To all
+intents and purposes they were alone. How nearly&mdash;how nearly he had
+asked for what he knew would not have been refused! How nearly he had
+decided to do at once what might still be put off till to-morrow! And he
+<i>must</i> marry; he often told himself so. She was there beside him on the
+yellow brocade ottoman. She was much too good for him; but she liked
+him. Should he do it&mdash;now? he asked himself, as he watched the slender
+gloved hand swaying the feather fan with monotonous languor.</p>
+
+<p>But when he took her back to the ball-room, back to an expectant, tired
+mother, he had not done it. He should be at their house in Scotland
+later. He thought he would wait till then. He breathed a long sigh of
+relief, in the quiet darkness now, at the thought that he had not done
+it. He had a haunting presentiment that neither in the purple heather,
+any more than in a London ball-room, would he be able to pass beyond
+that "certain point" to which, in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> divers companionship, with or without
+assistance, he had so often attained.</p>
+
+<p>For Charles was genuinely anxious to marry. He regarded with the
+greatest interest every eligible and ineligible young woman whom he came
+across. If Lady Mary had been aware of the very serious light in which
+he had considered Miss Louisa Smith, youngest daughter of a certain
+curate Smith, who in his youth had been originally extracted from a
+refreshment-room at Liverpool to become an ornament of the Church, that
+lady would have swooned with horror. But neither Miss Louisa Smith, with
+her bun and sandwich ancestry, nor the eighth Lord Breakwater's young
+and lovely sister, though both willing to undertake the situation, were
+either of them finally offered it. Charles remained free as air, and a
+dreadful stigma gradually attached to him as a heartless flirt and a
+perverter of young girls' minds from men of more solid worth. A man who
+pleases easily and is hard to please soon gets a bad name
+among&mdash;mothers. I don't think Lady Hope-Acton thought very kindly of
+him, as she sped up to Scotland in the night mail.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps he was not so much to blame as she thought. Long ago, ten long
+years ago, in the reckless days of which Lady Mary had then made so
+much, and now made so little, poor Charles had been deeply in love with
+a good woman, a gentle, quiet girl, who after a time had married his
+brother Ralph. No one had suspected his attachment&mdash;Ralph and Evelyn
+least of all&mdash;but several years elapsed before he found time to visit
+them at Atherstone; and I think his fondness for Molly had its origin in
+his feeling for her mother. Even now it sometimes gave him a momentary
+pang to meet the adoration in Molly's eyes which, with their dark
+lashes, she had copied so exactly from Evelyn's.</p>
+
+<p>And now that he could come with ease on what had been forbidden ground,
+he had seen of late clearly, with the insight that comes of
+dispassionate consideration, that Evelyn, the only woman whom he had
+ever earnestly loved, whom he would have turned heaven and earth to have
+been able to marry, had not been in the least suited to him, and that to
+have married her would have entailed a far more bitter disappointment
+than the loss of her had been.</p>
+
+<p>Evelyn made Ralph an admirable wife. She was so placid, so gentle,
+and&mdash;with the exception of muddy boots in the drawing-room&mdash;so
+unexacting. It was sweet to see her read to Molly; but did she never
+take up a book or a paper? What she said was always gracefully put
+forth; but oh! in old days, used she in that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> same gentle voice to utter
+such platitudes, such little stereotyped remarks? Used she, in the palmy
+days that were no more (when she was not Ralph's wife), so mildly but so
+firmly to adhere to a pre-conceived opinion? Had she formerly such fixed
+opinions on every subject in general, and on new-laid eggs and the
+propriety of chicken-hutches on the lawn in particular? Disillusion may
+be for our good, like other disagreeable things, but it is seldom
+pleasant at the time, and is apt to leave in all except the most
+conceited natures (whose life-long mistakes are committed for our
+learning) a strange self-distrustful caution behind, which is mortally
+afraid of making a second mistake of the same kind.</p>
+
+<p>Charles suddenly checked his pacing.</p>
+
+<p>And yet surely, surely, he said to himself, there were in the world
+somewhere good women of another stamp, who might be found for diligent
+seeking.</p>
+
+<p>He turned impatiently to go in-doors.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Molly! Molly!" he said, half aloud, gazing at the darkened windows
+behind which the body of Molly was sleeping, while her little soul was
+frisking away in fairy-land, "why did you complicate matters by being a
+little girl?" With which reflection he brought his meditations to a
+close for the night.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_Vb" id="CHAPTER_Vb"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Molly awoke early on the following morning, and early informed the rest
+of the household that the weather was satisfactory. She flew into Ruth's
+room with the hot water, to wake her and set her mind at rest on a
+subject of such engrossing interest; she imparted it repeatedly to
+Charles through his key-hole, until a low incoherent muttering convinced
+her that he also was rejoicing in the good news. She took all the dolls
+out of the baskets in which Ruth's careful hands had packed them the
+evening before, in the recognized manner in which dolls travel without
+detriment to their toilets, namely, head downward, with their
+orange-top-boots turned upward to the sky. In short, Molly busied
+herself in the usual ways in which an only child finds employment.</p>
+
+<p>It really was a glorious day. Except in Molly's eyes it was almost too
+good a day for a school-feast; too good a day, Ruth thought,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> as she
+looked out, to be spent entirely in playing at endless games of "Sally
+Water" and "Oranges and Lemons," and in pouring out sweet tea in a tent.
+She remembered a certain sketch at Arleigh, an old deserted house in the
+neighborhood, which she had long wished to make. What a day for a
+sketch! But she shut her eyes to the temptation of the evil one, and
+went out into the garden, where Molly's little brown hands were
+devastating the beds for the approaching festival, and Molly's shrill
+voice was piping through the fresh morning air.</p>
+
+<p>There had been rain in the night, and to-day the earth had all her
+diamonds on, just sent down reset from heaven. The trees came out
+resplendent, unable to keep their leaves still for very vanity, and
+dropping gems out of their settings at every rustle. No one had been
+forgotten. Every tiniest shrub and plant had its little tiara to show;
+rare jewels, cut by a Master Hand, which at man's rude touch, or, for
+that matter, Molly's either, slid away to tears.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't mean to say, Molly," said Charles, later in the day, when all
+the dolls had been passed in review before him, and he had criticised
+each, "that you are going to leave me all day by myself? What shall I do
+between luncheon and tea-time, when I have fed the guinea-pigs and
+watered the 'blue-belia,' as you call it&mdash;Where has that imp disappeared
+to now? I think," with a glance at Ruth, who was replacing the cotton
+wool on the doll's faces, "I really think, though I own I fancied I had
+a previous engagement, that I shall be obliged to come to the
+school-feast too."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't," said Ruth, looking up suddenly from her work with gray serious
+eyes. "Be advised. No man who respects himself makes himself common by
+attending village school-feasts and attempting to pour out tea, which he
+is never allowed to do in private life."</p>
+
+<p>"I could hand buns," suggested Charles. "You take a gloomy view of your
+fellow-creatures, Miss Deyncourt. I see you underrate my powers with
+plates of buns."</p>
+
+<p>"Far from it. I only wished to keep you from quitting your proper
+sphere."</p>
+
+<p>"What, may I ask, is my proper sphere?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not to come to school-feasts at all; or, if you feel that is beyond
+you, only to arrive when you are too late to be of any use; to stand
+about with a hunting-crop in your hand&mdash;for, of course, you will come on
+horseback&mdash;and then, after refreshing all of us workers by a few
+well-chosen remarks, to go away again at an easy canter."</p>
+
+<p>"I think I could do that, if it would give pleasure; and I am most<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span>
+grateful to you for pointing out my proper course to me. I have observed
+it is the prerogative of woman in general not only to be absolutely
+convinced as to her own line of action, but also to be able to point out
+that of man to his obtuser perceptions."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe you are perfectly right," said Ruth, becoming serious. "If
+men, especially prime-ministers, were to apply to almost any woman I
+know (except, of course, myself) for advice as to the administration of
+the realm or their own family affairs, I have not the slightest doubt
+that not one of them would be sent empty away, but would be furnished
+instantly with a complete guide-book as to his future movements on this
+side the grave."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, some people don't stop there," said Charles. "Aunt Mary, in my
+young days, used to think nothing of the grave if I had displeased her.
+She still revels in a future court of justice, and an eternal
+cat-o'-nine tails beyond the tomb. Well, Molly, so here you are, back
+again! What's the last news?"</p>
+
+<p>The news was the extraordinary arrival of five new kittens, which,
+according to Molly, the old stable cat had just discovered in a loft,
+and took the keenest personal interest in. Charles was dragged away,
+only half acquiescent, to help in a decision that must instantly be come
+to, as to which of the two spotted or the three plain ones should be
+kept.</p>
+
+<p>It was a day of delight to Molly. She had the responsibility and honor
+of driving Ruth and the dolls in her own donkey-cart to the scene of
+action, where the school children, and some of the idlest or most
+good-natured of Mrs. Alwynn's friends, were even then assembling, and
+where Mrs. Alwynn herself was already dashing from point to point,
+buzzing like a large "bumble" bee.</p>
+
+<p>As the donkey-cart crawled up a gray figure darted out of the tent, and
+flew to meet them from afar. Dare, who had been on the lookout for them
+for some time, offered to lift out Molly, helped out Ruth, held the
+baskets, wished to unharness the donkey, let the wheel go over his
+patent leather shoe, and in short made himself excessively agreeable, if
+not in Ruth's, at least in Molly's eyes, who straightway entered into
+conversation with him, and invited him to call upon herself and the
+guinea-pigs at Atherstone at an early date.</p>
+
+<p>Then ensued the usual scene at festivities of this description. Tea was
+poured out like water (very like warm water), buns, cakes, and bread and
+butter were eaten, were crumbled, were put in pockets, were stamped
+underfoot. Large open tarts, covered with thin sticks of pastry, called
+by the boys "the tarts with the grubs on 'em,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> disappeared apace, being
+constantly replaced by others made in the same image, from which the
+protecting but adhesive newspaper had to be judiciously peeled. When the
+last limit of the last child had been reached, the real work of the day
+began&mdash;the games. Under a blazing sun, for the space of two hours,
+"Sally Water" or "Nuts in May" must be played, with an occasional change
+to "Oranges and Lemons."</p>
+
+<p>Ruth, who had before been staying with the Alwynns at the time of their
+school-feast, hardened her heart, and began that immoral but popular
+game of "Sally Water."</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Sally, Sally Water, come sprinkle your pan;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rise up a husband, a handsome young man.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Rise, Sally, rise, and don't look sad,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">You shall have a husband, good or bad."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The last line showing how closely the state of feeling of village
+society, as regards the wedded state, resembles the view taken of it in
+the highest circles.</p>
+
+<p>Other games were already in full swing. Mrs. Alwynn, flushed and shrill,
+was organizing an infant troop. A good-natured curate was laying up for
+himself treasure elsewhere, by a present expenditure of half-pence
+secreted in a tub of bran. Dare, not to be behind-hand, took to swinging
+little girls with desperate and heated good-nature. His bright smile and
+genial brown face soon gained the confidence of the children; and then
+he swung them as they had never been swung before. It was positively the
+first time that some of the girls had ever seen their heels above their
+heads. And his powers of endurance were so great. First his coat and
+then his waistcoat were cast aside as he warmed to his work, until at
+last he dragged the sleeve of his shirt out of the socket, and had to
+retire into private life behind a tree, in company with Mrs. Eccles and
+a needle and thread. But he reappeared again, and was soon swept into a
+game of cricket that was being got up among the elder boys; bowled the
+school-master; batted brilliantly and with considerable flourish for a
+few moments, only to knock his own wickets down with what seemed
+singular want of care; and then fielded with cat-like activity and an
+entire oblivion of the game, receiving a swift ball on his own person,
+only to choke, coil himself up, and recover his equanimity and the ball
+in a moment.</p>
+
+<p>All things come to an end, and at last the Slumberleigh church clock
+struck four, and Ruth could sink giddily onto a bench, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> push back
+the few remaining hair-pins that were left to her, and feebly endeavor,
+with a pin eagerly extracted by Dare from the back of his neck, to join
+the gaping ruin of torn gathers in her dress, so daintily fresh two
+hours ago, so dilapidated now.</p>
+
+<p>"There they come!" said Mrs. Alwynn, indignantly, who was fanning
+herself with her pocket-handkerchief, which stout women ought to be
+forbidden by law to do. "There are Mrs. Thursby and Mabel. Just like
+them, arriving when the games are all over! And, dear me! who is that
+with them? Why, it is Sir Charles Danvers. I had no idea he was staying
+with them. Brown particularly told me they had not brought back any
+friend with them yesterday. Dear me! How odd! And Brown&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Sir Charles Danvers is staying at Atherstone," said Ruth.</p>
+
+<p>"At Atherstone, is he? Well, my dear, this is the first I have heard of
+it, if he is. I don't see what there is to make a secret of in <i>that</i>.
+Most natural he should be staying there, I should have thought. And, if
+that's one of Mabel's new gowns, all I can say is that yours is quite as
+nice, Ruth, though I know it is from last year, and those full fronts as
+fashionable as ever."</p>
+
+<p>As Mr. and Mrs. Alwynn went forward to meet the Thursbys, Charles
+strolled up to Ruth, and planted himself deliberately in front of her.</p>
+
+<p>"You observe that I am here?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I do."</p>
+
+<p>"At the proper time?"</p>
+
+<p>"At the proper time."</p>
+
+<p>"And in my sphere? I have tampered with no buns, you will remark, and
+teapots have been far from me."</p>
+
+<p>"I am exceedingly rejoiced my little word in season has been of such
+use."</p>
+
+<p>"It has, Miss Deyncourt. The remark you made this morning I considered
+honest, though poor, and I laid it to heart accordingly. But," with a
+change of tone, "you look tired to death. You have been out in the sun
+too long. I am going off now. I only came because I met the Thursbys,
+and they dragged me here. Come home with me through the woods. You have
+no idea how agreeable I am in the open air. It will be shady all the
+way, and not half so fatiguing as being shaken in Molly's donkey-cart."</p>
+
+<p>"In the donkey-cart I must return, however, if I die on the way," said
+Ruth, with a tired smile. "I can't leave Molly. Besides, all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> is not
+over yet. The races and prizes take time; and when at last they are
+dismissed, a slice of&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Miss Deyncourt, <i>no</i>! Not more food!"</p>
+
+<p>"A slice of cake will be applied <i>externally</i> to each of the children,
+which rite brings the festivities to a close. There! I see the dolls are
+being carried out. I must go;" and a moment later Ruth and Molly and
+Dare, who had been hovering near, were busily unpacking and shaking out
+the dolls; and Charles, after a little desultory conversation with Mabel
+Thursby, strolled away, with his hands behind his back and his nose in
+the air in the manner habitual to him.</p>
+
+<p>And so the day wore itself out at last; and after a hymn had been
+shrieked the children were dismissed, and Ruth and Molly at length drove
+away.</p>
+
+<p>"Hasn't it been delicious?" said Molly. "And my doll was chosen first.
+Lucy Bigg, with the rash on her face, got it. I wish little Sarah had
+had it. I do love Sarah so very much; but Sarah had yours, Ruth, with
+the real pocket and the handkerchief in it. That will be a surprise for
+her when she gets home. And that new gentleman was so kind about the
+teapots, wasn't he? He always filled mine first. He's coming to see me
+very soon, and to bring a curious black dog that he has of his very own,
+called&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Stop, Molly," said Ruth, as the donkey's head was being sawed round
+towards the blazing high-road; "let us go home through the woods. I know
+it is longer, but I can't stand any more sun and dust to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"You do look tired," said Molly, "and your lips are quite white. My lips
+turned white once, before I had the measles, and I felt very curious
+inside, and then spots came all over. You don't feel like spots, do you,
+Cousin Ruth? We will go back by the woods, and I'll open the gates, and
+you shall hold the reins. I dare say Balaam will like it better too."</p>
+
+<p>Molly had called her donkey Balaam, partly owing to a misapprehension of
+Scripture narrative, and partly owing to the assurance of Charles, when
+in sudden misgiving she had consulted him on the point, that Balaam
+<i>had</i> been an ass.</p>
+
+<p>Balaam's reluctant underjaw was accordingly turned in the direction of
+the woods, and, little thinking the drive might prove an eventful one,
+Ruth and Molly set off at that easy amble which a well-fed pampered
+donkey will occasionally indulge in.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIb" id="CHAPTER_VIb"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2>
+
+
+<p>After the glare and the noise, the shrill blasts of penny trumpets, and
+the sustained beating of penny drums, the silence of the Slumberleigh
+woods was delightful to Ruth; the comparative silence, that is to say,
+for where Molly was, absolute silence need never be feared.</p>
+
+<p>Long before the first gate had been reached Balaam had, of course,
+returned to the mode of procedure which suited him and his race best,
+and it was only when the road inclined to be downhill that he could be
+urged into anything like a trot.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind," said Molly, consolingly to Ruth, as he finally settled
+into a slow lounge, gracefully waving his ears and tail at the army of
+flies which accompanied him, "when we get to the place where the firs
+are, and the road goes between the rocks, it's downhill all the way, and
+we'll gallop down."</p>
+
+<p>But it was a long way to the firs, and Ruth was in no hurry. It was an
+ideal afternoon, verging towards evening; an afternoon of golden lights
+and broken shadows, of vivid greens in shady places. It must have been
+on such a day as this, Ruth thought, that the Almighty walked in the
+garden of Eden when the sun was low, while as yet the tree of knowledge
+was but in blossom, while as yet autumn and its apples were far off,
+long before fig-leaves and millinery were thought of.</p>
+
+<p>On either side the bracken and the lady-fern grew thick and high, almost
+overlapping the broad moss-grown path, across which the young rabbits
+popped away in their new brown coats, showing their little white linings
+in their lazy haste. A dog-rose had hung out a whole constellation of
+pale stars for Molly to catch at as they passed. A family of
+honeysuckles clung, faint and sweet, just beyond the reach of the little
+hand that stretched after them in turn.</p>
+
+<p>They had reached the top of an ascent that would have been level to
+anything but the mean spirit of a donkey, when Molly gave a start.</p>
+
+<p>"Cousin Ruth, there's something creeping among the trees&mdash;don't you hear
+it? Oh-h-h!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>There really was a movement in the bracken, which grew too thick and
+high to allow of anything being easily seen at a little distance.</p>
+
+<p>"If it's a lion," said Molly, in a faint whisper, "and I feel in my
+heart it is, he must have Balaam."</p>
+
+<p>Balaam at this moment pricked his large ears, and Molly and Ruth both
+heard the snapping of a twig, and saw a figure slip behind a tree.
+Molly's spirits rose, and Ruth's went down in proportion. The woods were
+lonely, and they were nearing the most lonely part.</p>
+
+<p>"It's only a man," said Ruth, rather sharply. "I expect it is one of the
+keepers." (Oh, Ruth!) "Come, Molly, we shall never get home at this
+rate. Whip up Balaam, and let us trot down the hill."</p>
+
+<p>Much relieved about Balaam's immediate future, Molly incited him to a
+really noble trot, and did not allow him to relapse even on the flat
+which followed. Through the rattling and the jolting, however, Ruth
+could still hear a stealthy rustle in the fern and under-wood. The man
+was following them.</p>
+
+<p>"He's coming after us," whispered Molly, with round frightened eyes,
+"and Balaam will stop in a minute, I know. Oh, Cousin Ruth, what shall
+we do?"</p>
+
+<p>Ruth hesitated. They were nearing the steep pitch, where the firs
+overhung the road, which was cut out between huge bowlders of rock and
+sandstone. The ground rose rough and precipitous on their right, and
+fell away to their left. Just over the brow of the hill, out of sight,
+was, as she well knew, the second gate. The noise in the brushwood had
+ceased. Turning suddenly, her quick eye just caught sight of a figure
+disappearing behind the slope of the falling ground to the left. He was
+a lame man, and he was running. In a moment she saw that he was making a
+short cut, with the intention of waylaying them at the gate. He would
+get there long before they would; and even then Balaam was beginning the
+ascent, which really was an ascent this time, at his slowest walk.</p>
+
+<p>Molly's teeth were chattering in her little head.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Molly," said Ruth, sharply, "listen to me, and don't be a baby.
+He'll wait for us at the gate, so he can't see us here. Get out this
+moment, and we will both run up the hill to the keeper's cottage at the
+top of the bank. We shall get there first, because he is lame."</p>
+
+<p>They had passed the bracken now, and were among the moss and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> sandstone
+beneath the firs. Ruth hastily dragged Molly out of the cart without
+stopping Balaam, who proceeded, twirling his ears, leisurely without
+them.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my poor Balaam!" sobbed Molly, with a backward glance at that
+unconscious favorite marching towards its doom.</p>
+
+<p>"There is no time to think of poor Balaam now," replied Ruth. "Run on in
+front of me, and don't step on anything crackly."</p>
+
+<p>"Never in this world," thought Ruth, "will I come alone here with Molly
+again. Never again will I&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>But it was stiff climbing, and the remainder of the resolution was lost.</p>
+
+<p>They are high to the right above the white gate now. The keeper's
+cottage is in sight, built against a ledge of rock, up to which wide
+rough steps have been cut in the sandstone. Ruth looks down at the gate
+below. He is waiting&mdash;the dreadful man is waiting there, as she
+expected; and Balaam, toying with a fern, is at that moment coming round
+the corner. She sees that he takes in the situation instantly. There is
+but one way in which they can have fled, and he knows it. In a moment he
+comes halting and pounding up the slope. He sees their white dresses
+among the firs. Run, Molly! run, Ruth! Spare no expense. If your new
+black sash catches in the briers, let it catch; heed it not, for he is
+making wonderful play with that lame leg up the hill. It is an even
+race. Now for the stone steps! How many more there are than there ever
+were before! Quick through the wicket, and up through the little
+kitchen-garden. Molly is at the door first, beating upon it, and calling
+wildly on the name of Brown.</p>
+
+<p>And then Ruth's heart turns sick within her. The door is locked. Through
+the window, which usually blossoms with geraniums, she can see the black
+fireplace and the bare walls. No Brown within answers to Molly's cries.
+Brown has been turned away for drinking. Mrs. Brown, who hung a slender
+"wash" on the hedge only last week, has departed with her lord. Brown's
+cottage is tenantless. The pursuer must have known it when he breasted
+the hill. A mixed sound, as of swearing and stumbling, comes from the
+direction of the stone steps. The pursuer is evidently intoxicated,
+probably lunatic!</p>
+
+<p>"Quick, Molly!" gasps Ruth, "round by the back, and then cut down
+towards the young plantation, and make for the road again. Don't stop
+for me."</p>
+
+<p>The little yard, the pigsty, the water-butt, fly past. Past fly the
+empty kennels. Past does <i>not</i> fly the other gate. Locked; pad<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>locked!
+It is like a bad dream. Molly, with a windmill-like exhibition of black
+legs, gives Ruth a lead over. Now for it, Ruth! The bars are close
+together and the gate is high. It is not a time to stick at trifles.
+What does it matter if you can get over best by assuming a masculine
+equestrian attitude for a moment on the top bar? There! And now, down
+the hill again, away to your left. Take to your heels, and be thankful
+they are not high ones. Never mind if your hair is coming down. You have
+a thousand good qualities, Ruth, high principles and a tender
+conscience, but you are not a swift runner, and you have not played
+"Sally Water" all day for nothing. Molly is far in front now. A heavy
+trampling is not far behind; nay, it is closer than you thought. And
+your eyes are becoming misty, Ruth, and armies of drums are beating
+every other sound out of your ears&mdash;that shouting behind you, for
+instance. The intoxicated, murderous lunatic is close behind. One
+minute! Two minutes! How many more seconds can you keep it up? Through
+the young plantation, down the hill, into the sandy road again, the
+sandy, uphill road. How much longer can you keep it up?</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Charles strolled quietly homeward, enjoying the beauties of nature, and
+reflecting on the quantity of rabbit-shooting that Mr. Thursby must
+enjoy. He may also have mused on Lady Grace, for anything that can be
+known to the contrary, and have possibly made a mental note that if it
+had been she whom he had asked to walk home with him, instead of Ruth,
+he would not have been alone at that moment. Be that how it may, he
+leisurely pursued his path until a fallen tree beside the bank looked so
+inviting that (Evelyn and Ralph having gone out to friends at a
+distance) Charles, who was in no hurry to return to Lady Mary, seated
+himself thereon, with a cigarette to bear him company.</p>
+
+<p>To him, with rent garments and dust upon her head, and indeed all over
+her, suddenly appeared Molly; Molly, white with panic, breathless,
+unable to articulate, pointing in the direction from which she had come.
+In a moment Charles was tearing down the road at full speed. A tall,
+swaying figure almost ran against him at the first turn, and Ruth only
+avoided him to collapse suddenly in the dry ditch, her face in the bank,
+and a yard of sash biting the dust along the road behind her.</p>
+
+<p>Her pursuer stopped short. Charles made a step towards him and stopped
+short also. The two men stood and looked at each other without
+speaking.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>When Ruth found herself in a position to make observations she
+discovered that she was sitting by the road-side, with her head resting
+against&mdash;was it a tweed arm or the bank? She moved a little, and found
+that first impressions are apt to prove misleading. It was the bank. She
+opened her eyes to see a brown, red-lined hat on the ground beside her,
+half full of water, through which she could dimly discern the golden
+submerged name of the maker. She seemed to have been contemplating it
+with vague interest for about an hour, when she became aware that some
+one was dabbing her forehead with a wet silk handkerchief.</p>
+
+<p>"Better?" asked Charles's voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" gasped Ruth, suddenly trying to sit up, but finding the attempt
+resulted only in the partial movement of a finger somewhere in the
+distance. "Have I really&mdash;surely, surely, I was not so abject as to
+<i>faint</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"Truth," said Charles, with a reassured look in his quick, anxious eyes,
+"obliges me to say you did."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought better of myself than that."</p>
+
+<p>"Pride goes before a fall or a faint."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, dear!" turning paler than ever. "Where is Molly?"</p>
+
+<p>"She is all right," said Charles, hastily, applying the
+pocket-handkerchief again. "Don't alarm yourself, and pray don't try to
+get up. You can see just as much of the view sitting down. Molly has
+gone for the donkey-cart."</p>
+
+<p>"And that dreadful man?"</p>
+
+<p>"That dreadful man has also departed. By-the-way, did you see his face?
+Would you know him again if the policeman succeeds in finding him?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; I never looked round. I only saw, when he began to run to cut us
+off at the gate, that he was lame."</p>
+
+<p>"H'm!" said Charles, reflectively. Then more briskly, with a new access
+of dabbing, "How is the faintness going on?"</p>
+
+<p>"Capitally," replied Ruth, with a faint, amused smile; "but if it does
+not seem ungrateful, I should be very thankful if I might be spared the
+rest of the water in the hat, or if it might be poured over me at once,
+if you don't wish it to be wasted."</p>
+
+<p>"Have I done too much? I imagined my services were invaluable. Let me
+help you to find your own handkerchief, if you would like a dry one for
+a change. Ah, what a good shot into that labyrinth of drapery! You have
+found it for yourself. You are certainly better."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"But my self-respect," replied Ruth, drying her face, "is gone forever!"</p>
+
+<p>"I lost mine years ago," said Charles, carefully dusting Ruth's hat,
+"but I got over it. I had no idea those bows were supported by a wire
+inside. One lives and learns."</p>
+
+<p>"I never did such a thing before," continued Ruth, ruefully. "I have
+always felt a sort of contempt for girls who scream or faint just when
+they ought not."</p>
+
+<p>"For my part, I am glad to perceive you have some little feminine
+weakness. Your growing solicitude also as to the state of your back hair
+is pleasing in the extreme."</p>
+
+<p>"I am too confused and shaken to retaliate just now. You are quite right
+to make hay while the sun shines; but, when I am myself again, beware!"</p>
+
+<p>"And your gown," continued Charles. "What yawning gulfs, what chasms
+appear! and what a quantity of extraneous matter you have brought away
+with you&mdash;reminiscences of travel&mdash;burrs, very perfect specimens of
+burrs, thistledown, chips of fir, several complete spiders' webs; and
+your sash, which seems to have a particularly adhesive fringe, is a
+museum in itself. Ah, here comes that coward of little cowards, Molly,
+with Balaam and the donkey-cart!"</p>
+
+<p>Molly, who had left Ruth for dead, greeted her cousin with a transport
+of affection, and then proceeded to recount the fearful risks that
+Balaam had encountered by being deserted, and the stoic calm with which
+he had waited for them at the gate.</p>
+
+<p>"He's not a common donkey," she said, with pride. "Get in, Ruth. Are you
+coming in, Uncle Charles? There's just room for you to squeeze in
+between Ruth and me&mdash;isn't there, Ruth? Oh, you're not going to walk
+beside, are you?"</p>
+
+<p>But Charles was determined not to let them out of his sight again, and
+he walked beside them the remainder of the way to Atherstone. He
+remained silent and preoccupied during the evening which followed, pored
+over a newspaper, and went off to his room early, leaving Ralph dozing
+in the smoking-room.</p>
+
+<p>It was a fine moonlight night, still and clear. He stood at the open
+window looking out for a few minutes, and then began fumbling in a
+dilapidated old travelling-bag such as only rich men use.</p>
+
+<p>"Not much," he said to himself, spreading out a few sovereigns and some
+silver on the table, "but it will do."</p>
+
+<p>He put the money in his pocket, took off his gold hunting watch, and
+then went back to the smoking-room.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I am going out again, Ralph, as I did last night. If I come in late,
+you need not take me for a burglar."</p>
+
+<p>Ralph murmured something unintelligible, and Charles ran down-stairs,
+and let himself out of the drawing-room French window, that long French
+window to the ground, which Evelyn had taken a fancy to in a neighbor's
+drawing-room, and which she could never be made to see was not in
+keeping with the character of her old black-and-white house. He put the
+shutter back after he had passed through, and carefully drawing the
+window to behind him, without actually closing it, he took a turn or two
+upon the bowling-green, and then walked off in the direction of the
+Slumberleigh woods.</p>
+
+<p>After the lapse of an hour or more he returned as quietly as he had
+gone, let himself in, made all secure, and stole up to his room.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIIb" id="CHAPTER_VIIb"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Vandon was considered by many people to be the most beautiful house in
+----shire.</p>
+
+<p>In these days of great brand-new imitation of intensely old houses,
+where the amount of ground covered measures the purse of the builder, it
+is pleasant to come upon a place like Vandon, a quiet old manor-house,
+neither large nor small, built of ancient bricks, blent to a dim purple
+and a dim red by that subtle craftsman Time.</p>
+
+<p>Whoever in the years that were no more had chosen the place whereon to
+build had chosen well. Vandon stood on the slope of a gentle hill,
+looking across a sweep of green valley to the rising woods beyond, which
+in days gone by had been a Roman camp, and where the curious might still
+trace the wide ledges cut among the regular lines of the trees.</p>
+
+<p>Some careful hand had planned the hanging gardens in front of the house,
+which fell away to the stream below. Flights of wide stone steps led
+down from terrace to terrace, each built up by its south wall covered
+with a wealth of jasmine and ivy and climbing roses. But all was wild
+and deserted now. Weeds had started up between the stone slabs of the
+steps, and the roses blossomed out sweet and profuse, for it was the
+time of roses, amid convolvulus and campion. The quaint old dove-cot
+near the house had almost disappeared behind the trees that had crowded
+up round it, and held<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> aloft its weathercock in silent protest at their
+encroachment. The stables close at hand, with their worn-out clock and
+silent bell, were tenantless. The coach-houses were full of useless old
+chariots and carriages. Into one splendid court coach the pigeons had
+found their way through an open window, and had made nests, somewhat to
+the detriment of the green-and-white satin fittings.</p>
+
+<p>Great cedars, bent beneath the weight of years, grew round the house.
+The patriarch among them had let fall one of his gnarled supplicating
+arms in the winter, and there it still lay where it had fallen.</p>
+
+<p>Anything more out of keeping with the dignified old place than its owner
+could hardly be imagined, as he stood in his eternal light gray suit
+(with a badge of affliction lightly borne on his left arm), looking at
+his heritage, with his cropped head a little on one side.</p>
+
+<p>The sun was shining, but, like a smile on a serious face, Vandon caught
+the light on all its shuttered windows, and remained grave, looking out
+across its terraces to the forest.</p>
+
+<p>"If it were but a villa on the Mediterranean, or a house in London," he
+said to himself; "but I have no chance." And he shrugged his shoulders,
+and wandered back into the house again. But, if the outside oppressed
+him, the interior was not calculated to raise his spirits.</p>
+
+<p>Dare had an elegant taste, which he had never hitherto been able to
+gratify, for blue satin furniture and gilding; for large mirrors and
+painted ceilings of lovers and cupids, and similar small deer. The old
+square hall at Vandon, with its great stained glass windows,
+representing the various quarterings of the Dare arms, about which he
+knew nothing and cared less, oppressed him. So did the black polished
+oak floor, and the walls with their white bass-reliefs of twisting
+wreaths and scrolls, with busts at intervals of Cicero and Dante, and
+other severe and melancholy personages. The rapiers upon the high white
+chimney-piece were more to his taste. He had taken them down the first
+day after his arrival, and had stamped and cut and thrust in the most
+approved style, in the presence of Faust, the black poodle.</p>
+
+<p>Dare was not the kind of man to be touched by it; but to many minds
+there would have been something pathetic in seeing a house, which had
+evidently been an object of the tender love and care of a by-gone
+generation, going to rack and ruin from neglect. Careful hands had
+embroidered, in the fine exquisite work of former days, marvellous
+coverlets and hangings, which still adorned the long<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> suites of empty
+bedrooms. Some one had taken an elaborate pleasure in fitting up those
+rooms, had put <i>pot-pourri</i> in tall Oriental jars in the passages, had
+covered the old inlaid Dutch chairs with dim needle-work.</p>
+
+<p>The Dare who had lived at court, whose chariot was now the refuge of
+pigeons, whose court suits, with the tissue paper still in the sleeves,
+yet remained in one of the old oak chests, and whose jewelled swords
+still hung in the hall, had filled one of the rooms with engravings of
+the royal family and ministers of his day. The Dare who had been an
+admiral had left his miniature surrounded by prints of the naval
+engagements he had taken part in, and on the oak staircase a tattered
+flag still hung, a trophy of unremembered victory.</p>
+
+<p>But they were past and forgotten. The hands which had arranged their
+memorials with such pride and love had long since gone down to idleness,
+and forgetfulness also. Who cared for the family legends now? They, too,
+had gone down into silence. There was no one to tell Dare that the old
+blue enamel bowl in the hall, in which he gave Faust refreshment, had
+been brought back from the loot of the Winter Palace of Pekin; or that
+the drawer in the Reisener table in the drawing-room was full of
+treasured medals and miniatures, and that the key thereof was rusting in
+a silver patch-box on the writing-table.</p>
+
+<p>The iron-clamped boxes in the lumber-room kept the history to themselves
+of all the silver plate that had lived in them once upon a time,
+although the few odd pieces remaining hinted at the splendor of what had
+been. In one corner of the dining-room the mahogany tomb still stood of
+a great gold racing cup, under the portrait of the horse that had won
+it; but the cup had followed the silver dinner service, had followed the
+diamonds, had followed in the wake of a handsome fortune, leaving the
+after generations impoverished. If their money is taken from them, some
+families are left poor indeed, and to this class the Dares belonged. It
+is curious to notice the occasional real equality underlying the
+apparent inequality of different conditions of life. The unconscious
+poverty, and even bankruptcy, of some rich people in every kind of
+wealth except money affords an interesting study; and it seems doubly
+hard when those who have nothing to live upon, and be loved and
+respected for, except their money, have even that taken from them. As
+Dare wandered through the deserted rooms the want of money of his
+predecessors, and consequently of himself, was borne in upon him. It
+fell like a shadow across his light pleasure-loving soul. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> had
+expected so much from this unlooked-for inheritance, and all he had
+found was a melancholy house with a past.</p>
+
+<p>He went aimlessly through the hall into the library. It was there that
+his uncle had lived; there that he had been found when death came to
+look for him; among the books which he had been unable to carry away
+with him at his departure; rare old tomes and first editions, long
+shelves of dead authors, who, it is to be hoped, continue to write in
+other worlds for those who read their lives away in this. Old Mr. Dare's
+interests and affections had all been bound in morocco and vellum. A
+volume lay open on the table, where the old man had put it down beside
+the leather arm-chair where he had sat, with his back to the light,
+summer and winter, winter and summer, for so many years.</p>
+
+<p>No one had moved it since. A wavering pencil-mark had scored the page
+here and there. Dare shut it up, and replaced it among its brethren. How
+<i>triste</i> and silent the house seemed! He wondered what the old uncle had
+been like, and sauntered into the staircase hall, much in need of
+varnish, where the Dares that had gone before him lived. But these were
+too ancient to have his predecessor among them. He went into the long
+oak-panelled dining-room, where above the high carved dado were more
+Dares. Perhaps that man with the book was his namesake, the departed
+Alfred Dare. He wondered vaguely how he should look when he also took
+his place among his relations. Nature had favored him with a better
+mustache than most men, but he had a premonitory feeling that the very
+mustache itself, though undeniable in real life, would look out of
+keeping among these bluff, frank, light-haired people, of whom it seemed
+he&mdash;he who had never been near them before&mdash;was the living
+representative.</p>
+
+<p>A sudden access of pleasurable dignity came over him as he sat on the
+dining-table, the great mahogany dining-table, which still showed
+vestiges of a by-gone polish, and was heavily dented by long years of
+hammered applause. These ancestors of his! He would not disgrace them. A
+few minutes ago he had been wondering whether Vandon might not be let.
+Now, with one of the rapid transitions habitual to him, he resolved that
+he would live at Vandon, that in all things he would be as they had
+been. He would become that vague, indefinable, to him mythical
+personage&mdash;a "country squire." Fortunately, he had a neat leg for a
+stocking. It was lost, so to speak, in his present mode of dress; but he
+felt that it would appear to advantage in the perpetual knickerbockers
+which he sup<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>posed it would be his lot to wear. It would also become his
+duty and his pleasure to marry. For those who tread in safety the
+slippery heights of married life he felt a true esteem. It would be a
+strain, no doubt, a great effort; but at this moment he was capable of
+anything. The finger of duty was plain. And with that adorable Miss
+Ruth, with or without a fortune&mdash;Alas! he trusted she had a fortune,
+for, as he came to think thereon, he remembered that he was desperately
+poor. As far as he could make out from his agent, a grim, silent man,
+who had taken an evident dislike to him from the first, there was no
+money anywhere. The rents would come in at Michaelmas; but the interest
+of heavy mortgages had to be paid, the estate had to be kept up. There
+was succession duty; there were debts&mdash;long outstanding debts&mdash;which
+came pouring in now, which Waters spread before him with an iron smile,
+and which poor Dare contemplated with his head on one side, and solemn,
+arched eyebrows. When Dare was not smiling he was always preternaturally
+solemn. There was no happy medium in his face, or consequently in his
+mind, which was generally gay, but, if not, was involved in a tragic
+gloom.</p>
+
+<p>"These bills, my friend," he would say at last, tapping them in deep
+dejection, and raising his eyebrows into his hair, "how do we pay them?"</p>
+
+<p>But Waters did not know. How should he, Waters, know? Waters only knew
+that the farmers would want a reduction in these bad times&mdash;Mr. Dare
+might be sure of <i>that</i>. And what with arrears, and one thing and
+another, he need not expect more than two-thirds of his rents when they
+did arrive. Mr. Dare might lay his account for <i>that</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The only money which Dare received to carry on with, on his accession to
+the great honor and dignity of proprietor of Vandon, was brought to him
+by the old dairywoman of the house, a faithful creature, who produced
+out of an old stocking the actual coins which she had received for the
+butter and cheese she had sold, of which she showed Dare an account,
+chalked up in some dead language on the dairy door.</p>
+
+<p>She was a little doubled-up woman, who had served the family all her
+life. Dare's ready smile and handsome face had won her heart before he
+had been many days at Vandon, in spite of "his foreign ways," and he
+found himself constantly meeting her unexpectedly round corners, where
+she had been lying in wait for him, each time with a secret revelation
+to whisper respecting what she called the "goin's on."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You'll not tell on me, sir, but it's only right you should know as Mrs.
+Smith" (the house-keeper, of whom Dare stood in mortal terror) "has them
+fine damask table-cloths out for the house-keeper's room; I see 'em
+myself; and everything going to rag and ruin in the linen closet!" Or,
+"Joseph has took in another flitch this very day, sir, as Mrs. Smith
+sent for, and the old flitch all cut to waste. Do'e go and look at the
+flitches, sir, and the hams. They're in the room over the stables. And
+it's always butter, butter, butter, in the kitchen! Not a bit o'
+dripping used! There's not a pot of dripping in the larder, or so much
+as a skin of lard. Where does it all go to? You ask Mrs. Smith; and how
+she sleeps in her bed at night I don't know!"</p>
+
+<p>Dare listened, nodded, made his escape, and did nothing. In the village
+it was as bad. Time, which had dealt so kindly with Vandon itself, had
+taken the straggling village in hand too. Nothing could be more
+picturesque than the crazy black-and-white houses, with lichen on their
+broken-in thatch, and the plaster peeling off from between the irregular
+beams of black wood; nothing more picturesque&mdash;and nothing more
+miserable.</p>
+
+<p>When Time puts in his burnt umbers and brown madders with a lavish hand,
+and introduces his beautiful irregularities of outline, and his artistic
+disrepair, he does not look to the drainage, and takes no thought for
+holes in the roof.</p>
+
+<p>Dare could not go out without eager women sallying out of cottages as he
+passed, begging him just to come in and walk up-stairs. They would say
+no more&mdash;but would the new squire walk up-stairs? And Dare would stumble
+up and see enough to promise. Alas! how much he promised in those early
+days. And in the gloaming, heavy dull-eyed men met him in the lanes
+coming back from their work, and followed him to "beg pardon, sir," and
+lay before the new squire things that would never reach him through
+Waters&mdash;bitter things, small injustices, too trivial to seem worthy of
+mention, which serve to widen the gulf between class and class. They
+looked to Dare to help them, to make the crooked straight, to begin a
+new r&eacute;gime. They looked to the new king to administer his little realm;
+the new king, who, alas! cared for none of these things. And Dare
+promised that he would do what he could, and looked anxious and
+interested, and held out his brown hand, and raised hopes. But he had no
+money&mdash;no money.</p>
+
+<p>He spoke to Waters at first; but he soon found that it was no good. The
+houses were bad? Of course they were bad. Cottage property did not pay;
+and would Mr. Dare kindly tell him where<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> the money for repairing them
+was to come from? Perhaps Mr. Dare might like to put a little of his
+private fortune into the cottages and the drains and the new pumps? Dare
+winced. His fortune had not gone the time-honored way of the fortunes of
+spirited young men of narrow means with souls above a sordid economy,
+but still it had gone all the same, and in a manner he did not care to
+think of.</p>
+
+<p>It was after one of these depressing interviews with Waters that Ralph
+and Evelyn found the new owner of Vandon, when they rode over together
+to call, a day or two after the school-feast. Poor Dare was sitting on
+the low ivy-covered wall of the topmost terrace, a prey to the deepest
+dejection. If he had lived in Spartan days, when it was possible to
+conceal gnawing foxes under wearing apparel, he would have made no use
+of the advantages of Grecian dress for such a purpose. Captivated by
+Evelyn's gentleness and sympathetic manner (strangers always thought
+Evelyn sympathetic), and impressed by Ralph's kindly, honest face, he
+soon found himself telling them something of his difficulties, of the
+maze in which he found himself, of the snubs which Waters had
+administered.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph slapped himself with his whip, whistled, and gave other masculine
+signs of interest and sympathy. Evelyn looked from one to the other,
+amiably distressed in her well-fitting habit. After a long conversation,
+in which Evelyn disclosed that Ralph was possessed of the most
+extraordinary knowledge and experience in such matters, the two
+good-natured young people, seeing he was depressed and lonely, begged
+him to come and stay with them at Atherstone the very next day, when he
+might discuss his affairs with Ralph, if so disposed, and take counsel
+with him. Dare accepted with the most genuine pleasure, and his speaking
+countenance was in a moment radiant with smiles. Was not the little
+Molly of the school-feast their child? and was not Miss Deyncourt
+likewise staying with them?</p>
+
+<p>When his visitors departed, Dare took a turn at the rapiers; then opened
+the piano with the internal derangement, and sang to his own
+accompaniment a series of little confidential French songs, which would
+have made the hair of his ancestors stand on end, if painted hair could
+do such a thing. And the "new squire," as he was already called,
+shrugged his shoulders, and lowered his voice, and spread out his
+expressive rapid hands, and introduced to Vandon, one after another,
+some of those choice little ditties, French and English, which had made
+him such a favorite companion in Paris, so popular in a certain society
+in America.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIIIb" id="CHAPTER_VIIIb"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>"Sir Charles!"</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Deyncourt!"</p>
+
+<p>"I fear," with a glance at the yellow-back in his hand, "I am
+interrupting a studious hour, but&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Not in the least, I assure you," said Charles, shutting his novel.
+"What is regarded as study by the feminine intellect is to the masculine
+merely relaxation. I was 'unbending over a book,' that was all."</p>
+
+<p>The process of "unbending" was being performed in the summer-house,
+whither he had retired after Evelyn and Ralph had started on their
+afternoon's ride to Vandon, in which he had refused to join.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought I should find you here," continued Ruth, frankly. "I have
+been wishing to speak to you for several days, but you are as a rule so
+surrounded and encompassed on every side by Molly that I have not had an
+opportunity."</p>
+
+<p>It had occurred to Charles once or twice during the last few days that
+Molly was occasionally rather in the way. Now he was sure of it. As Ruth
+appeared to hesitate, he pulled forward a rustic contorted chair for
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"No, thanks," she said. "I shall not long interrupt the unbending
+process. I only came to ask&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"To ask!" repeated Charles, who had got up as she was standing, and came
+and stood near her.</p>
+
+<p>"You remember the first evening you were here?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do."</p>
+
+<p>"And what we spoke of at dinner?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perfectly."</p>
+
+<p>"I came to ask you how much you lent Raymond?" Ruth's clear, earnest
+eyes were fixed full upon him.</p>
+
+<p>At this moment Charles perceived Lady Mary at a little distance,
+propelling herself gently over the grass in the direction of the
+summer-house. In another second she had perceived Charles and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> Ruth, and
+had turned precipitately, and hobbled away round the corner with
+surprising agility.</p>
+
+<p>"Confound her!" inwardly ejaculated Charles.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish to know how much you lent him," said Ruth again, as he did not
+answer, happily unconscious of what had been going on behind her back.</p>
+
+<p>"Only what I was well able to afford."</p>
+
+<p>"And has he paid it back since?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure he understood I should not expect him to pay it back at
+once."</p>
+
+<p>"But he has had it three years."</p>
+
+<p>Charles did not answer.</p>
+
+<p>"I feel sure he is not able to pay it. Will you kindly tell me how much
+it was?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Miss Deyncourt; I think not."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because&mdash;excuse me, but I perceive that if I do you will instantly wish
+to pay it."</p>
+
+<p>"I do wish to pay it."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought so."</p>
+
+<p>There was a short silence.</p>
+
+<p>"I still wish it," said Ruth at last.</p>
+
+<p>Charles was silent. Her pertinacity annoyed and yet piqued him. Being
+unmarried, he was not accustomed to opposition from a woman. He had no
+intention of allowing her to pay her brother's debt, and he wished she
+would drop the subject gracefully, now that he had made that fact
+evident.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps you don't know," continued Ruth, "that I am very well off." (As
+if he did not know it! As if Lady Mary had not casually mentioned Ruth's
+fortune several times in his hearing!) "Lady Deyncourt left me twelve
+hundred a year, and I have a little of my own besides. You may not be
+aware that I have fourteen hundred and sixty-two pounds per annum."</p>
+
+<p>"I am very glad to hear it."</p>
+
+<p>"That is a large sum, you will observe."</p>
+
+<p>"It is riches," assented Charles, "if your expenditure happens to be
+less."</p>
+
+<p>"It does happen to be considerably less in my case."</p>
+
+<p>"You are to be congratulated. And yet I have always understood that
+society exacts great sacrifices from women in the sums they feel obliged
+to devote to dress."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Dress is an interesting subject, and I should be delighted to hear your
+views on it another time; but we are talking of something else just at
+this moment."</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon," said Charles, quickly, who did not quite like being
+brought back to the case in point. "I&mdash;the truth was, I wished to turn
+your mind from what we were speaking of. I don't want you to count
+sovereigns into my hand. I really should dislike it very much."</p>
+
+<p>"You intend me to think from that remark that it was a small sum," said
+Ruth, with unexpected shrewdness. "I now feel sure it was a large one.
+It ought to be paid, and there is no one to do it but me. I know that
+what is firmness in a man is obstinacy in a woman, so do not on your
+side be too firm, or, who knows? you may arouse some of that obstinacy
+in me to which I should like to think myself superior."</p>
+
+<p>"If," said Charles, with sudden eagerness, as if an idea had just struck
+him, "if I let you pay me this debt, will you on your side allow me to
+make a condition?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should like to know the condition first."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course. If I agree,"&mdash;Charles's light gray eyes had become keen and
+intent&mdash;"if I agree to receive payment of what I lent Deyncourt three
+years ago, will you promise not to pay any other debt of his, or ever to
+lend him money without the knowledge and approval of your relations?"</p>
+
+<p>Ruth considered for a few minutes.</p>
+
+<p>"I have so few relations," she said at length, with rather a sad smile,
+"and they are all prejudiced against poor Raymond. I think I am the only
+friend he has left in the world. I am afraid I could not promise that."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Charles, eagerly, "I won't insist on relations. I know
+enough of those thorns in the flesh myself. I will say instead, 'natural
+advisers.' Come, Miss Deyncourt, you can't accuse me of firmness now!"</p>
+
+<p>"My natural advisers," repeated Ruth, slowly. "I feel as if I ought to
+have natural advisers somewhere; but who are they? Where are they? I
+could not ask my sister or her husband for advice. I mean, I could not
+take it if I did. I should think I knew better myself. Uncle John?
+Evelyn? Lord Polesworth? Sir Charles, I am afraid the truth is I have
+never asked for advice in my life. I have always tried to do what seemed
+best, without troubling to know what other people thought about it. But<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span>
+as I am anxious to yield gracefully, will you substitute the word
+'friends' for 'natural advisers'? I hope and think I have friends whom I
+could trust."</p>
+
+<p>"Friends, then, let it be," said Charles. "Now," holding out his hand,
+"do you promise never, et cetera, et cetera, without first consulting
+your <i>friends</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>Ruth put her hand into his.</p>
+
+<p>"I do."</p>
+
+<p>"That is right. How amiable we are both becoming! I suppose I must now
+inform you that two hundred pounds is the exact sum I lent your
+brother."</p>
+
+<p>Ruth went back to the house, and in a few minutes returned with a check
+in her hand. She held it towards Charles, who took it, and put it in his
+pocket-book.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," she said, with gratitude in her eyes and voice.</p>
+
+<p>"We have had a pitched battle," said Charles, relapsing into his old
+indifferent manner. "Neither of us has been actually defeated, for we
+never called out our reserves, which I felt would have been hardly fair
+on you; but we do not come forth with flying colors. I fear, from your
+air of elation, you actually believe you have been victorious."</p>
+
+<p>"I agree with you that there has been no defeat," replied Ruth; "but I
+won't keep you any longer from your studies. I am just going out driving
+with Lady Mary to have tea with the Thursbys."</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Deyncourt, don't allow a natural and most pardonable vanity to
+delude you to such an extent. Don't go out driving the victim of a false
+impression. If you will consider one moment&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Not another moment," replied Ruth; "our bugles have sung truce, and I
+am not going to put on my war-paint again for any consideration. There
+comes the carriage," as a distant rumbling was heard. "I must not keep
+Lady Mary waiting;" and she was gone.</p>
+
+<p>Charles heard the carriage roll away again, and when half an hour later
+he sauntered back towards the house, he was surprised to see Lady Mary
+sitting in the drawing-room window.</p>
+
+<p>"What! Not gone, after all!" he exclaimed, in a voice in which surprise
+was more predominant than pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>"No, Charles," returned Lady Mary in her measured tones, looking slowly
+up at him over her gold-rimmed spectacles. "I felt a slight return of my
+old enemy, and Miss Deyncourt kindly undertook to make my excuses to
+Mrs. Thursby."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>No one knew what the old enemy was, or in what manner his mysterious
+assaults on Lady Mary were conducted; but it was an understood thing
+that she had private dealings with him, in which he could make himself
+very disagreeable.</p>
+
+<p>"Has Molly gone with her?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; Molly is making jam in the kitchen, I believe. Miss Deyncourt most
+good-naturedly offered to take her with her; but,"&mdash;with a shake of the
+head&mdash;"the poor child's totally unrestrained appetites and lamentable
+self-will made her prefer to remain where she was."</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid," said Charles, meditatively, as if the idea were entirely
+a novel one, "Molly is getting a little spoiled among us. It is natural
+in you, of course; but there is no excuse for me. There never is. There
+are, I confess, moments when I don't regard the child's immortal welfare
+sufficiently to make her present existence less enjoyable. What a round
+of gayety Molly's life is! She flits from flower to flower, so to speak;
+from me to cook and the jam-pots; from the jam-pots to some fresh
+delight in the loft, or in your society. Life is one long feast to
+Molly. Whatever that old impostor the Future may have in store for her,
+at any rate she is having a good time now."</p>
+
+<p>There was a shade of regretful sadness in Charles's voice that ruffled
+his aunt.</p>
+
+<p>"The child is being ruined," she said, with resigned bitterness.</p>
+
+<p>"Not a bit of it. I was spoiled as a child, and look at me!"</p>
+
+<p>"You <i>are</i> spoiled. I don't spoil you; but other people do. Society
+does. And the result is that you are so hard to please that I don't
+believe you will ever marry. You look for a perfection in others which
+is not to be found in yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't fancy I should appear to advantage side by side with
+perfection," said Charles, in his most careless manner; and he rose, and
+wandered away into the garden.</p>
+
+<p>He was irritated with Lady Mary, with her pleased looks during the last
+few days, with her annoying celerity that afternoon in the garden. It
+was all the more annoying because he was conscious that Ruth amused and
+interested him in no slight degree. She had the rare quality of being
+genuine. She stood for what she was, without effort or
+self-consciousness. Whether playful or serious, she was always real.
+Beneath a reserved and rather quiet manner there lurked a piquant
+unconventionality. The mixture of earnestness and humor, which were so
+closely interwoven in her nature that he could never tell which would
+come uppermost, had a strange attrac<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span>tion for him. He had grown
+accustomed to watch for and try to provoke the sudden gleam of fun in
+the serious eyes, which always preceded a retort given with an air of
+the sweetest feminine meekness, which would make Ralph rub himself all
+over with glee, and tell Charles, chuckling, he "would not get much
+change out of Ruth."</p>
+
+<p>If only she had not been asked to Atherstone on purpose to meet him. If
+only Lady Mary had not arranged it; if only Evelyn did not know it; if
+only Ralph had not guessed it; if only he himself had not seen it from
+the first instant! Ruth and Molly were the only two unconscious persons
+in the house.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder," said Charles to himself, "why people can't allow me to
+manage my own affairs? Oh, what a world it is for unmarried men with
+money! Why did I not marry fifteen years ago, when every woman with a
+straight nose was an angel of light; when I felt a noble disregard for
+such minor details as character, mind, sympathy, if the hair and the
+eyes were the right shade? Why did I not marry when I was out of favor
+with my father, when I was head over ears in debt, and when at least I
+could feel sure no one would marry me for my money? Molly," as that
+young lady came running towards him with lingering traces of jam upon
+her flushed countenance, "you have arrived just in time. Uncle Charles
+was getting so dull without you. What have you been after all this
+time?"</p>
+
+<p>"Cook and me have made thirty-one pots and a little one," said Molly,
+inserting a very sticky hand into Charles's. "And your Mr. Brown helped.
+Cook told him to go along at first, which wasn't kind, was it? but he
+stayed all the same; and I skimmed with a big spoon, and she poured it
+in the pots. Only they aren't covered up with paper yet, if you want to
+see them. And oh! Uncle Charles, what <i>do</i> you think? Father and mother
+have come back from their ride, and that nice funny man who was at the
+school-feast is coming here to-morrow, and I shall show him my
+guinea-pigs. He said he wanted to see them very much."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he did, did he? When was that?"</p>
+
+<p>"At the school-feast. Oh!" with enthusiasm, "he was so nice, Uncle
+Charles, so attentive, and getting things when you want them; and the
+wheel went over his foot when he was shaking hands, and he did not mind
+a bit; and he filled our teapots for us&mdash;Ruth's big one, you know, that
+holds such a lot."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! He filled the big teapot, did he?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and mine too; and then he helped us to unpack the dolls. He was so
+kind to me and Cousin Ruth."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Kind to Miss Deyncourt, was he?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; and when we went away he ran and opened the gate for us. Oh, there
+comes Cousin Ruth back again in the carriage. I'll run and tell her he's
+coming. She <i>will</i> be glad."</p>
+
+<p>"Aunt Mary is right," said Charles, watching his niece disappear. "Molly
+has formed a habit of expressing herself with unnecessary freedom.
+Decidedly she is a little spoiled."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IXb" id="CHAPTER_IXb"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Dare arrived at Atherstone the following afternoon. Evelyn and Ralph,
+who had enlarged on the state of morbid depression of the lonely
+inhabitant of Vandon, were rather taken aback by the jaunty appearance
+of the sufferer when he appeared, overflowing with evident satisfaction
+and small-talk, his face wreathed with smiles.</p>
+
+<p>"He bears up wonderfully," said Charles aside to Ruth, later in the
+evening, as Dare warbled a very discreet selection of his best songs
+after dinner. "No one knows better than myself that many a breaking
+heart beats beneath a smiling waistcoat, but unless we had been told
+beforehand we should never have guessed it in his case."</p>
+
+<p>Dare, who was looking at Ruth, and saw Charles go and sit down by her,
+brought his song to an abrupt conclusion, and made his way to her also.</p>
+
+<p>"You also sing, Miss Deyncourt?" he asked. "I am sure, from your face,
+you sing."</p>
+
+<p>"I do."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank Heaven!" said Charles, fervently. "I did you an injustice. I
+thought you were going to say 'a little.' Every singing young lady I
+ever met, when asked that question, invariably replied 'a little.'"</p>
+
+<p>"I leave my friends to say that for me," said Ruth.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps you yourself sing a <i>little</i>?" asked Dare, wishing Charles
+would leave Ruth's ball of wool alone.</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Charles; "I have no tricks." And he rose and went off to the
+newspaper-table. Dare's songs were all very well, but really his voice
+was nothing so very wonderful, and he was not much of an acquisition in
+other ways.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Then Dare took his opportunity. He dropped into Charles's vacant chair;
+he wound wool; he wished to learn to knit; his inquiring mind craved for
+information respecting shooting-stockings. He talked of music; of
+songs&mdash;Italian, French, and English; of American nigger melodies. Would
+Miss Deyncourt sing? Might he accompany her? Ah! she preferred the
+simple old English ballads. He <i>loved</i> the simple English ballad.</p>
+
+<p>And Ruth, nothing loath, sang in her fresh, clear voice one song after
+another, Dare accompanying her with rapid sympathy and ease.</p>
+
+<p>Charles put down his paper and moved slightly, so that he had a better
+view of the piano. Evelyn laid down her work and looked affectionately
+at Ruth.</p>
+
+<p>"Exquisite," said Lady Mary from time to time, who had said the same of
+Lady Grace's wavering little soprano.</p>
+
+<p>"You also sing duets? You sing duets?" eagerly inquired Dare, the
+music-stool creaking with his suppressed excitement; and, without
+waiting for an answer, he began playing the opening chords of
+"Greeting."</p>
+
+<p>The two voices rose and fell together, now soft, now triumphant,
+harmonizing as if they sung together for years. Dare's second was low,
+pathetic, and it blended at once with Ruth's clear young contralto.
+Charles wondered that the others should applaud when the duet was
+finished. Ruth's voice went best alone in his opinion.</p>
+
+<p>"And the 'Cold Blast'?" asked Dare, immediately afterwards. "The 'Cold
+Blast' was here a moment ago,"&mdash;turning the leaves over rapidly. "You are
+not tired, Miss Deyncourt?"</p>
+
+<p>"Tired!" replied Ruth, her eyes sparkling. "It never tires me to sing.
+It rests me."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! so it is with me. That is just how I feel," said Dare. "To sing, or
+to listen to the voice of&mdash;of&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Of what? Confound him!" wondered Charles.</p>
+
+<p>"Of <i>another</i>," said Dare. "Ah, here he is!" and he pounced on another
+song, and lightly touched the opening chords.</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"'Oh! wert thou in the cold blast,'"</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>sang Ruth, fresh and sweet.</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"'I'd shelter thee,'"</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Dare assured her with manly fervor. He went on to say what he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> would do
+if he were monarch of the realm, affirming that the brightest jewel of
+his crown would be his queen.</p>
+
+<p>"Anyhow, he can't pronounce Scotch," Charles thought.</p>
+
+<p>"Would be his queen," Dare repeated, with subdued emotion and an upward
+glance at Ruth, which she was too much absorbed in the song to see, but
+which did not escape Charles. Dare's dark sentimental eyes spoke volumes
+of&mdash;not sermons&mdash;at that moment.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Uncle Charles!" whispered Molly, who had been allowed to sit up
+about two hours beyond her nominal bedtime, at which hour she rarely
+felt disposed to retire&mdash;"oh, Uncle Charles! 'The brightest jewel in his
+crown!' Don't you wish you and me could sing together like that?"</p>
+
+<p>Charles moved impatiently, and took up his paper again.</p>
+
+<p>The evening passed all too quickly for Dare, who loved music and the
+sound of his own voice, and he had almost forgotten, until Charles left
+him and Ralph alone together in the smoking-room, that he had come to
+discuss his affairs with the latter.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me," said Evelyn, who had followed her cousin to her room after
+they had dispersed for the night, and was looking out of Ruth's window,
+"that must be Charles walking up and down on the lawn. Well, now, how
+thoughtful he is to leave Mr. Dare and Ralph together. You know, Ruth,
+poor Mr. Dare's affairs are in a very bad way, and he has come to talk
+things over with my Ralph."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope Ralph will make him put his cottages in order," said Ruth, with
+sudden interest, shaking back her hair from her shoulders. "Do you think
+he will?"</p>
+
+<p>"Whatever Ralph advises will be sure to be right," replied Evelyn, with
+the soft conviction of his infallibility which caused her to be
+considered by most of Ralph's masculine friends an ideal wife. It is
+women without reasoning powers of any kind whom the nobler sex should be
+careful to marry if they wish to be regarded through life in this
+delightful way by their wives. Men not particularly heroic in
+themselves, who yet are anxious to pose as heroes in their domestic
+circle, should remember that the smallest modicum of common-sense on the
+part of the worshipper will inevitably mar a happiness, the very
+existence of which depends entirely on a blind unreasoning devotion. In
+middle life the absence of reason begins perhaps to be felt; but why in
+youth take thought for such a far-off morrow!</p>
+
+<p>"I hope he will," said Ruth, half to herself. "What an oppor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span>tunity that
+man has if he only sees it. There is so much to be done, and it is all
+in his hands."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it's not entailed; but I don't think there is so very much," said
+Evelyn. "But then, so long as people are nice, I never care whether they
+are rich or poor. That is the first question I ask when people come into
+the neighborhood. Are they really nice? Dear me, Ruth, what beautiful
+hair you have; and mine coming off so! And, talking of hair, did you
+ever see anything like Mr. Dare's? Somebody must really speak to him
+about it. If he would keep his hands still, and not talk so quick, and
+let his hair grow a little, I really think he would not look so like a
+foreigner."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't suppose he minds looking like one."</p>
+
+<p>"My <i>dear</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"His mother was a Frenchwoman, wasn't she? I am sure I have heard so
+fifty times since his uncle died."</p>
+
+<p>"And if she was," said Evelyn, reprovingly, "is not that an extra reason
+for his giving up anything that will remind people of it? And we ought
+to try and forget it, Ruth, and behave just the same to him as if she
+had been an Englishwoman. I wonder if he is a Roman Catholic?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ask him."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope he is not," continued Evelyn, taking up her candle to go. "We
+never had one to stay in the house before. I don't mean," catching a
+glimpse of Ruth's face, "that Catholics are&mdash;well&mdash;I don't mean <i>that</i>.
+But still, you know, one would not like to make great <i>friends</i> with a
+Catholic, would one, Ruth? And he is so nice and so amusing that I do
+hope, as he is going to be a neighbor, he is a Protestant." And after a
+few more remarks of about the same calibre from Evelyn, the two cousins
+kissed and parted for the night.</p>
+
+<p>"Will he do it?" said Ruth to herself, when she was alone. "Has he
+character enough, and perseverance enough, and money enough? Oh, I wish
+Uncle John would talk to him!"</p>
+
+<p>Ruth was not aware that one word from herself would have more weight
+with a man like Dare than any number from an angel of heaven, if that
+angel were of the masculine gender. If at the other side of the house
+Dare could have known how earnestly Ruth was thinking about him, he
+would not have been surprised (for he was not without experience), but
+he would have felt immensely flattered.</p>
+
+<p>Vandon lay in a distant part of Mr. Alwynn's parish, and a perpetual
+curate had charge of the district. Mr. Alwynn consequently<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> seldom went
+there, but on the few occasions on which Ruth had accompanied him in his
+periodical visits she had seen enough. Who cares for a recital of what
+she saw? Misery and want are so common. We can see them for ourselves
+any day. In Ruth's heart a great indignation had kindled against old Mr.
+Dare, of Vandon, who was inaccessible as a ghost in his own house,
+haunting the same rooms, but never to be found when Mr. Alwynn called
+upon him to "put things before him in their true light." And when Mr.
+Dare descended to the Vandon vault, all Mr. Alwynn's interest, and
+consequently a good deal of Ruth's, had centred in the new heir, who was
+so difficult to find, and who ultimately turned up from the other end of
+nowhere just when people were beginning to despair of his ever turning
+up at all.</p>
+
+<p>And now that he had come, would he make the crooked straight? Would the
+new broom sweep clean? Ruth recalled the new broom's brown handsome
+face, with the eager eyes and raised eyebrows, and involuntarily shook
+her head. It is difficult to be an impartial judge of any one with a
+feeling for music and a pathetic tenor voice; but the face she had
+called to mind did not inspire her with confidence. It was kindly,
+amiable, pleasant; but was it strong? In other words, was it not a
+trifle weak?</p>
+
+<p>She found herself comparing it with another, a thin, reserved face, with
+keen light eyes and a firm mouth; a mouth with a cigar in it at that
+moment on the lawn. The comparison, however, did not help her
+meditations much, being decidedly prejudicial to the "new broom;" and
+the faint chime of the clock on the dressing-table breaking in on them
+at the same moment, she dismissed them for the night, and proceeded to
+busy herself putting to bed her various little articles of jewellery
+before betaking herself there also.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Any doubts entertained by Evelyn about Dare's religious views were
+completely set at rest the following morning, which happened to be a
+Sunday. He appeared at breakfast in a black frock-coat, the splendor of
+which quite threw Ralph's ancient Sunday garment into the shade. He wore
+also a chastened, decorous aspect, which seemed unfamiliar to his mobile
+face, and rather ill suited to it. After breakfast, he inquired when
+service would be, and expressed a wish to attend it. He brought down a
+high hat and an enormous prayer-book, and figured with them in the
+garden.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is going to Greenacre, and who is going to Slumberleigh?" called
+out Ralph, from the smoking-room window. "Because, if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> any of you are
+going to foot it to Slumberleigh, you had better be starting. Which are
+you going to, Charles?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am going where Molly goes. Which is it to be, Molly?"</p>
+
+<p>"Slumberleigh," said Molly, with decision, "because it's the shortest
+sermon, and I want to see the little foal in Brown's field."</p>
+
+<p>"Slumberleigh be it," said Charles. "Now, Miss Deyncourt," as Ruth
+appeared, "which church are you going to support&mdash;Greenacre, which is
+close in more senses than one, where they never open the windows, and
+the clergyman preaches for an hour; or Slumberleigh, shady, airy, cool,
+lying past a meadow with a foal in it? If I may offer that as any
+inducement, Molly and I intend to patronize Slumberleigh."</p>
+
+<p>Ruth said she would do the same.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Dare, <i>you</i> will be able to decide whether Greenacre, with a
+little fat tower, or Slumberleigh, with a beautiful tall steeple, suits
+your religious views best."</p>
+
+<p>"I will also go to Slumberleigh," said Dare, without a moment's
+hesitation.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought so. I suppose,"&mdash;to Ralph and Evelyn&mdash;"you are going to
+Greenacre with Aunt Mary? Tell her I have gone to church, will you? It
+will cheer her up. Sunday is a very depressing day with her, I know. She
+thinks of all she has done in the week, preparatory to doing a little
+more on Monday. Good-bye. Now then, Molly, have you got your
+prayer-book? Miss Deyncourt, I don't see yours anywhere. Oh, there it
+is! No, don't let Dare carry it for you. Give it to me. He will have
+enough to do, poor fellow, to travel with his own. Come, Molly! Is Vic
+chained up? Yes, I can hear him howling. The craving for church
+privileges of that dumb animal, Miss Deyncourt, is an example to us
+Christians. Molly, have you got your penny? Miss Deyncourt, can I
+accommodate you with a threepenny bit? Now, <i>are</i> we all ready to
+start?"</p>
+
+<p>"When this outburst of eloquence has subsided," said Ruth, "the audience
+will be happy to move on."</p>
+
+<p>And so they started across the fields, where the grass was already
+springing faint and green after the haymaking. There was a fresh
+wandering air, which fluttered the ribbons in Molly's hat, as she danced
+on ahead, frisking in her short white skirt beside her uncle, her hand
+in his. Charles was the essence of wit to Molly, with his grave face
+that so seldom smiled, and the twinkle in the kind eyes, that always
+went before those wonderful, delightful jokes which he alone could make.
+Sometimes, as she laughed, she looked back at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> Ruth and Dare, half a
+field behind, in pity at what they were missing.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall we wait and tell them that story, Uncle Charles?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Molly. I dare say he is telling her another which is just as good."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think he knows any like yours."</p>
+
+<p>"Some people like the old, old story best."</p>
+
+<p>"Do I know the old, old one, Uncle Charles?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Molly."</p>
+
+<p>"Can you tell it?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. I have never been able to tell that particular story."</p>
+
+<p>"And do you really think he is telling it to her now?" with a backward
+glance.</p>
+
+<p>"Not at this moment. It's no good running back. He's only thinking about
+it now. He will tell it her in about a month or six weeks' time."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope I shall be there when he tells it."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope you may; but I don't think it is likely. And now, Molly, set
+your hat straight, and leave off jumping. I never jump when I go to
+church with Aunt Mary. Quietly now, for there's the church, and Mr.
+Alwynn's looking out of the window."</p>
+
+<p>Dare, meanwhile, walking with Ruth, caught sight of the church and
+lych-gate with heart-felt regret. The stretches of sunny meadowland, the
+faint glamour of church bells, the pale refined face beside him, had
+each individually and all three together appealed to his imagination,
+always vivid when he himself was concerned. He suddenly felt as if a
+great gulf had fixed itself, without any will of his own, between his
+old easy-going life and the new existence that was opening out before
+him.</p>
+
+<p>He had crossed from the old to the new without any perception of such a
+gulf, and now, as he looked back, it seemed to yawn between him and all
+that hitherto he had been. He did not care to look back, so he looked
+forward. He felt as if he were the central figure (when was he <i>not</i> a
+central figure?) in a new drama. He was fond of acting, on and off the
+stage, and now he seemed to be playing a new part, in which he was not
+yet thoroughly at ease, but which he rather suspected would become him
+exceedingly well. It amused him to see himself going to church&mdash;<i>to
+church</i>&mdash;to hear himself conversing on flowers and music with a young
+English girl. The idea that he was rapidly falling in love was specially
+delightful. He called himself a <i>vieux sc&eacute;l&eacute;rat</i>, and watched the
+progress of feelings<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> which he felt did him credit with extreme
+satisfaction. He and Ruth arrived at the church porch all too soon for
+Dare; and though he had the pleasure of sitting on one side of her
+during the service, he would have preferred that Charles, of whom he
+felt a vague distrust, had not happened to be on the other.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_Xb" id="CHAPTER_Xb"></a>CHAPTER X.</h2>
+
+
+<p>"My dear," said Mrs. Alwynn to her husband that morning, as they started
+for church across the glebe, "if any of the Atherstone party are in
+church, as they ought to be, for I hear from Mrs. Smith that they are
+not at all regular at Greenacre&mdash;only went once last Sunday, and then
+late&mdash;I shall just tell Ruth that she is to come back to me to-morrow. A
+few days won't make any difference to her, and it will fit in so nicely
+her coming back the day you go to the palace. After all I've done for
+Ruth&mdash;new curtains to her room, and the piano tuned and everything&mdash;I
+don't think she would like to stay there with friends, and me all by
+myself, without a creature to speak to. Ruth may be only a niece by
+marriage, but she will see in a moment&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>And in fact she did. When Mrs. Alwynn took her aside after church, and
+explained the case in the all-pervading whisper for which she had
+apparently taken out a patent, Ruth could not grasp any reason why she
+should return to Slumberleigh three days before the time, but she saw at
+once that return she must if Mrs. Alwynn chose to demand it; and so she
+yielded with a good grace, and sent Mrs. Alwynn back smiling to the
+lych-gate, where Mr. Alwynn and Mabel Thursby were talking with Dare and
+Molly, while Charles interviewed the village policeman at a little
+distance.</p>
+
+<p>"No news of the tramp," said Charles, meeting Ruth at the gate; and they
+started homeward in different order to that in which they had come, in
+spite of a great effort at the last moment on the part of Dare, who
+thought the old way was better. "The policeman has seen nothing of him.
+He has gone off to pastures new, I expect."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope he has."</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Alwynn does not want you to leave Atherstone to-morrow, does she?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry to say she does."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"But you won't go?"</p>
+
+<p>"I must not only go, but I must do it as if I liked it."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope Evelyn won't allow it."</p>
+
+<p>"While I am living with Mrs. Alwynn, I am bound to do what she likes in
+small things."</p>
+
+<p>"H'm!"</p>
+
+<p>"I should have thought, Sir Charles, that this particularly feminine and
+submissive sentiment would have met with your approval."</p>
+
+<p>"It does; it does," said Charles, hastily. "Only, after the stubborn
+rigidity of your&mdash;shall I say your&mdash;week-day character, especially as
+regards money, this softened Sabbath mood took me by surprise for a
+moment."</p>
+
+<p>"You should see me at Slumberleigh," said Ruth, with a smile half sad,
+half humorous. "You should see me tying up Uncle John's flowers, or
+holding Aunt Fanny's wools. Nothing more entirely feminine and young
+lady-like can be imagined."</p>
+
+<p>"It must be a great change, after living with a woman like Lady
+Deyncourt&mdash;to whose house I often went years ago, when her son was
+living&mdash;to come to a place like Slumberleigh."</p>
+
+<p>"It <i>is</i> a great change. I am ashamed to say how much I felt it at
+first. I don't know how to express it; but everything down here seems so
+small and local, and hard and fast."</p>
+
+<p>"I know," said Charles, gently; and they walked on in silence. "And
+yet," he said at last, "it seems to me, and I should have thought you
+would have felt the same, that life is very small, very narrow and
+circumscribed everywhere; though perhaps more obviously so in Cranfords
+and Slumberleighs. I have seen a good deal during the last fifteen
+years. I have mixed with many sorts and conditions of men, but in no
+class or grade of society have I yet found independent men and women.
+The groove is as narrow in one class as in another, though in some it is
+better concealed. I sometimes feel as if I were walking in a ball-room
+full of people all dancing the lancers. There are different sets, of
+course&mdash;fashionable, political, artistic&mdash;but the people in them are all
+crossing over, all advancing and retiring, with the same apparent
+aimlessness, or setting to partners."</p>
+
+<p>"There is occasionally an aim in that."</p>
+
+<p>Charles smiled grimly.</p>
+
+<p>"They follow the music in that as in everything else. You go away for
+ten years, and still find them, on your return, going through the same
+figures to new tunes. I wonder if there are any<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> people anywhere in the
+world who stand on their own feet, and think and act for themselves; who
+don't set their watches by other people's; who don't live and marry and
+die by rote, expecting to go straight up to heaven by rote afterwards?"</p>
+
+<p>"I believe there are such people," said Ruth, earnestly; "I have had
+glimpses of them, but the real ones look like the shadows, and the
+shadows like the real ones, and&mdash;we miss them in the crowd."</p>
+
+<p>"Or one thinks one finds them, and they turn out only clever imitations
+after all. In these days there is a mania for shamming originality of
+some kind. I am always imagining people I meet are real, and not
+shadows, until one day I unintentionally put my hand through them, and
+find out my mistake. I am getting tired of being taken in."</p>
+
+<p>"And some day you will get tired of being cynical."</p>
+
+<p>"I am very much obliged to you for your hopeful view of my future. You
+evidently imagine that I have gone in for the fashionable creed of the
+young man of the present day. I am not young enough to take pleasure in
+high collars and cheap cynicism, Miss Deyncourt. Cynical people are
+never disappointed in others, as I so often am, because they expect the
+worst. In theory I respect and admire my fellow-creatures, but they
+continually exasperate me because they won't allow me to do so in real
+life. I have still&mdash;I blush to own it&mdash;a lingering respect for women,
+though they have taken pains to show me, time after time, what a fool I
+am for such a weakness."</p>
+
+<p>Charles looked intently at Ruth. Women are so terribly apt in handling
+any subject to make it personal. Would she fire up, or would she, like
+so many women, join in abuse of her own sex? She did neither. She was
+looking straight in front of her, absently watching the figures of Dare
+and Molly in the next field. Then she turned her grave, thoughtful
+glance towards him.</p>
+
+<p>"I think respect is never weakness," she said. "It is a sign of
+strength, even when it is misplaced. There is not much to admire in
+cunning people who are never taken in. The best people I have known, the
+people whom it did me good to be with, have been those who respected
+others and themselves. Do not be in too great a hurry to get rid of any
+little fragment that still remains. You may want it when it is gone."</p>
+
+<p>Charles's apathetic face had become strangely earnest. There was a keen,
+searching look in his tired, restless eyes. He was about<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> to make some
+answer, when he suddenly became aware of Dare and Molly sitting perched
+on a gate close at hand waiting for them. Never had he perceived Molly's
+little brown face with less pleasure than at that moment. She scrambled
+down with a noble disregard of appearances, and tried to take his hand.
+But it was coolly withdrawn. Charles fell behind on some pretence of
+fastening the gate, and Molly had to content herself with Ruth's and
+Dare's society for the remainder of the walk.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth had almost forgotten, until Molly suggested at luncheon a picnic
+for the following day, that she was returning to Slumberleigh on Monday
+morning; and when she made the fact known, Ralph had to be "hushed"
+several times by Evelyn for muttering opinions behind the sirloin
+respecting Mrs. Alwynn, which Evelyn seemed to have heard before, and to
+consider unsuited to the ears of that lady's niece.</p>
+
+<p>"But if you go away, Cousin Ruth, we can't have the picnic. Can we,
+Uncle Charles?"</p>
+
+<p>"Impossible, Molly. Rather bread and butter at home than a mixed biscuit
+in the open air without Miss Deyncourt."</p>
+
+<p>"Is Mrs. Alwynn suffering?" asked Lady Mary, politely, down the table.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth explained that she was not in ill-health, but that she did wish to
+be left alone; and Ralph was "hushed" again.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Mary was annoyed, or, more properly speaking, she was "moved in the
+spirit," which in a Churchwoman seems to be the same thing as annoyance
+in the unregenerate or unorthodox mind. She regretted Ruth's departure
+more than any one, except perhaps Ruth herself. She had watched the girl
+very narrowly, and she had seen nothing to make her alter the opinion
+she had formed of her; indeed, she was inclined to advance beyond it.
+Even she could not suspect that Ruth had "played her cards well;"
+although she would have aided and abetted her in any way in her power,
+if Ruth had shown the slightest consciousness of holding cards at all,
+or being desirous of playing them. Her frank yet reserved manner, her
+distinguished appearance, her sense of humor (which Lady Mary did not
+understand, but which she perceived others did), and the quiet <i>savoir
+faire</i> of her treatment of Dare's advances, all enhanced her greatly in
+the eyes of her would-be aunt. She bade her good-bye with genuine
+regret; the only person who bore her departure without a shade of
+compunction being Dare, who stood by the carriage till the last moment,
+assuring Ruth that he hoped to come over to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> the rectory very shortly;
+while Charles and Molly held the gate open meanwhile, at the end of the
+short drive.</p>
+
+<p>"I know that Frenchman means business," said Lady Mary wrathfully to
+herself, as she watched the scene from the garden. Her mind, from the
+very severity of its tension, was liable to occasional lapses of this
+painful kind from the spiritual and ecclesiastical to the mundane and
+transitory. "I saw it directly he came into the house; and with <i>his</i>
+opportunities, and living within a stone's-throw, I should not wonder if
+he were to succeed. Any man would fetch a fancy price at Slumberleigh;
+and the most fastidious woman in the world ceases to be critical if she
+is reduced to the proper state of dulness. He is handsome, too, in his
+foreign way. But she does not like him now. She is inclined to like
+Charles, though she does not know it. There is an attraction between the
+two. I knew there would be. And he likes her. Oh, what fools men are! He
+will go away; and Dare, on the contrary, will ride over to Slumberleigh
+every day, and by the time he is engaged to her Charles will see her
+again, and find out that he is in love with her himself. Oh, the folly,
+the density, of unmarried men! and, indeed," (with a sudden recollection
+of the deceased Mr. Cunningham), "of the whole race of them! But of all
+men I have ever known, I really think the most provoking is Charles."</p>
+
+<p>"Musing?" inquired her nephew, sauntering up to her.</p>
+
+<p>"I was thinking that we had just lost the pleasantest person of our
+little party," said Lady Mary, viciously seizing up her work.</p>
+
+<p>"I am still here," suggested Charles, by way of consolation. "I don't
+start for Norway in Wyndham's yacht for three days to come."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean to say you are going to Norway?"</p>
+
+<p>"I forget whether it was to be Norway; but I know I'm booked to go
+yachting somewhere. It's Wyndham's new toy. He paid through the parental
+nose for it, and he made me promise in London to go with him on his
+first cruise. I believe a very charming Miss Wyndham is to be of the
+party."</p>
+
+<p>"And how long, pray, are you going to yacht with Miss Wyndham?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is with her brother I propose to go. I thought I had explained that
+before. I shall probably cruise about, let me see, for three weeks or
+so, till the grouse-shooting begins. Then I am due in Scotland, at the
+Hope-Actons', and several other places."</p>
+
+<p>Lady Mary laid down her work, and rose to her feet, her thin hand
+closing tightly over the silver crook of her stick.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Charles," she said, in a voice trembling with anger, looking him full
+in the face, "you are a fool!" and she passed him without another word,
+and hobbled away rapidly into the house.</p>
+
+<p>"Am I?" said Charles, half aloud to himself, when the last fold of her
+garment had been twitched out of sight through the window.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Am I?</i> Molly," with great gravity, as Molly appeared, "yes, you may sit
+on my knee; but don't wriggle. Molly, what is a fool?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think it's Raca, only worse," said Molly. "Uncle Charles, Mr. Dare is
+going away too. His dog-cart had just come into the yard."</p>
+
+<p>"Has it? I hope he won't keep it waiting."</p>
+
+<p>"You are not going away, are you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not for three days more."</p>
+
+<p>"Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Why, they will be gone in a moment."</p>
+
+<p>But to Charles they seemed three very long days indeed. He was annoyed
+with himself for having made so many engagements before he left London.
+At the time there did not seem anything better to be done, and he
+supposed he must go somewhere; but now he thought he would have liked to
+stay on at Atherstone, though he would not have said so to Lady Mary for
+worlds. He was tired of rushing up and down. He was not so fond of
+yachting, after all; and he remembered that he had been many times to
+Norway.</p>
+
+<p>"I would get out of it if I could," he said to Lady Mary on the last
+morning; "and of this blue serge suit, too (you should see Miss Wyndham
+in blue serge!); but it is not a question of pleasure, but of principle.
+I don't like to throw over Wyndham at the last moment, after what you
+said when I failed the Hope-Actons last year. Twins could not feel more
+exactly together than you and I do where a principle is involved. I see
+you are about to advise me to keep my engagement. Do not trouble to do
+so; I am going to Portsmouth by the mid-day train. Brown is at this
+moment packing my telescope and life-belt."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIb" id="CHAPTER_XIb"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2>
+
+
+<p>It was the end of August. The little lawn at Slumberleigh Rectory was
+parched and brown. The glebe beyond was brown; so was the field beyond
+that. The thirsty road was ash-white between its gray hedge-rows. It was
+hotter in the open air than in the house, but Ruth had brought her books
+out into the garden all the same, and had made a conscientious effort to
+read under the chestnut-tree.</p>
+
+<p>For under the same roof with Mrs. Alwynn she had soon learned that
+application or study of any kind was an impossibility. Mrs. Alwynn had
+several maxims as to the conduct of herself, and consequently of every
+one else, and one of those to which she most frequently gave utterance
+was that "young people should always be cheery and sociable, and should
+not be left too much to themselves."</p>
+
+<p>When in the winter Mr. Alwynn had brought home Ruth, quite overwhelmed
+for the time by the shock of the first real trouble she had known, Mrs.
+Alwynn was kindness itself in the way of sweet-breads and warm rooms;
+but the only thing Ruth craved for, to be left alone, she would not
+allow for a moment. No! Mrs. Alwynn was cheerful, brisk, and pious at
+intervals. If she found her niece was sitting in her own room, she
+bustled up-stairs, poked the fire, gave her a kiss, and finally brought
+her down to the drawing-room, where she told her she would be as quiet
+as in her own room. She need not be afraid her uncle would come in; and
+she must not allow herself to get moped. What would she, Mrs. Alwynn,
+have done, she would like to know, if, when she was in trouble&mdash;and she
+knew what trouble meant, if any one did&mdash;she had allowed herself to get
+moped. Ruth must try and bear up. And at Lady Deyncourt's age it was
+quite to be expected. And Ruth must remember she still had a sister, and
+that there was a happy home above. And now, if she would get that green
+wool out of the red plush iron (which really was a work-box&mdash;such a
+droll idea, wasn't it?), Ruth should hold the wool, and they would have
+a cosey little chat till luncheon time.</p>
+
+<p>And so Mrs. Alwynn did her duty by her niece; and Ruth, in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> dark
+days that followed her grandmother's death, took all the little
+kindnesses in the spirit in which they were meant, and did her duty by
+her aunt.</p>
+
+<p>But after a time Mrs. Alwynn became more exacting. Ruth was visibly
+recovering from what Mrs. Alwynn called "her bereavement." She could
+smile again without an effort; she took long walks with Mr. Alwynn, and
+later in the spring paid a visit to her uncle, Lord Polesworth. It was
+after this visit that Mrs. Alwynn became more exacting. She had borne
+with half attention and a lack of interest in crewel-work while Ruth was
+still "fretting," as she termed it. But when a person lays aside crape,
+and goes into half-mourning, the time had come when she may&mdash;nay, when
+she ought to be "chatty." This time had come with Ruth, but she was not
+"chatty." Like Mrs. Dombey, she did not make an effort, and, as the
+months passed on, Mrs. Alwynn began to shake her head, and to fear that
+"there was some officer or something on her mind." Mrs. Alwynn always
+called soldiers officers, and doctors physicians.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth, on her side, was vaguely aware that she did not give satisfaction.
+The small-talk, the perpetual demand on her attention, the constant
+interruptions, seemed to benumb what faculties she had. Her mind became
+like a machine out of work&mdash;rusty, creaking, difficult to set going. If
+she had half an hour of leisure she could not fix her attention to
+anything. She, who in her grandmother's time had been so keen and alert,
+seemed to have drifted, in Mrs. Alwynn's society, into a torpid state,
+from which she made vain attempts to emerge, only to sink the deeper.</p>
+
+<p>When she stood once more, fresh from a fortnight of pleasant intercourse
+with pleasant people, in the little ornate drawing-room at Slumberleigh,
+on her return from Atherstone, the remembrance of the dulled, confused
+state in which she had been living with her aunt returned forcibly to
+her mind. The various articles of furniture, the red silk handkerchiefs
+dabbed behind pendent plates, the musical elephants on the mantle-piece,
+the imitation Eastern antimacassars, the shocking fate, in the way of
+nailed and glued pictorial ornamentation, that had overtaken the back of
+the cottage piano&mdash;indeed, all the various objects of luxury and <i>vertu</i>
+with which Mrs. Alwynn had surrounded herself, seemed to recall to Ruth,
+as the apparatus of the sick-room recalls the illness to the patient,
+the stupor into which she had fallen in their company. With her eyes
+fixed upon the new brass pig (that was at heart a pen-wiper) which Mrs.
+Alwynn had pointed out as a gift of Mabel Thursby, who always<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> brought
+her back some little "tasty thing from London"&mdash;with her eyes on the
+brass pig, Ruth resolved that, come what would, she would not allow
+herself to sink into such a state of mental paralysis again.</p>
+
+<p>To read a book of any description was out of the question in the society
+of Mrs. Alwynn. But Ruth, with the connivance of Mr. Alwynn, devised a
+means of eluding her aunt. At certain hours of the day she was lost
+regularly, and not to be found. It was summer, and the world, or at
+least the neighborhood of Slumberleigh Rectory, which was the same
+thing, was all before her where to choose. In after-years she used to
+say that some books had always remained associated with certain places
+in her mind. With Emerson she learned to associate the scent of hay, the
+desultory remarks of hens, and the sudden choruses of ducks. Carlyle's
+"Sartor Resartus," which she read for the first time this year, always
+recalled to her afterwards the leathern odor of the box-room, with an
+occasional <i>soup&ccedil;on</i> of damp flapping linen in the orchard, which spot
+was not visible from the rectory windows.</p>
+
+<p>Gradually Mrs. Alwynn became aware of the fact that Ruth was never to be
+seen with a book in her hand, and she expressed fears that the latter
+was not keeping up her reading.</p>
+
+<p>"And if you don't like to read to yourself, my dear, you can read to me
+while I work. German, now. I like the sound of German very well. It
+brings back the time when your Uncle John and I went up the Rhine on our
+honey-moon. And then, for English reading there's a very nice book Uncle
+John has somewhere on natural history, called 'Animals of a Quiet Life,'
+by a Mr. Hare, too&mdash;so comical, I always think. It's good for you to be
+reading something. It is what your poor dear granny would have wished if
+she had been alive. Only it must not be poetry, Ruth, not poetry."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Alwynn did not approve of poetry. She was wont to say that for her
+part she liked only what was perfectly <i>true</i>, by which it is believed
+she meant prose.</p>
+
+<p>She had no books of her own. In times of illness she borrowed from Mrs.
+Thursby (who had all Miss Young's works, and selections from the
+publications of the S.P.C.K.). On Sundays, when she could not work, she
+read, half aloud, of course, with sighs at intervals, a little manual
+called "Gold Dust," or a smaller one still called "Pearls of Great
+Price," which she had once recommended to Charles, whom she knew
+slightly, and about whom she affected to know a great deal, which
+nothing (except pressing) would induce her to re<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span>peat; which rendered
+the application of the "Pearls," to be followed by the "Dust," most
+essential to his future welfare.</p>
+
+<p>On this particular morning in August, Ruth had slipped out as far as the
+chestnut-tree, the lower part of which was hidden from the rectory
+windows by a blessed yew hedge. It was too hot to walk, it was too hot
+to draw, it was even too hot to read. It did not seem, however, to be
+too hot to <i>ride</i>, for presently she heard a horse's hoofs clattering
+across the stones of the stable-yard, and she knew, from the familiarity
+of the sound at that hour of the day, that Dare had probably ridden
+over, and, more probably still, would stay to luncheon.</p>
+
+<p>The foreign gentleman, as all the village people called him, had by this
+time become quite an institution in the neighborhood of Vandon. Every
+one liked him, and he liked every one. Like the sun, he shone upon the
+just and unjust. He went to every tennis-party to which he was invited.
+He was pleased if people were at home when he called. He became in many
+houses a privileged person, and he never abused his privileges. Women
+especially liked him. He had what Mrs. Eccles defined as "such a way
+with him;" his way being to make every woman he met think that she was
+particularly interesting in his eyes&mdash;for the time being. Men did not,
+of course, care for him so much. When he stayed anywhere, it was vaguely
+felt by the sterner sex of the party that he stole a march upon them.
+While they were smoking, after their kind, in clusters on the lawn, it
+would suddenly be observed that he was sitting in the drawing-room,
+giving a lesson in netting, or trying over a new song encircled by young
+ladyhood. It was felt that he took an unfair advantage. What business
+had he to come down to tea in that absurd amber plush smoking-suit, just
+because the elder ladies had begged to see it? It was all the more
+annoying, because he looked so handsome in it. Like most men who are
+admired by women, he was not much liked by men.</p>
+
+<p>But the house to which he came the oftenest was Slumberleigh Rectory. He
+was faithful to his early admiration of Ruth; and the only obstacle to
+his making her (in his opinion) happy among women, namely, her possible
+want of fortune, had long since been removed by the confidential remarks
+of Mrs. Alwynn. To his foreign habits and ideas fourteen or fifteen
+hundred a year represented a very large sum. In his eyes Ruth was an
+heiress, and in all good earnest he set himself to win her. Mr. Alwynn
+had now become the proper person to consult regarding his property; and
+at first, to Ruth's un<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span>disguised satisfaction, he consulted him nearly
+every other day, his horse at last taking the turn for Slumberleigh as a
+matter of course. Many a time, in these August days, might Mrs. Eccles
+and all the other inhabitants of Slumberleigh have seen Dare ride up the
+little street, taking as much active exercise as his horse, only
+skyward; the saddle being to him merely a point of rebound.</p>
+
+<p>But if the object of his frequent visits was misunderstood by Ruth at
+first, Dare did not allow it to remain so long. And not only Ruth
+herself, but Mr. and Mrs. Alwynn, and the rectory servants, and half the
+parish were soon made aware of the state of his affections. What was the
+good of being in love, of having in view a social aim of such a
+praiseworthy nature, if no one were aware of the same? Dare was not the
+man to hide even a night-light under a bushel; how much less a burning
+and a shining hymeneal torch such as this. His sentiments were strictly
+honorable. If he raised expectations, he was also quite prepared to
+fulfil them. Miss Deyncourt was quite right to treat him with her
+adorable, placid assumption of indifference until his attentions were
+more avowed. In the mean while she was an angel, a lily, a pearl, a
+star, and several other things, animal, vegetable, and mineral, which
+his vivid imagination chose to picture her. But whatever Dare's faults
+may have been&mdash;and Ruth was not blind to them&mdash;he was at least head over
+ears in love with her, fortune or none; and as his attachment deepened,
+it burned up like fire all the little follies with which it had begun.</p>
+
+<p>A clergyman has been said to have made love to the helpmeet of his
+choice out of the Epistle to the Galatians. Dare made his out of
+material hardly more promising&mdash;plans for cottages, and estimates of
+repairs. He had quickly seen how to interest Ruth, though the reason for
+such an eccentric interest puzzled him. However, he turned it to his
+advantage. Ruth encouraged, suggested, sympathized in all the little he
+was already doing, and the much that he proposed to do.</p>
+
+<p>Of late, however, a certain not ungrounded suspicion had gradually
+forced itself upon her which had led her to withdraw as much as she
+could from her former intercourse with Dare; but her change of manner
+had not quite the effect she had intended.</p>
+
+<p>"She thinks I am not serious," Dare had said to himself; "she thinks
+that I play with her feelings. She does not know me. To-morrow I ride
+over; I set her mind at rest. To-morrow I propose; I make an offer; I
+claim that adored hand; I&mdash;become engaged."</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly, not long after the clatter of horse's hoofs in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span>
+stable-yard, Dare himself appeared in the garden, and perceiving Ruth,
+for whom he was evidently looking, informed her that he had ridden over
+to ask Mr. Alwynn to support him at a dinner his tenants were giving in
+his honor&mdash;a custom of the Vandon tenantry from time immemorial on the
+accession of a new landlord. He spoke absently; and Ruth, looking at him
+more closely as he stood before her, wondered at his altered manner. He
+had a rose in his button-hole. He always had a rose in his button-hole;
+but somehow this was more of a rose than usual. His mustaches were
+twirled up with unusual grace.</p>
+
+<p>"You will find Mr. Alwynn in the study," said Ruth, hurriedly.</p>
+
+<p>His only answer was to cast aside his whip and gloves, as possible
+impediments later on, and to settle himself, with an elegant arrangement
+of the choicest gaiters, on the grass at her feet.</p>
+
+<p>It is probably very disagreeable to repeat in any form, however
+discreetly worded, the old phrase&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"The reason why I cannot tell,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">But I don't like you, Doctor Fell."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>But it must be especially disagreeable, if a refusal is at first not
+taken seriously, to be obliged to repeat it, still more plainly, a
+second time. It was Ruth's fate to be obliged to do this, and to do it
+hurriedly, or she foresaw complications might arise.</p>
+
+<p>At last Dare understood, and the sudden utter blankness of his
+expression smote Ruth to the heart. He had loved her in his way after
+all. It is a bitter thing to be refused. She felt that she had been
+almost brutal in her direct explicitness, called forth at the moment by
+an instinct that he would proceed to extreme measures unless
+peremptorily checked.</p>
+
+<p>"I am so sorry," she said, involuntarily.</p>
+
+<p>Poor Dare, who had recovered a certain amount of self-possession, now
+that he was on his feet again, took up his gloves and riding-whip in
+silence. All his jaunty self-assurance had left him. He seemed quite
+stunned. His face under his brown skin was very pale.</p>
+
+<p>"I am so sorry," said Ruth again, feeling horribly guilty.</p>
+
+<p>"It is I who am sorry," he said, humbly. "I have made a great mistake,
+for which I ask pardon;" and, after looking at her for a moment, in
+blank incertitude as to whether she could really be the same person whom
+he had come to seek in such happy confidence half an hour before, he
+raised his hat, his new light gray hat, and was gone.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Ruth watched him go, and when he had disappeared, she sat down again
+mechanically in the chair from which she had risen a few moments before,
+and pressed her hands tightly together. She ought not to have allowed
+such a thing to happen, she said to herself. Somehow it had never
+presented itself to her in its serious aspect before. It is difficult to
+take a vain man seriously. Poor Mr. Dare! She had not known he was
+capable of caring so much about anything. He had never appeared to such
+advantage in her eyes as he had done when he had left her the moment
+before, grave and silent. She felt she had misjudged him. He was not so
+frivolous, after all. And now that her influence was at an end, who
+would keep him up to the mark about the various duties which she knew
+now he had begun to fulfil only to please her? Oh, who would help and
+encourage him in that most difficult of positions, a land-owner without
+means sufficient for doing the best by land and tenantry? She
+instinctively felt that he could not be relied upon for continuous
+exertion by himself.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I could have liked him," said Ruth to herself. "I wish, I wish,
+I could!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIIb" id="CHAPTER_XIIb"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>During the whole of the following week Dare appeared no more at
+Slumberleigh. Mrs. Alwynn, whose time was much occupied as a rule in
+commenting on the smallest doings of her neighbors, and in wondering why
+they left undone certain actions which she herself would have performed
+in their place, Mrs. Alwynn would infallibly have remarked upon his
+absence many times during every hour of the day, had not her attention
+been distracted for the time being by a one-horse fly which she had seen
+go up the road on the afternoon of the day of Dare's last visit, the
+destination of which had filled her soul with anxious conjecture.</p>
+
+<p>She did not ascertain till the following day that it had been ordered
+for Mrs. Smith, of Greenacre; though, as she told Ruth, she might have
+known that, as Mr. Smith was going for a holiday with Mrs. Smith, and
+their pony lame in its feet; that they would have to have a fly, and
+with that hill up to Greenacre she was surprised one horse was enough.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>When the question of the fly had been thus satisfactorily settled, and
+Mrs. Alwynn had ceased wondering whether the Smiths had gone to Tenby or
+to Rhyl (she always imagined people went to one or other of these two
+places), her whole attention reverted to a screen which she was making,
+the elegance and novelty of which supplied her with a congenial subject
+of conversation for many days.</p>
+
+<p>"There is something so new in a screen, an entire screen of Christmas
+cards," Mrs. Alwynn would remark. "Now, Mrs. Thursby's new screen is all
+pictures out of the <i>Graphic</i>, and those colored Christmas numbers. She
+has put all her cards in a book. There is something rather <i>passy</i> about
+those albums, I think. Now I fancy this screen will look quite out of
+the common, Ruth; and when it is done, I shall get some of those
+Japanese cranes and stand them on the top. Their claws are made to twist
+round, you know, and I shall put some monkeys&mdash;you know those droll
+chenille monkeys, Ruth&mdash;creeping up the sides to meet the cranes. I
+don't honestly think, my dear"&mdash;with complacency&mdash;"that many people will
+have anything like it."</p>
+
+<p>Ruth did not hesitate to say that she felt certain very few would.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Alwynn was delighted at the interest she took in her new work. Ruth
+was coming out at last, she told her husband; and she passed many happy
+hours entirely absorbed in the arrangement of the cards upon the panels.
+Ruth, thankful that her attention had been providentially distracted
+from the matter that filled her own thoughts, in a way that surprised
+and annoyed her, sorted, and snipped, and pasted, and decided weighty
+questions as to whether a goitred robin on a twig should be placed next
+to a smiling plum-pudding, dancing a polka with a turkey, or whether a
+congealed cross, with "Christian greeting" in icicles on it, should
+separate the two.</p>
+
+<p>To her uncle Ruth told what had happened; and as he slowly wended his
+way to Vandon on the day fixed for the tenant's dinner, Mr. Alwynn mused
+thereon, and I believe, if the truth were known, he was sorry that Dare
+had been refused. He was a little before his time, and he stopped on the
+bridge, and looked at the river, as it came churning and sweeping below,
+fretted out of its usual calm by the mill above. I think that as he
+leaned over the low stone parapet he made many quiet little reflections
+besides the involuntary one of himself in the water below. He would have
+liked (he was conscious that it was selfish, but yet he <i>would</i> have
+liked) to have Ruth near him always. He would have liked to see this
+strange son of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> his old friend in good hands, that would lead him&mdash;as it
+is popularly supposed a woman's hand sometimes can&mdash;in the way of all
+others in which Mr. Alwynn was anxious that he should walk; a way in
+which he sometimes feared that Dare had not made any great progress as
+yet. Mr. Alwynn felt at times, when conversing with him, that Dare's
+life could not have been one in which the nobler feelings of his nature
+had been much brought into play, so crude and unformed were his ideas of
+principle and responsibility, so slack and easy-going his views of life.</p>
+
+<p>But if Mr. Alwynn felt an occasional twinge of anxiety and misgiving
+about his young friend, it speedily turned to self-upbraiding for
+indulging in a cynical, unworthy spirit, which was ever ready to seek
+out the evil and overlook the good; and he gradually convinced himself
+that only favorable circumstances were required for the blossoming forth
+of those noble attributes, of which the faintest indications on Dare's
+part were speedily magnified by the powerful lens of Mr. Alwynn's
+charity to an extent which would have filled Dare with satisfaction, and
+would have overwhelmed a more humble nature with shame.</p>
+
+<p>And Ruth would not have him! Mr. Alwynn remembered a certain passage in
+his own youth, a long time ago, when somebody (a very foolish somebody,
+I think) would not have him either; and it was with that remembrance
+still in his mind that he met Dare, who had come as far as the lodge
+gates to meet him, and whose forlorn appearance touched Mr. Alwynn's
+heart the moment he saw him.</p>
+
+<p>There was not time for much conversation. To his astonishment Mr. Alwynn
+found Dare actually nervous about the coming ordeal; and on the way to
+the Green Dragon, where the dinner was to be given, he reassured him as
+best he could, and suggested the kind of answer he should make when his
+health was drunk.</p>
+
+<p>When, a couple of hours later, all was satisfactorily over, when the
+last health had been drunk, the last song sung, and Dare was driving Mr.
+Alwynn home in the shabby old Vandon dog-cart, both men were at first
+too much overcome by the fumes of tobacco, in which they had been
+hidden, to say a word to each other. At last, however, Mr. Alwynn drew a
+long breath, and said, faintly:</p>
+
+<p>"I trust I may never be so hot again. Drive slowly under these trees,
+Dare. It is cooling to look at them after sitting behind that steaming
+volcano of a turkey. How is your head getting on? I saw you went in for
+punch."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Was that punch?" said Dare. "Then I take no more punch in the future."</p>
+
+<p>"You spoke capitally, and brought in the right sentiment, that there is
+no place like home, in first-rate style. You see, you need not have been
+nervous."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! but it was you who spoke really well," said Dare, with something of
+his old eager manner. "You know these people. You know their heart. You
+understand them. Now, for me, I said what you tell me, and they were
+pleased, but I can never be with them like you. I understand the words
+they speak, but themselves I do not understand."</p>
+
+<p>"It will come."</p>
+
+<p>"No," with a rare accession of humility. "I have cared for none of these
+things till&mdash;till I came to hear them spoken of at Slumberleigh by you
+and&mdash;and now at first it is smooth, because I say I will do what I can,
+but soon they will find out I cannot do much, and then&mdash;" He shrugged
+his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>They drove on in silence.</p>
+
+<p>"But these things are nothing&mdash;nothing," burst out Dare at last, in a
+tremulous voice, "to the one thing I think of all night, all day&mdash;how I
+love Miss Deyncourt, and how," with a simplicity which touched Mr.
+Alwynn, "she does not love me at all."</p>
+
+<p>There is something pathetic in seeing any cheerful, light-hearted animal
+reduced to silence and depression. To watch a barking, worrying, jovial
+puppy suddenly desist from parachute expeditions on unsteady legs, and
+from shaking imaginary rats, and creep, tail close at home, overcome by
+affliction, into obscurity, is a sad sight. Mr. Alwynn felt much the
+same kind of pity for Dare as he glanced at him, resignedly blighted,
+handsomely forlorn, who but a short time ago had taken life as gayly and
+easily as a boy home for the holidays.</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes," said Mr. Alwynn, addressing himself to the mill, and the
+bridge, and the world in general, "young people change their minds. I
+have known such things happen."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall never change mine."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps not; but others might."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" and Dare turned sharply towards Mr. Alwynn, scanning his face with
+sudden eagerness. "You think&mdash;you think, possibly&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think anything at all," interposed Mr. Alwynn, rather taken
+aback at the evident impression his vague words had made,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> and anxious
+to qualify them. "I was only speaking generally; but&mdash;ahem! there is one
+point, as we are on the subject, that&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes?"</p>
+
+<p>"Whether you consider any decision as final or not"&mdash;Mr. Alwynn
+addressed the clouds in the sky&mdash;"I think, if you do not wish it to be
+known that anything has taken place, you had better come and see me
+occasionally at Slumberleigh. I have missed your visits for the past
+week. The fact is, Mrs. Alwynn has a way of interesting herself in all
+her friends. She has a kind heart, and&mdash;you&mdash;understand&mdash;any little
+difference in their behavior might be observed by her, and might
+possibly&mdash;might possibly"&mdash;Mr. Alwynn was at a loss for a word&mdash;"be, in
+short, commented on to others. Suppose now you were to come back with me
+to tea to-day?"</p>
+
+<p>And Dare went, nothing loath, and arrived at a critical moment in the
+manufacture of the screen, when all the thickest Christmas cards
+threatened to resist the influence of paste, and to curl up, to the
+great anxiety of Mrs. Alwynn.</p>
+
+<p>One of the principle reasons of Dare's popularity was the way in which
+he threw his whole heart into whatever he was doing, for the time; never
+for a long time, certainly, for he rarely bored himself or others by
+adherence to one set of ideas after its novelty had worn off.</p>
+
+<p>And now, as if nothing else existed in the world, and with a grave
+manner suggesting repressed suffering and manly resignation, he
+concentrated his whole mind on Mrs. Alwynn's recalcitrant cards, and
+made Ruth grateful to him by his tact in devoting himself to her aunt
+and the screen.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I never!" said Mrs. Alwynn, after he was gone. "I never did see
+any one like Mr. Dare. I declare he has made the church stick, Ruth, and
+'Blessings on my friend,' which turned up at the corners twice when you
+put it on, and the big middle one of the kittens skating, too! Dear me!
+I am pleased. I hope Mrs. Thursby won't call till it's finished. But he
+did not look well, Ruth, did he? Rather pale now, I thought."</p>
+
+<p>"He has had a tiring day," said Ruth.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIIIb" id="CHAPTER_XIIIb"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>At Slumberleigh you have time to notice the change of the seasons. There
+is no hurry at Slumberleigh. Spring, summer, autumn, and winter, each in
+their turn, take quite a year to come and go. Three months ago it was
+August; now September had arrived. It was actually the time of damsons.
+Those damsons which Ruth had seen dangling for at least three years in
+the cottage orchards were ripe at last. It seemed ages ago since April,
+when the village was a foaming mass of damson blossom, and the "plum
+winter" had set in just when spring really seemed to have arrived for
+good. It was a well-known thing in Slumberleigh, though Ruth till last
+April had not been aware of it, that God Almighty always sent cold
+weather when the Slumberleigh damsons were in bloom, to harden the
+fruit. And now the lame, the halt, and the aged of Slumberleigh, all
+with one consent, mounted on tottering ladders to pick their damsons, or
+that mysterious fruit, closely akin to the same, called "black Lamas
+ploums."</p>
+
+<p>There were plum accidents, of course, in plenty. The Lord took Mrs.
+Eccles's own uncle from his half-filled basket to another world, for
+which, as a "tea and coffee totaller," he was no doubt well prepared.
+The too receptive organisms of unsuspecting infancy suffered in their
+turn. In short, it was a busy season for Mr. and Mrs. Alwynn.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth had plenty of opportunities now for making her long-projected
+sketch of the ruined house of Arleigh, for the old woman who lived in
+the lodge close by, and had charge of the place, had "ricked" her back
+in a damson-tree, and Ruth often went to see her. She had been Ruth's
+nurse in her childhood, and having originally come from Slumberleigh,
+returned there when the Deyncourt children grew up, and lived happily
+ever after, with the very blind and entirely deaf old husband of her
+choice, in the gray stone lodge at Arleigh.</p>
+
+<p>It was on her return from one of these almost daily visits that Mrs.
+Eccles pounced on Ruth as she passed her gate, and under pretence of
+inquiring after Mrs. Cotton, informed her that she herself was suffering
+in no slight degree. Ruth, who suddenly remembered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> that she had been
+remiss in "dropping in" on Mrs. Eccles of late, dropped in then and
+there to make up for past delinquencies.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it rheumatism again?" she asked, as Mrs. Eccles seemed inclined to
+run off at once into a report of the goings on of Widow Jones's Sally.</p>
+
+<p>"Not that, my dear, so much as a sinking," said Mrs. Eccles, passing her
+hand slowly over what seemed more like a rising than a depression in her
+ample figure. "But there! I've not been myself since the Lord took old
+Samiwell Price, and that's the truth."</p>
+
+<p>Samuel Price was the relation who had entered into rest off a ladder,
+and Ruth looked duly serious.</p>
+
+<p>"I have no doubt it upset you very much," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, miss," returned Mrs. Eccles, with dignity, "it's not as if I'd
+had my 'ealth before. I've had something wrong in the cistern" (Ruth
+wondered whether she meant system) "these many years. From a gell I
+suffered in my inside. But lor'! I was born to trouble, baptized in a
+bucket, and taken with collects at a week old. And how did you say Mrs.
+Cotton of the lodge might be, miss, as I hear is but poorly too?"</p>
+
+<p>Ruth replied that she was better.</p>
+
+<p>"She's no size to keep her in 'ealth," said Mrs. Eccles, "and so bent as
+she does grow, to be sure. Eh, dear, but it's a good thing to be tall. I
+always think little folks they're like them little watches, they've no
+room for their insides. And I wonder now"&mdash;Mrs. Eccles was coming to the
+point that had made her entrap Ruth on her way past&mdash;"I wonder now&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Ruth did not help her. She knew too well the universal desire for
+knowledge of good and evil peculiar to her sex to doubt for a moment
+that Mrs. Eccles had begged her to "step in" only to obtain some piece
+of information, about which her curiosity had been aroused.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder, now, if Cotton at the lodge has heard anything of the
+poachers again this year, round Arleigh way?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not that I know of," said Ruth, surprised at the simplicity of the
+question.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear sakes! and to think of 'em at Vandon last night, and Mr. Dare and
+the keepers out all night after 'em."</p>
+
+<p>Ruth was interested in spite of herself.</p>
+
+<p>"And the doctor sent for in the middle of the night," continued Mrs.
+Eccles, covertly eying Ruth. "Poor young gentleman! For all his forrin
+ways, there's a many in Vandon as sets store by him."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I don't think you need be uneasy about Mr. Dare," said Ruth, coldly,
+conscious that Mrs. Eccles was dying to see her change color. "If
+anything had happened to him Mr. Alwynn would have heard of it. And
+now," rising, "I must be going; and if I were you, Mrs. Eccles, I should
+not listen to all the gossip of the village."</p>
+
+<p>"Me listen!" said Mrs. Eccles, much offended. "Me, as is too poorly so
+much as to put my foot out of the door! But, dear heart!" with her usual
+quickness of vision, "if there isn't Mr. Alwynn and Dr. Brown riding up
+the street now in Dr. Brown's gig! Well, I never! and Mr. Alwynn
+a-getting out, and a-talking as grave as can be to Dr. Brown. Poor Mr.
+Dare! Poor dear young gentleman!"</p>
+
+<p>Ruth was conscious that she beat rather a hurried retreat from Mrs.
+Eccles's cottage, and that her voice was not quite so steady as usual
+when she asked the doctor if it were true that Mr. Dare had been hurt.</p>
+
+<p>"All the village will have it that he is killed; but he is all right, I
+assure you, Miss Deyncourt," said the kind old doctor, so soothingly and
+reassuringly that Ruth grew pink with annoyance at the tone. "Not a
+scratch. He was out with his keepers last night, and they had a brush
+with poachers; and Martin, the head keeper was shot in the leg. Bled a
+good deal, so they sent for me; but no danger. I picked up your uncle
+here on his way to see him, and so I gave him a lift there and back.
+That is all, I assure you."</p>
+
+<p>And Dr. Brown and Mrs. Eccles, straining over her geraniums, both came
+to the same conclusion, namely, that, as Mrs. Eccles elegantly expressed
+it, "Miss Ruth wanted Mr. Dare."</p>
+
+<p>"And he'll have her, too, I'm thinking, one of these days," Mrs. Eccles
+would remark to the circle of her acquaintance.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, the match was discussed on numerous ladders, with almost as much
+interest as the unfailing theme of the damsons themselves.</p>
+
+<p>And Dare rode over to the rectory as often as he used to do before a
+certain day in August, when he had found Ruth under the
+chestnut-tree&mdash;the very day before Mrs. Alwynn started on her screen,
+now the completed glory of the drawing-room.</p>
+
+<p>And was Ruth beginning to like him?</p>
+
+<p>As it had not occurred to her to ask herself that question, I suppose
+she was <i>not</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Dare had grown very quiet and silent of late, and showed a growing
+tendency to dark hats. His refusal had been so unexpected that the blow,
+when it came, fell with all the more crushing force.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> His self-love and
+self-esteem had been wounded; but so had something else. Under the
+velvet corduroy waistcoat, which he wore in imitation of Ralph, he had a
+heart. Whether it was one of the very best of its kind or warranted to
+wear well is not for us to judge; but, at any rate, it was large enough
+to take in a very real affection, and to feel a very sharp pang. Dare's
+manner to Ruth was now as diffident as it had formerly been assured. To
+some minds there is nothing more touching than a sudden access of
+humility on the part of a vain man.</p>
+
+<p>Whether Ruth's mind was one of this class or not we do not pretend to
+know.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIVb" id="CHAPTER_XIVb"></a>CHAPTER XIV.</h2>
+
+
+<p>It was Sunday morning at Atherstone. In the dining-room, breakfasting
+alone, for he had come down late, was Sir Charles Danvers. His sudden
+arrival on the previous Saturday was easily accounted for. When he had
+casually walked into the drawing-room late in the evening, he had
+immediately and thoroughly explained the reasons of his unexpected
+arrival. It seemed odd that he should have come to Atherstone, in the
+midland counties, "on his way" between two shooting visits in the north,
+but so it was. It might have been thought that one of his friends would
+have been willing to keep him two days longer, or receive him two days
+earlier; but no doubt every one knows his own affairs best, and Charles
+might certainly, "at his age," as he was so fond of saying, be expected
+to know his.</p>
+
+<p>Anyhow, there he was, leaning against the open window, coffee-cup in
+hand, lazily watching the dwindling figures of Ralph and Evelyn, with
+Molly between them, disappearing in the direction of Greenacre church,
+hard by.</p>
+
+<p>The morning mist still lingered on the land, and veiled the distance
+with a tender blue. And up across the silver fields, and across the
+standing armies of the yellowing corn, the sound of church bells came
+from Slumberleigh, beyond the river; bringing back to Charles, as to us
+all, old memories, old hopes, old visions of early youth, long
+cherished, long forgotten.</p>
+
+<p>The single bell of Greenacre was giving forth a slow, persistent,
+cracked invitation to true believers, as an appropriate prelude to Mr.
+Smith's eloquence; but Charles did not hear its testimony.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He was listening to the Slumberleigh bells. Was that the first chime or
+the second?</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a thought crossed his mind. Should he go to church?</p>
+
+<p>He smiled at the idea. It was a little late to think of that. Besides he
+had let the others start, and he disliked that refuge of mildew and
+dust, Greenacre.</p>
+
+<p>There was Slumberleigh!</p>
+
+<p>There went the bells again!</p>
+
+<p>Slumberleigh! Absurd! Why, he should positively have to run to get there
+before the First Lesson; and that mist meant heat, or he was much
+mistaken.</p>
+
+<p>Charles contemplated the mist for a few seconds.</p>
+
+<p>Tang, teng, ting, tong, tung!</p>
+
+<p>He certainly always made a point of going to church at his own home. A
+good example is, after all, just as important in one place as another.</p>
+
+<p>Tang, tong, teng, tung, <i>ting</i>! went the bells.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not run?" suggested an inner voice. "Put down your cup. There! Now!
+Your hat's in the hall, with your gloves beside it. Never mind about
+your prayer-book. Dear me! Don't waste time looking for your own stick.
+Take any. Quick! out through the garden-gate! No one can see you. The
+servants have all gone to church except the cook, and the kitchen looks
+out on the yew hedge."</p>
+
+<p>"Over the first stile," said Charles to himself. "I am out of sight of
+the house now. Let us be thankful for small mercies. I shall do it yet.
+Oh, what a fool I am! I'm worse than Raca, as Molly said. I shall be
+rushing precipitately down a steep place into the sea next. Confound
+this gate! Why can't people leave them open? At any rate, it will remain
+open now. I am not going to have my devotions curtailed by a gate. I
+fancied it would be hot, but never anything half as hot as this. I hope
+I sha'n't meet Brown taking a morning stroll. I value Brown; but I
+should have to dismiss him if he saw me now. I could never meet his eye
+again. What on earth shall I say to Ralph and Evelyn when I get back?
+What a merciful Providence it is that Aunt Mary is at this moment
+intoning a response in the highest church in Scarborough!"</p>
+
+<p><i>Ting, ting, ting!</i></p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Alwynn is getting on his surplice, is he? Well, and if he is, I can
+make a final rush through the corn, can't I? There's not a creature in
+sight. The bell's down! What of that? There is the voluntary. Easy over
+the last fields. There are houses in sight, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> there may be wicked
+Sabbath-breakers looking out of windows. Brown's foal has grown since
+July. Here we are! I am not the only Christian hurrying among the tombs.
+I shall get in with 'the wicked man' after all."</p>
+
+<p>Some people do not look round in church; others do. Mrs. Alwynn always
+did, partly because she wished to see what was going on behind her, and
+partly because, in turning back again, she could take a stealthy survey
+of Mrs. Thursby's bonnet, in which she always felt a burning interest,
+which she would not for worlds have allowed that lady to suspect.</p>
+
+<p>If the turning round had been all, it would have mattered little; but
+Mrs. Alwynn suffered so intensely from keeping silence that she was
+obliged to relieve herself at intervals by short whispered comments to
+Ruth.</p>
+
+<p>On this particular morning it seemed as if the comments would never end.</p>
+
+<p>"I am so glad we asked Mr. Dare into our pew, Ruth. The Thursbys are
+full. That's Mrs. Thursby's sister in the red bonnet."</p>
+
+<p>Ruth made no reply. She was following the responses in the psalms with a
+marked attention, purposely marked to check conversation, and sufficient
+to have daunted anybody but her aunt.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Alwynn took a spasmodic interest in the psalm, but it did not last.</p>
+
+<p>"Only two basses in the choir, and the new <i>Te Deum</i>, Ruth. How vexed
+Mr. Alwynn will be!"</p>
+
+<p>No response from Ruth. Mrs. Alwynn took another turn at her prayer-book,
+and then at the congregation.</p>
+
+<p>"'I am become as it were a monster unto&mdash;' Ruth! <i>Ruth!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>Ruth at last turned her head a quarter of an inch.</p>
+
+<p><i>"Sir Charles Danvers is sitting in the free seats by the font!"</i></p>
+
+<p>Ruth nailed her eyes to her book, and would vouchsafe no further sign of
+attention during the rest of the service; and Dare, on the other side,
+anxious to copy Ruth in everything, being equally obdurate, Mrs. Alwynn
+had no resource left but to follow the service half aloud to herself, at
+the times when the congregation were <i>not</i> supposed to join in, putting
+great emphasis on certain words which she felt applicable to herself, in
+a manner that effectually prevented any one near her from attending to
+the service at all.</p>
+
+<p>It was with a sudden pang that Dare, following Ruth out into the
+sunshine after service, perceived for the first time Charles, standing,
+tall and distinguished-looking, beside the rather insignificant heir of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>
+all the Thursbys, who regarded him with the mixed admiration and gnawing
+envy of a very young man for a man no longer young.</p>
+
+<p>And then&mdash;Charles never quite knew how it happened, but with the full
+intention of walking back to the rectory with the Alwynns, and staying
+to luncheon, he actually found himself in Ruth's very presence,
+accepting a cordial invitation to luncheon at Slumberleigh Hall. For the
+first time during the last ten years he had done a thing he had no
+intention of doing. A temporary long-lost feeling of shyness had seized
+upon him as he saw Ruth coming out, tall and pale and graceful, from the
+shadow of the church porch into the blaze of the mid-day sunshine. He
+had not calculated either for that sudden disconcerting leap of the
+heart as her eyes met his. He had an idiotic feeling that she must be
+aware that he had run most of the way to church, and that he had
+contemplated the burnished circles of her back hair for two hours,
+without a glance at the fashionably scraped-up head-dress of Mabel
+Thursby, with its hogged mane of little wire curls in the nape of the
+neck. He felt he still looked hot and dusty, though he had imagined he
+was quite cool the moment before. To his own astonishment, he actually
+found his self-possession leaving him; and though its desertion proved
+only momentary, <i>in</i> that moment he found himself walking away with the
+Thursbys in the direction of the Hall. He was provoked, angry with
+himself, with the Thursbys, and, most of all, with Mr. Alwynn, who had
+come up a second later, and asked him to luncheon, as a matter of
+course, also Dare, who accepted with evident gratitude. Charles felt
+that he had not gone steeple-chasing over the country only to talk to
+Mrs. Thursby, and to see Ruth stroll away over the fields with Dare
+towards the rectory.</p>
+
+<p>However, he made himself extremely agreeable, which was with him more a
+matter of habit than those who occasionally profited by it would have
+cared to know. He asked young Thursby his opinion on E.C. cartridges; he
+condoled with Mrs. Thursby on the loss of her last butler, and recounted
+some alarming anecdotes of his own French cook. He admired a pallid
+water-color drawing of Venice, in an enormous frame on an enormous
+easel, which he rightly supposed to be the manual labor of Mabel
+Thursby.</p>
+
+<p>When he rose to take his leave, young Thursby, intensely flattered by
+having been asked for that opinion on cartridges by so renowned a shot
+as Charles, offered to walk part of the way back with him.</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid I am not going home yet," said Charles, lightly. "Duty
+points in the opposite direction, I have to call at the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> rectory. I want
+Mr. Alwynn's opinion on a point of clerical etiquette, which is setting
+my young spiritual shepherd at Stoke Moreton against his principal
+sheep, namely, myself."</p>
+
+<p>And Charles took his departure, leaving golden opinions behind him, and
+a determination to invite him once more to shoot, in spite of his many
+courteous refusals of the last few years.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Alwynn always took a nap after luncheon in her smart Sunday gown,
+among the mustard-colored cushions of her high-art sofa. Mr. Alwynn,
+also, was apt at the same time to sink into a subdued, almost apologetic
+doze, in the old arm-chair which alone had resisted the march of
+discomfort, and so-called "taste," which had invaded the rest of the
+little drawing-room of Slumberleigh Rectory. Ruth was sitting with her
+dark head leaned against the open window-frame. Dare had not stayed
+after luncheon, being at times nervously afraid of giving her too much
+of his society; and she was at liberty to read over again, if she chose,
+the solitary letter which the Sunday post had brought her. But she did
+not do so; she was thinking.</p>
+
+<p>And so her sister Anna was actually returning to England at last! She
+and her husband had taken a house in Rome, and had arranged that Ruth
+should join them in London in November, and go abroad with them after
+Christmas for the remainder of the winter. She had pleasant
+recollections of previous winters in Rome, or, on the Riviera with her
+grandmother, and she was surprised that she did not feel more interested
+in the prospect. She supposed she would like it when the time came, but
+she seemed to care very little about it at the present moment. It had
+become very natural to live at Slumberleigh, and although there were
+drawbacks&mdash;here she glanced involuntarily at her aunt, who was making
+her slumbers vocal by a running commentary on them through her
+nose&mdash;still she would be sorry to go. Mr. Alwynn gave the ghost of a
+miniature snore, and, opening his eyes, found Ruth bent affectionately
+upon him. Her mind went back to another point in Anna's letter. After
+dilating on the extreme admiration and regard entertained for herself by
+her husband, his readiness with shawls, etc., she went on to ask whether
+Ruth had heard any news of Raymond.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth sighed. Would there ever be any news of Raymond? The old nurse at
+Arleigh always asked the same question. "Any news of Master Raymond?" It
+was with a tired ache of the heart that Ruth heard that question, and
+always gave the same answer. Once she had heard from him since Lady
+Deyncourt's death, after she had written to tell him, as gently as she
+could, that she and Anna had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> inherited all their grandmother had to
+leave. A couple of months later she had received a hurried note in
+reply, inveighing against Lady Deyncourt's injustice, saying (as usual)
+that he was hard up for money, and that, when he knew where it might
+safely be sent, he should expect her and her sister to make up to him
+for his disappointment. And since then, since April&mdash;not a word. June,
+July, August, September. Four months and no sign. When he was in want of
+money his letters heretofore had made but little delay. Had he fallen
+ill and died out there, or met his death suddenly, perhaps in some wild
+adventure under an assumed name? Her lips tightened, and her white brows
+contracted over her absent eyes. It was an old anxiety, but none the
+less wearing because it was old. Ruth put it wearily from her, and took
+up the first book which came to her hand, to distract her attention.</p>
+
+<p>It was a manual out of which Mrs. Alwynn had been reading extracts to
+her in the morning, while Ruth had been engaged in preparing herself to
+teach in the Sunday-school. She wondered vaguely how pleasure could be
+derived, even by the most religious persons, from seeing favorite texts
+twined in and out among forget-me-nots, or falling aslant in old English
+letters off bunches of violets; but she was old enough and wise enough
+to know that one man's religion is another man's occasion of stumbling.
+Books are made to fit all minds, and small minds lose themselves in
+large-minded books. The thousands in which these little manuals are
+sold, and the confidence with which their readers recommend them to
+others, indicates the calibre of the average mind, and shows that they
+meet a want possibly "not known before," but which they alone, with
+their little gilt edges, can adequately fill. Ruth was gazing in absent
+wonder at the volume which supplied all her aunt's spiritual needs when
+she heard the wire of the front door-bell squeak faintly. It was a
+stiff-necked and obdurate bell, which for several years Mr. Alwynn had
+determined to see about.</p>
+
+<p>A few moments later James, the new and inexperienced footman, opened the
+door about half a foot, put in his head, murmured something inaudible,
+and withdrew it again.</p>
+
+<p>A tall figure appeared in the door-way, and advanced to meet her, then
+stopped midway. Ruth rose hastily, and stood where she had risen, her
+eyes glancing first at Mr. and then at Mrs. Alwynn.</p>
+
+<p>The alien presence of a visitor had not disturbed them. Mrs. Alwynn, her
+head well forward and a succession of chins undulating in perfect repose
+upon her chest, was sleeping as a stout person only<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> can&mdash;all over. Mr.
+Alwynn, opposite, his thin hands clasped listlessly over his knee, was
+as unconscious of the two pairs of eyes fixed upon him as Nelson
+himself, laid out in Madame Tussaud's.</p>
+
+<p>Charles's eyes, twinkling with suppressed amusement, met Ruth's. He
+shook his head energetically, as she made a slight movement as if to
+wake them, and stepping forward, pointed with his hat towards the open
+window, which reached to the ground. Ruth understood, but she hesitated.
+At this moment Mrs. Alwynn began a variation on the simple theme in
+which she had been indulging, and in so much higher a key that all
+hesitation vanished. She stepped hastily out through the window, and
+Charles followed. They stood together for a moment in the blazing
+sunshine, both too much amused to speak.</p>
+
+<p>"You are bareheaded," he said, suddenly; "is there any"&mdash;looking
+round&mdash;"any shade we could take refuge under?"</p>
+
+<p>Ruth led the way round the yew hedge to the horse-chestnut; that
+horse-chestnut under which Dare had once lost his self-esteem.</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid," said Charles, "I arrived at an inopportune moment. As I
+was lunching with the Thursbys, I came up in the hope of finding Mr.
+Alwynn, whom I wanted to consult about a small matter in my own parish."</p>
+
+<p>Charles was quite pleased with this sentence when he had airily given it
+out. It had a true ring about it he fancied, which he remembered with
+gratitude was more than the door-bell had. Peace be with that door-bell,
+and with the engaging youth who answered it.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish you had let me wake Mr. Alwynn," said Ruth. "He will sleep on
+now till the bells begin."</p>
+
+<p>"On no account. I should have been shocked if you had disturbed him. I
+assure you I can easily wait until he naturally wakes up; that is," with
+a glance at the book in her hand, "if I am not disturbing you&mdash;if you
+are not engaged in improving yourself at this moment."</p>
+
+<p>"No. I have improved myself for the day, thanks. I can safely afford to
+relax a little now."</p>
+
+<p>"So can I. I resemble Lady Mary in that. On Sunday mornings she reflects
+on her own shortcomings; on Sunday afternoons she finds an innocent
+relaxation in pointing out mine."</p>
+
+<p>"Where is Lady Mary now?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should say she was in her Bath-chair on the Scarborough sands at this
+moment."</p>
+
+<p>"I like her," said Ruth, with decision.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Tastes differ. Some people feel drawn towards wet blankets, and others
+have a leaning towards pokers. Do you know why you like her?"</p>
+
+<p>"I never thought about it, but I suppose it was because she seemed to
+like <i>me</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly. You admired her good taste. A very natural vanity, most
+pardonable in the young, was gratified at seeing marks of favor so well
+bestowed."</p>
+
+<p>"I dare say you are right. At any rate, you seem so familiar with the
+workings of vanity in the human breast that it would be a pity to
+contradict you."</p>
+
+<p>"By-the-way," said Charles, speaking in the way people do who have
+nothing to say, and are trying to hit on any subject of conversation,
+"have you heard any more of your tramp? There was no news of him when I
+left. I asked the Slumberleigh policeman about him again on my way to
+the station."</p>
+
+<p>"I have heard no more of him, though I keep his memory green. I have not
+forgotten the fright he gave me. I had always imagined I was rather a
+self-possessed person till that day."</p>
+
+<p>"I am a coward myself when I am frightened," said Charles, consolingly,
+"though at other times as bold as a lion."</p>
+
+<p>They were both sitting under the flickering shadow of the already
+yellowing horse-chestnut-tree, the first of all the trees to set the
+gorgeous autumn fashions. But as yet it was paling only at the edges of
+its slender fans. The air was sweet and soft, with a voiceless whisper
+of melancholy in it, as if the summer knew, for all her smiles, her hour
+had wellnigh come.</p>
+
+<p>The rectory cows&mdash;the mottled one, and the red one, and the big white
+one that was always milked first&mdash;came slowly past on their way to the
+pond, blinking their white eyelashes leisurely at Charles and Ruth.</p>
+
+<p>"It is almost as hot as that Sunday in July when we walked over from
+Atherstone. Do you remember?" said Charles, suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>She knew he was thinking of their last conversation, and she felt a
+momentary surprise that he had remembered it.</p>
+
+<p>"We never finished that conversation," he said, after a pause.</p>
+
+<p>"No; but then conversations never are finished, are they? They always
+seem to break off just when they are coming to the beginning. A bell
+rings, or there is an interruption, or one is told it is bedtime."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Or fools rush in with their word where you and I should fear to tread,
+and spoil everything."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"And have you been holding the wool and tying up the flowers, as you so
+graphically described, ever since you left Atherstone in July?"</p>
+
+<p>"I hope I have; I have tried."</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure of that," he said, with sudden earnestness, then added more
+slowly, "I have not wound any wool; I have only enjoyed myself."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," said Ruth, turning her clear, frank gaze upon him, "that may
+have been the harder work of the two; it sometimes is."</p>
+
+<p>His light, restless eyes, with the searching look in them which she had
+seen before, met hers, and then wandered away again to the level meadows
+and the woods and the faint sky.</p>
+
+<p>"I think it was," he said at last; and both were silent. He reflected
+that his conversations with Ruth had a way of beginning in fun, becoming
+more serious, and ending in silence.</p>
+
+<p>The bells rang out suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>Charles thought they were full early.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Alwynn will wake up now," said Ruth; "I will tell him you are
+here."</p>
+
+<p>But before she had time to do more than rise from her chair, Mr. Alwynn
+came slowly round the yew hedge, and stopped suddenly in front of the
+chestnut-tree, amazed at what he saw beneath it. His mild eyes gazed
+blankly at Charles through his spectacles, gathering a pained expression
+as they peered over the top of them, which did not lessen when they fell
+on Ruth.</p>
+
+<p>Charles explained in a few words the purport of his visit, which had
+already explained itself quite sufficiently to Mr. Alwynn; and
+mentioning that he had waited in the hope of presently finding Mr.
+Alwynn "disengaged" (at this Mr. Alwynn blushed a little), asked leave
+to walk as far as the church with him to consult him on a small matter,
+etc. It was a neat sentence, but it did not sound quite so well the
+third time. It had lost by the heathenish and vain repetitions to which
+it had been subjected.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, certainly," said Mr. Alwynn, mollified, but still
+discomposed. "You should have waked me, Ruth;" turning reproachfully to
+his niece, whose conduct had never, in his eyes, fallen short of
+perfection till this moment. "Little nap after luncheon. Hardly asleep.
+You should have waked me."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"There was Aunt Fanny," said Ruth, feeling as if she had committed some
+grave sin.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah-h!" said Mr. Alwynn, as if her reason were a weighty one, his memory
+possibly recalling the orchestral flourish which as a rule heralded his
+wife's return to consciousness. "True, true, my dear. I must be going,"
+as the chime ceased. "Are you coming to church this afternoon?"</p>
+
+<p>Ruth replied that she was not, and Mr. Alwynn and Charles departed
+together, Charles ruefully remembering that he had still to ask advice
+on a subject the triviality of which would hardly allow of two opinions.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth watched them walk away together, and then went back noiselessly
+into the drawing-room.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Alwynn was sitting bolt upright, her feet upon the floor, her gown
+upon the sofa. Her astonished eyes were fixed upon the dwindling figures
+of Mr. Alwynn and Charles.</p>
+
+<p>"Goodness, Ruth!" she exclaimed, "who is that white waistcoat walking
+with your uncle?"</p>
+
+<p>Ruth explained.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me! And as likely as not he came to see the new screen. I know
+Mrs. Thursby tells everybody about it. And his own house so full of
+beautiful things too. Was ever anything so annoying! We should have had
+so much in common, for I hear his taste is quite&mdash;well, really quite out
+of the way. How contrary things are, Ruth! You awake and me asleep, when
+it might just as well have been the other way; but it is Sunday, my
+dear, so we must not complain. And now, as we have missed church, I will
+lie down again, and you shall read me that nice sermon, which I always
+like to hear when I can't go to church; the one in the green book about
+Nabob's vineyard."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Great philosophers and profound metaphysicians should by rights have
+lived at Slumberleigh. Those whose lines have fallen to them "ten miles
+from a lemon," have time to think, if so inclined.</p>
+
+<p>Only elementary natures complain of their surroundings; and though at
+first Ruth had been impatient and depressed, after a time she found
+that, better than to live in an atmosphere of thought, was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> to be thrown
+entirely on her own resources, and to do her thinking for herself.</p>
+
+<p>Some minds, of course, sink into inanition if an outward supply of
+nutriment is withheld. Others get up and begin to forage for themselves.
+Happy are these&mdash;when the transition period is over&mdash;when, after a time,
+the first and worst mistakes have been made and suffered for, and the
+only teaching that profits anything at all, the bitter teaching of
+experience, has been laid to heart.</p>
+
+<p>Such a nature was Ruth's, upright, self-reliant, without the impetuosity
+and impulsiveness that so often accompanies an independent nature, but
+accustomed to look at everything through her own eyes, and to think, but
+not till now to act for herself.</p>
+
+<p>She had been brought up by her grandmother to believe that before all
+things <i>noblesse oblige</i>; to despise a dishonorable action, to have her
+feelings entirely under control, to be intimate with few, to be
+courteous to all. But to help others, to give up anything for them, to
+love an unfashionable or middle-class neighbor, or to feel a personal
+interest in religion, except as a subject of conversation, had never
+found a place in Lady Deyncourt's code, or consequently in Ruth's,
+though, as was natural with a generous nature, the girl did many little
+kindnesses to those about her, and was personally unselfish, as those
+who live with self-centred people are bound to be if there is to be any
+semblance of peace in the house.</p>
+
+<p>But now, new thoughts were stirring within her, were leavening her whole
+mind. All through these monotonous months she had watched the quiet
+routine of patient effort that went to make up the sum of Mr. Alwynn's
+life. He was a shy man. He seldom spoke of religion out of the pulpit;
+but all through these long months he preached it without words to Ruth,
+as she had never heard it preached before, by</p>
+
+<p>
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">"The best portion of a good man's life&mdash;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">His little, nameless, unremembered acts</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3.5em;">Of kindness and of love."</span><br />
+</p>
+
+<p>It was the first time that she had come into close contact with a life
+spent for others, and its beauty appealed to her with a new force, and
+gradually but surely changed the current of her thoughts, until, as "we
+needs must love the highest when we see it," she unconsciously fell in
+love with self-sacrifice.</p>
+
+<p>The opinions of most young persons, however loudly and injudiciously
+proclaimed, rarely do the possessors much harm, because<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> they are not,
+as a rule, acted upon; but with some few people a change of views means
+a change of life. Ruth was on the edge of a greater change than she
+knew.</p>
+
+<p>At first she had often regretted the chapter of her life that had been
+closed by Lady Deyncourt's death. Now, she felt she could not go back to
+it, and find it all-sufficient as of old. It would need an added
+element, without which she began to see that any sort or condition of
+life is but a stony, dusty concern after all&mdash;an element which made even
+Mr. Alwynn's colorless existence a contented and happy one.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth had been telling him one day, as they were walking together, of her
+sister's plans for the winter, and that she was sorry to think her time
+at Slumberleigh was drawing to a close.</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid," he said, "in spite of all you say, my dear, it has been
+very dull for you here. No little gayeties or enjoyments such as it is
+right young people should have. I wish we had had a picnic, or a
+garden-party, or something. Mabel Thursby cannot be happy without these
+things, and it is natural at your age that you should wish for them.
+Your aunt and I lead very quiet lives. It suits us, but it is different
+for young people."</p>
+
+<p>"Does it suit you?" asked Ruth, with sudden earnestness. "Do you really
+like it, or do you sometimes get tired of it?"</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Alwynn looked a little alarmed and disconcerted. He never cared to
+talk about himself.</p>
+
+<p>"I used to get tired," he said at last, with reluctance, "when I was
+younger. There were times when I foolishly expected more from life
+than&mdash;than, in fact, I quite got, my dear; and the result was, I fear I
+had a very discontented spirit&mdash;an unthankful, discontented spirit," he
+repeated, with sad retrospection.</p>
+
+<p>Something in his tone touched Ruth to the quick.</p>
+
+<p>"And now?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am content now."</p>
+
+<p>"Uncle John, tell me. How did you grow to feel content?"</p>
+
+<p>He saw there were tears in her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"It took a long time," he said. "Anything that is worth knowing, Ruth,
+takes a long time to learn. I think I found in the end, my dear, that
+the only way was to put my whole heart into what I was doing," (Mr.
+Alwynn's voice was simple and earnest, as if he were imparting to Ruth a
+great discovery). "I had tried before, from time to time, of course, but
+never quite as hard as I might have done. That was where I failed. When
+I put myself on one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> side, and really settled down to do what I could
+for others, life became much simpler and happier."</p>
+
+<p>He turned his grave, patient eyes to Ruth's again. Was something
+troubling her?</p>
+
+<p>"I have often thought since then," he went on, speaking more to himself
+than to her, "that we should consider well what we are keeping back our
+strength for, if we find ourselves refusing to put the whole of it into
+our work. When at last one does start, one feels it is such a pity one
+did not do it earlier in life. When I look at all the young faces
+growing up around me, I often hope, Ruth, they won't waste as much time
+as I did."</p>
+
+<p>How simple it seemed while she listened to him; how easy, how natural,
+this life for others!</p>
+
+<p>She could not answer. One sentence of Mr. Alwynn's was knocking at the
+door of her heart for admission; was drowning with its loud beating the
+sound of all the rest:</p>
+
+<p><i>"We should consider well what we are keeping back our strength for, if
+we refuse to put the whole of it into our work."</i></p>
+
+<p>She and Mr. Alwynn walked on in silence; and after a time, always afraid
+of speaking much on the subject that was first in his own mind, he began
+to talk again on trivial matters, to tell her how he had met Dare that
+morning, and had promised on her behalf that she would sing at a little
+local concert which the Vandon school-master was getting up that week to
+defray the annual expense of the Vandon cricket club, and in which Dare
+was taking a vivid interest.</p>
+
+<p>"You won't mind singing, will you, Ruth?" asked Mr. Alwynn, wishing she
+would show a little more interest in Dare and his concert.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no, of course not," rather hurriedly. "I should be glad to help in
+any way."</p>
+
+<p>"And I thought, my dear, as it would be getting late, we had better
+accept his offer of staying the night at Vandon."</p>
+
+<p>Ruth assented, but so absently that Mr. Alwynn dropped the subject with
+a sigh, and walked on, revolving weighty matters in his mind. They had
+left the woods now, and were crossing the field where, two months ago,
+the school-feast had been held. Mr. Alwynn made some slight allusion to
+it, and then coughed. Ruth's attention, which had been distracted, came
+back in a moment. She knew her uncle had something which he did not
+like, something which yet he felt it his duty to say, when he gave that
+particular cough.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"That was when you were staying with the Danvers, wasn't it, Ruth?" in a
+would-be casual, disengaged tone.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; I came over from Atherstone with Molly Danvers."</p>
+
+<p>"I remember," said Mr. Alwynn, looking extremely uncomfortable; "and&mdash;if
+I am not mistaken&mdash;ahem! Sir Charles Danvers was staying there at the
+same time?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly he was."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and I dare say, Ruth&mdash;I am not finding fault, far from it&mdash;I dare
+say he made himself very agreeable for the time being?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think he made himself so. I should have said he was naturally
+so, without any effort, just as some people are naturally the reverse."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed! Well, I have always heard he was most agreeable; but I am
+afraid&mdash;I think perhaps it is just as well you should know&mdash;forewarned
+is forearmed, you know&mdash;that, in fact, he says a great deal more than he
+means sometimes."</p>
+
+<p>"Does he? I dare say he does."</p>
+
+<p>"He has a habit of appearing to take a great interest in people, which I
+am afraid means very little. I dare say he is not fully aware of it, or
+I am sure he would struggle against it, and we must not judge him; but
+still, his manner does a great deal of harm. It is peculiarly open to
+misconstruction. For instance," continued Mr. Alwynn, making a rush as
+his courage began to fail him, "it struck me, Ruth, the other
+day&mdash;Sunday, was it? Yes, I think it <i>was</i> Sunday&mdash;that really he had
+not much to ask me about his week-day services. I&mdash;ahem! I thought he
+need not have called."</p>
+
+<p>"I dare say not."</p>
+
+<p>"But now, that is just the kind of thing he <i>does</i>&mdash;calls, and,
+er&mdash;under chestnut-trees, and that sort of thing&mdash;and how <i>are</i> young
+people to know unless their elders tell them that it is only his way,
+and that he has done just the same ever so often before?"</p>
+
+<p>"And will again," said Ruth, trying to keep down a smile. "Is it true
+(Mabel is full of it) that he is engaged, or on the point of being so,
+to one of Lord Hope-Acton's daughters?"</p>
+
+<p>"People are always saying he is engaged, to first one person and then
+another," said Mr. Alwynn, breathing more freely now that his duty was
+discharged. "It often grieves me that your aunt mentions his engagement
+so confidently to friends, because it gives people the impression that
+we know, and we really don't. He is a great deal talked about, because
+he is such a conspicuous man in the county, on account of his wealth and
+his place, and the odd things he says and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> does. There is something
+about him that is different from other people. I am sure I don't know
+why it is, but I like him very much myself. I have known him do such
+kind things. Dear me! What a pleasant week I had at Stoke Moreton last
+year. It is beautiful, Ruth; and the collection of old papers and
+manuscripts unique! Your aunt was in Devonshire with friends at the
+time. I wish he would ask me again this autumn, to see those charters of
+Edward IV.'s reign that have been found in the secret drawer of an old
+cabinet. I hear they are quite small, and have green seals. I wish I had
+thought of asking him about them on Sunday. If they are really
+small&mdash;but it was only Archdeacon Eldon who told me about them, and he
+never sees anything any particular size&mdash;if they should happen to be
+really small&mdash;" And Mr. Alwynn turned eagerly to the all-engrossing
+subject of the Stoke Moreton charters, which furnished him with
+conversation till they reached home.</p>
+
+<p><i>"We should consider well what we are keeping back our strength for, if
+we refuse to put the whole of it into our work."</i></p>
+
+<p>All through the afternoon and the quiet, monotonous evening these words
+followed Ruth. She read them between the lines of the book she took up.
+She stitched them into her sewing. They went up-stairs with her at
+night, they followed her into her room, and would not be denied. When
+she had sent away her maid, she sat down by the window, and, with the
+full harvest-moon for company, faced them and asked them what they
+meant. But they only repeated themselves over and over again. What had
+they to do with her? Her mind tried to grapple with them in vain. As
+often as she came to close quarters with them they eluded her and
+disappeared, only to return with the old formula.</p>
+
+<p>Her thoughts drifted away at last to what Mr. Alwynn had said of
+Charles, and all the disagreeable things which Mabel had come up on
+Monday morning, with a bunch of late roses, on purpose to tell her
+respecting him. She had taken Mabel's information at its true worth,
+which I fear was but small; but she felt annoyed that both Mabel and Mr.
+Alwynn should have thought it necessary to warn her. As if, she said to
+herself, she had not known! Really, she had not been born and bred in
+Slumberleigh, nor had she lived there all her life. She had met men of
+that kind before. She always liked them. Charles especially amused her,
+and she could see that she amused him; and, now she came to think of it,
+she supposed he had paid her a good deal of attention at Atherstone, and
+perhaps he had not come over to Slumberleigh especially to see Mr.
+Alwynn. It was as nat<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span>ural to men like Charles to be always interested
+in some one, as it would be unnatural in others ever to be so, except as
+the result of long forethought, and with a wedding-ring and a set of
+bridesmaids well in view. But to attach any importance to the fact that
+Charles liked to talk to her would have been absurd. With another man it
+might have meant much; but she had heard of Charles and his misdoings
+long before she had met him, and knew what to expect. Lord Breakwater's
+sister had confided to her many things respecting him, and had wept
+bitter tears on her shoulder, when he suddenly went off to shoot
+grizzlies in the Rocky Mountains.</p>
+
+<p>"He has not sufficient vanity to know that he is exceedingly popular,"
+said Ruth to herself. "I should think there are few men, handicapped as
+he is, who have been liked more entirely for themselves, and less for
+their belongings; but all the time he probably imagines people admire
+his name, or his place, or his income, and not himself, and consequently
+he does not care much what he says or does. I am certain he does not
+mean to do any harm. His manner never deceived me for a moment. I can't
+see why it should others; but, from all accounts, he seems to be
+frequently misunderstood. That is just the right word for him. He is
+misunderstood. At any rate, I never misunderstood him. That Sunday call
+might have made me suspicious of any ordinary mortal; but I knew no
+common rule could apply to such an exception as he is. I only wonder,
+when he really does find himself in earnest, how he is to convey his
+meaning to the future Lady Danvers. What words would be strong enough;
+what ink would be black enough to carry conviction to her mind?"</p>
+
+<p>She smiled at the thought, and, as she smiled, another face rose
+suddenly before her&mdash;Dare's pale and serious, as it had been of late,
+with the wistful, anxious eyes. <i>He</i>, at least, had meant a great deal,
+she thought with remorse. <i>He</i> had been in earnest, sufficiently in
+earnest to make himself very unhappy, and on her account.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth had known for some time that Dare loved her; but to-night that
+simple, unobtrusive fact suddenly took larger proportions, came boldly
+out of the shadow and looked her in the face.</p>
+
+<p>He loved her. Well, what then?</p>
+
+<p>She turned giddy, and leaned her head against the open shutter.</p>
+
+<p>In the silence the words that had haunted her all the afternoon came
+back; not loud as heretofore, but in a whisper, speaking to her heart,
+which had begun to beat fast and loud.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span></p>
+
+<p><i>"We should consider well what we are keeping back our strength for, if
+we refuse to put the whole of it into our work."</i></p>
+
+<p>What work was there for her to do?</p>
+
+<p>The giddiness and the whirl in her mind died down suddenly like a great
+gust on the surface of a lake, and left it still and clear and cold.</p>
+
+<p>The misery of the world and the inability to meet it had so often
+confused and weighed her down that she had come back humbly of late to
+the only possibility with which it was in her power to deal, come back
+to the well-worn groove of earnest determination to do as much as in her
+lay, close at hand, when she could find a field to labor in. And now she
+suddenly saw, or thought she saw, that she had found it. She had been
+very anxious as to whether Dare would do his duty, but till this moment
+it had never struck her that it might be <i>her</i> duty to help him.</p>
+
+<p>She liked him; and he was poor&mdash;too poor to do much for the people who
+were dependent on him, the poor, struggling people of Vandon. Their
+sullen, miserable faces rose up before her, and their crazy houses.
+Fever had broken out again in the cottages by the river. He needed help
+and encouragement, for he had a difficult time before him. And she had
+these to give, and money too. Could she do better with them? She knew
+Mr. Alwynn wished it. And as to herself? Was she never going to put self
+on one side? She had never liked any one very much&mdash;at least, not in
+that way&mdash;but she liked him.</p>
+
+<p>The words came like a loud voice in the silence. She liked him. Well,
+what then?</p>
+
+<p>She shut her eyes, but she only shut out the moon's pale photographs of
+the fields and woods. She could not shut out these stern besieging
+thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>What was she holding back for? For some possible ideal romantic future;
+for the prince of a fairy story? No? Well, then, for what?</p>
+
+<p>The moon went behind a cloud, and took all her photographs with her. The
+night had turned very cold.</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow," said Ruth to herself, rising slowly; "I am too tired to
+think now. To-morrow!"</p>
+
+<p>And as she spoke the faint chime of the clock upon her table warned her
+that already it was to-morrow.</p>
+
+<p>And soon, in a moment, as it seemed to her, before she had had time to
+think, it was again to-morrow, a wet, dim to-morrow, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> she was at
+Vandon, running up the wide stone steps in the starlight, under Dare's
+protecting umbrella, and allowing him to take her wraps from her before
+the hall fire.</p>
+
+<p>The concert had gone off well. Ruth was pleased, Mr. Alwynn was pleased.
+Dare was in a state of repressed excitement, now flying into the
+drawing-room to see if there were a good fire, as it was a chilly
+evening; now rushing thence to the dining-room to satisfy himself that
+all the immense and elaborate preparations which he had enjoined on the
+cook had been made. Then, Ruth must be shown to her room. Who was to do
+it? He flew to find the house-keeper, and after repeated injunctions to
+the house-maid, whom he met in the passage, not to forget the hot water,
+took Mr. Alwynn off to his apartment.</p>
+
+<p>The concert had begun, as concerts always seem to do, at the exact time
+at which it is usual to dine, so that it was late before the principal
+performers and Mr. Alwynn reached Vandon. It was later still before
+supper came, but when it came it was splendid. Dare looked with anxious
+satisfaction, over a soup tureen, at the various spiced and glazed forms
+of indigestion, sufficient for a dozen people, which covered the table.
+It grieved him that Ruth, confronted by a spreading ham, and Mr. Alwynn,
+half hidden by a bowlder of turkey, should have such moderate appetites.
+But at least she was there, under his roof, at his table. It was not
+surprising that he could eat nothing himself.</p>
+
+<p>After supper, Mr. Alwynn, who combined the wisdom of the worldly serpent
+with the harmlessness of the clerical dove, fell&mdash;not too
+suddenly&mdash;asleep by the fire in the drawing-room, and Ruth and Dare went
+into the hall, where the piano was. Dare opened it and struck a few
+minor chords. Ruth sat down in a great carved arm-chair beside the fire.</p>
+
+<p>The hall was only lighted by a few tall lamps high on pedestals against
+the walls, which threw great profiles of the various busts upon the dim
+bass-reliefs of twining scroll-work; and Dare, with his eyes fixed on
+Ruth, began to play.</p>
+
+<p>There is in some music a strange appeal beyond the reach of words. Those
+mysterious sharps and flats, and major and minor chords, are an alphabet
+that in some occult combinations forms another higher language than that
+of speech, a language which, as we listen, thrills us to the heart.</p>
+
+<p>It was an old piano, with an impediment in its speech, out of the yellow
+notes of which Ruth could have made nothing; but in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> Dare's hands it
+spoke for him as he never could have spoken for himself.</p>
+
+<p>His eyes never left her. He feared to look away, lest he should find the
+presence of that quiet, graceful figure by his fireside had been a
+dream, and that he was alone again with the dim lamps, alone with Dante
+and Cicero and Seneca.</p>
+
+<p>The firelight dwelt ruddily upon her grave clear-cut face and level
+brows, and upon the folds of her white gown. It touched the slender
+hands clasped lightly together on her knee, and drew sudden sparks and
+gleams out of the diamond pin at her throat.</p>
+
+<p>His hands trembled on the keys, and as he looked his heart beat high and
+higher, loud and louder, till it drowned the rhythm of the music. And as
+he looked her calm eyes met his.</p>
+
+<p>In another moment he was on his knees beside her, her hands caught in
+his trembling clasp, and his head pressed down upon them.</p>
+
+<p>"I know," he gasped, "it is no good. You have told me so once. You will
+tell me so again. I am not good enough. I am not worthy. But I love you;
+I love you!"</p>
+
+<p>In moments of real feeling the old words hold their own against all
+modern new-comers. Dare repeated them over and over again in a paroxysm
+of overwhelming emotion which shook him from head to foot.</p>
+
+<p>Something in his boyish attitude and in his entire loss of self-control
+touched Ruth strangely. She knew he was five or six years her senior,
+but at the moment she felt as if she were much older than he, and a
+sudden vague wish passed through her mind that he had been nearer her in
+age; not quite so young.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" she said, gently; and he felt her cool, passive hands tremble a
+little in his. Something in the tone of her voice made him raise his
+head, and meet her eyes looking down at him, earnestly, and with a great
+kindness in them.</p>
+
+<p>A sudden eager light leaped into his face.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you?" he whispered, breathlessly, his hands tightening their hold
+of hers. "Will you?"</p>
+
+<p>There was a moment's pause, in which the whole world seemed to stand
+quite still and wait for her answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she said at last, "I will."</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad I did it," she said to herself, half an hour later, as she
+leaned her tired head against the carved oak chimney-piece in her
+bedroom, and absently traced with her finger the Latin inscription over
+the fireplace. "I like him very much. I am glad I did it."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI.</h2>
+
+
+<p>For many years nothing had given Mr. Alwynn such heart-felt pleasure as
+the news Ruth had to tell him, as he drove her back next morning to
+Slumberleigh, behind Mrs. Alwynn's long-tailed ponies.</p>
+
+<p>It was a still September morning, with a faint pearl sky and half-veiled
+silver sun. Pale gleams of sunshine wandered across the busy harvest
+fields, and burnished the steel of the river.</p>
+
+<p>Decisions of any kind rarely look their best after a sleepless night;
+but as Ruth saw the expression of happiness and relief that came into
+her uncle's face, when she told him what had happened, she felt again
+that she was glad&mdash;very glad.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my dear! my dear!"&mdash;Mr. Alwynn was driving the ponies first against
+the bank, and then into the opposite ditch&mdash;"how glad I am; how
+thankful! I had almost hoped, certainly; I wished so much to think it
+possible; but then, one can never tell. Poor Dare! poor fellow! I used
+to be so sorry for him. And how much you will be able to do at Vandon
+among the people. It will be a different place. And it is such a relief
+to think that the poor old house will be looked after. It went to my
+heart to see the way it had been neglected. I ventured this morning, as
+I was down early, to move some of that dear old Worcester farther back
+into the cabinet. They really were so near the edge, I could not bear to
+see them; and I found a S&egrave;vres saucer, my dear, in the library that
+belonged to one of those beautiful cups in the drawing-room. I hope it
+was not very wrong, but I had to put it among its relations. It was
+sitting with a Delf mug on it, poor thing. Dear me! I little thought
+then&mdash;Really, I have never been so glad about anything before."</p>
+
+<p>After a little more conversation, and after Mr. Alwynn had been
+persuaded to give the reins to his niece, who was far more composed than
+himself, his mind reverted to his wife.</p>
+
+<p>"I think, my dear, until your engagement is more settled, till I have
+had a talk with Dare on the subject (which will be necessary before you
+write to your uncle Francis), it would be as well not to refer to it
+before&mdash;in fact, not to mention it to Mrs. Alwynn. Your<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> dear aunt's
+warm heart and conversational bent make it almost impossible for her to
+refrain from speaking of anything that interests her; and indeed, even
+if she does not say anything in so many words, I have observed that
+opinions are sometimes formed by others as to the subject on which she
+is silent, by her manner when any chance allusion is made to it."</p>
+
+<p>Ruth heartily agreed. She had been dreading the searching catechism
+through which Mrs. Alwynn would certainly put her&mdash;the minute inquiries
+as to her dress, the hour, the place; whether it had been "standing up
+or sitting down;" all her questions of course interwoven with personal
+reminiscences of "how John had done it," and her own emotion at the
+time.</p>
+
+<p>It was with no small degree of relief at the postponement of that evil
+hour that Ruth entered the house. As she did so a faint sound reached
+her ear. It was that of a musical-box.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear! dear!" said Mr. Alwynn, as he followed her. "It is a fine day.
+Your aunt must be ill."</p>
+
+<p>For the moment Ruth did not understand the connection of ideas in his
+mind, until she suddenly remembered the musical-box, which, Mrs. Alwynn
+had often told her, was "so nice and cheery on a wet day, or in time of
+illness."</p>
+
+<p>She hurriedly entered the drawing-room, followed by Mr. Alwynn, where
+the first object that met her view was Mrs. Alwynn extended on the sofa,
+arrayed in what she called her tea-gown, a loose robe of blue cretonne,
+with a large vine-leaf pattern twining over it, which broke out into
+grapes at intervals. Ruth knew that garment well. It came on only when
+Mrs. Alwynn was suffering. She had worn it last during a period of
+entire mental prostration, which had succeeded all too soon an exciting
+discovery of mushrooms in the glebe. Mr. Alwynn's heart and Ruth's sank
+as they caught sight of it again.</p>
+
+<p>With a dignity befitting the occasion, Mrs. Alwynn recounted in detail
+the various ways in which she had employed herself after their departure
+the previous evening, up to the exact moment when she slipped going
+up-stairs, and sprained her ankle, in a blue and green manner that had
+quite alarmed the doctor when he had seen it, and compared with which
+Mrs. Thursby's gathered finger in the spring was a mere bagatelle.</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Thursby stayed in bed when her finger was bad," said Mrs. Alwynn
+to Ruth, when Mr. Alwynn had condoled, and had made his escape to his
+study. "She always gives way so; but I never was like that. I was up all
+the same, my dear."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I hope it does not hurt very much," said Ruth, anxious to be
+sympathetic, but succeeding only in being commonplace.</p>
+
+<p>"It's not only the pain," said Mrs. Alwynn, in the gentle resigned voice
+which she always used when indisposed&mdash;the voice of one at peace with
+all the world, and ready to depart from a scene consequently so devoid
+of interest; "but to a person of my habits, Ruth&mdash;never a day without
+going into the larder, and always seeing after the servants as I
+do&mdash;first one duty and then another&mdash;and the chickens and all. It seems
+a strange thing that I should be laid aside."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Alwynn paused, as if she had not for the nonce fathomed the
+ulterior reasons for this special move on the part of Providence, which
+had crippled her, while it left Ruth and Mrs. Thursby with the use of
+their limbs.</p>
+
+<p>"However," she continued, "I am not one to repine. Always cheery and
+busy, Ruth: that is my motto. And now, my dear, if you will wind up the
+musical-box, and then read me a little bit out of 'Texts with Tender
+Twinings'" (the new floral manual which had lately superseded the
+"Pearls"), "after that we will start on one of my scrap-books, and you
+shall tell me all about your visit to Vandon."</p>
+
+<p>It was not the time Ruth would have chosen for a <i>t&ecirc;te-&agrave;-t&ecirc;te</i> with her
+aunt. She was longing to be alone, to think quietly over what had
+happened, and it was difficult to concentrate her attention on pink and
+yellow calico, and cut out colored royal families, and foreign birds,
+with a good grace. Happily Mrs. Alwynn, though always requiring
+attention, was quite content with the half of what she required; and,
+with the "Buffalo Girls" and the "Danube River" tinkling on the table,
+conversation was somewhat superfluous.</p>
+
+<p>In the afternoon Dare came, but he was waylaid in the hall by Mr.
+Alwynn, and taken into the study before he could commit himself in Mrs.
+Alwynn's presence. Mrs. Thursby and Mabel also called to condole, and a
+little later Mrs. Smith of Greenacre, who had heard the news of the
+accident from the doctor. Altogether it was a delightful afternoon for
+Mrs. Alwynn, who assumed for the time an air of superiority over Mrs.
+Thursby to which that lady's well-known chronic ill-health seldom
+allowed her to lay claim.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Alwynn and Mrs. Thursby had remained friends since they had both
+arrived together as brides at Slumberleigh, in spite of a difference of
+opinion, which had at one time strained friendly relations to a painful
+degree, as to the propriety of wearing the hair<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> over the top of the
+ear. The hair question settled, a temporary difficulty, extending over a
+few years, had sprung up in its place, respecting what Mrs. Thursby
+called "family." Mrs. Alwynn's family was not her strong point, nor was
+its position strengthened by her assertion (unsupported by Mrs.
+Markham), that she was directly descended from Queen Elizabeth.
+Consequently, it was trying to Mrs. Thursby&mdash;who, as every one knows,
+was one of the brainless Copleys of Copley&mdash;that Mrs. Alwynn, who in the
+lottery of marriage had drawn an honorable, should take precedence of
+herself. To obviate this difficulty, Mrs. Thursby, with the ingenuity of
+her sex, had at one time introduced Mr. and Mrs. Alwynn as "our rector,"
+and "our rector's wife," thus denying them their name altogether, for
+fear lest its connection with Lord Polesworth should be remembered, and
+the fact that Mr. Alwynn was his brother, and consequently an honorable,
+should transpire.</p>
+
+<p>This peculiarity of etiquette entirely escaped Mr. Alwynn, but aroused
+feelings in the breast of his wife which might have brought about one of
+those deeply rooted feuds which so often exist between the squire's and
+clergyman's families, if it had not been for the timely and serious
+illness in which Mrs. Thursby lost her health, and the principal part of
+the other subject of disagreement&mdash;her hair.</p>
+
+<p>Then Queen Elizabeth and the honorable were alike forgotten. With her
+own hands Mrs. Alwynn made a certain jelly, which Mrs. Thursby praised
+in the highest manner, saying she only wished that it had been the habit
+in <i>her</i> family to learn to do anything so useful. Mrs. Thursby's new
+gowns were no longer kept a secret from Mrs. Alwynn, to be suddenly
+sprung upon her at a garden-party, when, possibly in an old garment
+herself, she was least able to bear the shock. By-gones were by-gones,
+and, greatly to the relief of the two husbands, their respective wives
+made up their differences.</p>
+
+<p>"And a very pleasant afternoon it has been," said Mrs. Alwynn, when the
+Thursbys and Dare, who had been loath to go, had taken their departure.
+"Mrs. Thursby and Mabel, and Mrs. Smith and Mr. Dare. Four to tea. Quite
+a little party, wasn't it, Ruth? And so informal and nice; and the buns
+came in as naturally as possible, which no one heard me whisper to James
+for. I think those little citron buns are nicer than a great cake like
+Mrs. Thursby's; and hers are always so black and overbaked. That is why
+the cook sifts such a lot of sugar over them. I do think one should be
+real, and not try to cover up things. And Mr. Dare so pleasant. Quite
+sorry to go he seemed. I often wonder whether it will be you or Mabel in
+the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> end. He ought to be making up his mind. I expect I shall have a
+little joke with him about it before long. And such an interest he took
+in the scrap-book. I asked him to come again to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't expect he will be able to do so," said Mr. Alwynn. "I rather
+think he will have to go to town on business."</p>
+
+<p>Later in the evening, Mr. Alwynn told Ruth that in the course of his
+interview he had found that Dare had the very vaguest ideas as to the
+necessity of settlements; had evidently never given the subject a
+thought, and did not even know what he actually possessed.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Alwynn was secretly afraid of what Ruth's trustee, his brother, Lord
+Polesworth (now absent shooting in the Rocky Mountains), would say if,
+during his absence, their niece was allowed to engage herself without
+suitable provision; and he begged Ruth not "to do anything rash" in the
+way of speaking of her engagement, until Dare could, with the help of
+his lawyer, see his way to making some arrangement.</p>
+
+<p>"I know he has no money," said Ruth, quietly; "that is one of the
+reasons why I am going to marry him."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Alwynn, to whom this seemed the most natural reason in the world,
+was not sure whether it would strike his brother with equal force. He
+had a suspicion that when Lord Polesworth's attention should be turned
+from white goats and brown bears to the fact that his niece, who had
+means of her own, had been allowed to engage herself to a poor man, and
+that Mr. Alwynn had greatly encouraged the match, unpleasant questions
+might be asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Francis will be back in November," said Mr. Alwynn. "I think, Ruth, we
+had better wait till his return before we do anything definite."</p>
+
+<p>"Anything <i>more</i> definite, you mean," said Ruth. "I have been very
+definite already, I think. I shall be glad to wait till he comes back,
+if you wish it, Uncle John. I shall try to do what you both advise. But
+at the same time I am of age; and if my word is worth anything, you know
+I have given that already."</p>
+
+<p>Dare felt no call to go to London by the early train on the following
+morning, so he found himself at liberty to spend an hour at Slumberleigh
+Rectory on his way to the station, and by the advice of Mr. Alwynn went
+into the garden, where the sound of the musical-box reached the ear, but
+in faint echoes, and where Ruth presently joined him.</p>
+
+<p>In his heart Dare was secretly afraid of Ruth; though, as he often told
+himself, it was more than probable she was equally afraid of him. If
+that was so, she controlled her feelings wonderfully, for as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> she came
+to meet him, nothing could have been more frankly kind, more friendly,
+or more composed than her manner towards him. He took her out-stretched
+hand and kissed it. It was not quite the way in which he had pictured to
+himself that they would meet; but if his imagination had taken a
+somewhat bolder flight in her absence, he felt now, as she stood before
+him, that it had taken that flight in vain. He kept her hand, and looked
+intently at her. She did not change color, nor did that disappointing
+friendliness leave her steady eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"She does not love me," he said to himself. "It is strange, but she does
+not. But the day will come."</p>
+
+<p>"You are going to London, are you not?" asked Ruth, withdrawing her hand
+at last; and after hearing a detailed account of his difficulties and
+anxieties about money matters, and after taking an immense weight off
+his mind by telling him that they would have no influence in causing her
+to alter her decision, she sent him beaming and rejoicing on his way,
+quite a different person to the victim of anxiety and depression who had
+arrived at Slumberleigh an hour before.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Alwynn was much annoyed at Dare's entire want of heart in leaving
+the house without coming to see her, and during the remainder of the
+morning she did not cease to comment on the differences that exist
+between what people really are and what they seem to be, until, in her
+satisfaction at recounting the accident to Evelyn Danvers, a new and
+sympathetic listener, she fortunately forgot the slight put upon her
+ankle earlier in the day. The complete enjoyment of her sufferings was,
+however, destined to sustain a severe shock the following morning.</p>
+
+<p>She and Ruth were reading their letters, Mrs. Alwynn, of course, giving
+Ruth the benefit of the various statements respecting the weather which
+her correspondents had confided to her, when Mr. Alwynn came in from the
+study, an open letter in his hand. He was quite pink with pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>"He has asked me to go and see them," he said, "and they <i>are</i> small,
+and have green seals, all excepting one,"&mdash;referring to the
+letter&mdash;"which has a big red seal in a tin box, attached by a tape.
+Ruth, I am perfectly <i>convinced</i> beforehand that those charters are
+grants of land of the fourteenth or fifteenth century. Sir Charles
+mentions that they are in black letter, and only a few lines on each,
+but he says he won't describe them in full, as I must come and see them
+for myself. Dear me! how I shall enjoy arranging them for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> him, which he
+asked me to do. I had really become so anxious about them that a few
+days ago I determined to set my mind at rest, and I wrote to him to ask
+for particulars, and that is his answer."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Alwynn put Charles's letter into her hand, and she glanced over it.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Uncle John, he asks Aunt Fanny as well; and&mdash;'if Miss Deyncourt is
+still with you, pleasure,' etc.&mdash;and <i>me</i>, too!"</p>
+
+<p>"When is it for?" asked Mrs. Alwynn, suddenly sitting bolt-upright.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me see. 'Black letter size about'&mdash;where is it? Here. 'Tuesday, the
+25th, for three nights. Leaving home following week for some time.
+Excuse short notice,' etc. It is next week, Aunt Fanny."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall not be able to go," gasped Mrs. Alwynn, sinking back on her
+sofa, while something very like tears came into her eyes; "and I've
+never been there, Ruth. The Thursbys went once, in old Sir George's
+time, and Mrs. Thursby always says it is the show-place in the county,
+and that it is such a pity I have not seen it. And last autumn, when
+John went, I was in Devonshire, and never even heard of his going till I
+got home, or I'd have come back. Oh, Ruth! Oh, dear!"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Alwynn let her letters fall into her lap, and drew forth the
+colored pocket-handkerchief which she wore, in imitation of Mabel
+Thursby, stuck into the bodice of her gown, and at the ominous
+appearance of which Mr. Alwynn suddenly recollected a duty in the study
+and retreated.</p>
+
+<p>With an unerring instinct Ruth flew to the musical-box and set it going,
+and then knelt down by the prostrate figure of her aunt, and
+administered what sympathy and consolation she could, to the "cheery"
+accompaniment of the "Buffalo Girls."</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind, dear Aunt Fanny. Perhaps he will ask you again when you are
+better. There will be other opportunities."</p>
+
+<p>"I always was unlucky," said Mrs. Alwynn, faintly. "I had a swelled face
+up the Rhine on our honey-moon. Things always happen like that with me.
+At any rate,"&mdash;after a pause&mdash;"there is <i>one</i> thing. We ought to try and
+look at the bright side. It is not as if we had not been asked. We have
+not been overlooked."</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Ruth, promptly; and in her own mind she registered a vow that
+in her future home she would never give the pain that being overlooked
+by the larger house can cause to the smaller house.</p>
+
+<p>"And I will stay with you, Aunt Fanny," she went on, cheerfully.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> "Uncle
+John can go by himself, and we will do just what we like while he is
+away, won't we?"</p>
+
+<p>But at this Mrs. Alwynn demurred. She was determined that if she played
+the r&ocirc;le of a martyr she would do it well. She insisted that Ruth should
+accompany Mr. Alwynn. She secretly looked forward to telling Mabel that
+Ruth was going. She did not mind being left alone, she said. She
+desired, with a sigh of self-sacrifice, that Mr. Alwynn should accept
+for himself and his niece. She had not been brought up to consider
+herself, thank God! She had her faults she knew. No one was more fully
+aware of them than herself; but she was not going to prevent others
+enjoying themselves because she herself was laid aside.</p>
+
+<p>"And now, my dear," she said, with a sudden return to mundane interests
+that succeeded rather unexpectedly to the celestial spirit of her
+previous remarks, "you must be thinking about your gowns. If I had been
+going, I should have had my ruby satin done up&mdash;so beautiful by
+candle-light. What have you to wear? That white lace tea-gown with the
+silver-gray train is very nice; but you ought not to be in half mourning
+now. I like to see young people in colors. And then there is that
+gold-and-white brocade, Ruth, that you wore at the drawing-room last
+year. It is a beautiful dress, but rather too quiet. Could not you
+brighten it up with a few cherry-colored bows about it, or a sash? I
+always think a sash is so becoming. If you were to bring it down, I dare
+say I could suggest something. And you must be well dressed, for though
+he only says 'friends,' you never can tell whom you may not meet at a
+place like that."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The last week of September found Charles back at Stoke Moreton to
+receive the "friends" of whom Mrs. Alwynn spoke. People whose partridges
+he had helped to kill were now to be gathered from the east and from the
+west to help to kill his. From the north also guests were coming, were
+leaving their mountains to&mdash;But the remainder of the line is invidious.
+The Hope-Actons had written to offer a visit at Stoke Moreton on the
+strength of an old promise to Charles, a promise so old that he had
+forgotten it, until reminded, that next time they were passing they
+would take his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> house on their way. They had offered their visit exactly
+at the same time for which he had just invited the Alwynns and Ruth.
+Charles felt that they were not quite the people whom he would have
+arranged to meet each other, but, as Fate had so decreed it, he
+acquiesced calmly enough.</p>
+
+<p>But when Lady Mary also wrote tenderly from Scarborough, to ask if she
+could be of any use helping to entertain his guests, he felt it
+imperative to draw the line, and wrote a grateful effusion to his aunt,
+saying that he could not think of asking her to leave a place where he
+felt sure she was deriving spiritual and temporal benefit, in order to
+assist at so unprofitable a festivity as a shooting-party. He mentioned
+casually that Lady Grace Lawrence, Miss Deyncourt, and Miss Wyndham were
+to be of the party, which details he imagined might have an interest for
+her amid her graver reflections.</p>
+
+<p>The subject of Ruth's coming certainly had a prominent place in his own
+graver reflections. For the last fortnight, as he went from house to
+house, he had been wondering how he could meet her again, and, when Mr.
+Alwynn's letter concerning the charters was forwarded to him, a sudden
+inspiration made him then and there send the invitation which had
+arrived at Slumberleigh Rectory a few days before. He groaned in spirit
+as he wrote it, at the thought of Mrs. Alwynn disporting herself,
+dressed in the brightest colors, among his other guests; and it was with
+a feeling of thankfulness that he found Ruth and Mr. Alwynn were coming
+without her.</p>
+
+<p>He had felt very little interest so far in the party, which, with the
+exception of the Hope-Actons, had been long arranged, but now he found
+himself looking forward to it with actual impatience, and he returned
+home a day before the time, instead of an hour or two before his guests
+were expected, as was his wont.</p>
+
+<p>The Wyndhams and Hope-Actons, with Lady Grace in tow, were the first to
+appear upon the scene. Mr. Alwynn and Ruth arrived a few hours later,
+amid a dropping fire of young men and gun-cases, who kept on turning up
+at intervals during the afternoon, and, according to the mysterious
+nocturnal habits of their kind, till late into the night.</p>
+
+<p>If ever a man appears to advantage it is on his native hearth, and as
+Charles stood on his in the long hall, where it was the habit of the
+house to assemble before dinner, Ruth found that her attempts at
+conversation were rather thrown away upon Lady Grace, with whom she had
+been renewing an old acquaintance, and whose interest,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> for the time
+being, entirely centred in the carved coats of arms and heraldic designs
+with which the towering white stone chimney-piece was covered.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Grace was one of those pretty, delicate creatures who remind one of
+a very elaborate rose-bud. There was an appearance of ultra-refinement
+about her, a look of that refinement which is in itself a weakness, a
+poverty of blood, so to speak, the opposite and more pleasing but
+equally unhealthy extreme of coarseness. She looked very pretty as,
+having left Ruth, she stood by Charles, passing her little pink hand
+over the lowest carvings, dim and worn with the heat of many generations
+of fires, and listened with rapt attention to his answers to her
+questions.</p>
+
+<p>"And the Hall is so beautiful," she said, looking round with childlike
+curiosity at the walls covered with weapons, and with a long array of
+armor, and at the massive pillars of carved white stone which rose up
+out of the polished floor to meet the raftered ceiling. "It is so&mdash;so
+uncommon."</p>
+
+<p>Whatever Charles's other failings may have been, he was an admirable
+host. The weather was fine. What can be finer than September when she is
+in a good-humor? The two first days of Ruth's visit were unalloyed
+enjoyment. It seemed like a sudden return to the old life with Lady
+Deyncourt, when the round of country visits regularly succeeded the
+season in London. Of Mr. Alwynn she saw little or nothing. He was buried
+in the newly discovered charters. Of Charles she saw a good deal, more
+than at the time she was quite aware of, for he seemed to see a great
+deal of everybody, from Lady Grace to the shy man of the party, who at
+Stoke Moreton first conceived the idea that he was an acquisition to
+society. But, whether Charles made the opportunities or not which came
+so ready to his hand, still he found time, amid the pressure of his
+shooting arrangements and his duties as host, to talk to Ruth.</p>
+
+<p>One day there was cub-hunting in the gray of the early morning, to which
+she and Miss Wyndham went with Charles and others of the party who could
+bear to get up betimes. Losing sight of the others after a time, Ruth
+and Charles rode back alone together, when the sun was high, walking
+their tired horses along the black-berried lanes, and down the long
+green rides cut in the yellowing bracken of the park.</p>
+
+<p>"And so you are going to winter in Rome?" said Charles, who had the
+previous day, contrary to his wont, accepted an invitation to
+Slumberleigh Hall for the middle of October. "I sometimes go<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> to Rome
+for a few weeks when the shooting is over. And are you glad or sorry at
+the prospect of leaving your Cranford?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very sorry."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have seen an entirely new phase of life at Slumberleigh."</p>
+
+<p>"I think I can guess what you mean," said Charles, gravely. "One does
+not often meet any one like Mr. Alwynn."</p>
+
+<p>"No. I was thinking of him. Until I came to Slumberleigh the lines had
+not fallen to me in very clerical places, so my experience is limited;
+but he seems to me to be the only clergyman I have known who does not
+force on one a form of religion that has been dead and buried for
+years."</p>
+
+<p>"The clergy have much to answer for on that head," said Charles with
+bitterness. "I sometimes like and respect them as individuals, but I do
+not love them as a class. One ought to make allowance for the fact that
+they are tied and bound by the chain of their Thirty-nine Articles; that
+at three-and-twenty they shut the doors deliberately on any new and
+possibly unorthodox idea; and it is consequently unreasonable to expect
+from them any genuine freedom or originality of thought. I can forgive
+them their assumption of superiority, their inability to meet honest
+scepticism with anything like fairness, their continual bickering among
+themselves; but I cannot forgive them the harm they are doing to
+religion, the discredit they are bringing upon it by their bigoted views
+and obsolete ideas. They busy themselves doing good&mdash;that is the worst
+of it; they mean well, but they do not see that, in the mean while,
+their Church is being left unto them desolate; though perhaps, after
+all, the Church having come to be what it is, that is the best thing
+that can happen."</p>
+
+<p>"There are men among the clergy who will not come under that sweeping
+accusation," said Ruth. "Look at some of the London churches. Are they
+desolate? Goodness and earnestness will be a power to the end of time,
+however narrow the accompanying creed may be."</p>
+
+<p>"That is true, but we have heads as well as hearts. Goodness and
+earnestness appeal to the heart alone. The intellect is left out in the
+cold. However good and earnest, and eloquent one of these great
+preachers may be, the reason we go to hear him is not only because of
+that, but because he appears to be thinking in a straight line, because
+he seems to recognize the long-resisted claim of the intellect, and we
+hope he will have a word to say to us. He prom<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span>ises well, but listen to
+him a little longer, follow his thought, and you will begin to see that
+he will only look for truth within a certain area, that his steps are
+describing an arc, that he is tethered. Give him time enough, and you
+will see him tread out the complete circle in which he and his brethren
+are equally bound to walk."</p>
+
+<p>"You forget," said Ruth, "that you are regarding the Church from the
+stand-point of the cultivated and intellectual class, for whom the
+Church has ceased to represent religion; but there are lots of people
+neither cultivated nor intellectual&mdash;women even of our own class are not
+so as a rule&mdash;to whom the Church, with its ritual and dogma, is a real
+help and comfort. If, as you say, it does not suit the more highly
+educated, I think you have no right to demand that it <i>should</i> suit what
+is, after all, a very small minority. It would be most unfair if it
+did."</p>
+
+<p>Charles did not answer. He had been looking at her, and thinking how few
+women could have disagreed with him as quietly and resolutely as this
+young girl riding at his side, carefully avoiding chance rabbit-holes as
+she spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"There is, and there always will be, a certain number of people, not
+only among the clergy," she went on, "who, as somebody says, 'put the
+church clock back,' and are unable to see that they cannot alter the
+time of day for all that; only they can and do prevent many
+well-intentioned people from trusting to it any longer. But there are
+others here and there whom a dogmatic form of religion has been quite
+unable to spoil, whose more simple turn of mind draws out of the very
+system that appears to you so lifeless and effete, a real faith, a
+personal possession, which no one can take from them."</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes sparkled as she spoke, and Charles saw that she was thinking of
+Mr. Alwynn.</p>
+
+<p>"He has got it," he said, slowly, "this something which we all want, and
+for the greater part never find. He has got it. To see and recognize it
+early is a great thing," he continued, earnestly. "To disbelieve in it
+in early life, and cavil at all the caricatures and imitations, and only
+come to find out its reality comparatively later on, is a great
+misfortune&mdash;a great misfortune."</p>
+
+<p>She felt that he was speaking of himself, and they rode on in silence,
+each grave with a sense of mutual understanding and companionship. They
+forded the stream, and trotted up the little village street, the
+cottagers gazing admiringly after them till they disappeared within the
+great arched gate-way. And Charles looked at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> his old house as they
+paced up the wide drive, and wondered whether it were indeed possible
+that the lonely years he had spent in it had come to an end at last&mdash;at
+last.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth had noticed that he had lost no opportunity of talking to her, and
+when she heard him conversing with Lady Grace, or plunging into
+fashionable slang with Miss Wyndham, found herself admiring the facility
+with which he adapted himself to different people.</p>
+
+<p>The following afternoon, as she was writing in the library, she was
+amused to see that he found it incumbent on him to write too, even going
+so far as to produce a letter from Molly, whose correspondence he said
+he invariably answered by return.</p>
+
+<p>"You seem very fond of giving Molly pleasure," said Ruth.</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad to see, Miss Deyncourt, that you are beginning to estimate me
+at my true worth."</p>
+
+<p>"You have it in your power just now to give a great pleasure," said
+Ruth, earnestly, laying down the pen which she had taken up.</p>
+
+<p>"How?"</p>
+
+<p>"It seems so absurd when it is put into words, but&mdash;by asking Mrs.
+Alwynn some time to stay here. She has always longed to see Stoke
+Moreton, because&mdash;well, because Mrs. Thursby has; and real, positive,
+actual tears were shed that she could not come when you asked us."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it possible?" said Charles. "It is the first time that any letter of
+mine has caused emotion of that description."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! you don't know how important the smallest things appear if one
+lives in a little corner of the world where nothing ever happens. If
+Mrs. Alwynn had been able to come, her visit would have been an event
+which she would have remembered for years. I assure you, I myself, from
+having lived at Slumberleigh eight months, became quite excited at the
+prospect of so much dissipation."</p>
+
+<p>And Ruth leaned back in her chair with a little laugh.</p>
+
+<p>Charles looked narrowly at her and his face fell.</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad you told me," he said, after a moment's pause. "People
+generally mention these things about ten years afterwards; when there is
+probably no possibility of doing anything. Thank you."</p>
+
+<p>Ruth was disconcerted by the sudden gravity of his tone, and almost
+regretted the impulse that had made her speak. She forgot it, however,
+in the <i>tableaux vivants</i> which they were preparing for the evening, in
+which she and Charles illustrated the syllable <i>nun</i> to enthusiastic
+applause. Ruth represented the nun, engaged in conversation, over the
+lowest imaginable convent wall, with Charles, in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> all the glory of his
+cocked hat and deputy-lieutenant's uniform, who, while he held the nun's
+hand in one of his, pointed persuasively with the other towards an
+elaborately caparisoned war-horse, trembling beneath the joint weight of
+a yeomanry saddle and a side-saddle attached behind it, which
+considerably overlapped the charger's impromptu fur boa tail.</p>
+
+<p>After the <i>tableaux</i> there was dancing in acting costume, at which the
+two men, who acted the war-horse between them were the only persons to
+protest, Lady Grace being beautiful as an improvised Anne Boleyn, and
+the shy man resplendent in a fancy dress of Charles's.</p>
+
+<p>When the third morning came, Ruth gave a genuine sigh at the thought
+that it was the last day. Lady Grace, who was also leaving the following
+morning, may be presumed to have echoed it with far more sorrow. The
+Wyndhams were going that day, and disappeared down the drive, waving
+handkerchiefs, and carriage-rugs, and hats on sticks, out of the
+carriage-windows, as is the custom of really amusing people when taking
+leave.</p>
+
+<p>In the afternoon, Lady Grace and Charles went off for a ride alone
+together, to see some ruin in which Lady Grace had manifested a sudden
+interest, the third horse, which had been brought round for another of
+the men, being sent back to the stables, his destined rider having
+decided, at the eleventh hour, to join the rest of the party in a little
+desultory rabbit shooting in the park, which he proceeded to do with
+much chuckling over his extraordinary penetration and tact.</p>
+
+<p>The elder ladies went out driving, looking, as seen from an upper
+window, like four poached eggs on a dish; and the coast being clear,
+Ruth, who had no love of driving, escaped with her paint-box to the
+garden, where she was making a sketch of Stoke Moreton.</p>
+
+<p>Some houses, like people, have dignity. Stoke Moreton, with ivy creeping
+up its mellow sandstone, and peeping into its long lines of mullioned
+windows, stood solemn and stately amid its level gardens; the low sun,
+bringing out every line of carved stone frieze and quaint architrave,
+firing all the western windows, and touching the tall heads of the
+hollyhocks and sunflowers, that stood in ordered regiments within their
+high walls of clipped box. And Ruth dabbed and looked, and dabbed again,
+until she suddenly found that if she put another stroke she would spoil
+all, and also that her hands were stiff with cold. After a few admiring
+glances at her work, she set off on a desultory journey round the
+gardens to get warm, and finally, seeing an oak door in the garden-wall
+open, wandered through it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> into the church-yard. The church door was
+open, too, and Ruth, after reading some of the epitaphs on the
+tombstones, went in.</p>
+
+<p>It was a common little church enough, with a large mortuary chapel,
+where all the Danvers family reposed; ancient Danvers lying in armor,
+with their mailed hands joined, beside their wives; more modern Danvers
+kneeling in bass-relief in colored plaster and execrable taste in
+recesses. The last generations were there also; some of them
+anticipating the resurrection and feathered wings, but for the most part
+still asleep. Charles's mother was there, lying in white marble among
+her husband's people, with the child upon her arm which she had taken
+away with her.</p>
+
+<p>And in the middle of the chapel was the last Sir Charles Danvers, whom
+his brother, Sir George, the father of the present owner, had succeeded.
+The evening sun shone full on the kneeling soldier figure, leaning on
+its sword, and on the grave, clear-cut face, which had a look of
+Charles. The long, beautifully modelled hands, clasped over the battered
+steel sword-hilt, were like Charles's too. Ruth read the inscription on
+the low marble pedestal, relating how he had fallen in the taking of the
+Redan, and then looked again. And gradually a great feeling of pity rose
+in her heart for the family which had lived here for so many
+generations, and which seemed now so likely to die out. Providence does
+not seem to care much for old families, or to value long descent. Rather
+it seems to favor the new race&mdash;the Browns, and the Joneses, and the
+Robinsons, who yesterday were not, and who to-day elbow the old county
+families from the place which has known them from time immemorial.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose Molly will some day marry a Smith," said Ruth to herself,
+"and then it will be all over. I don't think I will come and see her
+here when she is married."</p>
+
+<p>With which reflection she returned to the house, and, after disturbing
+Mr. Alwynn, who was deep in a catalogue of the Danvers manuscripts, in
+which it was his firm conviction that he should find some mention of the
+charters, she went into the library, and wondered which of the several
+thousands of books would interest her till the others came in.</p>
+
+<p>The library was a large room, the walls of which were lined with books
+from the floor to the ceiling. In order to place the higher shelves
+within reach, a light balcony of polished oak ran round the four walls,
+about equidistant from the floor and the ceiling. Ruth went up the tiny
+corkscrew staircase in the wall, which led to the balcony, and settling
+herself comfortably in the low, wide window<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span>-seat, took out one volume
+after another of those that came within her reach. These shelves by the
+window where she was sitting had somehow a different look to the rest.
+Old books and new, white vellum and card-board, were herded together
+without any apparent order, and with no respect of bindings. Here a
+splendid morocco "Novum Organum" was pushed in beside a cheap and much
+worn edition of Marcus Aurelius; there Emerson and Plato and Shakespeare
+jostled each other on the same shelf, while, just below, "Don Quixote"
+was pressed into the uncongenial society of Carlyle on one side and
+Confucius on the other. As she pulled out one book after another, she
+noticed that the greater part of them had Charles's name in them. Ruth's
+curiosity was at once aroused. No doubt this was the little corner in
+his great house in which he chose to read, and these were his favorite
+books which he had arranged so close to his hand. If we can judge our
+fellow-creatures at all, which is doubtful, it is by the books they
+read, and by those which, having read, they read again. She looked at
+the various volumes in the window-seat beside her with new interest, and
+opened the first one she took up. It was a collection of translations
+from the Persian poets, gentlemen of the name of Jemsh&iacute;d, S&aacute;di, and
+Hafiz, of whom she had never heard. As she turned over the pages, she
+heard the ringing of horses' hoofs, and, looking out from her point of
+observation, saw Charles and Lady Grace cantering up the short wide
+approach, and clattering out of sight again behind the great stone
+archway. She turned back to her book, and was reading an ode here and
+there, wondering to see how the same thoughts that work within us to-day
+had lived with man so many hundred years ago, when her eye was caught by
+some writing on the margin of a page as she turned it over. A single
+sentence on the page was strongly underlined:</p>
+
+<p><i>"True self-knowledge is knowledge of God."</i></p>
+
+<p>Jemsh&iacute;d was a wise man, Ruth thought, if he had found out that; and then
+she read, in Charles's clear handwriting in the margin:</p>
+
+<p><i>"With this compare 'Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it
+will ever bubble up if thou wilt ever dig.'&mdash;Marcus Aurelius."</i></p>
+
+<p>At this moment Charles came into the library, and looked up to where she
+was sitting, half hidden from below by the thickness of the wall.</p>
+
+<p>"What, studying?" he called, gayly. "I saw you sitting in the window as
+I rode up. I might have known that if you were lost<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> sight of for half
+an hour you would be found improving yourself in some exasperating way."
+And he ran up the little stairs and came round the balcony towards her.
+"My own special books, I see&mdash;Eve, as usual, surreptitiously craving for
+a knowledge of good and evil. What have you got hold of?"</p>
+
+<p>The remainder of the window-seat was full of books; so, to obtain a
+better view of what she was reading, he knelt down by her, and looked at
+the open book on her knee.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth did not attempt to close it. She felt guilty, she hardly knew of
+what. After a moment's pause she said:</p>
+
+<p>"I plead guilty. I was curious. I saw these were your own particular
+shelves; but I never can resist looking at the books people read."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you be pleased to remember in future that, in contemplating my
+character, Miss Deyncourt&mdash;a subject not unworthy of your attention&mdash;you
+are on private property. You are requested to keep on the gravel paths,
+and to look at the grounds I am disposed to show you. If, as is very
+possible, admiration seizes you, you are at liberty to express it. But
+there must be no going round to the back premises, no prying into
+corners, no trespassing where I have written up, 'No road.'"</p>
+
+<p>Ruth smiled, and there was a gleam in her eyes which Charles well knew
+heralded a retort, when suddenly through the half-open door a silken
+rustle came, and Lady Hope-Acton slowly entered the room, as if about to
+pass through it on her way to the hall.</p>
+
+<p>Now, kneeling is by no means an attitude to be despised. In church, or
+in the moment of presentation to majesty, it is appropriate, even
+essential; but it is dependent, like most things, upon circumstances and
+environment. No attitude, for instance, could be more suitable and
+natural to any one wishing to read the page on which a sitting
+fellow-creature was engaged. Charles had found it so. But, as Lady
+Hope-Acton sailed into the room, he felt that, however conducive to
+study, it was not the attitude in which he would at that moment have
+chosen to be found. Ruth felt the same. It had seemed so natural a
+moment before, it was so hideously suggestive now.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps Lady Hope-Acton would pass on through the other door, so widely,
+so invitingly open. Neither stirred, in the hope that she might do so.
+But in the centre of the room she stopped and sighed&mdash;the slow,
+crackling sigh of a stout woman in a too well-fitting silk gown.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Charles suddenly felt as if his muddy boots and cords were trying to
+catch her eye, as if every book on the shelves were calling to her to
+look up.</p>
+
+<p>For a second Ruth and Charles gazed down upon the top of Lady
+Hope-Acton's head, the bald place on which showed dimly through her
+semi-transparent cap. She moved slightly, as if to go; but no, another
+step was drawing near. In another moment Lady Grace came in through the
+opposite door in her riding-habit.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth felt that it was now or never for a warning cough; but, as she
+glanced at Charles kneeling beside her, she could not give it. Surely
+they would pass out in another second. The thought of the two pairs of
+eyes which would be raised, and the expression in them was intolerable.</p>
+
+<p>"Grace," said Lady Hope-Acton, with dreadful distinctness, advancing to
+meet her daughter, "has he spoken?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Lady Grace, with a little sob; "and,"&mdash;with a sudden burst of
+tears&mdash;"oh, mamma, I don't think he ever will."</p>
+
+<p>Oh, to have coughed, to have sneezed, to have choked a moment earlier!
+Anything would have been better than this.</p>
+
+<p>"Run up-stairs this moment, then, and change your habit and bathe your
+eyes," said Lady Hope-Acton, sharply. "You need not come down till
+dinner-time. I will say you are tired."</p>
+
+<p>And then, to the overwhelming relief of those two miserable spectators,
+the mother and daughter left the door.</p>
+
+<p>But to the momentary sensation of relief in Ruth's mind a rush of pity
+succeeded for the childlike grief and tears; and with and behind it,
+like one hurrying wave overtopping and bearing down its predecessor,
+came a burning indignation against the cause of that picturesque
+emotion.</p>
+
+<p>It is indeed a lamentable peculiarity of our fallen nature that the
+moment of relief from the smart of anxiety is seldom marked by so
+complete a mental calmness and moderation as could be wished.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth rose slowly, with the book still in her hand, and Charles got off
+his knees as best he could, and stood with one hand on the railing of
+the balcony, as if to steady himself. His usually pale face was crimson.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth closed the book in silence, and with a dreadful precision put it
+back in its accustomed place. Then she turned and faced him, with the
+western light full upon her stern face, and another light of contempt
+and indignation burning in her direct eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor little girl," she said, in a low distinct voice. "What a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> triumph
+to have succeeded in making her unhappy. She is very young, and she did
+not understand the rules of the game. Poor, foolish little girl!"</p>
+
+<p>If he had been red before, he was pale enough now. He drew himself up,
+and met her direct gaze without flinching. He did not speak, and she
+left him standing in the window, and went slowly along the balcony and
+down the little staircase into the room below.</p>
+
+<p>As she was about to leave the room he moved forward suddenly, and said,
+"Miss Deyncourt!"</p>
+
+<p>Involuntarily she stopped short, in obedience to the stern authority of
+the tone.</p>
+
+<p>"You are unjust."</p>
+
+<p>She did not answer and left the room.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>"Uncle John," said Ruth next morning, taking Mr. Alwynn aside after
+breakfast, "we are leaving by the early train, are we not?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, my love, it is quite impossible. I have several papers to identify
+and rearrange."</p>
+
+<p>"We have stayed a day longer than we intended as it is. Most of the
+others go early. Do let us go too."</p>
+
+<p>"It is most natural, I am sure, my dear, that you should wish to get
+home," said Mr. Alwynn, looking with sympathetic concern at his niece;
+"and why your aunt has not forwarded your letters I can't imagine. But
+still, if we return by the mid-day train, Ruth, you will have plenty of
+time to answer any letters that&mdash;ahem!&mdash;seem to require immediate
+attention, before the post goes; and I don't see my way to being ready
+earlier."</p>
+
+<p>Ruth had not even been thinking of Dare and his letters; but she saw
+that by the early train she was not destined to depart, and watched the
+other guests take leave with an envious sigh. She was anxious to be
+gone. The last evening, after the episode in the library, had been
+interminably long. Already the morning, though breakfast was hardly
+over, seemed to have dragged itself out to days in length. A sense of
+constraint between two people who under<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span>stand and amuse each other is
+very galling. Ruth had felt it so. All the previous evening Charles had
+hardly spoken to her, and had talked mainly to Lady Hope-Acton, who was
+somewhat depressed, and another elder lady. A good-night and a flat
+candlestick can be presented in a very distant manner, and as Ruth
+received hers from Charles that evening, and met the grave, steady
+glance that was directed at her, she perceived that he had not forgiven
+her for what she had said.</p>
+
+<p>She felt angry again at the idea that he should venture to treat her
+with a coldness which seemed to imply that she had been in the wrong.
+The worst of it was that she felt she was to blame; that she had no
+right whatever to criticise Charles and his actions. What concern were
+they of hers? How much more suitable, how much more eloquent a dignified
+silence would have been. She could not imagine now, as she thought it
+over, why she had been so unreasonably annoyed at the moment as to say
+what she had done. Yet the reason was not far to seek, if she had only
+known where to lay her hand on it. She was uneasy, impatient; she longed
+to get out of the house. And it was still early; only eleven. Eleven
+till twelve. Twelve till one. One till half-past. Two whole hours and a
+half to be got through before the Stoke Moreton omnibus would bear her
+away. She looked round for a refuge during that weary age, and found it
+nearer than many poor souls do in time of need, namely, at her elbow, in
+the shape, the welcome shape of the shy man&mdash;almost the only remnant of
+the large party whose dispersion she had just been watching. Whenever
+Ruth thought of that shy man afterwards, which was not often, it was
+with a sincere hope that he had forgotten the forwardness of her
+behavior on that particular morning. She wished to see the
+picture-gallery. She would of all things like a walk afterwards. No, she
+had not been as far as the beech-avenue; but she would like to go.
+Should they look at the pictures first&mdash;now&mdash;no time like the present?
+How pleased he was! How proud! He felt that his shyness had gone
+forever; that Miss Deyncourt would, no doubt, like to hear a few
+anecdotes of his college life; that a quiet man, who does not make
+himself cheap to start with, often wins in the end; that Miss Deyncourt
+had unusual appreciation, not only for pictures, but for reserved and
+intricate characters that yet (here he ventured on a little joke, and
+laughed at it himself) had their lighter side. And in the long
+picture-gallery Ruth and he studied the old masters, as they had seldom
+been studied before, with an intense and igno<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span>rant interest on the one
+hand, and an entire absence of mind on the other.</p>
+
+<p>Charles, who had done a good deal of pacing up and down his room the
+night before, and had arrived at certain conclusions, passed through the
+gallery once, but did not stop. He looked grave and preoccupied, and
+hardly answered a question of Mr. Conway's about one of the pictures.</p>
+
+<p>Half-past eleven at last. A tall inlaid clock in the gallery mentioned
+the hour by one sedate stroke; the church clock told the village the
+time of day a second later. They had nearly finished the pictures. Never
+mind. She could take half an hour to put on her hat, and surely any
+beech-avenue, even on a dull day like this might serve to while away the
+remaining hour before luncheon.</p>
+
+<p>They had come to the last picture of the Danvers collection, and Ruth
+was dwelling fondly on a very well-developed cow by Cuyp, as if she
+could hardly tear herself away from it, when she heard a step coming up
+the staircase from the hall, and presently Charles pushed open the
+carved folding-doors which shut off the gallery from the rest of the
+house, and looked in. She was conscious that he was standing in the
+door-way, but new beauties in the cow, which had hitherto escaped her,
+engaged her whole attention at the moment, and no one can attend to two
+things at once.</p>
+
+<p>Charles did not come any farther; but, standing in the door-way, he
+called to the shy man who went to him, and the two talked together for a
+few moments. Ruth gazed upon the cow until it became so fixed upon the
+retina of her eye that, when she tried to admire an old Florentine
+cabinet near it, she still saw its portrait; and when, in desperation,
+she turned away to look out of the window across the sky and sloping
+park, the shadow of the cow hung like a portent.</p>
+
+<p>A moment later Mr. Conway came hurrying back to her much perturbed, to
+say he had quite forgotten till this moment, had not in the least
+understood, in fact, etc. Danvers' gray cob, that he had thoughts of
+buying, was waiting at the door for him to try&mdash;in fact, had been
+waiting some time. No idea, upon his soul&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Ruth cut his apology short before he had done more than flounder well
+into it.</p>
+
+<p>"You must go and try it at once," she said with decision; and then she
+added, as Charles drew near: "I have changed my mind about going out. It
+looks as if it might turn to rain. I shall get through some arrears of
+letter-writing instead."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Mr. Conway stammered, and repeated himself, and finally rushed out of
+the gallery. Ruth expected that Charles would accompany him, but he
+remained standing near the window, apparently engaged like herself in
+admiring the view.</p>
+
+<p>"It struck me," he said, slowly, with his eyes half shut, "that Conway
+proved rather a broken reed just now."</p>
+
+<p>"He did," said Ruth. She suddenly felt that she could understand what it
+was in Charles that exasperated Lady Mary so much.</p>
+
+<p>He came a step nearer, and his manner altered.</p>
+
+<p>"I sent him away," he said, looking gravely at her, "because I wished to
+speak to you."</p>
+
+<p>Ruth did not answer or turn her head, though she felt he was watching
+her. Her eyes absently followed two young fallow-deer in the park,
+cantering away in a series of hops on their long stiff legs.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot speak to you here," said Charles, after a pause.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth turned round.</p>
+
+<p>"Silence is golden sometimes. I think quite enough has been said
+already."</p>
+
+<p>"Not by me. You expressed yourself with considerable frankness. I wish
+to follow your example."</p>
+
+<p>"You said I was unjust at the time. Surely that was sufficient."</p>
+
+<p>"So insufficient that I am going to repeat it. I tell you again that you
+are unjust in not being willing to hear what I have to say. I have seen
+a good deal of harm done by misunderstandings, Miss Deyncourt. Pride is
+generally at the bottom of them. We are both suffering from a slight
+attack of that malady now; but I value your good opinion too much to
+hesitate, if, by any little sacrifice of my own pride, I can still
+retain it. If, after your remarks yesterday, I can make the effort (and
+it <i>is</i> an effort) to ask you to hear something I wish to say, you, on
+your side, ought not to refuse to listen. It is not a question of
+liking; you <i>ought</i> not to refuse."</p>
+
+<p>He spoke in an authoritative tone, which gave weight to his words, and
+in spite of herself she saw the truth of what he said. She was one of
+those rare women who, being convinced against their will, are <i>not</i> of
+the same opinion still. It was ignominious to have to give way; but,
+after a moment's struggle with herself, she surmounted her dislike to
+being overruled, together with a certain unreasoning tenacity of opinion
+natural to her sex, and said, quietly:</p>
+
+<p>"What do you wish me to do?"</p>
+
+<p>Charles saw the momentary struggle, and honored her for a quality which
+women seldom give men occasion to honor them for.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Do you dislike walking?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, if you will come out-of-doors, where there is less likelihood of
+interruption than in the house, I will wait for you here."</p>
+
+<p>She went silently down the picture-gallery, half astonished to find
+herself doing his bidding. She put on her walking things mechanically,
+and came back in a few minutes to find him standing where she had left
+him. In silence they went down-stairs, and through the piazza with its
+flowering orange-trees, out into the gardens, where, on the stone
+balustrade, the peacocks were attitudinizing and conversing in the high
+key in which they always proclaim a change of weather and their innate
+vulgarity to the world. Charles led the way towards a little rushing
+brook which divided the gardens from the park.</p>
+
+<p>"I think you must have had a very low opinion of me beforehand to say
+what you did yesterday," he remarked, suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>"I was angry," said Ruth. "However true what I said may have been, I had
+no right to say it to&mdash;a comparative stranger. That is why I repeat that
+it would be better not to make matters worse by mentioning the subject
+again. It is sure to annoy us both. Let it rest."</p>
+
+<p>"Not yet," said Charles, dryly. "As a comparative stranger, I want to
+know,"&mdash;stopping and facing her&mdash;"exactly what you mean by saying that
+she, Lady Grace, did not understand the rules of the game."</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot put it in other words," said Ruth, her courage rising as she
+felt that a battle was imminent.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps I can for you. Perhaps you meant to say that you believed I was
+in the habit of amusing myself at other people's expense; that&mdash;I see
+your difficulty in finding the right words&mdash;that it was my evil sport
+and pastime to&mdash;shall we say&mdash;raise expectations which it was not my
+intention to fulfil?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is disagreeably put," said Ruth, reddening a little; "but possibly I
+did mean something of that kind."</p>
+
+<p>"And how have you arrived at such an uncharitable opinion of a
+comparative stranger?" asked Charles, quietly enough, but his light eyes
+flashing.</p>
+
+<p>She did not answer.</p>
+
+<p>"You are not a child, to echo the opinion of others," he went on. "You
+look as if you judged for yourself. What have I done since I met you
+first, three months ago, to justify you in holding me in contempt?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I did not say I held you in contempt."</p>
+
+<p>"You must, though, if you think me capable of such meanness."</p>
+
+<p>Silence again.</p>
+
+<p>"You have pushed me into saying more than I meant," said Ruth at last;
+"at least you have said I mean a great deal more than I really do. To be
+honest, I think you have thoughtlessly given a good deal of pain. I dare
+say you did it unconsciously."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you. You are very charitable, but I cannot shield myself under
+the supposition that at eight-and-thirty I am a creature of impulse,
+unconscious of the meaning of my own actions."</p>
+
+<p>"If that is the case," thought Ruth, "your behavior to me has been
+inexcusable, especially the last few days; though, fortunately for
+myself, I was not deceived by it."</p>
+
+<p>"If you persist in keeping silence," said Charles, after waiting for her
+to speak, "any possibility of conversation is at an end."</p>
+
+<p>"I did not come out here for conversation," replied Ruth. "I came, not
+by my own wish, to hear something you said you particularly desired to
+say. Do you not think the simplest thing, under the circumstances, would
+be&mdash;to say it?"</p>
+
+<p>He gave a short laugh, and looked at her in sheer desperation. Did she
+know what she was pushing him into?</p>
+
+<p>"I had forgotten," he said. "It was in my mind all the time; but now you
+have made it easy for me indeed by coming to my assistance in this way.
+I will make a fresh start."</p>
+
+<p>He compressed his lips, and seemed to pull himself together. Then he
+said, in a very level voice:</p>
+
+<p>"Kindly give me your whole attention, Miss Deyncourt, so that I shall
+not be obliged to repeat anything. The deer are charming, I know; but
+you have seen deer before, and will no doubt again. I am sorry that I am
+obliged to speak to you about myself, but a little autobiography is
+unavoidable. Perhaps you know that about three years ago I succeeded my
+father. From being penniless, and head over ears in debt, I became
+suddenly a rich man&mdash;not by my father's will, who entailed every acre of
+the estates here and elsewhere on Ralph, and left everything he could to
+him. I had thought of telling you what my best friends have never known,
+why I am not still crippled by debt. I had thought of telling you why,
+at five-and-thirty, I was still unmarried, for my debts were not the
+reason; but I will not trouble you with that now. It is enough to say
+that I found myself in a position which, had I been a little younger,
+with rather a different past, I should have enjoyed more than I did. I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span>
+was well received in English society when, after a lapse of several
+years and a change of fortune, I returned to it. If I had thought I was
+well received for myself, I should have been a fool. But I came back
+disillusioned. I saw the machinery. When you reflect on the vast and
+intricate machinery employed by mothers with grown-up daughters, you may
+imagine what I saw. In all honesty and sincerity I wished to marry; but
+in the ease with which I saw I could do so lay my chief difficulty. I
+did not want a new toy, but a companion. I suppose I still clung to one
+last illusion, that I might meet a woman whom I could love, and who
+would love me, and not my name or income. I could not find her, but I
+still believed in her. I went everywhere in the hope of meeting her,
+and, if others have ever been disappointed in me, they have never known
+how disappointed I have been in them. For three years I looked for her
+everywhere, but I could not find her, and at last I gave her up. And
+then I met Lady Grace Lawrence, and liked her. I had reason to believe
+she could be disinterested. She came of good people&mdash;all Lawrences are
+good; she was simple and unspoiled, and she seemed to like me. When I
+look back I believe that I had decided to ask her to marry me, and that
+it was only by the merest chance that I left London without speaking to
+her. What prevented me I hardly know, unless it was a reluctance at the
+last moment to cast the die. I came down to Atherstone, harassed and
+anxious, tired of everything and everybody, and there," said Charles,
+with sudden passion, turning and looking full at Ruth, "there I met
+<i>you</i>."</p>
+
+<p>The blood rushed to her face, and she hastily interposed, "I don't see
+any necessity to bring my name in."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps not," he returned, recovering himself instantly;
+"unfortunately, I do."</p>
+
+<p>"You expect too much of my vanity," said Ruth, her voice trembling a
+little; "but in this instance I don't think you can turn it to account.
+I beg you will leave me out of the question."</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry I cannot oblige you," he said, grimly; "but you can't be
+left out. I only regret that you dislike being mentioned, because that
+is a mere nothing to what is coming."</p>
+
+<p>She trusted that he did not perceive that the reason she made no reply
+was because she suddenly felt herself unable to articulate. Her heart
+was beating wildly, as that gentle, well conducted organ had never
+beaten before. What was coming? Could this stern, determined man be the
+same apathetic, sarcastic being whom she had hitherto known?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"From that time," he continued, "I became surer and surer of what at
+first I hardly dared to hope, what it seemed presumption in me to hope,
+namely, that at last I had found what I had looked for in vain so long.
+I had to keep my engagement with the Hope-Actons in Scotland; but I
+regretted it. I stayed as short a time as I could. I did not ask them to
+come here. They offered themselves. I think, if I have been to blame, it
+has not been in so heartless a manner as you supposed; and it appears to
+me Lady Hope-Acton should not have come. This is my explanation. You can
+add the rest for yourself. Have I said enough to soften your harsh
+judgment of yesterday?"</p>
+
+<p>Ruth could not speak. The trees were behaving in the most curious
+manner, were whirling round, were swaying up and down. The beeches close
+in front were dancing quadrilles; now ranged in two long rows, now
+setting to partners, now hurrying back to their places as she drew near.</p>
+
+<p>"Sit down," said Charles's voice, gently; "you look tired."</p>
+
+<p>The trunk of a fallen tree suddenly appeared rising up to meet her out
+of a slight mist, and she sat down on it more precipitately than she
+could have wished. In a few seconds the trees returned to their places,
+and the mist, which appeared to be very local, cleared away.</p>
+
+<p>Charles was sitting on the trunk beside her, looking at her intently.
+The anger had gone out of his face, and had given place to a look of
+deep anxiety and suspense.</p>
+
+<p>"I have not finished yet," he said, and his voice had changed as much as
+his face. "There is still something more."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no!" said Ruth. "At least, if there is, don't say it."</p>
+
+<p>"I think I would rather say it. You wish to save me pain, I see; but I
+am quite prepared for what you are going to say. I did not intend to
+speak to you on the subject for a long time to come, but yesterday's
+event has forced my hand. There must be no more misunderstandings
+between us. You intend to refuse me, I can see. All the same, I wish to
+tell you that I love you, and to ask you to be my wife."</p>
+
+<p>"I am afraid I cannot," said Ruth, almost inaudibly.</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Charles, looking straight before him, "I have asked you too
+soon. You are quite right. I did not expect anything different; I only
+wished you to know. But, perhaps, some day&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't!" said Ruth, clasping her hands tightly together. "You don't know
+what you are saying. Nothing can make any difference, because&mdash;I am
+engaged."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>She dared not look at his face, but she saw his hand clinch.</p>
+
+<p>For an age neither spoke.</p>
+
+<p>Then he turned his head slowly and looked at her. His face was gray even
+to the lips. With a strange swift pang at the heart, she saw how her few
+words had changed it.</p>
+
+<p>"To whom?" he said at last, hardly above a whisper.</p>
+
+<p>"To Mr. Dare."</p>
+
+<p>"Not that man who has come to live at Vandon?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>Another long silence.</p>
+
+<p>"When was it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ten days ago."</p>
+
+<p>"Ten days ago," repeated Charles, mechanically, and his face worked.
+"Ten days ago!"</p>
+
+<p>"It is not given out yet," said Ruth, hesitating, "because Mr. Alwynn
+does not wish it during Lord Polesworth's absence. I never thought of
+any mistake being caused by not mentioning it. I would not have come
+here if I had had the least idea that&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You cannot mean to say that you had never seen that I&mdash;what I&mdash;felt for
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed I never thought of such a thing until two minutes before you
+said it. I am very sorry I did not, but I imagined&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Let me hear what you imagined."</p>
+
+<p>"I noticed you talked to me a good deal; but I thought you did exactly
+the same to Lady Grace, and others."</p>
+
+<p>"You could not imagine that I talked to others&mdash;to any other woman in
+the world&mdash;as I did to you."</p>
+
+<p>"I supposed," said Ruth, simply, "that you talked gayly to Lady Grace
+because it suited her; and more gravely to me, because I am naturally
+grave. I thought at the time you were rather clever in adapting yourself
+to different people so easily; and I was glad that I understood your
+manner better than some of the others."</p>
+
+<p>"Better!" said Charles, bitterly. "Better, when you thought that of me!
+No, you need not say anything. I was in fault, not you. I don't know
+what right I had to imagine you understood me&mdash;you seemed to understand
+me&mdash;to fancy that we had anything in common, that in time&mdash;" He broke
+into a low wretched laugh. "And all the while you were engaged to
+another man! Good God, what a farce! what a miserable mistake from first
+to last!"</p>
+
+<p>Ruth said nothing. It was indeed a miserable mistake.</p>
+
+<p>He rose wearily to his feet.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I was forgetting," he said; "it is time to go home." And they went back
+together in silence, which was more bearable than speech just then.</p>
+
+<p>The peacocks were still pirouetting and minuetting on the stone
+balustrade as they came back to the garden. The gong began to sound as
+they entered the piazza.</p>
+
+<p>To Ruth it was a dreadful meal. She tried to listen to Mr. Conway's
+account of the gray cob, or to the placid conversation of Mr. Alwynn
+about the beloved manuscripts. Fortunately the morning papers were full
+of a recent forgery in America, and a murder in London, which furnished
+topics when these were exhausted, and Charles used them to the utmost.</p>
+
+<p>At last the carriage came. Mr. Alwynn and Mr. Conway simultaneously
+broke into incoherent ejaculations respecting the pleasure of their
+visit; Ruth's hand met Charles's for an embarrassed second; and a moment
+later they were whirling down the straight wide approach, between the
+columns of fantastically clipped hollies, leaving Charles standing in
+the door-way. He was still standing there when the carriage rolled under
+the arched gate-way with its rampant stone lions. Ruth glanced back
+once, as they turned into the road, at the stately old house, with its
+pointed gables and forests of chimneys cutting the gray sky-line. She
+saw the owner turn slowly and go up the steps, and looked hastily away
+again.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor Danvers!" said Mr. Alwynn, cheerfully, also looking, and putting
+Ruth's thoughts into words. "He must be desperately lonely in that house
+all by himself; but I suppose he is not often there."</p>
+
+<p>And Mr. Alwynn, whose mind had been entirely relieved since Ruth's
+engagement from the dark suspicion he had once harbored respecting
+Charles, proceeded to dilate upon the merits of the charters, and of the
+owner of the charters, until he began to think Ruth had a headache, and
+finding it to be the case, talked no more till they reached, at the end
+of their little journey, the door of Slumberleigh Rectory.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it very bad?" he asked, kindly, as he helped her out of the
+carriage.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth assented, fortunately with some faint vestige of truth, for her hat
+hurt her forehead.</p>
+
+<p>"Then run up straight to your own room, and I will tell your aunt that
+you will come and have a chat with her later on, perhaps after tea, when
+the post will be gone." Mr. Alwynn spoke in the whisper of stratagem.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Ruth was only too thankful to be allowed to slip on tiptoe to her own
+room, but she had not been there many minutes when a tap came to the
+door.</p>
+
+<p>"There, my dear," said Mr. Alwynn, putting his head in, and holding some
+letters towards her. "Your aunt ought to have forwarded them. I brought
+them up at once. And there is nearly an hour to post-time, and she won't
+expect you to come down till then. I think the headache will be better
+now, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>He nodded kindly to her, and closed the door again. Ruth sat down
+mechanically, and began to sort the packet he had put into her hands.
+The first three letters were in the same handwriting, Dare's large vague
+handwriting, that ran from one end of the envelope to the other, and
+partly hid itself under the stamp.</p>
+
+<p>She looked at them, but did not open them. A feeling of intense
+lassitude and fatigue had succeeded to the unconscious excitement of the
+morning. She could not read them now. They must wait with the others.
+Presently she could feel an interest in them; not now.</p>
+
+<p>She leaned her head upon her hand, and a rush of pity swept away every
+other feeling as she recalled that last look at Stoke Moreton, and how
+Charles had turned so slowly and wearily to go in-doors. There was an
+ache at her heart as she thought of him, a sense of regret and loss. And
+he had loved her all the time!</p>
+
+<p>"If I had only known!" she said to herself, pressing her hands against
+her forehead. "But how could I tell&mdash;how could I tell?"</p>
+
+<p>She raised her head with a sudden movement, and began with nervous
+fingers to open Dare's letters, and read them carefully.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX.</h2>
+
+
+<p>In the long evening that followed Ruth's departure from Stoke Moreton,
+Charles was alone for once in his own home. He was leaving again early
+on the morrow, but for the time he was alone, and heavy at heart. He sat
+for hours without stirring, looking into the fire. He had no power or
+will to control his thoughts. They wandered hither and thither, and up
+and down, never for a moment easing the dull miserable pain that lay
+beneath them all.</p>
+
+<p>Fool! fool that he had been!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>To have found her after all these years, and to have lost her without a
+stroke! To have let another take her, and such a man as Dare! To have
+such a fool's manner that he was thought to be in earnest when he was
+least so; that now, when his whole future hung in the balance,
+retribution had overtaken him, and with bitter irony had mocked at his
+earnestness and made it of none effect. She had thought it was his
+natural manner to all! His cursed folly had lost her to him. If she had
+known, surely it would have been, it must have been different. At heart
+Charles was a very humble man, though it was not to be expected many
+would think so; but nevertheless he had a deep, ever-deepening
+consciousness (common to the experience of the humblest once in a
+lifetime) that between him and Ruth that mysterious link of mutual
+understanding and sympathy existed which cannot be accounted for, which
+eludes analysis, which yet makes, when the sex happens to be identical,
+the indissoluble friendship of a David and a Jonathan, a Karlos and a
+Posa; and, where there is a difference of sex, brings about that rarest
+wonder of the world, a happy marriage.</p>
+
+<p>Like cleaves to like. He knew she would have loved him. She was his by
+right. The same law of attraction which had lifted them at once out of
+the dreary flats of ordinary acquaintanceship would have drawn them ever
+closer and closer together till they were knit in one. He knew, with a
+certainty that nothing could shake, that he could have made her love
+him, even as he loved her; unconsciously at first, slowly perhaps&mdash;for
+the current of strong natures, like that of deep rivers, is sometimes
+slow. Still the end would have been the same.</p>
+
+<p>And he had lost her by his own act, by his own heedless folly; her want
+of vanity having lent a hand the while to put her beyond his reach
+forever.</p>
+
+<p>It was a bitter hour.</p>
+
+<p>And as he sat late into the night beside the fire, that died down to
+dust and ashes before his absent eyes, ghosts of other heavy hours,
+ghosts of the past, which he had long since buried out of his sight,
+came back and would not be denied.</p>
+
+<p>To live much in the past, is a want of faith in the Power that gives the
+present. Comparatively few men walk through their lives looking
+backward. Women more frequently do so from a false estimate of life
+fostered by romantic feeling in youth, which leads them, if the life of
+the affections is ended, resolutely to refuse to regard existence in any
+other maturer aspect, and to persist in wan<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span>dering aimlessly forward,
+with eyes turned ever on the dim flowery paths of former days.</p>
+
+<p>"Let the dead past bury its dead."</p>
+
+<p>But there comes a time, when the grass has grown over those graves, when
+we may do well to go and look at them once more; to stand once again in
+that solitary burial-ground, "where," as an earnest man has said, "are
+buried broken vows, worn-out hopes, joys blind and deaf, faiths betrayed
+or gone astray&mdash;lost, lost love; silent spaces where only one mourner
+ever comes."</p>
+
+<p>And to the last retrospective of us our dead past yet speaks at times,
+and speaks as one having authority.</p>
+
+<p>Such a time had come for Charles now. From the open grave of his love
+for Ruth he turned to look at others by which he had stood long ago, in
+grief as sharp, but which yet in all its bitterness had never struck as
+deep as this.</p>
+
+<p>Memory pointed back to a time twenty years ago, when he had hurried home
+through a long summer night to arrive at Stoke Moreton too late; to find
+only the solemn shadow of the mother whom he had loved, and whom he had
+grieved; too late to ask for forgiveness; too late for anything but a
+wild passion of grief and remorse, and frantic self-accusation.</p>
+
+<p>The scene shifted to ten years later. It was a sultry July evening of
+the day on which the woman whom he had loved for years had married his
+brother. He was standing on the deck of the steamer which was taking him
+from England, looking back at the gray town dwindling against the tawny
+curtain of the sunset. In his brain was a wild clamor of wedding-bells,
+and across the water, marking the pulse of the sea, came to his outward
+ears the slow tolling of a bell on a sunken rock near the harbor mouth.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed to be tolling for the death of all that remained of good in
+him. In losing Evelyn, whom he had loved with all the idealism and
+reverence of a reckless man for a good woman, he believed, in the
+bitterness of his spirit, that he had lost all; that he had been cut
+adrift from the last mooring to a better future, that nothing could hold
+him back now. And for a time it had been so, and he had drowned his
+trouble in a sea in which he wellnigh drowned himself as well.</p>
+
+<p>Once more memory pointed&mdash;pointed across five dark years to an evening
+when he had sat as he was sitting now, alone by the wide stone hearth in
+the hall at Stoke Moreton, after his father's death, and after the
+reading of the will. He was the possessor of the old<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> home, which he had
+always passionately loved, from which he had been virtually banished so
+long. His father, who had never liked him, but who of late years had
+hated him as men only hate their eldest sons, had left all in his power
+to his second son, had entailed every acre of the Stoke Moreton and
+other family properties upon him and his children. Charles could touch
+nothing, and over him hung a millstone of debt, from which there was now
+no escape. He sat with his head in his hands&mdash;the man whom his friends
+were envying on his accession to supposed wealth and position&mdash;ruined.</p>
+
+<p>A few days later he was summoned to London by a friend whom he had known
+for many years. He remembered well that last meeting with the stern old
+man whom he had found sitting in his arm-chair with death in his face.
+He had once or twice remonstrated with Charles in earlier days, and as
+he came into his presence now for the last time, and met his severe
+glance, he supposed, with the callousness that comes from suffering
+which has reached its lowest depths, that he was about to rebuke him
+again.</p>
+
+<p>"And so," said General Marston, sternly, "you have come into your
+kingdom; into what you deserve."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Charles. "If it is any pleasure to you to know that what you
+prophesied on several occasions has come true, you can enjoy it. I am
+ruined!"</p>
+
+<p>"You fool!" said the sick man slowly. "To have come to five-and-thirty,
+and to have used up everything which makes life worth having. I am not
+speaking only of money. There is a bankruptcy in your face that money
+will never pay. And you had talent and a good heart and the making of a
+man in you once. I saw that when your father turned you adrift. I saw
+that when you were at your worst after your brother's marriage. Yes, you
+need not start. I knew your secret and kept it as well as you did
+yourself. I tried to stop you; but you went your own way."</p>
+
+<p>Charles was silent. It was true, and he knew it.</p>
+
+<p>"And so you thought, I suppose, that if your father had made a just will
+you could have retrieved yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know I could," said Charles, firmly; "but he left the &mdash;&mdash;shire
+property to Ralph, and every shilling of his capital; and Ralph had my
+mother's fortune already. I have Stoke Moreton and the place in Surrey,
+which he could not take from me, but everything is entailed, down to the
+trees in the park. I have nominally a large income; but I am in the
+hands of the Jews. I can't settle with them as I expected, and they will
+squeeze me to the uttermost. However,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> as you say, I have the
+consolation of knowing I brought it on myself."</p>
+
+<p>"And if your father acted justly, as you would call it, which I knew he
+never would, you would have run through everything in five years' time."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I should not. I know I have been a fool; but there are two kinds of
+fools&mdash;the kind that sticks to folly all its life, and the kind that has
+its fling, and has done with it. I belong to the second kind. My father
+had no right to take my last chance from me. If he had left it me, I
+should have used it."</p>
+
+<p>"You look tired of your fling," said the elder man. "Very tired. And you
+think money would set you right, do you?" He looked critically at the
+worn, desperate face opposite him. "I made my will the other day," he
+went on, his eyes still fixed on Charles. "I had not much to leave, and
+I have no near relations, so I divided it among various charitable
+institutions. I see no reason to alter my will. If one leaves money,
+however small the sum may be, one likes to think it has been left to
+some purpose, with some prospect of doing good. A few days ago I had a
+surprise. I fancy it was to be my last surprise in this world. I
+inherited from a distant relation, who died intestate, a large fortune.
+After being a poor man all my days, wealth comes to me when I am on the
+point of going where money won't follow. Curious, isn't it? I am going
+to leave this second sum in the same spirit as the first, but in rather
+a different manner. I like to know what I am doing, so I sent for you. I
+am of opinion that the best thing I can do with it, is to set you on
+your legs again. What do you owe?"</p>
+
+<p>Charles turned very red, and then very white.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you owe?" repeated the sick man, testily. "I am getting tired.
+How much is it?" He got out a check-book, and began filling it in. "Have
+you no tongue?" he said, angrily, looking up. "Tell me the exact figure.
+Well? Keep nothing back."</p>
+
+<p>"I won't be given the whole," said Charles, with an oath. "Give me
+enough to settle the Jews, and I will do the rest out of my income. I
+won't get off scot free."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, have your own way, as usual, and name the sum you want.
+There, take it," he said, feebly, when Charles had mentioned with shame
+a certain hideous figure, "and go. I shall never know what you do with
+it, so you can play ducks and drakes with it if you like. But you won't
+like. You have burned your fingers too severely to play with fire again.
+You have turned over so many new leaves<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> that now you have come to the
+last in the book. I have given you another chance, Charles; but one man
+can't do much to help another. The only person who can really help you
+is yourself. Give yourself a chance, too."</p>
+
+<p>How memory brought back every word of that strange interview. Charles
+saw again the face of the dying man; heard again the stern, feeble
+voice, "Give yourself a chance."</p>
+
+<p>He had given himself a chance. "Some natures, like comets, make strange
+orbits, and return from far." Charles had returned at last. The old
+man's investment had been a wise one. But, as Charles looked back, after
+three years, he saw that his friend had been right. His money debts had
+been the least part of what he owed. There were other long-standing
+accounts which he had paid in full during these three years, paid in the
+restless weariness and disappointment that underlay his life, in the
+loneliness in which he lived, in his contempt for all his former
+pursuits, which had left him at first devoid of any pursuits at all.</p>
+
+<p>He had had, as was natural, very little happiness in his life, but all
+the bitterness of all his bitter past seemed as nothing to the agony of
+this moment. He had loved Evelyn with his imagination, but he loved Ruth
+with his whole heart and soul, and&mdash;he had lost her.</p>
+
+<p>The night was far advanced. The dawn was already making faint bars over
+the tops of the shutters, was looking in at him as he sat motionless by
+his dim lamp and his dead fire. And, in spite of the growing dawn, it
+was a dark hour.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Dare returned to Vandon in the highest spirits, with an enormous emerald
+engagement-ring in an inner waistcoat-pocket. He put it on Ruth's third
+finger a few days later, under the ancient cedar on the terrace at
+Vandon, a spot which, he informed her (for he was not without poetic
+flights at times), his inner consciousness associated with all the love
+scenes of his ancestors that were no more.</p>
+
+<p>He was stricken to the heart when, after duly admiring it, Ruth gently
+explained to him that she could not wear his ring at present, until her
+engagement was given out.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Let it then be given out," he said, impetuously. "Ah! why already is it
+not given out?"</p>
+
+<p>She explained again, but it was difficult to make him understand, and
+she felt conscious that if he would have allowed her the temporary use
+of one hand to release a fly, which was losing all self-control inside
+her veil, she might have been more lucid. As it was, she at last made
+him realize the fact that, until Lord Polesworth's return from America
+in November, no further step was to be taken.</p>
+
+<p>"But all is right," he urged with pride. "I have seen my lawyer; I make
+a settlement. I raise money on the property to make a settlement. There
+is nothing I will not do. I care for nothing only to marry you."</p>
+
+<p>Ruth led him to talk of other things. She was very gentle with him,
+always attentive, always ready to be interested; but any one less
+self-centred than Dare would have had a misgiving about her feeling for
+him. He had none. Half his life he had spent in Paris, and, imbued with
+French ideas of betrothal and marriage, he thought her manner at once
+exceedingly becoming and natural. She was reserved, but reserve was
+charming. She did not care for him very much perhaps, as yet, but as
+much as she could care for any one. Most men think that if a woman does
+not attach herself to them she is by nature cold. Dare was no exception
+to the rule; and though he would have preferred that there should be
+less constraint in their present intercourse, that she would be a little
+more shy, and a little less calm, still he was supremely happy and
+proud, and only longed to proclaim the fortunate state of his affairs to
+the world.</p>
+
+<p>One thing about Ruth puzzled him very much, and with a vague misgiving
+she saw it did so. Her interest in the Vandon cottages, and the schools,
+and the new pump, had been most natural up to this time. It had served
+to bring them together; but now the use of these things was past, and
+yet he observed, with incredulity at first and astonishment afterwards,
+that she clung to them more than ever.</p>
+
+<p>What mattered it for the moment whether the pump was put up or not, or
+whether the cottages by the river were protected from the floods? Of
+course in time, for he had promised, a vague something would be done;
+but why in the golden season of love and plighted faith revert to
+prosaic subjects such as these?</p>
+
+<p>Some men are quite unable to believe in any act of a woman being
+genuine. They always find out that it has something to do with them. If
+an angel came down from heaven to warn a man of this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> kind of wrath to
+come, he would think the real object of her journey was to make his
+acquaintance.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth saw the incredulity in Dare's face when she questioned him, and her
+heart sank within her. It sank yet lower when she told him one day, with
+a faint smile, that she knew he was not rich, and that she wanted him to
+let her help in the rebuilding of certain cottages, the plans of which
+he had brought over in the summer, but which had not yet been begun,
+apparently for the want of funds.</p>
+
+<p>"What you cannot do alone we can do together," she said.</p>
+
+<p>He agreed with effusion. He was surprised, flattered, delighted, but
+entirely puzzled.</p>
+
+<p>The cottages were begun immediately. They were near the river, which
+divided the Slumberleigh and Vandon properties. Ruth often went to look
+at them. It did her good to see them rising, strong and firm, though
+hideous to behold, on higher ground than the poor dilapidated hovels at
+the water's edge, where fever was always breaking out, which yet made,
+as they supported each other in their crookedness, and leaned over their
+own wavering reflections, such a picturesque sketch that it seemed a
+shame to supplant them by such brand new red brick, such blue tiling,
+such dreadful little porches.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth drew the old condemned cottages, with the long lines of pollarded
+marshy meadow, and distant bridge and mill in the background, but it was
+a sketch she never cared to look at afterwards. She was constantly
+drawing now. There was a vague restlessness in her at this time that
+made her take refuge in the world of nature, where the mind can withdraw
+itself from itself for a time into a stronghold where misgiving and
+anxiety cannot corrupt, nor self break through and steal. In these days
+she shut out self steadfastly, and fixed her eyes firmly on the future,
+as she herself had made it with her own hands.</p>
+
+<p>She had grown very grave of late. Dare's high spirits had the effect of
+depressing her more than she would allow, even to herself. She liked
+him. She told herself so every day, and it was a pleasure to her to see
+him so happy. But when she had accepted him he was so diffident, so
+quiet, so anxious, that she had not realized that he would return to his
+previous happy self-confidence, his volubility, his gray hats&mdash;in fact,
+his former gay self&mdash;directly his mind was at ease and he had got what
+he wanted. She saw at once that the change was natural, but she found it
+difficult to keep pace with, and the effort to do so was a constant
+strain.</p>
+
+<p>She had yet to learn that it is hard to live for those who live for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span>
+self. Between a nature which struggles, however feebly, towards a higher
+life, and one whose sole object is gracefully and good-naturedly, but
+persistently to enjoy itself, there is a great gulf fixed, of which
+often neither are aware, until they attempt a close relationship with
+each other, when the chasm reveals itself with appalling clearness to
+the higher nature of the two.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth was glad when a long-standing engagement to sing at a private
+concert in one place, and sell modern knick-knacks in old English
+costume at another, took her from Slumberleigh for a week. She looked
+forward to the dreary dissipation in store for her with positive
+gladness; and when the week had passed, and she was returning once more,
+she wished the stations would not fly so quickly past, that the train
+would not hurry itself so unnecessarily to bring her back to
+Slumberleigh.</p>
+
+<p>As the little local line passed Stoke Moreton station she looked out for
+a moment, but leaned back hurriedly as she caught a glimpse of the
+Danvers omnibus in the background, with its great black horses, and a
+footman with a bag standing on the platform. In another moment Mrs.
+Alwynn, followed by the footman, made a dart at Ruth's carriage, jumped
+in, seized the bag, repeated voluble thanks, pressed half her gayly
+dressed person out again through the window to ascertain that her boxes
+were put in the van, caught her veil in the ventilator as the train
+started, and finally precipitated herself into a seat on her bag, as the
+motion destroyed her equilibrium.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Aunt Fanny!" said Ruth.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, goodness gracious, my dear, if it isn't you! And, now I think of
+it, you were to come home to-day. Well, how oddly things fall out, to be
+sure, me getting into your carriage like that. And you'll never guess,
+Ruth, though for that matter there's nothing so very astonishing about
+it, as I told Mrs. Thursby, you'll never guess where <i>I've</i> been
+visiting."</p>
+
+<p>Ruth remembered seeing the Danvers omnibus at the station, and suddenly
+remembered, too, a certain request which she had once made of Charles.</p>
+
+<p>"Where can it have been?" she said, with a great show of curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>"You will never guess," said Mrs. Alwynn, in high glee. "I shall have to
+help you. You remember my sprained ankle? There! Now I have as good as
+told you."</p>
+
+<p>But Ruth would not spoil her aunt's pleasure; and after numerous
+guesses, Mrs. Alwynn had the delight of taking her completely<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> by
+surprise, when at last she leaned forward and said, with a rustle of
+pride, emphasizing each word with a pat on Ruth's knee:</p>
+
+<p>"I've been to Stoke Moreton."</p>
+
+<p>"How delightful!" ejaculated Ruth. "How astonished I am! Stoke Moreton!"</p>
+
+<p>"You may well say that," said Mrs. Alwynn, nodding to her. "Mrs. Thursby
+would not believe it at first, and afterwards she said she was afraid
+there would not be any party; but there was, Ruth. There was a married
+couple, very nice people, of the name of Reynolds. I dare say, being
+London people, you may have known them. She had quite the London look
+about her, though not dressed low of an evening; and he was a clergyman,
+who had overworked himself, and had come down to Stoke Moreton to rest,
+and had soup at luncheon. And there was another person besides, a
+Colonel Middleton, a very clever man, who wrote a book that was printed,
+and had been in India, and was altogether most superior. We were three
+gentlemen and two ladies, but we had ices each night, Ruth, two kinds of
+ices; and the second night I wore my ruby satin, and the clergyman at
+Stoke Moreton, that nice young Mr. Brown, who comes to your uncle's
+chapter meetings, dined, with his sister, a very pleasing person indeed,
+Ruth, in black. In fact, it was a very pleasant little gathering, so
+nice and informal, and the footman did not wait at luncheon, just put
+the pudding and the hot plates down to the fire; and Sir Charles so
+chatty and so full of his jokes, and I always liked to hear him, though
+my scent of humor is not quite the same as his. Sir Charles has a
+feeling heart, Ruth. You should have heard Mr. Reynolds talk about him.
+But he looked very thin and pale, my dear, and he seemed to be always so
+tired, but still as pleasant as could be. And I told him he wanted a
+wife to look after him, and I advised him to have an egg beaten up in
+ever such a little drop of brandy at eleven o'clock, and he said he
+would think about it, he did indeed, Ruth; so I just went quietly to the
+house-keeper and asked her to see to it, and a very sensible person she
+was, Ruth, been in the family twenty years, and thinks all the world of
+Sir Charles, and showed me the damask table-cloths that were used for
+the prince's visit, and the white satin coverlet, embroidered with gold
+thistles, quite an heirloom, which had been worked by the ladies of the
+house when James I. slept there. Think of that, my dear!"</p>
+
+<p>And so Mrs. Alwynn rambled on, recounting how Charles had shown her all
+the pictures himself, and the piazza where the orange and myrtle trees
+were, and how she and Mrs. Reynolds had gone<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> for a drive together, "in
+a beautiful landau," etc., till they reached home.</p>
+
+<p>As a rule Ruth rather shrank from travelling with Mrs. Alwynn, who
+always journeyed in her best clothes, "because you never know whom you
+may not meet." To stand on a platform with her was to be made
+conspicuous, and Ruth generally found herself unconsciously going into
+half mourning for the day, when she went anywhere by rail with her aunt.
+To-day Mrs. Alwynn was more gayly dressed than ever, but as Ruth looked
+at her beaming face she felt nothing but a strange pleasure in the fact
+that Charles had not forgotten the little request which later events had
+completely effaced from her own memory. He, it seemed, had remembered,
+and, in spite of what had passed, had done what she asked him. She
+wished that she could have told him she was grateful. Alas! there were
+other things that she wished she could have told him; that she was sorry
+she had misjudged him; that she understood him better now. But what did
+it matter? What did it matter? She was going to marry Dare, and <i>he</i> was
+the person whom she must try to understand for the remainder of her
+natural life. She thought a little wearily that she could understand
+<i>him</i> without trying.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI.</h2>
+
+
+<p>The 18th of October had arrived. Slumberleigh Hall was filling. The
+pheasants, reprieved till then, supposed it was only for partridge
+shooting, and thinking no evil, ate Indian-corn, and took no thought for
+the annual St. Bartholomew of their race.</p>
+
+<p>Mabel Thursby had met Ruth out walking that day, and had informed her
+that Charles was to be one of the guns, also Dare, though, as she
+remembered to add, suspecting Dare admired Ruth, the latter was a bad
+shot, and was only asked out of neighborly feeling.</p>
+
+<p>After parting with Mabel, Ruth met, almost at her own gate, Ralph
+Danvers, who passed her on horseback, and then turned on recognizing
+her. Ralph's conversational powers were not great, and though he walked
+his horse beside her, he chiefly contented himself with assenting to
+Ruth's remarks until she asked after Molly.</p>
+
+<p>He at once whistled and flicked a fly off his horse's neck.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Sad business with Molly," he said; "and mother out for the day. Great
+grief in the nursery. Vic's dead!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, poor Molly!"</p>
+
+<p>"Died this morning. Fits. I say," with a sudden inspiration, "you
+wouldn't go over and cheer her up, would you? Mother's out. I'm out.
+Magistrates' meeting at D&mdash;&mdash;."</p>
+
+<p>Ruth said she had nothing to do, and would go over at once, and Ralph
+nodded kindly at her, and rode on. He liked her, and it never occurred
+to him that it could be anything but a privilege to minister to any need
+of Molly's. He jogged on more happily after his meeting with Ruth, and
+only remembered half an hour later that he had completely forgotten to
+order the dog-cart to meet Charles, who was coming to Atherstone for a
+night before he went on to kill the Slumberleigh pheasants the following
+morning.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth set out at once over the pale stubble fields, glad of an object for
+a walk.</p>
+
+<p>Deep distress reigned meanwhile in the nursery at Atherstone. Vic, the
+much-beloved, the stoat pursuer, the would-be church-goer, Vic was dead,
+and Molly's soul refused comfort. In vain nurse conveyed a palpitating
+guinea-pig into the nursery in a bird-cage, on the narrow door of which
+remains of fur showed an unwilling entrance; Molly could derive no
+comfort from guinea-pigs.</p>
+
+<p>In vain was the new horse, with leather hoofs, with real hair, and a
+horse-hair tail&mdash;in vain was that token of esteem from Uncle Charles
+brought out of its stable, and unevenly yoked with a dappled pony
+planted on a green, oval lawn, into Molly's own hay-cart. Molly's woe
+was beyond the reach of hay-carts or horse-hair tails, however
+realistic. Like Hezekiah, she turned her face to the nursery wall, on
+which trains and railroads were depicted; and even when cook herself
+rose up out of her kitchen to comfort her with material consolations,
+she refused the mockery of a gingerbread nut, which could not restore
+the friend with whom previous gingerbread nuts had always been equally
+divided.</p>
+
+<p>Presently a step came along the passage, and Charles, who had found no
+one in the drawing-room, came in tired and dusty, and inclined to be
+annoyed at having had to walk up from the station.</p>
+
+<p>Molly flew to him, and flung her arms tightly round his neck.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Uncle Charles! Uncle Charles! Vic is dead!"</p>
+
+<p>"I am so sorry, Molly," taking her on his knee.</p>
+
+<p>Nurse and the nursery-maid and cook withdrew, leaving the two mourners
+alone together.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"He is <i>dead</i>, Uncle Charles. He was quite well, and eating Albert
+biscuits with the dolls this morning, and now&mdash;" The rest was too
+dreadful, and Molly burst into a flood of tears, and burrowed with her
+head against the faithful waistcoat of Uncle Charles&mdash;Uncle Charles, the
+friend, the consoler of all the ills that Molly had so far been heir to.</p>
+
+<p>"Vic had a very happy life, Molly," said Charles, pressing the little
+brown head against his cheek, and vaguely wondering what it would be
+like to have any one to turn to in time of trouble.</p>
+
+<p>"I always kept trouble from him except that time I shut him in the
+door," gasped Molly. "I never took him out in a string, and he only wore
+his collar&mdash;that collar you gave him, that made him scratch so&mdash;on
+Sundays."</p>
+
+<p>"And he was not ill a long time. He did not suffer any pain?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Uncle Charles, not much; but, though he did not say anything, his
+face looked worse than screaming, and he passed away very stiff in his
+hind-legs. Oh!" (with a fresh outburst), "when cook told me that her
+sister that was in a decline had gone, I never thought," (sob, sob!)
+"poor Vic would be the next."</p>
+
+<p>A step came along the passage, a firm light step that Charles knew, that
+made his heart beat violently.</p>
+
+<p>The door opened and a familiar voice said:</p>
+
+<p>"Molly! My poor Molly! I met father, and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Ruth stood in the door-way, and stopped short. A wave of color passed
+over her face, and left it paler than usual.</p>
+
+<p>Charles looked at her over the mop of Molly's brown head against his
+breast. Their grave eyes met, and each thought how ill the other looked.</p>
+
+<p>"I did not know&mdash;I thought you were going to Slumberleigh to-day," said
+Ruth.</p>
+
+<p>"I go to-morrow morning," replied Charles. "I came here first."</p>
+
+<p>There was an awkward silence, but Molly came to their relief by a sudden
+rush at Ruth, and a repetition of the details of the death-bed scene of
+poor Vic for her benefit, for which both were grateful.</p>
+
+<p>"You ought to be thinking where he is to be buried, Molly," suggested
+Charles, when she had finished. "Let us go into the garden and find a
+place."</p>
+
+<p>Molly revived somewhat at the prospect of a funeral, and though Ruth was
+anxious to leave her with her uncle, insisted on her remaining for the
+ceremony. They went out together, Molly holding a hand of each, to
+choose a suitable spot in the garden. By the time<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> the grave had been
+dug by Charles, Molly was sufficiently recovered to take a lively
+interest in the proceedings, and to insist on the attendance of the
+stable-cat, in deep mourning, when the remains of poor Vic, arrayed in
+his best collar, were lowered into their long home.</p>
+
+<p>By the time the last duties to the dead had been performed, and Charles,
+under Molly's direction, had planted a rose-tree on the grave, while
+Ruth surrounded the little mound with white pebbles, Molly's tea-time
+had arrived, and that young lady allowed herself to be led away by the
+nursery-maid, with the stable-cat in a close embrace, resigned, and even
+cheerful at the remembrance of those creature comforts of cook's, which
+earlier in the day she had refused so peremptorily.</p>
+
+<p>When Molly left them, Ruth and Charles walked together in silence to the
+garden-gate which led to the foot-path over the fields by which she had
+come. Neither had a word to say, who formerly had so much.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye," she said, without looking at him.</p>
+
+<p>He seemed intent on the hasp of the gate.</p>
+
+<p>There was a moment's pause.</p>
+
+<p>"I should like," said Ruth, hating herself for the formality of her
+tone, "to thank you before I go for giving Mrs. Alwynn so much pleasure.
+She still talks of her visit to you. It was kind of you to remember it.
+So much seems to have happened since then, that I had not thought of it
+again."</p>
+
+<p>At her last words Charles raised his eyes and looked at her with strange
+wistful intentness, but when Ruth had finished speaking he had no remark
+to make in answer; and as he stood, bareheaded by the gate, twirling the
+hasp and looking, as a hasty glance told her, so worn and jaded in the
+sunshine, she said "Good-bye" again, and turned hastily away.</p>
+
+<p>And all along the empty harvested fields, and all along the lanes, where
+the hips and haws grew red and stiff among the ruddy hedge-rows, Ruth
+still saw Charles's grave, worn face.</p>
+
+<p>That night she saw it still, as she sat in her own room, and listened to
+the whisper of the rain upon the roof, and the touch of its myriad
+fingers on the window-panes.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot bear to see him look like that. I cannot bear it," she said,
+suddenly, and the storm which had been gathering so long, the clouds of
+which had darkened the sky for so many days, broke at last, with a
+strong and mighty wind of swift emotion which carried all before it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It was a relief to give way, to let the tempest do its worst, and remain
+passive. But when its force was spent at last, and it died away in gusts
+and flying showers, it left flood and wreckage and desolation behind.
+When Ruth raised her head and looked about her, all her landmarks were
+gone. There was a streaming glory in the heavens, but it shone on the
+ruin of all her little world below. She loved Charles, and she knew it.
+It seemed to her now as if, though she had not realized it, she must
+have loved him from the first; and with the knowledge came an
+overwhelming sense of utter misery that struck terror to her heart. She
+understood at last the meaning of the weariness and the restless
+misgivings of these last weeks. If heretofore they had spoken in
+riddles, they spoke plainly now. Every other feeling in the world seemed
+to have been swept away by a passion, the overwhelming strength of which
+she regarded panic-stricken. She seemed to have been asleep all her
+life, to have stirred restlessly once or twice of late, and now to have
+waked to consciousness and agony. Love, with women like Ruth, is a great
+happiness or a great calamity. It is with them indeed for better, for
+worse.</p>
+
+<p>Those whose feelings lie below the surface escape the hundred rubs and
+scratches which superficial natures are heir to; but it is the nerve
+which is not easily reached which when touched gives forth the sharpest
+pang. Nature, when she gives intensity of feeling, mercifully covers it
+well with a certain superficial coldness. Ruth had sometimes wondered
+why the incidents, the books, which called forth emotion in others,
+passed her by. The vehement passion which once or twice in her life she
+had involuntarily awakened in others had met with no response from
+herself. The sight of the fire she had unwittingly kindled only made her
+shiver with cold. She believed herself to be cold&mdash;always a dangerous
+assumption on the part of a woman, and apt to prove a broken reed in
+emergency.</p>
+
+<p>Charles knew her better than she knew herself. Her pride and unconscious
+humble-mindedness, her frankness with its underlying reserve, spoke of a
+strong nature, slow, perhaps, but earnest, constant, and, once roused,
+capable of deep attachment.</p>
+
+<p>And now the common lot had befallen her, the common lot of man and
+womankind since Adam first met Eve in the Garden of Eden. Ruth was not
+exempt.</p>
+
+<p>She loved Charles.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>When the dawn came up pale and tearful to wake the birds, it found her
+still sitting by her window, sitting where she had sat all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> night,
+looking with blank eyes at nothing. Creep into bed, Ruth, for already
+the sparrows are all waking, and their cheerful greetings to the new day
+add weariness to your weariness. Creep into bed, for soon the servants
+will be stirring, and before long Martha, who has slept all night, and
+thinks your lines have fallen to you in pleasant places and late hours,
+will bring the hot water.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Reserved people pay dear for their reserve when they are in trouble,
+when the iron enters into their soul, and their eyes meet the eyes of
+the world tearless, unflinching, making no sign.</p>
+
+<p>Enviable are those whose sorrows are only pen and ink deep, who take
+every one into their confidence, who are comforted by sympathy, and fly
+to those who will weep with them. There is an utter solitude, a silence
+in the grief of a proud, reserved nature, which adds a frightful weight
+to its intensity; and when the night comes, and the chamber door is
+shut, who shall say what agonies of prayers and tears, what prostrations
+of despair, pass like waves over the soul to make the balance even?</p>
+
+<p>As a rule, the kindest and best of people seldom notice any alteration
+of appearance or manner in one of their own family. A stranger points it
+out, if ever it is pointed out, which, happily, is not often, unless, of
+course, in cases where advice has been disregarded, and the first
+symptom of ill health is jealously watched for and triumphantly hailed
+by those whose mission in life it is to say, "I told you so."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Alwynn, whose own complaints were of so slight a nature that they
+had to be constantly referred to to give them any importance at all, was
+not likely to notice that Ruth's naturally pale complexion had become
+several degrees too pale during the last two days, or that she had dark
+rings under her eyes. Besides, only the day before, had not Mrs. Alwynn,
+in cutting out a child's shirt, cut out at the same time her best
+drawing-room table-cloth as well, which calamity had naturally driven
+out of her mind every other subject for the time?</p>
+
+<p>Ruth had proved unsympathetic, and Mrs. Alwynn had felt her to be so.
+The next day, also, when Mrs. Alwynn had begun to talk<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> over what she
+and Ruth were to wear that evening at a dinner-party at Slumberleigh
+Hall, Ruth had again shown a decided want of interest, and was not even
+to be roused by the various conjectures of her aunt, though repeated
+over and over again, as to who would most probably take her in to
+dinner, who would be assigned to Mr. Alwynn, and whether Ruth would be
+taken in by a married man or a single one. As it was quite impossible
+absolutely to settle these interesting points beforehand, Mrs. Alwynn's
+mind had a vast field for conjecture opened to her, in which she
+disported herself at will, varying the entertainment for herself and
+Ruth by speculating as to who would sit on the other side of each of
+them; "for," as she justly observed, "everybody has two sides, my dear;
+and though, for my part, I can talk to anybody&mdash;Members of Parliament,
+or bishops, or any one&mdash;still it is difficult for a young person, and if
+you feel dull, Ruth, you can always turn to the person on the other side
+with some easy little remark."</p>
+
+<p>Ruth rose and went to the window. It had rained all yesterday; it had
+been raining all the morning to-day, but it was fair now; nay, the sun
+was sending out long burnished shafts from the broken gray and blue of
+the sky. She was possessed by an unreasoning longing to get out of the
+house into the open air&mdash;anywhere, no matter where, beyond the reach of
+Mrs. Alwynn's voice. She had been fairly patient with her for many
+months, but during these two last wet days, a sense of sudden miserable
+irritation would seize her on the slightest provocation, which filled
+her with remorse and compunction, but into which she would relapse at a
+moment's notice. Every morning since her arrival, nine months ago, had
+Mrs. Alwynn returned from her house-keeping with the same cheerful
+bustle, the same piece of information: "Well, Ruth, I've ordered dinner,
+my dear. First one duty, and then another."</p>
+
+<p>Why had that innocent and not unfamiliar phrase become so intolerable
+when she heard it again this morning? And when Mrs. Alwynn wound up the
+musical-box, and the "Buffalo Girls" tinkled on the ear to relieve the
+monotony of a wet morning, why should Ruth have struggled wildly for a
+moment with a sudden inclination to laugh and cry at the same time,
+which resulted in two large tears falling unexpectedly, to her surprise
+and shame, upon her book.</p>
+
+<p>She shut the book, and recovering herself with an effort, listened
+patiently to Mrs. Alwynn's remarks until, early in the afternoon, the
+sky cleared. Making some excuse about going to see her old nurse<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> at the
+lodge at Arleigh, who was still ill, she at last effected her escape out
+of the room and out of the house.</p>
+
+<p>The air was fresh and clear, though cold. The familiar fields and beaded
+hedge-rows, the red land, new ploughed, where the plovers hovered, the
+gray broken sky above, soothed Ruth like the presence of a friend, as
+Nature, even in her commonest moods, has ministered to many a one who
+has loved her before Ruth's time.</p>
+
+<p>Our human loves partake always of the nature of speculations. We have no
+security for our capital (which, fortunately, is seldom so large as we
+suppose), but the love of Nature is a sure investment, which she repays
+a thousand-fold, which she repays most prodigally when the heart is
+bankrupt and full of bitterness, as Ruth's heart was that day. For in
+Nature, as Wordsworth says, "there is no bitterness," that worst sting
+of human grief. And as Ruth walked among the quiet fields, and up the
+yellow aisles of the autumn glades to Arleigh, Nature spoke of peace to
+her&mdash;not of joy or of happiness as in old days, for she never lies as
+human comforters do, and these had gone out of her life; but of the
+peace that duty steadfastly adhered to will bring at last&mdash;the peace
+that after much turmoil will come in the end to those who, amid a Babel
+of louder tongues, hear and obey the low-pitched voices of conscience
+and of principle.</p>
+
+<p>For it never occurred to Ruth for a moment to throw over Dare and marry
+Charles. She had given her word to Dare, and her word was her bond. It
+was as much a matter of being true to herself as to him. It was very
+simple. There were no two ways about it in her mind. The idea of
+breaking off her engagement was not to be thought of. It would be
+dishonorable.</p>
+
+<p>We often think that if we had been placed in the same difficulties which
+we see overwhelm others, we could have got out of them. Just so; we
+might have squeezed, or wriggled, or crept out of a position from which
+another who would not stoop could not have escaped. People are
+differently constituted. Most persons with common-sense can sink their
+principles temporarily at a pinch; but others there are who go through
+life prisoners on parole to their sense of honor or duty. If escape
+takes the form of a temptation, they do not escape. And Ruth, walking
+with bent head beneath the swaying trees, dreamed of no escape.</p>
+
+<p>She soon reached the little lodge, the rusty gates of which barred the
+grass-grown drive to the shuttered, tenantless old house at a little
+distance. It was a small gray stone house of many gables, and low lines
+of windows, that if inhabited would have possessed but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> little charm,
+but which in its deserted state had a certain pathetic interest. The
+place had been to let for years, but no one had taken it; no one was
+likely to take it in the disrepair which was now fast sliding into ruin.</p>
+
+<p>The garden-beds were almost grown over with weeds, but blots of
+nasturtium color showed here and there among the ragged green, and a
+Virginia-creeper had done its gorgeous red-and-yellow best to cheer the
+gray stone walls. But the place had a dreary appearance even in the
+present sunshine; and after looking at it for a moment, Ruth went
+in-doors to see her old nurse. After sitting with her, and reading the
+usual favorite chapter in the big Bible, and answering the usual
+question of "Any news of Master Raymond?" in the usual way, Ruth got up
+to go, and the old woman asked her if she wanted the drawing-block which
+she had left with her some time ago with an unfinished sketch on it of
+the stables. She got it out, and Ruth looked at it. It was a slight
+sketch of an octagonal building with wide arches all round it, roofing
+in a paved path, on which, in days gone by, it had evidently been the
+pernicious custom to exercise the horses, whose stalls and loose boxes
+formed the centre of the building. The stable had a certain quaintness,
+and the sketch was at that delightful point when no random stroke has as
+yet falsified the promise that a finished drawing, however clever, so
+seldom fulfils.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth took it up, and looked out of the window. The sun was blazing out,
+ashamed of his absence for so long. She might as well finish it now. She
+was glad to be out of the way of meeting any one, especially the
+shooters, whose guns she had heard in the nearer Slumberleigh coverts
+several times that afternoon. The Arleigh woods she knew were to be kept
+till later in the month. She took her block and paint-box, and picking
+her way along the choked gravel walk and down the side drive to the
+stables, sat down on the bench for chopping wood which had been left in
+the place to which she had previously dragged it, and set to work. She
+was sitting under one of the arches out of the wind, and an obsequious
+yellow cat came out of the door of one of the nearest horse-boxes, in
+which wood was evidently stacked, and rubbed itself against her dress,
+with a reckless expenditure of hair.</p>
+
+<p>As Ruth stopped a moment, bored but courteous, to return its well-meant
+attentions by friction behind the ears, she heard a slight crackling
+among the wood in the stable. Rats abounded in the place, and she was
+just about to recall the cat to its professional duties,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> when her own
+attention was also distracted. She started violently, and grasped the
+drawing-block in both hands.</p>
+
+<p>Clear over the gravel, muffled but still distinct across the long wet
+grass, she could hear a firm step coming. Then it rang out sharply on
+the stone pavement. A tall man came suddenly round the corner, under the
+archway, and stood before her. It was Charles.</p>
+
+<p>The yellow cat, which had a leaning towards the aristocracy, left Ruth,
+and, picking its way daintily over the round stones towards him, rubbed
+off some more of its wardrobe against his heather shooting-stockings.</p>
+
+<p>"I hardly think it is worth while to say anything except the truth,"
+said Charles at last. "I have followed you here."</p>
+
+<p>As Ruth could say nothing in reply, it was fortunate that at the moment
+she had nothing to say. She continued to mix a little pool of Prussian
+blue and Italian pink without looking up.</p>
+
+<p>"I hurt my gun hand after luncheon, and had to stop shooting at Croxton
+corner. As I went back to Slumberleigh, across the fields below the
+rectory, I thought I saw you in the distance, and followed you."</p>
+
+<p>"Is your hand much hurt?"&mdash;with sudden anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Charles, reddening a little. "It will stop my shooting for a
+day or two, but that is all."</p>
+
+<p>The colors were mixed again. Ruth, contrary to all previous conviction,
+added light red to the Italian pink. The sketch had gone rapidly from
+bad to worse, but the light red finished it off. It never, so to speak,
+held up its head again; but I believe she has it still somewhere, put
+away in a locked drawer in tissue-paper, as if it were very valuable.</p>
+
+<p>"I did not come without a reason," said Charles, after a long pause,
+speaking with difficulty. "It is no good beating about the bush. I want
+to speak to you again about what I told you three weeks ago. Have you
+forgotten what that was?"</p>
+
+<p>Ruth shook her head. <i>She had not forgotten.</i> Her hand began to tremble,
+and he sat down beside her on the bench, and, taking the brush out of
+her hand, laid it in its box.</p>
+
+<p>"Ruth," he said, gently, "I have not been very happy during the last
+three weeks; but two days ago, when I saw you again, I thought you did
+not look as if you had been very happy either. Am I right? Are you happy
+in your engagement with&mdash;Quite content? Quite satisfied? Still silent.
+Am I to have no answer?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Some questions have no answers," said Ruth, steadily, looking away from
+him. "At least, the questions that ought not to be asked have none."</p>
+
+<p>"I will not ask any more, then. Perhaps, as you say, I have no right.
+You won't tell me whether you are unhappy, but your face tells me so in
+spite of you. It told me so two days ago, and I have thought of it every
+hour of the day and night since."</p>
+
+<p>She gathered herself together for a final effort to stop what she knew
+was coming, and said, desperately:</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know how it is. I don't mean it, and yet everything I say to
+you seems so harsh and unkind; but I think it would have been better not
+to come here, and I think it would be better, better for us both, if you
+would go away now."</p>
+
+<p>Charles's face became set and very white. Then he put his fortune to the
+touch.</p>
+
+<p>"You are right," he said. "I will go away&mdash;for good; I will never
+trouble you again, when you have told me that you do not love me."</p>
+
+<p>The color rushed into her face, and then died slowly away again, even
+out of the tightly compressed lips.</p>
+
+<p>There was a long silence, in which he waited for a reply that did not
+come. At last she turned and looked him in the face. Who has said that
+light eyes cannot be impassioned? Her deep eyes, dark with the utter
+blankness of despair, fell before the intensity of his. He leaned
+towards her, and with gentle strength put his arm round her, and drew
+her to him. His voice came in a broken whisper of passionate entreaty
+close to her ear.</p>
+
+<p>"Ruth, I love you, and you love me. We belong to each other. We were
+made for each other. Life is not possible apart. It must be together,
+Ruth, always together, always&mdash;" and his voice broke down entirely.</p>
+
+<p>Surely he was right. A love such as theirs overrode all petty barriers
+of every-day right and wrong, and was a law unto itself. Surely it was
+vain to struggle against Fate, against the soft yet mighty current which
+was sweeping her away beyond all landmarks, beyond the sight of land
+itself, out towards an infinite sea.</p>
+
+<p>And the eyes she loved looked into hers with an agony of entreaty, and
+the voice she loved spoke of love, spoke brokenly of unworthiness, and
+an unhappy past, and of a brighter future, a future with <i>her</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Her brain reeled; her reason had gone. Let her yield now. Surely, if
+only she could think, if the power to think had not deserted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> her, it
+was right to yield. The current was taking her ever swifter whither she
+knew not. A moment more and there would be no going back.</p>
+
+<p>She began to tremble, and, wrenching her hands out of his, pressed them
+before her eyes to shut out the sight of the earnest face so near her
+own. But she could not shut out his voice, and Charles's voice could be
+very gentle, very urgent.</p>
+
+<p>But at the eleventh hour another voice broke in on his, and spoke as one
+having authority. Conscience, if accustomed to be disregarded on common
+occasions, will rarely come to the fore with any decision in emergency;
+but the weakest do not put him in a place of command all their lives
+without at least one result&mdash;that he has learned the habit of speaking
+up and making himself attended to in time of need. He spoke now,
+urgently, imperatively. Her judgment, her reason were alike gone for the
+time, but, when she had paced the solemn aisles of the woods an hour ago
+in possession of them, had she then even thought of doing what she was
+on the verge of doing now? What had happened during that hour to reverse
+the steadfast resolve which she had made then? What she had thought
+right an hour ago remained right now. What she would have put far from
+her as dishonorable then remained dishonorable now, though she might be
+too insane to see it.</p>
+
+<p>Terror seized her, as of one in a dream who is conscious of impending
+danger, and struggles to awake before it is too late. She started to her
+feet, and, putting forcibly aside the hands that would have held her
+back, walked unsteadily towards the nearest pillar, and leaned against
+it, trembling violently.</p>
+
+<p>"Do not tempt me," she said, hoarsely. "I cannot bear it."</p>
+
+<p>He came and stood beside her.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not tempt you," he said. "I want to save you and myself from a
+great calamity before it is too late."</p>
+
+<p>"It is too late already."</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Charles, in a low voice of intense determination. "It is
+not&mdash;yet. It will be soon. It is still possible to go back. You are not
+married to him, and it is no longer right that you should marry him. You
+must give him up. There is no other way."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Ruth, with vehemence. "There is another way. You have made
+me forget it; but before you came I saw it clearly. I can't think it out
+as I did then; but I know it is there. There is another way"&mdash;and her
+voice faltered&mdash;"to do what is right, and let everything else go."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Charles saw for the first time, with a sudden frightful contraction of
+the heart, that her will was as strong as his own. He had staked
+everything on one desperate appeal to her feelings; he had carried the
+outworks, and now another adversary&mdash;her conscience&mdash;rose up between him
+and her.</p>
+
+<p>"A marriage without love is a sin," he said, quietly. "If you had lived
+in the world as long as I have, and had seen what marriage without love
+means, and what it generally comes to in the end, you would know that I
+am speaking the truth. You have no right to marry Dare if you care for
+me. Hesitate, and it will be too late! Break off your engagement now. Do
+you suppose," with sudden fire, "that we shall cease to love each other;
+that I shall be able to cease to love you for the rest of my life
+because you are Dare's wife? What is done can't be undone. Our love for
+each other can't. It is no good shutting your eyes to that. Look the
+facts in the face, and don't deceive yourself into thinking that the
+most difficult course is necessarily the right one."</p>
+
+<p>He turned from her, and sat down on the bench again, his chin in his
+hands, his haggard eyes fastened on her face. He had said his last word,
+and she felt that when she spoke it would be her last word too. Neither
+could bear much more.</p>
+
+<p>"All you say sounds right, <i>at first</i>," she said, after a long silence,
+and as she spoke Charles's hands dropped from his face and clinched
+themselves together; "but I cannot go by what any one thinks unless I
+think so myself as well. I can't take other people's judgments. When God
+gave us our own, he did not mean us to shirk using it. What you say is
+right, but there is something which after a little bit seems more
+right&mdash;at least, which seems so to me. I cannot look at the future. I
+can only see one thing distinctly, now in the present, and that is that
+I cannot break my word. I never have been able to see that a woman's
+word is less binding than a man's. When I said I would marry him, it was
+of my own free-will. I knew what I was doing, and it was not only for
+his sake I did it. It is not as if he believed I cared for him very
+much. Then, perhaps&mdash;but he knows I don't, and&mdash;he is different from
+other men&mdash;he does not seem to mind. I knew at the time that I accepted
+him for the sake of other things, which are just the same now as they
+were then: because he was poor and I had money; because I felt sure he
+would never do much by himself, and I thought I could help him, and my
+money would help too; because the people at Vandon are so wretched, and
+their cottages are tumbling down, and there is no one who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> lives among
+them and cares about them. I can't make it clear, and I did hesitate;
+but at the time it seemed wrong to hesitate. If it seemed so right then,
+it cannot be all wrong now, even if it has become hard. I cannot give it
+all up. He is building cottages that I am to pay for, that I asked to
+pay for. He cannot. And he has promised so many people their houses
+shall be put in order, and they all believe him. And he can't do it. If
+I don't, it will not be done; and some of them are very old&mdash;and&mdash;and
+the winter is coming." Ruth's voice had become almost inaudible. "Oh,
+Charles! Charles!" she said, brokenly, "I cannot bear to hurt you. God
+knows I love you. I think I shall always love you, though I shall try
+not. But I cannot go back now from what I have undertaken. I cannot
+break my word. I cannot do what is wrong, even for you. Oh, God! not
+even for you!"</p>
+
+<p>She knelt down beside him, and took his clinched hands between her own;
+but he did not stir.</p>
+
+<p>"Not even for you," she whispered, while two hot tears fell upon his
+hands. In another moment she had risen swiftly to her feet, and had left
+him.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Charles sat quite still where Ruth had left him, looking straight in
+front of him. He had not thought for a moment of following her, of
+speaking to her again. Her decision was final, and he knew it. And now
+he also knew how much he had built upon the wild new hope of the last
+two days.</p>
+
+<p>Presently a slight discreet cough broke upon his ear, apparently close
+at hand.</p>
+
+<p>He started up, and, wheeling round in the direction of the sound, called
+out, in sudden anger, "Who is there?"</p>
+
+<p>If there is a time when we feel that a fellow-creature is entirely out
+of harmony with ourselves, it is when we discover that he has overheard
+or overseen us at a moment when we imagined we were alone, or&mdash;almost
+alone.</p>
+
+<p>Charles was furious.</p>
+
+<p>"Come out!" he said, in a tone that would have made any ordinary
+creature stay as far <i>in</i> as it could. And hearing a slight crack<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span>ling
+in the nearest horse-box, of which the door stood open, he shook the
+door violently.</p>
+
+<p>"Come out," he repeated, "this instant!"</p>
+
+<p>"Stop that noise, then," said a voice sharply from the inside, "and keep
+quiet. By &mdash;&mdash;, a violent temper, what a thing it is; always raising a
+dust, and kicking up a row, just when it's least wanted."</p>
+
+<p>The voice made Charles start.</p>
+
+<p>"Great God!" he said, "it's not&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it is," was the reply; "and when you have taken a seat on the
+farther end of that bench, and recovered your temper, I'll show, and not
+before."</p>
+
+<p>Charles walked to the bench and sat down.</p>
+
+<p>"You can come out," he said, in a carefully lowered voice, in which
+there was contempt as well as anger.</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly there was a little more crackling among the fagots, and a
+slight, shabbily dressed man came to the door and peered warily out,
+shading his blinking eyes with his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"If there is a thing I hate," he said, with a curious mixture of
+recklessness and anxiety, "it is a noise. Sit so that you face the left,
+will you, and I'll look after the right, and if you see any one coming
+you may as well mention it. I am only at home to old friends."</p>
+
+<p>He took his hand from his eyes as they became more accustomed to the
+light, and showed a shrewd, dissipated face, that yet had a kind of
+ruined good looks about it, and, what was more hateful to Charles than
+anything else, a decided resemblance to Ruth. Though he was shabby in
+the extreme, his clothes sat upon him as they always and only do sit
+upon a gentleman; and, though his face and voice showed that he had
+severed himself effectually from the class in which he had been born, a
+certain unsuitability remained between his appearance and his evidently
+disreputable circumstances. When Charles looked at him he was somehow
+reminded of a broken-down thorough-bred in a hansom cab.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a quiet spot," remarked Raymond Deyncourt, for he it was,
+standing in the door-way, his watchful eyes scanning the deserted
+court-yard and strip of green. "A retired and peaceful spot. I'm sorry
+if my cough annoyed you, coming when it did, but I thought you seemed
+before to be engaged in conversation which I felt a certain diffidence
+in interrupting."</p>
+
+<p>"So you listened, I suppose?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I listened. I did not hear as much as I could have wished, but it
+was your best manner, Danvers. You certainly have a gift, though you
+dropped your voice unnecessarily once or twice, I thought. If I had had
+your talents, I should not be here now. Eh? Dear me! you can swear
+still, can you? How refreshing. I fancied you had quite reformed."</p>
+
+<p>"Why are you here now?" asked Charles, sternly.</p>
+
+<p>Raymond shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Why are you here?" continued Charles, bitterly, "when you swore to me
+in July that if I would pay your passage out again to America you would
+let her alone in future? Why are you here, when I wrote to tell you that
+she had promised me she would never give you money again without advice?
+But I might have known you could break a promise as easily as make one.
+I might have known you would only keep it as long as it suited
+yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, now, I'm glad to hear you say that," said Raymond, airily,
+"because it takes off any feeling of surprise I was afraid you might
+feel at seeing me back here. There's nothing like a good understanding
+between friends. I'm precious hard up, I can tell you, or I should not
+have come; and when a fellow has got into as tight a place as I have he
+has got to think of other things besides keeping promises. Have you seen
+to-day's papers?" with sudden eagerness.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Any news about the 'Frisco forgery case?" and Raymond leaned forward
+through the door, and spoke in a whisper.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing much," said Charles, trying to recollect. "Nothing new to-day,
+I think. You know they got one of them two days ago, followed him down
+to Birmingham, and took him in the train."</p>
+
+<p>Raymond drew in his breath.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't hold with trains," he said, after a pause; "at least, not with
+passengers. I told him as much at the time. And the&mdash;the other
+one&mdash;Stephens? Any news of him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing more about him, as far as I can remember. They were both traced
+together from Boston to London, but there they parted company. Stephens
+is at large still."</p>
+
+<p>"Is he?" said Raymond. "By George, I'm glad to hear it! I hope he'll
+keep so, that's all. I am glad I left that fool. He'd not my notions at
+all. We split two days ago, and I made tracks for the old diggings; got
+down as far as Tarbury under a tarpaulin in a goods train&mdash;there's some
+sense in a goods train&mdash;and then lay close by a weir of the canal, and
+got aboard a barge after dark. Nothing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> breaks a scent like a barge. And
+it went the right way for my business too, and travelled all night. I
+kept close all next day, and then struck across country for this place
+at night. If I hadn't known the lie of the land from a boy, when I used
+to spend the holidays with old Alwynn, I couldn't have done it, or if
+I'd been as dog lame as I was in July; but I was pushed for time, and I
+footed it up here, and got in just before dawn. And not too soon either,
+for I'm cleaned out, and food is precious hard to come by if you don't
+care to go shopping for it. I am only waiting till it's dark to go and
+get something from the old woman at the lodge. She looked after me
+before, but it wasn't so serious then as it is now."</p>
+
+<p>"It will be penal servitude for life this time for&mdash;Stephens," said
+Charles.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Raymond, thoughtfully. "It's playing deuced high. I knew
+that at the time, but I thought it was worth it. It was a beautiful
+thing, and there was a mint of money in it if it had gone straight&mdash;a
+mint of money;" and he shook his head regretfully. "But the luck is
+bound to change in the end," he went on, after a moment of mournful
+retrospection. "You'll see, I shall make my pile yet, Danvers. One can't
+go on turning up tails all the time."</p>
+
+<p>"You will turn them up once too often," said Charles, "and get your
+affairs wound up for you some day in a way you won't like. But I suppose
+it's no earthly use my saying anything."</p>
+
+<p>"Not much," replied the other. "I guess I've heard it all before. Don't
+you remember how you held forth that night in the wood? You came out too
+strong. I felt as if I were in church; but you forked out handsomely at
+the collection afterwards. I will say that for you."</p>
+
+<p>"And what are you going to do now you've got here?" interrupted Charles,
+sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"Lie by."</p>
+
+<p>"How long?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps a week, perhaps ten days. Can't say."</p>
+
+<p>"And after that?"</p>
+
+<p>"After that, some one, I don't say who, but some one will have to
+provide me with the 'ready' to nip across to France. I have friends in
+Paris where I can manage to scratch along for a bit till things have
+blown over."</p>
+
+<p>Charles considered for a few moments, and then said:</p>
+
+<p>"Are you going to dun your sister for money again, or give her another
+fright by lying in wait for her? Of course, if you broke<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> your word
+about coming back, you might break it about trying to get money out of
+her."</p>
+
+<p>"I might," assented Raymond; "in fact, I was on the point of making my
+presence known to her, and suggesting a pecuniary advance, when you came
+up. I don't know at present what I shall do, as I let that opportunity
+slip. It just depends."</p>
+
+<p>Charles considered again.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a pity to trouble her, isn't it?" said Raymond, his shrewd eyes
+watching him; "and women are best out of money-matters. Besides, if she
+has promised you she won't pay up without advice, she'll stick to it.
+Nothing will turn her when she once settles on anything, if she is at
+all like what she used to be. She has got dollars of her own. You had
+better settle with me, and pay yourself back when you are married. Dear
+me! There's no occasion to look so murderous. I suppose I'm at liberty
+to draw my own conclusions."</p>
+
+<p>"You had better draw them a little more carefully in future," said
+Charles, savagely. "Your sister is engaged to be married to a man
+without a sixpence."</p>
+
+<p>"By George," said Raymond, "that won't suit my book at all. I'd
+rather"&mdash;with another glance at Charles&mdash;"I'd rather she'd marry a man
+with money."</p>
+
+<p>If Charles was of the same opinion he did not express it. He remained
+silent for a few minutes to give weight to his last remark, and then
+said, slowly:</p>
+
+<p>"So you see you won't get anything more from that quarter. You had
+better make the most you can out of me."</p>
+
+<p>Raymond nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"The most you will get, in fact, I may say <i>all</i> you will get from me,
+is enough ready money to carry you to Paris, and a check for twenty
+pounds to follow, when I hear you have arrived there."</p>
+
+<p>"It's mean," said Raymond; "it's cursed mean; and from a man like you,
+too, whom I feel for as a brother. I'd rather try my luck with Ruth.
+She's not married yet, anyway."</p>
+
+<p>"You will do as you like," said Charles, getting up. "If I find you have
+been trying your luck with her, as you call it, you won't get a farthing
+from me afterwards. And you may remember, she can't help you without
+consulting her friends. And your complaint is one that requires absolute
+quiet, or I'm very much mistaken."</p>
+
+<p>Raymond bit his finger, and looked irresolute.</p>
+
+<p>"To-day is Wednesday," said Charles; "on Saturday I shall come<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> back
+here in the afternoon, and if you have come to my terms by that time you
+can cough after I do. I shall have the money on me. If you make any
+attempt to write or speak to your sister, I shall take care to hear of
+it, and you need not expect me on Saturday. That is the last remark I
+have to make, so good-afternoon;" and, without waiting for a reply,
+Charles walked away, conscious that Raymond would not dare either to
+call or run after him.</p>
+
+<p>He walked slowly along the grass-grown road that led into the
+carriage-drive, and was about to let himself out of the grounds by a
+crazy gate, which rather took away from the usefulness of the large iron
+locked ones at the lodge, when he perceived an old man with a pail of
+water fumbling at it. He did not turn as Charles drew near, and even
+when the latter came up with him, and said "Good-afternoon," he made no
+sign. Charles watched him groping for the hasp, and, when he had got the
+gate open, feel about for the pail of water, which when he found he
+struck against the gate-post as he carried it through. Charles looked
+after the old man as he shambled off in the direction of the lodge.</p>
+
+<p>"Blind and deaf! He'll tell no tales, at any rate," he said to himself.
+"Raymond is in luck there."</p>
+
+<p>It had turned very cold; and, suddenly remembering that his absence
+might be noticed, he set off through the woods to Slumberleigh at a good
+pace. His nearest way took him through the church-yard and across the
+adjoining high-road, on the farther side of which stood the little
+red-faced lodge, which belonged to the great new red-faced seat of the
+Thursbys at a short distance. He came rapidly round the corner of the
+old church tower, and was already swinging down the worn sandstone steps
+which led into the road, when he saw below him at the foot of the steps
+a little group of people standing talking. It was Mr. Alwynn and Ruth
+and Dare, who had evidently met them on his return from shooting, and
+who, standing at ease with one elegantly gaitered leg on the lowest
+step, and a cartridge-bag slung over his shoulders in a way that had
+aroused Charles's indignation earlier in the day, was recounting to
+them, with vivid action of the hands on an imaginary gun, his own
+performances to right and left at some particularly hot corner.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Alwynn was listening with a benignant smile. Charles saw that Ruth
+was leaning heavily against the low stone-wall. Before he had time to
+turn back, Mr. Alwynn had seen him, and had gone forward a step to meet
+him, holding out a welcoming hand. Charles was obliged to stop a moment
+while his hand was inquired after, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> a new treatment, which Mr.
+Alwynn had found useful on a similar occasion, was enjoined upon him. As
+they stood together on the church steps a fly, heavily laden with
+luggage, came slowly up the road towards them.</p>
+
+<p>"What," said Mr. Alwynn, "more visitors! I thought all the Slumberleigh
+party arrived yesterday."</p>
+
+<p>The fly plodded past the Slumberleigh lodge, however, and as it reached
+the steps a shrill voice suddenly called to the driver to stop. As it
+came grinding to a stand-still, the glass was hastily put down, and a
+little woman with a very bold pair of black eyes, and a somewhat
+laced-in figure, got out and came towards them.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Mr. Dare!" she said, in a high distinct voice, with a strong
+American accent. "I guess you did not expect to see me riding up this
+way, or you'd have sent the carriage to bring your wife up from the
+station. But I'm not one to bear malice; so if you want a lift home
+to&mdash;what's the name of your fine new place?&mdash;you can get in, and ride up
+along with me."</p>
+
+<p>Dare looked straight in front of him. No one spoke. Her quick eye
+glanced from one to another of the little group, and she gave a short
+constrained laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," she said, "if you ain't coming, you can stop with your friends.
+I've had a deal of travelling one way and another, and I'll go on
+without you." And, turning quickly away, she told the driver in the same
+distinct high key to go on to Vandon, and got into the fly again.</p>
+
+<p>The grinning man chucked at the horse's bridle, and the fly rattled
+heavily away.</p>
+
+<p>No one spoke as it drove away. Charles glanced once at Ruth; but her set
+white face told him nothing. As the fly disappeared up the road, Dare
+moved a step forward. His face under his brown skin was ashen gray. He
+took off his cap, and extending it at arm's-length, not towards the sky,
+but, like a good churchman, towards the church, outside of which, as he
+knew, his Maker was not to be found, he said, solemnly, "I swear before
+God what she says is one&mdash;great&mdash;<i>lie</i>!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV.</h2>
+
+
+<p>If conformity to type is indeed the one great mark towards which
+humanity should press, Mrs. Thursby may honestly be said to have
+attained to it. Everything she said or did had been said or done before,
+or she would never have thought of saying or doing it. Her whole life
+was a feeble imitation of the imitative lives of others; in short, it
+was the life of the ordinary country gentlewoman, who lives on her
+husband's property, and who, as Augustus Hare says, "has never looked
+over the garden-wall."</p>
+
+<p>We do not mean to insinuate for a moment that the utmost energy and
+culture are not occasionally to be met with in the female portion of
+that interesting mass of our fellow-creatures who swell the large
+volumes of the "Landed Gentry." Among their ranks are those who come
+boldly forward into the full glare of public life; and, conscious of a
+genius for enterprise, to which an unmarried condition perhaps affords
+ampler scope, and which a local paper is ready to immortalize, become
+secretaries of ladies' societies, patronesses of flower shows, breeders
+of choice poultry, or even associates of floral leagues of the highest
+political importance. That such women should and do exist among us, the
+conscious salt-cellars of otherwise flavorless communities, is a fact
+for which we cannot be too thankful; and if Mrs. Thursby was not one of
+these aspiring spirits, with a yearning after "the mystical better
+things," which one of the above pursuits alone can adequately satisfy,
+it was her misfortune and not her fault.</p>
+
+<p>It was her nature, as we have said, servilely to copy others. Her
+conversation was all that she could remember of what she had heard from
+others, her present dinner-party, as regards food, was a cross between
+the two last dinner-parties she had been to. The dessert, however,
+conspicuous by its absence, conformed strictly to a type which she had
+seen in a London house in June.</p>
+
+<p>Her dinner-party gave her complete satisfaction, which was fortunate,
+for to the greater number of the eighteen or twenty people who had been
+indiscriminately herded together to form it, it was (with the exception
+of Mrs. Alwynn) a dreary or at best an uninter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span>esting ordeal; while to
+four people among the number, the four who had met last on the church
+steps, it was a period of slow torture, endured with varying degrees of
+patience by each, from the two soups in the beginning, to the peaches
+and grapes at the long-delayed and bitter end.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth, whose self-possession never wholly deserted her, had reached a
+depth of exhausted stupor, in which the mind is perfectly oblivious of
+the impression it is producing on others. By an unceasing effort she
+listened and answered and smiled at intervals, and looked exceedingly
+distinguished in the pale red gown which she had put on to please her
+aunt; but the color of which only intensified the unnatural pallor of
+her complexion. The two men whom she sat between found her a
+disappointing companion, cold and formal in manner. At any other time
+she would have been humiliated and astonished to hear herself make such
+cut-and-dried remarks, such little trite observations. She was sitting
+opposite Charles, and she vaguely wondered once or twice, when she saw
+him making others laugh, and heard snatches of the flippant talk which
+was with him, as she knew now, a sort of defensive armor, how he could
+manage to produce it; while Charles, half wild with a mad surging hope
+that would not be kept down by any word of Dare's, looked across at her
+as often as he dared, and wondered in his turn at the tranquil dignity,
+the quiet ordered smile of the face which a few hours ago he had seen
+shaken with emotion.</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes met his for a moment. Were they the same eyes that but now had
+met his, half blind with tears? He felt still the touch of those tears
+upon his hand. He hastily looked away again, and plunged headlong into
+an answer to something Mabel was saying to him on her favorite subject
+of evolution. All well-brought-up young ladies have a subject nowadays,
+which makes their conversation the delightful thing it is; and Mabel, of
+course, was not behind the fashion.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," Ruth heard Charles reply, "I believe with you we go through many
+lives, each being a higher state than the last, and nearer perfection.
+So a man passes gradually through all the various grades of the
+nobility, soaring from the lowly honorable upward into the duke, and
+thence by an easy transition into an angel. Courtesy titles, of course,
+present a difficulty to the more thoughtful; but, as I am sure you will
+have found, to be thoughtful always implies difficulty of some kind."</p>
+
+<p>"It does, indeed," said Mabel, puzzled but not a little flattered.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> "I
+sometimes think one reads too much; one longs so for deep books&mdash;Korans,
+and things. I must confess,"&mdash;with a sigh&mdash;"I can't interest myself in
+the usual young lady's library that other girls read."</p>
+
+<p>"Can't you?" replied Charles. "Now, I can. I study that department of
+literature whenever I have the chance, and I have generally found that
+the most interesting part of a young lady's library is to be found in
+that portion of the book-shelf which lies between the rows of books and
+the wall. Don't you think so, Lady Carmian?" (to the lady on his other
+side). "I assure you I have made the most delightful discoveries of this
+description. Cheap editions of Ouida, Balzac's works, yellow backs of
+the most advanced order, will, as a rule, reward the inquirer, who
+otherwise might have had to content himself with 'The Heir of
+Redclyffe,' the Lily Series, and Miss Strickland's 'Queens of England.'"</p>
+
+<p>Charles's last speech had been made in a momentary silence, and directly
+it was finished every woman, old and young, except Lady Carmian and
+Ruth, simultaneously raised a disclaiming voice, which by its vehemence
+at once showed what an unfounded assertion Charles had made. Lady
+Carmian, a handsome young married woman, only smiled languidly, and,
+turning the bracelet on her arm, told Charles he was a cynic, and that
+for her own part, when in robust health, she liked what little she read
+"strong;" but in illness, or when Lord Carmian had been unusually
+trying, she always fell back on a milk-and-water diet. Mrs. Thursby,
+however, felt that Charles had struck a blow at the sanctity of home
+life, and (for she was one of those persons whose single talent is that
+of giving a personal turn to any remark) began a long monotonous recital
+of the books she allowed her own daughters to read, and how they were
+kept, which proved the extensive range of her library, not in
+book-shelves, but in a sliding book-stand, which contracted or expanded
+at will.</p>
+
+<p>Long before she had finished, however, the conversation at the other end
+of the table had drifted away to the topic of the season among sporting
+men, namely the poachers, who, since their raid on Dare's property, had
+kept fairly quiet, but who were sure to start afresh now that the
+pheasant shooting had begun; and from thence to the recent forgery case
+in America, which was exciting every day greater attention in England,
+especially since one of the accomplices had been arrested the day before
+in Birmingham station, and the principal offender, though still at
+large, was, according to the papers, being traced "by means of a clew in
+the possession of the police."</p>
+
+<p>Charles knew how little that sentence meant, but he found that it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span>
+required an effort to listen unmoved to the various conjectures as to
+the whereabouts of Stephens, in which Ruth, as the conversation became
+general, also joined, volunteering a suggestion that perhaps he might be
+lurking somewhere in Slumberleigh woods, which were certainly very
+lonely in places, and where, as she said, she had been very much alarmed
+by a tramp in the summer.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Thursby, like an echo, began from the other end of the table
+something vague about girls being allowed to walk alone, her own
+daughters, etc., and so the long dinner wore itself out. Dare was the
+only one of the little party who had met on the church steps who
+succumbed entirely. Mr. Alwynn, who looked at him and Ruth with pathetic
+interest from time to time, made laudable efforts, but Dare made none.
+He had taken in to dinner the younger Thursby girl, a meek creature,
+without form and void, not yet out, but trembling in a high muslin, on
+the verge, who kept her large and burning hands clutched together under
+the table-cloth, and whose conversation was upon bees. Dare pleaded a
+gun headache, and hardly spoke. His eyes constantly wandered to the
+other end of the table, where, far away on the opposite side, half
+hidden by ferns and flowers, he could catch a glimpse of Ruth. After
+dinner he did not come into the drawing-room, but went off to the
+smoking-room, where he paced by himself up and down, up and down,
+writhing under the torment of a horrible suspense.</p>
+
+<p>Outside the moon shone clear and high, making a long picturesque shadow
+of the great prosaic house upon the wide gravel drive. Dare leaned
+against the window-sill and looked out. "Would she give him up?" he
+asked himself. Would she believe this vile calumny? Would she give him
+up? And as he stood the Alwynns' brougham came with two gleaming eyes
+along the drive and drew up before the door. He resolved to learn his
+fate at once. There had been no possibility of a word with Ruth on the
+church steps. Before he had known where he was, he and Charles had been
+walking up to the Hall together, Charles discoursing lengthily on the
+impropriety of wire fencing in a hunting country. But now he must and
+would see her. He rushed down-stairs into the hall, where young Thursby
+was wrapping Ruth in her white furs, while Mr. Thursby senior was
+encasing Mrs. Alwynn in a species of glorified ulster of red plush which
+she had lately acquired. Dare hastily drew Mr. Alwynn aside and spoke a
+few words to him. Mr. Alwynn turned to his wife, after one rueful glance
+at his thin shoes, and said:</p>
+
+<p>"I will walk up. It is a fine night, and quite dry underfoot."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And a very pleasant party it has been," said Mrs. Alwynn, as she and
+Ruth drove away together, "though Mrs. Thursby has not such a knack with
+her table as some. Not that I did not think the chrysanthemums and white
+china swans were nice, very nice; but, you see, as I told her, I had
+just been to Stoke Moreton, where things were very different. And you
+looked very well, my dear, though not so bright and chatty as Mabel; and
+Mrs. Thursby said she only hoped your waist was natural. The idea! And I
+saw Lady Carmian notice your gown particularly, and I heard her ask who
+you were, and Mrs. Thursby said&mdash;so like her&mdash;you were their clergyman's
+niece. And so, my dear, I was not going to have you spoken of like that,
+and a little later on I just went and sat down by Lady Carmian, just
+went across the room, you know, as if I wanted to be nearer the music,
+and we got talking, and she was rather silent at first, but presently,
+when I began to tell her all about you, and who you were, she became
+quite interested, and asked such funny questions, and laughed, and we
+had quite a nice talk."</p>
+
+<p>And so Mrs. Alwynn chatted on, and Ruth, happily hearing nothing, leaned
+back in her corner and wondered whether the evening were ever going to
+end. Even when she had bidden her aunt "Good-night," and, having
+previously told her maid not to sit up for her, found herself alone in
+her own room at last&mdash;even then it seemed that this interminable day was
+not quite over. She was standing by the dim fire, trying to gather up
+sufficient energy to undress, when a quiet step came cautiously along
+the passage, followed by a low tap at her door. She opened it
+noiselessly, and found Mr. Alwynn standing without.</p>
+
+<p>"Ruth," he said, "Dare has walked up with me. He is in the most dreadful
+state. I am sure I don't know what to think. He has said nothing further
+to me, but he is bent on seeing you for a moment. It's very late, but
+still&mdash;could you? He's in the drawing-room now. My poor child, how ill
+you look! Shall I tell him you are too tired to-night to see any one?"</p>
+
+<p>"I would rather see him," said Ruth, her voice trembling a little; and
+they went down-stairs together. In the hall she hesitated a moment. She
+was going to learn her fate. Had her release come? Had it come at the
+eleventh hour? Her uncle looked at her with kind, compassionate eyes,
+and hers fell before his as she thought how different her suspense was
+to what he imagined. Suddenly&mdash;and such demonstrations were very rare
+with her&mdash;she put her arms round his neck and pressed her cheek against
+his.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Uncle John! Uncle John!" she gasped, "it is not what you think."</p>
+
+<p>"I pray God it may not be what I suppose," he said, sadly, stroking her
+head. "One is too ready to think evil, I know. God forgive me if I have
+judged him harshly. But go in, my dear;" and he pushed her gently
+towards the drawing-room.</p>
+
+<p>She went in and closed the door quietly behind her.</p>
+
+<p>Dare was leaning against the mantle-piece, which was draped in Mrs.
+Alwynn's best manner, with Oriental hangings having bits of glass woven
+in them. He was looking into the curtained fire, and did not turn when
+she entered. Even at that moment she noticed, as she went towards him,
+that his elbow had displaced the little family of china hares on a plush
+stand which Mrs. Alwynn had lately added to her other treasures.</p>
+
+<p>"I think you wished to see me," she said, as calmly as she could.</p>
+
+<p>He faced suddenly round, his eyes wild, his face quivering, and coming
+close up to her, caught her hand and grasped it so tightly that the pain
+was almost more than she could bear.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you going to give me up?" he asked, hoarsely.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," she said; "it depends on yourself, on what you are, and
+what you have been. You say she is not your wife?"</p>
+
+<p>"I swear it."</p>
+
+<p>"You need not do so. Your word is enough."</p>
+
+<p>"I swear she is not my wife."</p>
+
+<p>"One question remains," said Ruth, firmly, a flame of color mounting to
+her neck and face. "You say she is not your wife. Ought you to make her
+so?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Dare, passionately; "I owe her nothing. She has no claim upon
+me. I swear&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't swear. I said your word was enough."</p>
+
+<p>But Dare preferred to embellish his speech with divers weighty
+expressions, feeling that a simple affirmation would never carry so much
+conviction to his own mind, or, consequently, to another, as an oath.</p>
+
+<p>A momentary silence followed.</p>
+
+<p>"You believe what I say, Ruth?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," with an effort.</p>
+
+<p>"And you won't give me up because evil is spoken against me?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"And all is the same as before between us?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Dare burst into a torrent of gratitude, but she broke suddenly away from
+him, and went swiftly up-stairs again to her own room.</p>
+
+<p>The release had not come. She laid her head down upon the table, and
+Hope, which had ventured back to her for one moment, took her lamp and
+went quite away, leaving the world very dark.</p>
+
+<p>There are turning-points in life when a natural instinct is a surer
+guide than noble motive or high aspiration, and consequently the more
+thoughtful and introspective nature will sometimes fall just where a
+commonplace one would have passed in safety. Ruth had acted for the
+best. When for the first time in her life she had been brought into
+close contact with a life spent for others, its beauty had appealed to
+her with irresistible force, and she had willingly sacrificed herself to
+an ideal life of devotion to others.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"But we are punished for our purest deeds,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And chasten'd for our holiest thoughts."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>And she saw now that if she had obeyed that simple law of human nature
+which forbids a marriage in which love is not the primary consideration,
+if she had followed that simple humble path, she would never have
+reached the arid wilderness towards which her own guidance had led her.</p>
+
+<p>For her wilful self-sacrifice had suddenly paled and dwindled down
+before her eyes into a hideous mistake&mdash;a mistake which yet had its
+roots so firmly knit into the past that it was hopeless to think of
+pulling it up now. To abide by a mistake is sometimes all that an
+impetuous youth leaves an honorable middle age to do. Poor middle age,
+with its clear vision, that might do and be so much if it were not for
+the heavy burdens, grievous to be borne, which youth has bound upon its
+shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>And worse than the dreary weight of personal unhappiness, harder to bear
+than the pang of disappointed love, was the aching sense of failure, of
+having misunderstood God's intention, and broken the purpose of her
+life. For some natures the cup of life holds no bitterer drop than this.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth dimly saw the future, the future which she had chosen, stretching
+out waste and barren before her. The dry air of the desert was on her
+face. Her feet were already on its sandy verge. And the iron of a great
+despair entered into her soul.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Dare left Slumberleigh Hall early the following morning, and drove up to
+the rectory on his way to Vandon. After being closeted with Mr. Alwynn
+in the study for a short time, they both came out and drove away
+together. Ruth, invisible in her own room with a headache, her only
+means of defence against Mrs. Alwynn's society, heard the coming and the
+going, and was not far wrong in her surmise that Dare had come to beg
+Mr. Alwynn to accompany him to Vandon&mdash;being afraid to face alone the
+mysterious enemy intrenched there.</p>
+
+<p>No conversation was possible in the dog-cart, with the groom on the back
+seat thirsting to hear any particulars of the news which had spread like
+wildfire from Vandon throughout the whole village the previous
+afternoon, and which was already miraculously flying from house to house
+in Slumberleigh this morning, as things discreditable do fly among a
+Christian population, which perhaps "thinks no evil," but repeats it
+nevertheless.</p>
+
+<p>There was not a servant in Dare's modest establishment who was not on
+the lookout for him on his return. The gardener happened to be tying up
+a plant near the front door; the house-maids were watching unobserved
+from an upper casement; the portly form of Mrs. Smith, the house-keeper,
+was seen to glide from one of the unused bedroom windows; the butler
+must have been waiting in the hall, so prompt was his appearance when
+the dog-cart drew up before the door.</p>
+
+<p>Another pair of keen black eyes was watching too, peering out through
+the chinks between the lowered Venetian blinds in the drawing-room; was
+observing Dare intently as he got out, and then resting anxiously on his
+companion. Then the owner of the eyes slipped away from the window, and
+went back noiselessly to the fire.</p>
+
+<p>Dare ordered the dog-cart to remain at the door, flung down his hat on
+the hall-table, and, turning to the servant who was busying himself in
+folding his coat, said, sharply, "Where is the&mdash;the person who arrived
+here yesterday?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The man replied that "she" was in the drawing-room. The drawing-room
+opened into the hall. Dare led the way, suppressed fury in his face,
+looking back to see whether Mr. Alwynn was following him. The two men
+went in together and shut the door.</p>
+
+<p>The enemy was intrenched and prepared for action.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Dare, as we must perforce call her for lack of any other
+designation rather than for any right of hers to the title, was seated
+on a yellow brocade ottoman, drawn up beside a roaring fire, her two
+smart little feet resting on the edge of the low brass fender, and a
+small work-table at her side, on which an elaborate medley of silks and
+wools was displayed. Her attitude was that of a person at home,
+aggressively at home. She was in the act of threading a needle when Dare
+and Mr. Alwynn came in, and she put down her work at once, carefully
+replacing the needle in safety, as she rose to receive them, and held
+out her hand, with a manner the assurance of which, if both men had not
+been too much frightened to notice it, was a little overdone.</p>
+
+<p>Dare disregarded her gesture of welcome, and she sat down again, and
+returned to her work, with a laugh that was also a little overdone.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean by coming here?" he said, his voice hoarse with a
+furious anger, which the sight of her seemed to have increased a
+hundred-fold.</p>
+
+<p>"Because it is my proper place," she replied, tossing her head, and
+drawing out a long thread of green silk; "because I have a right to
+come."</p>
+
+<p>"You lie!" said Dare, fiercely, showing his teeth.</p>
+
+<p>"Lord, Alfred!" said Mrs. Dare, contemptuously, "don't make a scene
+before strangers. We've had our tiffs before now, and shall have again,
+I suppose. It's the natur' of married people to fall out; but there's no
+call to carry on before friends. Push up that lounge nearer the fire.
+Won't the other gentleman," turning to Mr. Alwynn, "come and warm
+himself? I'm sure it's cold enough."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Alwynn, who was a man of peace, devoutly wished he were at home
+again in his own study.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a cold morning," he said; "but we are not here to discuss the
+weather."</p>
+
+<p>He stopped short. He had been hurried here so much against his will, and
+so entirely without an explanation, that he was not quite sure what he
+had come to discuss, or how he could best support his friend.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What do you want?" said Dare, in the same suppressed voice, without
+looking at her.</p>
+
+<p>"My rights," she said, incisively; "and, what's more, I mean to have
+'em. I've not come over from America for nothing, I can tell you that;
+and I've not come on a visit neither. I've come to stay."</p>
+
+<p>"What are these rights you talk of?" asked Mr. Alwynn, signing to Dare
+to restrain himself.</p>
+
+<p>"As his wife, sir. I am his wife, as I can prove. I didn't come without
+my lines to show. I didn't come on a speculation, to see if he'd a fancy
+to have me back. No, afore I set my foot down anywheres I look to see as
+it's solid walking."</p>
+
+<p>"Show your proof," said Mr. Alwynn.</p>
+
+<p>The woman ostentatiously got out a red morocco letter case, and produced
+a paper which she handed to Mr. Alwynn.</p>
+
+<p>It was an authorized copy of a marriage register, drawn out in the usual
+manner, between Alfred Dare, bachelor, English subject, and Ellen, widow
+of the late Jaspar Carroll, of Neosho City, Kansas, U.S.A. The marriage
+was dated seven years back.</p>
+
+<p>The names of Dare and Carroll swam before Mr. Alwynn's eyes. He glanced
+at the paper, but he could not read it.</p>
+
+<p>"Is this a forgery, Dare?" he asked, holding it towards him.</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Dare, without looking at it; "it is right. But that is not
+all. Now," turning to the woman, who was watching him triumphantly,
+"show the other paper&mdash;the divorce."</p>
+
+<p>"I made inquiries about that," she replied, composedly. "I wasn't going
+to be fooled by that 'ere, so I made inquiries from one as knows. The
+divorce is all very well in America; but it don't count in England."</p>
+
+<p>Dare's face turned livid. Mr. Alwynn's flushed a deep red. He sat with
+his eyes on the ground, the paper in his hand trembling a little.
+Indignation against Dare, pity for him, anxiety not to judge him
+harshly, struggled for precedence in his kind heart, still beating
+tumultuously with the shock of Dare's first admission. He felt rather
+than saw him take the paper out of his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall keep this," Dare said, putting it in his pocket-book; and then,
+turning to the woman again, he said, with an oath, "Will you go, or will
+you wait till you are turned out?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll wait," she replied, undauntedly. "I like the place well enough."</p>
+
+<p>She laughed and took up her work, and, after looking at her for a
+moment, he flung out of the room, followed by Mr. Alwynn.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The defeat was complete; nay, it was a rout.</p>
+
+<p>The dog-cart was still standing at the door. The butler was talking to
+the groom; the gardener was training some new shoots of ivy against the
+stone balustrade.</p>
+
+<p>Dare caught up his hat and gloves, and ordered that his portmanteau,
+which had been taken into the hall, should be put back into the
+dog-cart. As it was being carried down he looked at his watch.</p>
+
+<p>"I can catch the mid-day express for London," he said. "I can do it
+easily."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Alwynn made no reply.</p>
+
+<p>"Get in," continued Dare, feverishly; "the portmanteau is in."</p>
+
+<p>"I think I will walk home," said Mr. Alwynn, slowly. It gave him
+excruciating pain to say anything so severe as this; but he got out the
+words nevertheless.</p>
+
+<p>Dare looked at him in astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>"Get in," he said again, quickly. "I must speak to you. I will drive you
+home. I have something to say."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Alwynn never refused to hear what any one had to say. He went slowly
+down the steps, and got into the cart, looking straight in front of him,
+as his custom was when disturbed in mind. Dare followed.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall not want you, James," he said to the groom, his foot on the
+step.</p>
+
+<p>At this moment the form of Mrs. Smith, the house-keeper, appeared
+through the hall door, clothed in all the awful majesty of an upper
+servant whose dignity has been outraged.</p>
+
+<p>"Sir," she said, in a clear not to say a high voice, "asking your
+pardon, sir, but am I, or am I not, to take my orders from&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Goaded to frenzy, Dare poured forth a volley of horrible oaths French
+and English, and, seizing up the reins, drove off at a furious rate.</p>
+
+<p>The servants remained standing about the steps, watching the dog-cart
+whirl rapidly away.</p>
+
+<p>"He's been to church with her," said the gardener, at last. "I said all
+along she'd never have come, unless she had her lines to show. I ha'n't
+cut them white grapes she ordered yet; but I may as well go and do it."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Mrs. Smith, "grapes or no grapes, I'll never give up the
+keys of the linen cupboards to the likes of her, and I'm not going to
+have any one poking about among my china. I've not been here twenty
+years to be asked for my lists in that way, and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> winter curtains
+ordered out unbeknownst to me;" and Mrs. Smith retreated to the
+fastnesses of the house-keeper's room, whither even the audacious enemy
+had not yet ventured to follow her.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, Mr. Alwynn and Dare drove at moderated speed along the road
+to Slumberleigh. For some time neither spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon," said Dare at last. "I lost my head. I became
+enraged. Before a clergyman and a lady, I know well, it is not permitted
+to swear."</p>
+
+<p>"I can overlook that," said Mr. Alwynn; "but," turning very red again,
+"other things I can't."</p>
+
+<p>Dare began to flourish his whip, and become excited again.</p>
+
+<p>"I will tell you all," he said with effusion&mdash;"every word. You have a
+kind heart. I will confide in you."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want confidences," said Mr. Alwynn. "I want straight-forward
+answers to a few simple questions."</p>
+
+<p>"I will give them, these answers. I keep nothing back from a friend."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, first. Did you marry that woman?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Dare, shrugging his shoulders. "I married her, and often
+afterwards, almost at once, I regretted it; but <i>que voulez-vous</i>, I was
+young. I had no experience. I was but twenty-one."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Alwynn stared at him in astonishment at the ease with which the
+admission was made.</p>
+
+<p>"How long afterwards was it that you were divorced from her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Two years. Two long years."</p>
+
+<p>"For what reason?"</p>
+
+<p>"Temper. Ah! what a temper. Also because I left her for one year. It was
+in Kansas, and in Kansas it is very easy to marry, and also to be
+divorced."</p>
+
+<p>"It is a disgraceful story," said Mr. Alwynn, in great indignation.</p>
+
+<p>"Disgraceful!" echoed Dare, excitedly. "It is more than disgraceful. It
+is abominable. You do not know all yet. I will tell you. I was young; I
+was but a boy. I go to America when I am twenty-one, to travel, to see
+the world. I make acquaintances. I get into a bad set, what you call
+undesirable. I fall in love. I walk into a net. She was pretty, a pretty
+widow, all love, all soul; without friends. I protect her. I marry her.
+I have a little money. I have five thousand pounds. She knew that. She
+spent it. I was a fool. In a year it was gone." Dare's face had become
+white with rage. "And then she told me why she married me. I became
+enraged. There was a quarrel, and I left her. I had no more money.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> She
+left me alone, and a year after we are divorced. I never see her or hear
+of her again. I return to Europe. I live by my voice in Paris. It is
+five years ago. I have bought my experience. I put it from my mind. And
+now"&mdash;his hands trembled with anger&mdash;"now that she thinks I have money
+again, now, when in some way she hears how I have come to Vandon, she
+dares to came back and say she is my wife."</p>
+
+<p>"Dare," said Mr. Alwynn, sternly, "what excuse have you for never
+mentioning this before&mdash;before you became engaged to Ruth?"</p>
+
+<p>"What!" burst out Dare, "tell Ruth! Tell <i>her</i>! <i>Quelle id&eacute;e.</i> I would
+never speak to her of what might give her pain. I would keep all from
+her that would cause her one moment's grief. Besides," he added,
+conclusively, "it is not always well to talk of what has gone before. It
+is not for her happiness or mine. She has been, one sees it well,
+brought up since a young child very strictly. About some things she has
+fixed ideas. If I had told her of these things which are passed away and
+gone, she might not,"&mdash;and Dare looked gravely at Mr. Alwynn&mdash;"she might
+not think so well of me."</p>
+
+<p>This view of the case was quite a new one to Mr. Alwynn. He looked back
+at Dare with hopeless perplexity in his pained eyes. To one who
+throughout life has regarded the supremacy of certain truths and
+principles of actions as fixed, and recognized as a matter of course by
+all the world, however imperfectly obeyed by individuals, the discovery
+comes as a shock, which is at the moment overwhelming, when these same
+truths and principles are seen to be entirely set aside, and their very
+existence ignored by others.</p>
+
+<p>Where there is no common ground on which to meet, speech is unavailing
+and mere waste of time. It is like shouting to a person at a distance
+whom it is impossible to approach. If he notices anything it will only
+be that, for some reasons of your own, you are making a disagreeable
+noise.</p>
+
+<p>As Mr. Alwynn looked back at Dare his anger died away within him, and a
+dull pain of deep disappointment and sense of sudden loneliness took its
+place. Dare and he seemed many miles apart. He felt that it would be of
+no use to say anything; and so, being a man, he held his peace.</p>
+
+<p>Dare continued talking volubly of how he would get a lawyer's opinion at
+once in London; of his certainty that the American wife had no claim
+upon him; of how he would go over to America, if necessary, to establish
+the validity of his divorce; but Mr. Alwynn heard little or nothing of
+what he said. He was thinking of Ruth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> with distress and
+self-upbraiding. He had been much to blame, of course.</p>
+
+<p>Dare's mention of her name recalled his attention.</p>
+
+<p>"She is all goodness," he was saying. "She believes in me. She has
+promised again that she will marry me&mdash;since yesterday. I trust her as
+myself; but it is a grief which as little as possible must trouble her.
+You will not say anything to her till I come back, till I return with
+proof that I am free, as I told her? You will say nothing?"</p>
+
+<p>Dare had pulled up at the bottom of the drive to the rectory.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well," said Mr. Alwynn, absently, getting slowly out. He seemed
+much shaken.</p>
+
+<p>"I will be back perhaps to-night, perhaps to-morrow morning," called
+Dare after him.</p>
+
+<p>But Mr. Alwynn did not answer.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Dare's business took him a shorter time than he expected, and the same
+night found him hurrying back by the last train to Slumberleigh. It was
+a wild night. He had watched the evening close in lurid and stormy
+across the chimneyed wastes of the black country, until the darkness
+covered all the land, and wiped out even the last memory of the dead day
+from the western sky.</p>
+
+<p>Who, travelling alone at night, has not watched the glimmer of light
+through cottage windows as he hurries past; has not followed with
+keenest interest for one brief second the shadow of one who moves
+within, and imagination picturing a mysterious universal happiness
+gathered round these twinkling points of light, has not experienced a
+strange feeling of homelessness and loneliness?</p>
+
+<p>Dare sat very still in the solitude of the empty railway carriage, and
+watched the little fleeting, mocking lights with a heavy heart. They
+meant <i>homes</i>, and he should never have a home now. Once he saw a door
+open in a squalid line of low houses, and the figure of a man with a
+child in his arms stand outlined in the door-way against the ruddy light
+within. Dare felt an unreasoning interest in that man. He found himself
+thinking of him as the train hurried on, wondering whether his wife was
+there waiting for him, and whether he had other children besides the one
+he was carrying. And all the time, through his idle musings, he could
+hear one sentence ringing in his ears, the last that his lawyer had said
+to him after the long consultation of the afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry to tell you that you are incontestably a married man."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Everything repeated it. The hoofs of the cab-horse that took him to the
+station had hammered it out remorselessly all the way. The engine had
+caught it up, and repeated it with unvarying, endless iteration. The
+newspapers were full of it. When Dare turned to them in desperation he
+saw it written in large letters across the sham columns. There was
+nothing but that anywhere. It was the news of the day. Sick at heart,
+and giddy from want of food, he sat crouched up in the corner of his
+empty carriage, and vaguely wished the train would journey on for ever
+and ever, nervously dreading the time when he should have to get out and
+collect his wandering faculties once more.</p>
+
+<p>The old lawyer had been very kind to the agitated, incoherent young man
+whose settlements he was already engaged in drawing up. At first,
+indeed, it had seemed that the marriage would not be legally
+binding&mdash;the marriage and divorce having both taken place in Kansas,
+where the marriage laws are particularly lax&mdash;and he seemed inclined to
+be hopeful; but as he informed himself about the particulars of the
+divorce his face became grave and graver. When at last Dare produced the
+copy of the marriage register, he shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"'Alfred Dare, bachelor and English subject,'" he said. "That 'English
+subject' makes a difficulty to start with. You had never, I believe, any
+intention of acquiring what in law we call an American domicil? and,
+although the technicalities of this subject are somewhat complicated, I
+am afraid that in your case there is little, if any, doubt. The English
+courts are very jealous of any interference by foreigners with the
+status of an Englishman; and though a divorce legally granted by a
+competent tribunal for an adequate cause might&mdash;I will not say would&mdash;be
+held binding everywhere, there can be no doubt that where in the eyes of
+our law the cause is <i>not</i> adequate, our courts would refuse to
+recognize it. Have you a copy of the register of divorce as well?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"It is unfortunate; but no doubt you can remember the grounds on which
+it was granted."</p>
+
+<p>"Incompatibility of temper, and she said I had deserted her. I had left
+her the year before. We both agreed to separate."</p>
+
+<p>The lawyer shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"What's incompatibility?" he said. "What's a year's absence? Nothing in
+the eyes of an Englishman. Nothing in the law of this country."</p>
+
+<p>"But the divorce was granted. It was legal. There was no ques<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span>tion,"
+said Dare, eagerly. "I was divorced in the same State as where I
+married. I had lived there more than a year, which was all that was
+necessary. No difficulty was made at the time."</p>
+
+<p>"No. Marriage is slipped into and slipped out of again with gratifying
+facility in America, and Kansas is notorious for the laxity prevailing
+there as regards marriage and divorce. It will be advisable to take the
+opinion of counsel on the matter, but I can hold out very little hope
+that your divorce would hold good, even in America. You see, you are
+entered as a British subject on the marriage register, and I imagine
+these words must have been omitted in the divorce proceedings, or some
+difficulty would have been raised at the time, unless your residence in
+Kansas made it unnecessary. But, even supposing by American law you are
+free, that will be of no avail in England, for by the law of England,
+which alone concerns you, I regret to be obliged to tell you that you
+are incontestably a married man."</p>
+
+<p>And in spite of frantic reiterations, of wild protests on the part of
+Dare, as if the compassionate old man represented the English law, and
+could mould it at his pleasure, the lawyer's last word remained in
+substance the same, though repeated many times.</p>
+
+<p>"Whether you are at liberty or not to marry again in America, I am
+hardly prepared to say. I will look into the subject and let you know;
+but in England I regret to repeat that you are a married man."</p>
+
+<p>Dare groaned in body and in spirit as the words came back to him; and
+his thoughts, shrinking from the despair and misery at home, wandered
+aimlessly away, anywhere, hither and thither, afraid to go back, afraid
+to face again the desolation that sat so grim and stern in solitary
+possession.</p>
+
+<p>The train arrived at Slumberleigh at last, and he got out, and shivered
+as the driving wind swept across the platform. It surprised him that
+there was a wind, although at every station down the line he had seen
+people straining against it. He gave up his ticket mechanically, and
+walked aimlessly away into the darkness, turning with momentary
+curiosity to watch the train hurry on again, a pillar of fire by night,
+as it had been a pillar of smoke by day.</p>
+
+<p>He passed the blinking station inn, forgetting that he had put up his
+dog-cart there to await his return, and, hardly knowing what he did,
+took from long habit the turn for Vandon.</p>
+
+<p>It was a wild night. The wind was driving the clouds across the moon at
+a tremendous rate, and sweeping at each gust flights of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> spectre leaves
+from the swaying trees. It caught him in the open of the bare high-road,
+and would not let him go. It opposed him, and buffeted him at every
+turn; but he held listlessly on his way. His feet took him, and he let
+them take him whither they would. They led him stumbling along the dim
+road, the dust of which was just visible like a gray mist before him,
+until he reached the bridge by the mill. There his feet stopped of their
+own accord, and he went and leaned against the low stone-wall, looking
+down at the sudden glimpses of pale hurried water and trembling reed.</p>
+
+<p>The moon came out full and strong in temporary victory, and made black
+shadows behind the idle millwheel and open mill-race, and black shadows,
+black as death, under the bridge itself. Dare leaned over the wall to
+watch the mysterious water and shadow run beneath. As he looked, he saw
+the reflection of a man in the water watching him. He shook his fist
+savagely at it, and it shook its fist amid a wavering of broken light
+and shadow back at him. But it did not go away; it remained watching
+him. There was something strange and unfamiliar about the river
+to-night. It had a voice, too, which allured and repelled him&mdash;a voice
+at the sound of which the grim despair within him stirred ominously at
+first, and then began slowly to rise up gaunt and terrible; began to
+move stealthily, but with ever-increasing swiftness through the deserted
+chambers of his heart.</p>
+
+<p>No strong abiding principle was there to do battle with the enemy. The
+minor feelings, sensibilities, emotions, amiable impulses, those
+courtiers of our prosperous days, had all forsaken him and fled. Dare's
+house in his hour of need was left unto him desolate.</p>
+
+<p>And the river spoke in a guilty whisper, which yet the quarrel of the
+wind and the trees could not drown, of deep places farther down, where
+the people were never found, people who&mdash;But there were shallows, too,
+he remembered, shallow places among the stones where the trout were. If
+anybody were drowned, Dare thought, gazing down at the pale shifting
+moon in the water, he would be found there, perhaps, or at any rate, his
+hat&mdash;he took his hat off, and held it tightly clinched in both his
+hands&mdash;his hat would tell the tale.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Charles left Slumberleigh Hall a few hours later than Dare had done, but
+only to go back to Atherstone. He could not leave the neighborhood. This
+burning fever of suspense would be unbearable at any other place, and in
+any case he must return by Saturday, the day on which he had promised to
+meet Raymond. His hand was really slightly injured, and he made the most
+of it. He kept it bound up, telegraphed to put off his next shooting
+engagement on the strength of it, and returned to Atherstone, even
+though he was aware that Lady Mary had arrived there the day before, on
+her way home to her house in London.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph and Evelyn were accustomed to sudden and erratic movements on the
+part of Charles, and to Molly he was a sort of archangel, who might
+arrive out of space at any moment, untrammelled by such details as
+distance, trains, time, or tide. But to Lady Mary his arrival was a
+significant fact, and his impatient refusal to have his hand
+investigated was another. Her cold gray eyes watched him narrowly, and,
+conscious that they did so, he kept out of her way as much as possible,
+and devoted himself to Molly more than ever.</p>
+
+<p>He was sailing a mixed fleet of tin ducks and fishes across the tank by
+the tool shed, under her supervision, on the afternoon of the day he had
+arrived, when Ralph came to find him in great excitement. His keeper had
+just received private notice from the Thursbys' keeper that a raid on
+the part of a large gang of poachers was expected that night in the
+parts of the Slumberleigh coverts that had not yet been shot over, and
+which adjoined Ralph's own land.</p>
+
+<p>"Whereabout will that be?" said Charles, inattentively, drawing his
+magnet slowly in front of the fleet.</p>
+
+<p>"Where?" said Ralph, excitedly, "why, round by the old house, round by
+Arleigh, of course. Thursby and I have turned down hundreds of pheasants
+there. Don't you remember the hot corner by the coppice last year, below
+the house, where we got forty at one place, and how the wind took them
+as they came over?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Near <i>Arleigh</i>?" repeated Charles, with sudden interest.</p>
+
+<p>"Uncle Charles," interposed Molly, reproachfully, "don't let all the
+ducks stick onto the magnet like that. I told you not before. Make it go
+on in front."</p>
+
+<p>But Charles's attention had wandered from the ducks.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," continued Ralph, "near Arleigh. There was a gang of poachers
+there last year, and the keepers dared not attack them they were so
+strong, though they were shooting right and left. But we'll be even with
+them this year. My men are going, and I shall go with them. You had
+better come too, and join the fun. The more the better."</p>
+
+<p>"Why should I go?" said Charles, listlessly. "Am I my brother's keeper,
+or even his underkeeper? Molly, don't splash your uncle's wardrobe.
+Besides, I expect it is a false alarm or a blind."</p>
+
+<p>"False alarm!" retorted Ralph. "I tell you Thursby's head keeper,
+Shaw&mdash;you know Shaw&mdash;saw a man himself only last night in the Arleigh
+coverts; came upon him suddenly, reconnoitring, of course; for to-night,
+and would have collared him too if the moon had not gone in, and when it
+came out again he was gone."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course, and he will warn off the rest to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"Not a bit of it. He never saw Shaw. Shaw takes his oath he didn't see
+him. I'll lay any odds they will beat those coverts to-night, and, by
+George! we'll nail some of them, if we have an ounce of luck."</p>
+
+<p>Ralph's sporting instinct, to which even the fleeting vision of a chance
+weasel never appealed in vain, was now thoroughly aroused, and even
+Charles shared somewhat in his excitement.</p>
+
+<p>How could he warn Raymond to lie close? The more he thought of it the
+more impossible it seemed. It was already late in the afternoon. He
+could not, for Raymond's sake, risk being seen hanging about in the
+woods near Arleigh for no apparent reason, and Raymond was not expecting
+to see him in any case for two days to come, and would probably be
+impossible to find. He could do nothing but wait till the evening came,
+when he might have some opportunity, if the night were only dark enough,
+of helping or warning him.</p>
+
+<p>The night was dark enough when it came; but it was unreliable. A tearing
+autumn wind drove armies of clouds across the moon, only to sweep them
+away again at a moment's notice. The wind itself rose and fell, dropped
+and struggled up again like a furious wounded animal.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It will drop at midnight," said Ralph to Charles below his breath, as
+they walked in the darkness along the road towards Slumberleigh; "and
+the moon will come out when the wind goes. I have told Evans and Brooks
+to go by the fields, and meet us at the cross-roads in the low woods. It
+is a good night for us. We don't want light yet a while; and the more
+row the wind kicks up till we are in our places ready for them the
+better."</p>
+
+<p>They walked on in silence, nearly missing in the dark the turn for
+Slumberleigh, where the road branched off to Vandon.</p>
+
+<p>"We must be close upon the river by this time," said Ralph; "but I can't
+hear it for the wind."</p>
+
+<p>The moon came out suddenly, and showed close on their right the mill
+blocking out the sky, and the dark sweep of the river below, between
+pale wastes of flooded meadow. Upon the bridge, leaning over the wall,
+stood the figure of a man, bareheaded, with his hat in his hands.</p>
+
+<p>He could not see his face, but something in his attitude struck Charles
+with a sudden chill.</p>
+
+<p>"By &mdash;&mdash;," he said, below his breath, plucking Ralph's arm, "there's
+mischief going on there!"</p>
+
+<p>Ralph did not hear, and in another moment Charles was thankful he had
+not done so.</p>
+
+<p>The man raised himself a little, and the light fell full on his white
+desperate face. He was feeling up and down the edge of the stone-parapet
+with his hands. As he moved, Charles recognized him, and drew in his
+breath sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is that?" said Ralph, his obtuser faculties perceiving the man for
+the first time.</p>
+
+<p>Charles made no answer, but began to whistle loudly one of the tunes of
+the day. He saw Dare give a guilty start, and, catching at the wall for
+support, lean heavily against it as he looked wildly down the road,
+where the shadow of the trees had so far served to screen the approach
+of Charles and Ralph, who now emerged into the light, or at least would
+have done so, if the moonlight had not been snatched away at that
+moment.</p>
+
+<p>"Holloa, Dare!" said Ralph, cheerfully, through the darkness, "I saw
+you. What are you up to standing on the bridge at midnight, with the
+clock striking the hour, and all that sort of thing; and what have you
+done with your hat&mdash;dropped it into the water?"</p>
+
+<p>Dare muttered something unintelligible, and peered suspiciously through
+the darkness at Charles.</p>
+
+<p>The moon made a feint at coming out again, which came to noth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span>ing, but
+which gave Charles a moment's glimpse of Dare's convulsed face. And the
+grave penetrating glance that met his own so fixedly told Dare in that
+moment that Charles had guessed his business on the bridge. Both men
+were glad of the returning darkness, and of the presence of Ralph.</p>
+
+<p>"Come along with us," the latter was saying to Dare, explaining the
+errand on which they were bound; and Dare, stupefied with past emotion,
+and careless of what he did or where he went, agreed.</p>
+
+<p>It was less trouble to agree than to find a reason for refusing. He
+mechanically put on his hat, which he had unconsciously crushed together
+a few minutes before, in a dreadful dream from which even now he had not
+thoroughly awaked. And, still walking like a man in a dream, he set off
+with the other two.</p>
+
+<p>"There was suicide in his face," thought Charles, as he swung along
+beside his brother. "He would have done it if we had not come up. Good
+God! can it be that it is all over between him and Ruth?" The blood
+rushed to his head, and his heart began to beat wildly. He walked on in
+silence, seeing nothing, hearing nothing. Raymond and the poachers were
+alike forgotten.</p>
+
+<p>It was not until a couple of men joined them silently in the woods, and
+others presently rose up out of the darkness, to whisper directions and
+sink down again, that Charles came to himself with a start, and pulled
+himself together.</p>
+
+<p>The party had halted. It was pitch-dark, and he was conscious of
+something towering up above him, black and lowering. It was the ruined
+house of Arleigh.</p>
+
+<p>"You and Brooks wait here, and keep well under the lea of the house,"
+said Ralph, in a whisper. "If the moon comes out, get into the shadow of
+the wall. Don't shout till you're sure of them. Shaw is down by the
+stables. Dare and Evans you both come on with me. Shaw's got two men at
+the end of the glade, but it's the nearest coverts he is keenest on,
+because they can get a horse and cart up close to take the game, and get
+off sharp if they are surprised. They did last year. Don't stir if you
+hear wheels. Wait for them." And with this parting injunction Ralph
+disappeared noiselessly with Dare and the other keeper in the direction
+of the stables.</p>
+
+<p>Ralph had been right. The wind was dropping. It came and went fitfully,
+returning as if from great distances, and hurrying past weak and
+impotent, leaving sudden silences behind. Charles and his companion, a
+strapping young underkeeper, evidently anxious to distinguish himself,
+waited, listening intently in the intervals of silence.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> The ivy on the
+old house shivered and whispered over their heads, and against one of
+the shuttered windows near the ground some climbing plant, torn loose by
+the wind, tapped incessantly, as if calling to the ghosts within.
+Charles glanced ever and anon at the sky. It showed no trace of
+clearing&mdash;as yet. He was getting cramped with standing. He wished he had
+gone on to the stables. His anxiety for Raymond was sharpened by this
+long inaction. He seemed to have been standing for ages. What were the
+others doing? Not a sound reached him between the lengthening pauses of
+the wind. His companion stood drawn up motionless beside him; and so
+they waited, straining eye and ear into the darkness, conscious that
+others were waiting and listening also.</p>
+
+<p><i>At last</i> in the distance came a faint sound of wheels. Charles and
+Brooks instinctively drew a long breath; and Charles for the first time
+believed the alarm of poachers had not been a false one after all. It
+was the faintest possible sound of wheels. It would hardly have been
+heard at all but for some newly broken stones over which it passed.
+Then, without coming nearer, it stopped.</p>
+
+<p>Charles listened intently. The wind had dropped down dead at last, and
+in the stillness he felt as if he could have heard a mouse stir miles
+away. But all was quiet. There was no sound but the tremulous whisper of
+the ivy. The spray near the window had ceased its tapping against the
+shutter, and was listening too. Slowly the moon came out, and looked on.</p>
+
+<p>And then suddenly, from the direction of the stables, came a roar of
+men's voices, a sound of bursting and crashing through the under-wood, a
+thundering of heavy feet, followed by a whirring of frightened birds
+into the air. Brooks leaned forward breathing hard, and tightening his
+newly moistened grip on his heavy knotted stick.</p>
+
+<p>Another moment and a man's figure darted across the open, followed by a
+chorus of shouts, and Charles's heart turned sick within him. It was
+Raymond.</p>
+
+<p>"Cut him off at the gate, Charles," roared Ralph from behind; "down to
+the left."</p>
+
+<p>There was not a second for reflection. As Brooks rushed headlong
+forward, Charles hurriedly interposed his stick between his legs, and
+leaving him to flounder, started off in pursuit.</p>
+
+<p>"Down to your left," cried a chorus of voices from behind, as he shot
+out of the shadow of the house; for Charles was some way ahead of the
+rest owing to his position.</p>
+
+<p>He could hear Raymond crashing in front; then he saw him again<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> for a
+moment in a strip of open, running as a man does who runs for his life,
+with a furious recklessness of all obstacles. Charles saw he was making
+for the rocky thickets below the house, where the uneven ground and the
+bracken would give him a better chance. Did he remember the deep sunken
+wall which, broken down in places, still separated the wilderness of the
+garden from the wilderness outside? Charles was lean and active, and he
+soon out-distanced the other pursuers, but a man is hard to overtake who
+has such reasons for not being overtaken as Raymond, and do what he
+would he could not get near him. He bore down to the left, but Raymond
+seemed to know it, and, edging away again, held for the woods a little
+higher up. Charles tacked, and then as he ran he saw that Raymond was
+making with headlong blindness through the shrubbery direct for the deep
+sunk wall which bounded the Arleigh grounds. Would he see it in the
+uncertain light? He must be close upon it now. He was running like a
+madman. As Charles looked he saw him pitch suddenly forward out of sight
+and heard a heavy fall. If Charles ever ran in his life, it was then. As
+he swiftly let himself drop over the wall, lower than Raymond had taken
+it, he saw Ralph and Dare, followed by the others, come streaming down
+the slope in the moonlight, spreading as they came. It was now or never.
+He rushed up the fosse under cover of the wall, and almost stumbled over
+a prostrate figure, which was helplessly trying to raise itself on its
+hands and knees.</p>
+
+<p>"Danvers, it's me," gasped Raymond, turning a white tortured face feebly
+towards him. "Don't let those devils get me."</p>
+
+<p>"Keep still," panted Charles, pushing him down among the bracken. "Lie
+close under the wall, and make for the house again when it's quiet;" And
+darting back under cover of the wall, to the place where he had dropped
+over it, he found Dare almost upon him, and rushed headlong down the
+steep rocky descent, roaring at the top of his voice, and calling wildly
+to the others. The pursuit swept away through the wood, down the hill,
+and up the sandy ascent on the other side; swept almost over the top of
+Charles, who had flung himself down, dead-beat and gasping for breath,
+at the bottom of the gully.</p>
+
+<p>He heard the last of the heavy lumbering feet crash past him, and heard
+the shouting die away before he stiffly dragged himself up again, and
+began to struggle painfully back up the slippery hill-side, down which
+he had rushed with a whole regiment of loose and hopping stones ten
+minutes before. He regained the wall at last,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> and crept back to the
+place where he had left Raymond. It was with a sigh of relief that he
+found that he was gone. No doubt he had got into safety somewhere,
+perhaps in the cottage itself, where no one would dream of looking for
+him. He stumbled along among the loose stones by the wall till he came
+to the place by the gate where it was broken down, and clambering up,
+for the gate was locked, made his way back through the shrubberies, and
+desolate remains of garden, towards the point near the house where
+Raymond had first broken cover. As he came round a clump of bushes his
+heart gave a great leap, and then sank within him.</p>
+
+<p>Three men were standing in the middle of the lawn in the moonlight,
+gathered round something on the ground. Seized by a horrible misgiving,
+he hurried towards them. At a little distance a dog-cart was being
+slowly led over the grass-grown drive towards the house.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it? Any one hurt?" he asked, hoarsely, joining the little
+group; but as he looked he needed no answer. One glance told him that
+the prostrate, unconscious figure on the ground, with blood slowly
+oozing from the open mouth, was Raymond Deyncourt.</p>
+
+<p>"Great God! the man's dying," he said, dropping on his knees beside him.</p>
+
+<p>"He's all right, sir; he'll come to," said a little brisk man, in a
+complacent, peremptory tone. "It's only the young chap,"&mdash;pointing to the
+bashful but gratified Brooks&mdash;"as crocked him over the head a bit
+sharper than needful. Here, Esp,"&mdash;to the grinning Slumberleigh
+policeman, whom Charles now recognized, "tell the lad to bring up the
+'orse and trap over the grass. We shall have a business to shift him as
+it is."</p>
+
+<p>"Is he a poacher?" asked Charles. "He doesn't look like it."</p>
+
+<p>"Lord! no, sir," replied the little man, and Charles's heart went
+straight down into his boots and stayed there. "I'm come down from
+Birmingham after him. He's no poacher. The police have wanted him very
+special for some time for the Francisco forgery case."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Charles watched the detective and the policeman hoist Raymond into the
+dog-cart and drive away, supporting him between them. No doubt it had
+been the wheels of that dog-cart which they had heard in the distance.
+Then he turned to Brooks.</p>
+
+<p>"How is it you remained behind?" he asked, sharply.</p>
+
+<p>Brooks's face fell, and he explained that just as he was starting in the
+pursuit he had caught his legs on "Sir Chawles sir's" stick, and "barked
+hisself."</p>
+
+<p>"I remember," said Charles. "You got in my way. You should look out
+where you are going. You may as well go and find my stick."</p>
+
+<p>The poor victim of duplicity departed rather crestfallen, and at this
+moment Dare came up.</p>
+
+<p>"We have lost him," he said, wiping his forehead. "I don't know what has
+become of him."</p>
+
+<p>"He doubled back here," said Charles. "I followed, but you all went on.
+The police have got him. He was not a poacher after all, so they said."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" said Dare. "They have him? I regret it. He ran well. I could wish
+he had escaped. I was in the door-way of a stable watching a long time,
+and all in a moment he rushed past me out of the door. The policeman was
+seeking within when he came out, but though he touched me I could not
+stop him. And now," with sudden weariness as his excitement evaporated,
+"all is, then, over for the night? And the others? Where are they? Do we
+wait for them here?"</p>
+
+<p>"We should wait some time if we did," replied Charles. "Ralph is certain
+to go on to the other coverts. He has poachers on the brain. Probably
+the rumor that they were coming here was only a blind, and they are
+doing a good business somewhere else. I am going home. I have had enough
+enjoyment for one evening. I should advise you to do the same."</p>
+
+<p>Dare winced, and did not answer, and Charles suddenly remembered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> that
+there were circumstances which might make it difficult for him to go
+back to Vandon.</p>
+
+<p>They walked away together in silence. Dare, who had been wildly excited,
+was beginning to feel the reaction. He was becoming giddy and faint with
+exhaustion and want of food. He had eaten nothing all day. They had not
+gone far when Charles saw that he stumbled at every other step.</p>
+
+<p>"Look out," he said once, as Dare stumbled more heavily than usual,
+"you'll twist your ankle on these loose stones if you're not more
+careful."</p>
+
+<p>"It is so dark," said Dare, faintly.</p>
+
+<p>The moon was shining brightly at the moment, and as Charles turned to
+look at him in surprise, Dare staggered forward, and would have
+collapsed altogether if he had not caught him by the arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Sit down," he said, authoritatively. "Here, not on me, man, on the
+bank. Always sit down when you can't stand. You have had too much
+excitement. I felt the same after my first Christmas-tree. You will be
+better directly."</p>
+
+<p>Charles spoke lightly, but he knew from what he had seen that Dare must
+have passed a miserable day. He had never liked him. It was impossible
+that he should have done so. But even his more active dislike of the
+last few months gave way to pity for him now, and he felt almost ashamed
+at the thought that his own happiness was only to be built on the ruin
+of poor Dare's.</p>
+
+<p>He made him swallow the contents of his flask, and as Dare choked and
+gasped himself back into the fuller possession of his faculties, and
+experienced the benign influences of whiskey, entertained at first
+unawares, his heart, always easily touched, warmed to the owner of the
+silver flask, and of the strong arm that was supporting him with an
+unwillingness he little dreamed of. His momentary jealousy of Charles in
+the summer had long since been forgotten. He felt towards him now, as
+Charles helped him up, and he proceeded slowly on his arm, as a friend
+and a brother.</p>
+
+<p>Charles, entirely unconscious of the noble sentiments which he and his
+flask had inspired, looked narrowly at his companion, as they neared the
+turn for Atherstone, and said with some anxiety:</p>
+
+<p>"Where are you going to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>Dare made no answer. He had no idea where he was going.</p>
+
+<p>Charles hesitated. He could not let him walk back alone to Vandon&mdash;over
+the bridge. It was long past midnight. Dare's evident inability to think
+where to turn touched him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Can I be of any use to you?" he said, earnestly. "Is there anything I
+can do? Perhaps, at present, you would rather not go to Vandon."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no," said Dare, shuddering; "I will not go there."</p>
+
+<p>Charles felt more certain than ever that it would not be safe to leave
+him to his own devices, and his anxiety not to lose sight of him in his
+present state gave a kindness to his manner of which he was hardly
+aware.</p>
+
+<p>"Come back to Atherstone with me," he said, "I will explain it to Ralph
+when he comes in. It will be all right."</p>
+
+<p>Dare accepted the proposition with gratitude. It relieved him for the
+moment from coming to any decision. He thanked Charles with effusion,
+and then&mdash;his natural impulsiveness quickened by the quantity of raw
+spirits he had swallowed, by this mark of sympathy, by the moonlight, by
+Heaven knows what that loosens the facile tongue of unreticence&mdash;then
+suddenly, without a moment's preparation, he began to pour forth his
+troubles into Charles's astonished and reluctant ears. It was vain to
+try to stop him, and, after the first moment of instinctive recoil,
+Charles was seized by a burning curiosity to know all where he already
+knew so much, to put an end to this racking suspense.</p>
+
+<p>"And that is not the worst," said Dare, when he had recounted how the
+woman he had seen on the church steps was in very deed the wife she
+claimed to be. "That is not the worst. I love another. We are affianced.
+We are as one. I bring sorrow upon her I love."</p>
+
+<p>"She knows, then?" asked Charles, hoarsely, hating himself for being
+such a hypocrite, but unable to refrain from putting a leading question.</p>
+
+<p>"She knows that some one&mdash;a person&mdash;is at Vandon," replied Dare, "who
+calls herself my wife, but I tell her it is not true and she, all
+goodness, all heavenly calm, she trusts me, and once again she promises
+to marry me if I am free, as I tell her, as I swear to her."</p>
+
+<p>Charles listened in astonishment. He saw Dare was speaking the truth,
+but that Ruth could have given such a promise was difficult to believe.
+He did not know, what Dare even had not at all realized, that she had
+given it in the belief that Dare, from his answers to her questions, had
+never been married to the woman at all, in the belief that she was a
+mere adventuress seeking to make money out of him by threatening a
+scandalous libel, and without the faintest suspicion that she was his
+divorced wife, whether legally or illegally divorced.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Dare had understood the promise to depend on the legality or illegality
+of that divorce, and told Charles so in all good faith. With an
+extraordinary effort of reticence he withheld the name of his affianced,
+and pressing Charles's arm, begged him to ask no more. And Charles,
+half-sorry, half-contemptuous, wholly ashamed of having allowed such a
+confidence to be forced upon him, marched on in silence, now divided
+between mortal anxiety for Raymond and pity for Dare, now striving to
+keep down a certain climbing rapturous emotion which would not be
+suppressed.</p>
+
+<p>One of the servants had waited up for their return, and, after getting
+Dare something to eat, Charles took him up to the room which had been
+prepared for himself, and then, feeling he had done his duty by him, and
+that he was safe for the present, went back to smoke by the smoking-room
+fire till Ralph came in, which was not till several hours later. When he
+did at last return it was in triumph. He was dead-beat, voiceless, and
+foot-sore; but a sense of glory sustained him. Four poachers had been
+taken red-handed in the coverts farthest from Arleigh. The rumor about
+Arleigh had, of course, been a blind; but he, Ralph, thank Heaven, was
+not to be taken in in such a hurry as all that! He could look after his
+interests as well as most men. In short, he was full of glorification to
+the brim, and it was only after hearing a hoarse and full account of the
+whole transaction several times over that Charles was able in a pause
+for breath to tell him that he had offered Dare a bed, as he was quite
+tired out, and was some distance from Vandon.</p>
+
+<p>"All right. Quite right," said Ralph, unheeding; "but you and he missed
+the best part of the whole thing. Great Scot! when I saw them come
+dodging round under the Black Rock and&mdash;" He was off again; and Charles
+doubted afterwards, as he fell asleep in his arm-chair by the fire,
+whether Ralph, already slumbering peacefully opposite him, had paid the
+least attention to what he had told him, and would not have entirely
+forgotten it in the morning. And, in fact, he did, and it was not until
+Evelyn desired, with dignity, on the morrow, that another time
+unsuitable persons should not be brought at midnight to <i>her</i> house,
+that he remembered what had happened.</p>
+
+<p>Charles, who was present, immediately took the blame upon himself, but
+Evelyn was not to be appeased. By this time the whole neighborhood was
+ringing with the news of the arrival of a foreign wife at Vandon, and
+Evelyn felt that Dare's presence in her blue bedroom, with crockery and
+crewel-work curtains to match, compro<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span>mised that apartment and herself,
+and that he must incontinently depart out of it. It was in vain that
+Ralph and even Charles expostulated. She remained unmoved. It was not,
+she said, as if she had been unwilling to receive him, in the first
+instance, as a possible Roman Catholic, though many might have blamed
+her for that, and perhaps she <i>had</i> been to blame; but she had never,
+no, never, had any one to stay that anybody could say anything about.
+(This was a solemn fact which it was impossible to deny.) Ralph might
+remember her own cousin, Willie Best, and she had always liked Willie,
+had never been asked again after that time&mdash;Ralph chuckled&mdash;that time he
+knew of. She was very sorry, and she quite understood all Charles meant,
+and she quite saw the force of what he said; but she could not allow
+people to stay in the house who had foreign wives that had been kept
+secret. What was poor Willie, who had only&mdash;Ralph need not laugh; there
+was nothing to laugh at&mdash;what was Willie to this? She must be
+consistent. She could see Charles was very angry with her, but she could
+not encourage what was wrong, even if he was angry. In short, Dare must
+go.</p>
+
+<p>But, when it came to the point, it was found that Dare could not go.
+Nothing short of force would have turned the unwelcome guest out of the
+bed in the blue bedroom, from which he made no attempt to rise, and on
+which he lay worn-out and feverish, in a stupor of sheer mental and
+physical exhaustion.</p>
+
+<p>Charles and Ralph went and looked at him rather ruefully, with masculine
+helplessness, and the end of it was that Evelyn, in nowise softened, for
+she was a good woman, had to give way, and a doctor was sent for.</p>
+
+<p>"Send for the man in D&mdash;&mdash;. Don't have the Slumberleigh man," said
+Charles; "it will only make more talk;" and the doctor from D&mdash;&mdash; was
+accordingly sent for.</p>
+
+<p>He did not arrive till the afternoon, and after he had seen Dare, and
+given him a sleeping draught, and had talked reassuringly of a mental
+shock and a feverish temperament he apologized for his delay in coming.
+He had been kept, he said, drawing on his gloves as he spoke, by a very
+serious case in the police-station at D&mdash;&mdash;. A man had been arrested on
+suspicion the previous night, and he seemed to have sustained some fatal
+internal injury. He ought to have been taken to the infirmary at once;
+but it had been thought he was only shamming when first arrested, and
+once in the police-station he could not be moved, and&mdash;the doctor took
+up his hat&mdash;he would probably hardly outlive the day.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"By-the-way," he added, turning at the door, "he asked over and over
+again, while I was with him, to see you or Mr. Danvers. I'm sure I
+forget which, but I promised him I would mention it. Nearly slipped my
+memory, all the same. He said one of you had known him in his better
+days, at&mdash;Oxford, was it?"</p>
+
+<p>"What name?" asked Charles.</p>
+
+<p>"Stephens," replied the doctor. "He seemed to think you would remember
+him."</p>
+
+<p>"Stephens," said Charles, reflectively. "Stephens! I once had a valet of
+that name, and a very good one he was, who left my service rather
+abruptly, taking with him numerous portable memorials of myself,
+including a set of diamond studs. I endeavored at the time to keep up my
+acquaintance with him; but he took measures effectually to close it. In
+fact, I have never heard of him from that day to this."</p>
+
+<p>"That's the man, no doubt," replied the doctor. "He has&mdash;er&mdash;a sort of
+look about him as if he might have been in a gentleman's service once;
+seen-better-days-sort of look, you know."</p>
+
+<p>Charles said he should be at D&mdash;&mdash; in the course of the afternoon, and
+would make a point of looking in at the police-station; and a quarter of
+an hour later he was driving as hard as he could tear in Ralph's high
+dog-cart along the road to D&mdash;&mdash;. It was a six-mile drive, and he
+slackened as he reached the straggling suburbs of the little town, lying
+before him in a dim mist of fine rain and smoke.</p>
+
+<p>Arrived at the dismal building which he knew to be the police-station,
+he was shown into a small room hung round with papers, where the warden
+was writing, and desired, with an authority so evidently accustomed to
+obedience that it invariably insured it, to see the prisoner. The
+prisoner, he said, at whose arrest he had been present, had expressed a
+wish to see him through the doctor; and as the warden demurred for the
+space of one second, Charles mentioned that he was a magistrate and
+justice of the peace, and sternly desired the confused official to show
+him the way at once. That functionary, awed by the stately manner which
+none knew better than Charles when to assume, led the way down a narrow
+stone passage, past numerous doors behind one of which a banging sound,
+accompanied by alcoholic oaths, suggested the presence of a freeborn
+Briton chafing under restraint.</p>
+
+<p>"I had him put up-stairs, sir," said the warden, humbly. "We didn't know
+when he came in as it was a case for the infirmary;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> but seeing he was
+wanted for a big thing, and poorly in his 'ealth, I giv' him one of the
+superior cells, with a mattress and piller complete."</p>
+
+<p>The man was evidently afraid that Charles had come as a magistrate to
+give him a reprimand of some kind, for, as he led the way up a narrow
+stone staircase, he continued to expatiate on the luxury of the
+"mattress and piller," on the superiority of the cell, and how a nurse
+had been sent for at once from the infirmary, when, owing to his own
+shrewdness, the prisoner was found to be "a hospital case."</p>
+
+<p>"The doctor wouldn't have him moved," he said, opening a closed door in
+a long passage full of doors, the rest of which stood open. "It's not
+reg'lar to have him in here, sir, I know; but the doctor wouldn't have
+him moved."</p>
+
+<p>Charles passed through the door, and found himself in a narrow
+whitewashed cell, with a bed at one side, over which an old woman in the
+dress of a hospital nurse was bending.</p>
+
+<p>"You can come out, Martha," said the warden. "The gentleman's come to
+see 'im."</p>
+
+<p>As the old woman disappeared, courtesying, he lingered to say, in a
+whisper, "Do you know him, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Charles, looking fixedly at the figure on the bed. "I
+remember him. I knew him years ago, in his better days. I dare say he
+will have something to tell me."</p>
+
+<p>"If it should be anything as requires a witness," continued the
+man&mdash;"he's said a deal already, and it's all down in proper form&mdash;but if
+there's anything more&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I will let you know," said Charles, looking towards the door, and the
+warden took the hint and went out of it, closing it quietly.</p>
+
+<p>Charles crossed the little room, and, sitting down in the crazy chair
+beside the bed, laid his hand gently on the listless hand lying palm
+upward on the rough gray counterpane.</p>
+
+<p>"Raymond," he said; "it is I, Danvers."</p>
+
+<p>The hand trembled a little, and made a faint attempt to clasp his.
+Charles took the cold, lifeless hand, and held it in his strong gentle
+grasp.</p>
+
+<p>"It is Danvers," he said again.</p>
+
+<p>The sick man turned his head slowly on the pillow, and looked fixedly at
+him. Death's own color, which imitation can never imitate, nor ignorance
+mistake, was stamped upon that rigid face.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I'm done for," he said with a faint smile, which touched the lips but
+did not reach the solemn far-reaching eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Charles could not speak.</p>
+
+<p>"You said I should turn up tails once too often," continued Raymond,
+with slow halting utterance, "and I've done it. I knew it was all up
+when I pitched over that d&mdash;&mdash;d wall onto the stones. I felt I'd killed
+myself."</p>
+
+<p>"How did they get you?" said Charles.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," replied Raymond, closing his eyes wearily, as if the
+subject had ceased to interest him. "I think I tried to creep along
+under the wall towards the place where it is broken down, when I fancy
+some one came over long after the others and knocked me on the head."</p>
+
+<p>Charles reflected with sudden wrath that Brooks, no doubt, had been the
+man, and how much worse than useless his man&oelig;uvre with the stick had
+been.</p>
+
+<p>"I did my best," he said, humbly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," replied the other; "and I would not have forgotten it, either,
+if&mdash;if there had been any time to remember it in; but there won't be.
+I've owned up," he continued, in a labored whisper. "Stephens has made a
+full confession. You'll have it in all the papers to-morrow. And while I
+was at it I piled on some more I never did, which will get friends over
+the water out of trouble. Tom Flavell did me a good turn once, and he's
+been in hiding these two years for&mdash;well, it don't much matter what, but
+I've shoved that in with the rest, though it was never in my
+line&mdash;never. He'll be able to go home now."</p>
+
+<p>"Have not you confessed under your own name?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," replied Raymond, with a curious remnant of that pride of race at
+which it is the undisputed privilege of low birth and a plebeian
+temperament to sneer. "I won't have my own name dragged in. I dropped it
+years ago. I've confessed as Stephens, and I'll die and be buried as
+Stephens. I'm not going to disgrace the family."</p>
+
+<p>There was a constrained silence of some minutes.</p>
+
+<p>"Would you like to see your sister?" asked Charles; but Raymond shook
+his head with feeble decision.</p>
+
+<p>"That man!" he said, suddenly, after a long pause. "That man in the
+door-way! How did he come there?"</p>
+
+<p>"There is no man in the door-way," said Charles, reassuringly. "There is
+no one here but me."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Last night," continued Raymond, "last night in the stables. I watched
+him stand in the door-way."</p>
+
+<p>Charles remembered how Dare had said Raymond had bolted out past him.</p>
+
+<p>"That was Dare," he said; "the man who was to have been your
+brother-in-law."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" said Raymond with evident unconcern. "I thought I'd seen him
+before. But he's altered. He's grown into a man. So he is to marry Ruth,
+is he?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not now. He was to have done, but a divorced wife from America has
+turned up. She arrived at Vandon the day before yesterday. It seems the
+divorce in America does not hold in England."</p>
+
+<p>Raymond started.</p>
+
+<p>"The old fox," he said, with feeble energy. "Tracked him out, has she?
+We used to call them fox and goose when she married him. By &mdash;&mdash;, she
+squeezed every dollar out of him before she let him go, and now she's
+got him again, has she? She always was a cool hand. The old fox," he
+continued, with contempt and admiration in his voice. "She's playing a
+bold game, and the luck is on her side, but she's no more his wife than
+I am, and she knows that perfectly well."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean that the divorce was&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Divorce, bosh!" said Raymond, working himself up into a state of feeble
+excitement frightful to see. "I tell you she was never married to him
+legally. She called herself a widow when she married Dare, but she had a
+husband living, Jasper Carroll, serving his time at Baton Rouge Jail,
+down South, all the time. He died there a year afterwards, but hardly a
+soul knows it to this day; and those that do don't care about bringing
+themselves into public notice. They'll prefer hush-money, if they find
+out what she's up to now. The prison register would prove it directly.
+But Dare will never find it out. How should he?"</p>
+
+<p>Raymond sank back speechless and panting. A strong shudder passed over
+him, and his breath seemed to fail.</p>
+
+<p>"It's coming," he whispered, hoarsely. "That lying doctor said I had
+several hours, and I feel it coming already."</p>
+
+<p>"Danvers," he continued, hurriedly, "are you still there?" Then, as
+Charles bent over him, "Closer; bend down. I want to see your face. Keep
+your own counsel about Dare. There's no one to tell if you don't. He's
+not fit for Ruth. You can marry her now. I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> saw what I saw. She'll take
+you. And some day&mdash;some day, when you have been married a long time,
+tell her I'm dead; and tell her&mdash;about Flavell, and how I owned to
+it&mdash;but that I did not do it. I never sank so low as that." His voice
+had dropped to a whisper which died imperceptibly away.</p>
+
+<p>"I will tell her," said Charles; and Raymond turned his face to the
+wall, and spoke no more.</p>
+
+<p>The struggle had passed, and for the moment death held aloof; but his
+shadow was there, lying heavy on the deepening twilight, and darkening
+all the little room. Raymond seemed to have sunk into a stupor, and at
+last Charles rose silently and went out.</p>
+
+<p>He was dimly conscious of meeting some one in the passage, of answering
+some question in the negative, and then he found himself gathering up
+the reins, and driving through the narrow lighted streets of D&mdash;&mdash; in
+the dusk, and so away down the long flat high-road to Atherstone.</p>
+
+<p>A white mist had risen up to meet the darkness, and had shrouded all the
+land. In sweeps and curves along the fields a gleaming pallor lay of
+heavy dew upon the grass, and on the road the long lines of dim water in
+the ruts reflected the dim sky.</p>
+
+<p>Carts lumbered past him in the darkness once or twice, the men in them
+peering back at his reckless driving; and once a carriage with lamps
+came swiftly up the road towards him, and passed him with a flash,
+grazing his wheel. But he took no heed. Drive as quickly as he would
+through mist and darkness, a voice followed him, the voice of a pursuing
+devil close at his ear, whispering in the halting, feeble utterance of a
+dying man:</p>
+
+<p>"Keep your own counsel about Dare. There is no one to tell if you
+don't."</p>
+
+<p>Charles shivered and set his teeth. High on the hill among the trees the
+distant lights of Slumberleigh shone like glowworms through the mist. He
+looked at them with wild eyes. She was there, the woman who loved him,
+and whom he passionately loved. He could stretch forth his hand to take
+her if he would. His breath came hard and thick. A hand seemed clutching
+and tearing at his heart. And close at his ear the whisper came:</p>
+
+<p><i>"There is no one to tell if you don't."</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII.</h2>
+
+
+<p>It was close on dressing-time when Charles came into the drawing-room,
+where Evelyn and Molly were building castles on the hearth-rug in the
+ruddy firelight. After changing his damp clothes, he had gone to the
+smoking-room, but he had found Dare sitting there in a vast
+dressing-gown of Ralph's, in a state of such utter dejection, with his
+head in his hands, that he had silently retreated again before he had
+been perceived. He did not want to see Dare just now. He wished he were
+not in the house.</p>
+
+<p>Quite oblivious of the fact that he was not in Evelyn's good graces, he
+went and sat by the drawing-room fire, and absently watched Molly
+playing with her bricks. Presently, when the dressing-bell rang, Evelyn
+went away to dress, and Molly, tired of her castles, suggested that she
+might sit on his knee.</p>
+
+<p>He let her climb up and wriggle and finally settle herself as it seemed
+good to her, but he did not speak; and so they sat in the firelight
+together, Molly's hand lovingly stroking his black velvet coat. But her
+talents lay in conversation, not in silence, and she soon broke it.</p>
+
+<p>"You do look beautiful to-night, Uncle Charles."</p>
+
+<p>"Do I?" without elation.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know, Uncle Charles, Ninny's sister with the wart on her cheek
+has been to tea? She's in the nursery now. Ninny says she's to have a
+bite of supper before she goes."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't say so?"</p>
+
+<p>"And we had buttered toast to tea, and she said you were the most
+splendid gentleman she ever saw."</p>
+
+<p>Charles did not answer. He did not even seem to have heard this
+interesting tribute to his personal appearance. Molly felt that
+something must be gravely amiss, and, laying her soft cheek against his,
+she whispered, confidentially:</p>
+
+<p>"Uncle Charles, are you uncomferable inside?"</p>
+
+<p>There was a long pause.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Molly," at last, pressing her to him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Is it there?" said Molly, sympathetically, laying her hand on the front
+portion of her amber sash.</p>
+
+<p>"No, Molly; I only wish it were."</p>
+
+<p>"It's not the little green pears, then," said Molly, with the sigh of
+experience, "because it's always <i>just</i> there, <i>always</i>, with them. It
+was again yesterday. They're nasty little pears,"&mdash;with a touch of
+personal resentment.</p>
+
+<p>Uncle Charles smiled at last, but it was not quite his usual smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Molly," said a voice from the door, "your mamma has sent for you."</p>
+
+<p>"It's not bedtime yet."</p>
+
+<p>"Your mamma says you are to come at once," was the reply.</p>
+
+<p>Molly, knowing from experience that an appeal to Charles was useless on
+these occasions, wriggled down from her perch rather reluctantly, and
+bade her uncle "Good-night."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps it will be better to-morrow," she said, consolingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," he said, nodding at her; and he took her little head between
+his hands, and kissed her. She rubbed his kiss off again, and walked
+gravely away. She could not be merry and ride in triumph up-stairs on
+kind curvetting Sarah's willing back, while her friend was "uncomferable
+inside." There was no galloping down the passage that night, no
+pleasantries with the sponge in Molly's tub, no last caperings in light
+attire. Molly went silently to bed, and as on a previous occasion when
+in great anxiety about Vic, who had thoughtlessly gone out in the
+twilight for a stroll, and had forgotten the lapse of time, she added a
+whispered clause to her little petitions which the ear of "Ninny" failed
+to catch.</p>
+
+<p>Charles recognized, in the way Evelyn had taken Molly from him, that she
+was not yet appeased. It should be remembered, in order to do her
+justice, that a good woman's means of showing a proper resentment are so
+straitened and circumscribed by her conscience that she is obliged, from
+actual want of material, to resort occasionally to little acts of
+domestic tyranny, small in themselves as midge bites, but, fortunately
+for the cause of virtue, equally exasperating. Indeed, it is improbable
+that any really good woman would ever so far forget herself as to lose
+her temper, if she were once thoroughly aware how much more irritating
+in the long-run a judicious course of those small persecutions may be
+made, which the tenderest conscience need not scruple to inflict.</p>
+
+<p>Charles was unreasonably annoyed at having Molly taken from him. As he
+sat by the fire alone, tired in mind and body, a hover<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span>ing sense of
+cold, and an intense weariness of life took him; and a great longing
+came over him like a thirst&mdash;a longing for a little of the personal
+happiness which seemed to be the common lot of so many round him; for a
+home where he had now only a house; for love and warmth and
+companionship, and possibly some day a little Molly of his own, who
+would not be taken from him at the caprice of another.</p>
+
+<p>The only barrier to the fulfilment of such a dream had been a
+conscientious scruple of Ruth's, to which at the time he had urged upon
+her that she did wrong to yield. That barrier was now broken down; but
+it ought never to have existed. Ruth and he belonged to each other by
+divine law, and she had no right to give herself to any one else to
+satisfy her own conscience. And now&mdash;all would be well. She was absolved
+from her promise. She had been wrong to persist in keeping it, in his
+opinion; but at any rate she was honorably released from it now. And she
+would marry him.</p>
+
+<p>And that <i>second</i> promise, which she had made to Dare, that she would
+still marry him if he were free to marry?</p>
+
+<p>Charles moved impatiently in his chair. From what exaggerated sense of
+duty she had made that promise he knew not; but he would save her from
+the effects of her own perverted judgment. He knew what Ruth's word
+meant, since he had tried to make her break it. He knew that she had
+promised to marry Dare if he were free. He knew that, having made that
+promise, she would keep it.</p>
+
+<p>It would be mere sentimental folly on his part to say the word that
+would set Dare free. Even if the American woman were not his wife in the
+eye of the law, she had a moral claim upon him. The possibility of
+Ruth's still marrying Dare was too hideous to be thought of. If her
+judgment was so entirely perverted by a morbid conscientious fear of
+following her own inclination that she could actually give Dare that
+promise, directly after the arrival of the adventuress, Charles would
+take the decision out of her hands. As she could not judge fairly for
+herself, he would judge for her, and save her from herself.</p>
+
+<p>For her sake as much as for his own he resolved to say nothing. He had
+only to keep silence.</p>
+
+<p><i>"There's no one to tell if you don't."</i></p>
+
+<p>The door opened, and Charles gave a start as Dare came into the room. He
+was taken aback by the sudden rush of jealous hatred that surged up
+within him at his appearance. It angered and shamed him,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> and Dare, much
+shattered but feebly cordial, found him very irresponsive and silent for
+the few minutes that remained before the dinner-bell rang, and the
+others came down.</p>
+
+<p>It was not a pleasant meal. If Dare had been a shade less ill, he must
+have noticed the marked coldness of Evelyn's manner, and how Ralph
+good-naturedly endeavored to make up for it by double helpings of soup
+and fish, which he was quite unable to eat. Charles and Lady Mary were
+never congenial spirits at the best of times, and to-night was not the
+best. That lady, after feebly provoking the attack, as usual, sustained
+some crushing defeats, mainly couched in the language of Scripture,
+which was, as she felt with Christian indignation, turning her own
+favorite weapon against herself, as possibly Charles thought she
+deserved, for putting such a weapon to so despicable a use.</p>
+
+<p>"I really don't know," she said, tremulously, afterwards in the
+drawing-room, "what Charles will come to if he goes on like this. I
+don't mind"&mdash;venomously&mdash;"his tone towards myself. That I do not regard;
+but his entire want of reverence for the Church and apostolic
+succession; his profane remarks about vestments; in short, his entire
+attitude towards religion gives me the gravest anxiety."</p>
+
+<p>In the dining-room the conversation flagged, and Charles was beginning
+to wonder whether he could make some excuse and bolt, when a servant
+came in with a note for him. It was from the doctor in D&mdash;&mdash;, and ran as
+follows:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,</p>
+
+<p>"I have just seen (6.30 <span class="smcap">p.m.</span>) Stephens again. I found him in a state of
+the wildest excitement, and he implored me to send you word that he
+wanted to see you again. He seemed so sure that you would go if you knew
+he wished it, that I have commissioned Sergeant Brown's boy to take
+this. He wished me to say 'there was something more.' If there is any
+further confession he desires to make, he has not much time to do it in.
+I did not expect he would have lasted till now. As it is, he is going
+fast. Indeed, I hardly think you will be in time to see him; but I
+promised to give you this message.</p>
+
+<p>Yours faithfully,</p>
+<p> <span class="smcap">R. White</span>."</p></div>
+
+<p>"I must go," Charles said, throwing the note across to Ralph. "Give the
+boy half a crown, will you? I suppose I may take Othello?" and before
+Ralph had mastered the contents of the note,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> and begun to fumble for a
+half-crown, Charles was saddling Othello himself, without waiting for
+the groom, and in a few minutes was clattering over the stones out of
+the yard.</p>
+
+<p>There was just light enough to ride by, and he rode hard. What was
+it&mdash;what could it be that Raymond had still to tell him? He felt certain
+it had something to do with Ruth, and probably Dare. Should he arrive in
+time to hear it? There at last were the lights of D&mdash;&mdash; in front of him.
+Should he arrive in time? As he pulled up his steaming horse before the
+police-station his heart misgave him.</p>
+
+<p>"Am I too late?" he asked of the man who came to the door.</p>
+
+<p>He looked bewildered.</p>
+
+<p>"Stephens! Is he dead?"</p>
+
+<p>The man shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"They say he's a'most gone."</p>
+
+<p>Charles threw the rein to him, and hurried in-doors. He met some one
+coming out, the doctor probably, he thought afterwards, who took him
+up-stairs, and sent away the old woman who was in attendance.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't do anything more," he said, opening the door for him. "Wanted
+elsewhere. Very good of you, I'm sure. Not much use, I'm afraid.
+Good-night. I'll tell the old woman to be about."</p>
+
+<p>A dim lamp was burning on the little corner cupboard near the door, and,
+as Charles bent over the bed, he saw in a moment, even by that pale
+light, that he was too late.</p>
+
+<p>Life was still there, if that feeble tossing could be called life; but
+all else was gone. Raymond's feet were already on the boundary of the
+land where all things are forgotten; and, at the sight of that dim
+country, memory, affrighted, had slipped away and left him.</p>
+
+<p>Was it possible to recall him to himself even yet?</p>
+
+<p>"Raymond," he said, in a low distinct voice, "what is it you wish to
+say? Tell me quickly what it is."</p>
+
+<p>But the long agony of farewell between body and soul had begun, and the
+eyes that seemed to meet his with momentary recognition only looked at
+him in anguish, seeking help and finding none, and wandered away again,
+vainly searching for that which was not to be found.</p>
+
+<p>Charles could do nothing, but he had not the heart to leave him to
+struggle with death entirely alone, and so, in awed and helpless
+compassion, he sat by him through one long hour after another, waiting
+for the end which still delayed, his eyes wandering ever and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> anon from
+the bed to the high grated window, or idly spelling out the different
+names and disparaging remarks that previous occupants had scratched and
+scrawled over the whitewashed walls.</p>
+
+<p>And so the hours passed.</p>
+
+<p>At last, all in a moment, the struggle ceased. The dying man vainly
+tried to raise himself to meet what was coming, and Charles put his
+strong arm round him and held him up. He knew that consciousness
+sometimes returns at the moment of death.</p>
+
+<p>"Raymond," he whispered, earnestly. "Raymond."</p>
+
+<p>A tremor passed over the face. The lips moved. The homeless, lingering
+soul came back, and looked for the last time fixedly and searchingly at
+him out of the dying eyes, and then&mdash;seeing no help for it&mdash;went
+hurriedly on its way, leaving the lips parted to speak, leaving the
+deserted eyes vacant and terrible, until after a time Charles closed
+them.</p>
+
+<p>He had gone without speaking. Whatever he had wished to say would remain
+unsaid forever. Charles laid him down, and stood a long time looking at
+the set face. The likeness to Raymond seemed to be fading away under the
+touch of the Mighty Hand, but the look of Ruth, the better look,
+remained.</p>
+
+<p>At last he turned away and went out, stopping to wake the old nurse,
+heavily asleep in the passage. His horse was brought round for him from
+somewhere, and he mounted and rode away. He had no idea how long he had
+been there. It must have been many hours, but he had quite lost sight of
+time. It was still dark, but the morning could not be far off. He rode
+mechanically, his horse, which knew the road, taking him at its own
+pace. The night was cold, but he did not feel it. All power of feeling
+anything seemed gone from him. The last two days and nights of suspense
+and high-strung emotion seemed to have left him incapable of any further
+sensation at present beyond that of an intense fatigue.</p>
+
+<p>He rode slowly, and put up his horse with careful absence of mind. The
+eastern horizon was already growing pale and distinct as he found his
+way in-doors through the drawing-room window, the shutter of which had
+been left unhinged for him by Ralph, according to custom when either of
+them was out late. He went noiselessly up to his room, and sat down.
+After a time he started to find himself still sitting there; but he
+remained without stirring, too tired to move, his elbows on the table,
+his chin in his hands. He felt he could not sleep if he were to drag
+himself into bed. He might just as well stay where he was.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And as he sat watching the dawn his mind began to stir, to shake off its
+lethargy and stupor, to struggle into keener and keener consciousness.</p>
+
+<p>There are times, often accompanying great physical prostration, when a
+veil seems to be lifted from our mental vision. As in the Mediterranean
+one may glance down suddenly on a calm day, and see in the blue depths
+with a strange surprise the sea-weed and the rocks and the fretted sands
+below, so also in rare hours we see the hidden depths of the soul, over
+which we have floated in heedless unconsciousness so long, and catch a
+glimpse of the hills and the valleys of those untravelled regions.</p>
+
+<p>Charles sat very still with his chin in his hands. His mind did not
+work. It looked right down to the heart of things.</p>
+
+<p>There is, perhaps, no time when mental vision is so clear, when the mind
+is so sane, as when death has come very near to us. There is a light
+which he brings with him, which he holds before the eyes of the dying,
+the stern light, seldom seen, of reality, before which self-deception
+and meanness, and that which maketh a lie, cower in their native
+deformity and slip away.</p>
+
+<p>And death sheds at times a strange gleam from that same light upon the
+souls of those who stand within his shadow, and watch his kingdom
+coming. In an awful transfiguration all things stand for what they are.
+Evil is seen to be evil, and good to be good. Right and wrong sunder
+more far apart, and we cannot mistake them as we do at other times. The
+debatable land stretching between them&mdash;that favorite resort of
+undecided natures&mdash;disappears for a season, and offers no longer its
+false refuge. The mind is taken away from all artificial supports, and
+the knowledge comes home to the soul afresh, with strong conviction that
+"truth is our only armor in all passages of life," as with awed hearts
+we see it is the only armor in the hour of death, the only shield that
+we may bear away with us into the unknown country.</p>
+
+<p>Charles shuddered involuntarily. His decision of the afternoon to keep
+secret what Raymond had told him was gradually but surely assuming a
+different aspect. What was it, after all, but a suppression of truth&mdash;a
+kind of lie? What was it but doing evil that good might come?</p>
+
+<p>It was no use harping on the old string of consequences. He saw that he
+had resolved to commit a deliberate sin, to be false to that great
+principle of life&mdash;right for the sake of right, truth for the love of
+truth&mdash;by which of late he had been trying to live. So far it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> had not
+been difficult, for his nature was not one to do things by halves, but
+now&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Old voices out of the past, which he had thought long dead, rose out of
+forgotten graves to urge him on. What was he that he should stick at
+such a trifle? Why should a man with his past begin to split hairs?</p>
+
+<p>And conscience said nothing, only pointed, only showed, with a clearness
+that allowed of no mistake, that he had come to a place where two roads
+met.</p>
+
+<p>Charles's heart suffered then "the nature of an insurrection." The old
+lawless powers that had once held sway, and had been forced back into
+servitude under the new rule of the last few years of responsibility and
+honor, broke loose, and spread like wildfire throughout the kingdom of
+his heart.</p>
+
+<p>The struggle deepened to a battle fierce and furious. His soul was rent
+with a frenzy of tumult, of victory and defeat ever changing sides, ever
+returning to the attack.</p>
+
+<p>Can a kingdom divided against itself stand?</p>
+
+<p>He sat motionless, gazing with absent eyes in front of him.</p>
+
+<p>And across the shock of battle, and above the turmoil of conflicting
+passions, Ruth's voice came to him. He saw the pale spiritual face, the
+deep eyes so full of love and anguish, and yet so steadfast with a great
+resolve. He heard again her last words, "I cannot do what is wrong, even
+for you."</p>
+
+<p>He stretched out his hands suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>"You would not, Ruth," he said, half aloud; "you would not. Neither will
+I do what I know to be wrong for you, so help me God! not even for you."</p>
+
+<p>The dawn was breaking, was breaking clear and cold, and infinitely far
+away; was coming up through unfathomable depths and distances, through
+gleaming caverns and fastnesses of light, like a new revelation fresh
+from God. But Charles did not see it, for his head was down on the
+table, and he was crying like a child.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Dare was down early the following morning, much too early for the
+convenience of the house-maids, who were dusting the drawing-room when
+he appeared there. He was usually as late as any of the young and gilded
+unemployed who feel it incumbent on themselves to show by these public
+demonstrations their superiority to the rules and fixed hours of the
+working and thinking world, with whom, however, their fear of being
+identified is a groundless apprehension. But to-day Dare experienced a
+mournful satisfaction in being down so early. He felt the underlying
+pathos of such a marked departure from his usual habits. It was obvious
+that nothing but deep affliction or cub-hunting could have been the
+cause, and the cub-hunting was over. The inference was not one that
+could be missed by the meanest capacity.</p>
+
+<p>He took up the newspaper with a sigh, and settled himself in front of
+the blazing fire, which was still young and leaping, with the enthusiasm
+of dry sticks not quite gone out of it.</p>
+
+<p>Charles heard Dare go down just as he finished dressing, for he too was
+early that morning. There was more than half an hour before
+breakfast-time. He considered a moment, and then went down-stairs. Some
+resolutions once made cannot be carried out too quickly.</p>
+
+<p>As he passed through the hall he looked out. The mist of the night
+before had sought out every twig and leaflet, and had silvered it to
+meet the sun. The rime on the grass looked cool and tempting. Charles's
+head ached, and he went out for a moment and stood in the crisp still
+air. The rooks were cawing high up. The face of the earth had not
+altered during the night. It shimmered and was glad, and smiled at his
+grave, care-worn face.</p>
+
+<p>"Hallo!" called a voice; and Ralph's head, with his hair sticking
+straight out on every side, was thrust out of a window. "I say, Charles,
+early bird you are!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Charles, looking up and leisurely going in-doors again; "you
+are the first worm I have seen."</p>
+
+<p>He found Dare, as he expected, in the drawing-room, and proceeded at
+once to the business he had in hand.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I am glad you are down early," he said. "You are the very man I want."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" replied Dare, shaking his head, "when the heart is troubled there
+is no sleep, none. All the clocks are heard."</p>
+
+<p>"Possibly. I should not wonder if you heard another in the course of
+half an hour, which will mean breakfast. In the mean time&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I want no breakfast. A sole cup of&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"In the mean time," continued Charles, "I have some news for you." And,
+disregarding another interruption, he related as shortly as he could the
+story of Stephens's recognition of him in the door-way, and the
+subsequent revelations in the prison concerning Dare's marriage.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is this man, this Stephens?" said Dare, jumping up. "I will go to
+him. I will hear from his own mouth. Where is he?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," replied Charles, curtly. "It is a matter of opinion. He
+is dead!"</p>
+
+<p>Dare looked bewildered, and then sank back with a gasp of disappointment
+into his chair.</p>
+
+<p>Charles, whose temper was singularly irritable this morning, repeated
+with suppressed annoyance the greater part of what he had just said, and
+proved to Dare that the fact that Stephens was dead would in no way
+prevent the illegality of his marriage being proved.</p>
+
+<p>When Dare had grasped the full significance of that fact he was quite
+overcome.</p>
+
+<p>"Am I, then," he gasped&mdash;"is it true?&mdash;am I free&mdash;to marry?"</p>
+
+<p>"Quite free."</p>
+
+<p>Dare burst into tears, and, partially veiling with one hand the manly
+emotion that had overtaken him, he extended the other to Charles, who
+did not know what to do with it when he had got it, and dropped it as
+soon as he could. But Dare, like many people whose feelings are all on
+the surface, and who are rather proud of displaying them, was slow to
+notice what was passing in the minds of others.</p>
+
+<p>He sprang to his feet, and began to pace rapidly up and down.</p>
+
+<p>"I will go after breakfast&mdash;at once&mdash;immediately after breakfast, to
+Slumberleigh Rectory."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose, in that case, Miss Deyncourt is the person whose name you
+would not mention the other day?"</p>
+
+<p>"She is," said Dare. "You are right. It is she. We are betrothed. I will
+fly to her after breakfast."</p>
+
+<p>"You know your own affairs best," said Charles, whose temper had not
+been improved by the free display of Dare's finer feelings;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> "but I am
+not sure you would not do well to fly to Vandon first. It is best to be
+off with the old love, I believe, before you are on with the new."</p>
+
+<p>"She must at once go away from Vandon," said Dare, stopping short. "She
+is a scandal, the&mdash;the old one. But how to make her go away?"</p>
+
+<p>It was in vain for Charles to repeat that Dare must turn her out. Dare
+had premonitory feelings that he was quite unequal to the task.</p>
+
+<p>"I may tell her to go," he said, raising his eyebrows. "I may be firm as
+the rock, but I know her well; she is more obstinate than me. She will
+not go."</p>
+
+<p>"She must," said Charles, with anger. "Her presence compromises Miss
+Deyncourt. Can't you see that?"</p>
+
+<p>Dare raised his eyebrows. A light seemed to break in on him.</p>
+
+<p>"Any fool can see that," said Charles, losing his temper.</p>
+
+<p>Dare saw a great deal&mdash;many things besides that. He saw that if a
+friend, a trusted friend, were to manage her dismissal, it would be more
+easy for that friend than for one whose feelings at the moment might
+carry him away. In short, Charles was the friend who was evidently
+pointed out by Providence for that mission.</p>
+
+<p>Charles considered a moment. He began to see that it would not be done
+without further delays and scandal unless he did it.</p>
+
+<p>"She must and shall go at once, even if I have to do it," he said at
+last, looking at Dare with unconcealed contempt. "It is not my affair,
+but I will go, and you will be so good as to put off the flying over to
+Slumberleigh till I come back. I shall not return until she has left the
+house." And Charles marched out of the room, too indignant to trust
+himself a moment longer with the profusely grateful Dare.</p>
+
+<p>"That man must go to-day," said Evelyn, after breakfast, to her husband,
+in the presence of Lady Mary and Charles. "While he was ill I overlooked
+his being in the house; but I will not suffer him to remain now he is
+well."</p>
+
+<p>"You remove him from all chance of improvement," said Charles, "if you
+take him away from Aunt Mary, who can snatch brands from the burning, as
+we all know; but I am going over to Vandon this morning, and if you wish
+it I will ask him if he would like me to order his dog-cart to come for
+him. I don't suppose he is very happy here, without so much as a
+tooth-brush that he can call his own."</p>
+
+<p>"You are going to Vandon?" asked both ladies in one voice.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I am going on purpose to dislodge an impostor who has arrived
+there, who is actually believed by some people (who are not such
+exemplary Christians as ourselves, and ready to suppose the worst) to be
+his wife."</p>
+
+<p>Lady Mary and Evelyn looked at each other in consternation, and Charles
+went off to see how Othello was after his night's work, and to order the
+dog-cart, Ralph calling after him, in perfect good-humor, that "a
+fellow's brother got more out of a fellow's horses than a fellow did
+himself."</p>
+
+<p>Dare waylaid Charles on his return from the stables, and linked his arm
+in his. He felt the most enthusiastic admiration for the tall reserved
+Englishman who had done him such signal service. He longed for an
+opportunity of showing his gratitude to him. It was perhaps just as well
+that he was not aware how very differently Charles regarded himself.</p>
+
+<p>"You are just going?" Dare asked.</p>
+
+<p>"In five minutes."</p>
+
+<p>Charles let his arm hang straight down, but Dare kept it.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me, my friend, one thing." Dare had evidently been turning over
+something in his mind. "This poor unfortunate, this Stephens, why did he
+not tell you all this the <i>first</i> time you went to see him in the
+afternoon?"</p>
+
+<p>"He did."</p>
+
+<p>"What?" said Dare, looking hard at him. "He <i>did</i>, and you only tell me
+this morning! You let me go all through the night first. Why was this?"</p>
+
+<p>Charles did not answer.</p>
+
+<p>"I ask one thing more," continued Dare. "Did you divine two nights ago,
+from what I said in a moment of confidence, that Miss Deyncourt was
+the&mdash;the&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I did," said Charles, sharply. "You made it sufficiently
+obvious."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" said Dare. "Ah!" and he shut his eyes and nodded his head several
+times.</p>
+
+<p>"Anything more you would like to know?" asked Charles, inattentive and
+impatient, mainly occupied in trying to hide the nameless exasperation
+which invariably seized him when he looked at Dare, and to stifle the
+contemptuous voice which always whispered as he did so, "And you have
+given up Ruth to him&mdash;to <i>him</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, no!" said Dare, shaking his head gently, and regarding him the
+while with infinite interest through his half-closed eyelids.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The dog-cart was coming round, and Charles hastily turned from him, and,
+getting in, drove quickly away. Whatever Dare said or did seemed to set
+his teeth on edge, and he lashed up the horse till he was out of sight
+of the house.</p>
+
+<p>Dare, with arms picturesquely folded, stood looking after him with mixed
+feelings of emotion and admiration.</p>
+
+<p>"One sees it well," he said to himself. "One sees now the reason of many
+things. He kept silent at first, but he was too good, too noble. In the
+night he considered; in the morning he told all. I wondered that he went
+to Vandon; but he did it not for me. It was for her sake."</p>
+
+<p>Dare's feelings were touched to the quick.</p>
+
+<p>How beautiful! how pathetic was this <i>d&eacute;nouement</i>! His former admiration
+for Charles was increased a thousand-fold. <i>He also loved!</i> Ah! (Dare
+felt he was becoming agitated.) How sublime, how touching was his
+self-sacrifice in the cause of honor! He had been gradually working
+himself up to the highest pitch of pleasurable excitement and emotion;
+and now, seeing Ralph the prosaic approaching, he fled precipitately
+into the house, caught up his hat and stick, hardly glancing at himself
+in the hall-glass, and, entirely forgetting his promise to Charles to
+remain at Atherstone till the latter returned from Vandon, followed the
+impulse of the moment, and struck across the fields in the direction of
+Slumberleigh.</p>
+
+<p>Charles, meanwhile, drove on to Vandon. The stable clock, still
+partially paralyzed from long disuse, was laboriously striking eleven as
+he drew up before the door. His resounding peal at the bell startled the
+household, and put the servants into a flutter of anxious expectation,
+while the sound made some one else, breakfasting late in the
+dining-room, pause with her cup midway to her lips and listen.</p>
+
+<p>"There is a train which leaves Slumberleigh station for London a little
+after twelve, is not there?" asked Charles, with great distinctness, of
+the butler as he entered the hall. He had observed as he came in that
+the dining-room door was ajar.</p>
+
+<p>"There is, Sir Charles. Twelve fifteen," replied the man, who recognized
+him instantly, for everybody knew Charles.</p>
+
+<p>"I am here as Mr. Dare's friend, at his wish. Tell Mr. Dare's coachman
+to bring round his dog-cart to the door in good time to catch that
+train. Will it take luggage?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Sir Charles," with respectful alacrity.</p>
+
+<p>"Good! And when the dog-cart appears you will see that the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> boxes are
+brought down belonging to the person who is staying here, who will leave
+by that train."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Sir Charles."</p>
+
+<p>"If the policeman from Slumberleigh should arrive while I am here, ask
+him to wait."</p>
+
+<p>"I will, Sir Charles."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't suppose," thought Charles, "he will arrive, as I have not sent
+for him; but, as the dining-room door happens to be ajar, it is just as
+well to add a few artistic touches."</p>
+
+<p>"Is this person in the drawing-room?" he continued aloud.</p>
+
+<p>The man replied that she was in the dining-room, and Charles walked in
+unannounced, and closed the door behind him.</p>
+
+<p>He had at times, when any action of importance was on hand, a certain
+cool decision of manner that seemed absolutely to ignore the possibility
+of opposition, which formed a curious contrast with his usual careless
+demeanor.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-morning," he said, advancing to the fire. "I have no doubt that my
+appearance at this early hour cannot be a surprise to you. You have, of
+course, anticipated some visit of this kind for the last few days. Pray
+finish your coffee. I am Sir Charles Danvers. I need hardly add that I
+am justice of the peace in this county, and that I am here officially on
+behalf of my friend, Mr. Dare."</p>
+
+<p>The little woman, who had risen, and had then sat down again at his
+entrance, eyed him steadily. There was a look in her dark bead-like eyes
+which showed Charles why Dare had been unable to face her. The look,
+determined, cunning, watchful, put him on his guard, and his manner
+became a shade more unconcerned.</p>
+
+<p>"Any friend of my husband's is welcome," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"There is no question for the moment about your husband, though no doubt
+a subject of peculiar interest to yourself. I was speaking of Mr. Dare."</p>
+
+<p>She rose to her feet, as if unable to sit while he was standing.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Dare is my husband," she said, with a little gesture of defiance,
+tapping sharply on the table with a teaspoon she held in her hand.</p>
+
+<p>Charles smiled blandly, and looked out of the window.</p>
+
+<p>"There is evidently some misapprehension on that point," he observed,
+"which I am here to remove. Mr. Dare is at present unmarried."</p>
+
+<p>"I am his wife," reiterated the woman, her color rising under her rouge.
+"I am, and I won't go. He dared not come himself, a poor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span> coward that he
+is, to turn his wife out-of-doors. He sent you; but it's no manner of
+use, so you may as well know it first as last. I tell you nothing shall
+induce me to stir from this house, from my home, and you needn't think
+you can come it over me with fine talk. I don't care a red cent what you
+say. I'll have my rights."</p>
+
+<p>"I am here," said Charles, "to see that you get them, Mrs.&mdash;<i>Carroll</i>."</p>
+
+<p>There was a pause. He did not look at her. He was occupied in taking a
+white thread off his coat.</p>
+
+<p>"Carroll's dead," she said, sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"He is. And your regret at his loss was no doubt deepened by the unhappy
+circumstances in which it took place. He died in jail."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, and if he did&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Died," continued Charles, suddenly fixing his keen glance upon her,
+"nearly a year after your so-called marriage with Mr. Dare."</p>
+
+<p>"It's a lie," she said, faintly; but she had turned very white.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I <i>think</i> not. My information is on reliable authority. A slight
+exertion of memory on your part will no doubt recall the date of your
+bereavement."</p>
+
+<p>"You can't prove it."</p>
+
+<p>"Excuse me. You have yourself kindly furnished us with a copy of the
+marriage register, with the date attached, without which I must own we
+might have been momentarily at a loss. I need now only apply for a copy
+of the register of the decease of Jasper Carroll, who, as you do not
+deny, died under personal restraint in jail; in Baton Rouge Jail in
+Louisiana, I have no doubt you intended to add."</p>
+
+<p>She glared at him in silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Some dates acquire a peculiar interest when compared," continued
+Charles, "but I will not detain you any longer with business details of
+this kind, as I have no doubt that you will wish to superintend your
+packing."</p>
+
+<p>"I won't go."</p>
+
+<p>"On the contrary, you will leave this house in half an hour. The
+dog-cart is ordered to take you to the station."</p>
+
+<p>"What if I refuse to go?"</p>
+
+<p>"Extreme measures are always to be regretted, especially with a lady,"
+said Charles. "Nothing, in short, would be more repugnant to me; but I
+fear, as a magistrate, it would be my duty to&mdash;" And he shrugged his
+shoulders, wondering what on earth could be done for the moment if she
+persisted. "But," he continued, "motives<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> of self-interest suggest the
+advisability of withdrawing, even if I were not here to enforce it. When
+I take into consideration the trouble and expense you have incurred in
+coming here, and the subsequent disappointment of the affections, a
+widow's affections, I feel justified in offering, though without my
+friend's permission, to pay your journey back to America, an offer which
+any further unpleasantness or delay would of course oblige me to
+retract."</p>
+
+<p>She hesitated, and he saw his advantage and kept it.</p>
+
+<p>"You have not much time to lose," he said, laying his watch on the
+table, "unless you would prefer the house-keeper to do your packing for
+you. No? I agree with you. On a sea voyage especially, one likes to know
+where one's things are. If I give you a check for your return journey, I
+shall, of course, expect you to sign a paper to the effect that you have
+no claim on Mr. Dare, that you never were his legal wife, and that you
+will not trouble him in future. You would like a few moments for
+reflection? Good! I will write out the form while you consider, as there
+is no time to be lost."</p>
+
+<p>He looked about for writing materials, and, finding only an ancient
+inkstand and pen, took a note from his pocket-book and tore a blank
+half-sheet off it. His quiet deliberate movements awed her as he
+intended they should. She glanced first at him writing, then at the gold
+watch on the table between them, the hours of which were marked on the
+half-hunting face by alternate diamonds and rubies, each stone being the
+memorial of a past success in shooting-matches. The watch impressed her;
+to her practised eye it meant a very large sum of money, and she knew
+the power of money; but the cool, unconcerned manner of this tall,
+keen-eyed Englishman impressed her still more. As she looked at him he
+ceased writing, got out a check, and began to fill it in.</p>
+
+<p>"What Christian name?" he asked, suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>"Ellen," she replied, taken aback.</p>
+
+<p>"Payable to order or bearer?"</p>
+
+<p>"Bearer," she said, confused by the way he took her decision for
+granted.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," he said, authoritatively, "sign your name there;" and he pushed
+the form he had drawn up towards her. "I am sorry I cannot offer you a
+better pen."</p>
+
+<p>She took the pen mechanically and signed her name&mdash;<i>Ellen Carroll</i>.
+Charles's light eyes gave a flash as she did it.</p>
+
+<p>"Manner is everything," he said to himself. "I believe the men<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span>tion of
+that imaginary policeman may have helped, but a little stage effect did
+the business."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," he said, taking the paper, and, after glancing at the
+signature, putting it in his pocket-book. "Allow me to give you
+this"&mdash;handing her the check. "And now I will ring for the house-keeper,
+for you will barely have time to make the arrangements for your journey.
+I can allow you only twenty minutes." He rang the bell as he spoke.</p>
+
+<p>She started up as if unaware how far she had yielded. A rush of angry
+color flooded her face.</p>
+
+<p>"I won't have that impertinent woman touching my things."</p>
+
+<p>"That is as you like," said Charles, shrugging his shoulders; "but she
+will be in the room when you pack. It is my wish that she should be
+present." Then turning to the butler, who had already answered the bell,
+"Desire the house-keeper to go to Mrs. Carroll's rooms at once, and to
+give Mrs. Carroll any help she may require."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Carroll looked from the butler to Charles with baffled hatred in
+her eyes. But she knew the game was lost, and she walked out of the room
+and up-stairs without another word, but with a bitter consciousness in
+her heart that she had not played her cards well, that, though her
+downfall was unavoidable, she might have stood out for better terms for
+her departure. She hated Dare, as she threw her clothes together into
+her trunks, and she hated Mrs. Smith, who watched her do so with folded
+hands and with a lofty smile; but most of all she hated Charles, whose
+voice came up to the open window as he talked to Dare's coachman,
+already at the door, about splints and sore backs.</p>
+
+<p>Charles felt a momentary pity for the little woman when she came down at
+last with compressed lips, casting lightning glances at the grinning
+servants in the background, whom she had bullied and hectored over in
+the manner of people unaccustomed to servants, and who were rejoicing in
+the ignominy of her downfall.</p>
+
+<p>Her boxes were put in&mdash;not carefully.</p>
+
+<p>Charles came forward and lifted his cap, but she would not look at him.
+Grasping a little hand-bag convulsively, she went down the steps, and
+got up, unassisted, into the dog-cart.</p>
+
+<p>"You have left nothing behind, I hope?" said Charles, civilly, for the
+sake of saying something.</p>
+
+<p>"She have left nothing," said Mrs. Smith, swimming forward with dignity,
+"and she have also took nothing. I have seen to that, Sir Charles."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye, then," said Charles. "Right, coachman."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Carroll's eyes had been wandering upward to the old house rising
+above her with its sunny windows and its pointed gables. Perhaps, after
+all the sordid shifts and schemes of her previous existence, she had
+imagined she might lead an easier and a more respectable life within
+those walls. Then she looked towards the long green terraces, the
+valley, and the forest beyond. Her lip trembled, and turning suddenly,
+she fixed her eyes with burning hatred on the man who had ousted her
+from this pleasant place.</p>
+
+<p>Then the coachman whipped up his horse, the dog-cart spun over the
+smooth gravel between the lines of stiff, clipped yews, and she was
+gone.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX"></a>CHAPTER XXX.</h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Alwynn</span> had returned from his eventful morning call at Vandon very
+grave and silent. He shook his head when Ruth came to him in the study
+to ask what the result had been, and said Dare would tell her himself on
+his return from London, whither he had gone on business.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth went back to the drawing-room. She had not strength or energy to
+try to escape from Mrs. Alwynn. Indeed it was a relief not to be alone
+with her own thoughts, and to allow her exhausted mind to be towed along
+by Mrs. Alwynn's, the bent of whose mind resembled one of those
+mechanical toy animals which, when wound up, will run very fast in any
+direction, but if adroitly turned, will hurry equally fast the opposite
+way. Ruth turned the toy at intervals, and the morning was dragged
+through, Mrs. Alwynn in the course of it exploring every realm&mdash;known to
+her&mdash;of human thought, now dipping into the future, and speculating on
+spring fashions, now commenting on the present, now dwelling fondly on
+the past, the gayly dressed, officer-adorned past of her youth.</p>
+
+<p>There was a meal, and after that it was the afternoon. Ruth supposed
+that some time there would be another meal, and then it would be
+evening, but it was no good thinking of what was so far away. She
+brought her mind back to the present. Mrs. Alwynn had just finished a
+detailed account of a difference of opinion between herself and the
+curate's wife on the previous day.</p>
+
+<p>"And she had not a word to say, my dear, not a word&mdash;quite<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span> <i>hors de
+combat</i>&mdash;so I let the matter drop. And you remember that beautiful pig
+we killed last week? You should have gone to look at it hanging up,
+Ruth, rolling in fat, it was. Well, it is better to give than to
+receive, so I shall send her one of the pork-pies. And if you will get
+me one of those round baskets which I took the dolls down to the
+school-feast in&mdash;they are in the lowest shelf of the oak chest in the
+hall&mdash;I'll send it down to her at once."</p>
+
+<p>Ruth fetched the basket and put it down by her aunt. Reminiscences of
+the school-feast still remained in it, in the shape of ends of ribbon
+and lace, and Mrs. Alwynn began to empty them out, talking all the time,
+when she suddenly stopped short, with an exclamation of surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Goodness! Well, now! I'm sure! Ruth!"</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, Aunt Fanny?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, my dear, if there isn't a letter for you under the odds and ends,"
+holding it up and gazing resentfully at it; "and now I remember, a
+letter came for you on the morning of the school-feast, and I said to
+John, 'I sha'n't forward it, because I shall see Ruth this afternoon,'
+and, dear me! I just popped it into the basket, for I thought you would
+like to have it, and you know how busy I was, Ruth, that day, first one
+thing and then another, so much to think of&mdash;and&mdash;<i>there it is</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"I dare say it is of no importance," said Ruth, taking it from her,
+while Mrs. Alwynn, repeatedly wondering how such a thing could have
+happened to a person so careful as herself, went off with her basket to
+the cook.</p>
+
+<p>When she returned in a few minutes she found Ruth standing by the
+window, the letter open in her hand, her face without a vestige of
+color.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Ruth," she said, actually noticing the alteration in her
+appearance, "is your head bad again?"</p>
+
+<p>Ruth started violently.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;no. I mean&mdash;I think I will go out. The fresh air&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She could not finish the sentence.</p>
+
+<p>"And that tiresome letter&mdash;did it want an answer?"</p>
+
+<p>"None," said Ruth, crushing it up unconsciously.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, now," said Mrs. Alwynn, "that's a good thing, for I'm sure I
+shall never forget the way your uncle was in once, when I put a letter
+of his in my pocket to give him (it was a plum-colored silk, Ruth, done
+with gold beads in front), and then I went into mourning for my poor
+dear Uncle James&mdash;such an out-of-the-common<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> person he was, Ruth, and
+such a beautiful talker&mdash;and it was not till six months later&mdash;niece's
+mourning, you know&mdash;that I had the dress on again&mdash;and a business I had
+to meet it, for all my gowns seem to shrink when they are put by&mdash;and I
+put my hand in the pocket, and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>But Ruth had disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Alwynn was perfectly certain at last that something must be wrong
+with her niece. Earlier in the day she had had a headache. Reasoning by
+analogy, she decided that Ruth must have eaten something at Mrs.
+Thursby's dinner-party which had disagreed with her. If any one was ill,
+she always attributed it to indigestion. If Mr. Alwynn coughed, or if
+she read in the papers that royalty had been unavoidably prevented
+attending some function at which its presence had been expected, she
+instantly put down both mishaps to the same cause; and when Mrs. Alwynn
+had come to a conclusion it was not her habit to keep it to herself.</p>
+
+<p>She told Lady Mary the exact state in which, reasoning always by
+analogy, she knew Ruth's health must be, when that lady drove over that
+afternoon in the hope of seeing Ruth, partly from curiosity, or, rather,
+a Christian anxiety respecting the welfare of others, and partly, too,
+from a real feeling of affection for Ruth herself. Mrs. Alwynn bored her
+intensely; but she sat on and on in the hope of Ruth's return, who had
+gone out, Mrs. Alwynn agreeing with every remark she made, and treating
+her with that pleased deference of manner which some middle-class
+people, not otherwise vulgar, invariably drop into in the presence of
+rank; a Scylla which is only one degree better than the Charybdis of
+would-be ease of manner into which others fall. If ever the enormous
+advantages of noble birth and ancient family, with all their attendant
+heirlooms and hereditary instincts of refinement, chivalrous feeling,
+and honor, become in future years a mark for scorn (as already they are
+a mark for the envy that calls itself scorn), it will be partly the
+fault of the vulgar adoration of the middle classes. Mrs. Alwynn being,
+as may possibly have already transpired in the course of this narrative,
+a middle-class woman herself, stuck to the hereditary instincts of <i>her</i>
+class with a vengeance, and when Ruth at last came in Lady Mary was
+thankful.</p>
+
+<p>Her cold, pale eyes lighted up a little as she greeted Ruth, and looked
+searchingly at her. She saw by the colorless lips and nervous
+contraction of the forehead, and by the bright, restless fever of the
+eyes that had formerly been so calm and clear, that something was
+amiss&mdash;terribly amiss.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I've been telling Lady Mary how poorly you've been, Ruth, ever since
+Mrs. Thursby's dinner-party," said Mrs. Alwynn, by way of opening the
+conversation.</p>
+
+<p>But in spite of so auspicious a beginning the conversation flagged. Lady
+Mary made a few conventional remarks to Ruth, which she answered, and
+Mrs. Alwynn also; but there was a constraint which every moment
+threatened a silence. Lady Mary proceeded to comment on the poaching
+affray of the previous night, and the arrest of a man who had been
+seriously injured; but at her mention of the subject Ruth became so
+silent, and Mrs. Alwynn so voluble, that she felt it was useless to stay
+any longer, and had to take her leave without a word with Ruth.</p>
+
+<p>"Something is wrong with that girl," she said to herself, as she drove
+back to Atherstone. "I know what it is. Charles has been behaving in his
+usual manner, and as there is no one else to point out to him how
+infamous such conduct is, I shall have to do it myself. Shameful! That
+charming, interesting girl! And yet, and yet, there was a look in her
+face more like some great anxiety than disappointment. If she had had a
+disappointment, I do not think she would have let any one see it. Those
+Deyncourts are all too proud to show their feelings, though they have
+got them, too, somewhere. Perhaps, on the whole, considering how
+excessively disagreeable and scriptural Charles can be, and what
+unexpected turns he can give to things, I had better say nothing to him
+at present."</p>
+
+<p>The moment Lady Mary had left the house, Ruth hurried to her uncle's
+study. He was not there. He had not yet come in. She gave a gesture of
+despair, and flung herself down in the old leather chair opposite to his
+own, on which many a one had sat who had come to him for help or
+consolation. All the buttons had been gradually worn off that chair by
+restless or heavy visitors. Some had been lost, but others&mdash;the greater
+part, I am glad to say&mdash;Mr. Alwynn had found and had deposited in a
+S&egrave;vres cup on the mantle-piece, till the wet afternoon should come when
+he and his long packing-needle should restore them to their home.</p>
+
+<p>The room was very quiet. On the mantle-piece the little conscientious
+silver clock ticked, orderly, gently (till Ruth could hardly bear the
+sound), then hesitated, and struck a soft, low tone. She started to her
+feet, and paced up and down, up and down. Would he never come in? She
+dared not go out to look for him for fear of missing him. Why did not he
+come back when she wanted him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> so terribly? She sat down again. She
+tried to be patient. It was no good. Would he never come?</p>
+
+<p>She heard a sound, rushed out to meet him in the passage, and pulled him
+into the study.</p>
+
+<p>"Uncle John," she gasped, holding out a letter in her shaking hand.
+"That man who was taken up last night was&mdash;Raymond. He is in prison. He
+is ill. Let us go to him," and she explained as best she could that a
+letter had only just been found written to her by Raymond in July,
+warning her he was in the neighborhood of Arleigh, near the old nurse's
+cottage, and that she might see him at any moment, and must have money
+in readiness. The instant she had read the letter she rushed up to
+Arleigh, to see her old nurse, and met her coming down, in great
+agitation, to tell her that Raymond, whom she had shielded once before
+under promise of secrecy, had been arrested the night before.</p>
+
+<p>In a quarter of an hour Mr. Alwynn and Ruth were driving swiftly through
+the dusk, in a close carriage, in the direction of D&mdash;&mdash;. On their way
+they met a dog-cart driving as quickly in the opposite direction which
+grazed their wheel as it passed; and Ruth, looking out, caught a
+glimpse, by the flash of their lamps, of Charles's face, with a look
+upon it so fierce and haggard that she shivered in nameless foreboding
+of evil, wondering what could have happened to make him look like that.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXI" id="CHAPTER_XXXI"></a>CHAPTER XXXI.</h2>
+
+
+<p>It was still early on the following morning that Dare, forgetting, as we
+have seen, his promise to Charles, arrived at Slumberleigh Rectory&mdash;so
+early that Mrs. Alwynn was still ordering dinner, or, in other words,
+was dashing from larder to scullery, from kitchen to dairy, with her
+usual energy. He was shown into the empty drawing-room, where, after
+pacing up and down, he was reduced to the society of a photograph album,
+which, in his present excited condition, could do little to soothe the
+tumult of his mind. Not that any discredit should be thrown on Mrs.
+Alwynn's album, a gorgeous concern with a golden "Fanny" embossed on it,
+which afforded her infinite satisfaction, inside which her friends'
+portraits appeared to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span> greatest advantage, surrounded by birds and
+nests and blossoms of the most vivid and life-like coloring. Mr. Alwynn
+was encompassed on every side by kingfishers and elaborate bone nests,
+while Ruth's clear-cut face looked out from among long-tailed tomtits,
+arranged one on each side of a nest crowded with eggs, on which a strong
+light had been thrown.</p>
+
+<p>Dare was still looking at Ruth's photograph, when Mr. Alwynn came in.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you wish to speak to Ruth?" he asked, gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, at once." Dare was surprised that Mr. Alwynn, with whom he had
+been so open, should be so cold and unsympathetic in manner. The
+alteration and alienation of friends is certainly one of the saddest and
+most inexplicable experiences of this vale of tears.</p>
+
+<p>"You will find her in the study," continued Mr. Alwynn. "She is
+expecting you. I have told her nothing, according to your wish. I hope
+you will explain everything to her in full, that you will keep nothing
+back."</p>
+
+<p>"I will explain," said Dare; and he went, trembling with excitement,
+into the study. Fired by Charles's example, he had made a sublime
+resolve as he skimmed across the fields, made it in a hurry, in a moment
+of ecstasy, as all his resolutions were made. He felt he had never acted
+such a noble part before. He only feared the agitation of the moment
+might prevent him doing himself justice.</p>
+
+<p>Ruth rose as he came in, but did not speak. A swift spasm passed over
+her face, leaving it very stern, very fixed, as he had never seen it, as
+he had never thought of seeing it. An overwhelming suspense burned in
+the dark, lustreless eyes which met his own. He felt awed.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" she said, pressing her hands together, and speaking in a low
+voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Ruth," said Dare, solemnly, laying his outspread hand upon his breast
+and then extending it in the air, "I am free."</p>
+
+<p>Ruth's eyes watched him like one in torture.</p>
+
+<p>"How?" she said, speaking with difficulty. "You said you were free
+before."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" replied Dare, raising his forefinger, "I said so, but it was an
+error. I go to Vandon, and she will not go away. I go to London to my
+lawyer, and he says she is my wife."</p>
+
+<p>"You told me she was not."</p>
+
+<p>"It was an error," repeated Dare. "I had formerly been a husband to her,
+but we had been divorced; it was finished, wound up,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> and I thought she
+was no more my wife. There is in the English law something extraordinary
+which I do not comprehend, which makes an American divorce to remain a
+marriage in England."</p>
+
+<p>"Go on," said Ruth, shading her eyes with her hand.</p>
+
+<p>"I come back to Vandon," continued Dare, in a suppressed voice, "I come
+back overwhelmed, broken down, crushed under feet; and then,"&mdash;he was
+becoming dramatic, he felt the fire kindling&mdash;"I meet a friend, a noble
+heart, I confide in him. I tell all to Sir Charles Danvers,"&mdash;Ruth's hand
+was trembling&mdash;"and last night he finds out by a chance that she was not
+a true widow when I marry her, that her first husband was yet alive,
+that I am free. This morning he tells me all, and I am here."</p>
+
+<p>Ruth pressed her hands before her face, and fairly burst into tears.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her in astonishment. He was surprised that she had any
+feelings. Never having shown them to the public in general, like
+himself, he had supposed she was entirely devoid of them. She now
+appeared quite <i>&eacute;mue</i>. She was sobbing passionately. Tears came into his
+own eyes as he watched her, and then a light dawned upon him for the
+second time that day. Those tears were not for him. He folded his arms
+and waited. How suggestive in itself is a noble attitude!</p>
+
+<p>After a few minutes Ruth overcame her tears with a great effort, and,
+raising her head, looked at him, as if she expected him to speak. The
+suspense was gone out of her dimmed eyes, the tension of her face was
+relaxed.</p>
+
+<p>"I am free," repeated Dare, "and I have your promise that if I am free
+you will still marry me."</p>
+
+<p>Ruth looked up with a pained but resolute expression, and she would have
+spoken if he had not stopped her by a gesture.</p>
+
+<p>"I have your promise," he repeated. "I tell my friend, Sir Charles
+Danvers, I have it. He also loves. He does not tell me so; he is not
+open with me, as I with him, but I see his heart. And yet&mdash;figure to
+yourself&mdash;he has but to keep silence, and I must go away, I must give up
+all. I am still married&mdash;<i>Ou!</i>&mdash;while he&mdash;But he is noble, he is
+sublime. He sacrifices love on the altar of honor, of truth. He tells
+all to me, his rival. He shows me I am free. He thinks I do not know his
+heart. But it is not only he who can be noble." (Dare smote himself upon
+the breast.) "I also can lay my heart upon the altar. Ruth,"&mdash;with great
+solemnity&mdash;"do you love him even as he loves you?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>There was a moment's pause.</p>
+
+<p>"I do," she said, firmly, "with my whole heart."</p>
+
+<p>"I knew it. I divined it. I sacrifice myself. I give you back your
+promise. I say farewell, and voyage in the distance. I return no more to
+Vandon. There is no longer a home for me in England. I leave only behind
+with you the poor heart you have possessed so long!"</p>
+
+<p>Dare was so much affected by the beauty of this last sentence that he
+could say no more, but even at that moment, as he glanced at Ruth to see
+what effect his eloquence had upon her, she looked so pallid and thin
+(her beauty was so entirely eclipsed) that the sacrifice did not seem
+quite so overwhelming, after all.</p>
+
+<p>She struggled to speak, but words failed her.</p>
+
+<p>He took her hands and kissed them, pressed them to his heart (it was a
+pity there was no one there to see), endeavored to say something more,
+and then rushed out of the room.</p>
+
+<p>She stood like one stunned after he had left her. She saw him a moment
+later cross the garden, and flee away across the fields. She knew she
+had seen that gray figure and jaunty gray hat for the last time; but she
+hardly thought of him. She felt she might be sorry for him presently,
+but not now.</p>
+
+<p>The suspense was over. The sense of relief was too overwhelming to admit
+of any other feeling at first. She dropped on her knees beside the
+writing-table, and locked her hands together.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>He told</i>," she whispered to herself. "Thank God! Thank God!"</p>
+
+<p>Two happy tears dropped onto Mr. Alwynn's old leather blotting-book,
+that worn cradle of many sermons.</p>
+
+<p>Was this the same world? Was this the same sun which was shining in upon
+her? What new songs were the birds practising outside? A strange
+wonderful joy seemed to pervade the very air she breathed, to flood her
+inmost soul. She had faced her troubles fairly well, but at this new
+great happiness she did not dare to look; and with a sudden involuntary
+gesture she hid her face in her hands.</p>
+
+<p>It would be rash to speculate too deeply on the nature of Dare's
+reflections as he hurried back to Atherstone; but perhaps, under the
+very real pang of parting with Ruth, he was sustained by a sense of the
+magnanimity of what, had he put it into words, he would have called his
+attitude, and possibly also by a lurking conviction, which had assisted
+his determination to resign her that life at Vandon, after the episode
+of the American wife's arrival, would be a social impossi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span>bility,
+especially to one anxious and suited to shine in society. Be that how it
+may, whatever had happened to influence him most of the chance emotion
+of the moment, it would be tolerably certain that in a few hours he
+would be sorry for what he had done. He was still, however, in a state
+of mental exaltation when he reached Atherstone, and began fumbling
+nervously with the garden-gate. Charles, who had been stalking up and
+down the bowling-green, went slowly towards him.</p>
+
+<p>"What on earth do you mean by going off in that way?" he asked, coldly.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" said Dare, perceiving him, "and she&mdash;the&mdash;is she gone?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, half an hour ago. Your dog-cart has come back from taking her to
+the station, and is here now."</p>
+
+<p>Dare nodded his head several times, and stood looking at him.</p>
+
+<p>"I have been to Slumberleigh," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, contrary to agreement."</p>
+
+<p>"My friend," Dare said, seizing the friend's limp, unresponsive hand and
+pressing it, "I know now why you keep silence last night. I reason with
+myself. I see you love her. Do not turn away. I have seen her. I have
+given her back her promise. I give her up to you whom she loves; and
+now&mdash;I go away, not to return."</p>
+
+<p>And then, in the full view of the Atherstone windows, of the butler, and
+of the dog-cart at the front door, Dare embraced him, kissing the
+blushing and disconcerted Charles on both cheeks. Then, in a moment,
+before the latter had recovered his self-possession, Dare had darted to
+the dog-cart, and was driving away.</p>
+
+<p>Charles looked after him in mixed annoyance and astonishment, until he
+noticed the butler's eye upon him, when he hastily retreated, with a
+heightened complexion, to the shrubberies.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="CONCLUSIONb" id="CONCLUSIONb"></a>CONCLUSION.</h2>
+
+
+<p>It was the last day of October, about a week after a certain very quiet
+little funeral had taken place in the D&mdash;&mdash; Cemetery. The death of
+Raymond Deyncourt had appeared in the papers a day or two afterwards,
+without mention of date or place, and it was generally supposed that it
+had taken place some considerable time previously, without the knowledge
+of his friends.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Charles had been sitting for a long time with Mr. Alwynn, and after he
+left the rectory he took the path over the fields in the direction of
+the Slumberleigh woods.</p>
+
+<p>The low sun was shining redly through a golden haze, was sending long
+burning shafts across the glade where Charles was pacing. He sat down at
+last upon a fallen tree to wait for one who should presently come by
+that way.</p>
+
+<p>It was a still, clear afternoon, with a solemn stillness that speaks of
+coming change. Winter was at hand, and the woods were transfigured with
+a passing glory, like the faces of those who depart in peace when death
+draws nigh.</p>
+
+<p>Far and wide in the forest the bracken was all aflame&mdash;aflame beneath
+the glowing trees. The great beeches had turned to bronze and ruddy
+gold, and had strewed the path with carpets glorious and rare, which the
+first wind would sweep away. Upon the limes the amber leaves still hung,
+faint yet loath to go, but the horse-chestnut had already dropped its
+garment of green and yellow at its feet.</p>
+
+<p>A young robin was singing at intervals in the silence, telling how the
+secrets of the nests had been laid bare, singing a requiem on the dying
+leaves and the widowed branches, a song new to him, but with the old
+plaintive rapture in it that his fathers had been taught before him
+since the world began.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>She came towards him down the yellow glade through the sunshine and the
+shadow, with a spray of briony in her hand. Neither spoke. She put her
+hands into the hands that were held out for them, and their eyes met,
+grave and steadfast, with the light in them of an unalterable love. So
+long they had looked at each other across a gulf. So long they had stood
+apart. And now, at last&mdash;at last&mdash;they were together. He drew her close
+and closer yet. They had no words. There was no need of words. And in
+the silence of the hushed woods, and in the silence of a joy too deep
+for speech, the robin's song came sweet and sad.</p>
+
+<p>"Charles!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ruth!"</p>
+
+<p>"I should like to tell you something."</p>
+
+<p>"And I should like to hear it."</p>
+
+<p>"I know what Raymond told you to conceal. I went to him just after you
+did. We passed you coming back. He did not know me at first. He thought
+I was you, and he kept repeating that you must keep your own counsel,
+and that, unless you showed Mr. Dare's mar<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span>riage was illegal, he would
+never find it out. At last, when he suddenly recognized me, he seemed
+horror-struck, and the doctor came in and sent me away."</p>
+
+<p>Charles knew now why Raymond had sent for him the second time.</p>
+
+<p>There was a long pause.</p>
+
+<p>"Ruth, did you think I should tell?"</p>
+
+<p>"I hoped and prayed you would, but I knew it would be hard, because I do
+believe you actually thought at the time I should still consider it my
+duty to marry Mr. Dare. I never should have done such a thing after what
+had happened. I was just going to tell him so when he began to give me
+up, and it evidently gave him so much pleasure to renounce me nobly in
+your favor that I let him have it his own way, as the result was the
+same. My great dread, until he came, was that you had not spoken. I had
+been expecting him all the previous evening. Oh, Charles, Charles! I
+waited and watched for his coming as I had never done before. Your
+silence was the only thing I feared, because it was the only thing that
+could have come between us."</p>
+
+<p>"God forgive me! I meant at first to say nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"Only at first," said Ruth, gently; and they walked on in silence.</p>
+
+<p>The sun had set. A slender moon had climbed unnoticed into the southern
+sky amid the shafts of paling fire which stretched out across the whole
+heaven from the burning fiery furnace in the west. Across the gray dim
+fields voices were calling the cattle home.</p>
+
+<p>Charles spoke again at last in his usual tone.</p>
+
+<p>"You quite understand, Ruth, though I have not mentioned it so far, that
+you are engaged to marry me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do. I will make a note of it if you wish."</p>
+
+<p>"It is unnecessary. I shall be happy, when I am at leisure to remind you
+myself. Indeed, I may say I shall make a point of doing so. There does
+not happen to be any one else whom you feel it would be your duty to
+marry?"</p>
+
+<p>"I can't think of any one at the moment. Charles, you never <i>could</i> have
+believed I would marry <i>him</i>, after all?"</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, I did believe it. Don't I know the stubbornness of your heart?
+You see, you are but young, and I make excuses for you; but, after you
+have been the object of my special and judicious training for a few
+years, I quite hope your judgment may improve considerably."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I trust it will, as I see from your remarks&mdash;it will certainly be all
+we shall have to guide us both."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Postscript</span>.&mdash;Lady Mary would not allow even Providence any of the credit
+of Charles's engagement; she claimed the whole herself. She called
+Evelyn to witness that from the first it had been her work entirely. She
+only allowed Charles himself a very secondary part in the great event,
+to which she was apt to point in later years as the crowning work of a
+life devoted&mdash;under Church direction&mdash;to the temporal and spiritual
+welfare of her fellow-creatures; and Charles avers that a mention of it
+in the long list of her virtues will some day adorn the tombstone which
+she has long since ordered to be in readiness.</p>
+
+<p>Molly was disconsolate for many days, but work, that panacea of grief,
+came to the rescue, and it was not long before she was secretly and
+busily engaged on a large kettle-holder, with kettle and motto entwined,
+for Charles's exclusive use, without which she had been led to
+understand his establishment would be incomplete. When this work of art
+was finished her feelings had become so far modified towards Ruth that
+she consented to begin another very small and inferior one&mdash;merely a
+kettle on a red ground&mdash;for that interloper, but whether it was ever
+presented is not on record.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Vandon is to let. The grass has grown up again through the niches of the
+stone steps. The place looks wild and deserted. Mr. Alwynn comes
+sometimes, and looks up at its shuttered windows and trailing, neglected
+ivy, but not often, for it gives him a strange pang at the heart. And as
+he goes home the people come out of the dilapidated cottages, and ask
+wistfully when the new squire is coming back.</p>
+
+<p>But Mr. Alwynn does not know.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span></p>
+<h3>THE END.</h3>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p><a name="note" id="note"><b>TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS CORRECTED</b></a></p>
+
+<p>The following typographical errors in the text were corrected as
+detailed here.</p>
+
+<p>In the text: " ... Mrs. Alwynn had the delight of taking her
+completely ..." the word "competely" was corrected to "completely."</p>
+
+<p>In the text: "You evidently imagine that I have gone in for the
+fashionable creed of the young man" the word "fashionble" was corrected
+to "fashionable."</p>
+
+<p>In the text: "Molly, tired of her castles, suggested that she might sit
+on his knee," the word "hnee" was corrected to "knee."</p>
+
+<p>In the text: " ... Molly has formed a habit of expressing herself with
+unnecessary freedom." the word "Mary" was changed to "Molly."</p>
+
+<p>In the text: " ... as it reached the steps a shrill voice suddenly called"
+the word "suddedly" was corrected to "suddenly."</p>
+
+<p>In the text: "I considered her to be a pink-and-white nonentity... "
+the word "nonenity"  was corrected to "nonentity."</p>
+
+<p>In the text: " ... pressing invitation to to come down... " the word
+"to" is repeated and one instance was removed.</p>
+
+<p>Misspelt proper names were also corrected: "Thurshy" was corrected to
+"Thursby," &#8220;Alywnn&#8221; was corrected to &#8220;Alwynn,&#8221; and &#8220;Eveyln&#8221; was corrected
+to &#8220;Evelyn.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Some punctuation was also regularized.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="ADS" id="ADS"></a>BY LAFCADIO HEARN.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Two Years in the French West Indies.</span> By <span class="smcap">Lafcadio Hearn.</span> pp. 517.
+Copiously Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth. $2.00.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard.</span> By <span class="smcap">Anatole France.</span> The Translation and
+Introduction by <span class="smcap">Lafcadio Hearn.</span> 8vo, Paper, 50 cents.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Chita</span>: A Memory of Last Island. By <span class="smcap">Lafcadio Hearn.</span> pp. vi., 204. Post
+8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1.00.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>To such as are unfamiliar with Mr. Hearn's writings, "Chita" will be a
+revelation of how near language can approach the realistic power of
+actual painting. His very words seem to have color&mdash;his pages glow&mdash;his
+book is a kaleidoscope.&mdash;<i>N.Y. Mail and Express.</i></p>
+
+<p>A powerful story, rich in descriptive passages.... The tale is a tragic
+one, but it shows remarkable imaginative force, and is one that will not
+soon be forgotten by the reader.&mdash;<i>Saturday Evening Gazette</i>, Boston.</p>
+
+<p>Lafcadio Hearn's exquisite story.... A tale full of poetry and vivid
+description that nobody will want to miss.&mdash;<i>N.Y. Sun.</i></p>
+
+<p>A pathetic little tale, simple but deeply touching, and told with the
+beauty of phrasing and the deep and subtle sympathy of the
+poet.&mdash;<i>Chicago Times.</i></p>
+
+<p>There is no page&mdash;no paragraph even&mdash;but holds more of vital quality
+than would suffice to set up an ordinary volume.&mdash;<i>The Epoch</i>, N.Y.</p>
+
+<p>... A wonderfully sustained effort in imaginative prose, full of the
+glamour and opulent color of the tropics and yet strong with the salt
+breath of the sea.&mdash;<i>San Francisco Chronicle.</i></p>
+
+<p>Mr. Hearn is a poet, and in "Chita" he has produced a prose poem of much
+beauty.... His style is tropical, full of glow and swift movement and
+vivid impressions, reflecting strong love and keen sympathetic
+observation of nature, picturesque and flexible, luxuriant in imagery,
+and marked by a delicate perception of effective values.&mdash;<i>N.Y.
+Tribune.</i></p>
+
+<p>In the too few pages of this wonderful little book tropical Nature finds
+a living voice and a speech by which she can make herself known. All the
+splendor of her skies and the terrors of her seas make to themselves a
+language. So living a book has scarcely been given to our
+generation.&mdash;<i>Boston Transcript.</i></p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Published by HARPER &amp; BROTHERS, New York.</span></p>
+
+<p><i>The above works sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the
+United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price.</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+
+<h2>THE ODD NUMBER.</h2>
+
+<p><b>Thirteen Tales by <span class="smcap">Guy de Maupassant</span>. The Translation by <span class="smcap">Jonathan
+Sturges</span>. An Introduction by <span class="smcap">Henry James</span>. pp. xviii., 226. 16mo, Cloth,
+Ornamental, $1 00.</b></p>
+
+
+<p>The tales included in "The Odd Number" are little masterpieces, and done
+into very clear, sweet, simple English.&mdash;<span class="smcap">William Dean Howells</span>.</p>
+
+<p>There is a charming individuality in each of these fascinating little
+tales; something elusive and subtle in every one, something quaint or
+surprising, which catches the fancy and gives a sense of satisfaction
+like that felt when one discovers a rare flower in an unexpected place.
+I predict that "The Odd Number" will soon be found lying in the corner
+of the sofa or on the table in the drawing-rooms of cultivated women
+everywhere.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Margaret E. Sangster</span>.</p>
+
+<p>Masterpieces.... Nothing can exceed the masculine firmness, the quiet
+force, of his own style, in which every phrase is a close sequence,
+every epithet a paying piece, and the ground is completely cleared of
+the vague, the ready-made, and the second-best. Less than any one to-day
+does he beat the air, more than any one does he hit out from the
+shoulder.... He came into the literary world, as he has himself related,
+under the protection of the great Flaubert. This was but a dozen years
+ago&mdash;for Guy de Maupassant belongs, among the distinguished Frenchmen of
+his period, to the new generation.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Henry James</span>.</p>
+
+<p>As a rule I do not take kindly to translations. They are apt to resemble
+the originals as canned or dried fruits resemble fresh. But Mr. Sturges
+has preserved flavor and juices in this collection. Each story is a
+delight. Some are piquant, some pathetic&mdash;all are fascinating.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Marion
+Harland</span>.</p>
+
+<p>What pure and powerful outlines, what lightness of stroke, and what
+precision; what relentless truth, and yet what charm! "The Beggar," "La
+M&egrave;re Sauvage," "The Wolf," grim as if they had dropped out of the
+medi&aelig;val mind; "The Necklace," with its applied pessimism; the
+tremendous fire and strength of "A Coward"; the miracle of splendor in
+"Moonlight"; the absolute perfection of a short story in
+"Happiness"&mdash;how various the view, how daring the touch! What freshness,
+what invention, and what wit! They are beautiful and heart-breaking
+little masterpieces, and "The Odd Number" makes one feel that Guy de
+Maupassant lays his hand upon the sceptre which only Daudet
+holds.&mdash;<span class="smcap">Harriet Prescott Spofford</span>.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Published by HARPER &amp; BROTHERS, New York</span>.</p>
+
+<p><i>The above work sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the United
+States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price.</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="MARIA" id="MARIA"></a>MAR&Iacute;A:</h2>
+
+<p><b>A South American Romance. By <span class="smcap">Jorge Isaacs</span>. Translated by <span class="smcap">Rollo Ogden</span>. An
+Introduction by <span class="smcap">Thomas A. Janvier</span>. pp. xvi., 302. 16mo, Cloth,
+Ornamental, $1 00.</b> (<i>The Odd Number Series.</i>)</p>
+
+<p>The great forests of cotton-wood, palms, and other tropical plants, the
+almost impassable rivers, the rich flowers which seem to spread their
+fragrance over every page, make a fascinating background to a story of
+tender sentiment.&mdash;<i>Boston Journal.</i></p>
+
+<p>Jorge Isaacs has given such a picture of home life, and of pure, almost
+ideal love in a Spanish American home, as to prove him a poetical genius
+and certainly a most charming romancer.... Simple and unaffected in
+style, yet with a sublime pathos, it is without doubt worthy to be
+ranked with "Paul and Virginia" among the classics.&mdash;<i>Presbyterian
+Banner</i>, Pittsburg.</p>
+
+<p>A treasure in romance which should at once take a well-deserved place in
+the front rank of modern fiction.&mdash;<i>North American</i>, Phila.</p>
+
+<p>It bears all the evidence of truthful portrayal of the Spanish American
+home, and the story is told so pleasingly and ingeniously as to make the
+chapters delightful.&mdash;<i>Chicago Inter-Ocean.</i></p>
+
+<p>Distinguished by a freshness and simplicity which recall some of the
+French sentimental novelists of the eighteenth century, and especially
+Bernardin St. Pierre.&mdash;<i>N.Y. Tribune.</i></p>
+
+<p>No novel reader will fail to read this beautiful story, which should
+find its way wherever the beautiful and the pure in literature are
+respected and loved.&mdash;<i>Catholic Review</i>, N.Y.</p>
+
+<p>The charm of the book is its simplicity and purity.... The author is a
+literary artist; his style is clear and winning, his thought
+stimulating, his purpose healthful. The story of love is told with much
+sweetness and pathos, while the descriptive passages display singular
+strength and sympathy for nature.&mdash;<i>Jewish Messenger</i>, N.Y.</p>
+
+<p>"Mar&iacute;a" is read and admired through all of South America. It would be
+difficult to find an educated South American who is not familiar with
+this idyllic story.&mdash;Judge <span class="smcap">Jos&eacute; Alfonso</span>, Chilian Delegate to the
+Pan-American Congress.</p>
+
+<p><i>Mar&iacute;a: Novela Americana</i> is one of the most charming stories I have
+ever read, and worthy the leading author of any country.&mdash;<span class="smcap">W.H. Bishop</span>,
+in <i>Scribner's Magazine.</i></p>
+
+<p>Aside altogether from the broad glimpses it gives of a life whereof we
+Northern Americans know absolutely nothing, it is a beautiful story, sad
+in its ending, but free from any tinge of coarseness or sensationalism,
+pure, sweet, warm with human love and tenderness.&mdash;<i>Chicago Times.</i></p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Published by</span> HARPER &amp; BROTHERS, <span class="smcap">New York.</span></p>
+
+<p><i>The above work will be sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of
+the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price.</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+
+<h2>BY CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER.</h2>
+
+
+<p><b>A LITTLE JOURNEY IN THE WORLD. A Novel. pp. iv., 396. Post 8vo, Half
+Leather, $1 50.</b></p>
+
+
+<p><b>STUDIES IN THE SOUTH AND WEST, with Comments on Canada. pp. iv., 484.
+Post 8vo, Half Leather, $1 75.</b></p>
+
+<p>A witty, instructive book, as brilliant in its pictures as it is warm in
+its kindness; and we feel sure that it is with a patriotic impulse that
+we say that we shall be glad to learn that the number of its readers
+bears some proportion to its merits and its power for good.&mdash;<i>N.Y.
+Commercial Advertiser.</i></p>
+
+<p>Sketches made from studies of the country and the people upon the
+ground.... They are the opinions of a man and a scholar without
+prejudices, and only anxious to state the facts as they were.... When
+told in the pleasant and instructive way of Mr. Warner the studies are
+as delightful as they are instructive.&mdash;<i>Chicago Inter-Ocean.</i></p>
+
+<p>Perhaps the most accurate and graphic account of these portions of the
+country that has appeared, taken all in all.... It is a book most
+charming&mdash;a book that no American can fail to enjoy, appreciate, and
+highly prize.&mdash;<i>Boston Traveller.</i><br /></p>
+
+
+<p><b>THEIR PILGRIMAGE. Richly Illustrated by C.S. <span class="smcap">Reinhart</span>. pp. viii., 364.
+Post 8vo, Half Leather, $2 00.</b></p>
+
+<p>Mr. Warner's pen-pictures of the characters typical of each resort, of
+the manner of life followed at each, of the humor and absurdities
+peculiar to Saratoga, or Newport, or Bar Harbor, as the case may be, are
+as good-natured as they are clever. The satire, when there is any, is of
+the mildest, and the general tone is that of one glad to look on the
+brightest side of the cheerful, pleasure-seeking world with which he
+mingles.&mdash;<i>Christian Union, N.Y.</i></p>
+
+<p>Mr. Reinhart's spirited and realistic illustrations are very attractive,
+and contribute to make an unusually handsome book. We have already
+commented upon the earlier chapters of the text; and the happy blending
+of travel and fiction which we looked forward to with confidence did, in
+fact, distinguish this story among the serials of the year.&mdash;<i>N.Y.
+Evening Post.</i></p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Published by HARPER &amp; BROTHERS, New York.</span></p>
+
+<p><i>Any of the above works sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of
+the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price.</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>BY W.D. HOWELLS.</h2>
+
+<p><b>A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. Illustrated. 8vo, Paper, 75 cents; 12mo,
+Cloth, 2 vols., $2 00.</b></p>
+
+<p><b>MODERN ITALIAN POETS. Essays and Versions. With Portraits. 12mo, Half
+Cloth, $2 00.</b></p>
+
+<p>A portfolio of delightsome studies among the Italian poets; musings in a
+golden granary full to the brim with good things.... We venture to say
+that no acute and penetrating critic surpasses Mr. Howells in true
+insight, in polished irony, in effective and yet graceful treatment of
+his theme, in that light and indescribable touch that lifts you over a
+whole sea of froth and foam, and fixes your eye, not on the froth and
+foam, but on the solid objects, the true heart and soul of the
+theme.&mdash;<i>Critic</i>, N.Y.<br /></p>
+
+
+<p><b>ANNIE KILBURN. 12mo, Cloth, $1 50.</b></p>
+
+<p>Mr. Howells has certainly never given us in one novel so many portraits
+of intrinsic interest. Annie Kilburn herself is a masterpiece of quietly
+veracious art&mdash;the art which depends for its effect on unswerving
+fidelity to the truth of Nature.... It certainly seems to us the very
+best book that Mr. Howells has written.&mdash;<i>Spectator</i>, London.<br /></p>
+
+
+<p><b>APRIL HOPES. 12mo, Cloth, $1 50.</b></p>
+
+<p>Mr. Howells never wrote a more bewitching book. It is useless to deny
+the rarity and worth of the skill that can report so perfectly and with
+such exquisite humor all the fugacious and manifold emotions of the
+modern maiden and her lover.&mdash;<i>Philadelphia Press</i>.<br /></p>
+
+
+<p><b>THE MOUSE-TRAP, and Other Farces. Post 8vo, Cloth, $1 00.</b></p>
+
+<p>Mr. Howells's gift of lively appreciation of the humors that lie on the
+surface of conduct and conversation, and his skill in reproducing them
+in literary form, make him peculiarly successful in his attempts at
+graceful, delicately humorous dialogue.... He can make his characters
+talk delightful badinage, or he can make them talk so characteristically
+as to fill the reader with silent laughter over their complete
+unconsciousness of their own absurdity.&mdash;<i>Boston Advertiser</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Published by HARPER &amp; BROTHERS, New York</span>.</p>
+
+<p><i>Any of the above works sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of
+the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price.</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+
+
+<h2>STEPNIAK'S WORKS.</h2>
+
+
+<p><b>THE CAREER OF A NIHILIST. A Novel. 16mo, Cloth, 75 cents.</b></p>
+
+<p><b>THE RUSSIAN PEASANTRY: Their Agrarian Condition, Social Life, and
+Religion. 16mo, Cloth, $1 25.</b></p>
+
+<p>All thinking and disinterested people for whom Russia has an interest
+should read this volume not only for Russia's sake, but for our
+own.&mdash;<i>N.Y. Times.</i></p>
+
+<p>An absorbingly interesting volume.... Stepniak deserves the gratitude of
+his country and all mankind for painting Russian life as it is, and
+pointing out a practicable solution of its worst distresses.&mdash;<i>Literary
+World</i>, Boston.</p>
+
+<p>Altogether Stepniak's best book.&mdash;<i>St. James's Gazette</i>, London.</p>
+
+<p>A deeply interesting study of a subject full of strange new
+elements.&mdash;<i>N.Y. Tribune.</i></p>
+
+<p>For the student of Russia the book is invaluable. It contains more
+information, and gives us a better insight into the economic and
+domestic conditions of life among the peasants, and in Russia generally,
+than in any other book we know.&mdash;<i>The Academy</i>, London.<br /></p>
+
+
+<p><b>RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. Illustrated. 4to, Paper, 20 cents.</b></p>
+
+<p>The book is very bold and very brilliant; it rests very largely on the
+author's personal experience, and no student of Russia should leave it
+unread or unnoticed.&mdash;<i>Boston Beacon.</i></p>
+
+<p>A graphic and startling picture of the despotism that rules the
+Muscovite nation, drawn by the pen of one of the ablest and most
+pronounced Nihilists of the day.&mdash;<i>Chicago Journal.</i><br /></p>
+
+
+<p><b>THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD; or, Russia in Her Relation to Neighboring
+Countries. 4to, Paper, 20 cts.</b></p>
+
+<p>The author writes with a calmness and precision not generally associated
+with the class of revolutionists to which he belongs.&mdash;<i>N.Y. Sun.</i></p>
+
+<p>Stepniak gives a comprehensive view of the matter which he discusses,
+and his work is valuable as furnishing "the true inwardness" of affairs
+in the empire of the Tzar.&mdash;<i>Christian Advocate</i>, Cincinnati.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Published by HARPER &amp; BROTHERS, New York.</span></p>
+
+<p><i>Any of the above works sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of
+the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price.</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span></p>
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+
+
+
+<h2>SEBASTOPOL.</h2>
+
+<p><b>By Count <span class="smcap">Leo Tolsto&iuml;</span>. Translated by <span class="smcap">F.D. Millet</span> from the French (<i>Scenes
+du Si&eacute;ge de Sebastopol</i>). With Introduction by <span class="smcap">W.D. Howells</span>. With
+Portrait. 16mo, Cloth, 75 cents.</b></p>
+
+<p>In his Sebastopol sketches Tolsto&iuml; is at his best, and perhaps no more
+striking example of his manner and form can be found.&mdash;<i>N.Y. Tribune.</i></p>
+
+<p>There is much strong writing in the book; indeed, it is strength itself,
+and there is much tenderness as well.&mdash;<i>Boston Traveller.</i></p>
+
+<p>Its workmanship is superb, and morally its influence should be
+immense.&mdash;<i>Boston Herald.</i></p>
+
+<p>It carries us from the shams of society to the realities of war, and
+sets before us with a graphic power and minuteness the inner life of
+that great struggle in which Count Tolsto&iuml; took part.... A thrilling
+tale of besieged Sebastopol. All is intensely real, intensely life-like,
+and doubly striking from its very simplicity. We have before our eyes
+war as it really is.&mdash;<i>N.Y. Times.</i></p>
+
+<p>The various incidents of the siege which he selects in order to present
+it in its different aspects form a graphic whole which can never be
+forgotten by any one who has once read it, and it must be read to be
+appreciated.&mdash;<i>Nation</i>, N.Y.</p>
+
+<p>The descriptions, it is needless to say, are masterly. No novelist has
+ever before succeeded in thus depicting the emotions and utterances of
+the soldier in battle.&mdash;<i>Boston Beacon.</i></p>
+
+<p>A powerful appeal against warfare, written in that wonderful style which
+lends life and character to the most trivial incidents he describes. It
+is a fascinating book, and one of its chief merits is the introspective
+art and analytical power which every page reveals.... This is the most
+nervous and dramatic production of Tolsto&iuml; that has been rendered into
+English.&mdash;<i>N.Y. Sun.</i></p>
+
+<p>It is, undoubtedly, the most graphic and powerful of Tolsto&iuml;'s works
+that has been given to the American reading public.... It should be read
+and pondered by Christians, philanthropists, statesmen&mdash;by every one who
+can think.&mdash;<i>Chicago Interior.</i></p>
+
+<p>The profound realism of the book, its native, organic strength, will
+make it one of the great books of the day. Certainly the underlying, the
+ever-present horrors of war have seldom been so strikingly set
+forth.&mdash;<i>St. Louis Republican.</i></p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Published by HARPER &amp; BROTHERS, New York</span>.</p>
+
+<p><i>The above work sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the United
+States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price.</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+
+
+<h2>By CAPT. CHARLES KING.</h2>
+
+<p><b>A WAR-TIME WOOING. Illustrated by <span class="smcap">R.F. Zogbaum.</span> pp. iv., 196. Post 8vo,
+Cloth, $1 00.</b></p>
+
+<p><b>BETWEEN THE LINES. A Story of the War. Illustrated by <span class="smcap">Gilbert Gaul</span>. pp.
+iv., 312. Post 8vo, Cloth, $1 25.</b></p>
+
+<p>In all of Captain King's stories the author holds to lofty ideals of
+manhood and womanhood, and inculcates the lessons of honor, generosity,
+courage, and self-control.&mdash;<i>Literary World</i>, Boston.</p>
+
+<p>The vivacity and charm which signally distinguish Captain King's pen....
+He occupies a position in American literature entirely his own.... His
+is the literature of honest sentiment, pure and tender.... His heroes
+and his charming heroines are the product of the army, and it is
+pleasant to meet, even in this intangible way, women who can break their
+hearts and men who would die rather than sacrifice their honor.&mdash;<i>N.Y.
+Press.</i></p>
+
+<p>A romance by Captain King is always a pleasure, because he has so
+complete a mastery of the subjects with which he deals.... Captain King
+has few rivals in his domain.... The general tone of Captain King's
+stories is highly commendable. The heroes are simple, frank, and
+soldierly; the heroines are dignified and maidenly in the most
+unconventional situations.&mdash;<i>Epoch</i>, N.Y.</p>
+
+<p>All Captain King's stories are full of spirit and with the true ring
+about them.&mdash;<i>Philadelphia Item.</i></p>
+
+<p>Captain King's stories of army life are so brilliant and intense, they
+have such a ring of true experience, and his characters are so life-like
+and vivid that the announcement of a new one is always received with
+pleasure.&mdash;<i>New Haven Palladium.</i></p>
+
+<p>Captain King is a delightful story-teller.&mdash;<i>Washington Post.</i></p>
+
+<p>In the delineation of war scenes Captain King's style is crisp and
+vigorous, inspiring in the breast of the reader a thrill of genuine
+patriotic fervor.&mdash;<i>Boston Commonwealth.</i></p>
+
+<p>Captain King is almost without a rival in the field he has chosen....
+His style is at once vigorous and sentimental in the best sense of that
+word, so that his novels are pleasing to young men as well as young
+women.&mdash;<i>Pittsburgh Bulletin.</i></p>
+
+<p>It is good to think that there is at least one man who believes that all
+the spirit of romance and chivalry has not yet died out of the world,
+and that there are as brave and honest hearts to-day as there were in
+the days of knights and paladins.&mdash;<i>Philadelphia Record.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Published by HARPER &amp; BROTHERS, New York</span>.</p>
+
+<p><i>Either of the above works sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of
+the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price.</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+
+
+
+<h2>BY THEODORE CHILD.</h2>
+
+<p><b>DELICATE FEASTING. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 25.</b></p>
+
+<p>Will be found invaluable in many a household where the mistress (or the
+master himself) takes an interest in preparing the supplies that come to
+the table.&mdash;<i>N.Y. Journal of Commerce.</i></p>
+
+<p>Recognizing the fact that the wise man does not live to eat, but rather
+eats to live, the author furnishes such rules as will enable cooks to
+make what is eaten palatable and healthful. People that give dinners
+will here find much assistance.&mdash;<i>Troy Press.</i></p>
+
+<p>The most hard-headed cook will acknowledge the pith, pointedness, and
+lucidity of Mr. Child's chapters on the chemistry of cookery, on the
+methods of preparing meats or vegetables, on acetaria, soups, and
+sauces; while the closing chapters on dining tables, dining-room
+decoration, table service, art in eating and on being invited to dine,
+have, to all who would further the amenities of civilization, a value
+that needs no comment.&mdash;<i>Brooklyn Times.</i></p>
+
+<p>A more sensible and delightful book of its kind would be difficult to
+name.... We cannot open this entertaining volume at any page without
+finding matter to instruct, or at least to invite reflection. The
+aphorisms on the gastronomic art, original or gathered from the highest
+authorities on the subject, are thoroughly sound.&mdash;<i>N.Y. Sun.</i><br /></p>
+
+
+
+<p><b>SUMMER HOLIDAYS. Travelling Notes in Europe. Post 8vo, Cloth,
+Ornamental, $1 25.</b></p>
+
+<p>A delightful book of notes of European travel.... Mr. Child is an art
+critic, and takes us into the picture-galleries, but we never get any
+large and painful doses of art information from this skilful and
+discriminating guide. There is not a page of his book that approaches to
+dull reading.&mdash;<i>N.Y. Sun.</i></p>
+
+<p>Mr. Child is a shrewd observer and writer of an engaging style. He
+interests the reader with abundant information, and pleases him by his
+lively manner in communicating it.&mdash;<i>Hartford Courant.</i></p>
+
+<p>Mr. Child is a very agreeable travelling companion, and his choice of
+places for a summer ramble is excellent.... The French chapters&mdash;on
+Limoges, Reims, Aix-les-Bains, and especially the voyage on French
+rivers&mdash;are abundant in novelty and odd bits of interest, as well as in
+beauty of scene and sympathy.&mdash;<i>Nation</i>, N.Y.</p>
+
+<p>A very pleasant volume of sketches by an accomplished traveller, who
+knows how to see and how to describe, and who can give real information
+without wearisome detail.&mdash;<i>Providence Journal.</i></p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Published by HARPER &amp; BROTHERS, New York</span>.</p>
+
+<p><i>The above works will be sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of
+the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price.</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+
+
+<h2>BEN-HUR: A TALE OF THE CHRIST.</h2>
+
+<p><b>By <span class="smcap">Lew Wallace</span>. New Edition, pp. 552. 16mo, Cloth, $1 50.</b></p>
+
+<p>Anything so startling, new, and distinctive as the leading feature of
+this romance does not often appear in works of fiction.... Some of Mr.
+Wallace's writing is remarkable for its pathetic eloquence. The scenes
+described in the New Testament are rewritten with the power and skill of
+an accomplished master of style.&mdash;<i>N.Y. Times.</i></p>
+
+<p>Its real basis is a description of the life of the Jews and Romans at
+the beginning of the Christian era, and this is both forcible and
+brilliant.... We are carried through a surprising variety of scenes; we
+witness a sea-fight, a chariot-race, the internal economy of a Roman
+galley, domestic interiors at Antioch, at Jerusalem, and among the
+tribes of the desert; palaces, prisons, the haunts of dissipated Roman
+youth, the houses of pious families of Israel. There is plenty of
+exciting incident; everything is animated, vivid, and glowing.&mdash;<i>N.Y.
+Tribune.</i></p>
+
+<p>From the opening of the volume to the very close the reader's interest
+will be kept at the highest pitch, and the novel will be pronounced by
+all one of the greatest novels of the day.&mdash;<i>Boston Post.</i></p>
+
+<p>It is full of poetic beauty, as though born of an Eastern sage, and
+there is sufficient of Oriental customs, geography, nomenclature, etc.,
+to greatly strengthen the semblance.&mdash;<i>Boston Commonwealth.</i></p>
+
+<p>"Ben-Hur" is interesting, and its characterization is fine and strong.
+Meanwhile it evinces careful study of the period in which the scene is
+laid, and will help those who read it with reasonable attention to
+realize the nature and conditions of Hebrew life in Jerusalem and Roman
+life at Antioch at the time of our Saviour's advent.&mdash;<i>Examiner</i>, N.Y.</p>
+
+<p>It is really Scripture history of Christ's time clothed gracefully and
+delicately in the flowing and loose drapery of modern fiction.... Few
+late works of fiction excel it in genuine ability and interest.&mdash;<i>N.Y.
+Graphic.</i></p>
+
+<p>One of the most remarkable and delightful books. It is as real and warm
+as life itself, and as attractive as the grandest and most heroic
+chapters of history.&mdash;<i>Indianapolis Journal.</i></p>
+
+<p>The book is one of unquestionable power, and will be read with unwonted
+interest by many readers who are weary of the conventional novel and
+romance.&mdash;<i>Boston Journal.</i></p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Published by HARPER &amp; BROTHERS, New York</span>.</p>
+
+<p><i>The above work sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the United
+States or Canada, on receipt of the price.</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
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+<pre>
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+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles
+Danvers, by Mary Cholmondeley
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+</body>
+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers, by
+Mary Cholmondeley
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers
+
+Author: Mary Cholmondeley
+
+Release Date: August 10, 2006 [EBook #19020]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DANVERS JEWELS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Geetu Melwani, Suzanne Shell and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note: A number of typographical errors found in the
+original text have been corrected in this version. A list of these
+errors is found at the end (before the advertisments from the original
+book).
+
+
+
+  THE DANVERS JEWELS
+
+     AND
+
+  SIR CHARLES DANVERS
+
+     by
+
+  Mary Cholmondeley
+
+
+
+
+    NEW YORK
+
+ HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE
+
+    1890
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+     TO MY SISTER
+
+     "DI"
+
+     I AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATE THE STORY
+     WHICH SHE HELPED ME
+     TO WRITE
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+                   CONTENTS.
+
+
+     THE DANVERS JEWELS                 9
+
+
+                   THE SEQUEL.
+
+     SIR CHARLES DANVERS                93
+
+
+      *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+THE DANVERS JEWELS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+I was on the point of leaving India and returning to England when he
+sent for me. At least, to be accurate--and I am always accurate--I was
+not quite on the point, but nearly, for I was going to start by the mail
+on the following day. I had been up to Government House to take my leave
+a few days before, but Sir John had been too ill to see me, or at least
+he had said he was. And now he was much worse--dying, it seemed, from
+all accounts; and he had sent down a native servant in the noon-day heat
+with a note, written in his shaking old hand, begging me to come up as
+soon as it became cooler. He said he had a commission which he was
+anxious I should do for him in England.
+
+Of course I went. It was not very convenient, because I had to borrow
+one of our fellows' traps, as I had sold my own, and none of them had
+the confidence in my driving which I had myself. I was also obliged to
+leave the packing of my collection of Malay _krises_ and Indian
+_kookeries_ to my bearer.
+
+I wondered as I drove along why Sir John had sent for me. Worse, was he?
+Dying? And without a friend. Poor old man! He had done pretty well in
+this world, but I was afraid he would not be up to much once he was out
+of it; and now it seemed he was going. I felt sorry for him. I felt more
+sorry when I saw him--when the tall, long-faced A.D.C. took me into his
+room and left us. Yes, Sir John was certainly going. There was no
+mistake about it. It was written in every line of his drawn fever-worn
+face, and in his wide fever-lit eyes, and in the clutch of his long
+yellow hands upon his tussore silk dressing-gown. He looked a very sick
+bad old man as he lay there on his low couch, placed so as to court the
+air from without, cooled by its passage through damped grass screens,
+and to receive the full strength of the punka, pulled by an invisible
+hand outside.
+
+"You go to England to-morrow?" he asked, sharply.
+
+It was written even in the change of his voice, which was harsh, as of
+old, but with all the strength gone out of it.
+
+"By to-morrow's mail," I said. I should have liked to say something
+more--something sympathetic about his being ill and not likely to get
+better; but he had always treated me discourteously when he was well,
+and I could not open out all at once now that he was ill.
+
+"Look here, Middleton," he went on; "I am dying, and I know it. I don't
+suppose you imagined I had sent for you to bid you a last farewell
+before departing to my long home. I am not in such a hurry to depart as
+all that, I can tell you; but there is something I want done--that I
+want you to do for me. I meant to have done it myself, but I am down
+now, and I must trust somebody. I know better than to trust a clever
+man. An honest fool--But I am digressing from the case in point. I have
+never trusted anybody all my life, so you may feel honored. I have a
+small parcel which I want you to take to England for me. Here it is."
+
+His long lean hands went searching in his dressing-gown, and presently
+produced an old brown bag, held together at the neck by a string.
+
+"See here!" he said; and he pushed the glasses and papers aside from the
+table near him and undid the string. Then he craned forward to look
+about him, laying a spasmodic clutch on the bag. "I'm watched! I know
+I'm watched!" he said in a whisper, his pale eyes turning slowly in
+their sockets. "I shall be killed for them if I keep them much longer,
+and I won't be hurried into my grave. I'll take my own time."
+
+"There is no one here," I said, "and no one in sight except Cathcart,
+smoking in the veranda, and I can only see his legs, so he can't see
+us."
+
+He seemed to recover himself, and laughed. I had never liked his laugh,
+especially when, as had often happened, it had been directed against
+myself; but I liked it still less now.
+
+"See here!" he repeated, chuckling; and he turned the bag inside out
+upon the table.
+
+Such jewels I had never seen. They fell like cut flame upon the marble
+table--green and red and burning white. A large diamond rolled and fell
+upon the floor. I picked it up and put it back among the confused blaze
+of precious stones, too much astonished for a moment to speak.
+
+"Beautiful! aren't they?" the old man chuckled, passing his wasted hands
+over them. "You won't match that necklace in any jeweller's in England.
+I tore it off an old she-devil of a Rhanee's neck after the Mutiny, and
+got a bite in the arm for my trouble. But she'll tell no tales. He! he!
+he! I don't mind saying now how I got them. I am a humble Christian, now
+I am so near heaven--eh, Middleton? He! he! You don't like to contradict
+me. Look at those emeralds. The hasp is broken, but it makes a pretty
+bracelet. I don't think I'll tell you how the hasp got broken--little
+accident as the lady who wore it gave it to me. Rather brown, isn't it,
+on one side? but it will come off. No, you need not be afraid of
+touching it, it isn't wet. He! he! And this crescent. Look at those
+diamonds. A duchess would be proud of them. I had them from a private
+soldier. I gave him two rupees for them. Dear me! how the sight of them
+brings back old times. But I won't leave them out any longer. We must
+put them away--put them away." And the glittering mass was gathered up
+and shovelled back into the old brown bag. He looked into it once with
+hungry eyes, and then he pulled the string and pushed it over to me.
+"Take it," he said. "Put it away now. Put it away," he repeated, as I
+hesitated.
+
+I put the bag into my pocket. He gave a long sigh as he watched it
+disappear.
+
+"Now what you have got to do with that bag," he said, a moment
+afterwards, "is to take it to Ralph Danvers, the second son of Sir
+George Danvers, of Stoke Moreton, in D----shire. Sir George has got two
+sons. I have never seen him or his sons, but I don't mean the eldest to
+have them. He is a spendthrift. They are all for Ralph, who is a steady
+fellow, and going to marry a nice girl--at least, I suppose she is a
+nice girl. Girls who are going to be married always _are_ nice. Those
+jewels will sweeten matrimony for Mr. Ralph, and if she is like other
+women it will need sweetening. There, now you have got them, and that is
+what you have got to do with them. There is the address written on this
+card. With my compliments, you perceive. He! he! I don't suppose they
+will remember who I am."
+
+"Have you no relations?" I asked; for I am always strongly of opinion
+that property should be bequeathed to relatives, especially near
+relatives, rather than to entire strangers.
+
+"None," he replied, "not even poor relations. I have no deserving
+nephew or Scotch cousin. If I had, they would be here at this moment
+smoothing the pillow of the departing saint, and wondering how much they
+would get. You may make your mind easy on that score."
+
+"Then who is this Ralph whom you have never seen, and to whom you are
+leaving so much?" I asked, with my usual desire for information.
+
+He glared at me for a moment, and then he turned his face away.
+
+"D----n it! What does it matter, now I'm dying?" he said. And then he
+added, hoarsely, "I knew his mother."
+
+I could not speak, but involuntarily I put out my hand and took his
+leaden one and held it. He scowled at me, and then the words came out,
+as if in spite of himself--
+
+"She--if she had married me, who knows what might--But she married
+Danvers. She called her second son Ralph. My first name is Ralph." Then,
+with a sudden change of tone, pulling away his hand, "There! now you
+know all about it! Edifying, isn't it? These death-bed scenes always
+have an element of interest, haven't they? _Good_-evening"--ringing the
+bell at his elbow--"I can't say I hope we shall meet again. It would be
+impolite. No, don't let me keep you. Good-bye again."
+
+"Good-bye, Sir John," I said, taking his impatient hand and shaking it
+gently; "God bless you."
+
+"Thankee," grinned the old man, with a sardonic chuckle; "if anything
+could do me good that will, I'm sure. Good-bye."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As I breakfasted next morning, previously to my departure, I could not
+help reflecting on the different position in which I was now returning
+to England, as a colonel on long leave, to that in which I had left it
+many--I do not care to think how many--years ago, the youngest ensign in
+the regiment.
+
+It was curious to remember that in my youth I had always been considered
+the fool of the family; most unjustly so considered when I look back at
+my quick promotion owing to casualties, and at my long and prosperous
+career in India, which I cannot but regard as the result of high
+principles and abilities, to say the least of it, of not the meanest
+order. On the point of returning to England, the trust Sir John had with
+his usual shrewdness reposed in me was an additional proof, if proof
+were needed, of the confidence I had inspired in him--a confidence which
+seemed to have ripened suddenly at the end of his life, after many years
+of hardly concealed mockery and derision. Just as I was finishing my
+reflections and my breakfast, Dickson, one of the last joined
+subalterns, came in.
+
+"This is very awful," he said, so gravely that I turned to look at him.
+
+"What is awful?"
+
+"Don't you know?" he replied. "Haven't you heard about--Sir John--last
+night?"
+
+"Dead?" I asked.
+
+He nodded; and then he said--
+
+"Murdered in the night! Cathcart heard a noise and went in, and stumbled
+over him on the floor. As he came in he saw the lamp knocked over, and a
+figure rush out through the veranda. The moon was bright, and he saw a
+man run across a clear space in the moonlight--a tall, slightly built
+man in native dress, but not a native, Cathcart said; that he would take
+his oath on, by his build. He roused the house, but the man got clean
+off, of course."
+
+"And Sir John?"
+
+"Sir John was quite dead when Cathcart got back to him. He found him
+lying on his face. His arms were spread out, and his dressing-gown was
+torn, as if he had struggled hard. His pockets had been turned inside
+out, his writing-table drawers forced open, the whole room had been
+ransacked; yet the old man's gold watch had not been touched, and some
+money in one of the drawers had not been taken. What on earth is the
+meaning of it all?" said young Dickson, below his breath. "What was the
+thief after?"
+
+In a moment the truth flashed across my brain. I put two and two
+together as quickly as most men, I fancy. _The jewels!_ Some one had got
+wind of the jewels, which at that moment were reposing on my own person
+in their old brown bag. Sir John had been only just in time.
+
+"What was he looking for?" continued Dickson, walking up and down. "The
+old man must have had some paper or other about him that he wanted to
+get hold of. But what? Cathcart says that nothing whatever has been
+taken, as far as he can see at present."
+
+I was perfectly silent. It is not every man who would have been so in my
+place, but I was. I know when to hold my tongue, thank Heaven!
+
+Presently the others came in, all full of the same subject, and then
+suddenly I remembered that it was getting late; and there was a bustle
+and a leave-taking, and I had to post off before I could hear more. Not,
+however, that there was much more to hear, for everything seemed to be
+in the greatest confusion, and every species of conjecture was afloat as
+to the real criminal, and the motive for the crime. I had not much time
+to think of anything during the first day on board; yet, busy as I was
+in arranging and rearranging my things, poor old Sir John never seemed
+quite absent from my mind. His image, as I had last seen him, constantly
+rose before me, and the hoarse whisper was forever sounding in my ears,
+"I'm watched! I know I'm watched!" I could not get him out of my head. I
+was unable to sleep the first night I was on board, and, as the long
+hours wore on, I always seemed to see the pale searching eyes of the
+dead man; and above the manifold noises of the steamer, and the
+perpetual lapping of the calm water against my ear, came the whisper,
+"I'm watched! I know I'm watched!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+I was all right next day. I suppose I had had what women call _nerves_.
+I never knew what nerves meant before, because no two women I ever met
+seemed to have the same kind. If it is slamming a door that upsets one
+woman's nerves, it may be coming in on tiptoe that will upset another's.
+You never can tell. But I am sure it was nerves with me that first
+night; I know I have never felt so queer since. Oh yes I have,
+though--once. I was forgetting; but I have not come to that yet.
+
+We had a splendid passage home. Most of the passengers were in good
+spirits at the thought of seeing England again, and even the children
+were not so troublesome as I have known them. I soon made friends with
+some of the nicest people, for I generally make friends easily. I do not
+know how I do it, but I always seem to know what people really are at
+first sight. I always was rather a judge of character.
+
+There was one man on board whom I took a great fancy to from the first.
+He was a young American, travelling about, as Americans do, to see the
+world. I forget where he had come from--though I believe he told me--or
+why he was going to London; but a nicer young fellow I never met. He was
+rather simple and unsophisticated, and with less knowledge of the world
+than any man I ever knew; but he did not mind owning to it, and was as
+grateful as possible for any little hints which, as an older man who had
+not gone through life with his eyes shut, I was of course able to give
+him. He was of a shy disposition I could see, and wanted drawing out;
+but he soon took to me, and in a surprisingly short time we became
+friends. He was in the next cabin to mine, and evidently wished so much
+to have been with me, that I tried to get another man to exchange; but
+he was grumpy about it, and I had to give it up, much to young Carr's
+disappointment. Indeed, he was quite silent and morose for a whole day
+about it, poor fellow. He was a tall handsome young man, slightly built,
+with the kind of sallow complexion that women admire, and I wondered at
+his preferring my company to that of the womankind on board, who were
+certainly very civil to him. One evening when I was rallying him on the
+subject, as we were leaning over the side (for though it was December it
+was hot enough in the Red Sea to lounge on deck), he told me that he was
+engaged to be married to a beautiful young American girl. I forget her
+name, but I remember he told it me--Dulcima Something--but it is of no
+consequence. I quite understood then. I always can enter into the
+feelings of others so entirely. I know when I was engaged myself once,
+long ago, I did not seem to care to talk to any one but her. She did not
+feel the same about it, which perhaps accounted for her marrying some
+one else, which was quite a blow to me at the time. But still I could
+fully enter into young Carr's feelings, especially when he went on to
+expatiate on her perfections. Nothing, he averred, was too good for her.
+At last he dropped his voice, and, after looking about him in the dusk,
+to make sure he was not overheard, he said:
+
+"I have picked up a few stones for her on my travels; a few sapphires of
+considerable value. I don't care to have it generally known that I have
+jewels about me, but I don't mind telling _you_."
+
+"My dear fellow," I replied, laying my hand on his shoulder, and sinking
+my voice to a whisper, "not a soul on board this vessel suspects it, but
+so have I."
+
+It was too dark for me see his face, but I felt that he was much
+impressed by what I had told him.
+
+"Then _you_ will know where I had better keep mine," he said, a moment
+later, with his impulsive boyish confidence. "How fortunate I told you
+about them. Some are of considerable value, and--and I don't know where
+to put them that they will be absolutely safe. I never carried about
+jewels with me before, and I am nervous about _losing_ them, you
+understand." And he nodded significantly at me. "Now where would you
+advise me to keep them?"
+
+"On you," I said, significantly.
+
+"But where?"
+
+He was simpler than even I could have believed.
+
+"My dear boy," I said, hardly able to refrain from laughing, "do as I
+do; put them in a bag with a string to it. Put the string round your
+neck, and wear that bag under your clothes night and day."
+
+"At night as well?" he asked, anxiously.
+
+"Of course. You are just as likely to _lose_ them, as you call it, in
+the night as in the day."
+
+"I'm very much obliged to you," he replied. "I will take your advice
+this very night. I say," he added, suddenly, "you would not care to see
+them, would you? I would not have any one else catch sight of them for a
+good deal, but I would show you them in a moment. Every one else is on
+deck just now, if you would like to come down into my cabin."
+
+I hardly know one stone from another, and never could tell a diamond
+from paste; but he seemed so anxious to show me what he had, that I did
+not like to refuse.
+
+"By all means," I said. And we went below.
+
+It was very dark in Carr's cabin, and after he had let me in he locked
+the door carefully before he struck a light. He looked quite pale in the
+light of the lamp after the red dusk of the warm evening on deck.
+
+"I don't want to have other fellows coming in," he said in a whisper,
+nodding at the door.
+
+He stood looking at me for a moment as if irresolute, and then he
+suddenly seemed to arrive at some decision, for he pulled a small parcel
+out of his pocket and began to open it.
+
+They really were not much to look at, though I would not have told him
+so for worlds. There were a few sapphires--one of a considerable size,
+but uncut--and some handsome turquoises, but not of perfect color. He
+turned them over with evident admiration.
+
+"They will look lovely, set in gold, as a bracelet on _her_ arm," he
+said, softly. He was very much in love, poor fellow! And then he added,
+humbly, "But I dare say they are nothing to yours."
+
+I chuckled to myself at the thought of his astonishment when he should
+actually behold them; but I only said, "Would you like to see them, and
+judge for yourself?"
+
+"Oh! if it is not giving you too much trouble," he exclaimed,
+gratefully, with shining eyes. "It's very kind of you. I did not like to
+ask. Have you got them with you?"
+
+I nodded, and proceeded to unbutton my coat.
+
+At that moment a voice was heard shouting down the companion-ladder:
+"Carr! I say, Carr, you are wanted!" and in another moment some one was
+hammering on the door.
+
+Carr sprang to his feet, looking positively savage.
+
+"Carr!" shouted the voice again. "Come out, I say; you are wanted!"
+
+"Button up your coat," he whispered, scowling suddenly; and with an oath
+he opened the door.
+
+Poor Carr! He was quite put out, I could see, though he recovered
+himself in a moment, and went off laughing with the man, who had been
+sent for him to take his part in a rehearsal which had been suddenly
+resolved on; for theatricals had been brewing for some time, and he had
+promised to act in them. I had not been asked to join, so I saw no more
+of him that night. The following morning, as I was taking an early turn
+on the deck, he joined me, and said, with a smile, as he linked his arm
+in mine, "I was put out last night, wasn't I?"
+
+"But you got over it in a moment," I replied. "I quite admired you; and,
+after all, you know--some other time."
+
+"No," he said, smiling still, "not some other time. I don't think I will
+see them--thanks all the same. They might put me out of conceit with
+what I have picked up for my little girl, which are the best I can
+afford."
+
+He seemed to have lost all interest in the subject, for he began to talk
+of England, and of London, about which he appeared to have that kind of
+vague half-and-half knowledge which so often proves misleading to young
+men newly launched into town life. When he found out, as he soon did,
+that I was, to a certain extent, familiar with the metropolis, he began
+to question me minutely, and ended by making me promise to dine with him
+at the Criterion, of which he had actually never heard, and go with him
+afterwards to the best of the theatres the day after we arrived in
+London.
+
+He wanted me to go with him the very evening we arrived, but on that
+point I was firm. My sister Jane, who was living with a hen canary
+(called Bob, after me, before its sex was known) in a small house in
+Kensington, would naturally be hurt if I did not spend my first evening
+in England with her, after an absence of so many years.
+
+Carr was much interested to hear that I had a sister, and asked
+innumerable questions about her. Was she young and lovely, or was she
+getting on? Did she live all by herself, and was I going to stay with
+her for long? Was not Kensington--was that the name of the
+street?--rather out of the world? etc.
+
+I was pleased with the interest he took in any particulars about myself
+and my relations. People so seldom care to hear about the concerns of
+others. Indeed, I have noticed, as I advance in life, such a general
+want of interest on the part of my acquaintance in the minutiae of my
+personal affairs that of late I have almost ceased to speak of them at
+any length. Carr, however, who was of what I should call a truly
+domestic turn of character, showed such genuine pleasure in hearing
+about myself and my relations, that I asked him to call in London in
+order to make Jane's acquaintance, and accordingly gave him her address,
+which he took down at once in his note-book with evident satisfaction.
+
+Our passage was long, but it proved most uneventful; and except for an
+occasional dance, and the theatricals before-mentioned, it would have
+been dull in the extreme. The theatricals certainly were a great
+success, mainly owing to the splendid acting of young Carr, who became
+afterwards a more special object of favor even than he was before. It
+was bitterly cold when we landed early in January at Southampton, and my
+native land seemed to have retired from view behind a thick veil of fog.
+We had a wretched journey up to London, packed as tight as sardines in a
+tin, much to the disgust of Carr, who accompanied me to town, and who,
+with his usual thoughtfulness, had in vain endeavored to keep the
+carriage to ourselves, by liberal tips to guards and porters. When we at
+last arrived in London he insisted on getting me a cab and seeing my
+luggage onto it, before he looked after his own at all. It was only when
+I had given the cabman my sister's address that he finally took his
+leave, and disappeared among the throng of people who were jostling each
+other near the luggage-vans.
+
+Curiously enough, when I arrived at my destination an odd thing
+happened. I got out at the green door of 23, Suburban Residences, and
+when the maid opened it, walked straight past her into the drawing-room.
+
+"Well, Jane!" I cried.
+
+A pale middle-aged woman rose as I came in, and I stood aghast. It was
+not my sister. It was soon explained. She was a little pettish about it,
+poor woman! It seemed my sister had quite recently changed her house,
+and the present occupant had been put to some slight inconvenience
+before by people calling and leaving parcels after her departure. She
+gave me Jane's new address, which was only in the next street, and I
+apologized and made my bow at once. My going to the wrong house was such
+a slight occurrence that I almost forgot it at the time, until I was
+reminded of it by a very sad event which happened afterwards.
+
+Jane was delighted to see me. It seemed she had written to inform me of
+her change of address, but the letter did not reach me before I started
+for England with the Danvers jewels, about which I have been asked to
+write this account. Considering this _is_ an account of the jewels, it
+is wonderful how seldom I have had occasion to mention them so far; but
+you may rest assured that all this time they were safe in their bag
+under my waiscoat; and knowing I had them there all right, I did not
+trouble my head much about them. I never was a person to worry about
+things.
+
+Still I had no wish to be inconvenienced by a hard packet of little
+knobs against my chest any longer than was necessary, and I wrote the
+same evening to Sir George Danvers, stating the bare facts of the case,
+and asking what steps he or his second son wished me to take to put the
+legacy in the possession of its owner. I had no notion of trusting a
+packet of such immense value to the newly organized Parcels Post. With
+jewels I consider you cannot be too cautious. Indeed, I told Jane so at
+the time, and she quite agreed with me.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+I did not much like the arrangement of Jane's new house when I came to
+stay in it. The way the two bedrooms, hers and mine, were shut off from
+the rest of the house by a door, barred and locked at night for fear of
+burglars, was, I thought, unpleasant, especially as, once in my room for
+the night, there was no possibility of getting out of it, the key of the
+door of the passage not being even allowed to remain in the lock, but
+retiring with Jane, the canary cage, and other valuables, into her own
+apartment. I remonstrated, but I soon found that Jane had not remained
+unmarried for nothing. She was decided on the point. The outer door
+would be locked as usual, and the key would be deposited under the
+pin-cushion in her room, as usual; and it was so.
+
+The next morning, as Jane and I went out for a stroll before luncheon,
+we had to pass the house to which I had driven by mistake the day
+before. To our astonishment, there was a crowd before the door, and a
+policeman with his back to it was guarding the entrance. The blinds were
+all drawn down. The image of the pale lonely woman, sitting by her
+little fire, whom I had disturbed the day before, came suddenly back to
+me with a strange qualm.
+
+"What is it?" I hurriedly asked a baker's boy, who was standing at an
+area railing, rubbing his chin against the loaf he was waiting to
+deliver. The boy grinned.
+
+"It's murder!" he said, with relish. "Burgilars in the night. I've
+supplied her reg'lar these two months. One quartern best white, one
+half-quartern brown every morning, French rolls occasional; but it's all
+up now." And he went off whistling a tune which all bakers' boys
+whistled about that time, called "My Grandfather's Timepiece," or
+something similar.
+
+A second policeman came up the street at this moment, and from him I
+learned all the little there was to know. The poor lady had not been
+murdered, it seemed, but, being subject to heart complaint, had died in
+the night of an acute attack, evidently brought on by fright. The maid,
+the only other person in the house, sleeping as maids-of-all-work only
+can, had heard nothing, and awoke in the morning to find her mistress
+dead in her bed, with the window and door open. "Strangely enough," the
+policeman added, "although nothing in the house had been touched, the
+lock of an unused bedroom had been forced, and the room evidently
+searched."
+
+Poor Jane was quite overcome. She seemed convinced that it was only by a
+special intervention of Providence that she had changed her house, and
+that her successor had been sacrificed instead of herself.
+
+"It might have been me!" she said over and over again that afternoon.
+
+Wishing to give a turn to her thoughts, I began to talk about Sir John's
+legacy, in which she had evinced the greatest interest the night before,
+and, greatly to her delight, showed her the jewels. I had not looked at
+them since Sir John had given them to me, and I was myself astonished at
+their magnificence, as I spread them out on the table under the
+gas-lamp. Jane exhausted herself in admiration; but as I was putting
+them away again, saying it was time for me to be dressing and going to
+meet Carr, who was to join me at the Criterion, she begged me on no
+account to take them with me, affirming that it would be much safer to
+leave them at home. I was firm, but she was firmer; and in the end I
+allowed her to lock them up in the tea-caddy, where her small stock of
+ready money reposed.
+
+I met Carr as we had arranged, and we had a very pleasant evening. Poor
+Carr, who had seen the papers, had hardly expected that I should turn
+up, knowing the catastrophe of the previous night had taken place at the
+house I was going to, and was much relieved to hear that my sister had
+moved, and had thus been spared all the horror of the event.
+
+The dinner was good, the play better. I should have come home feeling
+that I had enjoyed myself thoroughly, if it had not been for a little
+adventure with our cab-driver that very nearly proved serious. We got a
+hansom directly we came out of the theatre, but instead of taking us to
+the direction we gave him, after we had driven for some distance I began
+to make out that the cabman was going wrong, and Carr shouted to him to
+stop; but thereupon he lashed up his horse, and away we went like the
+wind, up one street, and down another, till I had lost all idea where we
+were. Carr, who was young and active, did all he could; but the cabman,
+who, I am afraid, must have been intoxicated, took not the slightest
+notice, and continued driving madly, Heaven knows where. At last, after
+getting into a very dingy neighborhood, we turned up a crooked dark
+street, unlit by any lamp, a street so narrow that I thought every
+moment the cab would be overturned. In another moment I saw two men rush
+out of a door-way. One seized the horse, which was much blown by this
+time, and brought it violently to a stand-still, while the other flew at
+the cab, and catching Carr by the collar, proceeded to drag him out by
+main force. I suppose Carr did his best, but being only an American, he
+certainly made a very poor fight of it; and while I was laying into the
+man who had got hold of him, I was suddenly caught by the legs myself
+from the other side of the cab. I turned on my assailant, saw a heavy
+stick levelled at me, caught at it, missed it, beheld a series of
+fireworks, and remembered nothing more.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The first thing I heard on beginning to come to myself was a series of
+subdued but evidently heart-felt oaths; and I became sensible of an airy
+feeling, unpleasant in the extreme, proceeding from an open condition of
+coat and waistcoat quite unsuited to the time of year. A low chorus of
+muffled whispering was going on round me. As I groaned, involuntarily,
+it stopped.
+
+"He's coming to!" I heard Carr say. "Go and fetch some brandy." And I
+felt myself turned right side uppermost, and my hands were rubbed,
+while Carr, in a voice of the greatest anxiety, asked me how I felt. I
+was soon able to sit up, and to become aware that I had a splitting
+headache, and was staring at a tallow-candle stuck in a bottle. Having
+got so far I got a little farther, and on looking round found myself
+reclining on a sack in a corner of a disreputable-looking room, dingy
+with dirt, and faithful to the memory of bad tobacco. Then I suddenly
+remembered what had occurred. Carr saw that I did so, and instantly
+poured forth an account of how we had been rescued from a condition of
+great peril by the man to whom the house we were in belonged, to whom he
+hardly knew how to express his gratitude, and who was now gone for some
+brandy for me. He told me a great deal about it, but I was so dizzy that
+I forgot most of what he said, and it was not until our deliverer
+returned with the brandy that I became thoroughly aware of what was
+going forward. I could not help thinking, as I thanked the honest fellow
+who had come to our assistance, how easily one may be deceived by
+appearances, for a more forbidding-looking face, under its fur cap, I
+never saw. That of his son, who presently returned with a four-wheeler
+which Carr had sent for, was not more prepossessing. In fact, they were
+two as villanous-looking men as I had ever seen. After recompensing both
+with all our spare cash, we got ourselves hoisted stiffly into the cab,
+and Carr good-naturedly insisted on seeing me home, though he owned to
+feeling, as he put it, "rather knocked up by his knocking down." We were
+both far too exhausted to speak much, until Carr gave a start and a gasp
+and said, "By Jove!"
+
+"What?" I inquired.
+
+"They are gone!" he said, tremulously--"my sapphires. They are gone!
+Stolen! I had them in a bag round my neck, as you told me. They must
+have been taken from me when I was knocked down. I say," he added,
+quickly, "how about yours? Have you got them all right?"
+
+Involuntarily I raised my hand to my throat. A horrid qualm passed over
+me.
+
+"Thank Heaven!" I replied, with a sigh of relief. "They are safe at home
+with Jane. What a mercy! I might have lost them."
+
+"_Might!_" said Carr. "You would have lost them to a dead certainty;
+mine _are_ gone!" And he stamped, and clinched his fists, and looked
+positively furious.
+
+Poor Carr! I felt for him. He took the loss of his stones so to heart;
+and I am sure it was only natural. I parted from him at my own door, and
+was glad on going in to find Jane had stayed up for me. I soon figured
+in her eyes as the hero of a thrilling adventure, while her clever hands
+applied sticking-plaster _ad libitum_. We were both so full of the
+events of the evening, and the letter which I was to write to the
+_Times_ about it the next day, that it never entered the heads of either
+of us, on retiring to bed, to remove Sir John's jewels from the
+tea-caddy into which they had been temporarily popped in the afternoon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+I really think adventures, like misfortunes, never come single. Would
+you believe it? Our house was broken into that very night. Nothing
+serious came of it, wonderful to relate, owing to Jane's extraordinary
+presence of mind. She had been unable to sleep after my thrilling
+account of the cab accident, and had consoled herself by reading
+Baxter's "Saint's Rest" by her night-light, for the canary became
+restless and liable to sudden bursts of song if a candle were lighted.
+While so engaged she became aware of a subdued grating sound, which had
+continued for some time before she began to speculate upon it. While she
+was speculating it ceased, and after a short interval she distinctly
+heard a stealthy step upon the stair, and the handle of the passage door
+before-mentioned was gently, very gently turned.
+
+Jane has some of that quickness of perception which has been of such use
+to myself through life. In a moment she had grasped the situation. Some
+one was in the house. In another moment she was hanging out of her
+bedroom window, springing the policeman's rattle which she had had by
+her for years with a view to an emergency of this kind, and at the same
+time--for she was a capable woman--blowing a piercing strain on a
+cabman's whistle.
+
+To make a long story short, her extraordinary presence of mind was the
+saving of us. With her own eyes she saw two dark figures fly up our area
+steps and disappear round the corner, and when a policeman appeared on
+the scene half an hour later, he confirmed the fact that the house had
+been broken into, by showing us how an entrance had been effected
+through the kitchen window.
+
+There was of course no more sleep for us that night, and the remainder
+of it was passed by Jane in examining the house from top to bottom every
+half hour or so, owing to a rooted conviction on her part that a
+burglar might still be lurking on the premises, concealed in the
+cellaret, or the jam cupboard, or behind the drawing-room curtains.
+
+By that morning's post I heard, as I expected I should do, from Sir
+George Danvers, but the contents of the letter surprised me. He wrote
+most cordially, thanking me for my kindness in undertaking such a heavy
+responsibility (I am sure I never felt it to be so) for an entire
+stranger, and ended by sending me a pressing invitation to come down
+to Stoke Moreton that very day, that he and his son, whose future wife
+was also staying with them, might have the pleasure of making the
+acquaintance of one to whom they were so much indebted. He added that
+his eldest son Charles was also going down from London by a certain
+train that day, and that he had told him to be on the lookout for me at
+the station in case I was able to come at such short notice. I made up
+my mind to go, sent Sir George a telegram to that effect, and proceeded
+to fish up the jewels out of the tea-caddy.
+
+Jane, who had never ceased for one instant to comment on the event of
+the night, positively shrieked when she saw me shaking the bag free from
+tea-leaves.
+
+"Good gracious! the burglars," she exclaimed. "Why, they might have
+taken them if they had only known."
+
+Of course they had _not_ known, as I had been particularly secret about
+them; but I wished all the same that I had not left them there all
+night, as Jane would insist, and continue insisting, that they had been
+exposed to great danger. I argued the matter with her at first; but
+women, I find, are impervious as a rule to masculine argument, and it is
+a mistake to reason with them. It is, in fact, putting the sexes for the
+moment on an equality to which the weaker one is unaccustomed, and
+consequently unsuited.
+
+A few hours later I was rolling swiftly towards Stoke Moreton in a
+comfortable smoking carriage, only occupied by myself and Mr. Charles
+Danvers, a handsome young fellow with a pale face and that peculiar
+tired manner which (though, as I soon found, natural to him) is so often
+affected by the young men of the day.
+
+"And so Ralph has come in for a legacy in diamonds," he said,
+listlessly, when we had exchanged the usual civilities, and had become,
+to a certain degree, acquainted. "Dear me! how these good steady young
+men prosper in the world. When last I heard from him he had prevailed
+upon the one perfect woman in the universe to consent to marry him, and
+his aunt (by-the-way, you will meet her there, too--Lady Mary
+Cunningham) had murmured something vague but gratifying about
+testamentary intentions. A week later Providence fills his brimming cup
+with a legacy of jewels, estimated at----" Charles opened his light
+sleepy eyes wide and looked inquiringly at me. "What are they estimated
+at?" he asked, as I did not answer.
+
+I really had no idea, but I shrugged my shoulders and looked wise.
+
+"Estimated at a fabulous sum," he said, closing his eyes again. "Ah! had
+they been mine, with what joyful alacrity should I have ascertained
+their exact money value. And mine they ought to have been, if the sacred
+law of primogeniture (that special Providence which watches over the
+interests of eldest sons) had been duly observed. Sir John had not the
+pleasure of my acquaintance, but I fear he must have heard some
+reports--no doubt entirely without foundation--respecting my career,
+which had induced him to pass me over in this manner. What a moral! My
+father and my aunt Mary are always delicately pointing out the
+difference between Ralph and myself. I wish I were a good young man,
+like Ralph. It seems to pay best in the long-run; but I may as well
+inform you, Colonel Middleton, of the painful fact that I am the black
+sheep of the family."
+
+"Oh, come, come!" I remarked, uneasily.
+
+"I should not have alluded to the subject if you were not likely to
+become fully aware of it on your arrival, so I will be beforehand with
+my relations. I was brought up in the way I should go," he continued,
+with the utmost unconcern, as if commenting on something that did not
+affect him in the least; "but I did not walk in it, partly owing to the
+uncongenial companionship that it involved, especially that of my aunt
+Mary, who took up so much room herself in the narrow path that she
+effectually kept me out of it. From my earliest youth, also, I took
+extreme interest in the parable of the Prodigal, and as soon as it
+became possible I exemplified it myself. I may even say that I acted the
+part in a manner that did credit to a beginner; but the wind-up was
+ruined by the lamentable inability of others, who shall be nameless, to
+throw themselves into the spirit of the piece. At various intervals," he
+continued, always as if speaking of some one else, "I have returned
+home, but I regret to say that on each occasion my reception was not in
+any way what I could have wished. The flavor of a fatted calf is
+absolutely unknown to me; and so far from meeting me half-way, I have in
+extreme cases, when impelled homeward by urgent pecuniary
+considerations, found myself obliged to walk up from the station."
+
+"Dear me! I hope it is not far," I said.
+
+"A mere matter of three miles or so uphill," he resumed; "nothing to a
+healthy Christian, though trying to the trembling legs of the ungodly
+after a long course of husks. There, now I think you are quite _au fait_
+as to our family history. I always pity a stranger who comes to a house
+ignorant of little domestic details of this kind; he is apt to make
+mistakes." "Oh, pray don't mention it,"--as I murmured some words of
+thanks--"no trouble, I assure you; trouble is a thing I don't take.
+By-the-way, are you aware we are going straight into a nest of private
+theatricals at Stoke Moreton? To-night is the last rehearsal; perhaps I
+had better look over my part. I took it once years ago, but I don't
+remember a word of it." And after much rummaging in a magnificent
+silver-mounted travelling-bag, the Prodigal pulled out a paper book and
+carelessly turned over the leaves.
+
+I did not interrupt his studies, save by a few passing comments on the
+weather, the state of the country, and my own health, which, I am sorry
+to say, is not what it was; but as I only received monosyllabic answers,
+we had no more conversation worth mentioning till we reached Stoke
+Moreton.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+Stoke Moreton is a fine old Elizabethan house standing on rising ground.
+As we drove up the straight wide approach between two rows of ancient
+fantastically clipped hollies, I was impressed by the stately dignity of
+the place, which was not lessened as we drew up before a great arched
+door-way, and were ushered into a long hall supported by massive pillars
+of carved white stone. A roaring log-fire in the immense fireplace threw
+a ruddy glow over the long array of armor and gleaming weapons which
+lined the walls, and made the pale winter twilight outside look bleak
+indeed. Charles, emerging slim and graceful out of an exquisite ulster,
+sauntered up to the fire, and asked where Sir George Danvers was. As he
+stood inside the wide fireplace, leaning against one of the pillars
+which supported the towering white stone chimney-piece, covered with
+heraldic designs and coats of arms, he looked a worthier representative
+of an ancient race than I fear he really was.
+
+"So they have put the stage at that end, in front of the pillars," he
+remarked, nodding at a wooden erection. "Quite right. I could not have
+placed it better myself. What, Brown? Sir George is in the drawing-room,
+is he? and tea, as I perceive, is going in at this moment. Come, Colonel
+Middleton." And we followed the butler to the drawing-room.
+
+I am not a person who easily becomes confused, but I must own I did get
+confused with the large party into the midst of which we were now
+ushered. I soon made out Sir George Danvers, a delicate, but
+irascible-looking old gentleman, who received me with dignified
+cordiality, but returned Charles's greeting with a certain formality and
+coldness which I was pained to see, family affection being, in my
+opinion, the chief blessing of a truly happy home. Charles I already
+knew, and with the second son, Ralph, a ruddy, smiling young man with
+any amount of white teeth, I had no difficulty; but after that I became
+hopelessly involved. I was introduced to an elderly lady whom I
+addressed for the rest of the evening as Lady Danvers, until Charles
+casually mentioned that his mother was dead, and that, until the
+Deceased Wife's Sister Bill was passed, he did not anticipate that his
+aunt Mary would take upon herself the position of step-mother to her
+orphaned nephews. The severe elderly lady, then, who beamed so sweetly
+upon Ralph, and regarded Charles with such manifest coldness, was their
+aunt Lady Mary Cunningham. She had known Sir John slightly in her youth,
+she said, as she graciously made room for me on her sofa, and she
+expressed a very proper degree of regret at his sudden death,
+considering that he had not been a personal friend in any way.
+
+"We all have our faults, Colonel Middleton," said Lady Mary, with a
+gentle sigh, which dislodged a little colony of crumbs from the front of
+her dress. "Sir John, like the rest of us, was not exempt, though I have
+no doubt the softening influence of age would have done much, since I
+knew him, to smooth acerbities of character which were unfortunately
+strongly marked in his early life."
+
+She had evidently not known Sir John in his later years.
+
+As she continued to talk in this strain I endeavored to make out which
+of the young ladies present was the one to whom Ralph was engaged. I was
+undecided as to which it was of the two to whom I had already been
+introduced. Girls always seem to me so very much alike, especially
+pretty girls; and these were both of them pretty. I do not mean that
+they resembled each other in the least, for one was dark and one was
+fair; but which was Miss Aurelia Grant, Ralph's _fiancee_, and which was
+Miss Evelyn Derrick, a cousin of the family, I could not make out until
+later in the evening, when I distinctly saw Ralph kiss the fair one in
+the picture-gallery, and I instantly came to the conclusion that she was
+the one to whom he was engaged.
+
+I asked Charles if I were not right, as we stood in front of the
+hall-fire before the rest of the party had assembled for dinner, and he
+told me that I had indeed hit the nail on the head in this instance,
+though for his own part he never laid much stress himself on such an
+occurrence, having found it prove misleading in the extreme to draw any
+conclusion from it. He further informed me that Miss Derrick was the
+young lady with dark hair who had poured out tea, and whom he had
+favored with some of his conversation afterwards.
+
+I admired Ralph's taste, as did Charles, who had never seen his future
+sister-in-law before. Aurelia Grant was a charming little creature, with
+a curly head and a dimple, and a pink-and-white complexion, and a
+suspicion of an Irish accent when she became excited.
+
+Charles said he admired her complexion most because it was so thoroughly
+well done, and the coloring was so true to nature.
+
+I did not quite catch his meaning, but it certainly was a beautiful
+complexion; and then she was so bright and lively, and showed such
+pretty little teeth when she smiled! She was quite delightful. I did not
+wonder at Ralph's being so much in love with her, and Charles agreed
+with me.
+
+"There is nothing like a good complexion," he remarked, gravely. "One
+may be led away to like a pale girl with a mind for a time, but for
+permanent domestic happiness give me a good complexion, and--a dimple,"
+he added, as if it were an after-thought. "I feel I could not bestow my
+best affections on a woman without a dimple. Yes, indeed! Ralph has
+chosen well."
+
+Now I do not agree with Charles there, as I have always considered that
+a woman _should_ have a certain amount of mind; just enough, in fact, to
+enable her to appreciate a superior one. I said as much to Charles; but
+he only laughed, and said it was a subject on which opinion had always
+varied.
+
+"How did he meet her?" I inquired.
+
+"On the Rigi, last summer," said Charles. "I am thinking of going there
+myself next year. Lovely orphan sat by Lady Mary at _table d'hote_. Read
+tracts presented by Lady Mary. Made acquaintance. Lovely orphan's
+travelling companion or governess discovered to be live sister of
+defunct travelling companion or governess of Lady Mary. Result, warm
+friendship. Ralph, like a dutiful nephew, appears on the scene.
+Fortnight of fine weather. Interesting expeditions. Romantic attachment,
+cemented by diamond and pearl ring from Hunt & Roskell's. There is the
+whole story for you."
+
+Evelyn Derrick joined us as he finished speaking. She was a tall
+graceful girl, gentle and dignified in manner, with a pale refined face.
+She was pretty in a way, but not to compare to Aurelia. Evelyn had an
+anxious look about her, too. Now I do not approve of a girl looking
+grave; she ought to be bright and happy, with a smile for every one. It
+is all very well for us men, who have the work of the world to do, to
+look grave at times, but with women it is different; and a woman always
+looks her best when she smiles--at least, I think so.
+
+Then Aurelia came down, perfectly dazzling in white satin; then Sir
+George, then Ralph, giving an arm to Lady Mary, who suffered from
+rheumatism in her foot. Then came the gong, and there was a rustle down
+of more people, young and old, friends of the family who had come to
+act, or to see their sons and daughters act. As I never could get even
+their names right, I shall not attempt to give any account of them,
+especially as they are not of importance in any way.
+
+After dinner, on entering the drawing-room, I found that great
+excitement prevailed among the ladies respecting Sir John's jewels.
+About his sad fate and costly legacy they all seemed fully informed. I
+had myself almost forgotten the reason of my visit in my interest in my
+new surroundings, not having even as yet given up the jewels to Sir
+George Danvers or Ralph; but, at the urgent request of all the ladies at
+once, Ralph begged me to bring them down, to be seen and admired then
+and there, before the rehearsal began.
+
+"They will all be yours, you know," Ralph said to Aurelia. "You shall
+wear them on your wedding-day."
+
+"You are always talking about being married," said Aurelia, with a
+little pout. "I wish you would try and think of something else to say. I
+was quite looking forward to it myself until I came here, and now I am
+quite, _quite_ tired of it beforehand."
+
+Ralph laughed delightedly, and Sir George reminding me that every one
+was dying of anxiety, himself included, I ran up-stairs to take the
+brown bag from around my neck, and in a few minutes returned with it in
+my hand. They were all waiting for me, Lady Mary drawn up in an
+arm-chair beside an ebony table, on which a small space near her had
+been cleared, Charles alone holding rather aloof, sipping his coffee
+with his back to the fire.
+
+"Don't jostle," he said, as they all crowded round me. "Evelyn, let me
+beg of you not to elbow forward in that unbecoming manner. Observe how
+Aunt Mary restrains herself. Take time, Middleton! your coffee is
+getting cold. Won't you drink it first?"
+
+As he finished speaking I turned the contents of the bag upon the table.
+The jewels in the bright lamp-light seemed to blaze and burn into the
+ebony of the table. There was a general gasp, a silence, and then a
+chorus of admiration. Charles came up behind me and looked over my
+shoulder.
+
+"Good gracious!" said Lady Mary, solemnly. "Ralph, you are a rich man.
+Why, mine are nothing to them!" and she touched a diamond and emerald
+necklace on her own neck. "I never knew poor Sir John had so much good
+in him."
+
+"Oh, Ralph, Ralph!" cried Aurelia, clasping her little hands with a deep
+sigh. "And will they really be my very own?"
+
+Ralph assured her that they would, and that she should act in them the
+following night if she liked.
+
+I think there was not a woman present who did not envy Aurelia as Ralph
+took up a flashing diamond crescent and held it against her fair hair. I
+saw Evelyn turn away and begin to tear up a small piece of paper in her
+hand. Women are very jealous of each other, especially the nice, by
+which I mean the pretty, ones. I was sorry to see jealousy so plainly
+marked in such a charming looking girl as Evelyn; but women are all the
+same about jewels. Aurelia blushed and sparkled, and pouted when the
+clasp caught in her hair, and shook her little head impatiently, and was
+altogether enchanting.
+
+After the first burst of admiration had subsided, General Marston, an
+old Indian officer, who had been somewhat in the rear, came up, and
+looked long at the glittering mass upon the table.
+
+"Are you aware," he said at last to Ralph, pointing to the crescent,
+"that those diamonds are of enormous value? I have not seen such stones
+in any shop in London. I dare not say what that one crescent alone is
+worth, or that emerald bracelet. Jewels of such value as this are a
+grave responsibility." He stood, shaking his head a little and turning
+the crescent in his hand. "Wonderful!" he said. "Wonderful! Do not tear
+up that piece of rice-paper, Miss Derrick," he added, taking it from
+her. "The crescent was wrapped in it, and I will put it round it again.
+All these stones want polishing, and many of them resetting. They ought
+not to be tumbled together in this way in a bag, with nothing to
+prevent them scratching each other. See, Ralph, here is a clasp broken;
+and here are some loose stones; and this star has no clasp at all. You
+must take them up to some trustworthy jeweller, and have them thoroughly
+looked over."
+
+"I suppose the second son was specially mentioned, Middleton?" said
+Charles, as I drew back to let the rest handle and admire.
+
+"Of course!" said Lady Mary, sharply; "and a very fortunate thing, too."
+
+"Very--for Ralph," he replied. "It is really providential that I am what
+I am. Why, I might have ruined the dear boy's prospects if I had paid my
+tailor's bill, and lived in the country among the buttercups and
+daisies. Ah! my dear aunt, I see you are about to remark how all things
+here below work together for good!"
+
+"I was not going to remark anything of the kind," retorted Lady Mary,
+drawing herself up; "but," she added, spitefully, "I do not feel the
+less rejoiced at Ralph's good fortune and prosperity when I see, as I so
+often do, the ungodly flourishing like a green bay-tree."
+
+"Of course," said Charles, shaking his head, "if that is your own
+experience, I bow before it; but for my own part, I must confess I have
+not found it so. Flourish like a green bay-tree! No, Aunt Mary, it is a
+fallacy; they don't: I am sure I only wish they did. But I see the
+rehearsal is beginning. May I give you an arm to the hall?"
+
+The offer was entirely disregarded, and it was with the help of mine
+that Lady Mary retired from an unequal combat, which she never seemed
+able to resist provoking anew, and in which she was invariably worsted,
+causing her, as I could see, to regard Charles with the concentrated
+bitterness of which a severely good woman alone is capable.
+
+I soon perceived that Charles was on the same amicable terms with his
+father; that they rarely spoke, and that it was evidently only with a
+view to keeping up appearances that he was ever invited to the paternal
+roof at all. Between the brothers, however, in spite of so much to
+estrange them, a certain kindliness of feeling seemed to exist, which
+was hardly to have been expected under the circumstances.
+
+The rehearsal now began, and Sir George Danvers, who had remained behind
+to put by the jewels, and lock them up in his strong-box among his
+papers, came and sat down by me, again thanking me for taking charge of
+them, though I assured him it had been very little trouble.
+
+"Not much trouble, perhaps, but a great responsibility," he said,
+courteously.
+
+"A soldier, Sir George," I replied, with a slight smile, "becomes early
+inured to the gravest responsibility. It is the air we breathe; it is
+taken as a matter of course."
+
+He looked keenly at me, and was silent, as if considering
+something--perhaps what I had said.
+
+I was delighted to find the play was one of those which I had seen acted
+during our passage home. There is nothing I like so much as knowing a
+play beforehand, because then one can always whisper to one's companion
+what is coming next. The stage, with all its adjustments, had been
+carefully arranged, the foot-lights were lighted, the piece began. All
+went well till nearly the end of the first act, when there was a cry
+behind the scenes of "Mr. Denis!" Mr. Denis should have rushed on, but
+Mr. Denis did not rush on. The play stopped. Mr. Denis was not in the
+library, the improvised greenroom; Mr. Denis did not appear when his
+name was called in stentorian tones by Ralph, or in pathetic falsetto by
+Charles. In short, Mr. Denis was not forthcoming. A rush up-stairs on
+the part of most of the young men brought to light the awful fact that
+Mr. Denis had retired to his chamber, a prey to sudden and acute
+indisposition.
+
+"Dear me!" said Charles to Lady Mary, with a dismal shake of his head,
+"how precarious is life! Here to-day, and in bed to-morrow. Support your
+aunt Mary, my dear Evelyn; she wishes to retire to rest. Indeed, we may
+as well all go to bed, for there will be no more acting to-night without
+poor Denis. I only trust he may be spared to us till to-morrow, and that
+he may be well enough to die by my hand to-morrow evening."
+
+We all dispersed for the night in some anxiety. The play could not
+proceed without Mr. Denis, who took an important part; and Sir George
+ruefully informed me that all the neighboring houses had been filled for
+these theatricals, and that great numbers of people were expected. There
+was to be dancing afterwards, but the principal feature of the
+entertainment was the play. We all retired to rest, fervently hoping
+that the health of Mr. Denis might be restored by the following
+morning.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+But far from being better the following morning, Denis was much worse.
+Charles, who had sat up most of the night with him, and who came down to
+breakfast more cool and indifferent than ever, at once extinguished any
+hope that still remained that he would be able to take his part that
+night.
+
+Great was the consternation of the whole party. A vague feeling of
+resentment against Denis prevailed among the womankind, who, having all
+preserved their own healths intact for the occasion (and each by her own
+account was a chronic invalid), felt it was extremely inconsiderate, not
+to say indelicate, of "a great man like him" to spoil everything by
+being laid up at the wrong moment.
+
+But what was to be done? Denis was ill, and without Denis the play could
+not proceed. Must the whole thing be given up? There was a general
+chorus of lamentation.
+
+"I see no alternative," said Charles, "unless some Curtius will leap
+into the gulf, and go through the piece reading the part, and that is
+always a failure at the best of times."
+
+At that moment I had an idea; it broke upon me like a flash of
+lightning: _Valentine Carr_! I had seen him act the very part Denis was
+to have taken, in the theatricals on the steamer. How wonderfully
+fortunate that it should have occurred to me!
+
+I told Charles that I had a friend who had acted that part only the week
+before.
+
+"_You!_" cried Charles, losing all his customary apathy--"you don't say
+so! Great heavens, where is he? Out with him! Where is he at this
+moment? England, Ireland, Scotland, or Wales? Where is this treasure
+concealed?"
+
+"Oh, Colonel Middleton! Oh, how delightful!" cried a number of gentle
+voices; and I was instantly surrounded, and all manner of questions put
+to me. Would he come? Was he tall? And oh! _had_ he a beard? He had not
+a beard, had he? because it would not do for the part. Did he act well?
+When had he acted? Where had he acted?
+
+Sir George interrupted the torrent of interrogation.
+
+"Do you think he would come?" he asked.
+
+"I am almost sure he would," I said; "he is a great friend of mine."
+
+"It would be an exceedingly good-natured and friendly act," said Sir
+George. "Charles--no, I mean Ralph--bring a telegraph form, and if you
+will write a telegram at once, Middleton, I will send it to the station
+directly. We shall have an answer by twelve o'clock, and until then we
+will not give up all hope, though of course we must not count on your
+friend being able to come at such short notice."
+
+The telegram was written and despatched, Carr having given me an address
+where letters would find him, though he said he did not put up there. I
+sincerely hoped he would not be out of the way on this occasion, and I
+was not a little pleased when, a few hours later, I received a telegram
+in reply saying that he could come, and should arrive by the afternoon
+train which had brought me the day before.
+
+The spirits of the whole party revived. I (as is often the case) was in
+high favor with all. Even poor Denis, who had been very much depressed,
+was sufficiently relieved by the news--so Charles said--to smile over
+his beef-tea. Lady Mary, who appeared at luncheon-time, treated me with
+marked consideration. I had already laid them under an obligation, she
+said, graciously, by undertaking the care of the jewels, and now they
+were indebted to me a second time. Was Mr. Carr one of Lord Barrantyne's
+sons, or was he one of the Crampshire Carrs? She had known Lady Caroline
+Carr in her youth, but had not met her of late years. She seemed
+surprised when I told her that Carr was an American, and he sank, I
+could see, at once in her estimation; but she was kind enough to say
+that she was not a person who was prejudiced in any way by a man's
+nationality, and that she believed that very respectable people might be
+found among the Americans.
+
+The day passed in the usual preparations for an entertainment. If I went
+into the hall I was sure to run against gardeners carrying in quantities
+of hot-house plants, with which the front of the stage was being hidden
+from the foot-lights to the floor; if I wandered into the library I
+interrupted Aurelia and Ralph rehearsing their parts alone, with their
+heads very close together; if I hastily withdrew into the morning-room,
+it was only to find Charles upon his knees luring Evelyn to immediate
+flight, in soul-stirring accents, before an admiring audience of not
+unenvious young ladyhood.
+
+"Now, Evelyn, I ask you as a favor," said Charles, as I came in, moving
+towards her on his knees, "will you come a little closer when I am down?
+I don't mind wearing out my knees the least in a good cause; but I owe
+it to myself, as a wicked baron in hired tights, not to cross the stage
+in that position. Any impression I make will be quite lost if I do; and
+unless you keep closer, I shall never be able to reach your hand and
+clasp it to a heart at least two yards away. Now,"--rising, and crossing
+over to the other side--"I shall begin again. 'Ah! but my soul's
+adored--'"
+
+"Is Middleton here?" asked a voice in the door-way. It was Sir George
+Danvers who had put his head into the room, and I went to him.
+
+"I say, Middleton," he began, twirling his stick, and looking rather
+annoyed, "it is excessively provoking. I never thought of it before, but
+I find there is not a bed in the house. Every cranny has been filled. It
+never occurred to me that we had not a room for your friend, now that he
+is kind enough to come. And it looks so rude, when it is so exceedingly
+good-natured of him to come at all."
+
+"Oh, dear! anywhere will do," I said.
+
+"There is not even room for Ralph in the house," continued Sir George.
+"I have put him up at the lodge," pointing to a small house at the end
+of the drive, near the great entrance gates. "There is another nice
+little room leading out of his," he added, hesitating--"but really I
+don't like to suggest--"
+
+"Oh, that will do perfectly!" I broke in. "Carr is not the sort of
+fellow to care a straw how he is put up. He will be quite content
+anywhere."
+
+"Come and see it," he said, leading the way out-of-doors. "I would have
+turned out Charles in a moment, and given Carr his room; but Denis is
+really rather ill, and Charles sees to him, as he is next door."
+
+I could not help saying how much I liked Charles.
+
+"Strangers always do," he replied, coldly, as we walked towards the
+lodge. "I constantly hear him spoken of as a most agreeable young man."
+
+"And he is so handsome."
+
+"Yes," replied Sir George, in the same hard tone, "handsome and
+agreeable. I have no doubt he appears so to others; but I, who have had
+to pay the debts and hush up the scandals of my handsome and agreeable
+son, find Ralph, who has not a feature in his face, the better-looking
+of the two. I know Charles is head over ears in debt at this moment,
+but,"--with sudden acrimony--"he will not get another farthing from me.
+It is pouring water into a sieve."
+
+"Ralph is marrying a sweetly pretty creature," I said, with warmth,
+desirous of changing the subject.
+
+"Yes, she is very pretty," said Sir George, without enthusiasm; "but I
+wish she had belonged to one of our county families. It is nothing in
+the way of connection. She has no relations to speak of--one uncle
+living in Australia, and another, whom she goes to on Saturday, in
+Ireland. There seems to be no money either. It is Lady Mary's doing. She
+took a fancy to her abroad; and to say the truth, I did not wish to
+object, for at one time there seemed to be an attraction between Ralph
+and his cousin Evelyn Derrick, which his aunt and I were both glad to
+think had passed over. I do not approve of marriages between cousins."
+
+We had reached the lodge by this time, and I was shown a tidy little
+room leading out of the one Ralph was occupying, in which I assured Sir
+George that Carr would be perfectly comfortable, much to the courteous
+old gentleman's relief, though I could see that he was evidently annoyed
+at not being able to put him up in the house.
+
+In the afternoon, towards five o'clock, Carr arrived. I went into the
+hall to meet him, and to bring him into the drawing-room myself. Just as
+we came in, and while I was introducing him to Sir George, Ralph and
+Aurelia, who were sitting together as usual, started a lovers' squabble.
+
+"Oh _my_!" said Ralph, suddenly.
+
+"It is all your fault. You jogged my elbow," came Aurelia's quick
+rejoinder.
+
+"My dearest love, I did _not_," returned Ralph, on his knees,
+pocket-handkerchief in hand.
+
+It appeared that between them they had managed to transfer Amelia's tea
+from her cup to the front of her dress.
+
+"You did; you know you did," she said, evidently ready to cry with
+vexation. "I was just going to drink, and you had your arm round the
+back of my--"
+
+"Hush, Aurelia, I beg," expostulated Charles. "Aunt Mary and I are
+becoming embarrassed. It is not necessary to enter into particulars as
+to the exact locality of Ralph's arm."
+
+"Round the back of my chair," pouted Aurelia.
+
+"It is all right, Aunt Mary," called Charles, cheerfully, to that lady.
+"Only the back of her _chair_. We took alarm unnecessarily. Just as it
+should be. I have done the same myself with--a different chair."
+
+"He is _always_ doing it," continued Aurelia, unmollified. "I have told
+him about it before. He made me drop a piece of bread and butter on the
+carpet only yesterday."
+
+"I ate it afterwards," humbly suggested Ralph, still on his knees, "and
+there were hairs in it. There were, indeed, Aurelia."
+
+"And now it is my tea-gown," continued Aurelia, giving way to the
+prettiest little outburst of temper imaginable. "I wish you would get up
+and go away, Ralph, and not come back. You are only making it worse by
+rubbing it in that silly way with your wet handkerchief."
+
+"Here is another," said Charles, snatching up Lady Mary's delicate
+cambric one, which was lying on her work-table, while I was in the act
+of introducing Carr to her; and before that lady's politeness to Carr
+would allow her to turn from him to expostulate, Charles was on his
+knees beside Ralph, wiping the offending stain.
+
+"'Out, d----d spot!' or rather series of spots. What, Aurelia! you don't
+wish it rubbed any more? Good! I will turn my attention to the
+_Aubusson_ carpet. Ha! triumph! Here at least I am successful. Aunt
+Mary, you have no conception how useful your handkerchief is. The amount
+of tea or dirt, or both, which is leaving the carpet and taking refuge
+in your little square of cambric will surprise you when you see it. Ah!"
+rising from his knees as I brought up Carr, having by this time
+presented him to Sir George. "Very happy to see you, Mr. Carr. Most kind
+of you to come. Evelyn, are you pouring out some tea for Mr. Carr?
+Nature requires support before a last rehearsal. May I introduce you to
+my cousin Miss Derrick?"
+
+After Carr had also been introduced to Aurelia, who, however, was still
+too much absorbed in her tea-gown to take much notice of him, he seemed
+glad to retreat to a chair by Evelyn, who gave him his tea, and talked
+pleasantly to him. He was very shy at first, but he soon got used to us,
+and many were the curious glances shot at him by the rest of the party
+as tea went on. There was to be a last rehearsal immediately afterwards,
+so that he might take part in it; and there was a general unacknowledged
+anxiety on the part of all the actors as to how he would bear that
+crucial test on which so much depended. I was becoming anxious myself,
+being in a manner responsible for him.
+
+"You're not nervous, are you?" I said, taking him aside when tea was
+over. "Only act half as well as you did on the steamer and you will do
+capitally."
+
+"Yes, I am nervous," he replied, with a short uneasy laugh. "It is
+enough to make a fellow nervous to be set down among a lot of people
+whom he has never seen before--to act a principal part, too. I had no
+idea it was going to be such a grand affair or I would not have come. I
+only did it to please you."
+
+Of course I knew that, and I tried to reassure him, reminding him that
+the audience would not be critical, and how grateful every one was to
+him for coming.
+
+"Tell me who some of the people are, will you?" he went on. "Who is that
+tall man with the fair mustache? He is looking at us now."
+
+"That is Charles, the eldest son," I replied; "and the shorter one, with
+the pleasant face, near the window, is Ralph, his younger brother."
+
+"That is a very good-looking girl he is talking to," he remarked. "I did
+not catch her name."
+
+"Hush!" I said. "That is Miss Grant, whom he is engaged to. They have
+just had a little tiff, and are making it up. He _does_ talk to her a
+good deal. I have noticed it myself. Such a sweet creature!"
+
+"Is she going to act?"
+
+"Yes," I replied. "They are going to begin at once. You need not dress.
+It is not a dress rehearsal."
+
+"I think I will go and get my boots off, though," said Carr. "Can you
+show me where I am?"
+
+"I am afraid you are not in the house at all," I said. "The fact is--did
+not Sir George tell you?" And then I explained.
+
+For a moment his face fell, but it cleared instantly, though not before
+I had noticed it.
+
+"You don't mind?" I said, astonished. "You quite understand--"
+
+"Of course, of course!" he interrupted. "It is all right, I have a cold,
+that is all; and I have to sing next week. I shall do very well. Pray
+don't tell your friends I have a cold. I am sure Sir George is kindness
+itself, and it might make him uneasy to think I was not in his house."
+
+The rehearsal now began, and in much trepidation I waited to see Carr
+come on. The moment he appeared all anxiety vanished; the other actors
+were reassured, and acted their best. A few passages had to be
+repeated, a few positions altered, but it was obvious that Carr could
+act, and act well; though, curiously enough, he looked less
+gentlemanlike and well-bred when acting with Charles than he had done
+when he was the best among a very mixed set on the steamer.
+
+"You act beautifully, Mr. Carr!" said Aurelia, when it was over.
+"Doesn't he, Ralph?"
+
+"Doesn't he?" replied Ralph, hot but good-humored. "I am sure, Carr, we
+are most grateful to you."
+
+"So am I," said Charles. "Your death agonies, Carr, are a credit to
+human nature. No great vulgar writhings with legs all over the stage,
+like Denis; but a chaste, refined wriggle, and all was over. It is a
+pleasure to kill a man who dies in such a gentlemanlike manner. If only
+Evelyn will keep a little closer to me when I am on my wicked baronial
+knees, I shall be quite happy. You hear, Evelyn?"
+
+"How you can joke at this moment," said Evelyn, who looked pale and
+nervous, "I cannot think. I don't believe I shall be able to remember a
+word when it comes to the point."
+
+"Stage-fever coming on already," said Charles, in a different tone. "Ah!
+it is your first appearance, is it not? Go and rest now, and you will be
+all right when the time comes. I have a vision of a great success, and a
+call before the curtain, and bouquets, and other delights. Only go and
+rest now." And he went to light a candle for her. He seemed very
+thoughtful for Evelyn.
+
+It was the signal for all of us to disperse, the ladies to their rooms,
+the men to the only retreat left to them, the smoking-room. As Aurelia
+went up-stairs I saw her beckon Ralph and whisper to him:
+
+"Am I really to wear them?"
+
+"Wear what, my angel? The jewels! Why, good gracious, I had quite
+forgotten them. Of course I want you to wear them."
+
+"So do I, dreadfully," she replied, with a killing glance over the
+balusters. "Only if I am, you must bring them down in good time, and put
+them on in the greenroom. I hope you have got them somewhere safe."
+
+"Safe as a church," replied Ralph, forgetting that in these days the
+simile was not a good one. "Father has them in his strong-box. I will
+ask him to get them out--at least all that could be worn--and I will
+give them a rub up before you wear them."
+
+"Ah!" said Charles, sadly, as we walked up-stairs, "if only I had known
+Sir John!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+It was nearly eight o'clock when I came down. The play was to begin at
+eight. The hall, which was brilliantly lighted, was one moving mass of
+black coats, with here and there a red one, and evening-dresses many
+colored--the people in them, chatting, bowing, laughing, being ushered
+to their places. Lady Mary and Sir George Danvers side by side received
+their guests at the foot of the grand staircase, Lady Mary, resplendent
+in diamond tiara and riviere, smiling as if she could never frown; Sir
+George upright, courteous, a trifle stiff, as most English country
+gentlemen feel it incumbent on themselves to be on such occasions.
+
+Presently the continual roll of the carriages outside ceased, the lamps
+were toned down, the orchestra struck up, and Sir George and Lady Mary
+took their seats, looking round with anxious satisfaction at the hall
+crowded with people. People lined the walls; chairs were being lifted
+over the heads of the sitting for some who were still standing; cushions
+were being arranged on the billiard-table at the back for a covey of
+white waistcoats who arrived late; the staircase was already crowded
+with servants; the whole place was crammed.
+
+I wondered how they were getting on behind the scenes, and slipping out
+of the hall, I traversed the great gold and white drawing-room, prepared
+for dancing, and peeped into the morning-room, which, with the adjoining
+library, had been given up to the actors. They were all assembled in the
+morning-room, however, waiting for one of the elder ladies who had not
+come down. The prompter was getting fidgety, and walking about. The two
+scene-shifters, pale, weary-looking men, who had come down with the
+scenery, were sitting in the wings, perfectly apathetic amid the general
+excitement. Charles and several other actors were standing round a
+footman who was opening champagne bottles at a surprising rate. I saw
+Charles take a glass to Evelyn, who was shivering with a sharp attack of
+stage-fever in an arm-chair, looking over her part. She smiled
+gratefully, but as she did so her eyes wandered to the other side of the
+room, where Ralph, on his knees before Aurelia, was fastening a diamond
+star in her dress. Diamonds, rubies, and emeralds flashed in her hair,
+and on her white neck and arms. Ralph was fixing the last ornament onto
+her shoulder with wire off a champagne bottle, there being no clasp to
+hold it in its place. I saw Evelyn turn away again, and Charles, who was
+watching her, suddenly went off to the fire, and began to complain of
+the cold, and of the thinness of his silk stockings.
+
+The elder lady--"the heavy mother," as Charles irreverently called
+her--now arrived; the orchestra, which was giving a final flourish, was
+begged in a hoarse whisper to keep going a few minutes longer; eyes were
+applied to the hole in the curtain, and then, every one being assembled,
+it was felt by all that the awful moment had come at last. A more
+miserable-looking set of people I never saw. I always imagined that the
+actors behind the scenes were as gay off the stage as on it; but I found
+to my astonishment that they were all suffering more or less from severe
+mental depression. Ralph and Aurelia were now sitting ruefully together
+on an ottoman beside the painting table, littered with its various
+rouges and creams and stage appliances. Even Charles, who had
+established Evelyn on a chair in the wings at the side she had to come
+on from, and was now drinking champagne with due regard to his
+paint--even Charles owned to being nervous.
+
+"I wish to goodness Mrs. Wright would begin!" he said. "Ah, there she
+goes!"--as she ascended the stage steps. "There goes the bell. We are in
+for it now. She starts, and I come on next. Up goes the curtain. Where
+the devil has my book got to?"
+
+In another moment he was in the wings, intent on his part; then I saw
+him throw down his book and go jauntily forward. A moment more, and
+there was a thunder of applause. All the actors looked at each other,
+and smiled a feeble smile.
+
+"He will do," said General Marston, the Indian officer, who, now in the
+dress of an old-fashioned livery servant, proceeded to mount the steps.
+It dawned upon me that I was missing the play, and I hurried back to
+find Charles convulsing the audience with the utmost coolness, and
+evidently enjoying himself exceedingly. Then Evelyn came on--But who
+cares to read a description of a play? It is sufficient to say that
+Aurelia looked charming, and many were the whispered comments on her
+magnificent jewels; but on the stage Evelyn surpassed her, as much as
+Aurelia surpassed Evelyn off it.
+
+Ralph and Carr did well, but Charles was the favorite with every one,
+from the Duchess of Crushington in the front seat to the scullery-maid
+on the staircase. He was so bold, so wicked, so insinuating, in his
+plumed cap and short cloak, so elegantly refined when he wiped his sword
+upon his second's handkerchief. He took every one's heart by storm.
+Ralph, who represented all the virtues, with rather thick ankles and a
+false mustache, was nowhere. When the curtain fell for the last time,
+amid great and continued applause, the "heavy mother," Ralph, Aurelia,
+all were well received as they passed before it; but Charles, who
+appeared last, was the hero of the evening.
+
+"He is engaged to his cousin, Miss Derrick, isn't he?" said a lady near
+me, in a loud whisper to a friend.
+
+"Hush! no. Charles can't marry. Head over ears in debt. They say _she_
+is attached to one of her cousins, but I forget which. I am not sure it
+was not the other one."
+
+"Then it is the second son who is going to be married, is it? I know I
+heard something about one of them being engaged."
+
+"Yes, the second son is engaged to that good-looking girl in diamonds,
+who acted Florence Mordaunt. A lot of money, I believe, but not much in
+the way of family. Grandfather sold mouse-traps in Birmingham, so people
+say."
+
+"She looks like it!" replied the other, who had daughters out, and could
+not afford to let any praise of other girls pass. "No breeding or
+refinement; and she will be stout later, you will see."
+
+The play being over, a general movement now set in towards the
+drawing-room, where the band was already installed, and making its
+presence known by an inspiriting valse tune. In a few moments twenty,
+thirty, forty couples were swaying to the music; Aurelia in her acting
+costume was dancing away with Ralph in his red stockings; Carr with the
+"heavy mother," and Charles in prosaic evening-dress was flying past
+with Evelyn, who, now that she had effaced her beautiful stage
+complexion, looked pale and grave as ever.
+
+I suppose it was a capital ball. Every one seemed to enjoy it. I did not
+dance myself, but I liked watching the others; and after a time Charles,
+who had been dancing indefatigably with two school-room girls with
+pigtails, came and flung himself down on the other half of the ottoman
+on which I was sitting.
+
+"Three times with each!" he said, in a voice of extreme exhaustion. "No
+favoritism. I have done for to-night now."
+
+"What! Are you not going to dance any more?"
+
+"No, not unless Evelyn will give me another turn later, which she
+probably won't. There she goes with Lord Breakwater again. How I do
+dislike that young man! And look at Carr--valsing with Aurelia! He
+seems to be leaping on her feet a good deal, and she looks as if she
+were telling him so, does not she? There! they have subsided into the
+bay-window. I thought she would not stand it long. He does not dance as
+well as he acts. Heigh-ho! Come in to supper with me, Middleton. The
+supper-room will be emptier now, and I am dying of hunger. You must be
+the same, for you had no regular dinner any more than we had. Come
+along. We will get a certain little table for two that I know of, in the
+bay-window where I took the fair pigtail just now, to the evident
+anxiety of the parental chignon who was at the large table. We will have
+a good feed in peace and quietness."
+
+In a few minutes we were established in a quiet nook in the supper-room,
+which was now half empty, and were making short work of everything
+before us.
+
+"How well Carr acted!" said Charles at last, leaning back, and leisurely
+sipping his champagne. "I can think of something besides food now. Did
+not you think he acted well?"
+
+"Yes," I said, "but you cut him out."
+
+"Did I!" said Charles, absently, beckoning to some lobster salad which
+was passing. "Have some? Do, Middleton. We can but die once. You won't?
+Well I will. Have you often seen Carr act before?"
+
+"Never," I said. "I never met him till I came on board the _Bosphorus_
+at----"
+
+"Indeed! Oh! I fancied you were quite old friends."
+
+"We made great friends on the steamer."
+
+"Did you see much of him in London?" he asked, filling up his glass and
+mine.
+
+"Not much, naturally," I said, laughing. "I was in London only two
+nights."
+
+"Ah! I forgot. Very good of you, I am sure, to come down here so soon
+after your arrival. You would hardly have seen him at all since you
+landed, then?"
+
+"Carr? Yes," I replied, thinking Charles's talk was becoming very vague;
+though when I rallied him about it next day he assured me it had been
+very much to the point indeed. "We dined and went to the play together,
+and had rather a nasty accident into the bargain on our way home."
+
+"What kind of accident?"
+
+I told him the particulars, which seemed to interest him very much.
+
+"And you had all those jewels of poor Sir John's with you, no doubt,"
+continued Charles. "You said you had them on you day and night. I wonder
+you were not relieved of them."
+
+"That is just what Carr said," I went on; "for he lost something of his,
+poor fellow. However, I had left them with Jane in a--in a _safe
+place_."
+
+I did not think it necessary to mention the tea-caddy.
+
+"Oh! so Carr knew you had charge of them, did he?" said Charles. "Have
+some of these grapes, Middleton; the white ones are the best."
+
+"Yes," I said, "he was the only person who had any idea of such a thing.
+I am very careful, I can tell you; and I did not mean to have half the
+ship's company know that I had valuables to such an amount upon me. When
+I told Jane about them--"
+
+"Oh, then, Jane--I beg her pardon, Miss Middleton--was aware you had
+them with you?"
+
+"Of course," I replied; "and she was quite astonished at them when I
+showed them to her."
+
+"I hope," continued Charles, with his charming smile--all the more
+charming because it was so rare--"that Miss Middleton will add me to the
+number of her friends some day. I live in London, you know; but I wonder
+at ladies caring to live there. No poultry or garden, to which the
+feminine mind usually clings."
+
+"Jane seems to like it," I said.
+
+"Yes," replied Charles, meditatively. "I dare say she is very wise. A
+woman who lives alone is much safer in town than in an isolated house in
+the country, in case of fire, or thieves, or----"
+
+"Well, I don't know that," I said. "I don't see that they are so very
+safe. Why, only the night before I came down here----" I stopped. I had
+looked up to catch a sudden glimpse of Carr's face, pale and uneasy,
+watching us in a mirror opposite. In a moment I saw his face turn
+smiling to another--Evelyn's, I think--and both were gone.
+
+Charles's light steel eyes were fixed full upon me.
+
+"'Only the night before you came down here,' you were saying," he
+remarked, leaning back and half shutting them as usual.
+
+"Yes, only the night before I came down here our house was broken into;"
+and I gave him a short account of what had happened. "And only the night
+before _that_," I added, "a poor woman was murdered in Jane's old house.
+I remember it especially, because I went to the house by mistake, not
+knowing Jane had moved, and I saw her, poor thing, sitting by the fire.
+I don't see that living in town _is_ so much safer for life and
+property, after all."
+
+"Dear me! no. You are right, perfectly right," said Charles, dreamily.
+"Your sister's experience proves it. And that other poor creature--only
+the night before--and in Miss Middleton's former house, too. Well,
+Middleton," with a start, "I suppose we ought to be going back now. I
+have got all I want, if you have. I wonder what time it is? I'm dog
+tired."
+
+We re-entered the ball-room to find the last valse being played, and a
+crowd of people taking leave of Lady Mary.
+
+"Where's father?" asked Charles, as Ralph came up. "He ought to be here
+to say good-night."
+
+"He's gone to bed," said Ralph. "Aunt Mary sent him. He was quite done
+up. He has been on his legs all day. I expect he will be laid up
+to-morrow."
+
+In a quarter of an hour the ball-room was empty, and Lady Mary, who was
+dragging herself wearily towards the hall as the last carriage rolled
+away, felt that she might safely restore the balance of her mind by a
+sudden lapse from the gracious and benevolent to the acid and severe.
+
+"To bed! to bed!" she kept repeating. "Where is Evelyn? I want her arm.
+General Marston, Colonel Middleton, will you have the goodness to go and
+glean up these young people? Mrs. Marston and Lady Delmour, you must
+both be tired to death. Let us go on, and they can follow."
+
+General Marston and I found a whole flock of the said young people in
+the library, candle in hand, laughing and talking, thinking they were
+going that moment, but not doing it, and all, in fact, listening to
+Charles, who was expounding a theory of his own respecting ball dresses,
+which seemed to meet with the greatest feminine derision.
+
+"First take your silk slip," he was saying as we came in. "There is
+nothing indiscreet in mentioning a slip; is there, Evelyn? I trust not;
+for I heard Lady Delmour telling Mrs. Wright that all well-brought-up
+young ladies had silk slips. Then--"
+
+"He exposes his ignorance more entirely every moment," said Evelyn. "Let
+us all go to bed, and leave him to hold forth to men who know as little
+as himself."
+
+"Oh, Ralph!" said Aurelia, pointing to the jewels on her neck and arms;
+"before we go I want you to take back these. I don't like keeping them
+myself; I am afraid of them." And she began to take them off and lay
+them on the table.
+
+"Nonsense, my pet; keep them yourself, and lock them up in your
+dressing-case." And Ralph held them towards her.
+
+"I haven't got a dressing-case," said Aurelia, pouting; "and my hat-box
+won't lock. I don't like having them. I wish you would keep them
+yourself."
+
+"Bother!" said Ralph; "and father has gone to bed. He can't put them
+back into his safe, and he keeps the key himself. Where is the bag they
+go in?"
+
+Aurelia said that she had seen him put it behind a certain jar on the
+chimney-piece in the morning-room, and Carr went for it, she following
+him with a candle, as all the lamps had been put out. They presently
+returned with it, and Ralph, who had been collecting all the jewels
+spread over the table, shovelled them in with little ceremony.
+
+"Bother!" he said again, looking round and swinging the bag; "what on
+earth am I to do with them? Ah, well, here goes!" and he opened a side
+drawer in a massive writing-table and shoved the bag in.
+
+"There!" he said, locking it, and putting the key in his pocket; "they
+will do very well there till to-morrow. Are you content now, Aurelia?"
+
+"Oh yes," she said, "I am, if you are." And she bade us good-night and
+followed in the wake of the others, who were really under way at last.
+
+As we all tramped wearily up-stairs to the smoking-room I saw Charles
+draw Ralph aside and whisper something to him.
+
+"Nonsense!" I heard Ralph say. "Safe enough. Besides, who would suspect
+their being there? Just as safe as in the strong-box. Brahma lock. Won't
+be bothered any more about them."
+
+Charles shrugged his shoulders and marched off to bed. Ralph and Carr
+likewise went off shortly afterwards to their rooms in the lodge. Carr
+looked tired to death. I went down with them, at Ralph's request, to
+lock the door behind them, as all the servants had gone to bed.
+
+It was a fine night, still and cold, with a bright moon. It had
+evidently been snowing afresh, for there was not a trace of wheels upon
+the ground; but it had ceased now.
+
+"Good-night!" called Ralph and Carr, as they went down the steps
+together. I watched the two figures for a moment in the moonlight, their
+footsteps making a double track in the untrodden snow. The cold was
+intense. I drew back shivering, and locked and bolted the door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+It is very seldom I cannot sleep, but I could not that night. There was
+something in the intense quiet and repose of the great house, after all
+the excitement of the last few hours, that oppressed me. Everything
+seemed, as I lay awake, so unnaturally silent. There was not a sound in
+the wide grate, where the last ashes of the fire were silently giving up
+the ghost, not a rumble of wind in the old chimney which had had so much
+to say the night before. I tossed and turned, and vainly sought for
+sleep, now on this side, now on that. At last I gave up trying, half in
+the hope that it might steal upon me unawares. I thought of the play and
+the ball, of poor Charles and his debts--of anything and everything--but
+it was no good. In the midst of a jumble of disconnected ideas I
+suddenly found myself listening again to the silence--listening as if it
+had been broken by a sound which I had not heard. My watch ticked loud
+and louder on the dressing-table, and presently I gave quite a start as
+the distant stable clock tolled out the hour: One, two, three, four. I
+had gone to bed before three. Had I been awake only an hour? It seemed
+incredible. Getting up on tiptoe, vaguely afraid myself of breaking the
+silence, I noiselessly pushed aside the heavy curtains and looked out.
+
+The moon had set, but by the frosty starlight the outline of the great
+snow-laden trees and the wide sweep of white drive were still dimly
+visible. All was silent without as within. Not a branch moved or let
+fall its freight of snow. There was not a breath of wind stirring. I was
+on the point of getting back into bed, when I thought in the distance I
+heard a sound. I listened intently. No! I must have been mistaken. Ah!
+again, and nearer! I held my breath. I could distinctly hear a stealthy
+step coming up the stairs. My room was the nearest to the staircase end
+of the corridor, and any one coming up the stairs must pass my door.
+With a presence of mind which, I am glad to say, rarely deserts me, I
+blew out my candle, slipped to the door, and noiselessly opened it a
+chink.
+
+Some one was coming down the corridor with the lightness of a cat,
+candle in hand, as a faint light showed me. Another moment, and I saw
+Charles, pale and haggard, still in evening-dress, coming towards me. He
+was without his shoes. He passed my door and went noiselessly into his
+own room, a little farther down the passage. There was the faintest
+suspicion of a sound, as of a key being gently turned in the lock, and
+then all was still again, stiller than ever.
+
+What could Charles have been after? I wondered. He could not have been
+returning from seeing Denis, who was not only much better, but was in
+the room beyond his own. And why had he still got on his evening clothes
+at four o'clock in the morning? I determined to ask him about it next
+day, as I got back into bed again, and then, while wondering about it
+and trying to get warm, I fell fast asleep. I was only roused, after
+being twice called, to find that it was broad daylight, and to hear
+being carried down the boxes of many of the guests who were leaving by
+an early train.
+
+I was late, but not so late as some. Breakfast was still going on.
+Evelyn and Ralph had been up to see their friends off, but General and
+Mrs. Marston and Carr, who was staying on, came in after I did. Lady
+Mary and Aurelia were having breakfast in their own rooms. I think
+nothing is more dreary than a long breakfast-table, laid for large
+numbers, with half a dozen picnicking at it among the debris left by
+earlier ravages. Evelyn, behind the great silver urn, looked pale and
+preoccupied, and had very little to say for herself when I journeyed up
+to her end of the table and sat down by her. She asked me twice if I
+took sugar, and was not bright and alert and ready in conversation, as I
+think girls should be. Carr, too, was eating his breakfast in silence
+beside Mrs. Marston.
+
+It was not cheerful. And then Charles came in, listless and tired, and
+without an appetite. He sat down wearily on the other side of Evelyn,
+and watched her pour out his coffee without a word.
+
+"The Carews and Edmonts and Lady Delmour and her daughter have just
+gone," said Evelyn, "and Mr. Denis."
+
+"Yes," replied Charles, seeming to pull himself together; "Denis came to
+my room before he went. He looked a wreck, poor fellow; but not worse
+than some of us. These late hours, these friskings with energetic young
+creatures in the school-room, these midnight revels, are too much for
+me. I feel a perfect wreck this morning, too."
+
+He certainly looked it.
+
+"Have you had bad letters?" said Evelyn, in a low voice.
+
+He laughed a little--a grim laugh--and shook his head. "But I had
+yesterday," he added presently, in a low tone. "I shall have to try a
+change of air again soon, I am afraid."
+
+I was just going to ask Charles what he had been doing walking about in
+his socks the night before, when the door opened, and Ralph, whose
+absence I had not noticed, came in. He looked much perturbed. It seemed
+his father had been taken suddenly and alarmingly ill while dressing. In
+a moment all was confusion. Evelyn precipitately left the room to go to
+him, while Charles rushed round to the stables to send a groom on
+horseback for the nearest doctor. Ralph followed him, and the remainder
+of the party gathered in a little knot round the fire, Mrs. Marston
+expressing the sentiment of each of us when she said that she thought
+visitors were very much in the way when there was illness in the house,
+and that she regretted that she and her husband had arranged to stay
+over Sunday, to-day being Friday.
+
+"So have I," said Carr; "but I am sure I had better have refused. A
+stranger in a sick-house is a positive nuisance. I think I shall go to
+town by an afternoon train, if there is one."
+
+"Upon my word I think we had better do the same," said Mrs. Marston.
+"What do you say, Arthur?" and she turned to her husband.
+
+"I must go to-day, anyhow--on business," said General Marston.
+
+"I hope no one is talking of leaving," said Charles, who had returned
+suddenly, rather out of breath.
+
+As he spoke his eyes were fixed on Carr.
+
+"Yes, that is exactly what we were doing," said Mrs. Marston. "Nothing
+is so tiresome as having visitors on one's hands when there is illness
+in the house. Mr. Carr was thinking of going up to London by the
+afternoon train; and I have a very good mind to go away with Arthur,
+instead of staying on, and letting him come back here for me to-morrow,
+as we had intended."
+
+"Pray do not think of such a thing!" said Charles, really with
+unnecessary earnestness. "Mrs. Marston, pray do not alter your plans.
+Carr!" in a much sterner tone, "I must beg that you will not think of
+leaving us to-day. Your friend Colonel Middleton is staying on, and we
+cannot allow you to desert us so suddenly."
+
+It was more like a command than an invitation; but Carr, usually so
+quick to take a slight, did not seem to notice it, and merely said that
+he should be happy to go or stay, whichever was most in accordance with
+the wishes of others, and took up the newspaper. He and Charles did not
+seem to get on well. I could see that Charles had not seemed to take to
+him from the very first; and Carr certainly did not appear at ease in
+the house. Perhaps Charles felt that he had rather failed in courtesy
+to him, for during the remainder of the morning he hardly let him out of
+his sight. He took him to see the stables, though Carr openly declared
+that he did not understand horses; he showed him his collection of Zulu
+weapons in the vestibule; he even started a game of billiards with him
+till the arrival of the doctor. I did not think Carr took his attentions
+in very good part, though he was too well-mannered to show it; but he
+looked relieved when Charles went up-stairs with the doctor, and pitched
+his cue into the rack at once, and came to the hall-fire where I was
+sitting, and where Aurelia presently joined us, fresh and smiling, in
+the prettiest of morning-gowns. Every one met in the hall. It was in the
+centre of the house, and every one coming up or down had to pass through
+it. Just now it was not so tempting an abode as usual, for the flowers
+and part of the stage had already been removed, and the bare boards,
+with their wooden supports, gave an air of discomfort to the whole
+place.
+
+Aurelia opened wide eyes of horror at hearing Sir George was ill. She
+even got out a tiny laced pocket-handkerchief; but before she had had
+time to weep much into it, and spoil her pretty eyes, the doctor
+reappeared, accompanied by Charles and Ralph, and we all learned to our
+great relief that Sir George, though undoubtedly ill, was not
+dangerously so at present, though the greatest care would be necessary.
+Lady Mary had undertaken the nursing of her brother-in-law, and in her
+the doctor expressed the same confidence which parents are wont to feel
+in a stern school-master. In the mean time the patient was to be kept
+very quiet, and on no account to be disturbed.
+
+When the doctor had left, Ralph and Aurelia, who had actually seen
+nothing of each other that morning, sauntered away together towards the
+library. Charles challenged Carr to finish his game of billiards, and
+Marston and I retired up-stairs to the smoking-room, where we could talk
+over our Indian experiences, and perhaps doze undisturbed. We might have
+been so occupied for half an hour or more when a flying step came up the
+stairs, the door was thrown open, and Ralph rushed into the room.
+
+"General Marston! Colonel Middleton!" he gasped out, breathing hard,
+"will you, both of you, come to my father's room at once? He has sent
+for you."
+
+"Good gracious! Is he worse?" I exclaimed.
+
+"No. Hush! Don't ask anything, but just come,"--and he turned and led
+the way to Sir George Danvers's room.
+
+We followed in wondering silence, and, after passing along numerous
+passages, were ushered into a large oak-panelled room with a great
+carved bed in it, in the middle of which, bolt-upright, sat Sir George
+Danvers, pale as ivory, his light steel eyes (so like Charles's) seeming
+to be the only living thing about him.
+
+As we came in he looked at each of us in turn.
+
+"Where is Charles?" he said, speaking in a hoarse whisper.
+
+"Dear me! Sir George," I said, sympathetically, "how you _have_ lost
+your voice!"
+
+He looked at me for a moment, and then turned to Ralph again.
+
+"Where is Charles?" he asked a second time, in the same tone.
+
+"Here!" said a quiet voice. And Charles came in, and shut the door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+The two pairs of steel eyes met, and looked fixedly at each other.
+
+A tap came to the door.
+
+Sir George winced, and made a sign to Ralph, who rushed to it and bolted
+it.
+
+"I am coming in, George," said Lady Mary's voice.
+
+"Send her away," came a whisper from the bed.
+
+This was easier said than done. But it _was_ done after a sufficiently
+long parley; and Lady Mary retired under the impression that Ralph was
+sitting alone with his father, who thought he might get a little sleep.
+
+"Now," whispered Sir George, motioning to Ralph.
+
+"The fact is," said Ralph, "the jewels are gone! They have been stolen
+in the night."
+
+He bolted out with this one sentence, and then was silent. Marston and I
+stared at him aghast.
+
+"Is there no mistake?" said Marston at last.
+
+"None," replied Ralph. "I put them in a drawer in the great inlaid
+writing-table in the library last night, before everybody. I went for
+them this morning, half an hour ago, at father's request. The lock was
+broken, and they were gone."
+
+There was another long silence.
+
+"I was a fool, of course, to put them there," resumed Ralph. "Charles
+told me so; but I thought they were as safe there as anywhere, if no one
+knew--and no one did except the house party."
+
+"Were any of the servants about?" asked Marston.
+
+"Not one. They had all gone to bed except one of the footmen, who was
+putting out the lamps in the supper-room, miles away."
+
+Another silence.
+
+"That is the dreadful part of it," burst out Ralph. "They must have been
+taken by some one staying in the house--some one who saw me put them
+there. The first thing I did was to send for the house-maids, and they
+assured me that they had found every shutter shut, and every door
+locked, this morning, as usual. Any one with time and wits _might_ have
+got in through one of the library windows by taking out a pane and
+forcing the shutter. I suppose a practised hand might have done such a
+thing; but I went outside and there was not a footstep in the snow
+anywhere near the library windows, or, for that matter, anywhere near
+the house at all, except at the side and front doors, which are
+impracticable for any one to force an entrance by."
+
+"When did it leave off snowing?" asked Marston.
+
+"About three o'clock," replied Ralph. "It must have snowed heavily till
+then, for there was not a trace of all the carriage-wheels on the drive
+when we went out last night, but our footprints down to the lodge are
+clear in the snow now. There has been no snow since three o'clock this
+morning."
+
+"It all points to the same thing," said Charles, quietly, speaking for
+the first time. "The jewels were taken by some one staying in the
+house."
+
+"One of the servants--" began Marston.
+
+"No!" said Charles, cutting him short, "not one of the servants."
+
+"It is impossible it should have been one of them," said Ralph, after
+some thought. "First of all, none of them saw the jewels put into that
+drawer; and, secondly, how could they suspect me of hiding them in a
+place where I had never thought of putting them myself till that moment?
+Besides, that one drawer only was broken open--the centre drawer in the
+left-hand set of drawers. All the others were untouched, though they
+were all locked. No one who had not _seen_ the jewels put in would have
+found them so easily. That is the frightful part of it."
+
+For a few minutes no one spoke. At last Marston raised his head from his
+hands.
+
+"There is no way out of it," he said, very gravely. "The robbery was
+committed by one of the visitors staying in the house!"
+
+"Yes!" said Charles.
+
+"Yes!" echoed a whisper from the bed.
+
+Charles looked up slowly and deliberately, and the eyes of father and
+son met again.
+
+"We do not often agree, father," he said, in a measured voice. "I mark
+this exception to the rule with pleasure."
+
+"When I had made out as much as this," continued Ralph, "father told me
+to call both of you and Charles, to consider what ought to be done
+before we make any move."
+
+"Have you an inventory of the jewels?" asked Marston at length.
+
+"None," said Sir George, "unless Middleton had one from Sir John."
+
+I thereupon recapitulated in full all the circumstances of the bequest,
+finally adding that Sir John had never so much as mentioned an
+inventory.
+
+"So much the better for the thief," said Marston, his chin in his hands.
+"It is not a case for a detective," he added.
+
+"I think not," said Charles.
+
+A kind of hoarse ghostly laugh came from the bed. "Charles is always
+right," whispered the sick man. "Quite unnecessary, I am sure."
+
+"Oh, I don't know," I said, feeling I had not yet been of as much
+assistance as I could have wished. "Now, I think detectives are of
+use--really useful, you know, in finding out things. There was a
+detective, I remember, trying to trace the people who murdered that poor
+lady at Jane's old house since my return."
+
+"But who could it have been? who could it have been?" burst out Ralph,
+unheeding. "They were all friends. It is frightful to suspect one of
+them. One could as easily suspect one's self. Which of them all could
+have done a thing like that? Out of them all, which was it?"
+
+"Carr!" replied Charles, quietly, looking full at his father.
+
+If a bomb-shell had fallen among us at that moment it could not have
+produced a greater effect than that one word, uttered so deliberately.
+Sir George started in his bed, and clutched at the bedclothes with both
+hands. My brain positively reeled. Carr! my friend Carr! introduced into
+the family by myself, was being accused by Charles. I was speechless
+with indignation.
+
+"I am sorry, Middleton," continued Charles; "I know he is your friend,
+but I can't help that. Carr took the jewels. I distrusted him from the
+moment he set foot in the house."
+
+"Where is he at this instant?" said Marston, getting up. "Is no one with
+him?"
+
+"There is no need to be anxious on his account," replied Charles. "I
+took him up to the smoking-room before I came here, and I turned the key
+in the door. The key is here." And he laid it on the table.
+
+Marston sat down again.
+
+"What are your grounds for suspecting Carr?" he asked. "Remember, this
+is a very serious thing, Charles, that you have done in locking him up,
+if you have not adequate reason for it."
+
+"You had better leave Carr alone, Charles," said Ralph, significantly.
+
+"Let him go on," said Sir George.
+
+"I have no proof," continued Charles; "I did not see him take them, but
+I am as certain of it as if I had seen it with my own eyes. The jewels
+could only have been stolen by some one staying in the house. That is
+certain. Who, excepting Carr, was a stranger among us? Who, excepting
+Carr--"
+
+"Stop, Charles," said Ralph again. "Don't you know that Carr slept with
+me down at the lodge?"
+
+Charles turned on his brother and gripped his shoulder.
+
+"Do you mean to say," he said, sharply, "that Carr did not sleep in the
+house last night?"
+
+"Dear me, Charles, that was an oversight on your part," came Sir
+George's whisper.
+
+"No," replied Ralph, "he did not. The house was full, and we had to put
+him in that second small room through mine in the lodge. If Carr had
+been dying to take them he had not the opportunity. He could not have
+left his room without passing through mine, and I never went to sleep at
+all. I had a sharp touch of neuralgia from the cold, which kept me awake
+all night."
+
+"He got out through the window," said Charles.
+
+"Nonsense!" said Ralph, getting visibly angry; "you are only making
+matters worse by trying to put it on him. Remember the size of the
+window. Besides, you know how the lodge stands, built against the garden
+wall. When I came out this morning there was not a single footstep in
+the snow, except those we had made as we went there the night before. I
+noticed our footmarks particularly, because I had been afraid there
+would be more snow. No one could by any possibility have left the house
+during the night. Even Jones himself had not been out, for there was a
+little eddy of snow before the back door, and I remember calling to him
+that he would want his broom."
+
+"The snow clinches the matter, Charles," said Marston, gravely. "You
+have made a mistake."
+
+"Quite unintentional, I'm sure," whispered Sir George.
+
+There was something I did not like about that whisper. It seemed to
+imply more than met the ear.
+
+Charles did not appear to hear him. He was looking fixedly before him,
+his hand had dropped from Ralph's shoulder, his face was quite gray.
+
+"Then," he said, slowly, as if waking out of a dream, "it was _not_
+Carr."
+
+"No," said Sir George; "I never thought it was."
+
+"Good God!" ejaculated Charles, sinking into a low chair by the fire,
+and shading his face with his hand. "Not Carr, after all!"
+
+But my indignation could not be restrained a moment longer. I had only
+been kept silent by repeated signs from Marston, and now I broke out.
+
+"And so, sir, you suspect my friend," I said, "and insult him in your
+father's house by turning the key on him. You endeavor to throw
+suspicion on a man who never injured you in the slightest degree. You
+insult _me_ in insulting my friend, sir. Suspicion is not always such an
+easy thing to shake off as it has been in this instance. I, on my side,
+might ask what _you_ were doing walking about the passages in your socks
+at four o'clock this morning? In your socks, sir, still in your evening
+clothes--"
+
+I had spoken it anger, not thinking much what I was saying, and I
+stopped short, alarmed at the effect of my own words.
+
+"I knew it! I knew it!" gasped Sir George, in his hoarse, suffocated
+voice, and he fell back panting among his pillows.
+
+Charles took his hand from his face, and looked hard at me with a
+strange kind of smile.
+
+"At any rate we are quits, Middleton," he said. "You have done it now,
+and no mistake."
+
+I did not quite see what I had done, but it soon became apparent.
+
+"I knew it!" gasped out the sick man again; "I knew it from the first
+moment that he tried to throw suspicion on Carr."
+
+"Sir George," said Marston, gravely, "Charles made a mistake just now.
+Do not you, on your side, make another. Come, Charles," turning to the
+latter, who was now sitting erect, with flashing eyes, "tell us about
+it. What were you doing when Middleton saw you?"
+
+"I was coming up-stairs," said Charles, haughtily.
+
+"From the library?" asked Sir George.
+
+Charles bit his lip and remained silent.
+
+I would not have spoken to him for a good deal at that moment. He looked
+positively dangerous.
+
+"From the library, of course," he said at last, controlling himself, and
+speaking with something of his old careless manner, "laden with the
+spoils of my midnight depredations. Parental fondness will supply all
+minor details, no doubt; so, as the subject is a delicate one for me, I
+will withdraw, that it may be discussed more fully in my absence."
+
+"Stop, Charles," said Marston; "the case is too serious for banter of
+this kind. My dear boy," he added, kindly, "I am glad to see you angry,
+but nevertheless, you must condescend to explain. The longer you allow
+suspicion to rest on yourself the longer it will be before it falls on
+the right person. Come, what were you doing in the passage at that time
+of night?"
+
+Charles was touched, I could see. A very little kindness was too much
+for him.
+
+"It is no good, Marston," he said, in quite a different voice--"I am not
+believed in this house."
+
+He turned away and leaned against the mantle-piece, looking into the
+fire. Ralph cleared his throat once or twice, and then suddenly went up
+to him, and laid his hand affectionately on his shoulder.
+
+"Fire away, old boy!" he said, in a constrained tone, and he choked
+again.
+
+Charles turned round and faced his brother, with the saddest smile I
+ever saw.
+
+"Well, Ralph!" he said, "I will tell you everything, and then you can
+believe me or not, as you like. I have never told you a lie, have I?"
+
+"Not often," replied Ralph, unwillingly.
+
+"You at least are truth itself," said Charles, reddening; "and if you
+are biassed in your opinion of me, perhaps it is more the fault of that
+exemplary Christian, Aunt Mary, than your own. According to her, I have
+told lies enough to float a company or carry an election, and I never
+like to disappoint her expectations of me in that respect; but you I
+have never to my knowledge deceived, and I am not going to begin now."
+
+"You will be a clergyman yet," whispered the sick parent. "There is a
+good living in the family. Charles, I shall live to see the Reverend
+Charles Danvers in a surplice, preaching his first sermon on the ninth
+commandment."
+
+"At any rate, he is practising the fifth under difficulties at this
+moment," said Marston, as Charles winced and turned his back on the
+parental sick-bed. "Come, my boy, we are losing time."
+
+"Will somebody have the goodness to restrain Middleton if he gets
+excited?" said Charles. "I am afraid he won't like part of what I have
+got to say."
+
+"Nonsense, sir!" I replied, with warmth. "I hope I can restrain myself
+as well as any man, even under such provocation as I have lately
+received. You may depend on me, sir, that--"
+
+"We lose time," said Marston, seating himself by me, and cutting short
+what I was saying in an exceedingly brusque manner. "Come, Charles, you
+should not be interrupted."
+
+But he was. I interrupted him the whole time, in spite of continual
+efforts on the part of Marston to make me keep silence. I am not the man
+calmly to let pass black insinuations against the character of a friend.
+No, I stood up for him. I am glad to think how I stood up for him, not
+only metaphorically, but in the most literal sense of the term; for I
+found myself continually getting up, and Marston as often pulling me
+down again into my chair.
+
+"Am I to speak, or is Middleton?" said Charles at last, in despair. "I
+will do a solo, or I will keep silence; but really I am unequal to a
+duet."
+
+"Sir George," said Marston, "will you have the goodness to desire
+Colonel Middleton to be silent, or to leave the room till Charles has
+finished his story?"
+
+I was justly annoyed at Marston's manner of speaking of me, but as I had
+no intention to leave the room and miss what was going on, I merely
+bowed in answer to a civil request from Sir George, and took up an
+attitude of dignified silence. I felt that I had done my part in
+vindicating my friend; and after all, no one, evidently, was accustomed
+to believe what Charles said.
+
+"As I was saying," he continued, "I suspected Carr from the first. I did
+not like the look of him, and I purposely pumped Middleton about him
+last night at supper."
+
+I nearly burst out at the bare idea of Charles daring to say he had
+pumped me; but, as will be seen, he could twist anything that was said
+to such an extent that it was perfectly useless to contradict him any
+longer. I said not a single word, and he went on:
+
+"All Middleton told me confirmed me in my suspicions. Sir John had been
+murdered the night before Middleton sailed for England, a whisper of the
+jewels having no doubt gone abroad. Carr came on board next day, and
+made friends with Middleton. Whether he had anything to do with the
+murder or not, God knows! but he found out--nay, Middleton openly told
+him--that he had jewels of great value in his possession, which he
+carried about on his person. Carr was the only person aware of that
+fact. What follows? Carr has Middleton's address in London. Middleton
+goes to the house, and finds that his sister has moved to the next
+street. That house to which he first went is broken into, and the poor
+woman in it is murdered, or dies of fright that same night. I mention
+this as coincidence number one. The following evening Middleton, having
+by chance left the jewels at home, dines, and goes to the theatre by
+appointment with Carr. Unique cab accident occurs, in which Middleton is
+knocked on the head and rendered unconscious. Coincidence number two.
+Miss Middleton's house is broken into that same night on Middleton's
+return to it. Coincidence number three. When I put all this together
+last night, remembering that Carr, by Middleton's own account, was the
+only person aware that he had jewels of great value in his keeping, I
+felt absolutely certain (as I feel still) that he had accepted the
+invitation, and come down from London solely for the purpose of stealing
+them. It was pure conjecture on my part, and I dared say nothing beyond
+begging Ralph not to leave the jewels in the library--which, however, he
+did. I went straight off to my room when the others went to smoke, but I
+did not go to bed. The more I thought it over the more certain I felt
+that Carr would not let slip such an opportunity, the more convinced
+that an attempt would be made that very night. I did not know that he
+was not sleeping in the house, but I knew Ralph was at the lodge, so I
+could not go and consult with him, as I should otherwise have done. I
+thought of going to Middleton, whose room was close to mine, but on
+second thoughts I gave up the idea. I am glad I did. At last I
+determined I would wait till the house was quiet, and that then I would
+go down alone, and watch in the library in the dark. I lay down on my
+bed in my clothes to wait, and then--I had been up most of the night
+before with Denis; I was dead beat with acting and dancing--by ill luck
+I fell asleep. When I woke up I found to my horror that it was close on
+four o'clock. I instantly slipped off my shoes, and crept out of my room
+and down the stairs. I could not get to the library from the hall, as
+the stage blocked the way, and I had to go all the way round by the
+drawing-room and morning-room. As I went I thought how easy it would be
+for Carr to force the lock of the drawer; and so, it flashed across me,
+could I. Oh, Ralph!" said Charles, "I went down solely to look after
+your property for you, but I _did_ think of it. I hope I should not have
+done it, but I suddenly remembered how hard pressed I was for money, and
+I did think of the crescent, and how you would hardly miss it, and
+how--but what does it matter now? When I got to the library I found I
+was too late. The lock of the drawer had been forced, and it was empty.
+There was nothing for it but to go back to my room. I felt as certain
+that Carr had done it as that I am standing here; but I dared say
+nothing next morning, for fear of drawing an ever-ready parental
+suspicion on myself--which, however, Middleton did for me. All I could
+do was to keep Carr well in sight until the theft was found out, to
+prevent any possibility of his escaping, and then to accuse him. There!"
+said Charles, "that is the whole truth. Carr did not take the jewels;
+that is absolutely proved, and the sooner he is let out the better. Who
+took them Heaven only knows! I don't. But I know who meant to, and that
+was Carr."
+
+"Charles," said Ralph, with glistening eyes, "if ever I get them back
+you shall have the crescent."
+
+"A very neat little story altogether," said Sir George, "and the episode
+of temptation very effectively thrown in. It does you credit, my son,
+and is a great relief to your old father's mind."
+
+"Thank you, Charles," said Marston, getting up. "Sir George, it is close
+on luncheon-time, and Carr must be let out at once. Now that Charles has
+so completely cleared himself I don't see that anything more can be done
+for the moment; and of one thing I am certain, namely, that you are
+making yourself much worse, and must keep absolutely quiet for the rest
+of the day. If I may advise, I would suggest that Carr should be allowed
+to leave, as he wishes to do, by the afternoon train, and should not be
+pressed to stay. There is nothing more to be got out of him; and,
+considering the circumstances, I should say the sooner he is out of the
+house the better. As he has been wrongly suspected, I think the robbery
+had better not be mentioned to any one, even the ladies in the house,
+until after he has left."
+
+"Aurelia knows," said Ralph. "She was with me in the library. I left her
+crying bitterly about them."
+
+"Let her cry, if she will only hold her tongue," said Sir George, making
+a last effort to speak, but evidently at the extreme point of
+exhaustion. "And you, Marston, you are right about Carr. See that he
+goes this afternoon. There is nothing more to be done at present.
+Charles, you will remain here, though I have no doubt you have an
+engagement in London. I cannot spare you just yet."
+
+Charles bowed, and he and Marston went out. I remained a second behind
+with Ralph.
+
+"I see it quite clearly," said Sir George. "I know Charles. He is sharp
+enough. He saw Carr meant mischief, and he was beforehand with him; and
+_he_ took what Carr meant to take. It was not badly imagined, but he
+should have made certain Carr was sleeping in the house. It all turned
+on that. He never reckoned on the possibility of Carr's being cleared."
+
+"Middleton is still here," said Ralph, significantly, who was pouring
+out something for his father.
+
+"Is he? I thought he was gone!" said Sir George, so sharply, that I
+considered it advisable to retire at once.
+
+Charles and Marston were talking together earnestly in the passage.
+
+"He does not believe a word I say," said Charles, as I joined them;
+"and, what is more, I could see he had told Ralph he suspected me before
+we came in. Did not you see how Ralph tried to stop me when he thought I
+was committing myself by accusing Carr, who, it seems, was quite out of
+the question? I am glad you cut it short, Marston. He was making himself
+worse every moment."
+
+"Come on with that key of yours, and let us go and let out Carr,"
+replied Marston, patting Charles kindly on the back, "or he will be
+kicking all the paint off the door."
+
+"Not he!" said Charles. "An honest man would have rung up the whole
+household and nearly battered the door down by this time, thinking it
+had been locked by mistake. Carr knows better."
+
+We had reached the smoking-room by this time, just as the gong was
+beginning to sound for luncheon, and under cover of the noise Charles
+fitted the key into the key-hole and unlocked the door. He and Marston
+went slowly in, talking on some indifferent subject, and I followed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+The room seemed strangely quiet after the stormy interview in the
+sick-chamber which we had just left. The pale winter sunlight was
+stealing in aslant through the low windows. The fire had sunk to a deep
+red glow, and in an arm-chair drawn up in front of it, newspaper in
+hand, was Carr, evidently fast asleep.
+
+"'Oh, my prophetic soul!'" whispered Charles, nudging Marston; and then
+he went forward and shouted "Luncheon!" in a voice that would have waked
+the dead.
+
+Carr started up and rubbed his eyes.
+
+"Why, I believe you have been here ever since I left you here, hours
+ago," said Charles, in a surprised tone, though really, under the
+circumstances, it did not require a great stretch of the imagination to
+suppose any such thing.
+
+"Yes," said Carr, still rubbing his eyes. "Have you been gone long? I
+expect I fell asleep."
+
+"I rather thought you were inclined for a nap when I left you," replied
+Charles, airily; "and now let us go to luncheon."
+
+It was a very dismal meal. Lady Mary did not come down to it, and
+Aurelia sat with red eyes, tearful and silent. Ralph was evidently out
+of favor, for she hardly spoke to him, and snubbed him decidedly when he
+humbly tendered a peace-offering in the form of a potato. Evelyn, too,
+was silent, or made spasmodic attempts at conversation with Mrs.
+Marston, the only unconstrained person of the party. Evelyn and Aurelia
+had appeared together, and it was evident from Evelyn's expression that
+Aurelia had told her. What conversation there was turned upon Sir
+George's illness.
+
+"We must go by the afternoon train, my dear," said Marston down the
+table to his wife. "In Sir George's present state _all_ visitors are an
+incubus."
+
+Carr looked up. "I think I ought to go, too," he said. "I wished to
+arrange to do so this morning, but Mr. Danvers," glancing at Charles,
+"would not hear of it. I am sure, when there is illness in a house,
+strangers are always in the way."
+
+"I have seen my father since then," replied Charles, "and I fear his
+illness is much more serious than I had any idea of. That being the
+case, I feel it would be wrong to press any one, even Middleton, to stay
+and share the tedium of a sick-house."
+
+After a few more civil speeches it was arranged that Carr should, after
+all, leave by the train which he had proposed in the morning. It was
+found that there was still time for him to do so, but that was all. He
+was evidently as anxious to be off as the Danverses were that he should
+go. The dog-cart was ordered, a servant despatched to the lodge in hot
+haste to pack his portmanteau, and in half an hour he was bidding us
+good-bye, evidently glad to say it. Poor fellow! He little guessed, as
+he shook hands with us, how shamefully he had been suspected, how
+villanously he had been traduced behind his back. Somehow or other I had
+not had a moment of conversation with him since the morning, or a single
+chance of telling him how I had stood up for him in his absence. Either
+Charles or Marston were always at hand, and when he took leave of me I
+could only shake his hand warmly, and tell him to come and see me again
+in town. I watched him spinning down the drive in the dog-cart, little
+thinking how soon I should see him again, and in what circumstances.
+
+"We shall have more snow," said Ralph, coming in-doors. "I feel it in
+the air."
+
+General and Mrs. Marston were the next to leave, starting an hour later,
+and going in the opposite direction. I saw Marston turn aside, when his
+wife was taking leave of the others, and go up to Charles. The young
+hand and the old one met, and were locked tight.
+
+"Good-bye, my dear boy," said Marston.
+
+"Don't go," said Charles, without looking up.
+
+"I must!" said Marston. "I am due at Kemberley to-night, on business;
+but," in a lower tone, "I shall come back to-morrow, in case I can be of
+any use."
+
+They were gone, and I was the only one remaining. It has occurred to me
+since that perhaps they expected me to go too, but I never thought of it
+at the time. I had been asked for a week, and to go before the end of it
+never so much as entered my head.
+
+There was no chance of going out. The early winter afternoon was already
+closing in, and a few flakes of snow were drifting like feathers in the
+heavy air, promising more to come. Every one seemed to have dispersed,
+Ralph up-stairs to his father, Charles out-of-doors somewhere in spite
+of the weather. I remembered that I had not written to Jane since I
+left London, and went into the library to do so. As I came in I saw
+Evelyn sitting in a low chair by the fire, gazing abstractedly into it.
+She started when she saw me, and on my saying I wished to write some
+letters, showed me a writing-table near the fire, with pens, ink, and
+paper.
+
+"You will find it very cold at the big table in the window," she said,
+looking at it with its broken drawer, a chink open, with a visible
+shudder.
+
+I installed myself near the fire, talking cheerfully the while, for it
+struck me she was a little low in her spirits. She did not make much
+response, and I was settling down to my letters when she suddenly said:
+
+"Colonel Middleton!"
+
+"Yes, Miss Derrick."
+
+"I am afraid I am interrupting your writing, but--"
+
+I looked round. She was standing up, nervously playing with her rings.
+"But--I know I am not supposed to--but I know what happened last night;
+Aurelia told me."
+
+"It is very sad, isn't it?" I said. "But cheer up. I dare say we may get
+them back yet." And I nodded confidentially at her. "In the mean time,
+you know, you must not talk of it to any one."
+
+"Do you suspect any one in particular?" she asked, very earnestly,
+coming a step nearer.
+
+I hardly knew what to say. Carr, I need hardly mention, I had never
+suspected for a moment; but Charles--Marston had evidently believed what
+Charles had said, but I am by nature more cautious and less credulous
+than Marston. Besides, I had not forgiven Charles yet for trying to
+incriminate Carr. Not knowing what to say, I shrugged my shoulders and
+smiled.
+
+"You do suspect some one, then?"
+
+"My dear young lady," I replied, "when jewels are stolen, one naturally
+suspects some one has taken them."
+
+"So I should imagine. Whom do you naturally suspect?"
+
+I could not tell her that I more than suspected Charles.
+
+"I know nothing for certain," I said.
+
+"But you have a suspicion?"
+
+"I have a suspicion."
+
+She went to the door to see if it were shut, and then came back and
+said, in a whisper:
+
+"So have I."
+
+"Perhaps we suspect the same person?" I said.
+
+She did not answer, but fixed her dark eyes keenly on mine. I had never
+noticed before how dark they were.
+
+I saw then that she knew, and that she suspected Charles, just as Sir
+George had done.
+
+I nodded.
+
+"Nothing is proved," I said.
+
+"I dared not say even as much as this before," she continued, hurriedly.
+"It is only the wildest, vaguest suspicion. I have nothing to take hold
+of. It is so horrible to suspect any one; but--"
+
+She stopped suddenly. Her quick ear had caught the sound of a distant
+step coming across the hall. In another moment Aurelia came in.
+
+"Are you there, Evelyn?" she said. "I was looking for you, to ask where
+the time-table lives. I want to look out my journey for to-morrow. Ralph
+ought to do it, but he is up-stairs," with a little pout.
+
+"You ought not to have quarrelled with him until he had made it out for
+you," said Evelyn, smiling. "It is a very cross journey, isn't it? Let
+me see. You are going to your uncle in Dublin, are not you? You had
+better go to London, and start from there. It will be the shortest way
+in the end."
+
+The two girls laid their heads together over the Bradshaw, Evelyn's
+dark-soft hair making a charming contrast to Aurelia's yellow curls. At
+last the journey was made out and duly written down, and a post-card
+despatched to the uncle in Dublin.
+
+"Have you seen Ralph anywhere?" asked Aurelia, when she had finished it.
+"I am afraid I was a little tiny wee bit cross to him this morning, and
+I am so sorry."
+
+Evelyn always seemed to stiffen when Aurelia talked about Ralph, and,
+under the pretext of putting her post-card in the letter-bag for her,
+she presently left the room, and did not return.
+
+Aurelia sat down on the hearth-rug, and held two plump little hands to
+the fire. It was quite impossible to go on writing to Jane while she was
+there, and I gave it up accordingly.
+
+"I am glad Evelyn is gone," she said, confidentially. "Do you know why I
+am glad?"
+
+I said I could not imagine.
+
+"Because," continued Aurelia, nodding gravely at me, "I want to have a
+very, very, _very_ serious conversation with you, Colonel Middleton."
+
+I said I should be charmed, inwardly wondering what that little curly
+head would consider to be serious conversation.
+
+"Really serious, you know," continued Aurelia, "not pretence. About
+that!" pointing with a pink finger at the inlaid writing-table. "You
+know I was with Ralph when he found it out, and I am afraid I was a
+little cross to him, only really it was so hard, and they were so
+lovely, and it _was_ partly his fault, now, wasn't it, for leaving them
+there? He ought to have been more careful."
+
+"Of course he ought," I said. I would not have contradicted her for
+worlds.
+
+"And you know I am to be married next month; and Aunt Alice in Dublin,
+who is getting my things, says as it is to be a winter wedding I am to
+be married in a white _frise_ velvet, and I did think the diamonds would
+have looked so lovely with it. Wouldn't they?"
+
+I agreed, of course.
+
+"But I shall never be married in them now," she said, with a deep sigh.
+"And I was looking forward to the wedding so much, though I dare say I
+did tell a naughty little story when I said I was _not_ to Ralph the
+other night. Of course Ralph is still left," she added, as an
+after-thought; "but it won't be so perfect, will it?"
+
+I was morally certain Charles would have to give them up, so I said,
+reassuringly:
+
+"Perhaps you may be married in them, after all."
+
+"Oh!" she said, clasping her hands together, "do you really think so? Do
+you know anything? I have not seen Ralph since to ask him about it. Do
+you think we shall really get them back?"
+
+"I should not wonder."
+
+"Oh, Colonel Middleton, I see you know. You are a clever, wise man, and
+you have found out something. Who is it? Do tell me!"
+
+"Will you promise not to tell any one?"
+
+"Mayn't I tell Ralph? I tell him everything."
+
+"Well, you may tell Ralph, because he knows already; but no one else,
+remember. The truth is, we are afraid it is Charles."
+
+There was a long pause.
+
+"I know Evelyn thinks so," said Aurelia, in a whisper, "though she tries
+not to show it, because--because--"
+
+"Because what?"
+
+"Well, of course, you can't have helped seeing, can you, that she and
+Charles--"
+
+I had not seen it; indeed, I had fancied at times that Evelyn had a
+leaning towards Ralph; but I never care to seem slower than others in
+noticing these things, so I nodded.
+
+"And then, you know, people can't be married that haven't any money; and
+Charles and Evelyn have none," said Aurelia. "Oh, I am glad Ralph is
+well off."
+
+A light was breaking in on me. Perhaps it was not Charles after all.
+Perhaps--
+
+"I am afraid Evelyn is very unhappy," continued Aurelia. "Her room is
+next to mine, and she walks up and down, and up and down, in the night.
+I hear her when I am in bed. Last night I heard her so late, so late
+that I had been to sleep and had waked up again. Do you know," and she
+crept close up to me with wide, awe-struck eyes, "I am going away
+to-morrow, and I don't like to say anything to any one but you; but I
+think Evelyn knows something."
+
+"Miss Derrick!" I said, beginning to suspect that she possibly knew a
+good deal more than any of us, and then suddenly remembering that she
+had been on the point of telling me something and had been interrupted.
+I was getting quite confused. She certainly would not have wished to
+confide in me if my new suspicion were correct. Considering there was a
+mystery, it was curious how every one seemed to know something very
+particular about it.
+
+"Yes," replied Aurelia, nodding once or twice. "I am sure she knows
+something. I went into her room before luncheon, and she was sitting
+with her head down on the dressing-table, and when she looked up I saw
+she had been crying. I don't know what to say about it to Ralph; but you
+know,"--with a shake of the curls--"though people may think me only a
+silly little thing, yet I do notice things, Colonel Middleton. Aunt
+Alice in Dublin often says how quickly I notice things. And I thought,
+as you were staying on, and seemed to be a friend, I would tell you this
+before I went away, as you would know best what to do about it."
+
+Aurelia had more insight into character than I had given her credit for.
+She had hit upon the most likely person to follow out a clew, however
+slight, in a case that seemed becoming more and more complicated. I
+inwardly resolved that I would have it out with Miss Derrick that very
+evening. Lady Mary now came in, and servants followed shortly afterwards
+with lamps. The dreary twilight, with its dim whirlwinds of driving
+snow, was shut out, the curtains were drawn, and tea made its
+appearance. Evelyn presently returned, and Charles also, who civilly
+wished Lady Mary good-morning, not having seen her till then. She handed
+him his tea without a word in reply. It was evident that she, also, was
+aware of the robbery, and it is hardly necessary to add that she
+suspected Charles.
+
+"How is my father?" he asked, taking no notice of the frigidity of her
+manner.
+
+"He is asleep at this moment," she replied. "Ralph is remaining with
+him."
+
+"He is better, then, I hope?"
+
+"He is in a very critical state, and is likely to remain in it. His
+illness was quite serious enough, without having it increased by one of
+his own household."
+
+"Ah, I was afraid that had been the case," returned Charles. "I knew you
+had been doctoring him when he was out of sorts yesterday. But you must
+not reproach yourself, Aunt Mary. We are none of us infallible. No doubt
+you acted for the best at the time, and I dare say what you gave him may
+not do him any permanent injury."
+
+"If that is intended to be amusing," said Lady Mary, her teacup
+trembling in her hand, "I can only say that, in my opinion, wilfully
+misunderstanding a simple statement is a very cheap form of wit."
+
+"I am so glad to hear you say so," said Charles, rising, "as it was at
+your expense." With which Parthian shot he withdrew.
+
+I endeavored in vain to waylay Evelyn after tea, but she slipped away
+almost before it was over, and did not appear again till dinner-time. In
+the mean while my brain, fertile in expedients on most occasions, could
+devise no means by which I could speak to her alone, and without
+Charles's knowledge. I felt I must trust to chance.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+When I came down before dinner I found Ralph and Charles talking
+earnestly by the hall-fire, Ralph's hand on his brother's shoulder.
+
+"You see we are no farther forward than we were," he was saying.
+
+"We shall have Marston back to-morrow," said Charles, as the gong began
+to sound. "We cannot take any step till then, especially if we don't
+want to put our foot in it. I have been racking my brains all the
+afternoon without the vestige of a result. We must just hold our hands
+for the moment."
+
+Dinner was announced, and we waited patiently for a few minutes, and
+impatiently for a good many more, until Evelyn hurried down, apologizing
+for being late, and with a message from Lady Mary that we were not to
+wait for her, as she was dining up-stairs in her own room--a practice to
+which she seemed rather addicted.
+
+"And where is Aurelia?" asked Ralph.
+
+"She is not coming down to dinner either," said Evelyn. "She has a bad
+headache again, and is lying down. She asked me to tell you that she
+wishes particularly to see you this evening, as she is going away
+to-morrow, and if she is well enough she will come down to the
+morning-room at nine; indeed, she said she would come down anyhow."
+
+After Ralph's natural anxiety respecting his ladylove had been relieved,
+and he had been repeatedly assured that nothing much was amiss, we went
+in to dinner, and a more lugubrious repast I never remember being
+present at. The meals of the day might have been classified thus:
+breakfast _dismal_; luncheon, _dismaller_ (or more dismal); dinner,
+_dismallest_ (or most dismal). There really was no conversation. Even I,
+who without going very deep (which I consider is not in good taste) have
+something to say on almost every subject--even I felt myself nonplussed
+for the time being. Each of us in turn got out a few constrained words,
+and then relapsed into silence.
+
+Evelyn ate nothing, and her hand trembled so much when she poured out a
+glass of water that she spilled some on the cloth. I saw Charles was
+watching her furtively, and I became more and more certain that Aurelia
+was right, and that Evelyn knew something about the mystery of the night
+before. I must and would speak to her that very evening.
+
+"Bitterly cold," said Ralph, when at last we had reached the dessert
+stage. "It is snowing still, and the wind is getting up."
+
+In truth, the wind was moaning round the house like an uneasy spirit.
+
+"That sound in the wind always means snow," said Charles, evidently for
+the sake of saying something. "It is easterly, I should think. Yes,"
+after a pause, when another silence seemed imminent, "there goes the
+eight o'clock train. It must be quite a quarter of an hour late, though,
+for it has struck eight some time. I can hear it distinctly. The station
+is three miles away, and you never hear the train unless the wind is in
+the east."
+
+"Come, Charles, not three miles--two miles and a half," put in Ralph.
+
+"Well, two and a half from here down to the station, but certainly three
+from the station up here," replied Charles; and so silence was
+laboriously avoided by diligent small-talk until we returned to the
+drawing-room, thankful that there at least we could take up a book, and
+be silent if we wished. We all did wish it, apparently. Evelyn was
+sitting by a lamp when we came in, with a book before her, her elbow on
+the table, shading her face with a slender delicate hand. She remained
+motionless, her eyes fixed upon the page, but I noticed after some time
+that she had never turned it over. Charles may have read his newspaper,
+but if he did it was with one eye upon Evelyn all the time. Between
+watching them both I did not, as may be imagined, make much progress
+myself. How was I to manage to speak to Evelyn alone, and without
+Charles's knowledge?
+
+At last Ralph, who had gone into the morning-room, opened the
+drawing-room door and put his head in.
+
+"Aurelia has not come down yet, and it is a quarter past nine. I wish
+you would run up, Evelyn, and see if she is coming."
+
+"She is sure to come!" replied Evelyn, without raising her eyes. "She
+said she _must_ see you."
+
+Ralph disappeared again, and the books and papers were studied anew with
+unswerving devotion. At the end of another ten minutes, however, the
+impatient lover reappeared.
+
+"It is half-past nine," he said, in an injured tone. "Do pray run up,
+Evelyn. I don't think she can be coming at all. I am afraid she is
+worse."
+
+Evelyn laid down her book and left the room. Ralph sauntered back into
+the morning-room, where we heard him beguiling his solitude with a few
+chords on the piano.
+
+Presently Evelyn returned. She was pale even to the lips, and her voice
+faltered as she said:
+
+"She has not gone to bed, for there is a light in her room; but she
+would not answer when I knocked, and the door is locked."
+
+"All of which circumstances are not sufficient to make you as white as a
+ghost," said Charles. "I think even if Aurelia has a headache, you would
+bear the occurrence with fortitude. My dear child, you do not act so
+well off the stage as on it. There is something on your mind. People
+don't upset water at dinner, and refuse all food except pellets of
+pinched bread, for nothing. What is it?"
+
+Evelyn sank into a chair, and covered her face with her trembling hands.
+
+"Yes, I thought so," said Charles, kneeling down by her, and gently
+withdrawing her hands. "Come, Evelyn, what is it?"
+
+"I dare not say." And she turned away her face, and tried to disengage
+her hands, but Charles held them firmly.
+
+"Is it about what happened last night?" he asked, in a tone that was
+kind, but that evidently intended to have an answer.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And do you know that I am suspected?"
+
+"You, Charles? Never!" she cried, starting up.
+
+"Yes, I. Suspected by my own father. So, if you know anything,
+Evelyn--which I see you do--it is your duty to tell us, and to help us
+in every way you can."
+
+He had let go her hands now, and had risen.
+
+"I don't know anything for certain," she said, "but--but we soon shall.
+Aurelia knows, and she is going to tell Ralph."
+
+"Miss Grant!" I exclaimed. "She knew nothing at tea-time. She was asking
+me about it."
+
+"It is since then," continued Evelyn. "I went up to her room before
+dinner to ask her for a fan that I had lent her. She was packing some of
+her things, and the floor was strewn with packing-paper and parcels. She
+gave me my fan, and was going on putting her things together, talking
+all the time, when she asked me to hand her a glove-box on the
+dressing-table. As I did so my eye fell on a piece of paper lying
+together with others, and I instantly recognized it as the same that had
+been wrapped round the diamond crescent when Colonel Middleton first
+showed us the jewels. I should never have noticed it--for though it was
+rice paper, it looked just like the other pieces strewn about--if I had
+not seen two little angular tears, which I suddenly remembered making in
+it myself when General Marston asked me not to pull it to pieces, which
+I suppose I had been absently doing. I made some sort of exclamation of
+surprise, and Aurelia turned round sharply, and asked me what was the
+matter. As I did not answer, she left her packing and came to the table.
+She saw in a moment what I was looking at. I had turned as red as fire,
+and she was quite white. 'I did not mean you to see that,' she said, at
+last, quietly taking up the paper. 'I meant no one to know until I had
+shown it to Ralph. _Do you know where I found it?_' and she looked hard
+at me. I could only shake my head. I was too much ashamed of a suspicion
+I had had to be able to get out a word. 'I am very sorry,' continued
+Aurelia, 'but I am afraid it will be my duty to tell Ralph, whatever the
+consequences may be. I have been thinking it over, and I think he ought
+to know. I am going to show it him to-night after dinner,' and she put
+it in her pocket, and then began to cry. I did not know what to say or
+do, I was so frightened at the thought of what was coming; and, as the
+dressing-bell rang at that moment, I was just leaving the room when she
+called me back.
+
+"'I can't come down to dinner,' she said. 'I hate Ralph to see me with
+red eyes. Tell him I shall come down afterwards, at nine o'clock, and
+that I want to see him particularly; only don't tell him what it is
+about, or mention it to any one else. I did not mean any one to know
+till he did.'
+
+"She began to cry afresh, and I made her lie down and put a shawl over
+her, and then left her, as I had still to dress, and I knew that Aunt
+Mary was not coming down. I was late as it was."
+
+"Is that all?" said Charles, who had been listening intently.
+
+"All," replied Evelyn. "We shall soon know the worst now."
+
+"Very soon," said Charles. "Ralph may come in here at any moment. Evelyn
+and Middleton, will you have the goodness to come with me?" And he led
+the way into the hall.
+
+We could hear Ralph in the next room, humming over an old Irish melody,
+with an improvised accompaniment.
+
+"Now show me her room," said Charles, "and please be quick about it."
+
+Evelyn looked at him astonished, and then led the way up-stairs, along
+the picture-gallery to another wing of the house. She stopped at last
+before a door at the end of a passage, dimly lighted by a lamp at the
+farther end. There was a light under the door, and a bright chink in the
+key-hole, but though we listened intently we could hear nothing stirring
+within.
+
+"Knock again," said Charles to Evelyn. "Louder!" as her hand failed her.
+
+There was no answer. As we listened the light within disappeared.
+
+"Bring that lamp from the end of the passage," said Charles to Evelyn,
+and she brought it.
+
+"Hold it there," he said; "and you, Middleton, stand aside."
+
+He took a few steps backward, and then flung himself against the door
+with his whole force. It cracked and groaned, but resisted.
+
+"The lock is old. It is bound to go," he said, panting a little.
+
+"Really, Charles," I remonstrated--"a lady's private apartment! Miss
+Derrick, I wonder you allow this."
+
+Charles retreated again, and then made a fresh and even fiercer
+onslaught on the door. There was a sound of splintering wood and of
+bursting screws, and in another moment the door flew open inward, and
+Charles was precipitated head-foremost into the room, his evening-pumps
+flourishing wildly in the air. In an instant he was on his feet again,
+gasping hard, and had seized the lamp out of Evelyn's hand. Before I had
+time to remonstrate on the liberty that he was taking, we were all three
+in the room.
+
+It was empty!
+
+In one corner stood a box, half packed, with various articles of
+clothing lying by it. On the dressing-table was a whole medley of little
+feminine knick-knacks, with a candlestick in the midst, the dead wick
+still smoking in the socket, and accounting for the disappearance of the
+light a few minutes before. The fire had gone out, but on a chair by it
+was laid a little black lace evening-gown, evidently put out to be worn;
+while over the fender a dainty pair of silk stockings had been hung, and
+two diminutive black satin shoes were waiting on the hearth-rug. The
+whole aspect of the room spoke of a sudden and precipitate flight.
+
+"Bolted!" said Charles, when he had recovered his breath. "And so the
+mystery is out at last! I might have known there was a woman at the
+bottom of it. Unpremeditated, though," he continued, looking round. "She
+meant to have gone to-morrow; but your recognition of that paper
+frightened her, though she turned it off well to gain time. No fool
+that! She had only an hour, and she made the most of it, and got off, no
+doubt, while we were at dinner, by the 8.2 London train, which is the
+last to-night; and after the telegraph office was closed, too! She knew
+nothing could be done till to-morrow. She has more wit than I gave her
+credit for."
+
+"I distrusted her before, though I had no reason for it, but I never
+thought she was gone," said Evelyn, trembling violently, and still
+looking round the room.
+
+"I knew it," said Charles, "from the moment I saw the light through the
+key-hole. A key-hole with a key in it would not have shown half the
+amount of light through it; and a locked door without a key in it is
+safe to have been locked _from the outside_. Had she a maid with her?"
+
+"No," replied Evelyn, "she used to come to me next door when she wanted
+help--but not often--because I think she knew I did not like her, though
+I tried not to show it."
+
+"Well, we have seen the last of her, or I am much mistaken," said
+Charles. "And now," he added, compressing his lips, "I suppose I must go
+and tell Ralph."
+
+"Oh, Ralph! Ralph!" gasped Evelyn, with a sudden sob; "and he was so
+fond of her!"
+
+"And so you distrusted her before, Evelyn? And why did you not mention
+that fact a little sooner?"
+
+"Without any reason for it? And when Ralph--Oh, I couldn't! I couldn't!"
+said the girl, crimsoning.
+
+Charles gazed intently at her as she turned away, pressing her hands
+tightly together, and evidently struggling with some sudden emotion for
+which there really was no apparent reason. She was overwrought, I
+suppose; and indeed the exertion of breaking in the door had been rather
+too much for Charles too; for, now that the excitement was over, his
+hand shook so much that he had to put down the lamp, and even his voice
+trembled a little as he said:
+
+"I don't think Ralph is very much to be pitied. He has had a narrow
+escape."
+
+"Don't come down again, either of you," he continued a moment later, in
+his usual voice. "I had better go and get it over at once. He will be
+wondering what has become of us if I wait much longer. Evelyn,
+good-night. Good-night, Middleton. If it is too early for you to go to
+bed, you will find a fire in the smoking-room."
+
+I bade Evelyn good-night, and followed Charles down the corridor. He
+replaced the lamp with a hand that was steady enough now, and went
+slowly across the picture-gallery. The way to my room led me through it
+also. Involuntarily I stopped at the head of the great carved staircase
+which led into the hall, and watched him going down, step by step, with
+lagging tread. From the morning-room came the distant sound of a piano,
+and a man's voice singing to it; singing softly, as though no Nemesis
+were approaching; singing slowly, as if there were time enough and to
+spare. But Nemesis had reached the bottom of the staircase; Nemesis,
+with a heavy step, was going across the silent hall--was even now
+opening the door of the morning-room. The door was gently closed again,
+and then, in the middle of a bar, the music stopped.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+I passed an uneasy night. The wind moaned wearily round the house, at
+one moment seeming to die away altogether, at another returning with
+redoubled fury, roaring down the wide chimney, shaking the whole
+building. It dropped completely towards dawn, and after hours of fitful
+slumber I slept heavily.
+
+In the gray of the early morning I was awakened by some one coming into
+my room, and started up to find Charles standing by my bedside, dressed,
+and with a candle in his hand. His face was worn and haggard from want
+of sleep.
+
+"I have come to speak to you before I go, Middleton," he said, when I
+was thoroughly awake. "Ralph and I are off by the early train. Will you
+tell my father that we may not be able to return till to-morrow, if
+then; and may I count upon you to keep all you saw and heard secret till
+after our return?"
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"To London. We start in twenty minutes. I don't think it is the least
+use, but Ralph insists on going, and I cannot let him go alone."
+
+"My dear Charles," I said (all my anger had vanished at the sight of his
+worn face), "I will accompany you."
+
+"Not for worlds!" he replied, hastily. "It would be no good. Indeed, I
+should not wish it."
+
+But I knew better.
+
+"An old head is often of use," I replied, rapidly getting into my
+clothes. "You may count on me, Charles. I shall be ready in ten
+minutes."
+
+Charles made some pretence at annoyance, but I was not to be dissuaded.
+I knew very well how invaluable the judgment of an elder man of
+experience could be on critical occasions; and besides, I always make a
+point of seeing everything I can, on all occasions. In ten minutes I was
+down in the dining-room, where, beside a spluttering fire, the brothers,
+both heavily booted and ulstered, were drinking coffee by candle-light.
+A hastily laid breakfast was on the table, but it had not been touched.
+The gray morning light was turning the flame of the candles to a rusty
+yellow, and outside, upon the wide stone sills, the snow lay high
+against the panes.
+
+Ralph was sitting with bent head by the fire, stick and cap in hand, his
+heavy boot beating the floor impatiently. He looked up as I came in, but
+did not speak. The ruddy color in his cheeks was faded, his face was
+drawn and set. He looked ten years older.
+
+"We ought to be off," he said at last, in a low voice.
+
+"No hurry," replied Charles; "finish your coffee."
+
+I hastily drank some also, and told Charles that I was coming with them.
+
+"No!" said Charles.
+
+"Yes!" I replied. "You are going to London, and so am I. I have decided
+to curtail my visit by a few days, under the circumstances. I shall
+travel up with you. My luggage can follow."
+
+As soon as Charles grasped the idea that I was not going to return to
+Stoke Moreton his opposition melted away; he even seemed to hail my
+departure with a certain sense of relief.
+
+"As you like," he said. "You can leave at this unearthly hour if you
+wish, and travel with us as far as Paddington."
+
+I nodded, and went after my great-coat. Of course I had not the
+slightest intention of leaving them at Paddington; but I felt that the
+time had not arrived to say so.
+
+"Here comes the dog-cart," said Charles, as I returned.
+
+Ralph was already on his feet. But the dog-cart, with its great bay
+horse, could not be brought up to the door. The snow had drifted heavily
+before the steps, and right up into the archway, and the cart had to go
+round to the back again before we could get in and start. Charles took
+the reins, and his brother got up beside him. The groom and I squeezed
+ourselves into the back seat. I could see that I was only allowed to
+come on sufferance, and that at the last moment they would have been
+willing to dispense with my presence. However, I felt that I should
+never have forgiven myself if I had let them go alone. Charles was not
+thirty, and Ralph several years younger. An experienced man of fifty to
+consult in case of need might be of the greatest assistance in an
+emergency.
+
+"Quicker!" said Ralph; "we shall miss the train."
+
+"No quicker, if we mean to catch it," said Charles. "I allowed ten
+minutes extra for the snow. We shall do it if we go quietly, but not if
+I let him go. An upset would clinch the matter."
+
+We drove noiselessly through the great gates with their stone lions on
+either side, rampant in wreaths of snow, and up the village street,
+where life was hardly stirring yet. The sun was rising large and red, a
+ball of dull fire in the heavy sky. It seemed to be rising on a dead
+world. Before us (only to be seen on my part by craning round) stretched
+the long white road. At intervals, here and there among the shrouded
+fields, lay cottages half hidden by a white network of trees. Groups of
+yellow sheep stood clustered together under hedge-rows, motionless in
+the low mist, and making no sound. A lonely colt, with tail erect, ran
+beside us on the other side of the hedge as far as his field would allow
+him, his heavy hoofs falling noiseless in the snow. The cold was
+intense.
+
+"There will be a drift at the bottom of Farrow hill," said Ralph; "we
+shall be late for the train."
+
+And in truth, as we came cautiously down the hill, on turning a corner
+we beheld a smooth sheet of snow lapping over the top of the hedge on
+one side, like iced sugar on a cake, and sloping downward to the ditch
+on the other side of the road.
+
+"Hold on!" cried Charles, as I stood up to look; and in another moment
+we were pushing our way through the snow, keeping as near the ditch as
+possible--too near, as it turned out. But it was not to be. A few yards
+in front of us lay the road--snowy, but practicable; but we could not
+reach it. We swayed backward and forward; we tilted up and down; Charles
+whistled, and made divers consolatory and encouraging sounds to the bay
+horse; but the bay horse began to plunge--he made a side movement--one
+wheel crunched down through the ice in the ditch, and all was over--at
+least, all in the cart were. We fell soft--I most providentially
+alighting on the groom, who was young, and inclined to be plump, and
+thus breaking a fall which to a heavy man of my age might have been
+serious. Charles and Ralph were up in a moment.
+
+"I thought I could not do it; but it was worth a trial," said Charles,
+shaking himself. "George, look after the horse and cart, and take them
+straight back. Now, Ralph, we must run for it if we mean to catch the
+train. Middleton, you had better go back in the cart." And off they set,
+plunging through the snow without further ceremony. I watched the two
+dark figures disappearing, aghast with astonishment. They were
+positively leaving me behind! In a moment my mind was made up; and,
+leaving the gasping young groom to look after the horse and cart, I set
+off to run too. It was only a chance, of course; but in this weather the
+train might be late. It was all the way downhill. I thought I could do
+it, and I did. My feet were balled with snow; I was hotter than I had
+been for years; I was completely out of breath; but when I puffed into
+the little road-side station, five minutes after the train was due, I
+could see that it was not yet in, and that Ralph and Charles were
+waiting on the platform.
+
+"My word, Middleton!" said Charles, coming to meet me. "I thought I had
+seen the last of you when I left you reclining on George in the drift. I
+do believe you have got yourself into this state of fever-heat purely to
+be of use to us two; and I treated you very cavalierly, I am sure. Let
+by-gones be by-gones, and let us shake hands while you are in this
+melting mood."
+
+I could not speak, but we shook hands cordially; and I hurried off to
+get my ticket.
+
+"You can only book to Tarborough!" he called after me, "where we change,
+and catch the London express."
+
+The station-master gave me my ticket, and then approached Charles, and
+touched his cap.
+
+"Might any of you gentlemen be going to London, sir?" he inquired.
+
+"All three of us."
+
+"I don't think you will get on, sir. The news came down this morning
+that the evening express from Tarborough last night was thrown off the
+rails by a drift, and got knocked about, and I don't expect the line is
+clear yet. There will be no trains running till later in the day, I am
+afraid."
+
+"The night express?" said Ralph, suddenly.
+
+"Do you mean the 9 train, which you can catch by the 8.2 from here?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"She was in it!" said Ralph, in a hoarse voice, as the man walked away.
+
+"How late the train is!" said Charles; "quarter of an hour already. I
+say, Jervis," calling after him, "any particulars about the accident?
+Serious?"
+
+"Oh dear no, sir, not to my knowledge. Never heard of anything but that
+the train had been upset, and had stopped the traffic."
+
+"Not many people travelling in such weather, at any rate. I dare say
+there was not a creature who went from here by the last train last
+night?"
+
+"Only two, sir. One of the young gentlemen from the rectory, and a young
+lady, who was very near late, poor thing, and all wet with snow. Ah,
+there she is, at last!" as the train came in sight; and he went through
+the ceremony of ringing the bell, although we were the only travellers
+on the platform.
+
+It was only an hour's run to Tarborough, where we were to join the main
+line.
+
+"What are we to do now?" said Charles, as the chimneys of Tarborough
+hove in sight, and the train slackened. "Ten to one we shall not be able
+to get on to London!"
+
+"Nor she either," said Ralph. "I shall see her! I shall see her here!"
+
+There was an air of excitement about the whole station as we drew up
+before the platform. Groups of railway officials were clustered
+together, talking eagerly; the bar-maids were all looking out of the
+refreshment-room door; policemen were stationed here and there; and
+outside the iron gates of the station a little crowd of people were
+waiting in the trodden yellow snow, peering through the bars.
+
+We got out, and Charles went up to a respectable-looking man in black,
+evidently an official of some consequence, and asked what was the
+matter. The man informed him that a special had been sent down the line
+with workmen to clear the rails, and that its return, with the
+passengers in the ill-fated express, was expected at any moment.
+
+"You don't mean to say the wretched passengers have been there all
+night?" exclaimed Charles. From the man's account it appeared that the
+travellers had taken refuge in a farm near the scene of the accident,
+and, the snow-storm continuing very heavily, it had not been thought
+expedient to send a train down the line to bring them away till after
+daybreak. "It has been gone an hour," he said, looking at the clock;
+"and it is hardly nine yet. Considering how late we received notice of
+the accident--for the news had to travel by night, and on foot for a
+considerable distance--I don't think there has been much delay."
+
+"Will all the passengers come back by this train?" asked Ralph.
+
+"Yes sir."
+
+"We will wait," said Ralph; and he went and paced up and down the most
+deserted part of the platform. The man followed him with his eyes.
+
+"Anxious about friends, sir?" he asked Charles.
+
+"Yes," I heard Charles say, as I went off to warm myself by the
+waiting-room fire, keeping a sharp lookout for the arrival of the train.
+When I came out some time later, wondering if it were ever going to
+arrive at all, I found Charles and the man in black walking up and down
+together, evidently in earnest conversation. When I joined them they
+ceased talking (I never can imagine why people generally do when I come
+up), and the latter said that he would make inquiry at the
+booking-office, and left us.
+
+"Who is that man?" I asked.
+
+"How should I know?" said Charles, absently. "He says he has been a
+London detective till just lately, but he is an inspector of police now.
+Well?" as the man returned.
+
+"Booking-clerk can't remember, sir; but the clerk at the telegraph
+office remembers a young lady leaving a telegram last night, to be sent
+on first thing this morning."
+
+"Has it been sent yet?"
+
+"Yes, sir; some time."
+
+"Where was it sent to?"
+
+"That is against rules, sir. The clerk has no right to give information.
+Anyhow, it is as good as certain, from what you say, that the party was
+in the train, and at all events you will not be kept in doubt much
+longer;" and he pointed to the long-expected puff of white smoke in the
+direction in which all eyes had been so anxiously turned. The train came
+slowly round a broad curve and crawled into the station. Ralph had come
+up, and his eyes were fixed intently upon it. The hand he laid on
+Charles's arm shook a little as he whispered, in a hoarse voice, "I must
+speak to her alone before anything is said."
+
+"You shall," replied Charles; and he moved forward a little, and waited
+for the passengers to alight. I felt that any chance of escape which lay
+in eluding those keen light eyes would be small indeed.
+
+Then ensued a scene of confusion, a Babel of tongues, as the passengers
+poured out upon the platform. "What was the meaning of it all?" hotly
+demanded an infuriated little man before he was well out of the
+carriage. "Why had a train been allowed to start if it was to be
+overturned by a snow-drift? What had the company been about not to make
+itself aware of the state of the line? What did the railway officials
+mean by--" etc. But he was not going to put up with such scandalous
+treatment. He should cause an inquiry to be made; he should write to the
+_Times_, he should--in short, he behaved like a true Englishman in
+adverse circumstances, and poured forth abuse like water. Others
+followed--some angry, some silent, all cold and miserable. A stout woman
+in black, who had been sent for to a dying child, was weeping aloud; a
+dazed man with bound-up head and a terrified wife were pounced upon
+immediately by expectant friends, and borne off with voluble sympathy.
+One or two people slightly hurt were helped out after the others. The
+train was emptied at last. Aurelia was not there. Charles went down the
+length of the train looking into each carriage, and then came back,
+answering Ralph's glance with a shake of the head. The man in black, who
+seemed to have been watching him, came up.
+
+"Have _all_ come back by this train?" Charles asked.
+
+"All, sir, except,"--and he hesitated--"except a few. The doctor who
+went has not returned; and the guard says there were some of the
+passengers, badly hurt, that he would not allow to be moved from the
+farm when the train came for them. The engine-driver and one or two
+others were--"
+
+Charles made a sign to him to be silent.
+
+"How far is it?" he asked.
+
+"Twenty miles, sir."
+
+"Are the roads practicable?"
+
+"No, sir. At least they would be very uncertain once you got into the
+lanes."
+
+"We can walk along the line," said Ralph. "That must be clear. Let us
+start at once."
+
+"Could not the station-master send us down on an engine?" asked Charles.
+"We would pay well for it."
+
+The police-inspector shook his head, but Charles went off to inquire,
+nevertheless, and he followed him. I thought him a very pushing,
+inquisitive kind of person. I have always had a great dislike to the
+idle curiosity which is continually prying into the concerns of others.
+Ralph and I walked up and down, up and down, the now deserted platform.
+I spoke to him once or twice, but he hardly answered; and after a time I
+gave it up, and we paced in silence.
+
+At last Charles returned. His request for an engine had been refused,
+but a further relay of workmen was being sent down the line in a couple
+of hours' time, and he had obtained leave for himself and us to go with
+them. After two long interminable hours of that everlasting pacing we
+found ourselves in an open truck, full of workmen, steaming slowly out
+of the station. At the last moment the man in black jumped in, and
+accompanied us.
+
+The pace may have been great, but to us it seemed exasperatingly slow,
+and in the open truck the cold was piercing. The workmen, who laughed
+and talked among themselves, appeared to take no notice of it; but I saw
+that Charles was shivering, and presently he made his brother light his
+pipe, and began to smoke hard himself.
+
+Ralph's pipe, however, went out unheeded in his fingers. He sat quite
+still with his back against the side of the truck, his eyes fixed upon
+the gray horizon. Once he turned suddenly to his brother, and said, as
+if unable to keep silence on what was in his mind, "What was her
+object?"
+
+Charles shook his head.
+
+"They were hers already!" he went on. "She would have had them all. If
+she had had debts, I would have paid them. What could her object have
+been?" And seemingly, without expecting a reply, he relapsed into
+silence.
+
+We had left the suburbs now, and were passing through a lonely country.
+Here and there a village of straggling cottages met the eye, clustering
+round their little church. In places the hedge-rows alone marked the lie
+of the hidden lanes; in others men were digging out the roads through
+drifts of snow, and carts and horses were struggling painfully along. In
+one place a little walking funeral was laboring across the fields from a
+lonely cottage, in the direction of the church, high on the hill, the
+bell of which was tolling through the quiet air. The sound reached us as
+we passed, and seemed to accompany us on our way. I heard the men
+talking among themselves that there had been no snow-storm like to this
+for thirty years; and as they spoke some of them began shading their
+eyes, and trying to look in the direction in which we were going.
+
+We had now reached a low waste of unenclosed land, with sedge and gorse
+pricking up everywhere through the snow, and with long lines of pollards
+marking the bed of a frozen stream. Near the line was a deserted
+brick-kiln, surrounded by long uneven mounds and ridges of ice, with
+three poplars mounting guard over it. Flights of rooks hung over the
+barren ground, and wheeled in the air with discordant clamor as we
+passed--the only living moving things in the utter desolation of the
+scene. As I looked there was an exclamation from one of the workmen, and
+the engine began to slacken. We were there at last.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+The engine and trucks stopped, the men shouldered their tools and
+tumbled out, and we followed them. A few hundred paces in front of us
+was a railway bridge, over which a road passed, and under which the rail
+went at a sharp curve. The snow had drifted heavily against the bridge,
+with its high earth embankment, making manifest at a glance the cause of
+the disaster.
+
+The bridge was crowded with human figures, and on the line below men
+were working in the drift, amid piles of debris and splintered wood. The
+wrecked train had all been slightly draped in snow; the engine alone,
+barely cold, lying black and grim, like some mighty giant, formidable in
+death. A sheet of glass ice near it showed how the boiler had burst.
+Some of the hindermost carriages were still standing, or had fallen
+comparatively uninjured; but others seemed to have leaped upon their
+fellows, and ploughed right through them into the drift. It was well
+that it began to snow as we reached the spot. There were traces of
+dismal smears on the white ground which it would be seemly to hide.
+
+Our friend in black went forward and asked a few questions of the man in
+charge, and presently returned.
+
+"The remainder of the passengers are at the farm," he said, pointing to
+a house at a little distance; and without further delay we began to
+scramble up the steep embankment, and clamber over the stone-wall of the
+bridge into the road. My mind was full of other things, but I remember
+still the number of people assembled on the bridge, and how a man was
+standing up in his donkey-cart to view the scene. It was Saturday, and
+there were quantities of village school-boys sitting astride on the low
+wall, or perched on adjacent hurdles, evidently enjoying the spectacle,
+jostling, bawling, eating oranges, and throwing the peel at the engine.
+Some older people touched their hats sympathetically, and one went and
+opened a gate for us into a field, through which many feet seemed to
+have come and gone; but for the greater number the event was evidently
+regarded as an interesting variation in the dull routine of every-day
+life; and to the school-boys it was an undoubted treat.
+
+Ralph and Charles walked on in front, following the track across the
+field. It was not particularly heavy walking after what we had had
+earlier in the day, but Ralph stumbled perpetually, and presently
+Charles drew his arm through his own, and the two went on together, the
+police-inspector following with me.
+
+In a few minutes we reached the farm, and entered the farm-yard, which
+was the nearest way to the house. A little knot of calves, intrenched on
+a mound of straw in the centre of the yard, lowered their heads and
+looked askance at us as we came in, and a party of ducks retreated
+hastily from our path with a chorus of exclamations, while a thin collie
+dog burst out of a barrel at the back door, and made a series of
+gymnastics at the end of a chain, barking hoarsely, as if he had not
+spared himself of late.
+
+An elderly woman with red arms met us at the door, and, on a whisper
+from the police-inspector, first shook her head, and then, in answer to
+a further whisper, nodded at another door, and, a voice calling her from
+within, hastily disappeared.
+
+The inspector opened the door she had indicated and went in, I with him.
+Charles, who had grown very grave, hung back with Ralph, who seemed too
+much dazed to notice anything in heaven above or the earth beneath. The
+door opened into an out-house, roughly paved with round stones, where
+barrels, staves, and divers lumber had been put away. There was straw in
+the farther end of it, out of which a yellow cat raised two gleaming
+eyes, and then flew up a ladder against the wall, and disappeared among
+the rafters. In the middle of the floor, lying a little apart, were
+three figures with sheets over them. Instinctively we felt that we were
+in the presence of death. I looked back at Charles and Ralph, who were
+still standing outside in the falling snow. Charles was bareheaded, but
+Ralph was looking absently in front of him, seeming conscious of
+nothing. The inspector made me a sign. He had raised one of the sheets,
+and now withdrew it altogether. My heart seemed to stand still. _It was
+Aurelia!_ Aurelia changed in the last great change of all, but still
+Aurelia. The fixed artificial color in the cheek consorted ill with the
+bloodless pallor of the rest of the face, which was set in a look of
+surprise and terror. She was altered beyond what should have been. She
+looked several years older. But it was still Aurelia. Those little
+gloved hands, tightly clinched, were the same which she had held to the
+library fire as we talked the day before; even the dress was the same.
+Alas! she had been in too great a hurry to change it before she left, or
+her thin shoes. Poor little Aurelia! And then--I don't know how it was,
+but in another moment Ralph was kneeling by her, bending over her,
+taking the stiffened hands in his trembling clasp, imploring the deaf
+ears to hear him, calling wildly to the pale lips to speak to him, which
+had done with human speech. I could not bear it, and I turned away and
+looked out through the open door at the snow falling. The inspector came
+and stood beside me. In the silence which followed we could hear Charles
+speaking gently from time to time; and when at last we both turned
+towards them again, Ralph had flung himself down on an old bench at the
+farther end of the out-house, with his back turned towards us, his arms
+resting on a barrel, and his head bowed down upon them. He neither spoke
+nor moved.
+
+Charles left him, and came towards us, and he and the inspector spoke
+apart for a moment, and then the latter dropped on his knees beside the
+dead woman, and, after looking carefully at a dark stain on one of the
+wrists, turned back the sleeve. Crushed deep into the round white arm
+gleamed something bright. It was an emerald bracelet which we both knew.
+Charles cast a hasty glance at Ralph, but he had not moved, and he drew
+me beside him, so as to interpose our two figures between him and the
+inspector. The latter quietly turned down the sleeve and recomposed the
+arm.
+
+"I knew she would have them on her, if she had them at all," he said, in
+a low voice. "We need look no farther at present. Not one will be
+missing. They are all there."
+
+He gazed long and earnestly at the dead face, and then to my horror he
+suddenly unfastened the little hat. I made an involuntary movement as if
+to stop him, but Charles laid an iron grip upon me, and motioned to me
+to be still. The stealthy hand quietly pushed back the fair curls upon
+the forehead, and in another moment they fell still farther back,
+showing a few short locks of dark hair beneath them, which so completely
+altered the dead face that I could hardly recognize it as belonging to
+the same person. The inspector raised his head, and looked significantly
+at Charles. Then he quietly drew forward the yellow hair over the
+forehead again, replaced the hat, and rose to his feet. Charles and I
+glanced apprehensively at Ralph, but he had not stirred. As we looked, a
+hurried step came across the yard, a hand raised the latch of the door,
+and some one entered abruptly. It was Carr. For one moment he stood in
+the door-way, for one moment his eyes rested horror-struck on the dead
+woman, then darted at us, from us to the inspector, who was coolly
+watching him, and--he was gone! gone as suddenly as he had come; gone
+swiftly out again into the falling snow, followed by the wild barking of
+the dog.
+
+Charles, who had had his back to the door, turned in time to see him,
+and he made a rush for the door, but the inspector flung himself in his
+way, and held him forcibly.
+
+"Let me go! Let me get at him!" panted Charles, struggling furiously.
+
+"I shall do no such thing, sir. It can do no good, and might do harm. He
+is armed, and you are not; and he would not be over-scrupulous if he
+were pushed. Besides, what can you accuse him of? Intent to rob? For he
+did not do it. If you have lost anything, remember, you have found it
+again. If you caught him a hundred times, you have no hold on him. I
+know him of old."
+
+"You?"
+
+"Yes; I have known him by sight long enough. He is not a new hand by any
+means--nor she either, as to that, poor thing."
+
+"But what on earth brought him here?"
+
+"He was waiting for news of her in London, most likely, and he knew she
+would have the jewels on her, and came down when he got wind of the
+accident."
+
+"Knew she would have the jewels! Then do you mean to say there was
+collusion between the two?"
+
+The inspector glanced furtively at Ralph, but he had never stirred, or
+raised his head since he had laid it down on his clinched hands.
+
+"They are both well known to the police," he said at last, "and I think
+it probable there was collusion between them, considering they were _man
+and wife_."
+
+
+
+
+CONCLUSION.
+
+
+I am told that I ought to write something in the way of a conclusion to
+this account of the Danvers jewels, as if the end of the last chapter
+were not conclusion enough. Charles, who has just read it, says
+especially that his character requires what he calls "an elegant
+finish," and suggests that a slight indication of a young and lovely
+heiress in connection with himself would give pleasure to the thoughtful
+reader. But I do not mean at the last moment to depart from the exact
+truth, and dabble in fiction just to make a suitable conclusion. If I
+must write something more, I must beg that it will be kept in mind that
+if further details concerning the robbery are now added against my own
+judgment, they will rest on Charles's authority--not mine--as anything I
+afterwards heard was only through Charles, whose information I never
+consider reliable in the least degree.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was not till three months later that I saw him again, on a wet April
+afternoon. I was still living in London with Jane when he came to see
+me, having just returned from a long tour abroad with Ralph.
+
+Sir George, he said, was quite well again, but the coolness between
+himself and his father had dropped almost to freezing-point since it had
+come to light that he had been innocent after all. His father could not
+forgive his son for putting him in the wrong.
+
+"I seldom disappoint him in matters of this kind," he said. "Indeed, I
+may say I have, as a rule, surpassed his expectations, and I must be
+careful never to fall short of them in this way again. But ah! Miss
+Middleton, I am sure you will agree with me how difficult it is to
+preserve an even course without relaxing a little at times."
+
+"My dear Mr. Charles," said Jane, beaming at him over her knitting, but
+not quite taking him in the manner he intended, "you are young yet, but
+don't be downhearted. I am sure by your face that as you grow older
+these deviations, which you so properly regret, will grow fewer and
+fewer, until, as life goes on, they will gradually cease altogether."
+
+"I consider it not improbable myself," said Charles, with a faint smile,
+and he changed the conversation. I really cannot put down here all that
+he proceeded to say in the most cold-blooded manner concerning Carr and
+Aurelia, or as he _would_ call them, Mr. and Mrs. Brown, _alias_
+Sinclair, _alias_ Tibbits. I for one don't believe a word of it; and I
+don't see how he could have found it all out, as he said he had, through
+the police, and people of that kind. I don't consider it is at all
+respectable consorting with the police in that way; but then Charles
+never was respectable, as I told Jane after he left, arousing excited
+feelings on her part which made me regret having mentioned it.
+
+According to him, Carr, who had never been seen or heard of since the
+day after the accident, was a professional thief, who had probably gone
+to ---- in India with the express design of obtaining possession of Sir
+John's jewels, which had, till near the time of his death, been safely
+stowed away in a bank in Calcutta. He and his wife usually worked
+together; but on this occasion she had, by means of her engaging manners
+and youthful appearance, struck up an acquaintance abroad with Lady Mary
+Cunningham, who, it will be remembered, had jewels of considerable
+value, with a view to those jewels. Ralph she had used as her tool, and
+engaged herself to him in the expectation that on her return to England
+she might, by means of her intimacy with the family, have an opportunity
+of taking them--Lady Mary having left them, while abroad, with her
+banker in London. The opportunity came while she was at Stoke Moreton;
+but in the mean while Sir John's priceless legacy had arrived, having
+eluded her husband's vigilance. (That certainly was true. The jewels
+were safe enough as long as I had anything to do with them.) Her
+husband, who followed them, saw that he was suspected, and threw the
+game into her hands, devoting himself entirely to putting his own
+innocence beyond a doubt; in which, with Ralph's assistance, he
+succeeded.
+
+"I see now," continued Charles, "why she spilled her tea when Carr
+arrived. She was taken by surprise on seeing him enter the room, having
+had, probably, no idea that he was the friend whom you had telegraphed
+for. I suspect, too, that same evening, after the ball, when she and
+Carr went together to find the bag, it was to have a last word to enable
+them to play into each other's hands, being aware, if I remember
+rightly, that father had gone to bed in company with the key of the
+safe, and that, consequently, the jewels might be left within easier
+reach than usual. No doubt she weighed the matter in her own mind, and
+decided to give up all thought of Lady Mary's jewels, and to secure
+those which were ten times their value. She could not have taken both
+without drawing suspicion upon herself. Like a wise woman she left the
+smaller, and went in for the larger prize; a less clever one would have
+tried for both, and have failed. She failed, it is true, by an
+oversight. She could never have noticed that the piece of paper wrapped
+round the crescent was peculiar in any way, or she would not have left
+it on the table among the others. She turned it off well when Evelyn
+recognized it, and made the most of her time. She was within an ace of
+success, but fate was against her. And Carr lost no time, either, for
+that matter; for I have since found out that the telegram she sent was
+to Birmingham, where he was no doubt hiding, bidding him meet her in
+London earlier than had been arranged. Of course he set off for the
+scene of the accident directly he heard of it, having received no
+further communication from her. We arrived only ten minutes before him.
+For my part, I admired _her_ more than I ever did before, when the truth
+about her came out. I considered her to be a pink-and-white nonentity,
+without an idea beyond a neat adjustment of pearl-powder, and then found
+that she possessed brains enough to outwit two minds of no mean calibre,
+namely, yours, Middleton, and my own. Evelyn was the only person who had
+the slightest suspicion of her, and that hardly amounted to more than an
+instinct, for she owned that she had no reason to show for it."
+
+"I wonder Lady Mary was so completely taken in by her to start with," I
+said.
+
+"I don't," replied Charles. "I have even heard of elderly men being
+taken in by young ones. Besides, suspicious people are always liable to
+distrust their own nearest relatives, especially their prepossessing
+nephews, and then lay themselves open to be taken in by entire
+strangers. She wanted to get Ralph married, and she took a fancy to this
+girl, who was laying herself out to be taken a fancy to. In short, she
+trusted to her own judgment, and it failed her, as usual. I wrote very
+kindly to her from abroad, telling her how sincerely I sympathized with
+her in her distress at finding how entirely her judgment had been at
+fault, how lamentably she had been deceived from first to last, and how
+much trouble she had been the innocent means of bringing on the family.
+I have had no reply. Dear Aunt Mary! That reminds me that she is in
+London now; and I think a call from me, and a personal expression of
+sympathy, might give her pleasure." And he rose to take his leave.
+
+I had let Charles go without contradicting a word he had said, because,
+unfortunately, I was not in a position to do so. As I have said before,
+I am not given to suspecting a friend, even though appearances may be
+against him; and I still believed in Carr's innocence, though I must own
+that I was sorry that he never answered any of the numerous letters I
+wrote to him, or ever came to see me in London, as I had particularly
+asked him to do. Of course I did not believe that he was married to
+Aurelia, for it was only on the word of a stranger and a
+police-inspector, while I knew from his own lips that he was engaged to
+a countrywoman of his own. However, be that how it may, my own rooted
+conviction at the time, which has remained unshaken ever since, is that
+in some way he became aware that he was unjustly suspected, and being,
+like all Americans, of a sensitive nature, he retired to his native
+land. Anyhow, I have never seen or heard anything of him since. I am
+aware that Jane holds a different opinion, but then Charles had
+prejudiced her against him--so much so that it has ended by becoming a
+subject on which we do not converse together.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I saw Charles again a few months later on a sultry night in July. I was
+leaving town the next day to be present at Ralph's wedding, and Jane and
+I were talking it over towards ten o'clock, the first cool time in the
+day, when he walked in. He looked pale and jaded as he sat down wearily
+by us at the open window and stroked the cat, which was taking the air
+on the sill. He said that he felt the heat, and he certainly look very
+much knocked up. I do not feel heat myself, I am glad to say.
+
+"I am going abroad to-morrow," he said, after a few remarks on other
+subjects. "It is not merely a question of pleasure, though I shall be
+glad to be out of London; but I have of late become an object of such
+increasing interest to those who possess my autograph that I have
+decided on taking change of air for a time."
+
+"Do you mean to say you are not going down to Stoke Moreton for Ralph's
+wedding?" I exclaimed. "I thought we should have travelled together, as
+we once did six months ago."
+
+"I can't go," said Charles, almost sharply. "I have told Ralph so."
+
+"I am sure he will be very much disappointed, and Evelyn too; and the
+wedding being from her uncle's house, as she has no home of her own,
+will make your absence all the more marked."
+
+"It _must_ be marked, then; but the young people will survive it, and
+Aunt Mary will be thankful. She has not spoken to me since I made that
+little call upon her in the spring. When I pass her carriage in the Row
+she looks the other way."
+
+"I am glad Ralph has consoled himself," I said. "A good and charming
+woman like Evelyn, and a nice steady fellow like Ralph, are bound to be
+happy together."
+
+"Yes," said Charles, "I suppose they are. She deserves to be happy. She
+always liked Ralph, and he _is_ a good fellow. The model young men make
+all the running nowadays. In novels the good woman always marries the
+scapegrace, but it does not seem to be the case in real life."
+
+"Anyhow, not in this instance," I remarked, cheerfully.
+
+"No, not in this instance, as you so justly observe," he replied, with a
+passing gleam of amusement in his restless, tired eyes. "And now,"
+producing a small packet, "as I am not going myself, I want to give my
+wedding-present to the bride into your charge. Perhaps you will take it
+down to-morrow, and give it into her own hands, with my best wishes."
+
+"Might we see it first?" said Jane, with all a woman's curiosity,
+evidently scenting a jewel-case from afar.
+
+Charles unwrapped a small morocco case, and, touching a spring, showed
+the diamond crescent, beautifully reset and polished, blazing on its red
+satin couch.
+
+"Ralph said I should have it, and he sent it me some time since," he
+said, turning it in his hand; "but it seems a pity to fritter it away in
+paying bills; and," in a lower tone, "I should like to give it to
+Evelyn. I hear she has refused to wear any of Sir John's jewels on her
+wedding-day, but perhaps, if you were to ask her--she and I are old
+friends--she might make an exception in favor of the crescent."
+
+And she did.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+
+SIR CHARLES DANVERS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+"Dear heart, Miss Ruth, my dear, now don't ye be a-going yet, and me
+that hasn't set eyes on ye this month and more--and as hardly hears a
+body speak from morning till night."
+
+"Come, come, Mrs. Eccles, I am always finding people sitting here. I
+expect to see the latch go every minute."
+
+"Well, and if they do; and some folks are always a-dropping in, and
+a-setting theirselves down, and a clack-clacking till a body can't get a
+bit of peace! And the things they say! Eh? Miss Ruth, the things I have
+heard folks say, a setting as it might be there, in poor Eccles his old
+chair by the chimley, as the Lord took him in."
+
+To the uninitiated, Mrs. Eccles's allusion might have seemed to refer to
+photography. But Ruth knew better; a visitation from the Lord being
+synonymous in Slumberleigh Parish with a fall from a ladder, a stroke of
+paralysis, or the midnight cart-wheel that disabled Brown when returning
+late from the Blue Dragon "not quite hisself."
+
+"Lor'!" resumed Mrs. Eccles, with an extensive sigh, "there's a deal of
+talk in the village now," glancing inquisitively at the visitor, "about
+him as succeeds to old Mr. Dare; but I never listen to their tales."
+
+They made a pleasant contrast to each other, the neat old woman, with
+her shrewd spectacled eyes and active, hard-worked fingers, and the
+young girl, tranquil, graceful, sitting in the shadow, with her slender
+ungloved hands in her lap.
+
+They were not sitting in the front parlor, because Ruth was an old
+acquaintance; but Mrs. Eccles _had_ a front parlor--a front parlor with
+the bottled-up smell in it peculiar to front parlors; a parlor with a
+real mahogany table, on which photograph albums and a few select volumes
+were symmetrically arranged round an inkstand, nestling in a very choice
+wool-work mat; a parlor with wax-flowers under glass shades on the
+mantle-piece, and an avalanche of paper roses and mixed paper herbs in
+the fireplace.
+
+Ruth knew that sacred apartment well. She knew the name of each of the
+books; she had expressed a proper admiration for the wax-flowers; she
+had heard, though she might have forgotten, for she was but young, the
+price of the "real Brussels" carpet, and so she might safely be
+permitted to sit in the kitchen, and watch Mrs. Eccles darning her son's
+socks.
+
+I am almost afraid Ruth liked the kitchen best, with its tiled floor and
+patch of afternoon sun; with its tall clock in the corner, its line of
+straining geraniums in the low window-shelf, and its high mantle-piece
+crowned by two china dogs with red lozenges on them, holding baskets in
+their mouths.
+
+"Yes, a deal of talk there is, but nobody rightly seems to know anything
+for certain," continued Mrs. Eccles, spreading out her hand in the heel
+of a fresh sock, and pouncing on a modest hole. "Ye see, we never gave a
+thought to _him_, with that great hearty Mr. George, his eldest brother,
+to succeed when the old gentleman went. And such a fine figure of a man
+in his clothes as poor Mr. George used to be, and such a favorite with
+his old uncle. And then to be took like that, horseback riding at polar,
+only six weeks after the old gentleman. But I can't hear as anybody's
+set eyes on his half-brother as comes in for the property now. He never
+came to Vandon in his uncle's lifetime. They say old Mr. Dare couldn't
+bide the French madam as his brother took when his first wife died--a
+foreigner, with black curls; it wasn't likely. He was always partial to
+Mr. George, and he took him up when his father died; but he never would
+have anything to say to this younger one, bein' nothin' in the world, so
+folks say, but half a French, and black, like his mother. I wonder
+now--" began Mrs. Eccles, tentatively, with her usual love of
+information.
+
+"I wonder, now," interposed Ruth, quietly, "how the rheumatism is
+getting on? I saw you were in church on Sunday evening."
+
+"Yes, my dear," began Mrs. Eccles, readily diverted to a subject of such
+interest as herself. "Yes, I always come to the evening service now,
+though I won't deny as the rheumatics are very pinching at times. But,
+dear Lord! I never come up to the stalls near the chancel, so you ain't
+likely to see me. To see them Harrises always a-goin' up to the very
+top, it does go agen me. I don't say as it's everybody as ought to take
+the lowest place. The Lord knows I'm not proud, but I won't go into them
+chairs down by the font myself; but to see them Harrises, that to my
+certain knowledge hasn't a bite of butcher's meat in their heads but
+onst a week, a-settin' theirselves up--"
+
+"Now, Mrs. Eccles, you know perfectly well all the seats are free in the
+evening."
+
+"And so they may be, Miss Ruth, my dear--and don't ye be a-getting up
+yet--and good Christians, I'm sure, the quality are to abide it. And it
+did my heart good to hear the Honorable John preaching as he did in his
+new surplice (as Widder Pegg always puts too much blue in the surplices
+to my thinking), all about rich and poor, and one with another. A
+beautiful sermon it was; but I wouldn't come up like they Harrises.
+There's things as is suitable, and there's things as is not. No, I keep
+to my own place; and I had to turn out old Bessie Pugh this very last
+Sunday night, as I found a-cocked up there, tho' I was not a matter of
+five minutes late. Bessie Pugh always was one to take upon herself, and,
+as I often says to her, when I hear her a-goin' on about free grace and
+the like, 'Bessie,' I says, 'if I was a widder on the parish, and not so
+much as a pig to fat up for Christmas, and coming to church reg'lar on
+Loaf Sunday, which it's not that I ain't sorry for ye, but _I_ wouldn't
+take upon myself, if I was you, to talk of things as I'd better leave to
+them as is beholden to nobody and pays their rent reg'lar. I've no
+patience--But eh, dear Miss Ruth! look at that gentleman going down the
+road, and the dog too. Why, ye haven't so much as got up! He's gone. He
+was a foreigner, and no mistake. Why, good Lord! there he is coming back
+again. He's seen me through the winder. Mercy on us! he's opening the
+gate; he's coming to the door!"
+
+As she spoke, a shadow passed before the window, and some one knocked.
+
+Mrs. Eccles hastily thrust her darning-needle into the front of her
+bodice, the general _rendezvous_ of the pins and needles of the
+establishment, and proceeded to open the door and plant herself in front
+of it.
+
+Ruth caught a glimpse of an erect light gray figure in the sunshine,
+surmounted by a brown face, and the lightest of light gray hats. Close
+behind stood a black poodle of a dignified and self-engrossed
+deportment, wearing its body half shaved, but breaking out in ruffles
+round its paws, and a tuft at the end of a stiffly undemonstrative tail.
+
+"The key of the church is kep' at Jones's, by the pump," said Mrs.
+Eccles, in the brusque manner peculiar to the freeborn Briton when
+brought in contact with a foreigner.
+
+"Thank you, madam," was the reply, in the most courteous of tones, and
+the gray hat was off in a moment, showing a very dark, cropped head,
+"but I do not look for the church. I only ask for the way to the house
+of the pastor, Mr. Alwynn."
+
+Mrs. Eccles gave full and comprehensive directions in a very high key,
+accompanied by much gesticulation, and then the gray hat was replaced,
+and the gray figure, followed by the black poodle, marched down the
+little garden path again, and disappeared from view.
+
+Mrs. Eccles drew a long breath, and turned to her visitor again.
+
+"Well, my dear, and did ye ever see the like of that? And his head, Miss
+Ruth! Did ye take note of his head? Not so much as a shadder of a
+parting. All the same all the way over; and asking the way to the
+rectory. Why, you ain't never going yet? Well, good-bye, my dear, and
+God bless ye! And now," soliloquized Mrs. Eccles, as Ruth finally
+escaped, "I may as well run across to Jones's, and see if _they_ know
+anything about the gentleman, and if he's put up at the inn."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was a glorious July afternoon, but it was hot. The roads were white,
+and the tall hedge-rows gray with dust. A wagon-load of late hay, with a
+swarm of children just out from school careering round it, was coming up
+the road in a dim cloud of dust. Ruth, who had been undecided which way
+to take, beat a hasty retreat towards the church-yard, deciding that, if
+she must hesitate, to do so among cool tombstones in the shade. She
+glanced up at the church clock, as she selected her tombstone under one
+of the many yew-trees in the old church-yard. Half-past four, and
+already an inner voice was suggesting _tea!_ To miss five o'clock tea on
+a thirsty afternoon like this was not to be thought of for a moment. She
+had no intention of going back to tea at Atherstone, where she was
+staying with her cousins, Mr. and Mrs. Danvers. Two alternatives
+remained. Should she go to Slumberleigh Hall, close by, and see the
+Thursbys, who she knew had all returned from London yesterday, or should
+she go across the fields to Slumberleigh Rectory, and have tea with
+Uncle John and Aunt Fanny?
+
+She knew that Sir Charles Danvers, Ralph Danvers's elder brother, was
+expected at Atherstone that afternoon. His aunt, Lady Mary Cunningham,
+was also staying there, partly with a view of meeting him. Ralph Danvers
+had not seen his brother, nor Lady Mary her nephew, for some time, and,
+judging by the interest they seemed to feel in his visit, Ruth had
+determined not to interrupt a family meeting, in which she imagined she
+might be _de trop_.
+
+"My fine tact," she thought, "will enable them to have a quiet talk
+among themselves till nearly dinner-time. But I must not neglect myself
+any longer. The Hall is the nearer, and the drive is shady; but, to put
+against that, Mabel will insist on showing me her new gowns, and Mrs.
+Thursby will make her usual remarks about Aunt Fanny. No; in spite of
+that burning expanse of glebe, I will go to tea at the rectory. I have
+not seen Uncle John for a week, and--who knows?--perhaps Aunt Fanny may
+be out."
+
+So the gloves were put on, the crisp white dress shaken out, the parasol
+put up, and Ruth took the narrow church path across the fields up to
+Slumberleigh Rectory.
+
+For many years since the death of her parents, Ruth Deyncourt had lived
+with her grandmother, a wealthy, witty, and wise old lady, whose house
+had been considered one of the pleasantest in London by those to whom
+pleasant houses are open.
+
+Lady Deyncourt, a beauty in her youth, a beauty in middle life, a beauty
+in her old age, had seen and known all the marked men of the last two
+generations, and had reminiscences to tell which increased in point and
+flavor, like old wine, the longer they were kept. She had frequented as
+a girl the Misses Berrys' drawing-room, and people were wont to say that
+hers was the nearest approach to a _salon_ which remained after the
+Misses Berry disappeared. She had married a grave politician, a rising
+man, whom she had pushed into a knighthood, and at one time into the
+ministry. If he had died before he could make her the wife of a premier,
+the disappointment had not been without its alleviations. She had never
+possessed much talent for domestic life, and, the yoke once removed, she
+had not felt the least inclination to take it upon herself again. As a
+widow, her way through life was one long triumphal procession. She had
+daughters--dull, tall, serious girls, with whom she had nothing in
+common, whom she educated well, brought out, laced in, and then married,
+one after another, relinquishing the last with the utmost cheerfulness,
+and refusing the condolences of friends on her lonely position with her
+usual frankness.
+
+But her son, her only son, she had loved. He was like her, and
+understood her, and was at ease with her, as her daughters had never
+been. The trouble of her life was the death of her son. She got over it,
+as she got over everything; but when several years afterwards his widow,
+with whom, it is hardly necessary to say, she was not on speaking terms,
+suddenly died (being a faint-hearted, feeble creature), Lady Deyncourt
+immediately took possession of her grandchildren--a boy and two
+girls--and proceeded as far as in her lay to ruin the boy for life.
+
+"A woman," she was apt to remark in after years, "is not intended by
+nature to manage any man except her husband. I am a warning to the
+mothers, aunts, and grandmothers, particularly the grandmothers, of the
+future. A husband is a sufficient field for the employment of a woman's
+whole energies. I went beyond my sphere, and I am punished."
+
+And when Raymond Deyncourt finally disappeared in America for the last
+time, having been fished up therefrom on several occasions, each time in
+worse case than the last, she excommunicated him, and cheerfully altered
+her will, dividing the sixty thousand pounds she had it in her power to
+leave, between her two granddaughters, and letting the fact become
+known, with the result that Anna was married by the end of her second
+season; and if at the end of five seasons Ruth was still unmarried, she
+had, as Lady Deyncourt took care to inform people, no one to thank for
+it but herself.
+
+But in reality, now that Anna was provided for, Lady Deyncourt was in no
+hurry to part with Ruth. She liked her as much as it was possible for
+her to like any one--indeed, I think she even loved her in a way. She
+had taken but small notice of her while she was in the school-room, for
+she cared little about girls as a rule; but as she grew up tall, erect,
+with the pale, stately beauty of a lily, Lady Deyncourt's heart went out
+to her. None of her own daughters had been so distinguished-looking, so
+ornamental. Ruth's clothes always looked well on her, and she had a
+knack of entertaining people, and much taste in the arrangement of
+flowers. Though she had inherited the Deyncourt earnestness of
+character, together with their dark serious eyes, and a certain annoying
+rigidity as to right and wrong, these defects were counterbalanced by
+flashes of brightness and humor which reminded Lady Deyncourt of herself
+in her own brilliant youth, and inclined her to be lenient, when in her
+daughters' cases she would have been sarcastic. The old woman and the
+young one had been great friends, and not the less so, perhaps, because
+of a tacit understanding which existed between them that certain
+subjects should be avoided, upon which, each instinctively felt, they
+were not likely to agree. And if the shrewd old woman of the world ever
+suspected the existence of a strength of will and depth of character in
+Ruth such as had, in her own early life, been a source of annoyance and
+perplexity to herself in her dealings with her husband, she was skilful
+enough to ignore any traces of it that showed themselves in her
+granddaughter, and thus avoided those collisions of will, the result of
+which she felt might have been doubtful.
+
+And so Ruth had lived a life full of varied interests, and among
+interesting people, and had been waked up suddenly in a gray and frosted
+dawn to find that chapter of her life closed. Lady Deyncourt, who never
+thought of travelling without her maid and footman, suddenly went on a
+long journey alone one wild January morning, starting, without any
+previous preparation, for a land in which she had never professed much
+interest heretofore. It seemed a pity that she should have to die when
+she had so thoroughly acquired the art of living, with little trouble to
+herself, and much pleasure to others; but so it was.
+
+And then, in Ruth's confused remembrance of what followed, all the world
+seemed to have turned to black and gray. There was no color anywhere,
+where all had been color before. Miles of black cloth and crape seemed
+to extend before her; black horses came and stamped black hoof-marks in
+the snow before the door. Endless arrangements had to be made, endless
+letters to be written. Something was carried heavily down-stairs, all in
+black, scoring the wall at the turn on the stairs in a way which would
+have annoyed Lady Deyncourt exceedingly if she had been there to see it,
+but she had left several days before it happened. The last pale shadow
+of the kind, gay little grandmother was gone from the great front
+bedroom up-stairs. Mr. Alwynn, one of Ruth's uncles, came up from the
+country and went to the funeral, and took Ruth away afterwards. Her own
+sister Anna was abroad with her husband, her brother Raymond had not
+been heard of for years. As she drove away from the house, and looked up
+at the windows with wide tearless eyes, she suddenly realized that this
+departure was final, that there would be no coming back, no home left
+for her in the familiar rooms where she and another had lived so long
+together.
+
+Mr. Alwynn was by her side in the carriage, patting her cold hands and
+telling her not to cry, which she felt no inclination to do; and then,
+seeing the blank pallor in her face, he suddenly found himself fumbling
+for his own pocket-handkerchief.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+On this particular July afternoon Mr. Alwynn, or, as his parishioners
+called him, "The Honorable John," was sitting in his arm-chair in the
+little drawing-room of Slumberleigh Rectory. Mrs. Honorable John was
+pouring out tea; and here, once and for all, let it be known that meals,
+particularly five o'clock tea, will occupy a large place in this
+chronicle, not because of any importance especially attaching to them,
+but because in the country, at least in Slumberleigh, the day is not
+divided by hours but by the meals that take place therein, and to write
+of Slumberleigh and its inhabitants with disregard to their divisions of
+time is "impossible, and cannot be done."
+
+So I repeat, boldly, Mr. and Mrs. Alwynn were at tea. They were alone
+together, for they had no children, and Ruth Deyncourt, who had been
+living with them since her grandmother's death in the winter, was now
+staying with her cousin, Mrs. Ralph Danvers, at Atherstone, a couple of
+miles away.
+
+If it had occasionally crossed Mr. Alwynn's mind during the last few
+months that he would have liked to have a daughter like Ruth, he had
+kept the sentiment to himself, as he did most sentiments in the company
+of his wife, who, while she complained of his habit of silence, made up
+for it nobly herself at all times and in all places. It had often been
+the subject of vague wonder among his friends, and even at times to Mr.
+Alwynn himself, how he had come to marry "Fanny, my love." Mr. Alwynn
+dearly loved peace and quiet, but these dwelt not under the same roof
+with Mrs. Alwynn. Nay, I even believe, if the truth were known, he liked
+order and tidiness, judging by the exact arrangement of his own study,
+and the rueful glances he sometimes cast at the litter of wools and
+letters on the newspaper-table, and the gay garden hats and goloshes,
+hidden, but not concealed, under the drawing-room sofa. Conversation
+about the dearness of butchers' meat and the enormities of servants
+palled upon him, I think, after a time, but he had taken his wife's
+style of conversation for better for worse when he took her gayly
+dressed self under those ominous conditions, and he never showed
+impatience. He loved his wife, but I think it grieved him when
+smart-colored glass vases were strewn among the cherished bits
+of old china and enamel which his soul loved. He did not like
+chromo-lithographs, or the framed photographs which Mrs. Alwynn called
+her "momentums of travel," among his rare old prints, either. He bore
+them, but after their arrival in company with large and inappropriate
+nails, and especially after the cut-glass candlesticks appeared on the
+drawing-room chimney-piece, he ceased to make his little occasional
+purchases of old china and old silver. The curiosity shops knew him no
+more, or if he still at times brought home some treasure in his hat-box,
+on his return from Convocation, it was unpacked and examined in private,
+and a little place was made for it among the old Chelsea figures on the
+bookcase in his study, which had stood, ever since he had inherited them
+from his father, on the drawing-room mantle-piece, but had been silently
+removed when a pair of comic china elephants playing on violins had
+appeared in their midst.
+
+Mr. Alwynn sighed a little when he looked at them this afternoon, and
+shook his head; for had he not brought back in his empty soup-tin an old
+earthen-ware cow of Dutch extraction, which he had long coveted on the
+shelf of a parishioner? He had bought it very dear, for when in all his
+life had he ever bought anything cheap? And now, as he was tenderly
+wiping a suspicion of beef-tea off it, he wondered, as he looked round
+his study, where he could put it. Not among the old Oriental china,
+where bits of Wedgwood had already elbowed in for want of room
+elsewhere. Among his Lowestoft cups and saucers? Never! He would rather
+not have it than see it there. He had a vision of a certain bracket,
+discarded from the hall, and put aside by his careful hands in the
+lowest drawer of the cupboard by the window, in which he kept little
+stores of nails and string and brown paper, among which "Fanny, my love"
+performed fearful ravages when minded to tie up a parcel.
+
+Mr. Alwynn nailed up the bracket under an old etching and placed the cow
+thereon, and, after contemplating it over his spectacles, went into the
+drawing-room to tea with his wife.
+
+Mrs. Alwynn was a stout, florid, good-humored-looking woman, with a
+battered fringe, considerably younger than her husband in appearance,
+and with a tendency to bright colors in dress.
+
+"Barnes is very poorly, my dear," said Mr. Alwynn, patiently fishing out
+one of the lumps of sugar which his wife had put in his tea. He took one
+lump, but she took two herself, and consequently always gave him two.
+"I should say a little strong soup would--"
+
+At this juncture the front door-bell rang, and a moment afterwards "Mr.
+Dare" was announced.
+
+The erect, light gray figure which had awakened the curiosity of Mrs.
+Eccles came in close behind the servant. Mrs. Alwynn received a deep bow
+in return for her look of astonishment; and then, with an eager
+exclamation, the visitor had seized both Mr. Alwynn's hands, regardless
+of the neatly folded slice of bread and butter in one of them, and was
+shaking them cordially.
+
+Mr. Alwynn looked for a moment as astonished as his wife, and the blank,
+deprecating glance he cast at his visitor showed that he was at a loss.
+
+The latter let go his hands and spread his own out with a sudden
+gesture.
+
+"Ah, you do not know me," he said, speaking rapidly; "it is twenty years
+ago, and you have forgotten. You do not remember Alfred Dare, the little
+boy whom you saw last in sailing costume, the little boy for whom you
+cut the whistles, the son of your old friend, Henry Dare?"
+
+"Good gracious!" ejaculated Mr. Alwynn, with a sudden flash of memory.
+"Henry's other son. I remember now. It _is_ Alfred, and I remember the
+whistles too. You have your mother's eyes. And, of course, you have come
+to Vandon now that your poor brother--We have all been wondering when
+you would turn up. My dear boy, I remember you perfectly now; but it is
+a long time ago, and you have changed very much."
+
+"Between eight years and twenty-eight there is a great step," replied
+Dare, with a brilliant smile. "How could I expect that you should
+remember all at once? But _you_ are not changed. I knew you the first
+moment. It is the same kind, good face which I remember well."
+
+Mr. Alwynn blushed a faint blush, which any word of praise could always
+call up; and then, reminded of the presence of Mrs. Alwynn by a short
+cough, which that lady always had in readiness wherewith to recall him
+to a sense of duty, he turned to her and introduced Dare.
+
+Dare made another beautiful bow; and while he accepted a cup of tea from
+Mrs. Alwynn, Mr. Alwynn had time to look attentively at him with his
+mild gray eyes. He was a slight, active-looking young man of middle
+height, decidedly un-English in appearance and manner, with dark roving
+eyes, mustaches very much twirled up, and a lean brown face, that was
+exceedingly handsome in a style to which Mr. Alwynn was not accustomed.
+
+And this was Henry Dare's second son, the son by his French wife, who
+had been brought up abroad, of whom no one had ever heard or cared to
+hear, who had now succeeded, by his half-brother's sudden death, to
+Vandon, a property adjoining Slumberleigh.
+
+The eager foreign face was becoming familiar to Mr. Alwynn. Dare was
+like his mother; but he sat exactly as Mr. Alwynn had seen his father
+sit many a time in that very chair. The attitude was the same. Ah, but
+that flourish of the brown hands! How unlike anything Henry would have
+done! And those sudden movements! He was roused by Dare turning quickly
+to him again.
+
+"I am telling Mrs. Alwynn of my journey here," he began; "of how I miss
+my train; of how I miss my carriage, sent to meet me from the inn; of
+how I walk on foot up the long hills; and when I get there they think I
+am no longer coming. I arrived only last night at Vandon. To-day I walk
+over to see my old friend at Slumberleigh."
+
+Dare leaned forward, laying the tips of his fingers lightly against his
+breast.
+
+"You seem to have had a good deal of walking," said Mr. Alwynn, rather
+taken aback, but anxious to be cordial; "but, at any rate, you will not
+walk back. You must stay the night, now you are here; mustn't he,
+Fanny?"
+
+Dare was delighted--beaming. Then his face became overcast. His eyebrows
+went up. He shook his head. Mr. and Mrs. Alwynn were most kind, but--he
+became more and more dejected--a bag, a simple valise--
+
+It could be sent for.
+
+Ah! Mr. Alwynn was too good. He revived again. He showed his even white
+teeth. He was about to resume his tea, when suddenly a tall white figure
+came lightly in through the open French window, and a clear voice began:
+
+"Oh, Uncle John, there is such a heathen of a black poodle making
+excavations in the flower-beds! Do--"
+
+Ruth stopped suddenly as her eyes fell upon the stranger. Dare rose
+instinctively.
+
+"This is Mr. Dare, Ruth," said Mr. Alwynn. "He has just arrived at
+Vandon."
+
+Ruth bowed. Dare surpassed himself, and was silent. All his smiles and
+flow of small-talk had suddenly deserted him. He began patting his dog,
+which had followed Ruth in-doors, and a moment of constraint fell upon
+the little party.
+
+"She is shy," said Dare to himself. "She is adorably shy."
+
+Ruth's quiet, self-possessed voice dispelled that pleasing illusion.
+
+"I have had a very exhausting afternoon with Mrs. Eccles, Aunt Fanny,
+and I have come to you for a cup of tea before I go back to Atherstone."
+
+"Why did you walk so far this hot afternoon, my dear? and how are Mrs.
+Danvers and Lady Mary? and is any one else staying there? and, my dear,
+_are_ the dolls finished?"
+
+"They are," said Ruth. "They are all outrageously fashionable. Even
+Molly is satisfied. There is to be a school-feast here to-morrow," she
+added, turning to Dare, who appeared bewildered at the turn the
+conversation was taking. "All our energies for the last fortnight have
+been brought to bear on dolls. We have been dressing dolls morning,
+noon, and night."
+
+"When is it to be, this school-feast?" said Dare, eagerly. "I will buy
+one--three dolls!"
+
+After a lengthy explanation from Mrs. Alwynn as to the nature of a
+school-feast as distinct from a bazaar, Ruth rose to go, and Mr. Alwynn
+offered to accompany her part of the way.
+
+"And so that is the new Mr. Dare about whom we have all been
+speculating," she said, as they strolled across the fields together. "He
+is not like his half-brother."
+
+"No; he seems to be entirely a Frenchman. You see, he was educated
+abroad, and that makes a great difference. He was a very nice little boy
+twenty years ago. I hope he will turn out well, and do his duty by the
+place."
+
+The neighboring property of Vandon, with its tumble-down cottages, its
+neglected people, and hard agent, were often in Mr. Alwynn's thoughts.
+
+"Oh, Uncle John, he will, he must! You must help him and advise," said
+Ruth, eagerly. "He ought to stay and live on the place, and look into
+things for himself."
+
+"I am afraid he will be poor," said Mr. Alwynn, meditatively.
+
+"Anyhow, he will be richer than he was before," urged Ruth, "and it is
+his duty to do something for his own people."
+
+When Ruth had said it was a duty, she imagined, like many another young
+soul before her, that nothing remained to be said, having yet to learn
+how much beside often remained to be done.
+
+"We shall see," said Mr. Alwynn, who had seen something of his
+fellow-creatures; and they walked on together in silence.
+
+The person whose duty Ruth had been discussing so freely looked after
+the two retreating figures till they disappeared, and then turned to
+Mrs. Alwynn.
+
+"You and Mr. Alwynn also go to the school-feast to-morrow?"
+
+Mrs. Alwynn, a little nettled, explained that of course she went, that
+it was her _own_ school-feast, that Mrs. Thursby, at the Hall, had
+nothing to do with it. (Dare did not know who Mrs. Thursby was, but he
+listened with great attention.) She, Mrs. Alwynn, gave it herself. Her
+own cook, who had been with her five years, made the cakes, and her own
+donkey-cart conveyed the same to the field where the repast was held.
+
+"Miss Deyncourt, will she be there?" asked Dare.
+
+Mrs. Alwynn explained that all the neighborhood, including the Thursbys,
+would be there; that she made a point of asking the Thursbys.
+
+"I also will come," said Dare, gravely.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+Atherstone was a rambling, old-fashioned, black-and-white house, half
+covered with ivy, standing in a rambling, old-fashioned garden--a
+charming garden, with clipped yews, and grass paths, and straggling
+flowers and herbs growing up in unexpected places. In front of the
+house, facing the drawing-room windows, was a bowling-green, across
+which, at this time of the afternoon, the house had laid a cool green
+shadow.
+
+Two ladies were sitting under its shelter, each with her work.
+
+It was hot still, but the shadows were deepening and lengthening. Away
+in the sun hay was being made and carried, with crackings of whips and
+distant voices. Beyond the hay-fields lay the silver band of the river,
+and beyond again the spire of Slumberleigh Church, and a glimpse among
+the trees of Slumberleigh Hall.
+
+"Ralph has started in the dog-cart to meet Charles. They ought to be
+here in half an hour, if the train is punctual," said Mrs. Ralph.
+
+She was a graceful woman, with a placid, gentle face. She might be
+thirty, but she looked younger. With her pleasant home and her pleasant
+husband, and her child to be mildly anxious about, she might well look
+young. She looked particularly so now as she sat in her fresh cotton
+draperies, winding wool with cool, white hands.
+
+The handiwork of some women has a hard, masculine look. If they sew, it
+is with thick cotton in some coarse material; if they knit, it is with
+cricket-balls of wool, which they manipulate into wiry stockings and
+comforters. Evelyn's wools, on the contrary, were always soft, fleecy,
+liable to weak-minded tangles, and so turning, after long periods of
+time, into little feminine futilities for which it was difficult to
+divine any possible use.
+
+Lady Mary Cunningham, her husband's aunt, made no immediate reply to her
+small remark. Evelyn Danvers was not a little afraid of that lady, and,
+in truth, Lady Mary, with her thin face and commanding manner, was a
+very imposing person. Though past seventy, she sat erect in her chair,
+her stick by her side, some elaborate embroidery in her delicate old
+ringed hands. Her pale, colorless eyes were as keen as ever. Her white
+hair was covered by a wonderful lace cap, which no one had ever
+succeeded in imitating, that fell in soft lappets and graceful folds
+round the severe, dignified face. Molly, Evelyn's little daughter, stood
+in great awe of Lady Mary, who had such a splendid stick with a silver
+crook of her very own, and who made remarks in French in Molly's
+presence which that young lady could not understand, and felt that it
+was not intended she should. She even regarded with a certain veneration
+the cap itself, which she had once met in equivocal circumstances,
+journeying with a plait of white hair towards Lady Mary's rooms.
+
+It was the first time since their marriage, of which she had not
+approved, that Lady Mary had paid a visit to Ralph and Evelyn at
+Atherstone. Lady Mary had tried to marry Ralph, in days gone by, to a
+woman who--but it was an old story and better forgotten. Ralph had
+married his first cousin when he had married Evelyn, and Lady Mary had
+strenuously objected to the match, and had even gone so far as to
+threaten to alter certain clauses in her will, which she had made in
+favor of Ralph, her younger nephew, at a time when she was at daggers
+drawn with her eldest nephew, Charles, now Sir Charles Danvers. But that
+was an old story, too, and better forgotten.
+
+When Charles succeeded his father some three years ago, and when, after
+eight years, Molly had still remained an only child, and one of the
+wrong kind, of no intrinsic value to the family, Lady Mary decided that
+by-gones should be by-gones, and became formally reconciled to Charles,
+with whom she had already found it exceedingly inconvenient, and
+consequently unchristian, not to be on speaking terms. As long as he was
+the scapegrace son of Sir George Danvers her Christian principles
+remained in abeyance; but when he suddenly succeeded to the baronetcy
+and Stoke Moreton, the air of which suited her so well, and, moreover,
+to that convenient _pied a terre_, the house in Belgrave Square, she
+allowed feelings, which she said she had hitherto repressed with
+difficulty, their full scope, expressed a Christian hope that, now that
+he had come to this estate, Charles would put away Bohemian things, and
+instantly set to work to find a suitable wife for him.
+
+At first Lady Mary felt that the task which she had imposed upon herself
+would (D.V.) be light indeed. Charles received her overtures with the
+same courteous demeanor which had been the chief sting of their former
+warfare. He paid his creditors, no one knew how, for his father had left
+nothing to him unentailed; and once out of money difficulties, he seemed
+in no hurry to plunge into them again. If he had not as yet thoroughly
+taken up the life of an English country gentleman, for want of that
+necessary adjunct which Lady Mary was so anxious to supply, at least he
+lived in England and in good society. In short, Lady Mary was fond of
+telling her friends Charles had entirely reformed, hinting, at the same
+time, that she had been the humble instrument, in the hands of an
+all-wise Providence, which had turned him back into the way in which the
+English aristocracy should walk, and from which he had deviated so long.
+But one thing remained--to marry him. Every one said Charles _must_
+marry. Lady Mary did not say it, but with her whole soul she meant it.
+What she intended to do, she, as a rule, performed--occasionally at the
+expense of those who were little able to afford it, but still the thing
+was (always, of course, by the co-operation of Providence) done. Ralph
+certainly had proved an exception to the rule. He had married Evelyn
+against Lady Mary's will, and consequently without the blessing of
+Providence. After that, of course, she had never expected there would be
+a son, and with each year her anxiety to see Charles safely married had
+increased. He had seemed so amenable that at first she could hardly
+believe that the steed which she had led to waters of such divers merit
+would refuse to drink from any of them. If rank had no charm for him,
+which apparently it had not, she would try beauty. When beauty failed,
+even beauty with money in its hand, Lady Mary hesitated, and then fell
+back on goodness. But either the goodness was not good enough, or, as
+Lady Mary feared, it was not sufficiently High Church to be really
+genuine: even goodness failed. For three years she had strained every
+nerve, and at the end of them she was no nearer the object in view than
+when she began.
+
+An inconvenient death of a sister, with whom she had long since
+quarrelled about church matters (and who had now gone where her folly in
+differing from Lady Mary would be fully, if painfully, brought home to
+her), had prevented Lady Mary continuing her designs this year in
+London. But if thwarted in one direction, she knew how to throw her
+energies into another. The first words she uttered indicated what that
+direction was.
+
+Evelyn's little remark about the dog-cart, which had gone to meet
+Charles, had so long remained without any response that she was about to
+coin another of the same stamp, when Lady Mary suddenly said, with a
+decision that was intended to carry conviction to the heart of her
+companion:
+
+"It is an exceedingly suitable thing."
+
+Evelyn evidently understood what it was that was so suitable, but she
+made no reply.
+
+"A few years ago," continued Lady Mary, "I should have looked higher. I
+should have thought Charles might have done better, but--"
+
+"He never could do better than--than--" said Evelyn, with a little mild
+flutter. "There is no one in the world more--"
+
+"Yes, yes, my dear--of course we all know that," returned the elder
+lady. "She is much too good for him, and all the rest of it. A few years
+ago, I was saying, I might not have regarded it quite in the light I do
+now. Charles, with his distinguished appearance and his position, might
+have married anybody. But time passes, and I am becoming seriously
+anxious about him; I am, indeed. He is eight-and-thirty. In two years he
+will be forty; and at forty you never know what a man may not do. It is
+a critical age, even when they are married. Until he is forty, a man may
+be led under Providence into forming a connection with a woman of
+suitable age and family. After that age he will never look at any girl
+out of her teens, and either perpetrates a folly or does not marry at
+all. If the Danvers family is not to become extinct, or to be dragged
+down by a _mesalliance_, measures must be taken at once."
+
+Evelyn winced at the allusion to the extinction of the Danvers family,
+of which Charles and Ralph were the only representatives. She felt
+keenly having failed to give Ralph a son, and the sudden smart of the
+old hurt added a touch of sharpness to her usually gentle voice as she
+said, "I cannot see what _has_ been left undone."
+
+"No, my dear," said Lady Mary, more suavely, "you have fallen in with my
+views most sensibly. I only hope Ralph--"
+
+"Ralph knows nothing about it."
+
+"Quite right. It is very much better he should not. Men never can be
+made to look at things in their proper light. They have no power of
+seeing an inch in front of them. Even Charles, who is less dense than
+most men, has never been allowed to form an idea of the plans which from
+time to time I have made for him. Nothing sets a man more against a
+marriage than the idea that it has been put in his way. They like to
+think it is all their own doing, and that the whole universe will be
+taken by surprise when the engagement is given out. Charles is no
+exception to the rule. Our duty is to provide a wife for him, and then
+allow him to think his own extraordinary cleverness found her for
+himself. How old is this cousin of yours, Miss Deyncourt?"
+
+"About three-and-twenty."
+
+"Exceedingly suitable. Young, and yet not too young. She is not
+beautiful, but she is decidedly handsome, and very high-bred-looking,
+which is better than beauty. I know all about her family; good blood on
+both sides; no worsted thread. I forget if there is any money."
+
+This was a pious fraud on Lady Mary's part, as she was, of course, aware
+of the exact sum.
+
+"Lady Deyncourt left her thirty thousand pounds," said Evelyn,
+unwillingly. She hated herself for the part she was taking in her aunt's
+plans, although she had been so unable to support her feeble opposition
+by any show of reason that it had long since melted away before the
+consuming fire of Lady Mary's determined authority.
+
+"Twelve hundred a year," said that lady. "I fear Lady Deyncourt was far,
+very far, from the truth, but she seems to have made an equitable will.
+I am glad Miss Deyncourt is not entirely without means; and she has
+probably something of her own as well. The more I see of that girl the
+more convinced I am that she is the very wife for Charles. There is no
+objection to the match in any way, unless it lies in that disreputable
+brother, who seems to have entirely disappeared. Now, Evelyn, mark my
+words. You invited her here at my wish, after I saw her with that
+dreadful Alwynn woman at the flower-show. You will never regret it. I am
+seventy-five years of age, and I have seen something of men and women.
+Those two will suit."
+
+"Here comes the dog-cart," said Evelyn, with evident relief.
+
+"Where is Miss Deyncourt?"
+
+"She went off to Slumberleigh some time ago. She said she was going to
+the rectory, I believe."
+
+"It is just as well. Ah! here is Charles."
+
+A tall, distinguished-looking man in a light overcoat came slowly round
+the corner of the house as she spoke, and joined them on the lawn.
+Evelyn went to meet him with, evident affection, which met with as
+evident a return, and he then exchanged a more formal greeting with his
+aunt.
+
+"Come and sit down here," said Evelyn, pulling forward a garden-chair.
+"How hot and tired you look!"
+
+"I am tired to death, Evelyn. I went to London in May a comparatively
+young man. Aunt Mary said I ought to go, and so, of course, I went. I
+have come back not only sadder and wiser--that I would try to bear--but
+visibly aged."
+
+He took off his hat as he spoke, and wearily pushed back the hair from
+his forehead. Lady Mary looked at him over her spectacles with grave
+scrutiny. She had not seen her nephew for many months, and she was not
+pleased with what she saw. His face looked thin and worn, and she even
+feared she could detect a gray hair or two in the light hair and
+mustache. His tired, sarcastic eyes met hers.
+
+"I was afraid you would think I had _gone off_," he said, half shutting
+his eyes in the manner habitual to him. "I fear I took your exhortations
+too much to heart, and overworked myself in the good cause."
+
+"A season is always an exhausting thing," said Lady Mary; "and I dare
+say London is very hot now."
+
+"Hot! It's more than hot. It is a solemn warning to evil-doers; a
+foretaste of a future state."
+
+"I suppose everybody has left town by this time?" continued Lady Mary,
+who often found it necessary even now to ignore parts of her nephew's
+conversation.
+
+"By everybody I know you mean _one_ family. Yes, they are gone. Left
+London to-day. Consequently, I also conveyed my remains out of town,
+feeling that I had done my duty."
+
+"Where is Ralph?" asked Evelyn, rising, dimly conscious that Charles and
+his aunt were conversing in an unknown tongue, and feeling herself _de
+trop_.
+
+"I left him in the shrubbery. A stoat crossed the road before the
+horse's nose as we drove up, and Ralph, who seems to have been specially
+invented by Providence for the destruction of small vermin, was in
+attendance on it in a moment. I had seen something of the kind before,
+so I came on."
+
+Evelyn laid down her work, and went across the lawn, and round the
+corner of the house, in the direction of the shrubbery, from which the
+voice of her lord and master "rose in snatches," as he plunged in and
+out among the laurels.
+
+"And how is Lord Hope-Acton?" continued Lady Mary, with an air of
+elaborate unconcern. "I used to know him in old days as one of the best
+waltzers in London. I remember him very slim and elegant-looking; but I
+suppose he is quite elderly now, and has lost his figure? or so some one
+was saying."
+
+"Not lost, but gone before, I should say, to judge by appearances," said
+Charles, meditatively, gazing up into the blue of the summer sky.
+
+The mixed impiety and indelicacy of her nephew's remark caused a sudden
+twitch to the High Church embroidery in Lady Mary's hand; but she went
+on a moment later in her usual tone:
+
+"And Lady Hope-Acton. Is she in stronger health?"
+
+"I believe she was fairly well; not robust, you know, but, like other
+fond mothers with daughters out, 'faint yet pursuing.'"
+
+Lady Mary bit her lip; but long experience had taught her that it was
+wiser to refrain from reproof, even when it was so urgently needed.
+
+"And their daughter, Lady Grace. How beautiful she is! Was she looking
+as lovely as usual?"
+
+"More so," replied Charles, with conviction. "Her nose is even
+straighter, her eyelashes even longer than they were last summer. I do
+not hesitate to say that her complexion is--all that her fancy paints
+it."
+
+"You are so fond of joking, Charles, that I don't know when you are
+serious. And you saw a good deal of her?"
+
+"Of course I did. I leaned on the railings in the Row, and watched her
+riding with Lord Hope-Acton, whose personal appearance you feel such an
+interest in. At the meeting of the four-in-hands, was not she on the
+box-seat beside me? At Henley, were we not in the same boat? At
+Hurlingham, did we not watch polo together, and together drink our tea?
+At Lord's, did not I tear her new muslin garment in helping her up one
+of those poultry-ladders on the Torringtons' drag? Have I not taken her
+in to dinner five several times? Have I not danced with her at balls
+innumerable? Have I not, in fact, seen as much of her as--of several
+others?"
+
+"Oh, Charles!" said Lady Mary, "I wish you would talk seriously for one
+moment, and not in that light way. Have you spoken?"
+
+"In a light way, I should say I had spoken a good deal; but _seriously_,
+no. I have never ventured to be serious."
+
+"But you will be. After all this, you _will_ ask her?"
+
+"Aunt Mary," replied Charles, with gentle reproach, "a certain delicacy
+should be observed in probing the exact state of a man's young
+affections. At five-and-thirty (I know I am five-and-thirty, because you
+have told people so for the last three years) there exists a certain
+reticence in the youthful heart which declines to lay bare its inmost
+feelings even for an aunt to--we won't say peck at, but speculate upon.
+I have told you all I know. I have done what I was bidden to do, up to a
+certain point. I am now here to recruit, and restore my wasted energies,
+and possibly to heal (observe, I say possibly) my wounded affections in
+the intimacy of my family circle. That reminds me that that little
+ungrateful imp Molly has not yet made the slightest demonstration of joy
+at my arrival. Where is she?" and without waiting for an answer, which
+he was well aware would not be forthcoming, Charles rose and strolled
+towards the house with his hands behind his back.
+
+"Molly!" he called, "Molly!" standing bareheaded in the sunshine, under
+a certain latticed window, the iron bars of which suggested a nursery
+within.
+
+There was a sudden answering cackle of delight, and a little brown head
+was thrust out amid the ivy.
+
+"Come down this very moment, you little hard-hearted person, and embrace
+your old uncle."
+
+"I'm comin', Uncle Charles, I'm comin';" and the brown head disappeared,
+and a few seconds later a white frock and two slim black legs rushed
+round the corner, and Molly precipitated herself against the waistcoat
+of "Uncle Charles."
+
+"What do you mean by not coming down and paying your respects sooner?"
+he said, when the first enthusiasm of his reception was over, looking
+down at Molly with a great kindness in the keen light eyes which had
+looked so apathetic and sarcastic a moment before.
+
+As he spoke, Ralph Danvers, a square, ruddy man in gray knickerbockers,
+came triumphantly round from the shrubbery, holding by its tail a minute
+corpse with out-stretched arms and legs.
+
+"Got him!" he said, smiling, and wiping his brow with honest pride.
+"See, Charles? See, Molly? Got him!"
+
+"Don't bring it here, Ralph, please. We are going to have tea," came
+Evelyn's gentle voice from the lawn; and Ralph and the terrier Vic
+retired to hang the body of the slain upon a fir-tree on the back
+premises, the recognized long home of stoats and weasels at Atherstone.
+
+Molly, in the presence of Lady Mary and the stick with the silver crook,
+was always more or less depressed and shy. She felt the pale cold eye of
+that lady was upon her, as indeed it generally was, if she moved or
+spoke. She did not therefore join in the conversation as freely as was
+her wont in the family circle, but sat on the grass by her uncle,
+watching him with adoring eyes, trying to work the signet ring off his
+big little finger, which in the memory of man--of Molly, I mean--had
+never been known to work off, while she gave him the benefit of small
+pieces of local and personal news in a half whisper from time to time as
+they occurred to her.
+
+"Cousin Ruth is staying here, Uncle Charles."
+
+"Indeed," said Charles, absently.
+
+His eyes had wandered to Evelyn taking Ralph his cup of tea, and giving
+him a look with it which he returned--the quiet, grave look of mutual
+confidence which sometimes passes between married people, and which for
+the moment makes the single state seem very single indeed.
+
+Molly saw that he had not heard, and that she must try some more
+exciting topic in order to rivet his attention.
+
+"There was a mouse at prayers yesterday, Uncle Charles."
+
+"There _wasn't_?"
+
+Uncle Charles was attending again now.
+
+Molly gave an exact account of the great event, and of how "Nanny" had
+gathered her skirts round her, and how James had laughed, only father
+did not see him, and how--There was a great deal more, and the story
+ended tragically for the mouse, whose final demise under a shovel, when
+prayers were over, Molly described in graphic detail.
+
+"And how are the guinea-pigs?" asked Charles, putting down his cup.
+
+"Come and see them," whispered Molly, insinuating her small hand
+delightedly into his big one; and they went off together, each happy in
+the society of the other. Charles was introduced to the guinea-pigs,
+which had multiplied exceedingly since he had presented them, the one
+named after him being even then engaged in rearing a large family.
+
+Then, after Molly had copiously watered her garden, and Charles's
+unsuspecting boots at the same time, objects of interest still remained
+to be seen and admired; confidences had to be exchanged; inner pockets
+in Charles's waistcoat to be explored; and it was not till the
+dressing-bell and the shrill voice of "Nanny" from an upper window
+recalled them, that the friends returned towards the house.
+
+As they turned to go in-doors Charles saw a tall white figure skimming
+across the stretches of low sunshine and long shadow in the field beyond
+the garden, and making swiftly for the garden gate.
+
+"Oh, Molly! Molly!" he said, in a tone of sudden consternation,
+squeezing the little brown hand in his. "_Who_ is that?"
+
+Molly looked at him astonished. A moment ago Uncle Charles had been
+talking merrily, and now he looked quite sad.
+
+"It's only Ruth," she said, reassuringly.
+
+"Who is Ruth?"
+
+"Cousin Ruth," replied Molly. "I told you she was here."
+
+"She's not _staying_ here?"
+
+"Yes, she is. She is rather nice, only she says the guinea-pigs smell
+nasty, which isn't true. She _will_ be late,"--with evident concern--"if
+she is going to be laced up; and I know she is, because I saw it on her
+bed. She doesn't see us yet. Let us go and meet her."
+
+"Run along, then," said Charles, in a lone of deep dejection, loosing
+Molly's hand. "I think I'll go in-doors."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+"I've done Uncle Charles a button-hole, and put it in his water-bottle,"
+said Molly, in an important _affaire_ whisper, as she came into Ruth's
+room a few minutes before dinner, where Ruth and her maid were
+struggling with a black-lace dress. "Mrs. Jones, you must be very quick.
+Why do you have pins in your mouth, Mrs. Jones? James has got his coat
+on, and he is going to ring the bell in one minute. I told him you had
+only just got your hair done; but he said he could not help that. Uncle
+Charles,"--peeping through the door--"is going down now, and he's got on
+a beautiful white waistcoat. He's brought that nice Mr. Brown with him
+that unpacks his things and plays on the concertina. Ah! there's the
+bell;" and Molly hurried down to give a description of the exact stage
+at which Ruth's toilet had arrived, which Ruth cut short by appearing
+hard upon her heels.
+
+"It is a shame to come in-doors now, isn't it?" said Charles, as he was
+introduced and took her in to dinner in the wake of Lady Mary and Ralph.
+"Just the first cool time of the day."
+
+"Is it?" said Ruth, still rather pink with her late exertions. "When I
+heard the dressing-bell ring across the fields, and the last gate would
+not open, and I found the railings through which I precipitated myself
+had been newly painted, I own I thought it had never been so hot all
+day."
+
+"How trying it is to be forgotten!" said Charles, after a pause. "We
+have met before, Miss Deyncourt; but I see you don't remember me. I gave
+you time to recollect me by throwing out that little remark about the
+weather, but it was no good."
+
+Ruth glanced at him and looked puzzled.
+
+"I am afraid I don't," she said at last. "I have seen you playing polo
+once or twice, and driving your four-in-hand; but I thought I only knew
+you by sight. When did we meet before?"
+
+"You have no recollection of a certain ball after some theatricals at
+Stoke Moreton, which you and your sister came to as little girls in
+pigtails?"
+
+"Of course I remember that. And were you there?"
+
+"Was I there? Oh, the ingratitude of woman! Did not I dance three times
+with each of you, and suggest chicken at supper instead of lobster
+salad? Does not the lobster salad awaken memories? Surely you have not
+forgotten that?"
+
+Ruth began to smile.
+
+"I remember now. So you were the kind man, name unknown, who took such
+care of Anna and me? How good-natured you were!"
+
+"Thanks! You evidently do remember now, if you say that. I recognized
+you at once, when I saw you again, by your likeness to your brother
+Raymond. You were very like him then, but much more so now. How is he?"
+
+Ruth's dark gray eyes shot a sudden surprised glance at him. People had
+seldom of late inquired after Raymond.
+
+"I believe he is quite well," she replied, in a constrained tone. "I
+have not heard from him for some time."
+
+"It is some years since I met him," said Charles, noting but ignoring
+her change of tone. "I used to see a good deal of him before he went
+to--was it America? I heard from him about three years ago. He was
+prospecting, I think, at that time."
+
+Ruth remembered that Charles had succeeded his father about three years
+ago. She remembered also Raymond's capacities for borrowing. A sudden
+instinct told her what the drift of that letter had been. The blood
+rushed into her face.
+
+"Oh, he didn't--did he?"
+
+The other three people were talking together; Lady Mary, opposite, was
+joining with a bland smile of inward satisfaction in the discussion
+between Ralph and Evelyn as to the rival merits of "Cochin Chinas" and
+"Plymouth Rocks."
+
+"If he did," said Charles, quietly, "it was only what we had often done
+for each other before. There was a time, Miss Deyncourt, when your
+brother and I both rowed in the same boat; and both, I fancy, split on
+the same rock. It was not so long since--"
+
+There was a sudden silence. The chicken question was exhausted. It
+dropped dead. Charles left his sentence unfinished, and, turning to his
+brother, the conversation became general.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In the evening, when the others had said good-night, Charles and Ralph
+went out into the cool half-darkness to smoke, and paced up and down on
+the lawn in the soft summer night. The two brothers had not met for some
+time, and in an undemonstrative way they had a genuine affection for
+each other, which showed itself on this occasion in walking about
+together without exchanging a word.
+
+At last Charles broke the silence. "I thought, when I settled to come
+down here, you said you would be alone!" There was a shade of annoyance
+in his tone.
+
+"Well, now, that is just what I said at the time," said Ralph, sleepily,
+with a yawn that would have accommodated a Jonah, "only I was told I did
+not understand. They always say I don't understand if they're set on
+anything. I thought you wanted a little peace and quietness. I said so;
+but Aunt Mary settled we must have some one. I say, Charles," with a
+chuckle of deep masculine cunning, "you just look out. There's some
+mystery up about Ruth. I believe Aunt Mary got Evelyn to ask her here
+with an eye to business."
+
+"I would not do Aunt Mary the injustice to doubt _that_ for a moment,"
+replied Charles, rather bitterly; and they relapsed into silence and
+smoke.
+
+Presently Ralph, who had been out all day, yawned himself into the
+house, and left Charles to pace up and down by himself.
+
+If Lady Mary, who was at that moment composing herself to slumber in the
+best spare bedroom, had heard the gist of Ralph's remarks to his
+brother, I think she would have risen up and confronted him then and
+there on the stairs. As it was, she meditated on her couch with much
+satisfaction, until the sleep of the just came upon her, little recking
+that the clumsy hand of brutal man had even then torn the veil from her
+carefully concealed and deeply laid feminine plans.
+
+Charles, meanwhile, remained on the lawn till late into the night. After
+two months of London smuts and London smoke and London nights, the calm
+scented darkness had a peculiar charm for him. The few lights in the
+windows were going out one by one, and thousands and thousands were
+coming out in the quiet sky. Through the still air came the sound of a
+corn-crake perpetually winding up its watch at regular intervals in a
+field hard by. A little desultory breeze hovered near, and just roused
+the sleepy trees to whisper a good-night. And Charles paced and paced,
+and thought of many things.
+
+Only last night! His mind went back to the picture-gallery where he and
+Lady Grace had sat, amid a grove of palms and flowers. Through the open
+archway at a little distance came a flood of light, and a surging echo
+of plaintive, appealing music. It was late, or rather early, for morning
+was looking in with cold, dispassionate eyes through the long windows.
+The gallery was comparatively empty for a London gathering, for the
+balconies and hall were crowded, and the rooms were thinning. To all
+intents and purposes they were alone. How nearly--how nearly he had
+asked for what he knew would not have been refused! How nearly he had
+decided to do at once what might still be put off till to-morrow! And he
+_must_ marry; he often told himself so. She was there beside him on the
+yellow brocade ottoman. She was much too good for him; but she liked
+him. Should he do it--now? he asked himself, as he watched the slender
+gloved hand swaying the feather fan with monotonous languor.
+
+But when he took her back to the ball-room, back to an expectant, tired
+mother, he had not done it. He should be at their house in Scotland
+later. He thought he would wait till then. He breathed a long sigh of
+relief, in the quiet darkness now, at the thought that he had not done
+it. He had a haunting presentiment that neither in the purple heather,
+any more than in a London ball-room, would he be able to pass beyond
+that "certain point" to which, in divers companionship, with or without
+assistance, he had so often attained.
+
+For Charles was genuinely anxious to marry. He regarded with the
+greatest interest every eligible and ineligible young woman whom he came
+across. If Lady Mary had been aware of the very serious light in which
+he had considered Miss Louisa Smith, youngest daughter of a certain
+curate Smith, who in his youth had been originally extracted from a
+refreshment-room at Liverpool to become an ornament of the Church, that
+lady would have swooned with horror. But neither Miss Louisa Smith, with
+her bun and sandwich ancestry, nor the eighth Lord Breakwater's young
+and lovely sister, though both willing to undertake the situation, were
+either of them finally offered it. Charles remained free as air, and a
+dreadful stigma gradually attached to him as a heartless flirt and a
+perverter of young girls' minds from men of more solid worth. A man who
+pleases easily and is hard to please soon gets a bad name
+among--mothers. I don't think Lady Hope-Acton thought very kindly of
+him, as she sped up to Scotland in the night mail.
+
+Perhaps he was not so much to blame as she thought. Long ago, ten long
+years ago, in the reckless days of which Lady Mary had then made so
+much, and now made so little, poor Charles had been deeply in love with
+a good woman, a gentle, quiet girl, who after a time had married his
+brother Ralph. No one had suspected his attachment--Ralph and Evelyn
+least of all--but several years elapsed before he found time to visit
+them at Atherstone; and I think his fondness for Molly had its origin in
+his feeling for her mother. Even now it sometimes gave him a momentary
+pang to meet the adoration in Molly's eyes which, with their dark
+lashes, she had copied so exactly from Evelyn's.
+
+And now that he could come with ease on what had been forbidden ground,
+he had seen of late clearly, with the insight that comes of
+dispassionate consideration, that Evelyn, the only woman whom he had
+ever earnestly loved, whom he would have turned heaven and earth to have
+been able to marry, had not been in the least suited to him, and that to
+have married her would have entailed a far more bitter disappointment
+than the loss of her had been.
+
+Evelyn made Ralph an admirable wife. She was so placid, so gentle,
+and--with the exception of muddy boots in the drawing-room--so
+unexacting. It was sweet to see her read to Molly; but did she never
+take up a book or a paper? What she said was always gracefully put
+forth; but oh! in old days, used she in that same gentle voice to utter
+such platitudes, such little stereotyped remarks? Used she, in the palmy
+days that were no more (when she was not Ralph's wife), so mildly but so
+firmly to adhere to a pre-conceived opinion? Had she formerly such fixed
+opinions on every subject in general, and on new-laid eggs and the
+propriety of chicken-hutches on the lawn in particular? Disillusion may
+be for our good, like other disagreeable things, but it is seldom
+pleasant at the time, and is apt to leave in all except the most
+conceited natures (whose life-long mistakes are committed for our
+learning) a strange self-distrustful caution behind, which is mortally
+afraid of making a second mistake of the same kind.
+
+Charles suddenly checked his pacing.
+
+And yet surely, surely, he said to himself, there were in the world
+somewhere good women of another stamp, who might be found for diligent
+seeking.
+
+He turned impatiently to go in-doors.
+
+"Oh, Molly! Molly!" he said, half aloud, gazing at the darkened windows
+behind which the body of Molly was sleeping, while her little soul was
+frisking away in fairy-land, "why did you complicate matters by being a
+little girl?" With which reflection he brought his meditations to a
+close for the night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+Molly awoke early on the following morning, and early informed the rest
+of the household that the weather was satisfactory. She flew into Ruth's
+room with the hot water, to wake her and set her mind at rest on a
+subject of such engrossing interest; she imparted it repeatedly to
+Charles through his key-hole, until a low incoherent muttering convinced
+her that he also was rejoicing in the good news. She took all the dolls
+out of the baskets in which Ruth's careful hands had packed them the
+evening before, in the recognized manner in which dolls travel without
+detriment to their toilets, namely, head downward, with their
+orange-top-boots turned upward to the sky. In short, Molly busied
+herself in the usual ways in which an only child finds employment.
+
+It really was a glorious day. Except in Molly's eyes it was almost too
+good a day for a school-feast; too good a day, Ruth thought, as she
+looked out, to be spent entirely in playing at endless games of "Sally
+Water" and "Oranges and Lemons," and in pouring out sweet tea in a tent.
+She remembered a certain sketch at Arleigh, an old deserted house in the
+neighborhood, which she had long wished to make. What a day for a
+sketch! But she shut her eyes to the temptation of the evil one, and
+went out into the garden, where Molly's little brown hands were
+devastating the beds for the approaching festival, and Molly's shrill
+voice was piping through the fresh morning air.
+
+There had been rain in the night, and to-day the earth had all her
+diamonds on, just sent down reset from heaven. The trees came out
+resplendent, unable to keep their leaves still for very vanity, and
+dropping gems out of their settings at every rustle. No one had been
+forgotten. Every tiniest shrub and plant had its little tiara to show;
+rare jewels, cut by a Master Hand, which at man's rude touch, or, for
+that matter, Molly's either, slid away to tears.
+
+"You don't mean to say, Molly," said Charles, later in the day, when all
+the dolls had been passed in review before him, and he had criticised
+each, "that you are going to leave me all day by myself? What shall I do
+between luncheon and tea-time, when I have fed the guinea-pigs and
+watered the 'blue-belia,' as you call it--Where has that imp disappeared
+to now? I think," with a glance at Ruth, who was replacing the cotton
+wool on the doll's faces, "I really think, though I own I fancied I had
+a previous engagement, that I shall be obliged to come to the
+school-feast too."
+
+"Don't," said Ruth, looking up suddenly from her work with gray serious
+eyes. "Be advised. No man who respects himself makes himself common by
+attending village school-feasts and attempting to pour out tea, which he
+is never allowed to do in private life."
+
+"I could hand buns," suggested Charles. "You take a gloomy view of your
+fellow-creatures, Miss Deyncourt. I see you underrate my powers with
+plates of buns."
+
+"Far from it. I only wished to keep you from quitting your proper
+sphere."
+
+"What, may I ask, is my proper sphere?"
+
+"Not to come to school-feasts at all; or, if you feel that is beyond
+you, only to arrive when you are too late to be of any use; to stand
+about with a hunting-crop in your hand--for, of course, you will come on
+horseback--and then, after refreshing all of us workers by a few
+well-chosen remarks, to go away again at an easy canter."
+
+"I think I could do that, if it would give pleasure; and I am most
+grateful to you for pointing out my proper course to me. I have observed
+it is the prerogative of woman in general not only to be absolutely
+convinced as to her own line of action, but also to be able to point out
+that of man to his obtuser perceptions."
+
+"I believe you are perfectly right," said Ruth, becoming serious. "If
+men, especially prime-ministers, were to apply to almost any woman I
+know (except, of course, myself) for advice as to the administration of
+the realm or their own family affairs, I have not the slightest doubt
+that not one of them would be sent empty away, but would be furnished
+instantly with a complete guide-book as to his future movements on this
+side the grave."
+
+"Oh, some people don't stop there," said Charles. "Aunt Mary, in my
+young days, used to think nothing of the grave if I had displeased her.
+She still revels in a future court of justice, and an eternal
+cat-o'-nine tails beyond the tomb. Well, Molly, so here you are, back
+again! What's the last news?"
+
+The news was the extraordinary arrival of five new kittens, which,
+according to Molly, the old stable cat had just discovered in a loft,
+and took the keenest personal interest in. Charles was dragged away,
+only half acquiescent, to help in a decision that must instantly be come
+to, as to which of the two spotted or the three plain ones should be
+kept.
+
+It was a day of delight to Molly. She had the responsibility and honor
+of driving Ruth and the dolls in her own donkey-cart to the scene of
+action, where the school children, and some of the idlest or most
+good-natured of Mrs. Alwynn's friends, were even then assembling, and
+where Mrs. Alwynn herself was already dashing from point to point,
+buzzing like a large "bumble" bee.
+
+As the donkey-cart crawled up a gray figure darted out of the tent, and
+flew to meet them from afar. Dare, who had been on the lookout for them
+for some time, offered to lift out Molly, helped out Ruth, held the
+baskets, wished to unharness the donkey, let the wheel go over his
+patent leather shoe, and in short made himself excessively agreeable, if
+not in Ruth's, at least in Molly's eyes, who straightway entered into
+conversation with him, and invited him to call upon herself and the
+guinea-pigs at Atherstone at an early date.
+
+Then ensued the usual scene at festivities of this description. Tea was
+poured out like water (very like warm water), buns, cakes, and bread and
+butter were eaten, were crumbled, were put in pockets, were stamped
+underfoot. Large open tarts, covered with thin sticks of pastry, called
+by the boys "the tarts with the grubs on 'em," disappeared apace, being
+constantly replaced by others made in the same image, from which the
+protecting but adhesive newspaper had to be judiciously peeled. When the
+last limit of the last child had been reached, the real work of the day
+began--the games. Under a blazing sun, for the space of two hours,
+"Sally Water" or "Nuts in May" must be played, with an occasional change
+to "Oranges and Lemons."
+
+Ruth, who had before been staying with the Alwynns at the time of their
+school-feast, hardened her heart, and began that immoral but popular
+game of "Sally Water."
+
+    "Sally, Sally Water, come sprinkle your pan;
+    Rise up a husband, a handsome young man.
+    Rise, Sally, rise, and don't look sad,
+    You shall have a husband, good or bad."
+
+The last line showing how closely the state of feeling of village
+society, as regards the wedded state, resembles the view taken of it in
+the highest circles.
+
+Other games were already in full swing. Mrs. Alwynn, flushed and shrill,
+was organizing an infant troop. A good-natured curate was laying up for
+himself treasure elsewhere, by a present expenditure of half-pence
+secreted in a tub of bran. Dare, not to be behind-hand, took to swinging
+little girls with desperate and heated good-nature. His bright smile and
+genial brown face soon gained the confidence of the children; and then
+he swung them as they had never been swung before. It was positively the
+first time that some of the girls had ever seen their heels above their
+heads. And his powers of endurance were so great. First his coat and
+then his waistcoat were cast aside as he warmed to his work, until at
+last he dragged the sleeve of his shirt out of the socket, and had to
+retire into private life behind a tree, in company with Mrs. Eccles and
+a needle and thread. But he reappeared again, and was soon swept into a
+game of cricket that was being got up among the elder boys; bowled the
+school-master; batted brilliantly and with considerable flourish for a
+few moments, only to knock his own wickets down with what seemed
+singular want of care; and then fielded with cat-like activity and an
+entire oblivion of the game, receiving a swift ball on his own person,
+only to choke, coil himself up, and recover his equanimity and the ball
+in a moment.
+
+All things come to an end, and at last the Slumberleigh church clock
+struck four, and Ruth could sink giddily onto a bench, and push back
+the few remaining hair-pins that were left to her, and feebly endeavor,
+with a pin eagerly extracted by Dare from the back of his neck, to join
+the gaping ruin of torn gathers in her dress, so daintily fresh two
+hours ago, so dilapidated now.
+
+"There they come!" said Mrs. Alwynn, indignantly, who was fanning
+herself with her pocket-handkerchief, which stout women ought to be
+forbidden by law to do. "There are Mrs. Thursby and Mabel. Just like
+them, arriving when the games are all over! And, dear me! who is that
+with them? Why, it is Sir Charles Danvers. I had no idea he was staying
+with them. Brown particularly told me they had not brought back any
+friend with them yesterday. Dear me! How odd! And Brown--"
+
+"Sir Charles Danvers is staying at Atherstone," said Ruth.
+
+"At Atherstone, is he? Well, my dear, this is the first I have heard of
+it, if he is. I don't see what there is to make a secret of in _that_.
+Most natural he should be staying there, I should have thought. And, if
+that's one of Mabel's new gowns, all I can say is that yours is quite as
+nice, Ruth, though I know it is from last year, and those full fronts as
+fashionable as ever."
+
+As Mr. and Mrs. Alwynn went forward to meet the Thursbys, Charles
+strolled up to Ruth, and planted himself deliberately in front of her.
+
+"You observe that I am here?" he said.
+
+"I do."
+
+"At the proper time?"
+
+"At the proper time."
+
+"And in my sphere? I have tampered with no buns, you will remark, and
+teapots have been far from me."
+
+"I am exceedingly rejoiced my little word in season has been of such
+use."
+
+"It has, Miss Deyncourt. The remark you made this morning I considered
+honest, though poor, and I laid it to heart accordingly. But," with a
+change of tone, "you look tired to death. You have been out in the sun
+too long. I am going off now. I only came because I met the Thursbys,
+and they dragged me here. Come home with me through the woods. You have
+no idea how agreeable I am in the open air. It will be shady all the
+way, and not half so fatiguing as being shaken in Molly's donkey-cart."
+
+"In the donkey-cart I must return, however, if I die on the way," said
+Ruth, with a tired smile. "I can't leave Molly. Besides, all is not
+over yet. The races and prizes take time; and when at last they are
+dismissed, a slice of--"
+
+"No, Miss Deyncourt, _no_! Not more food!"
+
+"A slice of cake will be applied _externally_ to each of the children,
+which rite brings the festivities to a close. There! I see the dolls are
+being carried out. I must go;" and a moment later Ruth and Molly and
+Dare, who had been hovering near, were busily unpacking and shaking out
+the dolls; and Charles, after a little desultory conversation with Mabel
+Thursby, strolled away, with his hands behind his back and his nose in
+the air in the manner habitual to him.
+
+And so the day wore itself out at last; and after a hymn had been
+shrieked the children were dismissed, and Ruth and Molly at length drove
+away.
+
+"Hasn't it been delicious?" said Molly. "And my doll was chosen first.
+Lucy Bigg, with the rash on her face, got it. I wish little Sarah had
+had it. I do love Sarah so very much; but Sarah had yours, Ruth, with
+the real pocket and the handkerchief in it. That will be a surprise for
+her when she gets home. And that new gentleman was so kind about the
+teapots, wasn't he? He always filled mine first. He's coming to see me
+very soon, and to bring a curious black dog that he has of his very own,
+called--"
+
+"Stop, Molly," said Ruth, as the donkey's head was being sawed round
+towards the blazing high-road; "let us go home through the woods. I know
+it is longer, but I can't stand any more sun and dust to-day."
+
+"You do look tired," said Molly, "and your lips are quite white. My lips
+turned white once, before I had the measles, and I felt very curious
+inside, and then spots came all over. You don't feel like spots, do you,
+Cousin Ruth? We will go back by the woods, and I'll open the gates, and
+you shall hold the reins. I dare say Balaam will like it better too."
+
+Molly had called her donkey Balaam, partly owing to a misapprehension of
+Scripture narrative, and partly owing to the assurance of Charles, when
+in sudden misgiving she had consulted him on the point, that Balaam
+_had_ been an ass.
+
+Balaam's reluctant underjaw was accordingly turned in the direction of
+the woods, and, little thinking the drive might prove an eventful one,
+Ruth and Molly set off at that easy amble which a well-fed pampered
+donkey will occasionally indulge in.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+After the glare and the noise, the shrill blasts of penny trumpets, and
+the sustained beating of penny drums, the silence of the Slumberleigh
+woods was delightful to Ruth; the comparative silence, that is to say,
+for where Molly was, absolute silence need never be feared.
+
+Long before the first gate had been reached Balaam had, of course,
+returned to the mode of procedure which suited him and his race best,
+and it was only when the road inclined to be downhill that he could be
+urged into anything like a trot.
+
+"Never mind," said Molly, consolingly to Ruth, as he finally settled
+into a slow lounge, gracefully waving his ears and tail at the army of
+flies which accompanied him, "when we get to the place where the firs
+are, and the road goes between the rocks, it's downhill all the way, and
+we'll gallop down."
+
+But it was a long way to the firs, and Ruth was in no hurry. It was an
+ideal afternoon, verging towards evening; an afternoon of golden lights
+and broken shadows, of vivid greens in shady places. It must have been
+on such a day as this, Ruth thought, that the Almighty walked in the
+garden of Eden when the sun was low, while as yet the tree of knowledge
+was but in blossom, while as yet autumn and its apples were far off,
+long before fig-leaves and millinery were thought of.
+
+On either side the bracken and the lady-fern grew thick and high, almost
+overlapping the broad moss-grown path, across which the young rabbits
+popped away in their new brown coats, showing their little white linings
+in their lazy haste. A dog-rose had hung out a whole constellation of
+pale stars for Molly to catch at as they passed. A family of
+honeysuckles clung, faint and sweet, just beyond the reach of the little
+hand that stretched after them in turn.
+
+They had reached the top of an ascent that would have been level to
+anything but the mean spirit of a donkey, when Molly gave a start.
+
+"Cousin Ruth, there's something creeping among the trees--don't you hear
+it? Oh-h-h!"
+
+There really was a movement in the bracken, which grew too thick and
+high to allow of anything being easily seen at a little distance.
+
+"If it's a lion," said Molly, in a faint whisper, "and I feel in my
+heart it is, he must have Balaam."
+
+Balaam at this moment pricked his large ears, and Molly and Ruth both
+heard the snapping of a twig, and saw a figure slip behind a tree.
+Molly's spirits rose, and Ruth's went down in proportion. The woods were
+lonely, and they were nearing the most lonely part.
+
+"It's only a man," said Ruth, rather sharply. "I expect it is one of the
+keepers." (Oh, Ruth!) "Come, Molly, we shall never get home at this
+rate. Whip up Balaam, and let us trot down the hill."
+
+Much relieved about Balaam's immediate future, Molly incited him to a
+really noble trot, and did not allow him to relapse even on the flat
+which followed. Through the rattling and the jolting, however, Ruth
+could still hear a stealthy rustle in the fern and under-wood. The man
+was following them.
+
+"He's coming after us," whispered Molly, with round frightened eyes,
+"and Balaam will stop in a minute, I know. Oh, Cousin Ruth, what shall
+we do?"
+
+Ruth hesitated. They were nearing the steep pitch, where the firs
+overhung the road, which was cut out between huge bowlders of rock and
+sandstone. The ground rose rough and precipitous on their right, and
+fell away to their left. Just over the brow of the hill, out of sight,
+was, as she well knew, the second gate. The noise in the brushwood had
+ceased. Turning suddenly, her quick eye just caught sight of a figure
+disappearing behind the slope of the falling ground to the left. He was
+a lame man, and he was running. In a moment she saw that he was making a
+short cut, with the intention of waylaying them at the gate. He would
+get there long before they would; and even then Balaam was beginning the
+ascent, which really was an ascent this time, at his slowest walk.
+
+Molly's teeth were chattering in her little head.
+
+"Now, Molly," said Ruth, sharply, "listen to me, and don't be a baby.
+He'll wait for us at the gate, so he can't see us here. Get out this
+moment, and we will both run up the hill to the keeper's cottage at the
+top of the bank. We shall get there first, because he is lame."
+
+They had passed the bracken now, and were among the moss and sandstone
+beneath the firs. Ruth hastily dragged Molly out of the cart without
+stopping Balaam, who proceeded, twirling his ears, leisurely without
+them.
+
+"Oh, my poor Balaam!" sobbed Molly, with a backward glance at that
+unconscious favorite marching towards its doom.
+
+"There is no time to think of poor Balaam now," replied Ruth. "Run on in
+front of me, and don't step on anything crackly."
+
+"Never in this world," thought Ruth, "will I come alone here with Molly
+again. Never again will I--"
+
+But it was stiff climbing, and the remainder of the resolution was lost.
+
+They are high to the right above the white gate now. The keeper's
+cottage is in sight, built against a ledge of rock, up to which wide
+rough steps have been cut in the sandstone. Ruth looks down at the gate
+below. He is waiting--the dreadful man is waiting there, as she
+expected; and Balaam, toying with a fern, is at that moment coming round
+the corner. She sees that he takes in the situation instantly. There is
+but one way in which they can have fled, and he knows it. In a moment he
+comes halting and pounding up the slope. He sees their white dresses
+among the firs. Run, Molly! run, Ruth! Spare no expense. If your new
+black sash catches in the briers, let it catch; heed it not, for he is
+making wonderful play with that lame leg up the hill. It is an even
+race. Now for the stone steps! How many more there are than there ever
+were before! Quick through the wicket, and up through the little
+kitchen-garden. Molly is at the door first, beating upon it, and calling
+wildly on the name of Brown.
+
+And then Ruth's heart turns sick within her. The door is locked. Through
+the window, which usually blossoms with geraniums, she can see the black
+fireplace and the bare walls. No Brown within answers to Molly's cries.
+Brown has been turned away for drinking. Mrs. Brown, who hung a slender
+"wash" on the hedge only last week, has departed with her lord. Brown's
+cottage is tenantless. The pursuer must have known it when he breasted
+the hill. A mixed sound, as of swearing and stumbling, comes from the
+direction of the stone steps. The pursuer is evidently intoxicated,
+probably lunatic!
+
+"Quick, Molly!" gasps Ruth, "round by the back, and then cut down
+towards the young plantation, and make for the road again. Don't stop
+for me."
+
+The little yard, the pigsty, the water-butt, fly past. Past fly the
+empty kennels. Past does _not_ fly the other gate. Locked; padlocked!
+It is like a bad dream. Molly, with a windmill-like exhibition of black
+legs, gives Ruth a lead over. Now for it, Ruth! The bars are close
+together and the gate is high. It is not a time to stick at trifles.
+What does it matter if you can get over best by assuming a masculine
+equestrian attitude for a moment on the top bar? There! And now, down
+the hill again, away to your left. Take to your heels, and be thankful
+they are not high ones. Never mind if your hair is coming down. You have
+a thousand good qualities, Ruth, high principles and a tender
+conscience, but you are not a swift runner, and you have not played
+"Sally Water" all day for nothing. Molly is far in front now. A heavy
+trampling is not far behind; nay, it is closer than you thought. And
+your eyes are becoming misty, Ruth, and armies of drums are beating
+every other sound out of your ears--that shouting behind you, for
+instance. The intoxicated, murderous lunatic is close behind. One
+minute! Two minutes! How many more seconds can you keep it up? Through
+the young plantation, down the hill, into the sandy road again, the
+sandy, uphill road. How much longer can you keep it up?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Charles strolled quietly homeward, enjoying the beauties of nature, and
+reflecting on the quantity of rabbit-shooting that Mr. Thursby must
+enjoy. He may also have mused on Lady Grace, for anything that can be
+known to the contrary, and have possibly made a mental note that if it
+had been she whom he had asked to walk home with him, instead of Ruth,
+he would not have been alone at that moment. Be that how it may, he
+leisurely pursued his path until a fallen tree beside the bank looked so
+inviting that (Evelyn and Ralph having gone out to friends at a
+distance) Charles, who was in no hurry to return to Lady Mary, seated
+himself thereon, with a cigarette to bear him company.
+
+To him, with rent garments and dust upon her head, and indeed all over
+her, suddenly appeared Molly; Molly, white with panic, breathless,
+unable to articulate, pointing in the direction from which she had come.
+In a moment Charles was tearing down the road at full speed. A tall,
+swaying figure almost ran against him at the first turn, and Ruth only
+avoided him to collapse suddenly in the dry ditch, her face in the bank,
+and a yard of sash biting the dust along the road behind her.
+
+Her pursuer stopped short. Charles made a step towards him and stopped
+short also. The two men stood and looked at each other without
+speaking.
+
+When Ruth found herself in a position to make observations she
+discovered that she was sitting by the road-side, with her head resting
+against--was it a tweed arm or the bank? She moved a little, and found
+that first impressions are apt to prove misleading. It was the bank. She
+opened her eyes to see a brown, red-lined hat on the ground beside her,
+half full of water, through which she could dimly discern the golden
+submerged name of the maker. She seemed to have been contemplating it
+with vague interest for about an hour, when she became aware that some
+one was dabbing her forehead with a wet silk handkerchief.
+
+"Better?" asked Charles's voice.
+
+"Oh!" gasped Ruth, suddenly trying to sit up, but finding the attempt
+resulted only in the partial movement of a finger somewhere in the
+distance. "Have I really--surely, surely, I was not so abject as to
+_faint_?"
+
+"Truth," said Charles, with a reassured look in his quick, anxious eyes,
+"obliges me to say you did."
+
+"I thought better of myself than that."
+
+"Pride goes before a fall or a faint."
+
+"Oh, dear!" turning paler than ever. "Where is Molly?"
+
+"She is all right," said Charles, hastily, applying the
+pocket-handkerchief again. "Don't alarm yourself, and pray don't try to
+get up. You can see just as much of the view sitting down. Molly has
+gone for the donkey-cart."
+
+"And that dreadful man?"
+
+"That dreadful man has also departed. By-the-way, did you see his face?
+Would you know him again if the policeman succeeds in finding him?"
+
+"No; I never looked round. I only saw, when he began to run to cut us
+off at the gate, that he was lame."
+
+"H'm!" said Charles, reflectively. Then more briskly, with a new access
+of dabbing, "How is the faintness going on?"
+
+"Capitally," replied Ruth, with a faint, amused smile; "but if it does
+not seem ungrateful, I should be very thankful if I might be spared the
+rest of the water in the hat, or if it might be poured over me at once,
+if you don't wish it to be wasted."
+
+"Have I done too much? I imagined my services were invaluable. Let me
+help you to find your own handkerchief, if you would like a dry one for
+a change. Ah, what a good shot into that labyrinth of drapery! You have
+found it for yourself. You are certainly better."
+
+"But my self-respect," replied Ruth, drying her face, "is gone forever!"
+
+"I lost mine years ago," said Charles, carefully dusting Ruth's hat,
+"but I got over it. I had no idea those bows were supported by a wire
+inside. One lives and learns."
+
+"I never did such a thing before," continued Ruth, ruefully. "I have
+always felt a sort of contempt for girls who scream or faint just when
+they ought not."
+
+"For my part, I am glad to perceive you have some little feminine
+weakness. Your growing solicitude also as to the state of your back hair
+is pleasing in the extreme."
+
+"I am too confused and shaken to retaliate just now. You are quite right
+to make hay while the sun shines; but, when I am myself again, beware!"
+
+"And your gown," continued Charles. "What yawning gulfs, what chasms
+appear! and what a quantity of extraneous matter you have brought away
+with you--reminiscences of travel--burrs, very perfect specimens of
+burrs, thistledown, chips of fir, several complete spiders' webs; and
+your sash, which seems to have a particularly adhesive fringe, is a
+museum in itself. Ah, here comes that coward of little cowards, Molly,
+with Balaam and the donkey-cart!"
+
+Molly, who had left Ruth for dead, greeted her cousin with a transport
+of affection, and then proceeded to recount the fearful risks that
+Balaam had encountered by being deserted, and the stoic calm with which
+he had waited for them at the gate.
+
+"He's not a common donkey," she said, with pride. "Get in, Ruth. Are you
+coming in, Uncle Charles? There's just room for you to squeeze in
+between Ruth and me--isn't there, Ruth? Oh, you're not going to walk
+beside, are you?"
+
+But Charles was determined not to let them out of his sight again, and
+he walked beside them the remainder of the way to Atherstone. He
+remained silent and preoccupied during the evening which followed, pored
+over a newspaper, and went off to his room early, leaving Ralph dozing
+in the smoking-room.
+
+It was a fine moonlight night, still and clear. He stood at the open
+window looking out for a few minutes, and then began fumbling in a
+dilapidated old travelling-bag such as only rich men use.
+
+"Not much," he said to himself, spreading out a few sovereigns and some
+silver on the table, "but it will do."
+
+He put the money in his pocket, took off his gold hunting watch, and
+then went back to the smoking-room.
+
+"I am going out again, Ralph, as I did last night. If I come in late,
+you need not take me for a burglar."
+
+Ralph murmured something unintelligible, and Charles ran down-stairs,
+and let himself out of the drawing-room French window, that long French
+window to the ground, which Evelyn had taken a fancy to in a neighbor's
+drawing-room, and which she could never be made to see was not in
+keeping with the character of her old black-and-white house. He put the
+shutter back after he had passed through, and carefully drawing the
+window to behind him, without actually closing it, he took a turn or two
+upon the bowling-green, and then walked off in the direction of the
+Slumberleigh woods.
+
+After the lapse of an hour or more he returned as quietly as he had
+gone, let himself in, made all secure, and stole up to his room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+Vandon was considered by many people to be the most beautiful house in
+----shire.
+
+In these days of great brand-new imitation of intensely old houses,
+where the amount of ground covered measures the purse of the builder, it
+is pleasant to come upon a place like Vandon, a quiet old manor-house,
+neither large nor small, built of ancient bricks, blent to a dim purple
+and a dim red by that subtle craftsman Time.
+
+Whoever in the years that were no more had chosen the place whereon to
+build had chosen well. Vandon stood on the slope of a gentle hill,
+looking across a sweep of green valley to the rising woods beyond, which
+in days gone by had been a Roman camp, and where the curious might still
+trace the wide ledges cut among the regular lines of the trees.
+
+Some careful hand had planned the hanging gardens in front of the house,
+which fell away to the stream below. Flights of wide stone steps led
+down from terrace to terrace, each built up by its south wall covered
+with a wealth of jasmine and ivy and climbing roses. But all was wild
+and deserted now. Weeds had started up between the stone slabs of the
+steps, and the roses blossomed out sweet and profuse, for it was the
+time of roses, amid convolvulus and campion. The quaint old dove-cot
+near the house had almost disappeared behind the trees that had crowded
+up round it, and held aloft its weathercock in silent protest at their
+encroachment. The stables close at hand, with their worn-out clock and
+silent bell, were tenantless. The coach-houses were full of useless old
+chariots and carriages. Into one splendid court coach the pigeons had
+found their way through an open window, and had made nests, somewhat to
+the detriment of the green-and-white satin fittings.
+
+Great cedars, bent beneath the weight of years, grew round the house.
+The patriarch among them had let fall one of his gnarled supplicating
+arms in the winter, and there it still lay where it had fallen.
+
+Anything more out of keeping with the dignified old place than its owner
+could hardly be imagined, as he stood in his eternal light gray suit
+(with a badge of affliction lightly borne on his left arm), looking at
+his heritage, with his cropped head a little on one side.
+
+The sun was shining, but, like a smile on a serious face, Vandon caught
+the light on all its shuttered windows, and remained grave, looking out
+across its terraces to the forest.
+
+"If it were but a villa on the Mediterranean, or a house in London," he
+said to himself; "but I have no chance." And he shrugged his shoulders,
+and wandered back into the house again. But, if the outside oppressed
+him, the interior was not calculated to raise his spirits.
+
+Dare had an elegant taste, which he had never hitherto been able to
+gratify, for blue satin furniture and gilding; for large mirrors and
+painted ceilings of lovers and cupids, and similar small deer. The old
+square hall at Vandon, with its great stained glass windows,
+representing the various quarterings of the Dare arms, about which he
+knew nothing and cared less, oppressed him. So did the black polished
+oak floor, and the walls with their white bass-reliefs of twisting
+wreaths and scrolls, with busts at intervals of Cicero and Dante, and
+other severe and melancholy personages. The rapiers upon the high white
+chimney-piece were more to his taste. He had taken them down the first
+day after his arrival, and had stamped and cut and thrust in the most
+approved style, in the presence of Faust, the black poodle.
+
+Dare was not the kind of man to be touched by it; but to many minds
+there would have been something pathetic in seeing a house, which had
+evidently been an object of the tender love and care of a by-gone
+generation, going to rack and ruin from neglect. Careful hands had
+embroidered, in the fine exquisite work of former days, marvellous
+coverlets and hangings, which still adorned the long suites of empty
+bedrooms. Some one had taken an elaborate pleasure in fitting up those
+rooms, had put _pot-pourri_ in tall Oriental jars in the passages, had
+covered the old inlaid Dutch chairs with dim needle-work.
+
+The Dare who had lived at court, whose chariot was now the refuge of
+pigeons, whose court suits, with the tissue paper still in the sleeves,
+yet remained in one of the old oak chests, and whose jewelled swords
+still hung in the hall, had filled one of the rooms with engravings of
+the royal family and ministers of his day. The Dare who had been an
+admiral had left his miniature surrounded by prints of the naval
+engagements he had taken part in, and on the oak staircase a tattered
+flag still hung, a trophy of unremembered victory.
+
+But they were past and forgotten. The hands which had arranged their
+memorials with such pride and love had long since gone down to idleness,
+and forgetfulness also. Who cared for the family legends now? They, too,
+had gone down into silence. There was no one to tell Dare that the old
+blue enamel bowl in the hall, in which he gave Faust refreshment, had
+been brought back from the loot of the Winter Palace of Pekin; or that
+the drawer in the Reisener table in the drawing-room was full of
+treasured medals and miniatures, and that the key thereof was rusting in
+a silver patch-box on the writing-table.
+
+The iron-clamped boxes in the lumber-room kept the history to themselves
+of all the silver plate that had lived in them once upon a time,
+although the few odd pieces remaining hinted at the splendor of what had
+been. In one corner of the dining-room the mahogany tomb still stood of
+a great gold racing cup, under the portrait of the horse that had won
+it; but the cup had followed the silver dinner service, had followed the
+diamonds, had followed in the wake of a handsome fortune, leaving the
+after generations impoverished. If their money is taken from them, some
+families are left poor indeed, and to this class the Dares belonged. It
+is curious to notice the occasional real equality underlying the
+apparent inequality of different conditions of life. The unconscious
+poverty, and even bankruptcy, of some rich people in every kind of
+wealth except money affords an interesting study; and it seems doubly
+hard when those who have nothing to live upon, and be loved and
+respected for, except their money, have even that taken from them. As
+Dare wandered through the deserted rooms the want of money of his
+predecessors, and consequently of himself, was borne in upon him. It
+fell like a shadow across his light pleasure-loving soul. He had
+expected so much from this unlooked-for inheritance, and all he had
+found was a melancholy house with a past.
+
+He went aimlessly through the hall into the library. It was there that
+his uncle had lived; there that he had been found when death came to
+look for him; among the books which he had been unable to carry away
+with him at his departure; rare old tomes and first editions, long
+shelves of dead authors, who, it is to be hoped, continue to write in
+other worlds for those who read their lives away in this. Old Mr. Dare's
+interests and affections had all been bound in morocco and vellum. A
+volume lay open on the table, where the old man had put it down beside
+the leather arm-chair where he had sat, with his back to the light,
+summer and winter, winter and summer, for so many years.
+
+No one had moved it since. A wavering pencil-mark had scored the page
+here and there. Dare shut it up, and replaced it among its brethren. How
+_triste_ and silent the house seemed! He wondered what the old uncle had
+been like, and sauntered into the staircase hall, much in need of
+varnish, where the Dares that had gone before him lived. But these were
+too ancient to have his predecessor among them. He went into the long
+oak-panelled dining-room, where above the high carved dado were more
+Dares. Perhaps that man with the book was his namesake, the departed
+Alfred Dare. He wondered vaguely how he should look when he also took
+his place among his relations. Nature had favored him with a better
+mustache than most men, but he had a premonitory feeling that the very
+mustache itself, though undeniable in real life, would look out of
+keeping among these bluff, frank, light-haired people, of whom it seemed
+he--he who had never been near them before--was the living
+representative.
+
+A sudden access of pleasurable dignity came over him as he sat on the
+dining-table, the great mahogany dining-table, which still showed
+vestiges of a by-gone polish, and was heavily dented by long years of
+hammered applause. These ancestors of his! He would not disgrace them. A
+few minutes ago he had been wondering whether Vandon might not be let.
+Now, with one of the rapid transitions habitual to him, he resolved that
+he would live at Vandon, that in all things he would be as they had
+been. He would become that vague, indefinable, to him mythical
+personage--a "country squire." Fortunately, he had a neat leg for a
+stocking. It was lost, so to speak, in his present mode of dress; but he
+felt that it would appear to advantage in the perpetual knickerbockers
+which he supposed it would be his lot to wear. It would also become his
+duty and his pleasure to marry. For those who tread in safety the
+slippery heights of married life he felt a true esteem. It would be a
+strain, no doubt, a great effort; but at this moment he was capable of
+anything. The finger of duty was plain. And with that adorable Miss
+Ruth, with or without a fortune--Alas! he trusted she had a fortune,
+for, as he came to think thereon, he remembered that he was desperately
+poor. As far as he could make out from his agent, a grim, silent man,
+who had taken an evident dislike to him from the first, there was no
+money anywhere. The rents would come in at Michaelmas; but the interest
+of heavy mortgages had to be paid, the estate had to be kept up. There
+was succession duty; there were debts--long outstanding debts--which
+came pouring in now, which Waters spread before him with an iron smile,
+and which poor Dare contemplated with his head on one side, and solemn,
+arched eyebrows. When Dare was not smiling he was always preternaturally
+solemn. There was no happy medium in his face, or consequently in his
+mind, which was generally gay, but, if not, was involved in a tragic
+gloom.
+
+"These bills, my friend," he would say at last, tapping them in deep
+dejection, and raising his eyebrows into his hair, "how do we pay them?"
+
+But Waters did not know. How should he, Waters, know? Waters only knew
+that the farmers would want a reduction in these bad times--Mr. Dare
+might be sure of _that_. And what with arrears, and one thing and
+another, he need not expect more than two-thirds of his rents when they
+did arrive. Mr. Dare might lay his account for _that_.
+
+The only money which Dare received to carry on with, on his accession to
+the great honor and dignity of proprietor of Vandon, was brought to him
+by the old dairywoman of the house, a faithful creature, who produced
+out of an old stocking the actual coins which she had received for the
+butter and cheese she had sold, of which she showed Dare an account,
+chalked up in some dead language on the dairy door.
+
+She was a little doubled-up woman, who had served the family all her
+life. Dare's ready smile and handsome face had won her heart before he
+had been many days at Vandon, in spite of "his foreign ways," and he
+found himself constantly meeting her unexpectedly round corners, where
+she had been lying in wait for him, each time with a secret revelation
+to whisper respecting what she called the "goin's on."
+
+"You'll not tell on me, sir, but it's only right you should know as Mrs.
+Smith" (the house-keeper, of whom Dare stood in mortal terror) "has them
+fine damask table-cloths out for the house-keeper's room; I see 'em
+myself; and everything going to rag and ruin in the linen closet!" Or,
+"Joseph has took in another flitch this very day, sir, as Mrs. Smith
+sent for, and the old flitch all cut to waste. Do'e go and look at the
+flitches, sir, and the hams. They're in the room over the stables. And
+it's always butter, butter, butter, in the kitchen! Not a bit o'
+dripping used! There's not a pot of dripping in the larder, or so much
+as a skin of lard. Where does it all go to? You ask Mrs. Smith; and how
+she sleeps in her bed at night I don't know!"
+
+Dare listened, nodded, made his escape, and did nothing. In the village
+it was as bad. Time, which had dealt so kindly with Vandon itself, had
+taken the straggling village in hand too. Nothing could be more
+picturesque than the crazy black-and-white houses, with lichen on their
+broken-in thatch, and the plaster peeling off from between the irregular
+beams of black wood; nothing more picturesque--and nothing more
+miserable.
+
+When Time puts in his burnt umbers and brown madders with a lavish hand,
+and introduces his beautiful irregularities of outline, and his artistic
+disrepair, he does not look to the drainage, and takes no thought for
+holes in the roof.
+
+Dare could not go out without eager women sallying out of cottages as he
+passed, begging him just to come in and walk up-stairs. They would say
+no more--but would the new squire walk up-stairs? And Dare would stumble
+up and see enough to promise. Alas! how much he promised in those early
+days. And in the gloaming, heavy dull-eyed men met him in the lanes
+coming back from their work, and followed him to "beg pardon, sir," and
+lay before the new squire things that would never reach him through
+Waters--bitter things, small injustices, too trivial to seem worthy of
+mention, which serve to widen the gulf between class and class. They
+looked to Dare to help them, to make the crooked straight, to begin a
+new regime. They looked to the new king to administer his little realm;
+the new king, who, alas! cared for none of these things. And Dare
+promised that he would do what he could, and looked anxious and
+interested, and held out his brown hand, and raised hopes. But he had no
+money--no money.
+
+He spoke to Waters at first; but he soon found that it was no good. The
+houses were bad? Of course they were bad. Cottage property did not pay;
+and would Mr. Dare kindly tell him where the money for repairing them
+was to come from? Perhaps Mr. Dare might like to put a little of his
+private fortune into the cottages and the drains and the new pumps? Dare
+winced. His fortune had not gone the time-honored way of the fortunes of
+spirited young men of narrow means with souls above a sordid economy,
+but still it had gone all the same, and in a manner he did not care to
+think of.
+
+It was after one of these depressing interviews with Waters that Ralph
+and Evelyn found the new owner of Vandon, when they rode over together
+to call, a day or two after the school-feast. Poor Dare was sitting on
+the low ivy-covered wall of the topmost terrace, a prey to the deepest
+dejection. If he had lived in Spartan days, when it was possible to
+conceal gnawing foxes under wearing apparel, he would have made no use
+of the advantages of Grecian dress for such a purpose. Captivated by
+Evelyn's gentleness and sympathetic manner (strangers always thought
+Evelyn sympathetic), and impressed by Ralph's kindly, honest face, he
+soon found himself telling them something of his difficulties, of the
+maze in which he found himself, of the snubs which Waters had
+administered.
+
+Ralph slapped himself with his whip, whistled, and gave other masculine
+signs of interest and sympathy. Evelyn looked from one to the other,
+amiably distressed in her well-fitting habit. After a long conversation,
+in which Evelyn disclosed that Ralph was possessed of the most
+extraordinary knowledge and experience in such matters, the two
+good-natured young people, seeing he was depressed and lonely, begged
+him to come and stay with them at Atherstone the very next day, when he
+might discuss his affairs with Ralph, if so disposed, and take counsel
+with him. Dare accepted with the most genuine pleasure, and his speaking
+countenance was in a moment radiant with smiles. Was not the little
+Molly of the school-feast their child? and was not Miss Deyncourt
+likewise staying with them?
+
+When his visitors departed, Dare took a turn at the rapiers; then opened
+the piano with the internal derangement, and sang to his own
+accompaniment a series of little confidential French songs, which would
+have made the hair of his ancestors stand on end, if painted hair could
+do such a thing. And the "new squire," as he was already called,
+shrugged his shoulders, and lowered his voice, and spread out his
+expressive rapid hands, and introduced to Vandon, one after another,
+some of those choice little ditties, French and English, which had made
+him such a favorite companion in Paris, so popular in a certain society
+in America.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+"Sir Charles!"
+
+"Miss Deyncourt!"
+
+"I fear," with a glance at the yellow-back in his hand, "I am
+interrupting a studious hour, but--"
+
+"Not in the least, I assure you," said Charles, shutting his novel.
+"What is regarded as study by the feminine intellect is to the masculine
+merely relaxation. I was 'unbending over a book,' that was all."
+
+The process of "unbending" was being performed in the summer-house,
+whither he had retired after Evelyn and Ralph had started on their
+afternoon's ride to Vandon, in which he had refused to join.
+
+"I thought I should find you here," continued Ruth, frankly. "I have
+been wishing to speak to you for several days, but you are as a rule so
+surrounded and encompassed on every side by Molly that I have not had an
+opportunity."
+
+It had occurred to Charles once or twice during the last few days that
+Molly was occasionally rather in the way. Now he was sure of it. As Ruth
+appeared to hesitate, he pulled forward a rustic contorted chair for
+her.
+
+"No, thanks," she said. "I shall not long interrupt the unbending
+process. I only came to ask--"
+
+"To ask!" repeated Charles, who had got up as she was standing, and came
+and stood near her.
+
+"You remember the first evening you were here?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"And what we spoke of at dinner?"
+
+"Perfectly."
+
+"I came to ask you how much you lent Raymond?" Ruth's clear, earnest
+eyes were fixed full upon him.
+
+At this moment Charles perceived Lady Mary at a little distance,
+propelling herself gently over the grass in the direction of the
+summer-house. In another second she had perceived Charles and Ruth, and
+had turned precipitately, and hobbled away round the corner with
+surprising agility.
+
+"Confound her!" inwardly ejaculated Charles.
+
+"I wish to know how much you lent him," said Ruth again, as he did not
+answer, happily unconscious of what had been going on behind her back.
+
+"Only what I was well able to afford."
+
+"And has he paid it back since?"
+
+"I am sure he understood I should not expect him to pay it back at
+once."
+
+"But he has had it three years."
+
+Charles did not answer.
+
+"I feel sure he is not able to pay it. Will you kindly tell me how much
+it was?"
+
+"No, Miss Deyncourt; I think not."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because--excuse me, but I perceive that if I do you will instantly wish
+to pay it."
+
+"I do wish to pay it."
+
+"I thought so."
+
+There was a short silence.
+
+"I still wish it," said Ruth at last.
+
+Charles was silent. Her pertinacity annoyed and yet piqued him. Being
+unmarried, he was not accustomed to opposition from a woman. He had no
+intention of allowing her to pay her brother's debt, and he wished she
+would drop the subject gracefully, now that he had made that fact
+evident.
+
+"Perhaps you don't know," continued Ruth, "that I am very well off." (As
+if he did not know it! As if Lady Mary had not casually mentioned Ruth's
+fortune several times in his hearing!) "Lady Deyncourt left me twelve
+hundred a year, and I have a little of my own besides. You may not be
+aware that I have fourteen hundred and sixty-two pounds per annum."
+
+"I am very glad to hear it."
+
+"That is a large sum, you will observe."
+
+"It is riches," assented Charles, "if your expenditure happens to be
+less."
+
+"It does happen to be considerably less in my case."
+
+"You are to be congratulated. And yet I have always understood that
+society exacts great sacrifices from women in the sums they feel obliged
+to devote to dress."
+
+"Dress is an interesting subject, and I should be delighted to hear your
+views on it another time; but we are talking of something else just at
+this moment."
+
+"I beg your pardon," said Charles, quickly, who did not quite like being
+brought back to the case in point. "I--the truth was, I wished to turn
+your mind from what we were speaking of. I don't want you to count
+sovereigns into my hand. I really should dislike it very much."
+
+"You intend me to think from that remark that it was a small sum," said
+Ruth, with unexpected shrewdness. "I now feel sure it was a large one.
+It ought to be paid, and there is no one to do it but me. I know that
+what is firmness in a man is obstinacy in a woman, so do not on your
+side be too firm, or, who knows? you may arouse some of that obstinacy
+in me to which I should like to think myself superior."
+
+"If," said Charles, with sudden eagerness, as if an idea had just struck
+him, "if I let you pay me this debt, will you on your side allow me to
+make a condition?"
+
+"I should like to know the condition first."
+
+"Of course. If I agree,"--Charles's light gray eyes had become keen and
+intent--"if I agree to receive payment of what I lent Deyncourt three
+years ago, will you promise not to pay any other debt of his, or ever to
+lend him money without the knowledge and approval of your relations?"
+
+Ruth considered for a few minutes.
+
+"I have so few relations," she said at length, with rather a sad smile,
+"and they are all prejudiced against poor Raymond. I think I am the only
+friend he has left in the world. I am afraid I could not promise that."
+
+"Well," said Charles, eagerly, "I won't insist on relations. I know
+enough of those thorns in the flesh myself. I will say instead, 'natural
+advisers.' Come, Miss Deyncourt, you can't accuse me of firmness now!"
+
+"My natural advisers," repeated Ruth, slowly. "I feel as if I ought to
+have natural advisers somewhere; but who are they? Where are they? I
+could not ask my sister or her husband for advice. I mean, I could not
+take it if I did. I should think I knew better myself. Uncle John?
+Evelyn? Lord Polesworth? Sir Charles, I am afraid the truth is I have
+never asked for advice in my life. I have always tried to do what seemed
+best, without troubling to know what other people thought about it. But
+as I am anxious to yield gracefully, will you substitute the word
+'friends' for 'natural advisers'? I hope and think I have friends whom I
+could trust."
+
+"Friends, then, let it be," said Charles. "Now," holding out his hand,
+"do you promise never, et cetera, et cetera, without first consulting
+your _friends_?"
+
+Ruth put her hand into his.
+
+"I do."
+
+"That is right. How amiable we are both becoming! I suppose I must now
+inform you that two hundred pounds is the exact sum I lent your
+brother."
+
+Ruth went back to the house, and in a few minutes returned with a check
+in her hand. She held it towards Charles, who took it, and put it in his
+pocket-book.
+
+"Thank you," she said, with gratitude in her eyes and voice.
+
+"We have had a pitched battle," said Charles, relapsing into his old
+indifferent manner. "Neither of us has been actually defeated, for we
+never called out our reserves, which I felt would have been hardly fair
+on you; but we do not come forth with flying colors. I fear, from your
+air of elation, you actually believe you have been victorious."
+
+"I agree with you that there has been no defeat," replied Ruth; "but I
+won't keep you any longer from your studies. I am just going out driving
+with Lady Mary to have tea with the Thursbys."
+
+"Miss Deyncourt, don't allow a natural and most pardonable vanity to
+delude you to such an extent. Don't go out driving the victim of a false
+impression. If you will consider one moment--"
+
+"Not another moment," replied Ruth; "our bugles have sung truce, and I
+am not going to put on my war-paint again for any consideration. There
+comes the carriage," as a distant rumbling was heard. "I must not keep
+Lady Mary waiting;" and she was gone.
+
+Charles heard the carriage roll away again, and when half an hour later
+he sauntered back towards the house, he was surprised to see Lady Mary
+sitting in the drawing-room window.
+
+"What! Not gone, after all!" he exclaimed, in a voice in which surprise
+was more predominant than pleasure.
+
+"No, Charles," returned Lady Mary in her measured tones, looking slowly
+up at him over her gold-rimmed spectacles. "I felt a slight return of my
+old enemy, and Miss Deyncourt kindly undertook to make my excuses to
+Mrs. Thursby."
+
+No one knew what the old enemy was, or in what manner his mysterious
+assaults on Lady Mary were conducted; but it was an understood thing
+that she had private dealings with him, in which he could make himself
+very disagreeable.
+
+"Has Molly gone with her?"
+
+"No; Molly is making jam in the kitchen, I believe. Miss Deyncourt most
+good-naturedly offered to take her with her; but,"--with a shake of the
+head--"the poor child's totally unrestrained appetites and lamentable
+self-will made her prefer to remain where she was."
+
+"I am afraid," said Charles, meditatively, as if the idea were entirely
+a novel one, "Molly is getting a little spoiled among us. It is natural
+in you, of course; but there is no excuse for me. There never is. There
+are, I confess, moments when I don't regard the child's immortal welfare
+sufficiently to make her present existence less enjoyable. What a round
+of gayety Molly's life is! She flits from flower to flower, so to speak;
+from me to cook and the jam-pots; from the jam-pots to some fresh
+delight in the loft, or in your society. Life is one long feast to
+Molly. Whatever that old impostor the Future may have in store for her,
+at any rate she is having a good time now."
+
+There was a shade of regretful sadness in Charles's voice that ruffled
+his aunt.
+
+"The child is being ruined," she said, with resigned bitterness.
+
+"Not a bit of it. I was spoiled as a child, and look at me!"
+
+"You _are_ spoiled. I don't spoil you; but other people do. Society
+does. And the result is that you are so hard to please that I don't
+believe you will ever marry. You look for a perfection in others which
+is not to be found in yourself."
+
+"I don't fancy I should appear to advantage side by side with
+perfection," said Charles, in his most careless manner; and he rose, and
+wandered away into the garden.
+
+He was irritated with Lady Mary, with her pleased looks during the last
+few days, with her annoying celerity that afternoon in the garden. It
+was all the more annoying because he was conscious that Ruth amused
+and interested him in no slight degree. She had the rare quality
+of being genuine. She stood for what she was, without effort or
+self-consciousness. Whether playful or serious, she was always real.
+Beneath a reserved and rather quiet manner there lurked a piquant
+unconventionality. The mixture of earnestness and humor, which were so
+closely interwoven in her nature that he could never tell which would
+come uppermost, had a strange attraction for him. He had grown
+accustomed to watch for and try to provoke the sudden gleam of fun in
+the serious eyes, which always preceded a retort given with an air of
+the sweetest feminine meekness, which would make Ralph rub himself all
+over with glee, and tell Charles, chuckling, he "would not get much
+change out of Ruth."
+
+If only she had not been asked to Atherstone on purpose to meet him. If
+only Lady Mary had not arranged it; if only Evelyn did not know it; if
+only Ralph had not guessed it; if only he himself had not seen it from
+the first instant! Ruth and Molly were the only two unconscious persons
+in the house.
+
+"I wonder," said Charles to himself, "why people can't allow me to
+manage my own affairs? Oh, what a world it is for unmarried men with
+money! Why did I not marry fifteen years ago, when every woman with a
+straight nose was an angel of light; when I felt a noble disregard for
+such minor details as character, mind, sympathy, if the hair and the
+eyes were the right shade? Why did I not marry when I was out of favor
+with my father, when I was head over ears in debt, and when at least I
+could feel sure no one would marry me for my money? Molly," as that
+young lady came running towards him with lingering traces of jam upon
+her flushed countenance, "you have arrived just in time. Uncle Charles
+was getting so dull without you. What have you been after all this
+time?"
+
+"Cook and me have made thirty-one pots and a little one," said Molly,
+inserting a very sticky hand into Charles's. "And your Mr. Brown helped.
+Cook told him to go along at first, which wasn't kind, was it? but he
+stayed all the same; and I skimmed with a big spoon, and she poured it
+in the pots. Only they aren't covered up with paper yet, if you want to
+see them. And oh! Uncle Charles, what _do_ you think? Father and mother
+have come back from their ride, and that nice funny man who was at the
+school-feast is coming here to-morrow, and I shall show him my
+guinea-pigs. He said he wanted to see them very much."
+
+"Oh, he did, did he? When was that?"
+
+"At the school-feast. Oh!" with enthusiasm, "he was so nice, Uncle
+Charles, so attentive, and getting things when you want them; and the
+wheel went over his foot when he was shaking hands, and he did not mind
+a bit; and he filled our teapots for us--Ruth's big one, you know, that
+holds such a lot."
+
+"Oh! He filled the big teapot, did he?"
+
+"Yes, and mine too; and then he helped us to unpack the dolls. He was so
+kind to me and Cousin Ruth."
+
+"Kind to Miss Deyncourt, was he?"
+
+"Yes; and when we went away he ran and opened the gate for us. Oh, there
+comes Cousin Ruth back again in the carriage. I'll run and tell her he's
+coming. She _will_ be glad."
+
+"Aunt Mary is right," said Charles, watching his niece disappear. "Molly
+has formed a habit of expressing herself with unnecessary freedom.
+Decidedly she is a little spoiled."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+Dare arrived at Atherstone the following afternoon. Evelyn and Ralph,
+who had enlarged on the state of morbid depression of the lonely
+inhabitant of Vandon, were rather taken aback by the jaunty appearance
+of the sufferer when he appeared, overflowing with evident satisfaction
+and small-talk, his face wreathed with smiles.
+
+"He bears up wonderfully," said Charles aside to Ruth, later in the
+evening, as Dare warbled a very discreet selection of his best songs
+after dinner. "No one knows better than myself that many a breaking
+heart beats beneath a smiling waistcoat, but unless we had been told
+beforehand we should never have guessed it in his case."
+
+Dare, who was looking at Ruth, and saw Charles go and sit down by her,
+brought his song to an abrupt conclusion, and made his way to her also.
+
+"You also sing, Miss Deyncourt?" he asked. "I am sure, from your face,
+you sing."
+
+"I do."
+
+"Thank Heaven!" said Charles, fervently. "I did you an injustice. I
+thought you were going to say 'a little.' Every singing young lady I
+ever met, when asked that question, invariably replied 'a little.'"
+
+"I leave my friends to say that for me," said Ruth.
+
+"Perhaps you yourself sing a _little_?" asked Dare, wishing Charles
+would leave Ruth's ball of wool alone.
+
+"No," said Charles; "I have no tricks." And he rose and went off to the
+newspaper-table. Dare's songs were all very well, but really his voice
+was nothing so very wonderful, and he was not much of an acquisition in
+other ways.
+
+Then Dare took his opportunity. He dropped into Charles's vacant chair;
+he wound wool; he wished to learn to knit; his inquiring mind craved for
+information respecting shooting-stockings. He talked of music; of
+songs--Italian, French, and English; of American nigger melodies. Would
+Miss Deyncourt sing? Might he accompany her? Ah! she preferred the
+simple old English ballads. He _loved_ the simple English ballad.
+
+And Ruth, nothing loath, sang in her fresh, clear voice one song after
+another, Dare accompanying her with rapid sympathy and ease.
+
+Charles put down his paper and moved slightly, so that he had a better
+view of the piano. Evelyn laid down her work and looked affectionately
+at Ruth.
+
+"Exquisite," said Lady Mary from time to time, who had said the same of
+Lady Grace's wavering little soprano.
+
+"You also sing duets? You sing duets?" eagerly inquired Dare, the
+music-stool creaking with his suppressed excitement; and, without
+waiting for an answer, he began playing the opening chords of
+"Greeting."
+
+The two voices rose and fell together, now soft, now triumphant,
+harmonizing as if they sung together for years. Dare's second was low,
+pathetic, and it blended at once with Ruth's clear young contralto.
+Charles wondered that the others should applaud when the duet was
+finished. Ruth's voice went best alone in his opinion.
+
+"And the 'Cold Blast'?" asked Dare, immediately afterwards. "The 'Cold
+Blast' was here a moment ago,"--turning the leaves over rapidly. "You
+are not tired, Miss Deyncourt?"
+
+"Tired!" replied Ruth, her eyes sparkling. "It never tires me to sing.
+It rests me."
+
+"Ah! so it is with me. That is just how I feel," said Dare. "To sing, or
+to listen to the voice of--of--"
+
+"Of what? Confound him!" wondered Charles.
+
+"Of _another_," said Dare. "Ah, here he is!" and he pounced on another
+song, and lightly touched the opening chords.
+
+     "'Oh! wert thou in the cold blast,'"
+
+sang Ruth, fresh and sweet.
+
+     "'I'd shelter thee,'"
+
+Dare assured her with manly fervor. He went on to say what he would do
+if he were monarch of the realm, affirming that the brightest jewel of
+his crown would be his queen.
+
+"Anyhow, he can't pronounce Scotch," Charles thought.
+
+"Would be his queen," Dare repeated, with subdued emotion and an upward
+glance at Ruth, which she was too much absorbed in the song to see, but
+which did not escape Charles. Dare's dark sentimental eyes spoke volumes
+of--not sermons--at that moment.
+
+"Oh, Uncle Charles!" whispered Molly, who had been allowed to sit up
+about two hours beyond her nominal bedtime, at which hour she rarely
+felt disposed to retire--"oh, Uncle Charles! 'The brightest jewel in his
+crown!' Don't you wish you and me could sing together like that?"
+
+Charles moved impatiently, and took up his paper again.
+
+The evening passed all too quickly for Dare, who loved music and the
+sound of his own voice, and he had almost forgotten, until Charles left
+him and Ralph alone together in the smoking-room, that he had come to
+discuss his affairs with the latter.
+
+"Dear me," said Evelyn, who had followed her cousin to her room after
+they had dispersed for the night, and was looking out of Ruth's window,
+"that must be Charles walking up and down on the lawn. Well, now, how
+thoughtful he is to leave Mr. Dare and Ralph together. You know, Ruth,
+poor Mr. Dare's affairs are in a very bad way, and he has come to talk
+things over with my Ralph."
+
+"I hope Ralph will make him put his cottages in order," said Ruth, with
+sudden interest, shaking back her hair from her shoulders. "Do you think
+he will?"
+
+"Whatever Ralph advises will be sure to be right," replied Evelyn, with
+the soft conviction of his infallibility which caused her to be
+considered by most of Ralph's masculine friends an ideal wife. It is
+women without reasoning powers of any kind whom the nobler sex should be
+careful to marry if they wish to be regarded through life in this
+delightful way by their wives. Men not particularly heroic in
+themselves, who yet are anxious to pose as heroes in their domestic
+circle, should remember that the smallest modicum of common-sense on the
+part of the worshipper will inevitably mar a happiness, the very
+existence of which depends entirely on a blind unreasoning devotion. In
+middle life the absence of reason begins perhaps to be felt; but why in
+youth take thought for such a far-off morrow!
+
+"I hope he will," said Ruth, half to herself. "What an opportunity that
+man has if he only sees it. There is so much to be done, and it is all
+in his hands."
+
+"Yes, it's not entailed; but I don't think there is so very much," said
+Evelyn. "But then, so long as people are nice, I never care whether they
+are rich or poor. That is the first question I ask when people come into
+the neighborhood. Are they really nice? Dear me, Ruth, what beautiful
+hair you have; and mine coming off so! And, talking of hair, did you
+ever see anything like Mr. Dare's? Somebody must really speak to him
+about it. If he would keep his hands still, and not talk so quick, and
+let his hair grow a little, I really think he would not look so like a
+foreigner."
+
+"I don't suppose he minds looking like one."
+
+"My _dear_!"
+
+"His mother was a Frenchwoman, wasn't she? I am sure I have heard so
+fifty times since his uncle died."
+
+"And if she was," said Evelyn, reprovingly, "is not that an extra reason
+for his giving up anything that will remind people of it? And we ought
+to try and forget it, Ruth, and behave just the same to him as if she
+had been an Englishwoman. I wonder if he is a Roman Catholic?"
+
+"Ask him."
+
+"I hope he is not," continued Evelyn, taking up her candle to go. "We
+never had one to stay in the house before. I don't mean," catching a
+glimpse of Ruth's face, "that Catholics are--well--I don't mean _that_.
+But still, you know, one would not like to make great _friends_ with a
+Catholic, would one, Ruth? And he is so nice and so amusing that I do
+hope, as he is going to be a neighbor, he is a Protestant." And after a
+few more remarks of about the same calibre from Evelyn, the two cousins
+kissed and parted for the night.
+
+"Will he do it?" said Ruth to herself, when she was alone. "Has he
+character enough, and perseverance enough, and money enough? Oh, I wish
+Uncle John would talk to him!"
+
+Ruth was not aware that one word from herself would have more weight
+with a man like Dare than any number from an angel of heaven, if that
+angel were of the masculine gender. If at the other side of the house
+Dare could have known how earnestly Ruth was thinking about him, he
+would not have been surprised (for he was not without experience), but
+he would have felt immensely flattered.
+
+Vandon lay in a distant part of Mr. Alwynn's parish, and a perpetual
+curate had charge of the district. Mr. Alwynn consequently seldom went
+there, but on the few occasions on which Ruth had accompanied him in his
+periodical visits she had seen enough. Who cares for a recital of what
+she saw? Misery and want are so common. We can see them for ourselves
+any day. In Ruth's heart a great indignation had kindled against old Mr.
+Dare, of Vandon, who was inaccessible as a ghost in his own house,
+haunting the same rooms, but never to be found when Mr. Alwynn called
+upon him to "put things before him in their true light." And when Mr.
+Dare descended to the Vandon vault, all Mr. Alwynn's interest, and
+consequently a good deal of Ruth's, had centred in the new heir, who was
+so difficult to find, and who ultimately turned up from the other end of
+nowhere just when people were beginning to despair of his ever turning
+up at all.
+
+And now that he had come, would he make the crooked straight? Would the
+new broom sweep clean? Ruth recalled the new broom's brown handsome
+face, with the eager eyes and raised eyebrows, and involuntarily shook
+her head. It is difficult to be an impartial judge of any one with a
+feeling for music and a pathetic tenor voice; but the face she had
+called to mind did not inspire her with confidence. It was kindly,
+amiable, pleasant; but was it strong? In other words, was it not a
+trifle weak?
+
+She found herself comparing it with another, a thin, reserved face, with
+keen light eyes and a firm mouth; a mouth with a cigar in it at that
+moment on the lawn. The comparison, however, did not help her
+meditations much, being decidedly prejudicial to the "new broom;" and
+the faint chime of the clock on the dressing-table breaking in on them
+at the same moment, she dismissed them for the night, and proceeded to
+busy herself putting to bed her various little articles of jewellery
+before betaking herself there also.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Any doubts entertained by Evelyn about Dare's religious views were
+completely set at rest the following morning, which happened to be a
+Sunday. He appeared at breakfast in a black frock-coat, the splendor of
+which quite threw Ralph's ancient Sunday garment into the shade. He wore
+also a chastened, decorous aspect, which seemed unfamiliar to his mobile
+face, and rather ill suited to it. After breakfast, he inquired when
+service would be, and expressed a wish to attend it. He brought down a
+high hat and an enormous prayer-book, and figured with them in the
+garden.
+
+"Who is going to Greenacre, and who is going to Slumberleigh?" called
+out Ralph, from the smoking-room window. "Because, if any of you are
+going to foot it to Slumberleigh, you had better be starting. Which are
+you going to, Charles?"
+
+"I am going where Molly goes. Which is it to be, Molly?"
+
+"Slumberleigh," said Molly, with decision, "because it's the shortest
+sermon, and I want to see the little foal in Brown's field."
+
+"Slumberleigh be it," said Charles. "Now, Miss Deyncourt," as Ruth
+appeared, "which church are you going to support--Greenacre, which is
+close in more senses than one, where they never open the windows, and
+the clergyman preaches for an hour; or Slumberleigh, shady, airy, cool,
+lying past a meadow with a foal in it? If I may offer that as any
+inducement, Molly and I intend to patronize Slumberleigh."
+
+Ruth said she would do the same.
+
+"Now, Dare, _you_ will be able to decide whether Greenacre, with a
+little fat tower, or Slumberleigh, with a beautiful tall steeple, suits
+your religious views best."
+
+"I will also go to Slumberleigh," said Dare, without a moment's
+hesitation.
+
+"I thought so. I suppose,"--to Ralph and Evelyn--"you are going to
+Greenacre with Aunt Mary? Tell her I have gone to church, will you? It
+will cheer her up. Sunday is a very depressing day with her, I know. She
+thinks of all she has done in the week, preparatory to doing a little
+more on Monday. Good-bye. Now then, Molly, have you got your
+prayer-book? Miss Deyncourt, I don't see yours anywhere. Oh, there it
+is! No, don't let Dare carry it for you. Give it to me. He will have
+enough to do, poor fellow, to travel with his own. Come, Molly! Is Vic
+chained up? Yes, I can hear him howling. The craving for church
+privileges of that dumb animal, Miss Deyncourt, is an example to us
+Christians. Molly, have you got your penny? Miss Deyncourt, can I
+accommodate you with a threepenny bit? Now, _are_ we all ready to
+start?"
+
+"When this outburst of eloquence has subsided," said Ruth, "the audience
+will be happy to move on."
+
+And so they started across the fields, where the grass was already
+springing faint and green after the haymaking. There was a fresh
+wandering air, which fluttered the ribbons in Molly's hat, as she danced
+on ahead, frisking in her short white skirt beside her uncle, her hand
+in his. Charles was the essence of wit to Molly, with his grave face
+that so seldom smiled, and the twinkle in the kind eyes, that always
+went before those wonderful, delightful jokes which he alone could make.
+Sometimes, as she laughed, she looked back at Ruth and Dare, half a
+field behind, in pity at what they were missing.
+
+"Shall we wait and tell them that story, Uncle Charles?"
+
+"No, Molly. I dare say he is telling her another which is just as good."
+
+"I don't think he knows any like yours."
+
+"Some people like the old, old story best."
+
+"Do I know the old, old one, Uncle Charles?"
+
+"No, Molly."
+
+"Can you tell it?"
+
+"No. I have never been able to tell that particular story."
+
+"And do you really think he is telling it to her now?" with a backward
+glance.
+
+"Not at this moment. It's no good running back. He's only thinking about
+it now. He will tell it her in about a month or six weeks' time."
+
+"I hope I shall be there when he tells it."
+
+"I hope you may; but I don't think it is likely. And now, Molly, set
+your hat straight, and leave off jumping. I never jump when I go to
+church with Aunt Mary. Quietly now, for there's the church, and Mr.
+Alwynn's looking out of the window."
+
+Dare, meanwhile, walking with Ruth, caught sight of the church and
+lych-gate with heart-felt regret. The stretches of sunny meadowland, the
+faint glamour of church bells, the pale refined face beside him, had
+each individually and all three together appealed to his imagination,
+always vivid when he himself was concerned. He suddenly felt as if a
+great gulf had fixed itself, without any will of his own, between his
+old easy-going life and the new existence that was opening out before
+him.
+
+He had crossed from the old to the new without any perception of such a
+gulf, and now, as he looked back, it seemed to yawn between him and all
+that hitherto he had been. He did not care to look back, so he looked
+forward. He felt as if he were the central figure (when was he _not_ a
+central figure?) in a new drama. He was fond of acting, on and off the
+stage, and now he seemed to be playing a new part, in which he was not
+yet thoroughly at ease, but which he rather suspected would become him
+exceedingly well. It amused him to see himself going to church--_to
+church_--to hear himself conversing on flowers and music with a young
+English girl. The idea that he was rapidly falling in love was specially
+delightful. He called himself a _vieux scelerat_, and watched the
+progress of feelings which he felt did him credit with extreme
+satisfaction. He and Ruth arrived at the church porch all too soon for
+Dare; and though he had the pleasure of sitting on one side of her
+during the service, he would have preferred that Charles, of whom he
+felt a vague distrust, had not happened to be on the other.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+"My dear," said Mrs. Alwynn to her husband that morning, as they started
+for church across the glebe, "if any of the Atherstone party are in
+church, as they ought to be, for I hear from Mrs. Smith that they are
+not at all regular at Greenacre--only went once last Sunday, and then
+late--I shall just tell Ruth that she is to come back to me to-morrow. A
+few days won't make any difference to her, and it will fit in so nicely
+her coming back the day you go to the palace. After all I've done for
+Ruth--new curtains to her room, and the piano tuned and everything--I
+don't think she would like to stay there with friends, and me all by
+myself, without a creature to speak to. Ruth may be only a niece by
+marriage, but she will see in a moment--"
+
+And in fact she did. When Mrs. Alwynn took her aside after church, and
+explained the case in the all-pervading whisper for which she had
+apparently taken out a patent, Ruth could not grasp any reason why she
+should return to Slumberleigh three days before the time, but she saw at
+once that return she must if Mrs. Alwynn chose to demand it; and so she
+yielded with a good grace, and sent Mrs. Alwynn back smiling to the
+lych-gate, where Mr. Alwynn and Mabel Thursby were talking with Dare and
+Molly, while Charles interviewed the village policeman at a little
+distance.
+
+"No news of the tramp," said Charles, meeting Ruth at the gate; and they
+started homeward in different order to that in which they had come, in
+spite of a great effort at the last moment on the part of Dare, who
+thought the old way was better. "The policeman has seen nothing of him.
+He has gone off to pastures new, I expect."
+
+"I hope he has."
+
+"Mrs. Alwynn does not want you to leave Atherstone to-morrow, does she?"
+
+"I am sorry to say she does."
+
+"But you won't go?"
+
+"I must not only go, but I must do it as if I liked it."
+
+"I hope Evelyn won't allow it."
+
+"While I am living with Mrs. Alwynn, I am bound to do what she likes in
+small things."
+
+"H'm!"
+
+"I should have thought, Sir Charles, that this particularly feminine and
+submissive sentiment would have met with your approval."
+
+"It does; it does," said Charles, hastily. "Only, after the stubborn
+rigidity of your--shall I say your--week-day character, especially as
+regards money, this softened Sabbath mood took me by surprise for a
+moment."
+
+"You should see me at Slumberleigh," said Ruth, with a smile half sad,
+half humorous. "You should see me tying up Uncle John's flowers, or
+holding Aunt Fanny's wools. Nothing more entirely feminine and young
+lady-like can be imagined."
+
+"It must be a great change, after living with a woman like Lady
+Deyncourt--to whose house I often went years ago, when her son was
+living--to come to a place like Slumberleigh."
+
+"It _is_ a great change. I am ashamed to say how much I felt it at
+first. I don't know how to express it; but everything down here seems so
+small and local, and hard and fast."
+
+"I know," said Charles, gently; and they walked on in silence. "And
+yet," he said at last, "it seems to me, and I should have thought you
+would have felt the same, that life is very small, very narrow and
+circumscribed everywhere; though perhaps more obviously so in Cranfords
+and Slumberleighs. I have seen a good deal during the last fifteen
+years. I have mixed with many sorts and conditions of men, but in no
+class or grade of society have I yet found independent men and women.
+The groove is as narrow in one class as in another, though in some it is
+better concealed. I sometimes feel as if I were walking in a ball-room
+full of people all dancing the lancers. There are different sets, of
+course--fashionable, political, artistic--but the people in them are all
+crossing over, all advancing and retiring, with the same apparent
+aimlessness, or setting to partners."
+
+"There is occasionally an aim in that."
+
+Charles smiled grimly.
+
+"They follow the music in that as in everything else. You go away for
+ten years, and still find them, on your return, going through the same
+figures to new tunes. I wonder if there are any people anywhere in the
+world who stand on their own feet, and think and act for themselves; who
+don't set their watches by other people's; who don't live and marry and
+die by rote, expecting to go straight up to heaven by rote afterwards?"
+
+"I believe there are such people," said Ruth, earnestly; "I have had
+glimpses of them, but the real ones look like the shadows, and the
+shadows like the real ones, and--we miss them in the crowd."
+
+"Or one thinks one finds them, and they turn out only clever imitations
+after all. In these days there is a mania for shamming originality of
+some kind. I am always imagining people I meet are real, and not
+shadows, until one day I unintentionally put my hand through them, and
+find out my mistake. I am getting tired of being taken in."
+
+"And some day you will get tired of being cynical."
+
+"I am very much obliged to you for your hopeful view of my future. You
+evidently imagine that I have gone in for the fashionable creed of the
+young man of the present day. I am not young enough to take pleasure in
+high collars and cheap cynicism, Miss Deyncourt. Cynical people are
+never disappointed in others, as I so often am, because they expect the
+worst. In theory I respect and admire my fellow-creatures, but they
+continually exasperate me because they won't allow me to do so in real
+life. I have still--I blush to own it--a lingering respect for women,
+though they have taken pains to show me, time after time, what a fool I
+am for such a weakness."
+
+Charles looked intently at Ruth. Women are so terribly apt in handling
+any subject to make it personal. Would she fire up, or would she, like
+so many women, join in abuse of her own sex? She did neither. She was
+looking straight in front of her, absently watching the figures of Dare
+and Molly in the next field. Then she turned her grave, thoughtful
+glance towards him.
+
+"I think respect is never weakness," she said. "It is a sign of
+strength, even when it is misplaced. There is not much to admire in
+cunning people who are never taken in. The best people I have known, the
+people whom it did me good to be with, have been those who respected
+others and themselves. Do not be in too great a hurry to get rid of any
+little fragment that still remains. You may want it when it is gone."
+
+Charles's apathetic face had become strangely earnest. There was a keen,
+searching look in his tired, restless eyes. He was about to make some
+answer, when he suddenly became aware of Dare and Molly sitting perched
+on a gate close at hand waiting for them. Never had he perceived Molly's
+little brown face with less pleasure than at that moment. She scrambled
+down with a noble disregard of appearances, and tried to take his hand.
+But it was coolly withdrawn. Charles fell behind on some pretence of
+fastening the gate, and Molly had to content herself with Ruth's and
+Dare's society for the remainder of the walk.
+
+Ruth had almost forgotten, until Molly suggested at luncheon a picnic
+for the following day, that she was returning to Slumberleigh on Monday
+morning; and when she made the fact known, Ralph had to be "hushed"
+several times by Evelyn for muttering opinions behind the sirloin
+respecting Mrs. Alwynn, which Evelyn seemed to have heard before, and to
+consider unsuited to the ears of that lady's niece.
+
+"But if you go away, Cousin Ruth, we can't have the picnic. Can we,
+Uncle Charles?"
+
+"Impossible, Molly. Rather bread and butter at home than a mixed biscuit
+in the open air without Miss Deyncourt."
+
+"Is Mrs. Alwynn suffering?" asked Lady Mary, politely, down the table.
+
+Ruth explained that she was not in ill-health, but that she did wish to
+be left alone; and Ralph was "hushed" again.
+
+Lady Mary was annoyed, or, more properly speaking, she was "moved in the
+spirit," which in a Churchwoman seems to be the same thing as annoyance
+in the unregenerate or unorthodox mind. She regretted Ruth's departure
+more than any one, except perhaps Ruth herself. She had watched the girl
+very narrowly, and she had seen nothing to make her alter the opinion
+she had formed of her; indeed, she was inclined to advance beyond it.
+Even she could not suspect that Ruth had "played her cards well;"
+although she would have aided and abetted her in any way in her power,
+if Ruth had shown the slightest consciousness of holding cards at all,
+or being desirous of playing them. Her frank yet reserved manner, her
+distinguished appearance, her sense of humor (which Lady Mary did not
+understand, but which she perceived others did), and the quiet _savoir
+faire_ of her treatment of Dare's advances, all enhanced her greatly in
+the eyes of her would-be aunt. She bade her good-bye with genuine
+regret; the only person who bore her departure without a shade of
+compunction being Dare, who stood by the carriage till the last moment,
+assuring Ruth that he hoped to come over to the rectory very shortly;
+while Charles and Molly held the gate open meanwhile, at the end of the
+short drive.
+
+"I know that Frenchman means business," said Lady Mary wrathfully to
+herself, as she watched the scene from the garden. Her mind, from the
+very severity of its tension, was liable to occasional lapses of this
+painful kind from the spiritual and ecclesiastical to the mundane and
+transitory. "I saw it directly he came into the house; and with _his_
+opportunities, and living within a stone's-throw, I should not wonder if
+he were to succeed. Any man would fetch a fancy price at Slumberleigh;
+and the most fastidious woman in the world ceases to be critical if she
+is reduced to the proper state of dulness. He is handsome, too, in his
+foreign way. But she does not like him now. She is inclined to like
+Charles, though she does not know it. There is an attraction between the
+two. I knew there would be. And he likes her. Oh, what fools men are! He
+will go away; and Dare, on the contrary, will ride over to Slumberleigh
+every day, and by the time he is engaged to her Charles will see her
+again, and find out that he is in love with her himself. Oh, the folly,
+the density, of unmarried men! and, indeed," (with a sudden recollection
+of the deceased Mr. Cunningham), "of the whole race of them! But of all
+men I have ever known, I really think the most provoking is Charles."
+
+"Musing?" inquired her nephew, sauntering up to her.
+
+"I was thinking that we had just lost the pleasantest person of our
+little party," said Lady Mary, viciously seizing up her work.
+
+"I am still here," suggested Charles, by way of consolation. "I don't
+start for Norway in Wyndham's yacht for three days to come."
+
+"Do you mean to say you are going to Norway?"
+
+"I forget whether it was to be Norway; but I know I'm booked to go
+yachting somewhere. It's Wyndham's new toy. He paid through the parental
+nose for it, and he made me promise in London to go with him on his
+first cruise. I believe a very charming Miss Wyndham is to be of the
+party."
+
+"And how long, pray, are you going to yacht with Miss Wyndham?"
+
+"It is with her brother I propose to go. I thought I had explained that
+before. I shall probably cruise about, let me see, for three weeks or
+so, till the grouse-shooting begins. Then I am due in Scotland, at the
+Hope-Actons', and several other places."
+
+Lady Mary laid down her work, and rose to her feet, her thin hand
+closing tightly over the silver crook of her stick.
+
+"Charles," she said, in a voice trembling with anger, looking him full
+in the face, "you are a fool!" and she passed him without another word,
+and hobbled away rapidly into the house.
+
+"Am I?" said Charles, half aloud to himself, when the last fold of her
+garment had been twitched out of sight through the window.
+
+"_Am I?_ Molly," with great gravity, as Molly appeared, "yes, you may sit
+on my knee; but don't wriggle. Molly, what is a fool?"
+
+"I think it's Raca, only worse," said Molly. "Uncle Charles, Mr. Dare is
+going away too. His dog-cart had just come into the yard."
+
+"Has it? I hope he won't keep it waiting."
+
+"You are not going away, are you?"
+
+"Not for three days more."
+
+"Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Why, they will be gone in a moment."
+
+But to Charles they seemed three very long days indeed. He was annoyed
+with himself for having made so many engagements before he left London.
+At the time there did not seem anything better to be done, and he
+supposed he must go somewhere; but now he thought he would have liked to
+stay on at Atherstone, though he would not have said so to Lady Mary for
+worlds. He was tired of rushing up and down. He was not so fond of
+yachting, after all; and he remembered that he had been many times to
+Norway.
+
+"I would get out of it if I could," he said to Lady Mary on the last
+morning; "and of this blue serge suit, too (you should see Miss Wyndham
+in blue serge!); but it is not a question of pleasure, but of principle.
+I don't like to throw over Wyndham at the last moment, after what you
+said when I failed the Hope-Actons last year. Twins could not feel more
+exactly together than you and I do where a principle is involved. I see
+you are about to advise me to keep my engagement. Do not trouble to do
+so; I am going to Portsmouth by the mid-day train. Brown is at this
+moment packing my telescope and life-belt."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+It was the end of August. The little lawn at Slumberleigh Rectory was
+parched and brown. The glebe beyond was brown; so was the field beyond
+that. The thirsty road was ash-white between its gray hedge-rows. It was
+hotter in the open air than in the house, but Ruth had brought her books
+out into the garden all the same, and had made a conscientious effort to
+read under the chestnut-tree.
+
+For under the same roof with Mrs. Alwynn she had soon learned that
+application or study of any kind was an impossibility. Mrs. Alwynn had
+several maxims as to the conduct of herself, and consequently of every
+one else, and one of those to which she most frequently gave utterance
+was that "young people should always be cheery and sociable, and should
+not be left too much to themselves."
+
+When in the winter Mr. Alwynn had brought home Ruth, quite overwhelmed
+for the time by the shock of the first real trouble she had known, Mrs.
+Alwynn was kindness itself in the way of sweet-breads and warm rooms;
+but the only thing Ruth craved for, to be left alone, she would not
+allow for a moment. No! Mrs. Alwynn was cheerful, brisk, and pious at
+intervals. If she found her niece was sitting in her own room, she
+bustled up-stairs, poked the fire, gave her a kiss, and finally brought
+her down to the drawing-room, where she told her she would be as quiet
+as in her own room. She need not be afraid her uncle would come in; and
+she must not allow herself to get moped. What would she, Mrs. Alwynn,
+have done, she would like to know, if, when she was in trouble--and she
+knew what trouble meant, if any one did--she had allowed herself to get
+moped. Ruth must try and bear up. And at Lady Deyncourt's age it was
+quite to be expected. And Ruth must remember she still had a sister, and
+that there was a happy home above. And now, if she would get that green
+wool out of the red plush iron (which really was a work-box--such a
+droll idea, wasn't it?), Ruth should hold the wool, and they would have
+a cosey little chat till luncheon time.
+
+And so Mrs. Alwynn did her duty by her niece; and Ruth, in the dark
+days that followed her grandmother's death, took all the little
+kindnesses in the spirit in which they were meant, and did her duty by
+her aunt.
+
+But after a time Mrs. Alwynn became more exacting. Ruth was visibly
+recovering from what Mrs. Alwynn called "her bereavement." She could
+smile again without an effort; she took long walks with Mr. Alwynn, and
+later in the spring paid a visit to her uncle, Lord Polesworth. It was
+after this visit that Mrs. Alwynn became more exacting. She had borne
+with half attention and a lack of interest in crewel-work while Ruth was
+still "fretting," as she termed it. But when a person lays aside crape,
+and goes into half-mourning, the time had come when she may--nay, when
+she ought to be "chatty." This time had come with Ruth, but she was not
+"chatty." Like Mrs. Dombey, she did not make an effort, and, as the
+months passed on, Mrs. Alwynn began to shake her head, and to fear that
+"there was some officer or something on her mind." Mrs. Alwynn always
+called soldiers officers, and doctors physicians.
+
+Ruth, on her side, was vaguely aware that she did not give satisfaction.
+The small-talk, the perpetual demand on her attention, the constant
+interruptions, seemed to benumb what faculties she had. Her mind became
+like a machine out of work--rusty, creaking, difficult to set going. If
+she had half an hour of leisure she could not fix her attention to
+anything. She, who in her grandmother's time had been so keen and alert,
+seemed to have drifted, in Mrs. Alwynn's society, into a torpid state,
+from which she made vain attempts to emerge, only to sink the deeper.
+
+When she stood once more, fresh from a fortnight of pleasant intercourse
+with pleasant people, in the little ornate drawing-room at Slumberleigh,
+on her return from Atherstone, the remembrance of the dulled, confused
+state in which she had been living with her aunt returned forcibly to
+her mind. The various articles of furniture, the red silk handkerchiefs
+dabbed behind pendent plates, the musical elephants on the mantle-piece,
+the imitation Eastern antimacassars, the shocking fate, in the way of
+nailed and glued pictorial ornamentation, that had overtaken the back of
+the cottage piano--indeed, all the various objects of luxury and _vertu_
+with which Mrs. Alwynn had surrounded herself, seemed to recall to Ruth,
+as the apparatus of the sick-room recalls the illness to the patient,
+the stupor into which she had fallen in their company. With her eyes
+fixed upon the new brass pig (that was at heart a pen-wiper) which Mrs.
+Alwynn had pointed out as a gift of Mabel Thursby, who always brought
+her back some little "tasty thing from London"--with her eyes on the
+brass pig, Ruth resolved that, come what would, she would not allow
+herself to sink into such a state of mental paralysis again.
+
+To read a book of any description was out of the question in the society
+of Mrs. Alwynn. But Ruth, with the connivance of Mr. Alwynn, devised a
+means of eluding her aunt. At certain hours of the day she was lost
+regularly, and not to be found. It was summer, and the world, or at
+least the neighborhood of Slumberleigh Rectory, which was the same
+thing, was all before her where to choose. In after-years she used to
+say that some books had always remained associated with certain places
+in her mind. With Emerson she learned to associate the scent of hay, the
+desultory remarks of hens, and the sudden choruses of ducks. Carlyle's
+"Sartor Resartus," which she read for the first time this year, always
+recalled to her afterwards the leathern odor of the box-room, with an
+occasional _soupcon_ of damp flapping linen in the orchard, which spot
+was not visible from the rectory windows.
+
+Gradually Mrs. Alwynn became aware of the fact that Ruth was never to be
+seen with a book in her hand, and she expressed fears that the latter
+was not keeping up her reading.
+
+"And if you don't like to read to yourself, my dear, you can read to me
+while I work. German, now. I like the sound of German very well. It
+brings back the time when your Uncle John and I went up the Rhine on our
+honey-moon. And then, for English reading there's a very nice book Uncle
+John has somewhere on natural history, called 'Animals of a Quiet Life,'
+by a Mr. Hare, too--so comical, I always think. It's good for you to be
+reading something. It is what your poor dear granny would have wished if
+she had been alive. Only it must not be poetry, Ruth, not poetry."
+
+Mrs. Alwynn did not approve of poetry. She was wont to say that for her
+part she liked only what was perfectly _true_, by which it is believed
+she meant prose.
+
+She had no books of her own. In times of illness she borrowed from Mrs.
+Thursby (who had all Miss Young's works, and selections from the
+publications of the S.P.C.K.). On Sundays, when she could not work, she
+read, half aloud, of course, with sighs at intervals, a little manual
+called "Gold Dust," or a smaller one still called "Pearls of Great
+Price," which she had once recommended to Charles, whom she knew
+slightly, and about whom she affected to know a great deal, which
+nothing (except pressing) would induce her to repeat; which rendered
+the application of the "Pearls," to be followed by the "Dust," most
+essential to his future welfare.
+
+On this particular morning in August, Ruth had slipped out as far as the
+chestnut-tree, the lower part of which was hidden from the rectory
+windows by a blessed yew hedge. It was too hot to walk, it was too hot
+to draw, it was even too hot to read. It did not seem, however, to be
+too hot to _ride_, for presently she heard a horse's hoofs clattering
+across the stones of the stable-yard, and she knew, from the familiarity
+of the sound at that hour of the day, that Dare had probably ridden
+over, and, more probably still, would stay to luncheon.
+
+The foreign gentleman, as all the village people called him, had by this
+time become quite an institution in the neighborhood of Vandon. Every
+one liked him, and he liked every one. Like the sun, he shone upon the
+just and unjust. He went to every tennis-party to which he was invited.
+He was pleased if people were at home when he called. He became in many
+houses a privileged person, and he never abused his privileges. Women
+especially liked him. He had what Mrs. Eccles defined as "such a way
+with him;" his way being to make every woman he met think that she was
+particularly interesting in his eyes--for the time being. Men did not,
+of course, care for him so much. When he stayed anywhere, it was vaguely
+felt by the sterner sex of the party that he stole a march upon them.
+While they were smoking, after their kind, in clusters on the lawn, it
+would suddenly be observed that he was sitting in the drawing-room,
+giving a lesson in netting, or trying over a new song encircled by young
+ladyhood. It was felt that he took an unfair advantage. What business
+had he to come down to tea in that absurd amber plush smoking-suit, just
+because the elder ladies had begged to see it? It was all the more
+annoying, because he looked so handsome in it. Like most men who are
+admired by women, he was not much liked by men.
+
+But the house to which he came the oftenest was Slumberleigh Rectory. He
+was faithful to his early admiration of Ruth; and the only obstacle to
+his making her (in his opinion) happy among women, namely, her possible
+want of fortune, had long since been removed by the confidential remarks
+of Mrs. Alwynn. To his foreign habits and ideas fourteen or fifteen
+hundred a year represented a very large sum. In his eyes Ruth was an
+heiress, and in all good earnest he set himself to win her. Mr. Alwynn
+had now become the proper person to consult regarding his property; and
+at first, to Ruth's undisguised satisfaction, he consulted him nearly
+every other day, his horse at last taking the turn for Slumberleigh as a
+matter of course. Many a time, in these August days, might Mrs. Eccles
+and all the other inhabitants of Slumberleigh have seen Dare ride up the
+little street, taking as much active exercise as his horse, only
+skyward; the saddle being to him merely a point of rebound.
+
+But if the object of his frequent visits was misunderstood by Ruth at
+first, Dare did not allow it to remain so long. And not only Ruth
+herself, but Mr. and Mrs. Alwynn, and the rectory servants, and half the
+parish were soon made aware of the state of his affections. What was the
+good of being in love, of having in view a social aim of such a
+praiseworthy nature, if no one were aware of the same? Dare was not the
+man to hide even a night-light under a bushel; how much less a burning
+and a shining hymeneal torch such as this. His sentiments were strictly
+honorable. If he raised expectations, he was also quite prepared to
+fulfil them. Miss Deyncourt was quite right to treat him with her
+adorable, placid assumption of indifference until his attentions were
+more avowed. In the mean while she was an angel, a lily, a pearl, a
+star, and several other things, animal, vegetable, and mineral, which
+his vivid imagination chose to picture her. But whatever Dare's faults
+may have been--and Ruth was not blind to them--he was at least head over
+ears in love with her, fortune or none; and as his attachment deepened,
+it burned up like fire all the little follies with which it had begun.
+
+A clergyman has been said to have made love to the helpmeet of his
+choice out of the Epistle to the Galatians. Dare made his out of
+material hardly more promising--plans for cottages, and estimates of
+repairs. He had quickly seen how to interest Ruth, though the reason for
+such an eccentric interest puzzled him. However, he turned it to his
+advantage. Ruth encouraged, suggested, sympathized in all the little he
+was already doing, and the much that he proposed to do.
+
+Of late, however, a certain not ungrounded suspicion had gradually
+forced itself upon her which had led her to withdraw as much as she
+could from her former intercourse with Dare; but her change of manner
+had not quite the effect she had intended.
+
+"She thinks I am not serious," Dare had said to himself; "she thinks
+that I play with her feelings. She does not know me. To-morrow I ride
+over; I set her mind at rest. To-morrow I propose; I make an offer; I
+claim that adored hand; I--become engaged."
+
+Accordingly, not long after the clatter of horse's hoofs in the
+stable-yard, Dare himself appeared in the garden, and perceiving Ruth,
+for whom he was evidently looking, informed her that he had ridden over
+to ask Mr. Alwynn to support him at a dinner his tenants were giving in
+his honor--a custom of the Vandon tenantry from time immemorial on the
+accession of a new landlord. He spoke absently; and Ruth, looking at him
+more closely as he stood before her, wondered at his altered manner. He
+had a rose in his button-hole. He always had a rose in his button-hole;
+but somehow this was more of a rose than usual. His mustaches were
+twirled up with unusual grace.
+
+"You will find Mr. Alwynn in the study," said Ruth, hurriedly.
+
+His only answer was to cast aside his whip and gloves, as possible
+impediments later on, and to settle himself, with an elegant arrangement
+of the choicest gaiters, on the grass at her feet.
+
+It is probably very disagreeable to repeat in any form, however
+discreetly worded, the old phrase--
+
+    "The reason why I cannot tell,
+    But I don't like you, Doctor Fell."
+
+But it must be especially disagreeable, if a refusal is at first not
+taken seriously, to be obliged to repeat it, still more plainly, a
+second time. It was Ruth's fate to be obliged to do this, and to do it
+hurriedly, or she foresaw complications might arise.
+
+At last Dare understood, and the sudden utter blankness of his
+expression smote Ruth to the heart. He had loved her in his way after
+all. It is a bitter thing to be refused. She felt that she had been
+almost brutal in her direct explicitness, called forth at the moment by
+an instinct that he would proceed to extreme measures unless
+peremptorily checked.
+
+"I am so sorry," she said, involuntarily.
+
+Poor Dare, who had recovered a certain amount of self-possession, now
+that he was on his feet again, took up his gloves and riding-whip in
+silence. All his jaunty self-assurance had left him. He seemed quite
+stunned. His face under his brown skin was very pale.
+
+"I am so sorry," said Ruth again, feeling horribly guilty.
+
+"It is I who am sorry," he said, humbly. "I have made a great mistake,
+for which I ask pardon;" and, after looking at her for a moment, in
+blank incertitude as to whether she could really be the same person whom
+he had come to seek in such happy confidence half an hour before, he
+raised his hat, his new light gray hat, and was gone.
+
+Ruth watched him go, and when he had disappeared, she sat down again
+mechanically in the chair from which she had risen a few moments before,
+and pressed her hands tightly together. She ought not to have allowed
+such a thing to happen, she said to herself. Somehow it had never
+presented itself to her in its serious aspect before. It is difficult to
+take a vain man seriously. Poor Mr. Dare! She had not known he was
+capable of caring so much about anything. He had never appeared to such
+advantage in her eyes as he had done when he had left her the moment
+before, grave and silent. She felt she had misjudged him. He was not so
+frivolous, after all. And now that her influence was at an end, who
+would keep him up to the mark about the various duties which she knew
+now he had begun to fulfil only to please her? Oh, who would help and
+encourage him in that most difficult of positions, a land-owner without
+means sufficient for doing the best by land and tenantry? She
+instinctively felt that he could not be relied upon for continuous
+exertion by himself.
+
+"I wish I could have liked him," said Ruth to herself. "I wish, I wish,
+I could!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+During the whole of the following week Dare appeared no more at
+Slumberleigh. Mrs. Alwynn, whose time was much occupied as a rule in
+commenting on the smallest doings of her neighbors, and in wondering why
+they left undone certain actions which she herself would have performed
+in their place, Mrs. Alwynn would infallibly have remarked upon his
+absence many times during every hour of the day, had not her attention
+been distracted for the time being by a one-horse fly which she had seen
+go up the road on the afternoon of the day of Dare's last visit, the
+destination of which had filled her soul with anxious conjecture.
+
+She did not ascertain till the following day that it had been ordered
+for Mrs. Smith, of Greenacre; though, as she told Ruth, she might have
+known that, as Mr. Smith was going for a holiday with Mrs. Smith, and
+their pony lame in its feet; that they would have to have a fly, and
+with that hill up to Greenacre she was surprised one horse was enough.
+
+When the question of the fly had been thus satisfactorily settled, and
+Mrs. Alwynn had ceased wondering whether the Smiths had gone to Tenby or
+to Rhyl (she always imagined people went to one or other of these two
+places), her whole attention reverted to a screen which she was making,
+the elegance and novelty of which supplied her with a congenial subject
+of conversation for many days.
+
+"There is something so new in a screen, an entire screen of Christmas
+cards," Mrs. Alwynn would remark. "Now, Mrs. Thursby's new screen is all
+pictures out of the _Graphic_, and those colored Christmas numbers. She
+has put all her cards in a book. There is something rather _passy_ about
+those albums, I think. Now I fancy this screen will look quite out of
+the common, Ruth; and when it is done, I shall get some of those
+Japanese cranes and stand them on the top. Their claws are made to twist
+round, you know, and I shall put some monkeys--you know those droll
+chenille monkeys, Ruth--creeping up the sides to meet the cranes. I
+don't honestly think, my dear"--with complacency--"that many people will
+have anything like it."
+
+Ruth did not hesitate to say that she felt certain very few would.
+
+Mrs. Alwynn was delighted at the interest she took in her new work. Ruth
+was coming out at last, she told her husband; and she passed many happy
+hours entirely absorbed in the arrangement of the cards upon the panels.
+Ruth, thankful that her attention had been providentially distracted
+from the matter that filled her own thoughts, in a way that surprised
+and annoyed her, sorted, and snipped, and pasted, and decided weighty
+questions as to whether a goitred robin on a twig should be placed next
+to a smiling plum-pudding, dancing a polka with a turkey, or whether a
+congealed cross, with "Christian greeting" in icicles on it, should
+separate the two.
+
+To her uncle Ruth told what had happened; and as he slowly wended his
+way to Vandon on the day fixed for the tenant's dinner, Mr. Alwynn mused
+thereon, and I believe, if the truth were known, he was sorry that Dare
+had been refused. He was a little before his time, and he stopped on the
+bridge, and looked at the river, as it came churning and sweeping below,
+fretted out of its usual calm by the mill above. I think that as he
+leaned over the low stone parapet he made many quiet little reflections
+besides the involuntary one of himself in the water below. He would have
+liked (he was conscious that it was selfish, but yet he _would_ have
+liked) to have Ruth near him always. He would have liked to see this
+strange son of his old friend in good hands, that would lead him--as it
+is popularly supposed a woman's hand sometimes can--in the way of all
+others in which Mr. Alwynn was anxious that he should walk; a way in
+which he sometimes feared that Dare had not made any great progress as
+yet. Mr. Alwynn felt at times, when conversing with him, that Dare's
+life could not have been one in which the nobler feelings of his nature
+had been much brought into play, so crude and unformed were his ideas of
+principle and responsibility, so slack and easy-going his views of life.
+
+But if Mr. Alwynn felt an occasional twinge of anxiety and misgiving
+about his young friend, it speedily turned to self-upbraiding for
+indulging in a cynical, unworthy spirit, which was ever ready to seek
+out the evil and overlook the good; and he gradually convinced himself
+that only favorable circumstances were required for the blossoming forth
+of those noble attributes, of which the faintest indications on Dare's
+part were speedily magnified by the powerful lens of Mr. Alwynn's
+charity to an extent which would have filled Dare with satisfaction, and
+would have overwhelmed a more humble nature with shame.
+
+And Ruth would not have him! Mr. Alwynn remembered a certain passage in
+his own youth, a long time ago, when somebody (a very foolish somebody,
+I think) would not have him either; and it was with that remembrance
+still in his mind that he met Dare, who had come as far as the lodge
+gates to meet him, and whose forlorn appearance touched Mr. Alwynn's
+heart the moment he saw him.
+
+There was not time for much conversation. To his astonishment Mr. Alwynn
+found Dare actually nervous about the coming ordeal; and on the way to
+the Green Dragon, where the dinner was to be given, he reassured him as
+best he could, and suggested the kind of answer he should make when his
+health was drunk.
+
+When, a couple of hours later, all was satisfactorily over, when the
+last health had been drunk, the last song sung, and Dare was driving Mr.
+Alwynn home in the shabby old Vandon dog-cart, both men were at first
+too much overcome by the fumes of tobacco, in which they had been
+hidden, to say a word to each other. At last, however, Mr. Alwynn drew a
+long breath, and said, faintly:
+
+"I trust I may never be so hot again. Drive slowly under these trees,
+Dare. It is cooling to look at them after sitting behind that steaming
+volcano of a turkey. How is your head getting on? I saw you went in for
+punch."
+
+"Was that punch?" said Dare. "Then I take no more punch in the future."
+
+"You spoke capitally, and brought in the right sentiment, that there is
+no place like home, in first-rate style. You see, you need not have been
+nervous."
+
+"Ah! but it was you who spoke really well," said Dare, with something of
+his old eager manner. "You know these people. You know their heart. You
+understand them. Now, for me, I said what you tell me, and they were
+pleased, but I can never be with them like you. I understand the words
+they speak, but themselves I do not understand."
+
+"It will come."
+
+"No," with a rare accession of humility. "I have cared for none of these
+things till--till I came to hear them spoken of at Slumberleigh by you
+and--and now at first it is smooth, because I say I will do what I can,
+but soon they will find out I cannot do much, and then--" He shrugged
+his shoulders.
+
+They drove on in silence.
+
+"But these things are nothing--nothing," burst out Dare at last, in a
+tremulous voice, "to the one thing I think of all night, all day--how I
+love Miss Deyncourt, and how," with a simplicity which touched Mr.
+Alwynn, "she does not love me at all."
+
+There is something pathetic in seeing any cheerful, light-hearted animal
+reduced to silence and depression. To watch a barking, worrying, jovial
+puppy suddenly desist from parachute expeditions on unsteady legs, and
+from shaking imaginary rats, and creep, tail close at home, overcome by
+affliction, into obscurity, is a sad sight. Mr. Alwynn felt much the
+same kind of pity for Dare as he glanced at him, resignedly blighted,
+handsomely forlorn, who but a short time ago had taken life as gayly and
+easily as a boy home for the holidays.
+
+"Sometimes," said Mr. Alwynn, addressing himself to the mill, and the
+bridge, and the world in general, "young people change their minds. I
+have known such things happen."
+
+"I shall never change mine."
+
+"Perhaps not; but others might."
+
+"Ah!" and Dare turned sharply towards Mr. Alwynn, scanning his face with
+sudden eagerness. "You think--you think, possibly--"
+
+"I don't think anything at all," interposed Mr. Alwynn, rather taken
+aback at the evident impression his vague words had made, and anxious
+to qualify them. "I was only speaking generally; but--ahem! there is one
+point, as we are on the subject, that--"
+
+"Yes, yes?"
+
+"Whether you consider any decision as final or not"--Mr. Alwynn
+addressed the clouds in the sky--"I think, if you do not wish it to be
+known that anything has taken place, you had better come and see me
+occasionally at Slumberleigh. I have missed your visits for the past
+week. The fact is, Mrs. Alwynn has a way of interesting herself in all
+her friends. She has a kind heart, and--you--understand--any little
+difference in their behavior might be observed by her, and might
+possibly--might possibly"--Mr. Alwynn was at a loss for a word--"be, in
+short, commented on to others. Suppose now you were to come back with me
+to tea to-day?"
+
+And Dare went, nothing loath, and arrived at a critical moment in the
+manufacture of the screen, when all the thickest Christmas cards
+threatened to resist the influence of paste, and to curl up, to the
+great anxiety of Mrs. Alwynn.
+
+One of the principle reasons of Dare's popularity was the way in which
+he threw his whole heart into whatever he was doing, for the time; never
+for a long time, certainly, for he rarely bored himself or others by
+adherence to one set of ideas after its novelty had worn off.
+
+And now, as if nothing else existed in the world, and with a grave
+manner suggesting repressed suffering and manly resignation, he
+concentrated his whole mind on Mrs. Alwynn's recalcitrant cards, and
+made Ruth grateful to him by his tact in devoting himself to her aunt
+and the screen.
+
+"Well, I never!" said Mrs. Alwynn, after he was gone. "I never did see
+any one like Mr. Dare. I declare he has made the church stick, Ruth, and
+'Blessings on my friend,' which turned up at the corners twice when you
+put it on, and the big middle one of the kittens skating, too! Dear me!
+I am pleased. I hope Mrs. Thursby won't call till it's finished. But he
+did not look well, Ruth, did he? Rather pale now, I thought."
+
+"He has had a tiring day," said Ruth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+At Slumberleigh you have time to notice the change of the seasons. There
+is no hurry at Slumberleigh. Spring, summer, autumn, and winter, each in
+their turn, take quite a year to come and go. Three months ago it was
+August; now September had arrived. It was actually the time of damsons.
+Those damsons which Ruth had seen dangling for at least three years in
+the cottage orchards were ripe at last. It seemed ages ago since April,
+when the village was a foaming mass of damson blossom, and the "plum
+winter" had set in just when spring really seemed to have arrived for
+good. It was a well-known thing in Slumberleigh, though Ruth till last
+April had not been aware of it, that God Almighty always sent cold
+weather when the Slumberleigh damsons were in bloom, to harden the
+fruit. And now the lame, the halt, and the aged of Slumberleigh, all
+with one consent, mounted on tottering ladders to pick their damsons, or
+that mysterious fruit, closely akin to the same, called "black Lamas
+ploums."
+
+There were plum accidents, of course, in plenty. The Lord took Mrs.
+Eccles's own uncle from his half-filled basket to another world, for
+which, as a "tea and coffee totaller," he was no doubt well prepared.
+The too receptive organisms of unsuspecting infancy suffered in their
+turn. In short, it was a busy season for Mr. and Mrs. Alwynn.
+
+Ruth had plenty of opportunities now for making her long-projected
+sketch of the ruined house of Arleigh, for the old woman who lived in
+the lodge close by, and had charge of the place, had "ricked" her back
+in a damson-tree, and Ruth often went to see her. She had been Ruth's
+nurse in her childhood, and having originally come from Slumberleigh,
+returned there when the Deyncourt children grew up, and lived happily
+ever after, with the very blind and entirely deaf old husband of her
+choice, in the gray stone lodge at Arleigh.
+
+It was on her return from one of these almost daily visits that Mrs.
+Eccles pounced on Ruth as she passed her gate, and under pretence of
+inquiring after Mrs. Cotton, informed her that she herself was suffering
+in no slight degree. Ruth, who suddenly remembered that she had been
+remiss in "dropping in" on Mrs. Eccles of late, dropped in then and
+there to make up for past delinquencies.
+
+"Is it rheumatism again?" she asked, as Mrs. Eccles seemed inclined to
+run off at once into a report of the goings on of Widow Jones's Sally.
+
+"Not that, my dear, so much as a sinking," said Mrs. Eccles, passing her
+hand slowly over what seemed more like a rising than a depression in her
+ample figure. "But there! I've not been myself since the Lord took old
+Samiwell Price, and that's the truth."
+
+Samuel Price was the relation who had entered into rest off a ladder,
+and Ruth looked duly serious.
+
+"I have no doubt it upset you very much," she said.
+
+"Well, miss," returned Mrs. Eccles, with dignity, "it's not as if I'd
+had my 'ealth before. I've had something wrong in the cistern" (Ruth
+wondered whether she meant system) "these many years. From a gell I
+suffered in my inside. But lor'! I was born to trouble, baptized in a
+bucket, and taken with collects at a week old. And how did you say Mrs.
+Cotton of the lodge might be, miss, as I hear is but poorly too?"
+
+Ruth replied that she was better.
+
+"She's no size to keep her in 'ealth," said Mrs. Eccles, "and so bent as
+she does grow, to be sure. Eh, dear, but it's a good thing to be tall. I
+always think little folks they're like them little watches, they've no
+room for their insides. And I wonder now"--Mrs. Eccles was coming to the
+point that had made her entrap Ruth on her way past--"I wonder now--"
+
+Ruth did not help her. She knew too well the universal desire for
+knowledge of good and evil peculiar to her sex to doubt for a moment
+that Mrs. Eccles had begged her to "step in" only to obtain some piece
+of information, about which her curiosity had been aroused.
+
+"I wonder, now, if Cotton at the lodge has heard anything of the
+poachers again this year, round Arleigh way?"
+
+"Not that I know of," said Ruth, surprised at the simplicity of the
+question.
+
+"Dear sakes! and to think of 'em at Vandon last night, and Mr. Dare and
+the keepers out all night after 'em."
+
+Ruth was interested in spite of herself.
+
+"And the doctor sent for in the middle of the night," continued Mrs.
+Eccles, covertly eying Ruth. "Poor young gentleman! For all his forrin
+ways, there's a many in Vandon as sets store by him."
+
+"I don't think you need be uneasy about Mr. Dare," said Ruth, coldly,
+conscious that Mrs. Eccles was dying to see her change color. "If
+anything had happened to him Mr. Alwynn would have heard of it. And
+now," rising, "I must be going; and if I were you, Mrs. Eccles, I should
+not listen to all the gossip of the village."
+
+"Me listen!" said Mrs. Eccles, much offended. "Me, as is too poorly so
+much as to put my foot out of the door! But, dear heart!" with her usual
+quickness of vision, "if there isn't Mr. Alwynn and Dr. Brown riding up
+the street now in Dr. Brown's gig! Well, I never! and Mr. Alwynn
+a-getting out, and a-talking as grave as can be to Dr. Brown. Poor Mr.
+Dare! Poor dear young gentleman!"
+
+Ruth was conscious that she beat rather a hurried retreat from Mrs.
+Eccles's cottage, and that her voice was not quite so steady as usual
+when she asked the doctor if it were true that Mr. Dare had been hurt.
+
+"All the village will have it that he is killed; but he is all right, I
+assure you, Miss Deyncourt," said the kind old doctor, so soothingly and
+reassuringly that Ruth grew pink with annoyance at the tone. "Not a
+scratch. He was out with his keepers last night, and they had a brush
+with poachers; and Martin, the head keeper was shot in the leg. Bled a
+good deal, so they sent for me; but no danger. I picked up your uncle
+here on his way to see him, and so I gave him a lift there and back.
+That is all, I assure you."
+
+And Dr. Brown and Mrs. Eccles, straining over her geraniums, both came
+to the same conclusion, namely, that, as Mrs. Eccles elegantly expressed
+it, "Miss Ruth wanted Mr. Dare."
+
+"And he'll have her, too, I'm thinking, one of these days," Mrs. Eccles
+would remark to the circle of her acquaintance.
+
+Indeed, the match was discussed on numerous ladders, with almost as much
+interest as the unfailing theme of the damsons themselves.
+
+And Dare rode over to the rectory as often as he used to do before a
+certain day in August, when he had found Ruth under the
+chestnut-tree--the very day before Mrs. Alwynn started on her screen,
+now the completed glory of the drawing-room.
+
+And was Ruth beginning to like him?
+
+As it had not occurred to her to ask herself that question, I suppose
+she was _not_.
+
+Dare had grown very quiet and silent of late, and showed a growing
+tendency to dark hats. His refusal had been so unexpected that the blow,
+when it came, fell with all the more crushing force. His self-love and
+self-esteem had been wounded; but so had something else. Under the
+velvet corduroy waistcoat, which he wore in imitation of Ralph, he had a
+heart. Whether it was one of the very best of its kind or warranted to
+wear well is not for us to judge; but, at any rate, it was large enough
+to take in a very real affection, and to feel a very sharp pang. Dare's
+manner to Ruth was now as diffident as it had formerly been assured. To
+some minds there is nothing more touching than a sudden access of
+humility on the part of a vain man.
+
+Whether Ruth's mind was one of this class or not we do not pretend to
+know.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+It was Sunday morning at Atherstone. In the dining-room, breakfasting
+alone, for he had come down late, was Sir Charles Danvers. His sudden
+arrival on the previous Saturday was easily accounted for. When he had
+casually walked into the drawing-room late in the evening, he had
+immediately and thoroughly explained the reasons of his unexpected
+arrival. It seemed odd that he should have come to Atherstone, in the
+midland counties, "on his way" between two shooting visits in the north,
+but so it was. It might have been thought that one of his friends would
+have been willing to keep him two days longer, or receive him two days
+earlier; but no doubt every one knows his own affairs best, and Charles
+might certainly, "at his age," as he was so fond of saying, be expected
+to know his.
+
+Anyhow, there he was, leaning against the open window, coffee-cup in
+hand, lazily watching the dwindling figures of Ralph and Evelyn, with
+Molly between them, disappearing in the direction of Greenacre church,
+hard by.
+
+The morning mist still lingered on the land, and veiled the distance
+with a tender blue. And up across the silver fields, and across the
+standing armies of the yellowing corn, the sound of church bells came
+from Slumberleigh, beyond the river; bringing back to Charles, as to us
+all, old memories, old hopes, old visions of early youth, long
+cherished, long forgotten.
+
+The single bell of Greenacre was giving forth a slow, persistent,
+cracked invitation to true believers, as an appropriate prelude to Mr.
+Smith's eloquence; but Charles did not hear its testimony.
+
+He was listening to the Slumberleigh bells. Was that the first chime or
+the second?
+
+Suddenly a thought crossed his mind. Should he go to church?
+
+He smiled at the idea. It was a little late to think of that. Besides he
+had let the others start, and he disliked that refuge of mildew and
+dust, Greenacre.
+
+There was Slumberleigh!
+
+There went the bells again!
+
+Slumberleigh! Absurd! Why, he should positively have to run to get there
+before the First Lesson; and that mist meant heat, or he was much
+mistaken.
+
+Charles contemplated the mist for a few seconds.
+
+Tang, teng, ting, tong, tung!
+
+He certainly always made a point of going to church at his own home. A
+good example is, after all, just as important in one place as another.
+
+Tang, tong, teng, tung, _ting_! went the bells.
+
+"Why not run?" suggested an inner voice. "Put down your cup. There! Now!
+Your hat's in the hall, with your gloves beside it. Never mind about
+your prayer-book. Dear me! Don't waste time looking for your own stick.
+Take any. Quick! out through the garden-gate! No one can see you. The
+servants have all gone to church except the cook, and the kitchen looks
+out on the yew hedge."
+
+"Over the first stile," said Charles to himself. "I am out of sight of
+the house now. Let us be thankful for small mercies. I shall do it yet.
+Oh, what a fool I am! I'm worse than Raca, as Molly said. I shall be
+rushing precipitately down a steep place into the sea next. Confound
+this gate! Why can't people leave them open? At any rate, it will remain
+open now. I am not going to have my devotions curtailed by a gate. I
+fancied it would be hot, but never anything half as hot as this. I hope
+I sha'n't meet Brown taking a morning stroll. I value Brown; but I
+should have to dismiss him if he saw me now. I could never meet his eye
+again. What on earth shall I say to Ralph and Evelyn when I get back?
+What a merciful Providence it is that Aunt Mary is at this moment
+intoning a response in the highest church in Scarborough!"
+
+_Ting, ting, ting!_
+
+"Mr. Alwynn is getting on his surplice, is he? Well, and if he is, I can
+make a final rush through the corn, can't I? There's not a creature in
+sight. The bell's down! What of that? There is the voluntary. Easy over
+the last fields. There are houses in sight, and there may be wicked
+Sabbath-breakers looking out of windows. Brown's foal has grown since
+July. Here we are! I am not the only Christian hurrying among the tombs.
+I shall get in with 'the wicked man' after all."
+
+Some people do not look round in church; others do. Mrs. Alwynn always
+did, partly because she wished to see what was going on behind her, and
+partly because, in turning back again, she could take a stealthy survey
+of Mrs. Thursby's bonnet, in which she always felt a burning interest,
+which she would not for worlds have allowed that lady to suspect.
+
+If the turning round had been all, it would have mattered little; but
+Mrs. Alwynn suffered so intensely from keeping silence that she was
+obliged to relieve herself at intervals by short whispered comments to
+Ruth.
+
+On this particular morning it seemed as if the comments would never end.
+
+"I am so glad we asked Mr. Dare into our pew, Ruth. The Thursbys are
+full. That's Mrs. Thursby's sister in the red bonnet."
+
+Ruth made no reply. She was following the responses in the psalms with a
+marked attention, purposely marked to check conversation, and sufficient
+to have daunted anybody but her aunt.
+
+Mrs. Alwynn took a spasmodic interest in the psalm, but it did not last.
+
+"Only two basses in the choir, and the new _Te Deum_, Ruth. How vexed
+Mr. Alwynn will be!"
+
+No response from Ruth. Mrs. Alwynn took another turn at her prayer-book,
+and then at the congregation.
+
+"'I am become as it were a monster unto--' Ruth! _Ruth!_"
+
+Ruth at last turned her head a quarter of an inch.
+
+_"Sir Charles Danvers is sitting in the free seats by the font!"_
+
+Ruth nailed her eyes to her book, and would vouchsafe no further sign of
+attention during the rest of the service; and Dare, on the other side,
+anxious to copy Ruth in everything, being equally obdurate, Mrs. Alwynn
+had no resource left but to follow the service half aloud to herself, at
+the times when the congregation were _not_ supposed to join in, putting
+great emphasis on certain words which she felt applicable to herself, in
+a manner that effectually prevented any one near her from attending to
+the service at all.
+
+It was with a sudden pang that Dare, following Ruth out into the
+sunshine after service, perceived for the first time Charles, standing,
+tall and distinguished-looking, beside the rather insignificant heir of
+all the Thursbys, who regarded him with the mixed admiration and gnawing
+envy of a very young man for a man no longer young.
+
+And then--Charles never quite knew how it happened, but with the full
+intention of walking back to the rectory with the Alwynns, and staying
+to luncheon, he actually found himself in Ruth's very presence,
+accepting a cordial invitation to luncheon at Slumberleigh Hall. For the
+first time during the last ten years he had done a thing he had no
+intention of doing. A temporary long-lost feeling of shyness had seized
+upon him as he saw Ruth coming out, tall and pale and graceful, from the
+shadow of the church porch into the blaze of the mid-day sunshine. He
+had not calculated either for that sudden disconcerting leap of the
+heart as her eyes met his. He had an idiotic feeling that she must be
+aware that he had run most of the way to church, and that he had
+contemplated the burnished circles of her back hair for two hours,
+without a glance at the fashionably scraped-up head-dress of Mabel
+Thursby, with its hogged mane of little wire curls in the nape of the
+neck. He felt he still looked hot and dusty, though he had imagined he
+was quite cool the moment before. To his own astonishment, he actually
+found his self-possession leaving him; and though its desertion proved
+only momentary, _in_ that moment he found himself walking away with the
+Thursbys in the direction of the Hall. He was provoked, angry with
+himself, with the Thursbys, and, most of all, with Mr. Alwynn, who had
+come up a second later, and asked him to luncheon, as a matter of
+course, also Dare, who accepted with evident gratitude. Charles felt
+that he had not gone steeple-chasing over the country only to talk to
+Mrs. Thursby, and to see Ruth stroll away over the fields with Dare
+towards the rectory.
+
+However, he made himself extremely agreeable, which was with him more a
+matter of habit than those who occasionally profited by it would have
+cared to know. He asked young Thursby his opinion on E.C. cartridges; he
+condoled with Mrs. Thursby on the loss of her last butler, and recounted
+some alarming anecdotes of his own French cook. He admired a pallid
+water-color drawing of Venice, in an enormous frame on an enormous
+easel, which he rightly supposed to be the manual labor of Mabel
+Thursby.
+
+When he rose to take his leave, young Thursby, intensely flattered by
+having been asked for that opinion on cartridges by so renowned a shot
+as Charles, offered to walk part of the way back with him.
+
+"I am afraid I am not going home yet," said Charles, lightly. "Duty
+points in the opposite direction, I have to call at the rectory. I want
+Mr. Alwynn's opinion on a point of clerical etiquette, which is setting
+my young spiritual shepherd at Stoke Moreton against his principal
+sheep, namely, myself."
+
+And Charles took his departure, leaving golden opinions behind him, and
+a determination to invite him once more to shoot, in spite of his many
+courteous refusals of the last few years.
+
+Mrs. Alwynn always took a nap after luncheon in her smart Sunday gown,
+among the mustard-colored cushions of her high-art sofa. Mr. Alwynn,
+also, was apt at the same time to sink into a subdued, almost apologetic
+doze, in the old arm-chair which alone had resisted the march of
+discomfort, and so-called "taste," which had invaded the rest of the
+little drawing-room of Slumberleigh Rectory. Ruth was sitting with her
+dark head leaned against the open window-frame. Dare had not stayed
+after luncheon, being at times nervously afraid of giving her too much
+of his society; and she was at liberty to read over again, if she chose,
+the solitary letter which the Sunday post had brought her. But she did
+not do so; she was thinking.
+
+And so her sister Anna was actually returning to England at last! She
+and her husband had taken a house in Rome, and had arranged that Ruth
+should join them in London in November, and go abroad with them after
+Christmas for the remainder of the winter. She had pleasant
+recollections of previous winters in Rome, or, on the Riviera with her
+grandmother, and she was surprised that she did not feel more interested
+in the prospect. She supposed she would like it when the time came, but
+she seemed to care very little about it at the present moment. It had
+become very natural to live at Slumberleigh, and although there were
+drawbacks--here she glanced involuntarily at her aunt, who was making
+her slumbers vocal by a running commentary on them through her
+nose--still she would be sorry to go. Mr. Alwynn gave the ghost of a
+miniature snore, and, opening his eyes, found Ruth bent affectionately
+upon him. Her mind went back to another point in Anna's letter. After
+dilating on the extreme admiration and regard entertained for herself by
+her husband, his readiness with shawls, etc., she went on to ask whether
+Ruth had heard any news of Raymond.
+
+Ruth sighed. Would there ever be any news of Raymond? The old nurse at
+Arleigh always asked the same question. "Any news of Master Raymond?" It
+was with a tired ache of the heart that Ruth heard that question, and
+always gave the same answer. Once she had heard from him since Lady
+Deyncourt's death, after she had written to tell him, as gently as she
+could, that she and Anna had inherited all their grandmother had to
+leave. A couple of months later she had received a hurried note in
+reply, inveighing against Lady Deyncourt's injustice, saying (as usual)
+that he was hard up for money, and that, when he knew where it might
+safely be sent, he should expect her and her sister to make up to him
+for his disappointment. And since then, since April--not a word. June,
+July, August, September. Four months and no sign. When he was in want of
+money his letters heretofore had made but little delay. Had he fallen
+ill and died out there, or met his death suddenly, perhaps in some wild
+adventure under an assumed name? Her lips tightened, and her white brows
+contracted over her absent eyes. It was an old anxiety, but none the
+less wearing because it was old. Ruth put it wearily from her, and took
+up the first book which came to her hand, to distract her attention.
+
+It was a manual out of which Mrs. Alwynn had been reading extracts to
+her in the morning, while Ruth had been engaged in preparing herself to
+teach in the Sunday-school. She wondered vaguely how pleasure could be
+derived, even by the most religious persons, from seeing favorite texts
+twined in and out among forget-me-nots, or falling aslant in old English
+letters off bunches of violets; but she was old enough and wise enough
+to know that one man's religion is another man's occasion of stumbling.
+Books are made to fit all minds, and small minds lose themselves in
+large-minded books. The thousands in which these little manuals are
+sold, and the confidence with which their readers recommend them to
+others, indicates the calibre of the average mind, and shows that they
+meet a want possibly "not known before," but which they alone, with
+their little gilt edges, can adequately fill. Ruth was gazing in absent
+wonder at the volume which supplied all her aunt's spiritual needs when
+she heard the wire of the front door-bell squeak faintly. It was a
+stiff-necked and obdurate bell, which for several years Mr. Alwynn had
+determined to see about.
+
+A few moments later James, the new and inexperienced footman, opened the
+door about half a foot, put in his head, murmured something inaudible,
+and withdrew it again.
+
+A tall figure appeared in the door-way, and advanced to meet her, then
+stopped midway. Ruth rose hastily, and stood where she had risen, her
+eyes glancing first at Mr. and then at Mrs. Alwynn.
+
+The alien presence of a visitor had not disturbed them. Mrs. Alwynn, her
+head well forward and a succession of chins undulating in perfect repose
+upon her chest, was sleeping as a stout person only can--all over. Mr.
+Alwynn, opposite, his thin hands clasped listlessly over his knee, was
+as unconscious of the two pairs of eyes fixed upon him as Nelson
+himself, laid out in Madame Tussaud's.
+
+Charles's eyes, twinkling with suppressed amusement, met Ruth's. He
+shook his head energetically, as she made a slight movement as if to
+wake them, and stepping forward, pointed with his hat towards the open
+window, which reached to the ground. Ruth understood, but she hesitated.
+At this moment Mrs. Alwynn began a variation on the simple theme in
+which she had been indulging, and in so much higher a key that all
+hesitation vanished. She stepped hastily out through the window, and
+Charles followed. They stood together for a moment in the blazing
+sunshine, both too much amused to speak.
+
+"You are bareheaded," he said, suddenly; "is there any"--looking
+round--"any shade we could take refuge under?"
+
+Ruth led the way round the yew hedge to the horse-chestnut; that
+horse-chestnut under which Dare had once lost his self-esteem.
+
+"I am afraid," said Charles, "I arrived at an inopportune moment. As I
+was lunching with the Thursbys, I came up in the hope of finding Mr.
+Alwynn, whom I wanted to consult about a small matter in my own parish."
+
+Charles was quite pleased with this sentence when he had airily given it
+out. It had a true ring about it he fancied, which he remembered with
+gratitude was more than the door-bell had. Peace be with that door-bell,
+and with the engaging youth who answered it.
+
+"I wish you had let me wake Mr. Alwynn," said Ruth. "He will sleep on
+now till the bells begin."
+
+"On no account. I should have been shocked if you had disturbed him. I
+assure you I can easily wait until he naturally wakes up; that is," with
+a glance at the book in her hand, "if I am not disturbing you--if you
+are not engaged in improving yourself at this moment."
+
+"No. I have improved myself for the day, thanks. I can safely afford to
+relax a little now."
+
+"So can I. I resemble Lady Mary in that. On Sunday mornings she reflects
+on her own shortcomings; on Sunday afternoons she finds an innocent
+relaxation in pointing out mine."
+
+"Where is Lady Mary now?"
+
+"I should say she was in her Bath-chair on the Scarborough sands at this
+moment."
+
+"I like her," said Ruth, with decision.
+
+"Tastes differ. Some people feel drawn towards wet blankets, and others
+have a leaning towards pokers. Do you know why you like her?"
+
+"I never thought about it, but I suppose it was because she seemed to
+like _me_."
+
+"Exactly. You admired her good taste. A very natural vanity, most
+pardonable in the young, was gratified at seeing marks of favor so well
+bestowed."
+
+"I dare say you are right. At any rate, you seem so familiar with the
+workings of vanity in the human breast that it would be a pity to
+contradict you."
+
+"By-the-way," said Charles, speaking in the way people do who have
+nothing to say, and are trying to hit on any subject of conversation,
+"have you heard any more of your tramp? There was no news of him when I
+left. I asked the Slumberleigh policeman about him again on my way to
+the station."
+
+"I have heard no more of him, though I keep his memory green. I have not
+forgotten the fright he gave me. I had always imagined I was rather a
+self-possessed person till that day."
+
+"I am a coward myself when I am frightened," said Charles, consolingly,
+"though at other times as bold as a lion."
+
+They were both sitting under the flickering shadow of the already
+yellowing horse-chestnut-tree, the first of all the trees to set the
+gorgeous autumn fashions. But as yet it was paling only at the edges of
+its slender fans. The air was sweet and soft, with a voiceless whisper
+of melancholy in it, as if the summer knew, for all her smiles, her hour
+had wellnigh come.
+
+The rectory cows--the mottled one, and the red one, and the big white
+one that was always milked first--came slowly past on their way to the
+pond, blinking their white eyelashes leisurely at Charles and Ruth.
+
+"It is almost as hot as that Sunday in July when we walked over from
+Atherstone. Do you remember?" said Charles, suddenly.
+
+"Yes."
+
+She knew he was thinking of their last conversation, and she felt a
+momentary surprise that he had remembered it.
+
+"We never finished that conversation," he said, after a pause.
+
+"No; but then conversations never are finished, are they? They always
+seem to break off just when they are coming to the beginning. A bell
+rings, or there is an interruption, or one is told it is bedtime."
+
+"Or fools rush in with their word where you and I should fear to tread,
+and spoil everything."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And have you been holding the wool and tying up the flowers, as you so
+graphically described, ever since you left Atherstone in July?"
+
+"I hope I have; I have tried."
+
+"I am sure of that," he said, with sudden earnestness, then added more
+slowly, "I have not wound any wool; I have only enjoyed myself."
+
+"Perhaps," said Ruth, turning her clear, frank gaze upon him, "that may
+have been the harder work of the two; it sometimes is."
+
+His light, restless eyes, with the searching look in them which she had
+seen before, met hers, and then wandered away again to the level meadows
+and the woods and the faint sky.
+
+"I think it was," he said at last; and both were silent. He reflected
+that his conversations with Ruth had a way of beginning in fun, becoming
+more serious, and ending in silence.
+
+The bells rang out suddenly.
+
+Charles thought they were full early.
+
+"Mr. Alwynn will wake up now," said Ruth; "I will tell him you are
+here."
+
+But before she had time to do more than rise from her chair, Mr. Alwynn
+came slowly round the yew hedge, and stopped suddenly in front of the
+chestnut-tree, amazed at what he saw beneath it. His mild eyes gazed
+blankly at Charles through his spectacles, gathering a pained expression
+as they peered over the top of them, which did not lessen when they fell
+on Ruth.
+
+Charles explained in a few words the purport of his visit, which had
+already explained itself quite sufficiently to Mr. Alwynn; and
+mentioning that he had waited in the hope of presently finding Mr.
+Alwynn "disengaged" (at this Mr. Alwynn blushed a little), asked leave
+to walk as far as the church with him to consult him on a small matter,
+etc. It was a neat sentence, but it did not sound quite so well the
+third time. It had lost by the heathenish and vain repetitions to which
+it had been subjected.
+
+"Certainly, certainly," said Mr. Alwynn, mollified, but still
+discomposed. "You should have waked me, Ruth;" turning reproachfully to
+his niece, whose conduct had never, in his eyes, fallen short of
+perfection till this moment. "Little nap after luncheon. Hardly asleep.
+You should have waked me."
+
+"There was Aunt Fanny," said Ruth, feeling as if she had committed some
+grave sin.
+
+"Ah-h!" said Mr. Alwynn, as if her reason were a weighty one, his memory
+possibly recalling the orchestral flourish which as a rule heralded his
+wife's return to consciousness. "True, true, my dear. I must be going,"
+as the chime ceased. "Are you coming to church this afternoon?"
+
+Ruth replied that she was not, and Mr. Alwynn and Charles departed
+together, Charles ruefully remembering that he had still to ask advice
+on a subject the triviality of which would hardly allow of two opinions.
+
+Ruth watched them walk away together, and then went back noiselessly
+into the drawing-room.
+
+Mrs. Alwynn was sitting bolt upright, her feet upon the floor, her gown
+upon the sofa. Her astonished eyes were fixed upon the dwindling figures
+of Mr. Alwynn and Charles.
+
+"Goodness, Ruth!" she exclaimed, "who is that white waistcoat walking
+with your uncle?"
+
+Ruth explained.
+
+"Dear me! And as likely as not he came to see the new screen. I know
+Mrs. Thursby tells everybody about it. And his own house so full of
+beautiful things too. Was ever anything so annoying! We should have had
+so much in common, for I hear his taste is quite--well, really quite out
+of the way. How contrary things are, Ruth! You awake and me asleep, when
+it might just as well have been the other way; but it is Sunday, my
+dear, so we must not complain. And now, as we have missed church, I will
+lie down again, and you shall read me that nice sermon, which I always
+like to hear when I can't go to church; the one in the green book about
+Nabob's vineyard."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+Great philosophers and profound metaphysicians should by rights have
+lived at Slumberleigh. Those whose lines have fallen to them "ten miles
+from a lemon," have time to think, if so inclined.
+
+Only elementary natures complain of their surroundings; and though at
+first Ruth had been impatient and depressed, after a time she found
+that, better than to live in an atmosphere of thought, was to be thrown
+entirely on her own resources, and to do her thinking for herself.
+
+Some minds, of course, sink into inanition if an outward supply of
+nutriment is withheld. Others get up and begin to forage for themselves.
+Happy are these--when the transition period is over--when, after a time,
+the first and worst mistakes have been made and suffered for, and the
+only teaching that profits anything at all, the bitter teaching of
+experience, has been laid to heart.
+
+Such a nature was Ruth's, upright, self-reliant, without the impetuosity
+and impulsiveness that so often accompanies an independent nature, but
+accustomed to look at everything through her own eyes, and to think, but
+not till now to act for herself.
+
+She had been brought up by her grandmother to believe that before all
+things _noblesse oblige_; to despise a dishonorable action, to have her
+feelings entirely under control, to be intimate with few, to be
+courteous to all. But to help others, to give up anything for them, to
+love an unfashionable or middle-class neighbor, or to feel a personal
+interest in religion, except as a subject of conversation, had never
+found a place in Lady Deyncourt's code, or consequently in Ruth's,
+though, as was natural with a generous nature, the girl did many little
+kindnesses to those about her, and was personally unselfish, as those
+who live with self-centred people are bound to be if there is to be any
+semblance of peace in the house.
+
+But now, new thoughts were stirring within her, were leavening her whole
+mind. All through these monotonous months she had watched the quiet
+routine of patient effort that went to make up the sum of Mr. Alwynn's
+life. He was a shy man. He seldom spoke of religion out of the pulpit;
+but all through these long months he preached it without words to Ruth,
+as she had never heard it preached before, by
+
+     "The best portion of a good man's life--
+     His little, nameless, unremembered acts
+       Of kindness and of love."
+
+It was the first time that she had come into close contact with a life
+spent for others, and its beauty appealed to her with a new force, and
+gradually but surely changed the current of her thoughts, until, as "we
+needs must love the highest when we see it," she unconsciously fell in
+love with self-sacrifice.
+
+The opinions of most young persons, however loudly and injudiciously
+proclaimed, rarely do the possessors much harm, because they are not,
+as a rule, acted upon; but with some few people a change of views means
+a change of life. Ruth was on the edge of a greater change than she
+knew.
+
+At first she had often regretted the chapter of her life that had been
+closed by Lady Deyncourt's death. Now, she felt she could not go back to
+it, and find it all-sufficient as of old. It would need an added
+element, without which she began to see that any sort or condition of
+life is but a stony, dusty concern after all--an element which made even
+Mr. Alwynn's colorless existence a contented and happy one.
+
+Ruth had been telling him one day, as they were walking together, of her
+sister's plans for the winter, and that she was sorry to think her time
+at Slumberleigh was drawing to a close.
+
+"I am afraid," he said, "in spite of all you say, my dear, it has been
+very dull for you here. No little gayeties or enjoyments such as it is
+right young people should have. I wish we had had a picnic, or a
+garden-party, or something. Mabel Thursby cannot be happy without these
+things, and it is natural at your age that you should wish for them.
+Your aunt and I lead very quiet lives. It suits us, but it is different
+for young people."
+
+"Does it suit you?" asked Ruth, with sudden earnestness. "Do you really
+like it, or do you sometimes get tired of it?"
+
+Mr. Alwynn looked a little alarmed and disconcerted. He never cared to
+talk about himself.
+
+"I used to get tired," he said at last, with reluctance, "when I was
+younger. There were times when I foolishly expected more from life
+than--than, in fact, I quite got, my dear; and the result was, I fear I
+had a very discontented spirit--an unthankful, discontented spirit," he
+repeated, with sad retrospection.
+
+Something in his tone touched Ruth to the quick.
+
+"And now?"
+
+"I am content now."
+
+"Uncle John, tell me. How did you grow to feel content?"
+
+He saw there were tears in her eyes.
+
+"It took a long time," he said. "Anything that is worth knowing, Ruth,
+takes a long time to learn. I think I found in the end, my dear, that
+the only way was to put my whole heart into what I was doing," (Mr.
+Alwynn's voice was simple and earnest, as if he were imparting to Ruth a
+great discovery). "I had tried before, from time to time, of course, but
+never quite as hard as I might have done. That was where I failed. When
+I put myself on one side, and really settled down to do what I could
+for others, life became much simpler and happier."
+
+He turned his grave, patient eyes to Ruth's again. Was something
+troubling her?
+
+"I have often thought since then," he went on, speaking more to himself
+than to her, "that we should consider well what we are keeping back our
+strength for, if we find ourselves refusing to put the whole of it into
+our work. When at last one does start, one feels it is such a pity one
+did not do it earlier in life. When I look at all the young faces
+growing up around me, I often hope, Ruth, they won't waste as much time
+as I did."
+
+How simple it seemed while she listened to him; how easy, how natural,
+this life for others!
+
+She could not answer. One sentence of Mr. Alwynn's was knocking at the
+door of her heart for admission; was drowning with its loud beating the
+sound of all the rest:
+
+_"We should consider well what we are keeping back our strength for, if
+we refuse to put the whole of it into our work."_
+
+She and Mr. Alwynn walked on in silence; and after a time, always afraid
+of speaking much on the subject that was first in his own mind, he began
+to talk again on trivial matters, to tell her how he had met Dare that
+morning, and had promised on her behalf that she would sing at a little
+local concert which the Vandon school-master was getting up that week to
+defray the annual expense of the Vandon cricket club, and in which Dare
+was taking a vivid interest.
+
+"You won't mind singing, will you, Ruth?" asked Mr. Alwynn, wishing she
+would show a little more interest in Dare and his concert.
+
+"Oh no, of course not," rather hurriedly. "I should be glad to help in
+any way."
+
+"And I thought, my dear, as it would be getting late, we had better
+accept his offer of staying the night at Vandon."
+
+Ruth assented, but so absently that Mr. Alwynn dropped the subject with
+a sigh, and walked on, revolving weighty matters in his mind. They had
+left the woods now, and were crossing the field where, two months ago,
+the school-feast had been held. Mr. Alwynn made some slight allusion to
+it, and then coughed. Ruth's attention, which had been distracted, came
+back in a moment. She knew her uncle had something which he did not
+like, something which yet he felt it his duty to say, when he gave that
+particular cough.
+
+"That was when you were staying with the Danvers, wasn't it, Ruth?" in a
+would-be casual, disengaged tone.
+
+"Yes; I came over from Atherstone with Molly Danvers."
+
+"I remember," said Mr. Alwynn, looking extremely uncomfortable; "and--if
+I am not mistaken--ahem! Sir Charles Danvers was staying there at the
+same time?"
+
+"Certainly he was."
+
+"Yes, and I dare say, Ruth--I am not finding fault, far from it--I dare
+say he made himself very agreeable for the time being?"
+
+"I don't think he made himself so. I should have said he was naturally
+so, without any effort, just as some people are naturally the reverse."
+
+"Indeed! Well, I have always heard he was most agreeable; but I am
+afraid--I think perhaps it is just as well you should know--forewarned
+is forearmed, you know--that, in fact, he says a great deal more than he
+means sometimes."
+
+"Does he? I dare say he does."
+
+"He has a habit of appearing to take a great interest in people, which I
+am afraid means very little. I dare say he is not fully aware of it, or
+I am sure he would struggle against it, and we must not judge him; but
+still, his manner does a great deal of harm. It is peculiarly open to
+misconstruction. For instance," continued Mr. Alwynn, making a rush as
+his courage began to fail him, "it struck me, Ruth, the other
+day--Sunday, was it? Yes, I think it _was_ Sunday--that really he had
+not much to ask me about his week-day services. I--ahem! I thought he
+need not have called."
+
+"I dare say not."
+
+"But now, that is just the kind of thing he _does_--calls, and,
+er--under chestnut-trees, and that sort of thing--and how _are_ young
+people to know unless their elders tell them that it is only his way,
+and that he has done just the same ever so often before?"
+
+"And will again," said Ruth, trying to keep down a smile. "Is it true
+(Mabel is full of it) that he is engaged, or on the point of being so,
+to one of Lord Hope-Acton's daughters?"
+
+"People are always saying he is engaged, to first one person and then
+another," said Mr. Alwynn, breathing more freely now that his duty was
+discharged. "It often grieves me that your aunt mentions his engagement
+so confidently to friends, because it gives people the impression that
+we know, and we really don't. He is a great deal talked about, because
+he is such a conspicuous man in the county, on account of his wealth and
+his place, and the odd things he says and does. There is something
+about him that is different from other people. I am sure I don't know
+why it is, but I like him very much myself. I have known him do such
+kind things. Dear me! What a pleasant week I had at Stoke Moreton last
+year. It is beautiful, Ruth; and the collection of old papers and
+manuscripts unique! Your aunt was in Devonshire with friends at the
+time. I wish he would ask me again this autumn, to see those charters of
+Edward IV.'s reign that have been found in the secret drawer of an old
+cabinet. I hear they are quite small, and have green seals. I wish I had
+thought of asking him about them on Sunday. If they are really
+small--but it was only Archdeacon Eldon who told me about them, and he
+never sees anything any particular size--if they should happen to be
+really small--" And Mr. Alwynn turned eagerly to the all-engrossing
+subject of the Stoke Moreton charters, which furnished him with
+conversation till they reached home.
+
+_"We should consider well what we are keeping back our strength for, if
+we refuse to put the whole of it into our work."_
+
+All through the afternoon and the quiet, monotonous evening these words
+followed Ruth. She read them between the lines of the book she took up.
+She stitched them into her sewing. They went up-stairs with her at
+night, they followed her into her room, and would not be denied. When
+she had sent away her maid, she sat down by the window, and, with the
+full harvest-moon for company, faced them and asked them what they
+meant. But they only repeated themselves over and over again. What had
+they to do with her? Her mind tried to grapple with them in vain. As
+often as she came to close quarters with them they eluded her and
+disappeared, only to return with the old formula.
+
+Her thoughts drifted away at last to what Mr. Alwynn had said of
+Charles, and all the disagreeable things which Mabel had come up on
+Monday morning, with a bunch of late roses, on purpose to tell her
+respecting him. She had taken Mabel's information at its true worth,
+which I fear was but small; but she felt annoyed that both Mabel and Mr.
+Alwynn should have thought it necessary to warn her. As if, she said to
+herself, she had not known! Really, she had not been born and bred in
+Slumberleigh, nor had she lived there all her life. She had met men of
+that kind before. She always liked them. Charles especially amused her,
+and she could see that she amused him; and, now she came to think of it,
+she supposed he had paid her a good deal of attention at Atherstone, and
+perhaps he had not come over to Slumberleigh especially to see Mr.
+Alwynn. It was as natural to men like Charles to be always interested
+in some one, as it would be unnatural in others ever to be so, except as
+the result of long forethought, and with a wedding-ring and a set of
+bridesmaids well in view. But to attach any importance to the fact that
+Charles liked to talk to her would have been absurd. With another man it
+might have meant much; but she had heard of Charles and his misdoings
+long before she had met him, and knew what to expect. Lord Breakwater's
+sister had confided to her many things respecting him, and had wept
+bitter tears on her shoulder, when he suddenly went off to shoot
+grizzlies in the Rocky Mountains.
+
+"He has not sufficient vanity to know that he is exceedingly popular,"
+said Ruth to herself. "I should think there are few men, handicapped as
+he is, who have been liked more entirely for themselves, and less for
+their belongings; but all the time he probably imagines people admire
+his name, or his place, or his income, and not himself, and consequently
+he does not care much what he says or does. I am certain he does not
+mean to do any harm. His manner never deceived me for a moment. I can't
+see why it should others; but, from all accounts, he seems to be
+frequently misunderstood. That is just the right word for him. He is
+misunderstood. At any rate, I never misunderstood him. That Sunday call
+might have made me suspicious of any ordinary mortal; but I knew no
+common rule could apply to such an exception as he is. I only wonder,
+when he really does find himself in earnest, how he is to convey his
+meaning to the future Lady Danvers. What words would be strong enough;
+what ink would be black enough to carry conviction to her mind?"
+
+She smiled at the thought, and, as she smiled, another face rose
+suddenly before her--Dare's pale and serious, as it had been of late,
+with the wistful, anxious eyes. _He_, at least, had meant a great deal,
+she thought with remorse. _He_ had been in earnest, sufficiently in
+earnest to make himself very unhappy, and on her account.
+
+Ruth had known for some time that Dare loved her; but to-night that
+simple, unobtrusive fact suddenly took larger proportions, came boldly
+out of the shadow and looked her in the face.
+
+He loved her. Well, what then?
+
+She turned giddy, and leaned her head against the open shutter.
+
+In the silence the words that had haunted her all the afternoon came
+back; not loud as heretofore, but in a whisper, speaking to her heart,
+which had begun to beat fast and loud.
+
+_"We should consider well what we are keeping back our strength for, if
+we refuse to put the whole of it into our work."_
+
+What work was there for her to do?
+
+The giddiness and the whirl in her mind died down suddenly like a great
+gust on the surface of a lake, and left it still and clear and cold.
+
+The misery of the world and the inability to meet it had so often
+confused and weighed her down that she had come back humbly of late to
+the only possibility with which it was in her power to deal, come back
+to the well-worn groove of earnest determination to do as much as in her
+lay, close at hand, when she could find a field to labor in. And now she
+suddenly saw, or thought she saw, that she had found it. She had been
+very anxious as to whether Dare would do his duty, but till this moment
+it had never struck her that it might be _her_ duty to help him.
+
+She liked him; and he was poor--too poor to do much for the people who
+were dependent on him, the poor, struggling people of Vandon. Their
+sullen, miserable faces rose up before her, and their crazy houses.
+Fever had broken out again in the cottages by the river. He needed help
+and encouragement, for he had a difficult time before him. And she had
+these to give, and money too. Could she do better with them? She knew
+Mr. Alwynn wished it. And as to herself? Was she never going to put self
+on one side? She had never liked any one very much--at least, not in
+that way--but she liked him.
+
+The words came like a loud voice in the silence. She liked him. Well,
+what then?
+
+She shut her eyes, but she only shut out the moon's pale photographs of
+the fields and woods. She could not shut out these stern besieging
+thoughts.
+
+What was she holding back for? For some possible ideal romantic future;
+for the prince of a fairy story? No? Well, then, for what?
+
+The moon went behind a cloud, and took all her photographs with her. The
+night had turned very cold.
+
+"To-morrow," said Ruth to herself, rising slowly; "I am too tired to
+think now. To-morrow!"
+
+And as she spoke the faint chime of the clock upon her table warned her
+that already it was to-morrow.
+
+And soon, in a moment, as it seemed to her, before she had had time to
+think, it was again to-morrow, a wet, dim to-morrow, and she was at
+Vandon, running up the wide stone steps in the starlight, under Dare's
+protecting umbrella, and allowing him to take her wraps from her before
+the hall fire.
+
+The concert had gone off well. Ruth was pleased, Mr. Alwynn was pleased.
+Dare was in a state of repressed excitement, now flying into the
+drawing-room to see if there were a good fire, as it was a chilly
+evening; now rushing thence to the dining-room to satisfy himself that
+all the immense and elaborate preparations which he had enjoined on the
+cook had been made. Then, Ruth must be shown to her room. Who was to do
+it? He flew to find the house-keeper, and after repeated injunctions to
+the house-maid, whom he met in the passage, not to forget the hot water,
+took Mr. Alwynn off to his apartment.
+
+The concert had begun, as concerts always seem to do, at the exact time
+at which it is usual to dine, so that it was late before the principal
+performers and Mr. Alwynn reached Vandon. It was later still before
+supper came, but when it came it was splendid. Dare looked with anxious
+satisfaction, over a soup tureen, at the various spiced and glazed forms
+of indigestion, sufficient for a dozen people, which covered the table.
+It grieved him that Ruth, confronted by a spreading ham, and Mr. Alwynn,
+half hidden by a bowlder of turkey, should have such moderate appetites.
+But at least she was there, under his roof, at his table. It was not
+surprising that he could eat nothing himself.
+
+After supper, Mr. Alwynn, who combined the wisdom of the worldly serpent
+with the harmlessness of the clerical dove, fell--not too
+suddenly--asleep by the fire in the drawing-room, and Ruth and Dare went
+into the hall, where the piano was. Dare opened it and struck a few
+minor chords. Ruth sat down in a great carved arm-chair beside the fire.
+
+The hall was only lighted by a few tall lamps high on pedestals against
+the walls, which threw great profiles of the various busts upon the dim
+bass-reliefs of twining scroll-work; and Dare, with his eyes fixed on
+Ruth, began to play.
+
+There is in some music a strange appeal beyond the reach of words. Those
+mysterious sharps and flats, and major and minor chords, are an alphabet
+that in some occult combinations forms another higher language than that
+of speech, a language which, as we listen, thrills us to the heart.
+
+It was an old piano, with an impediment in its speech, out of the yellow
+notes of which Ruth could have made nothing; but in Dare's hands it
+spoke for him as he never could have spoken for himself.
+
+His eyes never left her. He feared to look away, lest he should find the
+presence of that quiet, graceful figure by his fireside had been a
+dream, and that he was alone again with the dim lamps, alone with Dante
+and Cicero and Seneca.
+
+The firelight dwelt ruddily upon her grave clear-cut face and level
+brows, and upon the folds of her white gown. It touched the slender
+hands clasped lightly together on her knee, and drew sudden sparks and
+gleams out of the diamond pin at her throat.
+
+His hands trembled on the keys, and as he looked his heart beat high and
+higher, loud and louder, till it drowned the rhythm of the music. And as
+he looked her calm eyes met his.
+
+In another moment he was on his knees beside her, her hands caught in
+his trembling clasp, and his head pressed down upon them.
+
+"I know," he gasped, "it is no good. You have told me so once. You will
+tell me so again. I am not good enough. I am not worthy. But I love you;
+I love you!"
+
+In moments of real feeling the old words hold their own against all
+modern new-comers. Dare repeated them over and over again in a paroxysm
+of overwhelming emotion which shook him from head to foot.
+
+Something in his boyish attitude and in his entire loss of self-control
+touched Ruth strangely. She knew he was five or six years her senior,
+but at the moment she felt as if she were much older than he, and a
+sudden vague wish passed through her mind that he had been nearer her in
+age; not quite so young.
+
+"Well?" she said, gently; and he felt her cool, passive hands tremble a
+little in his. Something in the tone of her voice made him raise his
+head, and meet her eyes looking down at him, earnestly, and with a great
+kindness in them.
+
+A sudden eager light leaped into his face.
+
+"Will you?" he whispered, breathlessly, his hands tightening their hold
+of hers. "Will you?"
+
+There was a moment's pause, in which the whole world seemed to stand
+quite still and wait for her answer.
+
+"Yes," she said at last, "I will."
+
+"I am glad I did it," she said to herself, half an hour later, as she
+leaned her tired head against the carved oak chimney-piece in her
+bedroom, and absently traced with her finger the Latin inscription over
+the fireplace. "I like him very much. I am glad I did it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+For many years nothing had given Mr. Alwynn such heart-felt pleasure as
+the news Ruth had to tell him, as he drove her back next morning to
+Slumberleigh, behind Mrs. Alwynn's long-tailed ponies.
+
+It was a still September morning, with a faint pearl sky and half-veiled
+silver sun. Pale gleams of sunshine wandered across the busy harvest
+fields, and burnished the steel of the river.
+
+Decisions of any kind rarely look their best after a sleepless night;
+but as Ruth saw the expression of happiness and relief that came into
+her uncle's face, when she told him what had happened, she felt again
+that she was glad--very glad.
+
+"Oh, my dear! my dear!"--Mr. Alwynn was driving the ponies first against
+the bank, and then into the opposite ditch--"how glad I am; how
+thankful! I had almost hoped, certainly; I wished so much to think it
+possible; but then, one can never tell. Poor Dare! poor fellow! I used
+to be so sorry for him. And how much you will be able to do at Vandon
+among the people. It will be a different place. And it is such a relief
+to think that the poor old house will be looked after. It went to my
+heart to see the way it had been neglected. I ventured this morning, as
+I was down early, to move some of that dear old Worcester farther back
+into the cabinet. They really were so near the edge, I could not bear to
+see them; and I found a Sevres saucer, my dear, in the library that
+belonged to one of those beautiful cups in the drawing-room. I hope it
+was not very wrong, but I had to put it among its relations. It was
+sitting with a Delf mug on it, poor thing. Dear me! I little thought
+then--Really, I have never been so glad about anything before."
+
+After a little more conversation, and after Mr. Alwynn had been
+persuaded to give the reins to his niece, who was far more composed than
+himself, his mind reverted to his wife.
+
+"I think, my dear, until your engagement is more settled, till I have
+had a talk with Dare on the subject (which will be necessary before you
+write to your uncle Francis), it would be as well not to refer to it
+before--in fact, not to mention it to Mrs. Alwynn. Your dear aunt's
+warm heart and conversational bent make it almost impossible for her to
+refrain from speaking of anything that interests her; and indeed, even
+if she does not say anything in so many words, I have observed that
+opinions are sometimes formed by others as to the subject on which she
+is silent, by her manner when any chance allusion is made to it."
+
+Ruth heartily agreed. She had been dreading the searching catechism
+through which Mrs. Alwynn would certainly put her--the minute inquiries
+as to her dress, the hour, the place; whether it had been "standing up
+or sitting down;" all her questions of course interwoven with personal
+reminiscences of "how John had done it," and her own emotion at the
+time.
+
+It was with no small degree of relief at the postponement of that evil
+hour that Ruth entered the house. As she did so a faint sound reached
+her ear. It was that of a musical-box.
+
+"Dear! dear!" said Mr. Alwynn, as he followed her. "It is a fine day.
+Your aunt must be ill."
+
+For the moment Ruth did not understand the connection of ideas in his
+mind, until she suddenly remembered the musical-box, which, Mrs. Alwynn
+had often told her, was "so nice and cheery on a wet day, or in time of
+illness."
+
+She hurriedly entered the drawing-room, followed by Mr. Alwynn, where
+the first object that met her view was Mrs. Alwynn extended on the sofa,
+arrayed in what she called her tea-gown, a loose robe of blue cretonne,
+with a large vine-leaf pattern twining over it, which broke out into
+grapes at intervals. Ruth knew that garment well. It came on only when
+Mrs. Alwynn was suffering. She had worn it last during a period of
+entire mental prostration, which had succeeded all too soon an exciting
+discovery of mushrooms in the glebe. Mr. Alwynn's heart and Ruth's sank
+as they caught sight of it again.
+
+With a dignity befitting the occasion, Mrs. Alwynn recounted in detail
+the various ways in which she had employed herself after their departure
+the previous evening, up to the exact moment when she slipped going
+up-stairs, and sprained her ankle, in a blue and green manner that had
+quite alarmed the doctor when he had seen it, and compared with which
+Mrs. Thursby's gathered finger in the spring was a mere bagatelle.
+
+"Mrs. Thursby stayed in bed when her finger was bad," said Mrs. Alwynn
+to Ruth, when Mr. Alwynn had condoled, and had made his escape to his
+study. "She always gives way so; but I never was like that. I was up all
+the same, my dear."
+
+"I hope it does not hurt very much," said Ruth, anxious to be
+sympathetic, but succeeding only in being commonplace.
+
+"It's not only the pain," said Mrs. Alwynn, in the gentle resigned voice
+which she always used when indisposed--the voice of one at peace with
+all the world, and ready to depart from a scene consequently so devoid
+of interest; "but to a person of my habits, Ruth--never a day without
+going into the larder, and always seeing after the servants as I
+do--first one duty and then another--and the chickens and all. It seems
+a strange thing that I should be laid aside."
+
+Mrs. Alwynn paused, as if she had not for the nonce fathomed the
+ulterior reasons for this special move on the part of Providence, which
+had crippled her, while it left Ruth and Mrs. Thursby with the use of
+their limbs.
+
+"However," she continued, "I am not one to repine. Always cheery and
+busy, Ruth: that is my motto. And now, my dear, if you will wind up the
+musical-box, and then read me a little bit out of 'Texts with Tender
+Twinings'" (the new floral manual which had lately superseded the
+"Pearls"), "after that we will start on one of my scrap-books, and you
+shall tell me all about your visit to Vandon."
+
+It was not the time Ruth would have chosen for a _tete-a-tete_ with her
+aunt. She was longing to be alone, to think quietly over what had
+happened, and it was difficult to concentrate her attention on pink and
+yellow calico, and cut out colored royal families, and foreign birds,
+with a good grace. Happily Mrs. Alwynn, though always requiring
+attention, was quite content with the half of what she required; and,
+with the "Buffalo Girls" and the "Danube River" tinkling on the table,
+conversation was somewhat superfluous.
+
+In the afternoon Dare came, but he was waylaid in the hall by Mr.
+Alwynn, and taken into the study before he could commit himself in Mrs.
+Alwynn's presence. Mrs. Thursby and Mabel also called to condole, and a
+little later Mrs. Smith of Greenacre, who had heard the news of the
+accident from the doctor. Altogether it was a delightful afternoon for
+Mrs. Alwynn, who assumed for the time an air of superiority over Mrs.
+Thursby to which that lady's well-known chronic ill-health seldom
+allowed her to lay claim.
+
+Mrs. Alwynn and Mrs. Thursby had remained friends since they had both
+arrived together as brides at Slumberleigh, in spite of a difference of
+opinion, which had at one time strained friendly relations to a painful
+degree, as to the propriety of wearing the hair over the top of the
+ear. The hair question settled, a temporary difficulty, extending over a
+few years, had sprung up in its place, respecting what Mrs. Thursby
+called "family." Mrs. Alwynn's family was not her strong point, nor was
+its position strengthened by her assertion (unsupported by Mrs.
+Markham), that she was directly descended from Queen Elizabeth.
+Consequently, it was trying to Mrs. Thursby--who, as every one knows,
+was one of the brainless Copleys of Copley--that Mrs. Alwynn, who in the
+lottery of marriage had drawn an honorable, should take precedence of
+herself. To obviate this difficulty, Mrs. Thursby, with the ingenuity of
+her sex, had at one time introduced Mr. and Mrs. Alwynn as "our rector,"
+and "our rector's wife," thus denying them their name altogether, for
+fear lest its connection with Lord Polesworth should be remembered, and
+the fact that Mr. Alwynn was his brother, and consequently an honorable,
+should transpire.
+
+This peculiarity of etiquette entirely escaped Mr. Alwynn, but aroused
+feelings in the breast of his wife which might have brought about one of
+those deeply rooted feuds which so often exist between the squire's and
+clergyman's families, if it had not been for the timely and serious
+illness in which Mrs. Thursby lost her health, and the principal part of
+the other subject of disagreement--her hair.
+
+Then Queen Elizabeth and the honorable were alike forgotten. With her
+own hands Mrs. Alwynn made a certain jelly, which Mrs. Thursby praised
+in the highest manner, saying she only wished that it had been the habit
+in _her_ family to learn to do anything so useful. Mrs. Thursby's new
+gowns were no longer kept a secret from Mrs. Alwynn, to be suddenly
+sprung upon her at a garden-party, when, possibly in an old garment
+herself, she was least able to bear the shock. By-gones were by-gones,
+and, greatly to the relief of the two husbands, their respective wives
+made up their differences.
+
+"And a very pleasant afternoon it has been," said Mrs. Alwynn, when the
+Thursbys and Dare, who had been loath to go, had taken their departure.
+"Mrs. Thursby and Mabel, and Mrs. Smith and Mr. Dare. Four to tea. Quite
+a little party, wasn't it, Ruth? And so informal and nice; and the buns
+came in as naturally as possible, which no one heard me whisper to James
+for. I think those little citron buns are nicer than a great cake like
+Mrs. Thursby's; and hers are always so black and overbaked. That is why
+the cook sifts such a lot of sugar over them. I do think one should be
+real, and not try to cover up things. And Mr. Dare so pleasant. Quite
+sorry to go he seemed. I often wonder whether it will be you or Mabel in
+the end. He ought to be making up his mind. I expect I shall have a
+little joke with him about it before long. And such an interest he took
+in the scrap-book. I asked him to come again to-morrow."
+
+"I don't expect he will be able to do so," said Mr. Alwynn. "I rather
+think he will have to go to town on business."
+
+Later in the evening, Mr. Alwynn told Ruth that in the course of his
+interview he had found that Dare had the very vaguest ideas as to the
+necessity of settlements; had evidently never given the subject a
+thought, and did not even know what he actually possessed.
+
+Mr. Alwynn was secretly afraid of what Ruth's trustee, his brother, Lord
+Polesworth (now absent shooting in the Rocky Mountains), would say if,
+during his absence, their niece was allowed to engage herself without
+suitable provision; and he begged Ruth not "to do anything rash" in the
+way of speaking of her engagement, until Dare could, with the help of
+his lawyer, see his way to making some arrangement.
+
+"I know he has no money," said Ruth, quietly; "that is one of the
+reasons why I am going to marry him."
+
+Mr. Alwynn, to whom this seemed the most natural reason in the world,
+was not sure whether it would strike his brother with equal force. He
+had a suspicion that when Lord Polesworth's attention should be turned
+from white goats and brown bears to the fact that his niece, who had
+means of her own, had been allowed to engage herself to a poor man, and
+that Mr. Alwynn had greatly encouraged the match, unpleasant questions
+might be asked.
+
+"Francis will be back in November," said Mr. Alwynn. "I think, Ruth, we
+had better wait till his return before we do anything definite."
+
+"Anything _more_ definite, you mean," said Ruth. "I have been very
+definite already, I think. I shall be glad to wait till he comes back,
+if you wish it, Uncle John. I shall try to do what you both advise. But
+at the same time I am of age; and if my word is worth anything, you know
+I have given that already."
+
+Dare felt no call to go to London by the early train on the following
+morning, so he found himself at liberty to spend an hour at Slumberleigh
+Rectory on his way to the station, and by the advice of Mr. Alwynn went
+into the garden, where the sound of the musical-box reached the ear, but
+in faint echoes, and where Ruth presently joined him.
+
+In his heart Dare was secretly afraid of Ruth; though, as he often told
+himself, it was more than probable she was equally afraid of him. If
+that was so, she controlled her feelings wonderfully, for as she came
+to meet him, nothing could have been more frankly kind, more friendly,
+or more composed than her manner towards him. He took her out-stretched
+hand and kissed it. It was not quite the way in which he had pictured to
+himself that they would meet; but if his imagination had taken a
+somewhat bolder flight in her absence, he felt now, as she stood before
+him, that it had taken that flight in vain. He kept her hand, and looked
+intently at her. She did not change color, nor did that disappointing
+friendliness leave her steady eyes.
+
+"She does not love me," he said to himself. "It is strange, but she does
+not. But the day will come."
+
+"You are going to London, are you not?" asked Ruth, withdrawing her hand
+at last; and after hearing a detailed account of his difficulties and
+anxieties about money matters, and after taking an immense weight off
+his mind by telling him that they would have no influence in causing her
+to alter her decision, she sent him beaming and rejoicing on his way,
+quite a different person to the victim of anxiety and depression who had
+arrived at Slumberleigh an hour before.
+
+Mrs. Alwynn was much annoyed at Dare's entire want of heart in leaving
+the house without coming to see her, and during the remainder of the
+morning she did not cease to comment on the differences that exist
+between what people really are and what they seem to be, until, in her
+satisfaction at recounting the accident to Evelyn Danvers, a new and
+sympathetic listener, she fortunately forgot the slight put upon her
+ankle earlier in the day. The complete enjoyment of her sufferings was,
+however, destined to sustain a severe shock the following morning.
+
+She and Ruth were reading their letters, Mrs. Alwynn, of course, giving
+Ruth the benefit of the various statements respecting the weather which
+her correspondents had confided to her, when Mr. Alwynn came in from the
+study, an open letter in his hand. He was quite pink with pleasure.
+
+"He has asked me to go and see them," he said, "and they _are_ small,
+and have green seals, all excepting one,"--referring to the
+letter--"which has a big red seal in a tin box, attached by a tape.
+Ruth, I am perfectly _convinced_ beforehand that those charters are
+grants of land of the fourteenth or fifteenth century. Sir Charles
+mentions that they are in black letter, and only a few lines on each,
+but he says he won't describe them in full, as I must come and see them
+for myself. Dear me! how I shall enjoy arranging them for him, which he
+asked me to do. I had really become so anxious about them that a few
+days ago I determined to set my mind at rest, and I wrote to him to ask
+for particulars, and that is his answer."
+
+Mr. Alwynn put Charles's letter into her hand, and she glanced over it.
+
+"Why, Uncle John, he asks Aunt Fanny as well; and--'if Miss Deyncourt is
+still with you, pleasure,' etc.--and _me_, too!"
+
+"When is it for?" asked Mrs. Alwynn, suddenly sitting bolt-upright.
+
+"Let me see. 'Black letter size about'--where is it? Here. 'Tuesday, the
+25th, for three nights. Leaving home following week for some time.
+Excuse short notice,' etc. It is next week, Aunt Fanny."
+
+"I shall not be able to go," gasped Mrs. Alwynn, sinking back on her
+sofa, while something very like tears came into her eyes; "and I've
+never been there, Ruth. The Thursbys went once, in old Sir George's
+time, and Mrs. Thursby always says it is the show-place in the county,
+and that it is such a pity I have not seen it. And last autumn, when
+John went, I was in Devonshire, and never even heard of his going till I
+got home, or I'd have come back. Oh, Ruth! Oh, dear!"
+
+Mrs. Alwynn let her letters fall into her lap, and drew forth the
+colored pocket-handkerchief which she wore, in imitation of Mabel
+Thursby, stuck into the bodice of her gown, and at the ominous
+appearance of which Mr. Alwynn suddenly recollected a duty in the study
+and retreated.
+
+With an unerring instinct Ruth flew to the musical-box and set it going,
+and then knelt down by the prostrate figure of her aunt, and
+administered what sympathy and consolation she could, to the "cheery"
+accompaniment of the "Buffalo Girls."
+
+"Never mind, dear Aunt Fanny. Perhaps he will ask you again when you are
+better. There will be other opportunities."
+
+"I always was unlucky," said Mrs. Alwynn, faintly. "I had a swelled face
+up the Rhine on our honey-moon. Things always happen like that with me.
+At any rate,"--after a pause--"there is _one_ thing. We ought to try and
+look at the bright side. It is not as if we had not been asked. We have
+not been overlooked."
+
+"No," said Ruth, promptly; and in her own mind she registered a vow that
+in her future home she would never give the pain that being overlooked
+by the larger house can cause to the smaller house.
+
+"And I will stay with you, Aunt Fanny," she went on, cheerfully. "Uncle
+John can go by himself, and we will do just what we like while he is
+away, won't we?"
+
+But at this Mrs. Alwynn demurred. She was determined that if she played
+the role of a martyr she would do it well. She insisted that Ruth should
+accompany Mr. Alwynn. She secretly looked forward to telling Mabel that
+Ruth was going. She did not mind being left alone, she said. She
+desired, with a sigh of self-sacrifice, that Mr. Alwynn should accept
+for himself and his niece. She had not been brought up to consider
+herself, thank God! She had her faults she knew. No one was more fully
+aware of them than herself; but she was not going to prevent others
+enjoying themselves because she herself was laid aside.
+
+"And now, my dear," she said, with a sudden return to mundane interests
+that succeeded rather unexpectedly to the celestial spirit of her
+previous remarks, "you must be thinking about your gowns. If I had been
+going, I should have had my ruby satin done up--so beautiful by
+candle-light. What have you to wear? That white lace tea-gown with the
+silver-gray train is very nice; but you ought not to be in half mourning
+now. I like to see young people in colors. And then there is that
+gold-and-white brocade, Ruth, that you wore at the drawing-room last
+year. It is a beautiful dress, but rather too quiet. Could not you
+brighten it up with a few cherry-colored bows about it, or a sash? I
+always think a sash is so becoming. If you were to bring it down, I dare
+say I could suggest something. And you must be well dressed, for though
+he only says 'friends,' you never can tell whom you may not meet at a
+place like that."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+The last week of September found Charles back at Stoke Moreton to
+receive the "friends" of whom Mrs. Alwynn spoke. People whose partridges
+he had helped to kill were now to be gathered from the east and from the
+west to help to kill his. From the north also guests were coming, were
+leaving their mountains to--But the remainder of the line is invidious.
+The Hope-Actons had written to offer a visit at Stoke Moreton on the
+strength of an old promise to Charles, a promise so old that he had
+forgotten it, until reminded, that next time they were passing they
+would take his house on their way. They had offered their visit exactly
+at the same time for which he had just invited the Alwynns and Ruth.
+Charles felt that they were not quite the people whom he would have
+arranged to meet each other, but, as Fate had so decreed it, he
+acquiesced calmly enough.
+
+But when Lady Mary also wrote tenderly from Scarborough, to ask if she
+could be of any use helping to entertain his guests, he felt it
+imperative to draw the line, and wrote a grateful effusion to his aunt,
+saying that he could not think of asking her to leave a place where he
+felt sure she was deriving spiritual and temporal benefit, in order to
+assist at so unprofitable a festivity as a shooting-party. He mentioned
+casually that Lady Grace Lawrence, Miss Deyncourt, and Miss Wyndham were
+to be of the party, which details he imagined might have an interest for
+her amid her graver reflections.
+
+The subject of Ruth's coming certainly had a prominent place in his own
+graver reflections. For the last fortnight, as he went from house to
+house, he had been wondering how he could meet her again, and, when Mr.
+Alwynn's letter concerning the charters was forwarded to him, a sudden
+inspiration made him then and there send the invitation which had
+arrived at Slumberleigh Rectory a few days before. He groaned in spirit
+as he wrote it, at the thought of Mrs. Alwynn disporting herself,
+dressed in the brightest colors, among his other guests; and it was with
+a feeling of thankfulness that he found Ruth and Mr. Alwynn were coming
+without her.
+
+He had felt very little interest so far in the party, which, with the
+exception of the Hope-Actons, had been long arranged, but now he found
+himself looking forward to it with actual impatience, and he returned
+home a day before the time, instead of an hour or two before his guests
+were expected, as was his wont.
+
+The Wyndhams and Hope-Actons, with Lady Grace in tow, were the first to
+appear upon the scene. Mr. Alwynn and Ruth arrived a few hours later,
+amid a dropping fire of young men and gun-cases, who kept on turning up
+at intervals during the afternoon, and, according to the mysterious
+nocturnal habits of their kind, till late into the night.
+
+If ever a man appears to advantage it is on his native hearth, and as
+Charles stood on his in the long hall, where it was the habit of the
+house to assemble before dinner, Ruth found that her attempts at
+conversation were rather thrown away upon Lady Grace, with whom she had
+been renewing an old acquaintance, and whose interest, for the time
+being, entirely centred in the carved coats of arms and heraldic designs
+with which the towering white stone chimney-piece was covered.
+
+Lady Grace was one of those pretty, delicate creatures who remind one of
+a very elaborate rose-bud. There was an appearance of ultra-refinement
+about her, a look of that refinement which is in itself a weakness, a
+poverty of blood, so to speak, the opposite and more pleasing but
+equally unhealthy extreme of coarseness. She looked very pretty as,
+having left Ruth, she stood by Charles, passing her little pink hand
+over the lowest carvings, dim and worn with the heat of many generations
+of fires, and listened with rapt attention to his answers to her
+questions.
+
+"And the Hall is so beautiful," she said, looking round with childlike
+curiosity at the walls covered with weapons, and with a long array of
+armor, and at the massive pillars of carved white stone which rose up
+out of the polished floor to meet the raftered ceiling. "It is so--so
+uncommon."
+
+Whatever Charles's other failings may have been, he was an admirable
+host. The weather was fine. What can be finer than September when she is
+in a good-humor? The two first days of Ruth's visit were unalloyed
+enjoyment. It seemed like a sudden return to the old life with Lady
+Deyncourt, when the round of country visits regularly succeeded the
+season in London. Of Mr. Alwynn she saw little or nothing. He was buried
+in the newly discovered charters. Of Charles she saw a good deal, more
+than at the time she was quite aware of, for he seemed to see a great
+deal of everybody, from Lady Grace to the shy man of the party, who at
+Stoke Moreton first conceived the idea that he was an acquisition to
+society. But, whether Charles made the opportunities or not which came
+so ready to his hand, still he found time, amid the pressure of his
+shooting arrangements and his duties as host, to talk to Ruth.
+
+One day there was cub-hunting in the gray of the early morning, to which
+she and Miss Wyndham went with Charles and others of the party who could
+bear to get up betimes. Losing sight of the others after a time, Ruth
+and Charles rode back alone together, when the sun was high, walking
+their tired horses along the black-berried lanes, and down the long
+green rides cut in the yellowing bracken of the park.
+
+"And so you are going to winter in Rome?" said Charles, who had the
+previous day, contrary to his wont, accepted an invitation to
+Slumberleigh Hall for the middle of October. "I sometimes go to Rome
+for a few weeks when the shooting is over. And are you glad or sorry at
+the prospect of leaving your Cranford?"
+
+"Very sorry."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I have seen an entirely new phase of life at Slumberleigh."
+
+"I think I can guess what you mean," said Charles, gravely. "One does
+not often meet any one like Mr. Alwynn."
+
+"No. I was thinking of him. Until I came to Slumberleigh the lines had
+not fallen to me in very clerical places, so my experience is limited;
+but he seems to me to be the only clergyman I have known who does not
+force on one a form of religion that has been dead and buried for
+years."
+
+"The clergy have much to answer for on that head," said Charles with
+bitterness. "I sometimes like and respect them as individuals, but I do
+not love them as a class. One ought to make allowance for the fact that
+they are tied and bound by the chain of their Thirty-nine Articles; that
+at three-and-twenty they shut the doors deliberately on any new and
+possibly unorthodox idea; and it is consequently unreasonable to expect
+from them any genuine freedom or originality of thought. I can forgive
+them their assumption of superiority, their inability to meet honest
+scepticism with anything like fairness, their continual bickering among
+themselves; but I cannot forgive them the harm they are doing to
+religion, the discredit they are bringing upon it by their bigoted views
+and obsolete ideas. They busy themselves doing good--that is the worst
+of it; they mean well, but they do not see that, in the mean while,
+their Church is being left unto them desolate; though perhaps, after
+all, the Church having come to be what it is, that is the best thing
+that can happen."
+
+"There are men among the clergy who will not come under that sweeping
+accusation," said Ruth. "Look at some of the London churches. Are they
+desolate? Goodness and earnestness will be a power to the end of time,
+however narrow the accompanying creed may be."
+
+"That is true, but we have heads as well as hearts. Goodness and
+earnestness appeal to the heart alone. The intellect is left out in the
+cold. However good and earnest, and eloquent one of these great
+preachers may be, the reason we go to hear him is not only because of
+that, but because he appears to be thinking in a straight line, because
+he seems to recognize the long-resisted claim of the intellect, and we
+hope he will have a word to say to us. He promises well, but listen to
+him a little longer, follow his thought, and you will begin to see that
+he will only look for truth within a certain area, that his steps are
+describing an arc, that he is tethered. Give him time enough, and you
+will see him tread out the complete circle in which he and his brethren
+are equally bound to walk."
+
+"You forget," said Ruth, "that you are regarding the Church from the
+stand-point of the cultivated and intellectual class, for whom the
+Church has ceased to represent religion; but there are lots of people
+neither cultivated nor intellectual--women even of our own class are not
+so as a rule--to whom the Church, with its ritual and dogma, is a real
+help and comfort. If, as you say, it does not suit the more highly
+educated, I think you have no right to demand that it _should_ suit what
+is, after all, a very small minority. It would be most unfair if it
+did."
+
+Charles did not answer. He had been looking at her, and thinking how few
+women could have disagreed with him as quietly and resolutely as this
+young girl riding at his side, carefully avoiding chance rabbit-holes as
+she spoke.
+
+"There is, and there always will be, a certain number of people, not
+only among the clergy," she went on, "who, as somebody says, 'put the
+church clock back,' and are unable to see that they cannot alter the
+time of day for all that; only they can and do prevent many
+well-intentioned people from trusting to it any longer. But there are
+others here and there whom a dogmatic form of religion has been quite
+unable to spoil, whose more simple turn of mind draws out of the very
+system that appears to you so lifeless and effete, a real faith, a
+personal possession, which no one can take from them."
+
+Her eyes sparkled as she spoke, and Charles saw that she was thinking of
+Mr. Alwynn.
+
+"He has got it," he said, slowly, "this something which we all want, and
+for the greater part never find. He has got it. To see and recognize it
+early is a great thing," he continued, earnestly. "To disbelieve in it
+in early life, and cavil at all the caricatures and imitations, and only
+come to find out its reality comparatively later on, is a great
+misfortune--a great misfortune."
+
+She felt that he was speaking of himself, and they rode on in silence,
+each grave with a sense of mutual understanding and companionship. They
+forded the stream, and trotted up the little village street, the
+cottagers gazing admiringly after them till they disappeared within the
+great arched gate-way. And Charles looked at his old house as they
+paced up the wide drive, and wondered whether it were indeed possible
+that the lonely years he had spent in it had come to an end at last--at
+last.
+
+Ruth had noticed that he had lost no opportunity of talking to her, and
+when she heard him conversing with Lady Grace, or plunging into
+fashionable slang with Miss Wyndham, found herself admiring the facility
+with which he adapted himself to different people.
+
+The following afternoon, as she was writing in the library, she was
+amused to see that he found it incumbent on him to write too, even going
+so far as to produce a letter from Molly, whose correspondence he said
+he invariably answered by return.
+
+"You seem very fond of giving Molly pleasure," said Ruth.
+
+"I am glad to see, Miss Deyncourt, that you are beginning to estimate me
+at my true worth."
+
+"You have it in your power just now to give a great pleasure," said
+Ruth, earnestly, laying down the pen which she had taken up.
+
+"How?"
+
+"It seems so absurd when it is put into words, but--by asking Mrs.
+Alwynn some time to stay here. She has always longed to see Stoke
+Moreton, because--well, because Mrs. Thursby has; and real, positive,
+actual tears were shed that she could not come when you asked us."
+
+"Is it possible?" said Charles. "It is the first time that any letter of
+mine has caused emotion of that description."
+
+"Ah! you don't know how important the smallest things appear if one
+lives in a little corner of the world where nothing ever happens. If
+Mrs. Alwynn had been able to come, her visit would have been an event
+which she would have remembered for years. I assure you, I myself, from
+having lived at Slumberleigh eight months, became quite excited at the
+prospect of so much dissipation."
+
+And Ruth leaned back in her chair with a little laugh.
+
+Charles looked narrowly at her and his face fell.
+
+"I am glad you told me," he said, after a moment's pause. "People
+generally mention these things about ten years afterwards; when there is
+probably no possibility of doing anything. Thank you."
+
+Ruth was disconcerted by the sudden gravity of his tone, and almost
+regretted the impulse that had made her speak. She forgot it, however,
+in the _tableaux vivants_ which they were preparing for the evening, in
+which she and Charles illustrated the syllable _nun_ to enthusiastic
+applause. Ruth represented the nun, engaged in conversation, over the
+lowest imaginable convent wall, with Charles, in all the glory of his
+cocked hat and deputy-lieutenant's uniform, who, while he held the nun's
+hand in one of his, pointed persuasively with the other towards an
+elaborately caparisoned war-horse, trembling beneath the joint weight of
+a yeomanry saddle and a side-saddle attached behind it, which
+considerably overlapped the charger's impromptu fur boa tail.
+
+After the _tableaux_ there was dancing in acting costume, at which the
+two men, who acted the war-horse between them were the only persons to
+protest, Lady Grace being beautiful as an improvised Anne Boleyn, and
+the shy man resplendent in a fancy dress of Charles's.
+
+When the third morning came, Ruth gave a genuine sigh at the thought
+that it was the last day. Lady Grace, who was also leaving the following
+morning, may be presumed to have echoed it with far more sorrow. The
+Wyndhams were going that day, and disappeared down the drive, waving
+handkerchiefs, and carriage-rugs, and hats on sticks, out of the
+carriage-windows, as is the custom of really amusing people when taking
+leave.
+
+In the afternoon, Lady Grace and Charles went off for a ride alone
+together, to see some ruin in which Lady Grace had manifested a sudden
+interest, the third horse, which had been brought round for another of
+the men, being sent back to the stables, his destined rider having
+decided, at the eleventh hour, to join the rest of the party in a little
+desultory rabbit shooting in the park, which he proceeded to do with
+much chuckling over his extraordinary penetration and tact.
+
+The elder ladies went out driving, looking, as seen from an upper
+window, like four poached eggs on a dish; and the coast being clear,
+Ruth, who had no love of driving, escaped with her paint-box to the
+garden, where she was making a sketch of Stoke Moreton.
+
+Some houses, like people, have dignity. Stoke Moreton, with ivy creeping
+up its mellow sandstone, and peeping into its long lines of mullioned
+windows, stood solemn and stately amid its level gardens; the low sun,
+bringing out every line of carved stone frieze and quaint architrave,
+firing all the western windows, and touching the tall heads of the
+hollyhocks and sunflowers, that stood in ordered regiments within their
+high walls of clipped box. And Ruth dabbed and looked, and dabbed again,
+until she suddenly found that if she put another stroke she would spoil
+all, and also that her hands were stiff with cold. After a few admiring
+glances at her work, she set off on a desultory journey round the
+gardens to get warm, and finally, seeing an oak door in the garden-wall
+open, wandered through it into the church-yard. The church door was
+open, too, and Ruth, after reading some of the epitaphs on the
+tombstones, went in.
+
+It was a common little church enough, with a large mortuary chapel,
+where all the Danvers family reposed; ancient Danvers lying in armor,
+with their mailed hands joined, beside their wives; more modern Danvers
+kneeling in bass-relief in colored plaster and execrable taste in
+recesses. The last generations were there also; some of them
+anticipating the resurrection and feathered wings, but for the most part
+still asleep. Charles's mother was there, lying in white marble among
+her husband's people, with the child upon her arm which she had taken
+away with her.
+
+And in the middle of the chapel was the last Sir Charles Danvers, whom
+his brother, Sir George, the father of the present owner, had succeeded.
+The evening sun shone full on the kneeling soldier figure, leaning on
+its sword, and on the grave, clear-cut face, which had a look of
+Charles. The long, beautifully modelled hands, clasped over the battered
+steel sword-hilt, were like Charles's too. Ruth read the inscription on
+the low marble pedestal, relating how he had fallen in the taking of the
+Redan, and then looked again. And gradually a great feeling of pity rose
+in her heart for the family which had lived here for so many
+generations, and which seemed now so likely to die out. Providence does
+not seem to care much for old families, or to value long descent. Rather
+it seems to favor the new race--the Browns, and the Joneses, and the
+Robinsons, who yesterday were not, and who to-day elbow the old county
+families from the place which has known them from time immemorial.
+
+"I suppose Molly will some day marry a Smith," said Ruth to herself,
+"and then it will be all over. I don't think I will come and see her
+here when she is married."
+
+With which reflection she returned to the house, and, after disturbing
+Mr. Alwynn, who was deep in a catalogue of the Danvers manuscripts, in
+which it was his firm conviction that he should find some mention of the
+charters, she went into the library, and wondered which of the several
+thousands of books would interest her till the others came in.
+
+The library was a large room, the walls of which were lined with books
+from the floor to the ceiling. In order to place the higher shelves
+within reach, a light balcony of polished oak ran round the four walls,
+about equidistant from the floor and the ceiling. Ruth went up the tiny
+corkscrew staircase in the wall, which led to the balcony, and settling
+herself comfortably in the low, wide window-seat, took out one volume
+after another of those that came within her reach. These shelves by the
+window where she was sitting had somehow a different look to the rest.
+Old books and new, white vellum and card-board, were herded together
+without any apparent order, and with no respect of bindings. Here a
+splendid morocco "Novum Organum" was pushed in beside a cheap and much
+worn edition of Marcus Aurelius; there Emerson and Plato and Shakespeare
+jostled each other on the same shelf, while, just below, "Don Quixote"
+was pressed into the uncongenial society of Carlyle on one side and
+Confucius on the other. As she pulled out one book after another, she
+noticed that the greater part of them had Charles's name in them. Ruth's
+curiosity was at once aroused. No doubt this was the little corner in
+his great house in which he chose to read, and these were his favorite
+books which he had arranged so close to his hand. If we can judge our
+fellow-creatures at all, which is doubtful, it is by the books they
+read, and by those which, having read, they read again. She looked at
+the various volumes in the window-seat beside her with new interest, and
+opened the first one she took up. It was a collection of translations
+from the Persian poets, gentlemen of the name of Jemshid, Sadi, and
+Hafiz, of whom she had never heard. As she turned over the pages, she
+heard the ringing of horses' hoofs, and, looking out from her point of
+observation, saw Charles and Lady Grace cantering up the short wide
+approach, and clattering out of sight again behind the great stone
+archway. She turned back to her book, and was reading an ode here and
+there, wondering to see how the same thoughts that work within us to-day
+had lived with man so many hundred years ago, when her eye was caught by
+some writing on the margin of a page as she turned it over. A single
+sentence on the page was strongly underlined:
+
+_"True self-knowledge is knowledge of God."_
+
+Jemshid was a wise man, Ruth thought, if he had found out that; and then
+she read, in Charles's clear handwriting in the margin:
+
+_"With this compare 'Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it
+will ever bubble up if thou wilt ever dig.'--Marcus Aurelius."_
+
+At this moment Charles came into the library, and looked up to where she
+was sitting, half hidden from below by the thickness of the wall.
+
+"What, studying?" he called, gayly. "I saw you sitting in the window as
+I rode up. I might have known that if you were lost sight of for half
+an hour you would be found improving yourself in some exasperating way."
+And he ran up the little stairs and came round the balcony towards her.
+"My own special books, I see--Eve, as usual, surreptitiously craving for
+a knowledge of good and evil. What have you got hold of?"
+
+The remainder of the window-seat was full of books; so, to obtain a
+better view of what she was reading, he knelt down by her, and looked at
+the open book on her knee.
+
+Ruth did not attempt to close it. She felt guilty, she hardly knew of
+what. After a moment's pause she said:
+
+"I plead guilty. I was curious. I saw these were your own particular
+shelves; but I never can resist looking at the books people read."
+
+"Will you be pleased to remember in future that, in contemplating my
+character, Miss Deyncourt--a subject not unworthy of your attention--you
+are on private property. You are requested to keep on the gravel paths,
+and to look at the grounds I am disposed to show you. If, as is very
+possible, admiration seizes you, you are at liberty to express it. But
+there must be no going round to the back premises, no prying into
+corners, no trespassing where I have written up, 'No road.'"
+
+Ruth smiled, and there was a gleam in her eyes which Charles well knew
+heralded a retort, when suddenly through the half-open door a silken
+rustle came, and Lady Hope-Acton slowly entered the room, as if about to
+pass through it on her way to the hall.
+
+Now, kneeling is by no means an attitude to be despised. In church, or
+in the moment of presentation to majesty, it is appropriate, even
+essential; but it is dependent, like most things, upon circumstances and
+environment. No attitude, for instance, could be more suitable and
+natural to any one wishing to read the page on which a sitting
+fellow-creature was engaged. Charles had found it so. But, as Lady
+Hope-Acton sailed into the room, he felt that, however conducive to
+study, it was not the attitude in which he would at that moment have
+chosen to be found. Ruth felt the same. It had seemed so natural a
+moment before, it was so hideously suggestive now.
+
+Perhaps Lady Hope-Acton would pass on through the other door, so widely,
+so invitingly open. Neither stirred, in the hope that she might do so.
+But in the centre of the room she stopped and sighed--the slow,
+crackling sigh of a stout woman in a too well-fitting silk gown.
+
+Charles suddenly felt as if his muddy boots and cords were trying to
+catch her eye, as if every book on the shelves were calling to her to
+look up.
+
+For a second Ruth and Charles gazed down upon the top of Lady
+Hope-Acton's head, the bald place on which showed dimly through her
+semi-transparent cap. She moved slightly, as if to go; but no, another
+step was drawing near. In another moment Lady Grace came in through the
+opposite door in her riding-habit.
+
+Ruth felt that it was now or never for a warning cough; but, as she
+glanced at Charles kneeling beside her, she could not give it. Surely
+they would pass out in another second. The thought of the two pairs of
+eyes which would be raised, and the expression in them was intolerable.
+
+"Grace," said Lady Hope-Acton, with dreadful distinctness, advancing to
+meet her daughter, "has he spoken?"
+
+"No," said Lady Grace, with a little sob; "and,"--with a sudden burst of
+tears--"oh, mamma, I don't think he ever will."
+
+Oh, to have coughed, to have sneezed, to have choked a moment earlier!
+Anything would have been better than this.
+
+"Run up-stairs this moment, then, and change your habit and bathe your
+eyes," said Lady Hope-Acton, sharply. "You need not come down till
+dinner-time. I will say you are tired."
+
+And then, to the overwhelming relief of those two miserable spectators,
+the mother and daughter left the door.
+
+But to the momentary sensation of relief in Ruth's mind a rush of pity
+succeeded for the childlike grief and tears; and with and behind it,
+like one hurrying wave overtopping and bearing down its predecessor,
+came a burning indignation against the cause of that picturesque
+emotion.
+
+It is indeed a lamentable peculiarity of our fallen nature that the
+moment of relief from the smart of anxiety is seldom marked by so
+complete a mental calmness and moderation as could be wished.
+
+Ruth rose slowly, with the book still in her hand, and Charles got off
+his knees as best he could, and stood with one hand on the railing of
+the balcony, as if to steady himself. His usually pale face was crimson.
+
+Ruth closed the book in silence, and with a dreadful precision put it
+back in its accustomed place. Then she turned and faced him, with the
+western light full upon her stern face, and another light of contempt
+and indignation burning in her direct eyes.
+
+"Poor little girl," she said, in a low distinct voice. "What a triumph
+to have succeeded in making her unhappy. She is very young, and she did
+not understand the rules of the game. Poor, foolish little girl!"
+
+If he had been red before, he was pale enough now. He drew himself up,
+and met her direct gaze without flinching. He did not speak, and she
+left him standing in the window, and went slowly along the balcony and
+down the little staircase into the room below.
+
+As she was about to leave the room he moved forward suddenly, and said,
+"Miss Deyncourt!"
+
+Involuntarily she stopped short, in obedience to the stern authority of
+the tone.
+
+"You are unjust."
+
+She did not answer and left the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+
+"Uncle John," said Ruth next morning, taking Mr. Alwynn aside after
+breakfast, "we are leaving by the early train, are we not?"
+
+"No, my love, it is quite impossible. I have several papers to identify
+and rearrange."
+
+"We have stayed a day longer than we intended as it is. Most of the
+others go early. Do let us go too."
+
+"It is most natural, I am sure, my dear, that you should wish to get
+home," said Mr. Alwynn, looking with sympathetic concern at his niece;
+"and why your aunt has not forwarded your letters I can't imagine. But
+still, if we return by the mid-day train, Ruth, you will have plenty of
+time to answer any letters that--ahem!--seem to require immediate
+attention, before the post goes; and I don't see my way to being ready
+earlier."
+
+Ruth had not even been thinking of Dare and his letters; but she saw
+that by the early train she was not destined to depart, and watched the
+other guests take leave with an envious sigh. She was anxious to be
+gone. The last evening, after the episode in the library, had been
+interminably long. Already the morning, though breakfast was hardly
+over, seemed to have dragged itself out to days in length. A sense of
+constraint between two people who understand and amuse each other is
+very galling. Ruth had felt it so. All the previous evening Charles had
+hardly spoken to her, and had talked mainly to Lady Hope-Acton, who was
+somewhat depressed, and another elder lady. A good-night and a flat
+candlestick can be presented in a very distant manner, and as Ruth
+received hers from Charles that evening, and met the grave, steady
+glance that was directed at her, she perceived that he had not forgiven
+her for what she had said.
+
+She felt angry again at the idea that he should venture to treat her
+with a coldness which seemed to imply that she had been in the wrong.
+The worst of it was that she felt she was to blame; that she had no
+right whatever to criticise Charles and his actions. What concern were
+they of hers? How much more suitable, how much more eloquent a dignified
+silence would have been. She could not imagine now, as she thought it
+over, why she had been so unreasonably annoyed at the moment as to say
+what she had done. Yet the reason was not far to seek, if she had only
+known where to lay her hand on it. She was uneasy, impatient; she longed
+to get out of the house. And it was still early; only eleven. Eleven
+till twelve. Twelve till one. One till half-past. Two whole hours and a
+half to be got through before the Stoke Moreton omnibus would bear her
+away. She looked round for a refuge during that weary age, and found it
+nearer than many poor souls do in time of need, namely, at her elbow, in
+the shape, the welcome shape of the shy man--almost the only remnant of
+the large party whose dispersion she had just been watching. Whenever
+Ruth thought of that shy man afterwards, which was not often, it was
+with a sincere hope that he had forgotten the forwardness of her
+behavior on that particular morning. She wished to see the
+picture-gallery. She would of all things like a walk afterwards. No, she
+had not been as far as the beech-avenue; but she would like to go.
+Should they look at the pictures first--now--no time like the present?
+How pleased he was! How proud! He felt that his shyness had gone
+forever; that Miss Deyncourt would, no doubt, like to hear a few
+anecdotes of his college life; that a quiet man, who does not make
+himself cheap to start with, often wins in the end; that Miss Deyncourt
+had unusual appreciation, not only for pictures, but for reserved and
+intricate characters that yet (here he ventured on a little joke, and
+laughed at it himself) had their lighter side. And in the long
+picture-gallery Ruth and he studied the old masters, as they had seldom
+been studied before, with an intense and ignorant interest on the one
+hand, and an entire absence of mind on the other.
+
+Charles, who had done a good deal of pacing up and down his room the
+night before, and had arrived at certain conclusions, passed through the
+gallery once, but did not stop. He looked grave and preoccupied, and
+hardly answered a question of Mr. Conway's about one of the pictures.
+
+Half-past eleven at last. A tall inlaid clock in the gallery mentioned
+the hour by one sedate stroke; the church clock told the village the
+time of day a second later. They had nearly finished the pictures. Never
+mind. She could take half an hour to put on her hat, and surely any
+beech-avenue, even on a dull day like this might serve to while away the
+remaining hour before luncheon.
+
+They had come to the last picture of the Danvers collection, and Ruth
+was dwelling fondly on a very well-developed cow by Cuyp, as if she
+could hardly tear herself away from it, when she heard a step coming up
+the staircase from the hall, and presently Charles pushed open the
+carved folding-doors which shut off the gallery from the rest of the
+house, and looked in. She was conscious that he was standing in the
+door-way, but new beauties in the cow, which had hitherto escaped her,
+engaged her whole attention at the moment, and no one can attend to two
+things at once.
+
+Charles did not come any farther; but, standing in the door-way, he
+called to the shy man who went to him, and the two talked together for a
+few moments. Ruth gazed upon the cow until it became so fixed upon the
+retina of her eye that, when she tried to admire an old Florentine
+cabinet near it, she still saw its portrait; and when, in desperation,
+she turned away to look out of the window across the sky and sloping
+park, the shadow of the cow hung like a portent.
+
+A moment later Mr. Conway came hurrying back to her much perturbed, to
+say he had quite forgotten till this moment, had not in the least
+understood, in fact, etc. Danvers' gray cob, that he had thoughts of
+buying, was waiting at the door for him to try--in fact, had been
+waiting some time. No idea, upon his soul--
+
+Ruth cut his apology short before he had done more than flounder well
+into it.
+
+"You must go and try it at once," she said with decision; and then she
+added, as Charles drew near: "I have changed my mind about going out. It
+looks as if it might turn to rain. I shall get through some arrears of
+letter-writing instead."
+
+Mr. Conway stammered, and repeated himself, and finally rushed out of
+the gallery. Ruth expected that Charles would accompany him, but he
+remained standing near the window, apparently engaged like herself in
+admiring the view.
+
+"It struck me," he said, slowly, with his eyes half shut, "that Conway
+proved rather a broken reed just now."
+
+"He did," said Ruth. She suddenly felt that she could understand what it
+was in Charles that exasperated Lady Mary so much.
+
+He came a step nearer, and his manner altered.
+
+"I sent him away," he said, looking gravely at her, "because I wished to
+speak to you."
+
+Ruth did not answer or turn her head, though she felt he was watching
+her. Her eyes absently followed two young fallow-deer in the park,
+cantering away in a series of hops on their long stiff legs.
+
+"I cannot speak to you here," said Charles, after a pause.
+
+Ruth turned round.
+
+"Silence is golden sometimes. I think quite enough has been said
+already."
+
+"Not by me. You expressed yourself with considerable frankness. I wish
+to follow your example."
+
+"You said I was unjust at the time. Surely that was sufficient."
+
+"So insufficient that I am going to repeat it. I tell you again that you
+are unjust in not being willing to hear what I have to say. I have seen
+a good deal of harm done by misunderstandings, Miss Deyncourt. Pride is
+generally at the bottom of them. We are both suffering from a slight
+attack of that malady now; but I value your good opinion too much to
+hesitate, if, by any little sacrifice of my own pride, I can still
+retain it. If, after your remarks yesterday, I can make the effort (and
+it _is_ an effort) to ask you to hear something I wish to say, you, on
+your side, ought not to refuse to listen. It is not a question of
+liking; you _ought_ not to refuse."
+
+He spoke in an authoritative tone, which gave weight to his words, and
+in spite of herself she saw the truth of what he said. She was one of
+those rare women who, being convinced against their will, are _not_ of
+the same opinion still. It was ignominious to have to give way; but,
+after a moment's struggle with herself, she surmounted her dislike to
+being overruled, together with a certain unreasoning tenacity of opinion
+natural to her sex, and said, quietly:
+
+"What do you wish me to do?"
+
+Charles saw the momentary struggle, and honored her for a quality which
+women seldom give men occasion to honor them for.
+
+"Do you dislike walking?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then, if you will come out-of-doors, where there is less likelihood of
+interruption than in the house, I will wait for you here."
+
+She went silently down the picture-gallery, half astonished to find
+herself doing his bidding. She put on her walking things mechanically,
+and came back in a few minutes to find him standing where she had left
+him. In silence they went down-stairs, and through the piazza with its
+flowering orange-trees, out into the gardens, where, on the stone
+balustrade, the peacocks were attitudinizing and conversing in the high
+key in which they always proclaim a change of weather and their innate
+vulgarity to the world. Charles led the way towards a little rushing
+brook which divided the gardens from the park.
+
+"I think you must have had a very low opinion of me beforehand to say
+what you did yesterday," he remarked, suddenly.
+
+"I was angry," said Ruth. "However true what I said may have been, I had
+no right to say it to--a comparative stranger. That is why I repeat that
+it would be better not to make matters worse by mentioning the subject
+again. It is sure to annoy us both. Let it rest."
+
+"Not yet," said Charles, dryly. "As a comparative stranger, I want to
+know,"--stopping and facing her--"exactly what you mean by saying that
+she, Lady Grace, did not understand the rules of the game."
+
+"I cannot put it in other words," said Ruth, her courage rising as she
+felt that a battle was imminent.
+
+"Perhaps I can for you. Perhaps you meant to say that you believed I was
+in the habit of amusing myself at other people's expense; that--I see
+your difficulty in finding the right words--that it was my evil sport
+and pastime to--shall we say--raise expectations which it was not my
+intention to fulfil?"
+
+"It is disagreeably put," said Ruth, reddening a little; "but possibly I
+did mean something of that kind."
+
+"And how have you arrived at such an uncharitable opinion of a
+comparative stranger?" asked Charles, quietly enough, but his light eyes
+flashing.
+
+She did not answer.
+
+"You are not a child, to echo the opinion of others," he went on. "You
+look as if you judged for yourself. What have I done since I met you
+first, three months ago, to justify you in holding me in contempt?"
+
+"I did not say I held you in contempt."
+
+"You must, though, if you think me capable of such meanness."
+
+Silence again.
+
+"You have pushed me into saying more than I meant," said Ruth at last;
+"at least you have said I mean a great deal more than I really do. To be
+honest, I think you have thoughtlessly given a good deal of pain. I dare
+say you did it unconsciously."
+
+"Thank you. You are very charitable, but I cannot shield myself under
+the supposition that at eight-and-thirty I am a creature of impulse,
+unconscious of the meaning of my own actions."
+
+"If that is the case," thought Ruth, "your behavior to me has been
+inexcusable, especially the last few days; though, fortunately for
+myself, I was not deceived by it."
+
+"If you persist in keeping silence," said Charles, after waiting for her
+to speak, "any possibility of conversation is at an end."
+
+"I did not come out here for conversation," replied Ruth. "I came, not
+by my own wish, to hear something you said you particularly desired to
+say. Do you not think the simplest thing, under the circumstances, would
+be--to say it?"
+
+He gave a short laugh, and looked at her in sheer desperation. Did she
+know what she was pushing him into?
+
+"I had forgotten," he said. "It was in my mind all the time; but now you
+have made it easy for me indeed by coming to my assistance in this way.
+I will make a fresh start."
+
+He compressed his lips, and seemed to pull himself together. Then he
+said, in a very level voice:
+
+"Kindly give me your whole attention, Miss Deyncourt, so that I shall
+not be obliged to repeat anything. The deer are charming, I know; but
+you have seen deer before, and will no doubt again. I am sorry that I am
+obliged to speak to you about myself, but a little autobiography is
+unavoidable. Perhaps you know that about three years ago I succeeded my
+father. From being penniless, and head over ears in debt, I became
+suddenly a rich man--not by my father's will, who entailed every acre of
+the estates here and elsewhere on Ralph, and left everything he could to
+him. I had thought of telling you what my best friends have never known,
+why I am not still crippled by debt. I had thought of telling you why,
+at five-and-thirty, I was still unmarried, for my debts were not the
+reason; but I will not trouble you with that now. It is enough to say
+that I found myself in a position which, had I been a little younger,
+with rather a different past, I should have enjoyed more than I did. I
+was well received in English society when, after a lapse of several
+years and a change of fortune, I returned to it. If I had thought I was
+well received for myself, I should have been a fool. But I came back
+disillusioned. I saw the machinery. When you reflect on the vast and
+intricate machinery employed by mothers with grown-up daughters, you may
+imagine what I saw. In all honesty and sincerity I wished to marry; but
+in the ease with which I saw I could do so lay my chief difficulty. I
+did not want a new toy, but a companion. I suppose I still clung to one
+last illusion, that I might meet a woman whom I could love, and who
+would love me, and not my name or income. I could not find her, but I
+still believed in her. I went everywhere in the hope of meeting her,
+and, if others have ever been disappointed in me, they have never known
+how disappointed I have been in them. For three years I looked for her
+everywhere, but I could not find her, and at last I gave her up. And
+then I met Lady Grace Lawrence, and liked her. I had reason to believe
+she could be disinterested. She came of good people--all Lawrences are
+good; she was simple and unspoiled, and she seemed to like me. When I
+look back I believe that I had decided to ask her to marry me, and that
+it was only by the merest chance that I left London without speaking to
+her. What prevented me I hardly know, unless it was a reluctance at the
+last moment to cast the die. I came down to Atherstone, harassed and
+anxious, tired of everything and everybody, and there," said Charles,
+with sudden passion, turning and looking full at Ruth, "there I met
+_you_."
+
+The blood rushed to her face, and she hastily interposed, "I don't see
+any necessity to bring my name in."
+
+"Perhaps not," he returned, recovering himself instantly;
+"unfortunately, I do."
+
+"You expect too much of my vanity," said Ruth, her voice trembling a
+little; "but in this instance I don't think you can turn it to account.
+I beg you will leave me out of the question."
+
+"I am sorry I cannot oblige you," he said, grimly; "but you can't be
+left out. I only regret that you dislike being mentioned, because that
+is a mere nothing to what is coming."
+
+She trusted that he did not perceive that the reason she made no reply
+was because she suddenly felt herself unable to articulate. Her heart
+was beating wildly, as that gentle, well conducted organ had never
+beaten before. What was coming? Could this stern, determined man be the
+same apathetic, sarcastic being whom she had hitherto known?
+
+"From that time," he continued, "I became surer and surer of what at
+first I hardly dared to hope, what it seemed presumption in me to hope,
+namely, that at last I had found what I had looked for in vain so long.
+I had to keep my engagement with the Hope-Actons in Scotland; but I
+regretted it. I stayed as short a time as I could. I did not ask them to
+come here. They offered themselves. I think, if I have been to blame, it
+has not been in so heartless a manner as you supposed; and it appears to
+me Lady Hope-Acton should not have come. This is my explanation. You can
+add the rest for yourself. Have I said enough to soften your harsh
+judgment of yesterday?"
+
+Ruth could not speak. The trees were behaving in the most curious
+manner, were whirling round, were swaying up and down. The beeches close
+in front were dancing quadrilles; now ranged in two long rows, now
+setting to partners, now hurrying back to their places as she drew near.
+
+"Sit down," said Charles's voice, gently; "you look tired."
+
+The trunk of a fallen tree suddenly appeared rising up to meet her out
+of a slight mist, and she sat down on it more precipitately than she
+could have wished. In a few seconds the trees returned to their places,
+and the mist, which appeared to be very local, cleared away.
+
+Charles was sitting on the trunk beside her, looking at her intently.
+The anger had gone out of his face, and had given place to a look of
+deep anxiety and suspense.
+
+"I have not finished yet," he said, and his voice had changed as much as
+his face. "There is still something more."
+
+"No, no!" said Ruth. "At least, if there is, don't say it."
+
+"I think I would rather say it. You wish to save me pain, I see; but I
+am quite prepared for what you are going to say. I did not intend to
+speak to you on the subject for a long time to come, but yesterday's
+event has forced my hand. There must be no more misunderstandings
+between us. You intend to refuse me, I can see. All the same, I wish to
+tell you that I love you, and to ask you to be my wife."
+
+"I am afraid I cannot," said Ruth, almost inaudibly.
+
+"No," said Charles, looking straight before him, "I have asked you too
+soon. You are quite right. I did not expect anything different; I only
+wished you to know. But, perhaps, some day--"
+
+"Don't!" said Ruth, clasping her hands tightly together. "You don't know
+what you are saying. Nothing can make any difference, because--I am
+engaged."
+
+She dared not look at his face, but she saw his hand clinch.
+
+For an age neither spoke.
+
+Then he turned his head slowly and looked at her. His face was gray even
+to the lips. With a strange swift pang at the heart, she saw how her few
+words had changed it.
+
+"To whom?" he said at last, hardly above a whisper.
+
+"To Mr. Dare."
+
+"Not that man who has come to live at Vandon?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Another long silence.
+
+"When was it?"
+
+"Ten days ago."
+
+"Ten days ago," repeated Charles, mechanically, and his face worked.
+"Ten days ago!"
+
+"It is not given out yet," said Ruth, hesitating, "because Mr. Alwynn
+does not wish it during Lord Polesworth's absence. I never thought of
+any mistake being caused by not mentioning it. I would not have come
+here if I had had the least idea that--"
+
+"You cannot mean to say that you had never seen that I--what I--felt for
+you?"
+
+"Indeed I never thought of such a thing until two minutes before you
+said it. I am very sorry I did not, but I imagined--"
+
+"Let me hear what you imagined."
+
+"I noticed you talked to me a good deal; but I thought you did exactly
+the same to Lady Grace, and others."
+
+"You could not imagine that I talked to others--to any other woman in
+the world--as I did to you."
+
+"I supposed," said Ruth, simply, "that you talked gayly to Lady Grace
+because it suited her; and more gravely to me, because I am naturally
+grave. I thought at the time you were rather clever in adapting yourself
+to different people so easily; and I was glad that I understood your
+manner better than some of the others."
+
+"Better!" said Charles, bitterly. "Better, when you thought that of me!
+No, you need not say anything. I was in fault, not you. I don't know
+what right I had to imagine you understood me--you seemed to understand
+me--to fancy that we had anything in common, that in time--" He broke
+into a low wretched laugh. "And all the while you were engaged to
+another man! Good God, what a farce! what a miserable mistake from first
+to last!"
+
+Ruth said nothing. It was indeed a miserable mistake.
+
+He rose wearily to his feet.
+
+"I was forgetting," he said; "it is time to go home." And they went back
+together in silence, which was more bearable than speech just then.
+
+The peacocks were still pirouetting and minuetting on the stone
+balustrade as they came back to the garden. The gong began to sound as
+they entered the piazza.
+
+To Ruth it was a dreadful meal. She tried to listen to Mr. Conway's
+account of the gray cob, or to the placid conversation of Mr. Alwynn
+about the beloved manuscripts. Fortunately the morning papers were full
+of a recent forgery in America, and a murder in London, which furnished
+topics when these were exhausted, and Charles used them to the utmost.
+
+At last the carriage came. Mr. Alwynn and Mr. Conway simultaneously
+broke into incoherent ejaculations respecting the pleasure of their
+visit; Ruth's hand met Charles's for an embarrassed second; and a moment
+later they were whirling down the straight wide approach, between the
+columns of fantastically clipped hollies, leaving Charles standing in
+the door-way. He was still standing there when the carriage rolled under
+the arched gate-way with its rampant stone lions. Ruth glanced back
+once, as they turned into the road, at the stately old house, with its
+pointed gables and forests of chimneys cutting the gray sky-line. She
+saw the owner turn slowly and go up the steps, and looked hastily away
+again.
+
+"Poor Danvers!" said Mr. Alwynn, cheerfully, also looking, and putting
+Ruth's thoughts into words. "He must be desperately lonely in that house
+all by himself; but I suppose he is not often there."
+
+And Mr. Alwynn, whose mind had been entirely relieved since Ruth's
+engagement from the dark suspicion he had once harbored respecting
+Charles, proceeded to dilate upon the merits of the charters, and of the
+owner of the charters, until he began to think Ruth had a headache, and
+finding it to be the case, talked no more till they reached, at the end
+of their little journey, the door of Slumberleigh Rectory.
+
+"Is it very bad?" he asked, kindly, as he helped her out of the
+carriage.
+
+Ruth assented, fortunately with some faint vestige of truth, for her hat
+hurt her forehead.
+
+"Then run up straight to your own room, and I will tell your aunt that
+you will come and have a chat with her later on, perhaps after tea, when
+the post will be gone." Mr. Alwynn spoke in the whisper of stratagem.
+
+Ruth was only too thankful to be allowed to slip on tiptoe to her own
+room, but she had not been there many minutes when a tap came to the
+door.
+
+"There, my dear," said Mr. Alwynn, putting his head in, and holding some
+letters towards her. "Your aunt ought to have forwarded them. I brought
+them up at once. And there is nearly an hour to post-time, and she won't
+expect you to come down till then. I think the headache will be better
+now, eh?"
+
+He nodded kindly to her, and closed the door again. Ruth sat down
+mechanically, and began to sort the packet he had put into her hands.
+The first three letters were in the same handwriting, Dare's large vague
+handwriting, that ran from one end of the envelope to the other, and
+partly hid itself under the stamp.
+
+She looked at them, but did not open them. A feeling of intense
+lassitude and fatigue had succeeded to the unconscious excitement of the
+morning. She could not read them now. They must wait with the others.
+Presently she could feel an interest in them; not now.
+
+She leaned her head upon her hand, and a rush of pity swept away every
+other feeling as she recalled that last look at Stoke Moreton, and how
+Charles had turned so slowly and wearily to go in-doors. There was an
+ache at her heart as she thought of him, a sense of regret and loss. And
+he had loved her all the time!
+
+"If I had only known!" she said to herself, pressing her hands against
+her forehead. "But how could I tell--how could I tell?"
+
+She raised her head with a sudden movement, and began with nervous
+fingers to open Dare's letters, and read them carefully.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+
+In the long evening that followed Ruth's departure from Stoke Moreton,
+Charles was alone for once in his own home. He was leaving again early
+on the morrow, but for the time he was alone, and heavy at heart. He sat
+for hours without stirring, looking into the fire. He had no power or
+will to control his thoughts. They wandered hither and thither, and up
+and down, never for a moment easing the dull miserable pain that lay
+beneath them all.
+
+Fool! fool that he had been!
+
+To have found her after all these years, and to have lost her without a
+stroke! To have let another take her, and such a man as Dare! To have
+such a fool's manner that he was thought to be in earnest when he was
+least so; that now, when his whole future hung in the balance,
+retribution had overtaken him, and with bitter irony had mocked at his
+earnestness and made it of none effect. She had thought it was his
+natural manner to all! His cursed folly had lost her to him. If she had
+known, surely it would have been, it must have been different. At heart
+Charles was a very humble man, though it was not to be expected many
+would think so; but nevertheless he had a deep, ever-deepening
+consciousness (common to the experience of the humblest once in a
+lifetime) that between him and Ruth that mysterious link of mutual
+understanding and sympathy existed which cannot be accounted for, which
+eludes analysis, which yet makes, when the sex happens to be identical,
+the indissoluble friendship of a David and a Jonathan, a Karlos and a
+Posa; and, where there is a difference of sex, brings about that rarest
+wonder of the world, a happy marriage.
+
+Like cleaves to like. He knew she would have loved him. She was his by
+right. The same law of attraction which had lifted them at once out of
+the dreary flats of ordinary acquaintanceship would have drawn them ever
+closer and closer together till they were knit in one. He knew, with a
+certainty that nothing could shake, that he could have made her love
+him, even as he loved her; unconsciously at first, slowly perhaps--for
+the current of strong natures, like that of deep rivers, is sometimes
+slow. Still the end would have been the same.
+
+And he had lost her by his own act, by his own heedless folly; her want
+of vanity having lent a hand the while to put her beyond his reach
+forever.
+
+It was a bitter hour.
+
+And as he sat late into the night beside the fire, that died down to
+dust and ashes before his absent eyes, ghosts of other heavy hours,
+ghosts of the past, which he had long since buried out of his sight,
+came back and would not be denied.
+
+To live much in the past, is a want of faith in the Power that gives the
+present. Comparatively few men walk through their lives looking
+backward. Women more frequently do so from a false estimate of life
+fostered by romantic feeling in youth, which leads them, if the life of
+the affections is ended, resolutely to refuse to regard existence in any
+other maturer aspect, and to persist in wandering aimlessly forward,
+with eyes turned ever on the dim flowery paths of former days.
+
+"Let the dead past bury its dead."
+
+But there comes a time, when the grass has grown over those graves, when
+we may do well to go and look at them once more; to stand once again in
+that solitary burial-ground, "where," as an earnest man has said, "are
+buried broken vows, worn-out hopes, joys blind and deaf, faiths betrayed
+or gone astray--lost, lost love; silent spaces where only one mourner
+ever comes."
+
+And to the last retrospective of us our dead past yet speaks at times,
+and speaks as one having authority.
+
+Such a time had come for Charles now. From the open grave of his love
+for Ruth he turned to look at others by which he had stood long ago, in
+grief as sharp, but which yet in all its bitterness had never struck as
+deep as this.
+
+Memory pointed back to a time twenty years ago, when he had hurried home
+through a long summer night to arrive at Stoke Moreton too late; to find
+only the solemn shadow of the mother whom he had loved, and whom he had
+grieved; too late to ask for forgiveness; too late for anything but a
+wild passion of grief and remorse, and frantic self-accusation.
+
+The scene shifted to ten years later. It was a sultry July evening of
+the day on which the woman whom he had loved for years had married his
+brother. He was standing on the deck of the steamer which was taking him
+from England, looking back at the gray town dwindling against the tawny
+curtain of the sunset. In his brain was a wild clamor of wedding-bells,
+and across the water, marking the pulse of the sea, came to his outward
+ears the slow tolling of a bell on a sunken rock near the harbor mouth.
+
+It seemed to be tolling for the death of all that remained of good in
+him. In losing Evelyn, whom he had loved with all the idealism and
+reverence of a reckless man for a good woman, he believed, in the
+bitterness of his spirit, that he had lost all; that he had been cut
+adrift from the last mooring to a better future, that nothing could hold
+him back now. And for a time it had been so, and he had drowned his
+trouble in a sea in which he wellnigh drowned himself as well.
+
+Once more memory pointed--pointed across five dark years to an evening
+when he had sat as he was sitting now, alone by the wide stone hearth in
+the hall at Stoke Moreton, after his father's death, and after the
+reading of the will. He was the possessor of the old home, which he had
+always passionately loved, from which he had been virtually banished so
+long. His father, who had never liked him, but who of late years had
+hated him as men only hate their eldest sons, had left all in his power
+to his second son, had entailed every acre of the Stoke Moreton and
+other family properties upon him and his children. Charles could touch
+nothing, and over him hung a millstone of debt, from which there was now
+no escape. He sat with his head in his hands--the man whom his friends
+were envying on his accession to supposed wealth and position--ruined.
+
+A few days later he was summoned to London by a friend whom he had known
+for many years. He remembered well that last meeting with the stern old
+man whom he had found sitting in his arm-chair with death in his face.
+He had once or twice remonstrated with Charles in earlier days, and as
+he came into his presence now for the last time, and met his severe
+glance, he supposed, with the callousness that comes from suffering
+which has reached its lowest depths, that he was about to rebuke him
+again.
+
+"And so," said General Marston, sternly, "you have come into your
+kingdom; into what you deserve."
+
+"Yes," said Charles. "If it is any pleasure to you to know that what you
+prophesied on several occasions has come true, you can enjoy it. I am
+ruined!"
+
+"You fool!" said the sick man slowly. "To have come to five-and-thirty,
+and to have used up everything which makes life worth having. I am not
+speaking only of money. There is a bankruptcy in your face that money
+will never pay. And you had talent and a good heart and the making of a
+man in you once. I saw that when your father turned you adrift. I saw
+that when you were at your worst after your brother's marriage. Yes, you
+need not start. I knew your secret and kept it as well as you did
+yourself. I tried to stop you; but you went your own way."
+
+Charles was silent. It was true, and he knew it.
+
+"And so you thought, I suppose, that if your father had made a just will
+you could have retrieved yourself?"
+
+"I know I could," said Charles, firmly; "but he left the ----shire
+property to Ralph, and every shilling of his capital; and Ralph had my
+mother's fortune already. I have Stoke Moreton and the place in Surrey,
+which he could not take from me, but everything is entailed, down to the
+trees in the park. I have nominally a large income; but I am in the
+hands of the Jews. I can't settle with them as I expected, and they will
+squeeze me to the uttermost. However, as you say, I have the
+consolation of knowing I brought it on myself."
+
+"And if your father acted justly, as you would call it, which I knew he
+never would, you would have run through everything in five years' time."
+
+"No, I should not. I know I have been a fool; but there are two kinds of
+fools--the kind that sticks to folly all its life, and the kind that has
+its fling, and has done with it. I belong to the second kind. My father
+had no right to take my last chance from me. If he had left it me, I
+should have used it."
+
+"You look tired of your fling," said the elder man. "Very tired. And you
+think money would set you right, do you?" He looked critically at the
+worn, desperate face opposite him. "I made my will the other day," he
+went on, his eyes still fixed on Charles. "I had not much to leave, and
+I have no near relations, so I divided it among various charitable
+institutions. I see no reason to alter my will. If one leaves money,
+however small the sum may be, one likes to think it has been left to
+some purpose, with some prospect of doing good. A few days ago I had a
+surprise. I fancy it was to be my last surprise in this world. I
+inherited from a distant relation, who died intestate, a large fortune.
+After being a poor man all my days, wealth comes to me when I am on the
+point of going where money won't follow. Curious, isn't it? I am going
+to leave this second sum in the same spirit as the first, but in rather
+a different manner. I like to know what I am doing, so I sent for you. I
+am of opinion that the best thing I can do with it, is to set you on
+your legs again. What do you owe?"
+
+Charles turned very red, and then very white.
+
+"What do you owe?" repeated the sick man, testily. "I am getting tired.
+How much is it?" He got out a check-book, and began filling it in. "Have
+you no tongue?" he said, angrily, looking up. "Tell me the exact figure.
+Well? Keep nothing back."
+
+"I won't be given the whole," said Charles, with an oath. "Give me
+enough to settle the Jews, and I will do the rest out of my income. I
+won't get off scot free."
+
+"Well, then, have your own way, as usual, and name the sum you want.
+There, take it," he said, feebly, when Charles had mentioned with shame
+a certain hideous figure, "and go. I shall never know what you do with
+it, so you can play ducks and drakes with it if you like. But you won't
+like. You have burned your fingers too severely to play with fire again.
+You have turned over so many new leaves that now you have come to the
+last in the book. I have given you another chance, Charles; but one man
+can't do much to help another. The only person who can really help you
+is yourself. Give yourself a chance, too."
+
+How memory brought back every word of that strange interview. Charles
+saw again the face of the dying man; heard again the stern, feeble
+voice, "Give yourself a chance."
+
+He had given himself a chance. "Some natures, like comets, make strange
+orbits, and return from far." Charles had returned at last. The old
+man's investment had been a wise one. But, as Charles looked back, after
+three years, he saw that his friend had been right. His money debts had
+been the least part of what he owed. There were other long-standing
+accounts which he had paid in full during these three years, paid in the
+restless weariness and disappointment that underlay his life, in the
+loneliness in which he lived, in his contempt for all his former
+pursuits, which had left him at first devoid of any pursuits at all.
+
+He had had, as was natural, very little happiness in his life, but all
+the bitterness of all his bitter past seemed as nothing to the agony of
+this moment. He had loved Evelyn with his imagination, but he loved Ruth
+with his whole heart and soul, and--he had lost her.
+
+The night was far advanced. The dawn was already making faint bars over
+the tops of the shutters, was looking in at him as he sat motionless by
+his dim lamp and his dead fire. And, in spite of the growing dawn, it
+was a dark hour.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+
+Dare returned to Vandon in the highest spirits, with an enormous emerald
+engagement-ring in an inner waistcoat-pocket. He put it on Ruth's third
+finger a few days later, under the ancient cedar on the terrace at
+Vandon, a spot which, he informed her (for he was not without poetic
+flights at times), his inner consciousness associated with all the love
+scenes of his ancestors that were no more.
+
+He was stricken to the heart when, after duly admiring it, Ruth gently
+explained to him that she could not wear his ring at present, until her
+engagement was given out.
+
+"Let it then be given out," he said, impetuously. "Ah! why already is it
+not given out?"
+
+She explained again, but it was difficult to make him understand, and
+she felt conscious that if he would have allowed her the temporary use
+of one hand to release a fly, which was losing all self-control inside
+her veil, she might have been more lucid. As it was, she at last made
+him realize the fact that, until Lord Polesworth's return from America
+in November, no further step was to be taken.
+
+"But all is right," he urged with pride. "I have seen my lawyer; I make
+a settlement. I raise money on the property to make a settlement. There
+is nothing I will not do. I care for nothing only to marry you."
+
+Ruth led him to talk of other things. She was very gentle with him,
+always attentive, always ready to be interested; but any one less
+self-centred than Dare would have had a misgiving about her feeling for
+him. He had none. Half his life he had spent in Paris, and, imbued with
+French ideas of betrothal and marriage, he thought her manner at once
+exceedingly becoming and natural. She was reserved, but reserve was
+charming. She did not care for him very much perhaps, as yet, but as
+much as she could care for any one. Most men think that if a woman does
+not attach herself to them she is by nature cold. Dare was no exception
+to the rule; and though he would have preferred that there should be
+less constraint in their present intercourse, that she would be a little
+more shy, and a little less calm, still he was supremely happy and
+proud, and only longed to proclaim the fortunate state of his affairs to
+the world.
+
+One thing about Ruth puzzled him very much, and with a vague misgiving
+she saw it did so. Her interest in the Vandon cottages, and the schools,
+and the new pump, had been most natural up to this time. It had served
+to bring them together; but now the use of these things was past, and
+yet he observed, with incredulity at first and astonishment afterwards,
+that she clung to them more than ever.
+
+What mattered it for the moment whether the pump was put up or not, or
+whether the cottages by the river were protected from the floods? Of
+course in time, for he had promised, a vague something would be done;
+but why in the golden season of love and plighted faith revert to
+prosaic subjects such as these?
+
+Some men are quite unable to believe in any act of a woman being
+genuine. They always find out that it has something to do with them. If
+an angel came down from heaven to warn a man of this kind of wrath to
+come, he would think the real object of her journey was to make his
+acquaintance.
+
+Ruth saw the incredulity in Dare's face when she questioned him, and her
+heart sank within her. It sank yet lower when she told him one day, with
+a faint smile, that she knew he was not rich, and that she wanted him to
+let her help in the rebuilding of certain cottages, the plans of which
+he had brought over in the summer, but which had not yet been begun,
+apparently for the want of funds.
+
+"What you cannot do alone we can do together," she said.
+
+He agreed with effusion. He was surprised, flattered, delighted, but
+entirely puzzled.
+
+The cottages were begun immediately. They were near the river, which
+divided the Slumberleigh and Vandon properties. Ruth often went to look
+at them. It did her good to see them rising, strong and firm, though
+hideous to behold, on higher ground than the poor dilapidated hovels at
+the water's edge, where fever was always breaking out, which yet made,
+as they supported each other in their crookedness, and leaned over their
+own wavering reflections, such a picturesque sketch that it seemed a
+shame to supplant them by such brand new red brick, such blue tiling,
+such dreadful little porches.
+
+Ruth drew the old condemned cottages, with the long lines of pollarded
+marshy meadow, and distant bridge and mill in the background, but it was
+a sketch she never cared to look at afterwards. She was constantly
+drawing now. There was a vague restlessness in her at this time that
+made her take refuge in the world of nature, where the mind can withdraw
+itself from itself for a time into a stronghold where misgiving and
+anxiety cannot corrupt, nor self break through and steal. In these days
+she shut out self steadfastly, and fixed her eyes firmly on the future,
+as she herself had made it with her own hands.
+
+She had grown very grave of late. Dare's high spirits had the effect of
+depressing her more than she would allow, even to herself. She liked
+him. She told herself so every day, and it was a pleasure to her to see
+him so happy. But when she had accepted him he was so diffident, so
+quiet, so anxious, that she had not realized that he would return to his
+previous happy self-confidence, his volubility, his gray hats--in fact,
+his former gay self--directly his mind was at ease and he had got what
+he wanted. She saw at once that the change was natural, but she found it
+difficult to keep pace with, and the effort to do so was a constant
+strain.
+
+She had yet to learn that it is hard to live for those who live for
+self. Between a nature which struggles, however feebly, towards a higher
+life, and one whose sole object is gracefully and good-naturedly, but
+persistently to enjoy itself, there is a great gulf fixed, of which
+often neither are aware, until they attempt a close relationship with
+each other, when the chasm reveals itself with appalling clearness to
+the higher nature of the two.
+
+Ruth was glad when a long-standing engagement to sing at a private
+concert in one place, and sell modern knick-knacks in old English
+costume at another, took her from Slumberleigh for a week. She looked
+forward to the dreary dissipation in store for her with positive
+gladness; and when the week had passed, and she was returning once more,
+she wished the stations would not fly so quickly past, that the train
+would not hurry itself so unnecessarily to bring her back to
+Slumberleigh.
+
+As the little local line passed Stoke Moreton station she looked out for
+a moment, but leaned back hurriedly as she caught a glimpse of the
+Danvers omnibus in the background, with its great black horses, and a
+footman with a bag standing on the platform. In another moment Mrs.
+Alwynn, followed by the footman, made a dart at Ruth's carriage, jumped
+in, seized the bag, repeated voluble thanks, pressed half her gayly
+dressed person out again through the window to ascertain that her boxes
+were put in the van, caught her veil in the ventilator as the train
+started, and finally precipitated herself into a seat on her bag, as the
+motion destroyed her equilibrium.
+
+"Well, Aunt Fanny!" said Ruth.
+
+"Why, goodness gracious, my dear, if it isn't you! And, now I think of
+it, you were to come home to-day. Well, how oddly things fall out, to be
+sure, me getting into your carriage like that. And you'll never guess,
+Ruth, though for that matter there's nothing so very astonishing about
+it, as I told Mrs. Thursby, you'll never guess where _I've_ been
+visiting."
+
+Ruth remembered seeing the Danvers omnibus at the station, and suddenly
+remembered, too, a certain request which she had once made of Charles.
+
+"Where can it have been?" she said, with a great show of curiosity.
+
+"You will never guess," said Mrs. Alwynn, in high glee. "I shall have to
+help you. You remember my sprained ankle? There! Now I have as good as
+told you."
+
+But Ruth would not spoil her aunt's pleasure; and after numerous
+guesses, Mrs. Alwynn had the delight of taking her completely by
+surprise, when at last she leaned forward and said, with a rustle of
+pride, emphasizing each word with a pat on Ruth's knee:
+
+"I've been to Stoke Moreton."
+
+"How delightful!" ejaculated Ruth. "How astonished I am! Stoke Moreton!"
+
+"You may well say that," said Mrs. Alwynn, nodding to her. "Mrs. Thursby
+would not believe it at first, and afterwards she said she was afraid
+there would not be any party; but there was, Ruth. There was a married
+couple, very nice people, of the name of Reynolds. I dare say, being
+London people, you may have known them. She had quite the London look
+about her, though not dressed low of an evening; and he was a clergyman,
+who had overworked himself, and had come down to Stoke Moreton to rest,
+and had soup at luncheon. And there was another person besides, a
+Colonel Middleton, a very clever man, who wrote a book that was printed,
+and had been in India, and was altogether most superior. We were three
+gentlemen and two ladies, but we had ices each night, Ruth, two kinds of
+ices; and the second night I wore my ruby satin, and the clergyman at
+Stoke Moreton, that nice young Mr. Brown, who comes to your uncle's
+chapter meetings, dined, with his sister, a very pleasing person indeed,
+Ruth, in black. In fact, it was a very pleasant little gathering, so
+nice and informal, and the footman did not wait at luncheon, just put
+the pudding and the hot plates down to the fire; and Sir Charles so
+chatty and so full of his jokes, and I always liked to hear him, though
+my scent of humor is not quite the same as his. Sir Charles has a
+feeling heart, Ruth. You should have heard Mr. Reynolds talk about him.
+But he looked very thin and pale, my dear, and he seemed to be always so
+tired, but still as pleasant as could be. And I told him he wanted a
+wife to look after him, and I advised him to have an egg beaten up in
+ever such a little drop of brandy at eleven o'clock, and he said he
+would think about it, he did indeed, Ruth; so I just went quietly to the
+house-keeper and asked her to see to it, and a very sensible person she
+was, Ruth, been in the family twenty years, and thinks all the world of
+Sir Charles, and showed me the damask table-cloths that were used for
+the prince's visit, and the white satin coverlet, embroidered with gold
+thistles, quite an heirloom, which had been worked by the ladies of the
+house when James I. slept there. Think of that, my dear!"
+
+And so Mrs. Alwynn rambled on, recounting how Charles had shown her all
+the pictures himself, and the piazza where the orange and myrtle trees
+were, and how she and Mrs. Reynolds had gone for a drive together, "in
+a beautiful landau," etc., till they reached home.
+
+As a rule Ruth rather shrank from travelling with Mrs. Alwynn, who
+always journeyed in her best clothes, "because you never know whom you
+may not meet." To stand on a platform with her was to be made
+conspicuous, and Ruth generally found herself unconsciously going into
+half mourning for the day, when she went anywhere by rail with her aunt.
+To-day Mrs. Alwynn was more gayly dressed than ever, but as Ruth looked
+at her beaming face she felt nothing but a strange pleasure in the fact
+that Charles had not forgotten the little request which later events had
+completely effaced from her own memory. He, it seemed, had remembered,
+and, in spite of what had passed, had done what she asked him. She
+wished that she could have told him she was grateful. Alas! there were
+other things that she wished she could have told him; that she was sorry
+she had misjudged him; that she understood him better now. But what did
+it matter? What did it matter? She was going to marry Dare, and _he_ was
+the person whom she must try to understand for the remainder of her
+natural life. She thought a little wearily that she could understand
+_him_ without trying.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+
+The 18th of October had arrived. Slumberleigh Hall was filling. The
+pheasants, reprieved till then, supposed it was only for partridge
+shooting, and thinking no evil, ate Indian-corn, and took no thought for
+the annual St. Bartholomew of their race.
+
+Mabel Thursby had met Ruth out walking that day, and had informed her
+that Charles was to be one of the guns, also Dare, though, as she
+remembered to add, suspecting Dare admired Ruth, the latter was a bad
+shot, and was only asked out of neighborly feeling.
+
+After parting with Mabel, Ruth met, almost at her own gate, Ralph
+Danvers, who passed her on horseback, and then turned on recognizing
+her. Ralph's conversational powers were not great, and though he walked
+his horse beside her, he chiefly contented himself with assenting to
+Ruth's remarks until she asked after Molly.
+
+He at once whistled and flicked a fly off his horse's neck.
+
+"Sad business with Molly," he said; "and mother out for the day. Great
+grief in the nursery. Vic's dead!"
+
+"Oh, poor Molly!"
+
+"Died this morning. Fits. I say," with a sudden inspiration, "you
+wouldn't go over and cheer her up, would you? Mother's out. I'm out.
+Magistrates' meeting at D----."
+
+Ruth said she had nothing to do, and would go over at once, and Ralph
+nodded kindly at her, and rode on. He liked her, and it never occurred
+to him that it could be anything but a privilege to minister to any need
+of Molly's. He jogged on more happily after his meeting with Ruth, and
+only remembered half an hour later that he had completely forgotten to
+order the dog-cart to meet Charles, who was coming to Atherstone for a
+night before he went on to kill the Slumberleigh pheasants the following
+morning.
+
+Ruth set out at once over the pale stubble fields, glad of an object for
+a walk.
+
+Deep distress reigned meanwhile in the nursery at Atherstone. Vic, the
+much-beloved, the stoat pursuer, the would-be church-goer, Vic was dead,
+and Molly's soul refused comfort. In vain nurse conveyed a palpitating
+guinea-pig into the nursery in a bird-cage, on the narrow door of which
+remains of fur showed an unwilling entrance; Molly could derive no
+comfort from guinea-pigs.
+
+In vain was the new horse, with leather hoofs, with real hair, and a
+horse-hair tail--in vain was that token of esteem from Uncle Charles
+brought out of its stable, and unevenly yoked with a dappled pony
+planted on a green, oval lawn, into Molly's own hay-cart. Molly's woe
+was beyond the reach of hay-carts or horse-hair tails, however
+realistic. Like Hezekiah, she turned her face to the nursery wall, on
+which trains and railroads were depicted; and even when cook herself
+rose up out of her kitchen to comfort her with material consolations,
+she refused the mockery of a gingerbread nut, which could not restore
+the friend with whom previous gingerbread nuts had always been equally
+divided.
+
+Presently a step came along the passage, and Charles, who had found no
+one in the drawing-room, came in tired and dusty, and inclined to be
+annoyed at having had to walk up from the station.
+
+Molly flew to him, and flung her arms tightly round his neck.
+
+"Oh, Uncle Charles! Uncle Charles! Vic is dead!"
+
+"I am so sorry, Molly," taking her on his knee.
+
+Nurse and the nursery-maid and cook withdrew, leaving the two mourners
+alone together.
+
+"He is _dead_, Uncle Charles. He was quite well, and eating Albert
+biscuits with the dolls this morning, and now--" The rest was too
+dreadful, and Molly burst into a flood of tears, and burrowed with her
+head against the faithful waistcoat of Uncle Charles--Uncle Charles, the
+friend, the consoler of all the ills that Molly had so far been heir to.
+
+"Vic had a very happy life, Molly," said Charles, pressing the little
+brown head against his cheek, and vaguely wondering what it would be
+like to have any one to turn to in time of trouble.
+
+"I always kept trouble from him except that time I shut him in the
+door," gasped Molly. "I never took him out in a string, and he only wore
+his collar--that collar you gave him, that made him scratch so--on
+Sundays."
+
+"And he was not ill a long time. He did not suffer any pain?"
+
+"No, Uncle Charles, not much; but, though he did not say anything, his
+face looked worse than screaming, and he passed away very stiff in his
+hind-legs. Oh!" (with a fresh outburst), "when cook told me that her
+sister that was in a decline had gone, I never thought," (sob, sob!)
+"poor Vic would be the next."
+
+A step came along the passage, a firm light step that Charles knew, that
+made his heart beat violently.
+
+The door opened and a familiar voice said:
+
+"Molly! My poor Molly! I met father, and--"
+
+Ruth stood in the door-way, and stopped short. A wave of color passed
+over her face, and left it paler than usual.
+
+Charles looked at her over the mop of Molly's brown head against his
+breast. Their grave eyes met, and each thought how ill the other looked.
+
+"I did not know--I thought you were going to Slumberleigh to-day," said
+Ruth.
+
+"I go to-morrow morning," replied Charles. "I came here first."
+
+There was an awkward silence, but Molly came to their relief by a sudden
+rush at Ruth, and a repetition of the details of the death-bed scene of
+poor Vic for her benefit, for which both were grateful.
+
+"You ought to be thinking where he is to be buried, Molly," suggested
+Charles, when she had finished. "Let us go into the garden and find a
+place."
+
+Molly revived somewhat at the prospect of a funeral, and though Ruth was
+anxious to leave her with her uncle, insisted on her remaining for the
+ceremony. They went out together, Molly holding a hand of each, to
+choose a suitable spot in the garden. By the time the grave had been
+dug by Charles, Molly was sufficiently recovered to take a lively
+interest in the proceedings, and to insist on the attendance of the
+stable-cat, in deep mourning, when the remains of poor Vic, arrayed in
+his best collar, were lowered into their long home.
+
+By the time the last duties to the dead had been performed, and Charles,
+under Molly's direction, had planted a rose-tree on the grave, while
+Ruth surrounded the little mound with white pebbles, Molly's tea-time
+had arrived, and that young lady allowed herself to be led away by the
+nursery-maid, with the stable-cat in a close embrace, resigned, and even
+cheerful at the remembrance of those creature comforts of cook's, which
+earlier in the day she had refused so peremptorily.
+
+When Molly left them, Ruth and Charles walked together in silence to the
+garden-gate which led to the foot-path over the fields by which she had
+come. Neither had a word to say, who formerly had so much.
+
+"Good-bye," she said, without looking at him.
+
+He seemed intent on the hasp of the gate.
+
+There was a moment's pause.
+
+"I should like," said Ruth, hating herself for the formality of her
+tone, "to thank you before I go for giving Mrs. Alwynn so much pleasure.
+She still talks of her visit to you. It was kind of you to remember it.
+So much seems to have happened since then, that I had not thought of it
+again."
+
+At her last words Charles raised his eyes and looked at her with strange
+wistful intentness, but when Ruth had finished speaking he had no remark
+to make in answer; and as he stood, bareheaded by the gate, twirling the
+hasp and looking, as a hasty glance told her, so worn and jaded in the
+sunshine, she said "Good-bye" again, and turned hastily away.
+
+And all along the empty harvested fields, and all along the lanes, where
+the hips and haws grew red and stiff among the ruddy hedge-rows, Ruth
+still saw Charles's grave, worn face.
+
+That night she saw it still, as she sat in her own room, and listened to
+the whisper of the rain upon the roof, and the touch of its myriad
+fingers on the window-panes.
+
+"I cannot bear to see him look like that. I cannot bear it," she said,
+suddenly, and the storm which had been gathering so long, the clouds of
+which had darkened the sky for so many days, broke at last, with a
+strong and mighty wind of swift emotion which carried all before it.
+
+It was a relief to give way, to let the tempest do its worst, and remain
+passive. But when its force was spent at last, and it died away in gusts
+and flying showers, it left flood and wreckage and desolation behind.
+When Ruth raised her head and looked about her, all her landmarks were
+gone. There was a streaming glory in the heavens, but it shone on the
+ruin of all her little world below. She loved Charles, and she knew it.
+It seemed to her now as if, though she had not realized it, she must
+have loved him from the first; and with the knowledge came an
+overwhelming sense of utter misery that struck terror to her heart. She
+understood at last the meaning of the weariness and the restless
+misgivings of these last weeks. If heretofore they had spoken in
+riddles, they spoke plainly now. Every other feeling in the world seemed
+to have been swept away by a passion, the overwhelming strength of which
+she regarded panic-stricken. She seemed to have been asleep all her
+life, to have stirred restlessly once or twice of late, and now to have
+waked to consciousness and agony. Love, with women like Ruth, is a great
+happiness or a great calamity. It is with them indeed for better, for
+worse.
+
+Those whose feelings lie below the surface escape the hundred rubs and
+scratches which superficial natures are heir to; but it is the nerve
+which is not easily reached which when touched gives forth the sharpest
+pang. Nature, when she gives intensity of feeling, mercifully covers it
+well with a certain superficial coldness. Ruth had sometimes wondered
+why the incidents, the books, which called forth emotion in others,
+passed her by. The vehement passion which once or twice in her life she
+had involuntarily awakened in others had met with no response from
+herself. The sight of the fire she had unwittingly kindled only made her
+shiver with cold. She believed herself to be cold--always a dangerous
+assumption on the part of a woman, and apt to prove a broken reed in
+emergency.
+
+Charles knew her better than she knew herself. Her pride and unconscious
+humble-mindedness, her frankness with its underlying reserve, spoke of a
+strong nature, slow, perhaps, but earnest, constant, and, once roused,
+capable of deep attachment.
+
+And now the common lot had befallen her, the common lot of man and
+womankind since Adam first met Eve in the Garden of Eden. Ruth was not
+exempt.
+
+She loved Charles.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the dawn came up pale and tearful to wake the birds, it found her
+still sitting by her window, sitting where she had sat all night,
+looking with blank eyes at nothing. Creep into bed, Ruth, for already
+the sparrows are all waking, and their cheerful greetings to the new day
+add weariness to your weariness. Creep into bed, for soon the servants
+will be stirring, and before long Martha, who has slept all night, and
+thinks your lines have fallen to you in pleasant places and late hours,
+will bring the hot water.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+
+Reserved people pay dear for their reserve when they are in trouble,
+when the iron enters into their soul, and their eyes meet the eyes of
+the world tearless, unflinching, making no sign.
+
+Enviable are those whose sorrows are only pen and ink deep, who take
+every one into their confidence, who are comforted by sympathy, and fly
+to those who will weep with them. There is an utter solitude, a silence
+in the grief of a proud, reserved nature, which adds a frightful weight
+to its intensity; and when the night comes, and the chamber door is
+shut, who shall say what agonies of prayers and tears, what prostrations
+of despair, pass like waves over the soul to make the balance even?
+
+As a rule, the kindest and best of people seldom notice any alteration
+of appearance or manner in one of their own family. A stranger points it
+out, if ever it is pointed out, which, happily, is not often, unless, of
+course, in cases where advice has been disregarded, and the first
+symptom of ill health is jealously watched for and triumphantly hailed
+by those whose mission in life it is to say, "I told you so."
+
+Mrs. Alwynn, whose own complaints were of so slight a nature that they
+had to be constantly referred to to give them any importance at all, was
+not likely to notice that Ruth's naturally pale complexion had become
+several degrees too pale during the last two days, or that she had dark
+rings under her eyes. Besides, only the day before, had not Mrs. Alwynn,
+in cutting out a child's shirt, cut out at the same time her best
+drawing-room table-cloth as well, which calamity had naturally driven
+out of her mind every other subject for the time?
+
+Ruth had proved unsympathetic, and Mrs. Alwynn had felt her to be so.
+The next day, also, when Mrs. Alwynn had begun to talk over what she
+and Ruth were to wear that evening at a dinner-party at Slumberleigh
+Hall, Ruth had again shown a decided want of interest, and was not even
+to be roused by the various conjectures of her aunt, though repeated
+over and over again, as to who would most probably take her in to
+dinner, who would be assigned to Mr. Alwynn, and whether Ruth would be
+taken in by a married man or a single one. As it was quite impossible
+absolutely to settle these interesting points beforehand, Mrs. Alwynn's
+mind had a vast field for conjecture opened to her, in which she
+disported herself at will, varying the entertainment for herself and
+Ruth by speculating as to who would sit on the other side of each of
+them; "for," as she justly observed, "everybody has two sides, my dear;
+and though, for my part, I can talk to anybody--Members of Parliament,
+or bishops, or any one--still it is difficult for a young person, and if
+you feel dull, Ruth, you can always turn to the person on the other side
+with some easy little remark."
+
+Ruth rose and went to the window. It had rained all yesterday; it had
+been raining all the morning to-day, but it was fair now; nay, the sun
+was sending out long burnished shafts from the broken gray and blue of
+the sky. She was possessed by an unreasoning longing to get out of the
+house into the open air--anywhere, no matter where, beyond the reach of
+Mrs. Alwynn's voice. She had been fairly patient with her for many
+months, but during these two last wet days, a sense of sudden miserable
+irritation would seize her on the slightest provocation, which filled
+her with remorse and compunction, but into which she would relapse at a
+moment's notice. Every morning since her arrival, nine months ago, had
+Mrs. Alwynn returned from her house-keeping with the same cheerful
+bustle, the same piece of information: "Well, Ruth, I've ordered dinner,
+my dear. First one duty, and then another."
+
+Why had that innocent and not unfamiliar phrase become so intolerable
+when she heard it again this morning? And when Mrs. Alwynn wound up the
+musical-box, and the "Buffalo Girls" tinkled on the ear to relieve the
+monotony of a wet morning, why should Ruth have struggled wildly for a
+moment with a sudden inclination to laugh and cry at the same time,
+which resulted in two large tears falling unexpectedly, to her surprise
+and shame, upon her book.
+
+She shut the book, and recovering herself with an effort, listened
+patiently to Mrs. Alwynn's remarks until, early in the afternoon, the
+sky cleared. Making some excuse about going to see her old nurse at the
+lodge at Arleigh, who was still ill, she at last effected her escape out
+of the room and out of the house.
+
+The air was fresh and clear, though cold. The familiar fields and beaded
+hedge-rows, the red land, new ploughed, where the plovers hovered, the
+gray broken sky above, soothed Ruth like the presence of a friend, as
+Nature, even in her commonest moods, has ministered to many a one who
+has loved her before Ruth's time.
+
+Our human loves partake always of the nature of speculations. We have no
+security for our capital (which, fortunately, is seldom so large as we
+suppose), but the love of Nature is a sure investment, which she repays
+a thousand-fold, which she repays most prodigally when the heart is
+bankrupt and full of bitterness, as Ruth's heart was that day. For in
+Nature, as Wordsworth says, "there is no bitterness," that worst sting
+of human grief. And as Ruth walked among the quiet fields, and up the
+yellow aisles of the autumn glades to Arleigh, Nature spoke of peace to
+her--not of joy or of happiness as in old days, for she never lies as
+human comforters do, and these had gone out of her life; but of the
+peace that duty steadfastly adhered to will bring at last--the peace
+that after much turmoil will come in the end to those who, amid a Babel
+of louder tongues, hear and obey the low-pitched voices of conscience
+and of principle.
+
+For it never occurred to Ruth for a moment to throw over Dare and marry
+Charles. She had given her word to Dare, and her word was her bond. It
+was as much a matter of being true to herself as to him. It was very
+simple. There were no two ways about it in her mind. The idea of
+breaking off her engagement was not to be thought of. It would be
+dishonorable.
+
+We often think that if we had been placed in the same difficulties which
+we see overwhelm others, we could have got out of them. Just so; we
+might have squeezed, or wriggled, or crept out of a position from which
+another who would not stoop could not have escaped. People are
+differently constituted. Most persons with common-sense can sink their
+principles temporarily at a pinch; but others there are who go through
+life prisoners on parole to their sense of honor or duty. If escape
+takes the form of a temptation, they do not escape. And Ruth, walking
+with bent head beneath the swaying trees, dreamed of no escape.
+
+She soon reached the little lodge, the rusty gates of which barred the
+grass-grown drive to the shuttered, tenantless old house at a little
+distance. It was a small gray stone house of many gables, and low lines
+of windows, that if inhabited would have possessed but little charm,
+but which in its deserted state had a certain pathetic interest. The
+place had been to let for years, but no one had taken it; no one was
+likely to take it in the disrepair which was now fast sliding into ruin.
+
+The garden-beds were almost grown over with weeds, but blots of
+nasturtium color showed here and there among the ragged green, and a
+Virginia-creeper had done its gorgeous red-and-yellow best to cheer the
+gray stone walls. But the place had a dreary appearance even in the
+present sunshine; and after looking at it for a moment, Ruth went
+in-doors to see her old nurse. After sitting with her, and reading the
+usual favorite chapter in the big Bible, and answering the usual
+question of "Any news of Master Raymond?" in the usual way, Ruth got up
+to go, and the old woman asked her if she wanted the drawing-block which
+she had left with her some time ago with an unfinished sketch on it of
+the stables. She got it out, and Ruth looked at it. It was a slight
+sketch of an octagonal building with wide arches all round it, roofing
+in a paved path, on which, in days gone by, it had evidently been the
+pernicious custom to exercise the horses, whose stalls and loose boxes
+formed the centre of the building. The stable had a certain quaintness,
+and the sketch was at that delightful point when no random stroke has as
+yet falsified the promise that a finished drawing, however clever, so
+seldom fulfils.
+
+Ruth took it up, and looked out of the window. The sun was blazing out,
+ashamed of his absence for so long. She might as well finish it now. She
+was glad to be out of the way of meeting any one, especially the
+shooters, whose guns she had heard in the nearer Slumberleigh coverts
+several times that afternoon. The Arleigh woods she knew were to be kept
+till later in the month. She took her block and paint-box, and picking
+her way along the choked gravel walk and down the side drive to the
+stables, sat down on the bench for chopping wood which had been left in
+the place to which she had previously dragged it, and set to work. She
+was sitting under one of the arches out of the wind, and an obsequious
+yellow cat came out of the door of one of the nearest horse-boxes, in
+which wood was evidently stacked, and rubbed itself against her dress,
+with a reckless expenditure of hair.
+
+As Ruth stopped a moment, bored but courteous, to return its well-meant
+attentions by friction behind the ears, she heard a slight crackling
+among the wood in the stable. Rats abounded in the place, and she was
+just about to recall the cat to its professional duties, when her own
+attention was also distracted. She started violently, and grasped the
+drawing-block in both hands.
+
+Clear over the gravel, muffled but still distinct across the long wet
+grass, she could hear a firm step coming. Then it rang out sharply on
+the stone pavement. A tall man came suddenly round the corner, under the
+archway, and stood before her. It was Charles.
+
+The yellow cat, which had a leaning towards the aristocracy, left Ruth,
+and, picking its way daintily over the round stones towards him, rubbed
+off some more of its wardrobe against his heather shooting-stockings.
+
+"I hardly think it is worth while to say anything except the truth,"
+said Charles at last. "I have followed you here."
+
+As Ruth could say nothing in reply, it was fortunate that at the moment
+she had nothing to say. She continued to mix a little pool of Prussian
+blue and Italian pink without looking up.
+
+"I hurt my gun hand after luncheon, and had to stop shooting at Croxton
+corner. As I went back to Slumberleigh, across the fields below the
+rectory, I thought I saw you in the distance, and followed you."
+
+"Is your hand much hurt?"--with sudden anxiety.
+
+"No," said Charles, reddening a little. "It will stop my shooting for a
+day or two, but that is all."
+
+The colors were mixed again. Ruth, contrary to all previous conviction,
+added light red to the Italian pink. The sketch had gone rapidly from
+bad to worse, but the light red finished it off. It never, so to speak,
+held up its head again; but I believe she has it still somewhere, put
+away in a locked drawer in tissue-paper, as if it were very valuable.
+
+"I did not come without a reason," said Charles, after a long pause,
+speaking with difficulty. "It is no good beating about the bush. I want
+to speak to you again about what I told you three weeks ago. Have you
+forgotten what that was?"
+
+Ruth shook her head. _She had not forgotten._ Her hand began to tremble,
+and he sat down beside her on the bench, and, taking the brush out of
+her hand, laid it in its box.
+
+"Ruth," he said, gently, "I have not been very happy during the last
+three weeks; but two days ago, when I saw you again, I thought you did
+not look as if you had been very happy either. Am I right? Are you happy
+in your engagement with--Quite content? Quite satisfied? Still silent.
+Am I to have no answer?"
+
+"Some questions have no answers," said Ruth, steadily, looking away from
+him. "At least, the questions that ought not to be asked have none."
+
+"I will not ask any more, then. Perhaps, as you say, I have no right.
+You won't tell me whether you are unhappy, but your face tells me so in
+spite of you. It told me so two days ago, and I have thought of it every
+hour of the day and night since."
+
+She gathered herself together for a final effort to stop what she knew
+was coming, and said, desperately:
+
+"I don't know how it is. I don't mean it, and yet everything I say to
+you seems so harsh and unkind; but I think it would have been better not
+to come here, and I think it would be better, better for us both, if you
+would go away now."
+
+Charles's face became set and very white. Then he put his fortune to the
+touch.
+
+"You are right," he said. "I will go away--for good; I will never
+trouble you again, when you have told me that you do not love me."
+
+The color rushed into her face, and then died slowly away again, even
+out of the tightly compressed lips.
+
+There was a long silence, in which he waited for a reply that did not
+come. At last she turned and looked him in the face. Who has said that
+light eyes cannot be impassioned? Her deep eyes, dark with the utter
+blankness of despair, fell before the intensity of his. He leaned
+towards her, and with gentle strength put his arm round her, and drew
+her to him. His voice came in a broken whisper of passionate entreaty
+close to her ear.
+
+"Ruth, I love you, and you love me. We belong to each other. We were
+made for each other. Life is not possible apart. It must be together,
+Ruth, always together, always--" and his voice broke down entirely.
+
+Surely he was right. A love such as theirs overrode all petty barriers
+of every-day right and wrong, and was a law unto itself. Surely it was
+vain to struggle against Fate, against the soft yet mighty current which
+was sweeping her away beyond all landmarks, beyond the sight of land
+itself, out towards an infinite sea.
+
+And the eyes she loved looked into hers with an agony of entreaty, and
+the voice she loved spoke of love, spoke brokenly of unworthiness, and
+an unhappy past, and of a brighter future, a future with _her_.
+
+Her brain reeled; her reason had gone. Let her yield now. Surely, if
+only she could think, if the power to think had not deserted her, it
+was right to yield. The current was taking her ever swifter whither she
+knew not. A moment more and there would be no going back.
+
+She began to tremble, and, wrenching her hands out of his, pressed them
+before her eyes to shut out the sight of the earnest face so near her
+own. But she could not shut out his voice, and Charles's voice could be
+very gentle, very urgent.
+
+But at the eleventh hour another voice broke in on his, and spoke as one
+having authority. Conscience, if accustomed to be disregarded on common
+occasions, will rarely come to the fore with any decision in emergency;
+but the weakest do not put him in a place of command all their lives
+without at least one result--that he has learned the habit of speaking
+up and making himself attended to in time of need. He spoke now,
+urgently, imperatively. Her judgment, her reason were alike gone for the
+time, but, when she had paced the solemn aisles of the woods an hour ago
+in possession of them, had she then even thought of doing what she was
+on the verge of doing now? What had happened during that hour to reverse
+the steadfast resolve which she had made then? What she had thought
+right an hour ago remained right now. What she would have put far from
+her as dishonorable then remained dishonorable now, though she might be
+too insane to see it.
+
+Terror seized her, as of one in a dream who is conscious of impending
+danger, and struggles to awake before it is too late. She started to her
+feet, and, putting forcibly aside the hands that would have held her
+back, walked unsteadily towards the nearest pillar, and leaned against
+it, trembling violently.
+
+"Do not tempt me," she said, hoarsely. "I cannot bear it."
+
+He came and stood beside her.
+
+"I do not tempt you," he said. "I want to save you and myself from a
+great calamity before it is too late."
+
+"It is too late already."
+
+"No," said Charles, in a low voice of intense determination. "It is
+not--yet. It will be soon. It is still possible to go back. You are not
+married to him, and it is no longer right that you should marry him. You
+must give him up. There is no other way."
+
+"Yes," said Ruth, with vehemence. "There is another way. You have made
+me forget it; but before you came I saw it clearly. I can't think it out
+as I did then; but I know it is there. There is another way"--and her
+voice faltered--"to do what is right, and let everything else go."
+
+Charles saw for the first time, with a sudden frightful contraction of
+the heart, that her will was as strong as his own. He had staked
+everything on one desperate appeal to her feelings; he had carried the
+outworks, and now another adversary--her conscience--rose up between him
+and her.
+
+"A marriage without love is a sin," he said, quietly. "If you had lived
+in the world as long as I have, and had seen what marriage without love
+means, and what it generally comes to in the end, you would know that I
+am speaking the truth. You have no right to marry Dare if you care for
+me. Hesitate, and it will be too late! Break off your engagement now. Do
+you suppose," with sudden fire, "that we shall cease to love each other;
+that I shall be able to cease to love you for the rest of my life
+because you are Dare's wife? What is done can't be undone. Our love for
+each other can't. It is no good shutting your eyes to that. Look the
+facts in the face, and don't deceive yourself into thinking that the
+most difficult course is necessarily the right one."
+
+He turned from her, and sat down on the bench again, his chin in his
+hands, his haggard eyes fastened on her face. He had said his last word,
+and she felt that when she spoke it would be her last word too. Neither
+could bear much more.
+
+"All you say sounds right, _at first_," she said, after a long silence,
+and as she spoke Charles's hands dropped from his face and clinched
+themselves together; "but I cannot go by what any one thinks unless I
+think so myself as well. I can't take other people's judgments. When God
+gave us our own, he did not mean us to shirk using it. What you say is
+right, but there is something which after a little bit seems more
+right--at least, which seems so to me. I cannot look at the future. I
+can only see one thing distinctly, now in the present, and that is that
+I cannot break my word. I never have been able to see that a woman's
+word is less binding than a man's. When I said I would marry him, it was
+of my own free-will. I knew what I was doing, and it was not only for
+his sake I did it. It is not as if he believed I cared for him very
+much. Then, perhaps--but he knows I don't, and--he is different from
+other men--he does not seem to mind. I knew at the time that I accepted
+him for the sake of other things, which are just the same now as they
+were then: because he was poor and I had money; because I felt sure he
+would never do much by himself, and I thought I could help him, and my
+money would help too; because the people at Vandon are so wretched, and
+their cottages are tumbling down, and there is no one who lives among
+them and cares about them. I can't make it clear, and I did hesitate;
+but at the time it seemed wrong to hesitate. If it seemed so right then,
+it cannot be all wrong now, even if it has become hard. I cannot give it
+all up. He is building cottages that I am to pay for, that I asked to
+pay for. He cannot. And he has promised so many people their houses
+shall be put in order, and they all believe him. And he can't do it. If
+I don't, it will not be done; and some of them are very old--and--and
+the winter is coming." Ruth's voice had become almost inaudible. "Oh,
+Charles! Charles!" she said, brokenly, "I cannot bear to hurt you. God
+knows I love you. I think I shall always love you, though I shall try
+not. But I cannot go back now from what I have undertaken. I cannot
+break my word. I cannot do what is wrong, even for you. Oh, God! not
+even for you!"
+
+She knelt down beside him, and took his clinched hands between her own;
+but he did not stir.
+
+"Not even for you," she whispered, while two hot tears fell upon his
+hands. In another moment she had risen swiftly to her feet, and had left
+him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+
+Charles sat quite still where Ruth had left him, looking straight in
+front of him. He had not thought for a moment of following her, of
+speaking to her again. Her decision was final, and he knew it. And now
+he also knew how much he had built upon the wild new hope of the last
+two days.
+
+Presently a slight discreet cough broke upon his ear, apparently close
+at hand.
+
+He started up, and, wheeling round in the direction of the sound, called
+out, in sudden anger, "Who is there?"
+
+If there is a time when we feel that a fellow-creature is entirely out
+of harmony with ourselves, it is when we discover that he has overheard
+or overseen us at a moment when we imagined we were alone, or--almost
+alone.
+
+Charles was furious.
+
+"Come out!" he said, in a tone that would have made any ordinary
+creature stay as far _in_ as it could. And hearing a slight crackling
+in the nearest horse-box, of which the door stood open, he shook the
+door violently.
+
+"Come out," he repeated, "this instant!"
+
+"Stop that noise, then," said a voice sharply from the inside, "and keep
+quiet. By ----, a violent temper, what a thing it is; always raising a
+dust, and kicking up a row, just when it's least wanted."
+
+The voice made Charles start.
+
+"Great God!" he said, "it's not--"
+
+"Yes, it is," was the reply; "and when you have taken a seat on the
+farther end of that bench, and recovered your temper, I'll show, and not
+before."
+
+Charles walked to the bench and sat down.
+
+"You can come out," he said, in a carefully lowered voice, in which
+there was contempt as well as anger.
+
+Accordingly there was a little more crackling among the fagots, and a
+slight, shabbily dressed man came to the door and peered warily out,
+shading his blinking eyes with his hand.
+
+"If there is a thing I hate," he said, with a curious mixture of
+recklessness and anxiety, "it is a noise. Sit so that you face the left,
+will you, and I'll look after the right, and if you see any one coming
+you may as well mention it. I am only at home to old friends."
+
+He took his hand from his eyes as they became more accustomed to the
+light, and showed a shrewd, dissipated face, that yet had a kind of
+ruined good looks about it, and, what was more hateful to Charles than
+anything else, a decided resemblance to Ruth. Though he was shabby in
+the extreme, his clothes sat upon him as they always and only do sit
+upon a gentleman; and, though his face and voice showed that he had
+severed himself effectually from the class in which he had been born, a
+certain unsuitability remained between his appearance and his evidently
+disreputable circumstances. When Charles looked at him he was somehow
+reminded of a broken-down thorough-bred in a hansom cab.
+
+"It is a quiet spot," remarked Raymond Deyncourt, for he it was,
+standing in the door-way, his watchful eyes scanning the deserted
+court-yard and strip of green. "A retired and peaceful spot. I'm sorry
+if my cough annoyed you, coming when it did, but I thought you seemed
+before to be engaged in conversation which I felt a certain diffidence
+in interrupting."
+
+"So you listened, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes, I listened. I did not hear as much as I could have wished, but it
+was your best manner, Danvers. You certainly have a gift, though you
+dropped your voice unnecessarily once or twice, I thought. If I had had
+your talents, I should not be here now. Eh? Dear me! you can swear
+still, can you? How refreshing. I fancied you had quite reformed."
+
+"Why are you here now?" asked Charles, sternly.
+
+Raymond shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Why are you here?" continued Charles, bitterly, "when you swore to me
+in July that if I would pay your passage out again to America you would
+let her alone in future? Why are you here, when I wrote to tell you that
+she had promised me she would never give you money again without advice?
+But I might have known you could break a promise as easily as make one.
+I might have known you would only keep it as long as it suited
+yourself."
+
+"Well, now, I'm glad to hear you say that," said Raymond, airily,
+"because it takes off any feeling of surprise I was afraid you might
+feel at seeing me back here. There's nothing like a good understanding
+between friends. I'm precious hard up, I can tell you, or I should not
+have come; and when a fellow has got into as tight a place as I have he
+has got to think of other things besides keeping promises. Have you seen
+to-day's papers?" with sudden eagerness.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Any news about the 'Frisco forgery case?" and Raymond leaned forward
+through the door, and spoke in a whisper.
+
+"Nothing much," said Charles, trying to recollect. "Nothing new to-day,
+I think. You know they got one of them two days ago, followed him down
+to Birmingham, and took him in the train."
+
+Raymond drew in his breath.
+
+"I don't hold with trains," he said, after a pause; "at least, not with
+passengers. I told him as much at the time. And the--the other
+one--Stephens? Any news of him?"
+
+"Nothing more about him, as far as I can remember. They were both traced
+together from Boston to London, but there they parted company. Stephens
+is at large still."
+
+"Is he?" said Raymond. "By George, I'm glad to hear it! I hope he'll
+keep so, that's all. I am glad I left that fool. He'd not my notions at
+all. We split two days ago, and I made tracks for the old diggings; got
+down as far as Tarbury under a tarpaulin in a goods train--there's some
+sense in a goods train--and then lay close by a weir of the canal, and
+got aboard a barge after dark. Nothing breaks a scent like a barge. And
+it went the right way for my business too, and travelled all night. I
+kept close all next day, and then struck across country for this place
+at night. If I hadn't known the lie of the land from a boy, when I used
+to spend the holidays with old Alwynn, I couldn't have done it, or if
+I'd been as dog lame as I was in July; but I was pushed for time, and I
+footed it up here, and got in just before dawn. And not too soon either,
+for I'm cleaned out, and food is precious hard to come by if you don't
+care to go shopping for it. I am only waiting till it's dark to go and
+get something from the old woman at the lodge. She looked after me
+before, but it wasn't so serious then as it is now."
+
+"It will be penal servitude for life this time for--Stephens," said
+Charles.
+
+"Yes," said Raymond, thoughtfully. "It's playing deuced high. I knew
+that at the time, but I thought it was worth it. It was a beautiful
+thing, and there was a mint of money in it if it had gone straight--a
+mint of money;" and he shook his head regretfully. "But the luck is
+bound to change in the end," he went on, after a moment of mournful
+retrospection. "You'll see, I shall make my pile yet, Danvers. One can't
+go on turning up tails all the time."
+
+"You will turn them up once too often," said Charles, "and get your
+affairs wound up for you some day in a way you won't like. But I suppose
+it's no earthly use my saying anything."
+
+"Not much," replied the other. "I guess I've heard it all before. Don't
+you remember how you held forth that night in the wood? You came out too
+strong. I felt as if I were in church; but you forked out handsomely at
+the collection afterwards. I will say that for you."
+
+"And what are you going to do now you've got here?" interrupted Charles,
+sharply.
+
+"Lie by."
+
+"How long?"
+
+"Perhaps a week, perhaps ten days. Can't say."
+
+"And after that?"
+
+"After that, some one, I don't say who, but some one will have to
+provide me with the 'ready' to nip across to France. I have friends in
+Paris where I can manage to scratch along for a bit till things have
+blown over."
+
+Charles considered for a few moments, and then said:
+
+"Are you going to dun your sister for money again, or give her another
+fright by lying in wait for her? Of course, if you broke your word
+about coming back, you might break it about trying to get money out of
+her."
+
+"I might," assented Raymond; "in fact, I was on the point of making my
+presence known to her, and suggesting a pecuniary advance, when you came
+up. I don't know at present what I shall do, as I let that opportunity
+slip. It just depends."
+
+Charles considered again.
+
+"It's a pity to trouble her, isn't it?" said Raymond, his shrewd eyes
+watching him; "and women are best out of money-matters. Besides, if she
+has promised you she won't pay up without advice, she'll stick to it.
+Nothing will turn her when she once settles on anything, if she is at
+all like what she used to be. She has got dollars of her own. You had
+better settle with me, and pay yourself back when you are married. Dear
+me! There's no occasion to look so murderous. I suppose I'm at liberty
+to draw my own conclusions."
+
+"You had better draw them a little more carefully in future," said
+Charles, savagely. "Your sister is engaged to be married to a man
+without a sixpence."
+
+"By George," said Raymond, "that won't suit my book at all. I'd
+rather"--with another glance at Charles--"I'd rather she'd marry a man
+with money."
+
+If Charles was of the same opinion he did not express it. He remained
+silent for a few minutes to give weight to his last remark, and then
+said, slowly:
+
+"So you see you won't get anything more from that quarter. You had
+better make the most you can out of me."
+
+Raymond nodded.
+
+"The most you will get, in fact, I may say _all_ you will get from me,
+is enough ready money to carry you to Paris, and a check for twenty
+pounds to follow, when I hear you have arrived there."
+
+"It's mean," said Raymond; "it's cursed mean; and from a man like you,
+too, whom I feel for as a brother. I'd rather try my luck with Ruth.
+She's not married yet, anyway."
+
+"You will do as you like," said Charles, getting up. "If I find you have
+been trying your luck with her, as you call it, you won't get a farthing
+from me afterwards. And you may remember, she can't help you without
+consulting her friends. And your complaint is one that requires absolute
+quiet, or I'm very much mistaken."
+
+Raymond bit his finger, and looked irresolute.
+
+"To-day is Wednesday," said Charles; "on Saturday I shall come back
+here in the afternoon, and if you have come to my terms by that time you
+can cough after I do. I shall have the money on me. If you make any
+attempt to write or speak to your sister, I shall take care to hear of
+it, and you need not expect me on Saturday. That is the last remark I
+have to make, so good-afternoon;" and, without waiting for a reply,
+Charles walked away, conscious that Raymond would not dare either to
+call or run after him.
+
+He walked slowly along the grass-grown road that led into the
+carriage-drive, and was about to let himself out of the grounds by a
+crazy gate, which rather took away from the usefulness of the large iron
+locked ones at the lodge, when he perceived an old man with a pail of
+water fumbling at it. He did not turn as Charles drew near, and even
+when the latter came up with him, and said "Good-afternoon," he made no
+sign. Charles watched him groping for the hasp, and, when he had got the
+gate open, feel about for the pail of water, which when he found he
+struck against the gate-post as he carried it through. Charles looked
+after the old man as he shambled off in the direction of the lodge.
+
+"Blind and deaf! He'll tell no tales, at any rate," he said to himself.
+"Raymond is in luck there."
+
+It had turned very cold; and, suddenly remembering that his absence
+might be noticed, he set off through the woods to Slumberleigh at a good
+pace. His nearest way took him through the church-yard and across the
+adjoining high-road, on the farther side of which stood the little
+red-faced lodge, which belonged to the great new red-faced seat of the
+Thursbys at a short distance. He came rapidly round the corner of the
+old church tower, and was already swinging down the worn sandstone steps
+which led into the road, when he saw below him at the foot of the steps
+a little group of people standing talking. It was Mr. Alwynn and Ruth
+and Dare, who had evidently met them on his return from shooting, and
+who, standing at ease with one elegantly gaitered leg on the lowest
+step, and a cartridge-bag slung over his shoulders in a way that had
+aroused Charles's indignation earlier in the day, was recounting to
+them, with vivid action of the hands on an imaginary gun, his own
+performances to right and left at some particularly hot corner.
+
+Mr. Alwynn was listening with a benignant smile. Charles saw that Ruth
+was leaning heavily against the low stone-wall. Before he had time to
+turn back, Mr. Alwynn had seen him, and had gone forward a step to meet
+him, holding out a welcoming hand. Charles was obliged to stop a moment
+while his hand was inquired after, and a new treatment, which Mr.
+Alwynn had found useful on a similar occasion, was enjoined upon him. As
+they stood together on the church steps a fly, heavily laden with
+luggage, came slowly up the road towards them.
+
+"What," said Mr. Alwynn, "more visitors! I thought all the Slumberleigh
+party arrived yesterday."
+
+The fly plodded past the Slumberleigh lodge, however, and as it reached
+the steps a shrill voice suddenly called to the driver to stop. As it
+came grinding to a stand-still, the glass was hastily put down, and a
+little woman with a very bold pair of black eyes, and a somewhat
+laced-in figure, got out and came towards them.
+
+"Well, Mr. Dare!" she said, in a high distinct voice, with a strong
+American accent. "I guess you did not expect to see me riding up this
+way, or you'd have sent the carriage to bring your wife up from the
+station. But I'm not one to bear malice; so if you want a lift home
+to--what's the name of your fine new place?--you can get in, and ride up
+along with me."
+
+Dare looked straight in front of him. No one spoke. Her quick eye
+glanced from one to another of the little group, and she gave a short
+constrained laugh.
+
+"Well," she said, "if you ain't coming, you can stop with your friends.
+I've had a deal of travelling one way and another, and I'll go on
+without you." And, turning quickly away, she told the driver in the same
+distinct high key to go on to Vandon, and got into the fly again.
+
+The grinning man chucked at the horse's bridle, and the fly rattled
+heavily away.
+
+No one spoke as it drove away. Charles glanced once at Ruth; but her set
+white face told him nothing. As the fly disappeared up the road, Dare
+moved a step forward. His face under his brown skin was ashen gray. He
+took off his cap, and extending it at arm's-length, not towards the sky,
+but, like a good churchman, towards the church, outside of which, as he
+knew, his Maker was not to be found, he said, solemnly, "I swear before
+God what she says is one--great--_lie_!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+
+If conformity to type is indeed the one great mark towards which
+humanity should press, Mrs. Thursby may honestly be said to have
+attained to it. Everything she said or did had been said or done before,
+or she would never have thought of saying or doing it. Her whole life
+was a feeble imitation of the imitative lives of others; in short, it
+was the life of the ordinary country gentlewoman, who lives on her
+husband's property, and who, as Augustus Hare says, "has never looked
+over the garden-wall."
+
+We do not mean to insinuate for a moment that the utmost energy and
+culture are not occasionally to be met with in the female portion of
+that interesting mass of our fellow-creatures who swell the large
+volumes of the "Landed Gentry." Among their ranks are those who come
+boldly forward into the full glare of public life; and, conscious of a
+genius for enterprise, to which an unmarried condition perhaps affords
+ampler scope, and which a local paper is ready to immortalize, become
+secretaries of ladies' societies, patronesses of flower shows, breeders
+of choice poultry, or even associates of floral leagues of the highest
+political importance. That such women should and do exist among us, the
+conscious salt-cellars of otherwise flavorless communities, is a fact
+for which we cannot be too thankful; and if Mrs. Thursby was not one of
+these aspiring spirits, with a yearning after "the mystical better
+things," which one of the above pursuits alone can adequately satisfy,
+it was her misfortune and not her fault.
+
+It was her nature, as we have said, servilely to copy others. Her
+conversation was all that she could remember of what she had heard from
+others, her present dinner-party, as regards food, was a cross between
+the two last dinner-parties she had been to. The dessert, however,
+conspicuous by its absence, conformed strictly to a type which she had
+seen in a London house in June.
+
+Her dinner-party gave her complete satisfaction, which was fortunate,
+for to the greater number of the eighteen or twenty people who had been
+indiscriminately herded together to form it, it was (with the exception
+of Mrs. Alwynn) a dreary or at best an uninteresting ordeal; while to
+four people among the number, the four who had met last on the church
+steps, it was a period of slow torture, endured with varying degrees of
+patience by each, from the two soups in the beginning, to the peaches
+and grapes at the long-delayed and bitter end.
+
+Ruth, whose self-possession never wholly deserted her, had reached a
+depth of exhausted stupor, in which the mind is perfectly oblivious of
+the impression it is producing on others. By an unceasing effort she
+listened and answered and smiled at intervals, and looked exceedingly
+distinguished in the pale red gown which she had put on to please her
+aunt; but the color of which only intensified the unnatural pallor of
+her complexion. The two men whom she sat between found her a
+disappointing companion, cold and formal in manner. At any other time
+she would have been humiliated and astonished to hear herself make such
+cut-and-dried remarks, such little trite observations. She was sitting
+opposite Charles, and she vaguely wondered once or twice, when she saw
+him making others laugh, and heard snatches of the flippant talk which
+was with him, as she knew now, a sort of defensive armor, how he could
+manage to produce it; while Charles, half wild with a mad surging hope
+that would not be kept down by any word of Dare's, looked across at her
+as often as he dared, and wondered in his turn at the tranquil dignity,
+the quiet ordered smile of the face which a few hours ago he had seen
+shaken with emotion.
+
+Her eyes met his for a moment. Were they the same eyes that but now had
+met his, half blind with tears? He felt still the touch of those tears
+upon his hand. He hastily looked away again, and plunged headlong into
+an answer to something Mabel was saying to him on her favorite subject
+of evolution. All well-brought-up young ladies have a subject nowadays,
+which makes their conversation the delightful thing it is; and Mabel, of
+course, was not behind the fashion.
+
+"Yes," Ruth heard Charles reply, "I believe with you we go through many
+lives, each being a higher state than the last, and nearer perfection.
+So a man passes gradually through all the various grades of the
+nobility, soaring from the lowly honorable upward into the duke, and
+thence by an easy transition into an angel. Courtesy titles, of course,
+present a difficulty to the more thoughtful; but, as I am sure you will
+have found, to be thoughtful always implies difficulty of some kind."
+
+"It does, indeed," said Mabel, puzzled but not a little flattered. "I
+sometimes think one reads too much; one longs so for deep books--Korans,
+and things. I must confess,"--with a sigh--"I can't interest myself in
+the usual young lady's library that other girls read."
+
+"Can't you?" replied Charles. "Now, I can. I study that department of
+literature whenever I have the chance, and I have generally found that
+the most interesting part of a young lady's library is to be found in
+that portion of the book-shelf which lies between the rows of books and
+the wall. Don't you think so, Lady Carmian?" (to the lady on his other
+side). "I assure you I have made the most delightful discoveries of this
+description. Cheap editions of Ouida, Balzac's works, yellow backs of
+the most advanced order, will, as a rule, reward the inquirer, who
+otherwise might have had to content himself with 'The Heir of
+Redclyffe,' the Lily Series, and Miss Strickland's 'Queens of England.'"
+
+Charles's last speech had been made in a momentary silence, and directly
+it was finished every woman, old and young, except Lady Carmian and
+Ruth, simultaneously raised a disclaiming voice, which by its vehemence
+at once showed what an unfounded assertion Charles had made. Lady
+Carmian, a handsome young married woman, only smiled languidly, and,
+turning the bracelet on her arm, told Charles he was a cynic, and that
+for her own part, when in robust health, she liked what little she read
+"strong;" but in illness, or when Lord Carmian had been unusually
+trying, she always fell back on a milk-and-water diet. Mrs. Thursby,
+however, felt that Charles had struck a blow at the sanctity of home
+life, and (for she was one of those persons whose single talent is that
+of giving a personal turn to any remark) began a long monotonous recital
+of the books she allowed her own daughters to read, and how they were
+kept, which proved the extensive range of her library, not in
+book-shelves, but in a sliding book-stand, which contracted or expanded
+at will.
+
+Long before she had finished, however, the conversation at the other end
+of the table had drifted away to the topic of the season among sporting
+men, namely the poachers, who, since their raid on Dare's property, had
+kept fairly quiet, but who were sure to start afresh now that the
+pheasant shooting had begun; and from thence to the recent forgery case
+in America, which was exciting every day greater attention in England,
+especially since one of the accomplices had been arrested the day before
+in Birmingham station, and the principal offender, though still at
+large, was, according to the papers, being traced "by means of a clew in
+the possession of the police."
+
+Charles knew how little that sentence meant, but he found that it
+required an effort to listen unmoved to the various conjectures as to
+the whereabouts of Stephens, in which Ruth, as the conversation became
+general, also joined, volunteering a suggestion that perhaps he might be
+lurking somewhere in Slumberleigh woods, which were certainly very
+lonely in places, and where, as she said, she had been very much alarmed
+by a tramp in the summer.
+
+Mrs. Thursby, like an echo, began from the other end of the table
+something vague about girls being allowed to walk alone, her own
+daughters, etc., and so the long dinner wore itself out. Dare was the
+only one of the little party who had met on the church steps who
+succumbed entirely. Mr. Alwynn, who looked at him and Ruth with pathetic
+interest from time to time, made laudable efforts, but Dare made none.
+He had taken in to dinner the younger Thursby girl, a meek creature,
+without form and void, not yet out, but trembling in a high muslin, on
+the verge, who kept her large and burning hands clutched together under
+the table-cloth, and whose conversation was upon bees. Dare pleaded a
+gun headache, and hardly spoke. His eyes constantly wandered to the
+other end of the table, where, far away on the opposite side, half
+hidden by ferns and flowers, he could catch a glimpse of Ruth. After
+dinner he did not come into the drawing-room, but went off to the
+smoking-room, where he paced by himself up and down, up and down,
+writhing under the torment of a horrible suspense.
+
+Outside the moon shone clear and high, making a long picturesque shadow
+of the great prosaic house upon the wide gravel drive. Dare leaned
+against the window-sill and looked out. "Would she give him up?" he
+asked himself. Would she believe this vile calumny? Would she give him
+up? And as he stood the Alwynns' brougham came with two gleaming eyes
+along the drive and drew up before the door. He resolved to learn his
+fate at once. There had been no possibility of a word with Ruth on the
+church steps. Before he had known where he was, he and Charles had been
+walking up to the Hall together, Charles discoursing lengthily on the
+impropriety of wire fencing in a hunting country. But now he must and
+would see her. He rushed down-stairs into the hall, where young Thursby
+was wrapping Ruth in her white furs, while Mr. Thursby senior was
+encasing Mrs. Alwynn in a species of glorified ulster of red plush which
+she had lately acquired. Dare hastily drew Mr. Alwynn aside and spoke a
+few words to him. Mr. Alwynn turned to his wife, after one rueful glance
+at his thin shoes, and said:
+
+"I will walk up. It is a fine night, and quite dry underfoot."
+
+"And a very pleasant party it has been," said Mrs. Alwynn, as she and
+Ruth drove away together, "though Mrs. Thursby has not such a knack with
+her table as some. Not that I did not think the chrysanthemums and white
+china swans were nice, very nice; but, you see, as I told her, I had
+just been to Stoke Moreton, where things were very different. And you
+looked very well, my dear, though not so bright and chatty as Mabel; and
+Mrs. Thursby said she only hoped your waist was natural. The idea! And I
+saw Lady Carmian notice your gown particularly, and I heard her ask who
+you were, and Mrs. Thursby said--so like her--you were their clergyman's
+niece. And so, my dear, I was not going to have you spoken of like that,
+and a little later on I just went and sat down by Lady Carmian, just
+went across the room, you know, as if I wanted to be nearer the music,
+and we got talking, and she was rather silent at first, but presently,
+when I began to tell her all about you, and who you were, she became
+quite interested, and asked such funny questions, and laughed, and we
+had quite a nice talk."
+
+And so Mrs. Alwynn chatted on, and Ruth, happily hearing nothing, leaned
+back in her corner and wondered whether the evening were ever going to
+end. Even when she had bidden her aunt "Good-night," and, having
+previously told her maid not to sit up for her, found herself alone in
+her own room at last--even then it seemed that this interminable day was
+not quite over. She was standing by the dim fire, trying to gather up
+sufficient energy to undress, when a quiet step came cautiously along
+the passage, followed by a low tap at her door. She opened it
+noiselessly, and found Mr. Alwynn standing without.
+
+"Ruth," he said, "Dare has walked up with me. He is in the most dreadful
+state. I am sure I don't know what to think. He has said nothing further
+to me, but he is bent on seeing you for a moment. It's very late, but
+still--could you? He's in the drawing-room now. My poor child, how ill
+you look! Shall I tell him you are too tired to-night to see any one?"
+
+"I would rather see him," said Ruth, her voice trembling a little; and
+they went down-stairs together. In the hall she hesitated a moment. She
+was going to learn her fate. Had her release come? Had it come at the
+eleventh hour? Her uncle looked at her with kind, compassionate eyes,
+and hers fell before his as she thought how different her suspense was
+to what he imagined. Suddenly--and such demonstrations were very rare
+with her--she put her arms round his neck and pressed her cheek against
+his.
+
+"Oh, Uncle John! Uncle John!" she gasped, "it is not what you think."
+
+"I pray God it may not be what I suppose," he said, sadly, stroking her
+head. "One is too ready to think evil, I know. God forgive me if I have
+judged him harshly. But go in, my dear;" and he pushed her gently
+towards the drawing-room.
+
+She went in and closed the door quietly behind her.
+
+Dare was leaning against the mantle-piece, which was draped in Mrs.
+Alwynn's best manner, with Oriental hangings having bits of glass woven
+in them. He was looking into the curtained fire, and did not turn when
+she entered. Even at that moment she noticed, as she went towards him,
+that his elbow had displaced the little family of china hares on a plush
+stand which Mrs. Alwynn had lately added to her other treasures.
+
+"I think you wished to see me," she said, as calmly as she could.
+
+He faced suddenly round, his eyes wild, his face quivering, and coming
+close up to her, caught her hand and grasped it so tightly that the pain
+was almost more than she could bear.
+
+"Are you going to give me up?" he asked, hoarsely.
+
+"I don't know," she said; "it depends on yourself, on what you are, and
+what you have been. You say she is not your wife?"
+
+"I swear it."
+
+"You need not do so. Your word is enough."
+
+"I swear she is not my wife."
+
+"One question remains," said Ruth, firmly, a flame of color mounting to
+her neck and face. "You say she is not your wife. Ought you to make her
+so?"
+
+"No," said Dare, passionately; "I owe her nothing. She has no claim upon
+me. I swear--"
+
+"Don't swear. I said your word was enough."
+
+But Dare preferred to embellish his speech with divers weighty
+expressions, feeling that a simple affirmation would never carry so much
+conviction to his own mind, or, consequently, to another, as an oath.
+
+A momentary silence followed.
+
+"You believe what I say, Ruth?"
+
+"Yes," with an effort.
+
+"And you won't give me up because evil is spoken against me?"
+
+"No."
+
+"And all is the same as before between us?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Dare burst into a torrent of gratitude, but she broke suddenly away from
+him, and went swiftly up-stairs again to her own room.
+
+The release had not come. She laid her head down upon the table, and
+Hope, which had ventured back to her for one moment, took her lamp and
+went quite away, leaving the world very dark.
+
+There are turning-points in life when a natural instinct is a surer
+guide than noble motive or high aspiration, and consequently the more
+thoughtful and introspective nature will sometimes fall just where a
+commonplace one would have passed in safety. Ruth had acted for the
+best. When for the first time in her life she had been brought into
+close contact with a life spent for others, its beauty had appealed to
+her with irresistible force, and she had willingly sacrificed herself to
+an ideal life of devotion to others.
+
+    "But we are punished for our purest deeds,
+    And chasten'd for our holiest thoughts."
+
+And she saw now that if she had obeyed that simple law of human nature
+which forbids a marriage in which love is not the primary consideration,
+if she had followed that simple humble path, she would never have
+reached the arid wilderness towards which her own guidance had led her.
+
+For her wilful self-sacrifice had suddenly paled and dwindled down
+before her eyes into a hideous mistake--a mistake which yet had its
+roots so firmly knit into the past that it was hopeless to think of
+pulling it up now. To abide by a mistake is sometimes all that an
+impetuous youth leaves an honorable middle age to do. Poor middle age,
+with its clear vision, that might do and be so much if it were not for
+the heavy burdens, grievous to be borne, which youth has bound upon its
+shoulders.
+
+And worse than the dreary weight of personal unhappiness, harder to bear
+than the pang of disappointed love, was the aching sense of failure, of
+having misunderstood God's intention, and broken the purpose of her
+life. For some natures the cup of life holds no bitterer drop than this.
+
+Ruth dimly saw the future, the future which she had chosen, stretching
+out waste and barren before her. The dry air of the desert was on her
+face. Her feet were already on its sandy verge. And the iron of a great
+despair entered into her soul.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+
+Dare left Slumberleigh Hall early the following morning, and drove up to
+the rectory on his way to Vandon. After being closeted with Mr. Alwynn
+in the study for a short time, they both came out and drove away
+together. Ruth, invisible in her own room with a headache, her only
+means of defence against Mrs. Alwynn's society, heard the coming and the
+going, and was not far wrong in her surmise that Dare had come to beg
+Mr. Alwynn to accompany him to Vandon--being afraid to face alone the
+mysterious enemy intrenched there.
+
+No conversation was possible in the dog-cart, with the groom on the back
+seat thirsting to hear any particulars of the news which had spread like
+wildfire from Vandon throughout the whole village the previous
+afternoon, and which was already miraculously flying from house to house
+in Slumberleigh this morning, as things discreditable do fly among a
+Christian population, which perhaps "thinks no evil," but repeats it
+nevertheless.
+
+There was not a servant in Dare's modest establishment who was not on
+the lookout for him on his return. The gardener happened to be tying up
+a plant near the front door; the house-maids were watching unobserved
+from an upper casement; the portly form of Mrs. Smith, the house-keeper,
+was seen to glide from one of the unused bedroom windows; the butler
+must have been waiting in the hall, so prompt was his appearance when
+the dog-cart drew up before the door.
+
+Another pair of keen black eyes was watching too, peering out through
+the chinks between the lowered Venetian blinds in the drawing-room; was
+observing Dare intently as he got out, and then resting anxiously on his
+companion. Then the owner of the eyes slipped away from the window, and
+went back noiselessly to the fire.
+
+Dare ordered the dog-cart to remain at the door, flung down his hat on
+the hall-table, and, turning to the servant who was busying himself in
+folding his coat, said, sharply, "Where is the--the person who arrived
+here yesterday?"
+
+The man replied that "she" was in the drawing-room. The drawing-room
+opened into the hall. Dare led the way, suppressed fury in his face,
+looking back to see whether Mr. Alwynn was following him. The two men
+went in together and shut the door.
+
+The enemy was intrenched and prepared for action.
+
+Mrs. Dare, as we must perforce call her for lack of any other
+designation rather than for any right of hers to the title, was seated
+on a yellow brocade ottoman, drawn up beside a roaring fire, her two
+smart little feet resting on the edge of the low brass fender, and a
+small work-table at her side, on which an elaborate medley of silks and
+wools was displayed. Her attitude was that of a person at home,
+aggressively at home. She was in the act of threading a needle when Dare
+and Mr. Alwynn came in, and she put down her work at once, carefully
+replacing the needle in safety, as she rose to receive them, and held
+out her hand, with a manner the assurance of which, if both men had not
+been too much frightened to notice it, was a little overdone.
+
+Dare disregarded her gesture of welcome, and she sat down again, and
+returned to her work, with a laugh that was also a little overdone.
+
+"What do you mean by coming here?" he said, his voice hoarse with a
+furious anger, which the sight of her seemed to have increased a
+hundred-fold.
+
+"Because it is my proper place," she replied, tossing her head, and
+drawing out a long thread of green silk; "because I have a right to
+come."
+
+"You lie!" said Dare, fiercely, showing his teeth.
+
+"Lord, Alfred!" said Mrs. Dare, contemptuously, "don't make a scene
+before strangers. We've had our tiffs before now, and shall have again,
+I suppose. It's the natur' of married people to fall out; but there's no
+call to carry on before friends. Push up that lounge nearer the fire.
+Won't the other gentleman," turning to Mr. Alwynn, "come and warm
+himself? I'm sure it's cold enough."
+
+Mr. Alwynn, who was a man of peace, devoutly wished he were at home
+again in his own study.
+
+"It is a cold morning," he said; "but we are not here to discuss the
+weather."
+
+He stopped short. He had been hurried here so much against his will, and
+so entirely without an explanation, that he was not quite sure what he
+had come to discuss, or how he could best support his friend.
+
+"What do you want?" said Dare, in the same suppressed voice, without
+looking at her.
+
+"My rights," she said, incisively; "and, what's more, I mean to have
+'em. I've not come over from America for nothing, I can tell you that;
+and I've not come on a visit neither. I've come to stay."
+
+"What are these rights you talk of?" asked Mr. Alwynn, signing to Dare
+to restrain himself.
+
+"As his wife, sir. I am his wife, as I can prove. I didn't come without
+my lines to show. I didn't come on a speculation, to see if he'd a fancy
+to have me back. No, afore I set my foot down anywheres I look to see as
+it's solid walking."
+
+"Show your proof," said Mr. Alwynn.
+
+The woman ostentatiously got out a red morocco letter case, and produced
+a paper which she handed to Mr. Alwynn.
+
+It was an authorized copy of a marriage register, drawn out in the usual
+manner, between Alfred Dare, bachelor, English subject, and Ellen, widow
+of the late Jaspar Carroll, of Neosho City, Kansas, U.S.A. The marriage
+was dated seven years back.
+
+The names of Dare and Carroll swam before Mr. Alwynn's eyes. He glanced
+at the paper, but he could not read it.
+
+"Is this a forgery, Dare?" he asked, holding it towards him.
+
+"No," said Dare, without looking at it; "it is right. But that is not
+all. Now," turning to the woman, who was watching him triumphantly,
+"show the other paper--the divorce."
+
+"I made inquiries about that," she replied, composedly. "I wasn't going
+to be fooled by that 'ere, so I made inquiries from one as knows. The
+divorce is all very well in America; but it don't count in England."
+
+Dare's face turned livid. Mr. Alwynn's flushed a deep red. He sat with
+his eyes on the ground, the paper in his hand trembling a little.
+Indignation against Dare, pity for him, anxiety not to judge him
+harshly, struggled for precedence in his kind heart, still beating
+tumultuously with the shock of Dare's first admission. He felt rather
+than saw him take the paper out of his hand.
+
+"I shall keep this," Dare said, putting it in his pocket-book; and then,
+turning to the woman again, he said, with an oath, "Will you go, or will
+you wait till you are turned out?"
+
+"I'll wait," she replied, undauntedly. "I like the place well enough."
+
+She laughed and took up her work, and, after looking at her for a
+moment, he flung out of the room, followed by Mr. Alwynn.
+
+The defeat was complete; nay, it was a rout.
+
+The dog-cart was still standing at the door. The butler was talking to
+the groom; the gardener was training some new shoots of ivy against the
+stone balustrade.
+
+Dare caught up his hat and gloves, and ordered that his portmanteau,
+which had been taken into the hall, should be put back into the
+dog-cart. As it was being carried down he looked at his watch.
+
+"I can catch the mid-day express for London," he said. "I can do it
+easily."
+
+Mr. Alwynn made no reply.
+
+"Get in," continued Dare, feverishly; "the portmanteau is in."
+
+"I think I will walk home," said Mr. Alwynn, slowly. It gave him
+excruciating pain to say anything so severe as this; but he got out the
+words nevertheless.
+
+Dare looked at him in astonishment.
+
+"Get in," he said again, quickly. "I must speak to you. I will drive you
+home. I have something to say."
+
+Mr. Alwynn never refused to hear what any one had to say. He went slowly
+down the steps, and got into the cart, looking straight in front of him,
+as his custom was when disturbed in mind. Dare followed.
+
+"I shall not want you, James," he said to the groom, his foot on the
+step.
+
+At this moment the form of Mrs. Smith, the house-keeper, appeared
+through the hall door, clothed in all the awful majesty of an upper
+servant whose dignity has been outraged.
+
+"Sir," she said, in a clear not to say a high voice, "asking your
+pardon, sir, but am I, or am I not, to take my orders from--"
+
+Goaded to frenzy, Dare poured forth a volley of horrible oaths French
+and English, and, seizing up the reins, drove off at a furious rate.
+
+The servants remained standing about the steps, watching the dog-cart
+whirl rapidly away.
+
+"He's been to church with her," said the gardener, at last. "I said all
+along she'd never have come, unless she had her lines to show. I ha'n't
+cut them white grapes she ordered yet; but I may as well go and do it."
+
+"Well," said Mrs. Smith, "grapes or no grapes, I'll never give up the
+keys of the linen cupboards to the likes of her, and I'm not going to
+have any one poking about among my china. I've not been here twenty
+years to be asked for my lists in that way, and the winter curtains
+ordered out unbeknownst to me;" and Mrs. Smith retreated to the
+fastnesses of the house-keeper's room, whither even the audacious enemy
+had not yet ventured to follow her.
+
+Meanwhile, Mr. Alwynn and Dare drove at moderated speed along the road
+to Slumberleigh. For some time neither spoke.
+
+"I beg your pardon," said Dare at last. "I lost my head. I became
+enraged. Before a clergyman and a lady, I know well, it is not permitted
+to swear."
+
+"I can overlook that," said Mr. Alwynn; "but," turning very red again,
+"other things I can't."
+
+Dare began to flourish his whip, and become excited again.
+
+"I will tell you all," he said with effusion--"every word. You have a
+kind heart. I will confide in you."
+
+"I don't want confidences," said Mr. Alwynn. "I want straight-forward
+answers to a few simple questions."
+
+"I will give them, these answers. I keep nothing back from a friend."
+
+"Then, first. Did you marry that woman?"
+
+"Yes," said Dare, shrugging his shoulders. "I married her, and often
+afterwards, almost at once, I regretted it; but _que voulez-vous_, I was
+young. I had no experience. I was but twenty-one."
+
+Mr. Alwynn stared at him in astonishment at the ease with which the
+admission was made.
+
+"How long afterwards was it that you were divorced from her?"
+
+"Two years. Two long years."
+
+"For what reason?"
+
+"Temper. Ah! what a temper. Also because I left her for one year. It was
+in Kansas, and in Kansas it is very easy to marry, and also to be
+divorced."
+
+"It is a disgraceful story," said Mr. Alwynn, in great indignation.
+
+"Disgraceful!" echoed Dare, excitedly. "It is more than disgraceful. It
+is abominable. You do not know all yet. I will tell you. I was young; I
+was but a boy. I go to America when I am twenty-one, to travel, to see
+the world. I make acquaintances. I get into a bad set, what you call
+undesirable. I fall in love. I walk into a net. She was pretty, a pretty
+widow, all love, all soul; without friends. I protect her. I marry her.
+I have a little money. I have five thousand pounds. She knew that. She
+spent it. I was a fool. In a year it was gone." Dare's face had become
+white with rage. "And then she told me why she married me. I became
+enraged. There was a quarrel, and I left her. I had no more money. She
+left me alone, and a year after we are divorced. I never see her or hear
+of her again. I return to Europe. I live by my voice in Paris. It is
+five years ago. I have bought my experience. I put it from my mind. And
+now"--his hands trembled with anger--"now that she thinks I have money
+again, now, when in some way she hears how I have come to Vandon, she
+dares to came back and say she is my wife."
+
+"Dare," said Mr. Alwynn, sternly, "what excuse have you for never
+mentioning this before--before you became engaged to Ruth?"
+
+"What!" burst out Dare, "tell Ruth! Tell _her_! _Quelle idee._ I would
+never speak to her of what might give her pain. I would keep all from
+her that would cause her one moment's grief. Besides," he added,
+conclusively, "it is not always well to talk of what has gone before. It
+is not for her happiness or mine. She has been, one sees it well,
+brought up since a young child very strictly. About some things she has
+fixed ideas. If I had told her of these things which are passed away and
+gone, she might not,"--and Dare looked gravely at Mr. Alwynn--"she might
+not think so well of me."
+
+This view of the case was quite a new one to Mr. Alwynn. He looked back
+at Dare with hopeless perplexity in his pained eyes. To one who
+throughout life has regarded the supremacy of certain truths and
+principles of actions as fixed, and recognized as a matter of course by
+all the world, however imperfectly obeyed by individuals, the discovery
+comes as a shock, which is at the moment overwhelming, when these same
+truths and principles are seen to be entirely set aside, and their very
+existence ignored by others.
+
+Where there is no common ground on which to meet, speech is unavailing
+and mere waste of time. It is like shouting to a person at a distance
+whom it is impossible to approach. If he notices anything it will only
+be that, for some reasons of your own, you are making a disagreeable
+noise.
+
+As Mr. Alwynn looked back at Dare his anger died away within him, and a
+dull pain of deep disappointment and sense of sudden loneliness took its
+place. Dare and he seemed many miles apart. He felt that it would be of
+no use to say anything; and so, being a man, he held his peace.
+
+Dare continued talking volubly of how he would get a lawyer's opinion at
+once in London; of his certainty that the American wife had no claim
+upon him; of how he would go over to America, if necessary, to establish
+the validity of his divorce; but Mr. Alwynn heard little or nothing of
+what he said. He was thinking of Ruth with distress and
+self-upbraiding. He had been much to blame, of course.
+
+Dare's mention of her name recalled his attention.
+
+"She is all goodness," he was saying. "She believes in me. She has
+promised again that she will marry me--since yesterday. I trust her as
+myself; but it is a grief which as little as possible must trouble her.
+You will not say anything to her till I come back, till I return with
+proof that I am free, as I told her? You will say nothing?"
+
+Dare had pulled up at the bottom of the drive to the rectory.
+
+"Very well," said Mr. Alwynn, absently, getting slowly out. He seemed
+much shaken.
+
+"I will be back perhaps to-night, perhaps to-morrow morning," called
+Dare after him.
+
+But Mr. Alwynn did not answer.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Dare's business took him a shorter time than he expected, and the same
+night found him hurrying back by the last train to Slumberleigh. It was
+a wild night. He had watched the evening close in lurid and stormy
+across the chimneyed wastes of the black country, until the darkness
+covered all the land, and wiped out even the last memory of the dead day
+from the western sky.
+
+Who, travelling alone at night, has not watched the glimmer of light
+through cottage windows as he hurries past; has not followed with
+keenest interest for one brief second the shadow of one who moves
+within, and imagination picturing a mysterious universal happiness
+gathered round these twinkling points of light, has not experienced a
+strange feeling of homelessness and loneliness?
+
+Dare sat very still in the solitude of the empty railway carriage, and
+watched the little fleeting, mocking lights with a heavy heart. They
+meant _homes_, and he should never have a home now. Once he saw a door
+open in a squalid line of low houses, and the figure of a man with a
+child in his arms stand outlined in the door-way against the ruddy light
+within. Dare felt an unreasoning interest in that man. He found himself
+thinking of him as the train hurried on, wondering whether his wife was
+there waiting for him, and whether he had other children besides the one
+he was carrying. And all the time, through his idle musings, he could
+hear one sentence ringing in his ears, the last that his lawyer had said
+to him after the long consultation of the afternoon.
+
+"I am sorry to tell you that you are incontestably a married man."
+
+Everything repeated it. The hoofs of the cab-horse that took him to the
+station had hammered it out remorselessly all the way. The engine had
+caught it up, and repeated it with unvarying, endless iteration. The
+newspapers were full of it. When Dare turned to them in desperation he
+saw it written in large letters across the sham columns. There was
+nothing but that anywhere. It was the news of the day. Sick at heart,
+and giddy from want of food, he sat crouched up in the corner of his
+empty carriage, and vaguely wished the train would journey on for ever
+and ever, nervously dreading the time when he should have to get out and
+collect his wandering faculties once more.
+
+The old lawyer had been very kind to the agitated, incoherent young man
+whose settlements he was already engaged in drawing up. At first,
+indeed, it had seemed that the marriage would not be legally
+binding--the marriage and divorce having both taken place in Kansas,
+where the marriage laws are particularly lax--and he seemed inclined to
+be hopeful; but as he informed himself about the particulars of the
+divorce his face became grave and graver. When at last Dare produced the
+copy of the marriage register, he shook his head.
+
+"'Alfred Dare, bachelor and English subject,'" he said. "That 'English
+subject' makes a difficulty to start with. You had never, I believe, any
+intention of acquiring what in law we call an American domicil? and,
+although the technicalities of this subject are somewhat complicated, I
+am afraid that in your case there is little, if any, doubt. The English
+courts are very jealous of any interference by foreigners with the
+status of an Englishman; and though a divorce legally granted by a
+competent tribunal for an adequate cause might--I will not say would--be
+held binding everywhere, there can be no doubt that where in the eyes of
+our law the cause is _not_ adequate, our courts would refuse to
+recognize it. Have you a copy of the register of divorce as well?"
+
+"No."
+
+"It is unfortunate; but no doubt you can remember the grounds on which
+it was granted."
+
+"Incompatibility of temper, and she said I had deserted her. I had left
+her the year before. We both agreed to separate."
+
+The lawyer shook his head.
+
+"What's incompatibility?" he said. "What's a year's absence? Nothing in
+the eyes of an Englishman. Nothing in the law of this country."
+
+"But the divorce was granted. It was legal. There was no question,"
+said Dare, eagerly. "I was divorced in the same State as where I
+married. I had lived there more than a year, which was all that was
+necessary. No difficulty was made at the time."
+
+"No. Marriage is slipped into and slipped out of again with gratifying
+facility in America, and Kansas is notorious for the laxity prevailing
+there as regards marriage and divorce. It will be advisable to take the
+opinion of counsel on the matter, but I can hold out very little hope
+that your divorce would hold good, even in America. You see, you are
+entered as a British subject on the marriage register, and I imagine
+these words must have been omitted in the divorce proceedings, or some
+difficulty would have been raised at the time, unless your residence in
+Kansas made it unnecessary. But, even supposing by American law you are
+free, that will be of no avail in England, for by the law of England,
+which alone concerns you, I regret to be obliged to tell you that you
+are incontestably a married man."
+
+And in spite of frantic reiterations, of wild protests on the part of
+Dare, as if the compassionate old man represented the English law, and
+could mould it at his pleasure, the lawyer's last word remained in
+substance the same, though repeated many times.
+
+"Whether you are at liberty or not to marry again in America, I am
+hardly prepared to say. I will look into the subject and let you know;
+but in England I regret to repeat that you are a married man."
+
+Dare groaned in body and in spirit as the words came back to him; and
+his thoughts, shrinking from the despair and misery at home, wandered
+aimlessly away, anywhere, hither and thither, afraid to go back, afraid
+to face again the desolation that sat so grim and stern in solitary
+possession.
+
+The train arrived at Slumberleigh at last, and he got out, and shivered
+as the driving wind swept across the platform. It surprised him that
+there was a wind, although at every station down the line he had seen
+people straining against it. He gave up his ticket mechanically, and
+walked aimlessly away into the darkness, turning with momentary
+curiosity to watch the train hurry on again, a pillar of fire by night,
+as it had been a pillar of smoke by day.
+
+He passed the blinking station inn, forgetting that he had put up his
+dog-cart there to await his return, and, hardly knowing what he did,
+took from long habit the turn for Vandon.
+
+It was a wild night. The wind was driving the clouds across the moon at
+a tremendous rate, and sweeping at each gust flights of spectre leaves
+from the swaying trees. It caught him in the open of the bare high-road,
+and would not let him go. It opposed him, and buffeted him at every
+turn; but he held listlessly on his way. His feet took him, and he let
+them take him whither they would. They led him stumbling along the dim
+road, the dust of which was just visible like a gray mist before him,
+until he reached the bridge by the mill. There his feet stopped of their
+own accord, and he went and leaned against the low stone-wall, looking
+down at the sudden glimpses of pale hurried water and trembling reed.
+
+The moon came out full and strong in temporary victory, and made black
+shadows behind the idle millwheel and open mill-race, and black shadows,
+black as death, under the bridge itself. Dare leaned over the wall to
+watch the mysterious water and shadow run beneath. As he looked, he saw
+the reflection of a man in the water watching him. He shook his fist
+savagely at it, and it shook its fist amid a wavering of broken light
+and shadow back at him. But it did not go away; it remained watching
+him. There was something strange and unfamiliar about the river
+to-night. It had a voice, too, which allured and repelled him--a voice
+at the sound of which the grim despair within him stirred ominously at
+first, and then began slowly to rise up gaunt and terrible; began to
+move stealthily, but with ever-increasing swiftness through the deserted
+chambers of his heart.
+
+No strong abiding principle was there to do battle with the enemy. The
+minor feelings, sensibilities, emotions, amiable impulses, those
+courtiers of our prosperous days, had all forsaken him and fled. Dare's
+house in his hour of need was left unto him desolate.
+
+And the river spoke in a guilty whisper, which yet the quarrel of the
+wind and the trees could not drown, of deep places farther down, where
+the people were never found, people who--But there were shallows, too,
+he remembered, shallow places among the stones where the trout were. If
+anybody were drowned, Dare thought, gazing down at the pale shifting
+moon in the water, he would be found there, perhaps, or at any rate, his
+hat--he took his hat off, and held it tightly clinched in both his
+hands--his hat would tell the tale.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+
+Charles left Slumberleigh Hall a few hours later than Dare had done, but
+only to go back to Atherstone. He could not leave the neighborhood. This
+burning fever of suspense would be unbearable at any other place, and in
+any case he must return by Saturday, the day on which he had promised to
+meet Raymond. His hand was really slightly injured, and he made the most
+of it. He kept it bound up, telegraphed to put off his next shooting
+engagement on the strength of it, and returned to Atherstone, even
+though he was aware that Lady Mary had arrived there the day before, on
+her way home to her house in London.
+
+Ralph and Evelyn were accustomed to sudden and erratic movements on the
+part of Charles, and to Molly he was a sort of archangel, who might
+arrive out of space at any moment, untrammelled by such details as
+distance, trains, time, or tide. But to Lady Mary his arrival was a
+significant fact, and his impatient refusal to have his hand
+investigated was another. Her cold gray eyes watched him narrowly, and,
+conscious that they did so, he kept out of her way as much as possible,
+and devoted himself to Molly more than ever.
+
+He was sailing a mixed fleet of tin ducks and fishes across the tank by
+the tool shed, under her supervision, on the afternoon of the day he had
+arrived, when Ralph came to find him in great excitement. His keeper had
+just received private notice from the Thursbys' keeper that a raid on
+the part of a large gang of poachers was expected that night in the
+parts of the Slumberleigh coverts that had not yet been shot over, and
+which adjoined Ralph's own land.
+
+"Whereabout will that be?" said Charles, inattentively, drawing his
+magnet slowly in front of the fleet.
+
+"Where?" said Ralph, excitedly, "why, round by the old house, round by
+Arleigh, of course. Thursby and I have turned down hundreds of pheasants
+there. Don't you remember the hot corner by the coppice last year, below
+the house, where we got forty at one place, and how the wind took them
+as they came over?"
+
+"Near _Arleigh_?" repeated Charles, with sudden interest.
+
+"Uncle Charles," interposed Molly, reproachfully, "don't let all the
+ducks stick onto the magnet like that. I told you not before. Make it go
+on in front."
+
+But Charles's attention had wandered from the ducks.
+
+"Yes," continued Ralph, "near Arleigh. There was a gang of poachers
+there last year, and the keepers dared not attack them they were so
+strong, though they were shooting right and left. But we'll be even with
+them this year. My men are going, and I shall go with them. You had
+better come too, and join the fun. The more the better."
+
+"Why should I go?" said Charles, listlessly. "Am I my brother's keeper,
+or even his underkeeper? Molly, don't splash your uncle's wardrobe.
+Besides, I expect it is a false alarm or a blind."
+
+"False alarm!" retorted Ralph. "I tell you Thursby's head keeper,
+Shaw--you know Shaw--saw a man himself only last night in the Arleigh
+coverts; came upon him suddenly, reconnoitring, of course; for to-night,
+and would have collared him too if the moon had not gone in, and when it
+came out again he was gone."
+
+"Of course, and he will warn off the rest to-night."
+
+"Not a bit of it. He never saw Shaw. Shaw takes his oath he didn't see
+him. I'll lay any odds they will beat those coverts to-night, and, by
+George! we'll nail some of them, if we have an ounce of luck."
+
+Ralph's sporting instinct, to which even the fleeting vision of a chance
+weasel never appealed in vain, was now thoroughly aroused, and even
+Charles shared somewhat in his excitement.
+
+How could he warn Raymond to lie close? The more he thought of it the
+more impossible it seemed. It was already late in the afternoon. He
+could not, for Raymond's sake, risk being seen hanging about in the
+woods near Arleigh for no apparent reason, and Raymond was not expecting
+to see him in any case for two days to come, and would probably be
+impossible to find. He could do nothing but wait till the evening came,
+when he might have some opportunity, if the night were only dark enough,
+of helping or warning him.
+
+The night was dark enough when it came; but it was unreliable. A tearing
+autumn wind drove armies of clouds across the moon, only to sweep them
+away again at a moment's notice. The wind itself rose and fell, dropped
+and struggled up again like a furious wounded animal.
+
+"It will drop at midnight," said Ralph to Charles below his breath, as
+they walked in the darkness along the road towards Slumberleigh; "and
+the moon will come out when the wind goes. I have told Evans and Brooks
+to go by the fields, and meet us at the cross-roads in the low woods. It
+is a good night for us. We don't want light yet a while; and the more
+row the wind kicks up till we are in our places ready for them the
+better."
+
+They walked on in silence, nearly missing in the dark the turn for
+Slumberleigh, where the road branched off to Vandon.
+
+"We must be close upon the river by this time," said Ralph; "but I can't
+hear it for the wind."
+
+The moon came out suddenly, and showed close on their right the mill
+blocking out the sky, and the dark sweep of the river below, between
+pale wastes of flooded meadow. Upon the bridge, leaning over the wall,
+stood the figure of a man, bareheaded, with his hat in his hands.
+
+He could not see his face, but something in his attitude struck Charles
+with a sudden chill.
+
+"By ----," he said, below his breath, plucking Ralph's arm, "there's
+mischief going on there!"
+
+Ralph did not hear, and in another moment Charles was thankful he had
+not done so.
+
+The man raised himself a little, and the light fell full on his white
+desperate face. He was feeling up and down the edge of the stone-parapet
+with his hands. As he moved, Charles recognized him, and drew in his
+breath sharply.
+
+"Who is that?" said Ralph, his obtuser faculties perceiving the man for
+the first time.
+
+Charles made no answer, but began to whistle loudly one of the tunes of
+the day. He saw Dare give a guilty start, and, catching at the wall for
+support, lean heavily against it as he looked wildly down the road,
+where the shadow of the trees had so far served to screen the approach
+of Charles and Ralph, who now emerged into the light, or at least would
+have done so, if the moonlight had not been snatched away at that
+moment.
+
+"Holloa, Dare!" said Ralph, cheerfully, through the darkness, "I saw
+you. What are you up to standing on the bridge at midnight, with the
+clock striking the hour, and all that sort of thing; and what have you
+done with your hat--dropped it into the water?"
+
+Dare muttered something unintelligible, and peered suspiciously through
+the darkness at Charles.
+
+The moon made a feint at coming out again, which came to nothing, but
+which gave Charles a moment's glimpse of Dare's convulsed face. And the
+grave penetrating glance that met his own so fixedly told Dare in that
+moment that Charles had guessed his business on the bridge. Both men
+were glad of the returning darkness, and of the presence of Ralph.
+
+"Come along with us," the latter was saying to Dare, explaining the
+errand on which they were bound; and Dare, stupefied with past emotion,
+and careless of what he did or where he went, agreed.
+
+It was less trouble to agree than to find a reason for refusing. He
+mechanically put on his hat, which he had unconsciously crushed together
+a few minutes before, in a dreadful dream from which even now he had not
+thoroughly awaked. And, still walking like a man in a dream, he set off
+with the other two.
+
+"There was suicide in his face," thought Charles, as he swung along
+beside his brother. "He would have done it if we had not come up. Good
+God! can it be that it is all over between him and Ruth?" The blood
+rushed to his head, and his heart began to beat wildly. He walked on in
+silence, seeing nothing, hearing nothing. Raymond and the poachers were
+alike forgotten.
+
+It was not until a couple of men joined them silently in the woods, and
+others presently rose up out of the darkness, to whisper directions and
+sink down again, that Charles came to himself with a start, and pulled
+himself together.
+
+The party had halted. It was pitch-dark, and he was conscious of
+something towering up above him, black and lowering. It was the ruined
+house of Arleigh.
+
+"You and Brooks wait here, and keep well under the lea of the house,"
+said Ralph, in a whisper. "If the moon comes out, get into the shadow of
+the wall. Don't shout till you're sure of them. Shaw is down by the
+stables. Dare and Evans you both come on with me. Shaw's got two men at
+the end of the glade, but it's the nearest coverts he is keenest on,
+because they can get a horse and cart up close to take the game, and get
+off sharp if they are surprised. They did last year. Don't stir if you
+hear wheels. Wait for them." And with this parting injunction Ralph
+disappeared noiselessly with Dare and the other keeper in the direction
+of the stables.
+
+Ralph had been right. The wind was dropping. It came and went fitfully,
+returning as if from great distances, and hurrying past weak and
+impotent, leaving sudden silences behind. Charles and his companion, a
+strapping young underkeeper, evidently anxious to distinguish himself,
+waited, listening intently in the intervals of silence. The ivy on the
+old house shivered and whispered over their heads, and against one of
+the shuttered windows near the ground some climbing plant, torn loose by
+the wind, tapped incessantly, as if calling to the ghosts within.
+Charles glanced ever and anon at the sky. It showed no trace of
+clearing--as yet. He was getting cramped with standing. He wished he had
+gone on to the stables. His anxiety for Raymond was sharpened by this
+long inaction. He seemed to have been standing for ages. What were the
+others doing? Not a sound reached him between the lengthening pauses of
+the wind. His companion stood drawn up motionless beside him; and so
+they waited, straining eye and ear into the darkness, conscious that
+others were waiting and listening also.
+
+_At last_ in the distance came a faint sound of wheels. Charles and
+Brooks instinctively drew a long breath; and Charles for the first time
+believed the alarm of poachers had not been a false one after all. It
+was the faintest possible sound of wheels. It would hardly have been
+heard at all but for some newly broken stones over which it passed.
+Then, without coming nearer, it stopped.
+
+Charles listened intently. The wind had dropped down dead at last, and
+in the stillness he felt as if he could have heard a mouse stir miles
+away. But all was quiet. There was no sound but the tremulous whisper of
+the ivy. The spray near the window had ceased its tapping against the
+shutter, and was listening too. Slowly the moon came out, and looked on.
+
+And then suddenly, from the direction of the stables, came a roar of
+men's voices, a sound of bursting and crashing through the under-wood, a
+thundering of heavy feet, followed by a whirring of frightened birds
+into the air. Brooks leaned forward breathing hard, and tightening his
+newly moistened grip on his heavy knotted stick.
+
+Another moment and a man's figure darted across the open, followed by a
+chorus of shouts, and Charles's heart turned sick within him. It was
+Raymond.
+
+"Cut him off at the gate, Charles," roared Ralph from behind; "down to
+the left."
+
+There was not a second for reflection. As Brooks rushed headlong
+forward, Charles hurriedly interposed his stick between his legs, and
+leaving him to flounder, started off in pursuit.
+
+"Down to your left," cried a chorus of voices from behind, as he shot
+out of the shadow of the house; for Charles was some way ahead of the
+rest owing to his position.
+
+He could hear Raymond crashing in front; then he saw him again for a
+moment in a strip of open, running as a man does who runs for his life,
+with a furious recklessness of all obstacles. Charles saw he was making
+for the rocky thickets below the house, where the uneven ground and the
+bracken would give him a better chance. Did he remember the deep sunken
+wall which, broken down in places, still separated the wilderness of the
+garden from the wilderness outside? Charles was lean and active, and he
+soon out-distanced the other pursuers, but a man is hard to overtake who
+has such reasons for not being overtaken as Raymond, and do what he
+would he could not get near him. He bore down to the left, but Raymond
+seemed to know it, and, edging away again, held for the woods a little
+higher up. Charles tacked, and then as he ran he saw that Raymond was
+making with headlong blindness through the shrubbery direct for the deep
+sunk wall which bounded the Arleigh grounds. Would he see it in the
+uncertain light? He must be close upon it now. He was running like a
+madman. As Charles looked he saw him pitch suddenly forward out of sight
+and heard a heavy fall. If Charles ever ran in his life, it was then. As
+he swiftly let himself drop over the wall, lower than Raymond had taken
+it, he saw Ralph and Dare, followed by the others, come streaming down
+the slope in the moonlight, spreading as they came. It was now or never.
+He rushed up the fosse under cover of the wall, and almost stumbled over
+a prostrate figure, which was helplessly trying to raise itself on its
+hands and knees.
+
+"Danvers, it's me," gasped Raymond, turning a white tortured face feebly
+towards him. "Don't let those devils get me."
+
+"Keep still," panted Charles, pushing him down among the bracken. "Lie
+close under the wall, and make for the house again when it's quiet;" And
+darting back under cover of the wall, to the place where he had dropped
+over it, he found Dare almost upon him, and rushed headlong down the
+steep rocky descent, roaring at the top of his voice, and calling wildly
+to the others. The pursuit swept away through the wood, down the hill,
+and up the sandy ascent on the other side; swept almost over the top of
+Charles, who had flung himself down, dead-beat and gasping for breath,
+at the bottom of the gully.
+
+He heard the last of the heavy lumbering feet crash past him, and heard
+the shouting die away before he stiffly dragged himself up again, and
+began to struggle painfully back up the slippery hill-side, down which
+he had rushed with a whole regiment of loose and hopping stones ten
+minutes before. He regained the wall at last, and crept back to the
+place where he had left Raymond. It was with a sigh of relief that he
+found that he was gone. No doubt he had got into safety somewhere,
+perhaps in the cottage itself, where no one would dream of looking for
+him. He stumbled along among the loose stones by the wall till he came
+to the place by the gate where it was broken down, and clambering up,
+for the gate was locked, made his way back through the shrubberies, and
+desolate remains of garden, towards the point near the house where
+Raymond had first broken cover. As he came round a clump of bushes his
+heart gave a great leap, and then sank within him.
+
+Three men were standing in the middle of the lawn in the moonlight,
+gathered round something on the ground. Seized by a horrible misgiving,
+he hurried towards them. At a little distance a dog-cart was being
+slowly led over the grass-grown drive towards the house.
+
+"What is it? Any one hurt?" he asked, hoarsely, joining the little
+group; but as he looked he needed no answer. One glance told him that
+the prostrate, unconscious figure on the ground, with blood slowly
+oozing from the open mouth, was Raymond Deyncourt.
+
+"Great God! the man's dying," he said, dropping on his knees beside him.
+
+"He's all right, sir; he'll come to," said a little brisk man, in a
+complacent, peremptory tone. "It's only the young chap,"--pointing to
+the bashful but gratified Brooks--"as crocked him over the head a bit
+sharper than needful. Here, Esp,"--to the grinning Slumberleigh
+policeman, whom Charles now recognized, "tell the lad to bring up the
+'orse and trap over the grass. We shall have a business to shift him as
+it is."
+
+"Is he a poacher?" asked Charles. "He doesn't look like it."
+
+"Lord! no, sir," replied the little man, and Charles's heart went
+straight down into his boots and stayed there. "I'm come down from
+Birmingham after him. He's no poacher. The police have wanted him very
+special for some time for the Francisco forgery case."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+
+Charles watched the detective and the policeman hoist Raymond into the
+dog-cart and drive away, supporting him between them. No doubt it had
+been the wheels of that dog-cart which they had heard in the distance.
+Then he turned to Brooks.
+
+"How is it you remained behind?" he asked, sharply.
+
+Brooks's face fell, and he explained that just as he was starting in the
+pursuit he had caught his legs on "Sir Chawles sir's" stick, and "barked
+hisself."
+
+"I remember," said Charles. "You got in my way. You should look out
+where you are going. You may as well go and find my stick."
+
+The poor victim of duplicity departed rather crestfallen, and at this
+moment Dare came up.
+
+"We have lost him," he said, wiping his forehead. "I don't know what has
+become of him."
+
+"He doubled back here," said Charles. "I followed, but you all went on.
+The police have got him. He was not a poacher after all, so they said."
+
+"Ah!" said Dare. "They have him? I regret it. He ran well. I could wish
+he had escaped. I was in the door-way of a stable watching a long time,
+and all in a moment he rushed past me out of the door. The policeman was
+seeking within when he came out, but though he touched me I could not
+stop him. And now," with sudden weariness as his excitement evaporated,
+"all is, then, over for the night? And the others? Where are they? Do we
+wait for them here?"
+
+"We should wait some time if we did," replied Charles. "Ralph is certain
+to go on to the other coverts. He has poachers on the brain. Probably
+the rumor that they were coming here was only a blind, and they are
+doing a good business somewhere else. I am going home. I have had enough
+enjoyment for one evening. I should advise you to do the same."
+
+Dare winced, and did not answer, and Charles suddenly remembered that
+there were circumstances which might make it difficult for him to go
+back to Vandon.
+
+They walked away together in silence. Dare, who had been wildly excited,
+was beginning to feel the reaction. He was becoming giddy and faint with
+exhaustion and want of food. He had eaten nothing all day. They had not
+gone far when Charles saw that he stumbled at every other step.
+
+"Look out," he said once, as Dare stumbled more heavily than usual,
+"you'll twist your ankle on these loose stones if you're not more
+careful."
+
+"It is so dark," said Dare, faintly.
+
+The moon was shining brightly at the moment, and as Charles turned to
+look at him in surprise, Dare staggered forward, and would have
+collapsed altogether if he had not caught him by the arm.
+
+"Sit down," he said, authoritatively. "Here, not on me, man, on the
+bank. Always sit down when you can't stand. You have had too much
+excitement. I felt the same after my first Christmas-tree. You will be
+better directly."
+
+Charles spoke lightly, but he knew from what he had seen that Dare must
+have passed a miserable day. He had never liked him. It was impossible
+that he should have done so. But even his more active dislike of the
+last few months gave way to pity for him now, and he felt almost ashamed
+at the thought that his own happiness was only to be built on the ruin
+of poor Dare's.
+
+He made him swallow the contents of his flask, and as Dare choked and
+gasped himself back into the fuller possession of his faculties, and
+experienced the benign influences of whiskey, entertained at first
+unawares, his heart, always easily touched, warmed to the owner of the
+silver flask, and of the strong arm that was supporting him with an
+unwillingness he little dreamed of. His momentary jealousy of Charles in
+the summer had long since been forgotten. He felt towards him now, as
+Charles helped him up, and he proceeded slowly on his arm, as a friend
+and a brother.
+
+Charles, entirely unconscious of the noble sentiments which he and his
+flask had inspired, looked narrowly at his companion, as they neared the
+turn for Atherstone, and said with some anxiety:
+
+"Where are you going to-night?"
+
+Dare made no answer. He had no idea where he was going.
+
+Charles hesitated. He could not let him walk back alone to Vandon--over
+the bridge. It was long past midnight. Dare's evident inability to think
+where to turn touched him.
+
+"Can I be of any use to you?" he said, earnestly. "Is there anything I
+can do? Perhaps, at present, you would rather not go to Vandon."
+
+"No, no," said Dare, shuddering; "I will not go there."
+
+Charles felt more certain than ever that it would not be safe to leave
+him to his own devices, and his anxiety not to lose sight of him in his
+present state gave a kindness to his manner of which he was hardly
+aware.
+
+"Come back to Atherstone with me," he said, "I will explain it to Ralph
+when he comes in. It will be all right."
+
+Dare accepted the proposition with gratitude. It relieved him for the
+moment from coming to any decision. He thanked Charles with effusion,
+and then--his natural impulsiveness quickened by the quantity of raw
+spirits he had swallowed, by this mark of sympathy, by the moonlight, by
+Heaven knows what that loosens the facile tongue of unreticence--then
+suddenly, without a moment's preparation, he began to pour forth his
+troubles into Charles's astonished and reluctant ears. It was vain to
+try to stop him, and, after the first moment of instinctive recoil,
+Charles was seized by a burning curiosity to know all where he already
+knew so much, to put an end to this racking suspense.
+
+"And that is not the worst," said Dare, when he had recounted how the
+woman he had seen on the church steps was in very deed the wife she
+claimed to be. "That is not the worst. I love another. We are affianced.
+We are as one. I bring sorrow upon her I love."
+
+"She knows, then?" asked Charles, hoarsely, hating himself for being
+such a hypocrite, but unable to refrain from putting a leading question.
+
+"She knows that some one--a person--is at Vandon," replied Dare, "who
+calls herself my wife, but I tell her it is not true and she, all
+goodness, all heavenly calm, she trusts me, and once again she promises
+to marry me if I am free, as I tell her, as I swear to her."
+
+Charles listened in astonishment. He saw Dare was speaking the truth,
+but that Ruth could have given such a promise was difficult to believe.
+He did not know, what Dare even had not at all realized, that she had
+given it in the belief that Dare, from his answers to her questions, had
+never been married to the woman at all, in the belief that she was a
+mere adventuress seeking to make money out of him by threatening a
+scandalous libel, and without the faintest suspicion that she was his
+divorced wife, whether legally or illegally divorced.
+
+Dare had understood the promise to depend on the legality or illegality
+of that divorce, and told Charles so in all good faith. With an
+extraordinary effort of reticence he withheld the name of his affianced,
+and pressing Charles's arm, begged him to ask no more. And Charles,
+half-sorry, half-contemptuous, wholly ashamed of having allowed such a
+confidence to be forced upon him, marched on in silence, now divided
+between mortal anxiety for Raymond and pity for Dare, now striving to
+keep down a certain climbing rapturous emotion which would not be
+suppressed.
+
+One of the servants had waited up for their return, and, after getting
+Dare something to eat, Charles took him up to the room which had been
+prepared for himself, and then, feeling he had done his duty by him, and
+that he was safe for the present, went back to smoke by the smoking-room
+fire till Ralph came in, which was not till several hours later. When he
+did at last return it was in triumph. He was dead-beat, voiceless, and
+foot-sore; but a sense of glory sustained him. Four poachers had been
+taken red-handed in the coverts farthest from Arleigh. The rumor about
+Arleigh had, of course, been a blind; but he, Ralph, thank Heaven, was
+not to be taken in in such a hurry as all that! He could look after his
+interests as well as most men. In short, he was full of glorification to
+the brim, and it was only after hearing a hoarse and full account of the
+whole transaction several times over that Charles was able in a pause
+for breath to tell him that he had offered Dare a bed, as he was quite
+tired out, and was some distance from Vandon.
+
+"All right. Quite right," said Ralph, unheeding; "but you and he missed
+the best part of the whole thing. Great Scot! when I saw them come
+dodging round under the Black Rock and--" He was off again; and Charles
+doubted afterwards, as he fell asleep in his arm-chair by the fire,
+whether Ralph, already slumbering peacefully opposite him, had paid the
+least attention to what he had told him, and would not have entirely
+forgotten it in the morning. And, in fact, he did, and it was not until
+Evelyn desired, with dignity, on the morrow, that another time
+unsuitable persons should not be brought at midnight to _her_ house,
+that he remembered what had happened.
+
+Charles, who was present, immediately took the blame upon himself, but
+Evelyn was not to be appeased. By this time the whole neighborhood was
+ringing with the news of the arrival of a foreign wife at Vandon, and
+Evelyn felt that Dare's presence in her blue bedroom, with crockery and
+crewel-work curtains to match, compromised that apartment and herself,
+and that he must incontinently depart out of it. It was in vain that
+Ralph and even Charles expostulated. She remained unmoved. It was not,
+she said, as if she had been unwilling to receive him, in the first
+instance, as a possible Roman Catholic, though many might have blamed
+her for that, and perhaps she _had_ been to blame; but she had never,
+no, never, had any one to stay that anybody could say anything about.
+(This was a solemn fact which it was impossible to deny.) Ralph might
+remember her own cousin, Willie Best, and she had always liked Willie,
+had never been asked again after that time--Ralph chuckled--that time he
+knew of. She was very sorry, and she quite understood all Charles meant,
+and she quite saw the force of what he said; but she could not allow
+people to stay in the house who had foreign wives that had been kept
+secret. What was poor Willie, who had only--Ralph need not laugh; there
+was nothing to laugh at--what was Willie to this? She must be
+consistent. She could see Charles was very angry with her, but she could
+not encourage what was wrong, even if he was angry. In short, Dare must
+go.
+
+But, when it came to the point, it was found that Dare could not go.
+Nothing short of force would have turned the unwelcome guest out of the
+bed in the blue bedroom, from which he made no attempt to rise, and on
+which he lay worn-out and feverish, in a stupor of sheer mental and
+physical exhaustion.
+
+Charles and Ralph went and looked at him rather ruefully, with masculine
+helplessness, and the end of it was that Evelyn, in nowise softened, for
+she was a good woman, had to give way, and a doctor was sent for.
+
+"Send for the man in D----. Don't have the Slumberleigh man," said
+Charles; "it will only make more talk;" and the doctor from D---- was
+accordingly sent for.
+
+He did not arrive till the afternoon, and after he had seen Dare, and
+given him a sleeping draught, and had talked reassuringly of a mental
+shock and a feverish temperament he apologized for his delay in coming.
+He had been kept, he said, drawing on his gloves as he spoke, by a very
+serious case in the police-station at D----. A man had been arrested on
+suspicion the previous night, and he seemed to have sustained some fatal
+internal injury. He ought to have been taken to the infirmary at once;
+but it had been thought he was only shamming when first arrested, and
+once in the police-station he could not be moved, and--the doctor took
+up his hat--he would probably hardly outlive the day.
+
+"By-the-way," he added, turning at the door, "he asked over and over
+again, while I was with him, to see you or Mr. Danvers. I'm sure I
+forget which, but I promised him I would mention it. Nearly slipped my
+memory, all the same. He said one of you had known him in his better
+days, at--Oxford, was it?"
+
+"What name?" asked Charles.
+
+"Stephens," replied the doctor. "He seemed to think you would remember
+him."
+
+"Stephens," said Charles, reflectively. "Stephens! I once had a valet of
+that name, and a very good one he was, who left my service rather
+abruptly, taking with him numerous portable memorials of myself,
+including a set of diamond studs. I endeavored at the time to keep up my
+acquaintance with him; but he took measures effectually to close it. In
+fact, I have never heard of him from that day to this."
+
+"That's the man, no doubt," replied the doctor. "He has--er--a sort of
+look about him as if he might have been in a gentleman's service once;
+seen-better-days-sort of look, you know."
+
+Charles said he should be at D---- in the course of the afternoon, and
+would make a point of looking in at the police-station; and a quarter of
+an hour later he was driving as hard as he could tear in Ralph's high
+dog-cart along the road to D----. It was a six-mile drive, and he
+slackened as he reached the straggling suburbs of the little town, lying
+before him in a dim mist of fine rain and smoke.
+
+Arrived at the dismal building which he knew to be the police-station,
+he was shown into a small room hung round with papers, where the warden
+was writing, and desired, with an authority so evidently accustomed to
+obedience that it invariably insured it, to see the prisoner. The
+prisoner, he said, at whose arrest he had been present, had expressed a
+wish to see him through the doctor; and as the warden demurred for the
+space of one second, Charles mentioned that he was a magistrate and
+justice of the peace, and sternly desired the confused official to show
+him the way at once. That functionary, awed by the stately manner which
+none knew better than Charles when to assume, led the way down a narrow
+stone passage, past numerous doors behind one of which a banging sound,
+accompanied by alcoholic oaths, suggested the presence of a freeborn
+Briton chafing under restraint.
+
+"I had him put up-stairs, sir," said the warden, humbly. "We didn't know
+when he came in as it was a case for the infirmary; but seeing he was
+wanted for a big thing, and poorly in his 'ealth, I giv' him one of the
+superior cells, with a mattress and piller complete."
+
+The man was evidently afraid that Charles had come as a magistrate to
+give him a reprimand of some kind, for, as he led the way up a narrow
+stone staircase, he continued to expatiate on the luxury of the
+"mattress and piller," on the superiority of the cell, and how a nurse
+had been sent for at once from the infirmary, when, owing to his own
+shrewdness, the prisoner was found to be "a hospital case."
+
+"The doctor wouldn't have him moved," he said, opening a closed door in
+a long passage full of doors, the rest of which stood open. "It's not
+reg'lar to have him in here, sir, I know; but the doctor wouldn't have
+him moved."
+
+Charles passed through the door, and found himself in a narrow
+whitewashed cell, with a bed at one side, over which an old woman in the
+dress of a hospital nurse was bending.
+
+"You can come out, Martha," said the warden. "The gentleman's come to
+see 'im."
+
+As the old woman disappeared, courtesying, he lingered to say, in a
+whisper, "Do you know him, sir?"
+
+"Yes," said Charles, looking fixedly at the figure on the bed. "I
+remember him. I knew him years ago, in his better days. I dare say he
+will have something to tell me."
+
+"If it should be anything as requires a witness," continued the
+man--"he's said a deal already, and it's all down in proper form--but if
+there's anything more----"
+
+"I will let you know," said Charles, looking towards the door, and the
+warden took the hint and went out of it, closing it quietly.
+
+Charles crossed the little room, and, sitting down in the crazy chair
+beside the bed, laid his hand gently on the listless hand lying palm
+upward on the rough gray counterpane.
+
+"Raymond," he said; "it is I, Danvers."
+
+The hand trembled a little, and made a faint attempt to clasp his.
+Charles took the cold, lifeless hand, and held it in his strong gentle
+grasp.
+
+"It is Danvers," he said again.
+
+The sick man turned his head slowly on the pillow, and looked fixedly at
+him. Death's own color, which imitation can never imitate, nor ignorance
+mistake, was stamped upon that rigid face.
+
+"I'm done for," he said with a faint smile, which touched the lips but
+did not reach the solemn far-reaching eyes.
+
+Charles could not speak.
+
+"You said I should turn up tails once too often," continued Raymond,
+with slow halting utterance, "and I've done it. I knew it was all up
+when I pitched over that d----d wall onto the stones. I felt I'd killed
+myself."
+
+"How did they get you?" said Charles.
+
+"I don't know," replied Raymond, closing his eyes wearily, as if the
+subject had ceased to interest him. "I think I tried to creep along
+under the wall towards the place where it is broken down, when I fancy
+some one came over long after the others and knocked me on the head."
+
+Charles reflected with sudden wrath that Brooks, no doubt, had been the
+man, and how much worse than useless his manoeuvre with the stick had
+been.
+
+"I did my best," he said, humbly.
+
+"Yes," replied the other; "and I would not have forgotten it, either,
+if--if there had been any time to remember it in; but there won't be.
+I've owned up," he continued, in a labored whisper. "Stephens has made a
+full confession. You'll have it in all the papers to-morrow. And while I
+was at it I piled on some more I never did, which will get friends over
+the water out of trouble. Tom Flavell did me a good turn once, and he's
+been in hiding these two years for--well, it don't much matter what, but
+I've shoved that in with the rest, though it was never in my
+line--never. He'll be able to go home now."
+
+"Have not you confessed under your own name?"
+
+"No," replied Raymond, with a curious remnant of that pride of race at
+which it is the undisputed privilege of low birth and a plebeian
+temperament to sneer. "I won't have my own name dragged in. I dropped it
+years ago. I've confessed as Stephens, and I'll die and be buried as
+Stephens. I'm not going to disgrace the family."
+
+There was a constrained silence of some minutes.
+
+"Would you like to see your sister?" asked Charles; but Raymond shook
+his head with feeble decision.
+
+"That man!" he said, suddenly, after a long pause. "That man in the
+door-way! How did he come there?"
+
+"There is no man in the door-way," said Charles, reassuringly. "There is
+no one here but me."
+
+"Last night," continued Raymond, "last night in the stables. I watched
+him stand in the door-way."
+
+Charles remembered how Dare had said Raymond had bolted out past him.
+
+"That was Dare," he said; "the man who was to have been your
+brother-in-law."
+
+"Ah!" said Raymond with evident unconcern. "I thought I'd seen him
+before. But he's altered. He's grown into a man. So he is to marry Ruth,
+is he?"
+
+"Not now. He was to have done, but a divorced wife from America has
+turned up. She arrived at Vandon the day before yesterday. It seems the
+divorce in America does not hold in England."
+
+Raymond started.
+
+"The old fox," he said, with feeble energy. "Tracked him out, has she?
+We used to call them fox and goose when she married him. By ----, she
+squeezed every dollar out of him before she let him go, and now she's
+got him again, has she? She always was a cool hand. The old fox," he
+continued, with contempt and admiration in his voice. "She's playing a
+bold game, and the luck is on her side, but she's no more his wife than
+I am, and she knows that perfectly well."
+
+"Do you mean that the divorce was----"
+
+"Divorce, bosh!" said Raymond, working himself up into a state of feeble
+excitement frightful to see. "I tell you she was never married to him
+legally. She called herself a widow when she married Dare, but she had a
+husband living, Jasper Carroll, serving his time at Baton Rouge Jail,
+down South, all the time. He died there a year afterwards, but hardly a
+soul knows it to this day; and those that do don't care about bringing
+themselves into public notice. They'll prefer hush-money, if they find
+out what she's up to now. The prison register would prove it directly.
+But Dare will never find it out. How should he?"
+
+Raymond sank back speechless and panting. A strong shudder passed over
+him, and his breath seemed to fail.
+
+"It's coming," he whispered, hoarsely. "That lying doctor said I had
+several hours, and I feel it coming already."
+
+"Danvers," he continued, hurriedly, "are you still there?" Then, as
+Charles bent over him, "Closer; bend down. I want to see your face. Keep
+your own counsel about Dare. There's no one to tell if you don't. He's
+not fit for Ruth. You can marry her now. I saw what I saw. She'll take
+you. And some day--some day, when you have been married a long time,
+tell her I'm dead; and tell her--about Flavell, and how I owned to
+it--but that I did not do it. I never sank so low as that." His voice
+had dropped to a whisper which died imperceptibly away.
+
+"I will tell her," said Charles; and Raymond turned his face to the
+wall, and spoke no more.
+
+The struggle had passed, and for the moment death held aloof; but his
+shadow was there, lying heavy on the deepening twilight, and darkening
+all the little room. Raymond seemed to have sunk into a stupor, and at
+last Charles rose silently and went out.
+
+He was dimly conscious of meeting some one in the passage, of answering
+some question in the negative, and then he found himself gathering up
+the reins, and driving through the narrow lighted streets of D---- in
+the dusk, and so away down the long flat high-road to Atherstone.
+
+A white mist had risen up to meet the darkness, and had shrouded all the
+land. In sweeps and curves along the fields a gleaming pallor lay of
+heavy dew upon the grass, and on the road the long lines of dim water in
+the ruts reflected the dim sky.
+
+Carts lumbered past him in the darkness once or twice, the men in them
+peering back at his reckless driving; and once a carriage with lamps
+came swiftly up the road towards him, and passed him with a flash,
+grazing his wheel. But he took no heed. Drive as quickly as he would
+through mist and darkness, a voice followed him, the voice of a pursuing
+devil close at his ear, whispering in the halting, feeble utterance of a
+dying man:
+
+"Keep your own counsel about Dare. There is no one to tell if you
+don't."
+
+Charles shivered and set his teeth. High on the hill among the trees the
+distant lights of Slumberleigh shone like glowworms through the mist. He
+looked at them with wild eyes. She was there, the woman who loved him,
+and whom he passionately loved. He could stretch forth his hand to take
+her if he would. His breath came hard and thick. A hand seemed clutching
+and tearing at his heart. And close at his ear the whisper came:
+
+_"There is no one to tell if you don't."_
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+
+It was close on dressing-time when Charles came into the drawing-room,
+where Evelyn and Molly were building castles on the hearth-rug in the
+ruddy firelight. After changing his damp clothes, he had gone to the
+smoking-room, but he had found Dare sitting there in a vast
+dressing-gown of Ralph's, in a state of such utter dejection, with his
+head in his hands, that he had silently retreated again before he had
+been perceived. He did not want to see Dare just now. He wished he were
+not in the house.
+
+Quite oblivious of the fact that he was not in Evelyn's good graces, he
+went and sat by the drawing-room fire, and absently watched Molly
+playing with her bricks. Presently, when the dressing-bell rang, Evelyn
+went away to dress, and Molly, tired of her castles, suggested that she
+might sit on his knee.
+
+He let her climb up and wriggle and finally settle herself as it seemed
+good to her, but he did not speak; and so they sat in the firelight
+together, Molly's hand lovingly stroking his black velvet coat. But her
+talents lay in conversation, not in silence, and she soon broke it.
+
+"You do look beautiful to-night, Uncle Charles."
+
+"Do I?" without elation.
+
+"Do you know, Uncle Charles, Ninny's sister with the wart on her cheek
+has been to tea? She's in the nursery now. Ninny says she's to have a
+bite of supper before she goes."
+
+"You don't say so?"
+
+"And we had buttered toast to tea, and she said you were the most
+splendid gentleman she ever saw."
+
+Charles did not answer. He did not even seem to have heard this
+interesting tribute to his personal appearance. Molly felt that
+something must be gravely amiss, and, laying her soft cheek against his,
+she whispered, confidentially:
+
+"Uncle Charles, are you uncomferable inside?"
+
+There was a long pause.
+
+"Yes, Molly," at last, pressing her to him.
+
+"Is it there?" said Molly, sympathetically, laying her hand on the front
+portion of her amber sash.
+
+"No, Molly; I only wish it were."
+
+"It's not the little green pears, then," said Molly, with the sigh of
+experience, "because it's always _just_ there, _always_, with them. It
+was again yesterday. They're nasty little pears,"--with a touch of
+personal resentment.
+
+Uncle Charles smiled at last, but it was not quite his usual smile.
+
+"Miss Molly," said a voice from the door, "your mamma has sent for you."
+
+"It's not bedtime yet."
+
+"Your mamma says you are to come at once," was the reply.
+
+Molly, knowing from experience that an appeal to Charles was useless on
+these occasions, wriggled down from her perch rather reluctantly, and
+bade her uncle "Good-night."
+
+"Perhaps it will be better to-morrow," she said, consolingly.
+
+"Perhaps," he said, nodding at her; and he took her little head between
+his hands, and kissed her. She rubbed his kiss off again, and walked
+gravely away. She could not be merry and ride in triumph up-stairs on
+kind curvetting Sarah's willing back, while her friend was "uncomferable
+inside." There was no galloping down the passage that night, no
+pleasantries with the sponge in Molly's tub, no last caperings in light
+attire. Molly went silently to bed, and as on a previous occasion when
+in great anxiety about Vic, who had thoughtlessly gone out in the
+twilight for a stroll, and had forgotten the lapse of time, she added a
+whispered clause to her little petitions which the ear of "Ninny" failed
+to catch.
+
+Charles recognized, in the way Evelyn had taken Molly from him, that she
+was not yet appeased. It should be remembered, in order to do her
+justice, that a good woman's means of showing a proper resentment are so
+straitened and circumscribed by her conscience that she is obliged, from
+actual want of material, to resort occasionally to little acts of
+domestic tyranny, small in themselves as midge bites, but, fortunately
+for the cause of virtue, equally exasperating. Indeed, it is improbable
+that any really good woman would ever so far forget herself as to lose
+her temper, if she were once thoroughly aware how much more irritating
+in the long-run a judicious course of those small persecutions may be
+made, which the tenderest conscience need not scruple to inflict.
+
+Charles was unreasonably annoyed at having Molly taken from him. As he
+sat by the fire alone, tired in mind and body, a hovering sense of
+cold, and an intense weariness of life took him; and a great longing
+came over him like a thirst--a longing for a little of the personal
+happiness which seemed to be the common lot of so many round him; for a
+home where he had now only a house; for love and warmth and
+companionship, and possibly some day a little Molly of his own, who
+would not be taken from him at the caprice of another.
+
+The only barrier to the fulfilment of such a dream had been a
+conscientious scruple of Ruth's, to which at the time he had urged upon
+her that she did wrong to yield. That barrier was now broken down; but
+it ought never to have existed. Ruth and he belonged to each other by
+divine law, and she had no right to give herself to any one else to
+satisfy her own conscience. And now--all would be well. She was absolved
+from her promise. She had been wrong to persist in keeping it, in his
+opinion; but at any rate she was honorably released from it now. And she
+would marry him.
+
+And that _second_ promise, which she had made to Dare, that she would
+still marry him if he were free to marry?
+
+Charles moved impatiently in his chair. From what exaggerated sense of
+duty she had made that promise he knew not; but he would save her from
+the effects of her own perverted judgment. He knew what Ruth's word
+meant, since he had tried to make her break it. He knew that she had
+promised to marry Dare if he were free. He knew that, having made that
+promise, she would keep it.
+
+It would be mere sentimental folly on his part to say the word that
+would set Dare free. Even if the American woman were not his wife in the
+eye of the law, she had a moral claim upon him. The possibility of
+Ruth's still marrying Dare was too hideous to be thought of. If her
+judgment was so entirely perverted by a morbid conscientious fear of
+following her own inclination that she could actually give Dare that
+promise, directly after the arrival of the adventuress, Charles would
+take the decision out of her hands. As she could not judge fairly for
+herself, he would judge for her, and save her from herself.
+
+For her sake as much as for his own he resolved to say nothing. He had
+only to keep silence.
+
+_"There's no one to tell if you don't."_
+
+The door opened, and Charles gave a start as Dare came into the room. He
+was taken aback by the sudden rush of jealous hatred that surged up
+within him at his appearance. It angered and shamed him, and Dare, much
+shattered but feebly cordial, found him very irresponsive and silent for
+the few minutes that remained before the dinner-bell rang, and the
+others came down.
+
+It was not a pleasant meal. If Dare had been a shade less ill, he must
+have noticed the marked coldness of Evelyn's manner, and how Ralph
+good-naturedly endeavored to make up for it by double helpings of soup
+and fish, which he was quite unable to eat. Charles and Lady Mary were
+never congenial spirits at the best of times, and to-night was not the
+best. That lady, after feebly provoking the attack, as usual, sustained
+some crushing defeats, mainly couched in the language of Scripture,
+which was, as she felt with Christian indignation, turning her own
+favorite weapon against herself, as possibly Charles thought she
+deserved, for putting such a weapon to so despicable a use.
+
+"I really don't know," she said, tremulously, afterwards in the
+drawing-room, "what Charles will come to if he goes on like this. I
+don't mind"--venomously--"his tone towards myself. That I do not regard;
+but his entire want of reverence for the Church and apostolic
+succession; his profane remarks about vestments; in short, his entire
+attitude towards religion gives me the gravest anxiety."
+
+In the dining-room the conversation flagged, and Charles was beginning
+to wonder whether he could make some excuse and bolt, when a servant
+came in with a note for him. It was from the doctor in D----, and ran as
+follows:
+
+    "DEAR SIR,
+
+    "I have just seen (6.30 P.M.) Stephens again. I found him in a
+    state of the wildest excitement, and he implored me to send you
+    word that he wanted to see you again. He seemed so sure that you
+    would go if you knew he wished it, that I have commissioned
+    Sergeant Brown's boy to take this. He wished me to say 'there
+    was something more.' If there is any further confession he
+    desires to make, he has not much time to do it in. I did not
+    expect he would have lasted till now. As it is, he is going
+    fast. Indeed, I hardly think you will be in time to see him; but
+    I promised to give you this message.
+
+    Yours faithfully,
+    R. WHITE."
+
+"I must go," Charles said, throwing the note across to Ralph. "Give the
+boy half a crown, will you? I suppose I may take Othello?" and before
+Ralph had mastered the contents of the note, and begun to fumble for a
+half-crown, Charles was saddling Othello himself, without waiting for
+the groom, and in a few minutes was clattering over the stones out of
+the yard.
+
+There was just light enough to ride by, and he rode hard. What was
+it--what could it be that Raymond had still to tell him? He felt certain
+it had something to do with Ruth, and probably Dare. Should he arrive in
+time to hear it? There at last were the lights of D---- in front of him.
+Should he arrive in time? As he pulled up his steaming horse before the
+police-station his heart misgave him.
+
+"Am I too late?" he asked of the man who came to the door.
+
+He looked bewildered.
+
+"Stephens! Is he dead?"
+
+The man shook his head.
+
+"They say he's a'most gone."
+
+Charles threw the rein to him, and hurried in-doors. He met some one
+coming out, the doctor probably, he thought afterwards, who took him
+up-stairs, and sent away the old woman who was in attendance.
+
+"I can't do anything more," he said, opening the door for him. "Wanted
+elsewhere. Very good of you, I'm sure. Not much use, I'm afraid.
+Good-night. I'll tell the old woman to be about."
+
+A dim lamp was burning on the little corner cupboard near the door, and,
+as Charles bent over the bed, he saw in a moment, even by that pale
+light, that he was too late.
+
+Life was still there, if that feeble tossing could be called life; but
+all else was gone. Raymond's feet were already on the boundary of the
+land where all things are forgotten; and, at the sight of that dim
+country, memory, affrighted, had slipped away and left him.
+
+Was it possible to recall him to himself even yet?
+
+"Raymond," he said, in a low distinct voice, "what is it you wish to
+say? Tell me quickly what it is."
+
+But the long agony of farewell between body and soul had begun, and the
+eyes that seemed to meet his with momentary recognition only looked at
+him in anguish, seeking help and finding none, and wandered away again,
+vainly searching for that which was not to be found.
+
+Charles could do nothing, but he had not the heart to leave him to
+struggle with death entirely alone, and so, in awed and helpless
+compassion, he sat by him through one long hour after another, waiting
+for the end which still delayed, his eyes wandering ever and anon from
+the bed to the high grated window, or idly spelling out the different
+names and disparaging remarks that previous occupants had scratched and
+scrawled over the whitewashed walls.
+
+And so the hours passed.
+
+At last, all in a moment, the struggle ceased. The dying man vainly
+tried to raise himself to meet what was coming, and Charles put his
+strong arm round him and held him up. He knew that consciousness
+sometimes returns at the moment of death.
+
+"Raymond," he whispered, earnestly. "Raymond."
+
+A tremor passed over the face. The lips moved. The homeless, lingering
+soul came back, and looked for the last time fixedly and searchingly at
+him out of the dying eyes, and then--seeing no help for it--went
+hurriedly on its way, leaving the lips parted to speak, leaving the
+deserted eyes vacant and terrible, until after a time Charles closed
+them.
+
+He had gone without speaking. Whatever he had wished to say would remain
+unsaid forever. Charles laid him down, and stood a long time looking at
+the set face. The likeness to Raymond seemed to be fading away under the
+touch of the Mighty Hand, but the look of Ruth, the better look,
+remained.
+
+At last he turned away and went out, stopping to wake the old nurse,
+heavily asleep in the passage. His horse was brought round for him from
+somewhere, and he mounted and rode away. He had no idea how long he had
+been there. It must have been many hours, but he had quite lost sight of
+time. It was still dark, but the morning could not be far off. He rode
+mechanically, his horse, which knew the road, taking him at its own
+pace. The night was cold, but he did not feel it. All power of feeling
+anything seemed gone from him. The last two days and nights of suspense
+and high-strung emotion seemed to have left him incapable of any further
+sensation at present beyond that of an intense fatigue.
+
+He rode slowly, and put up his horse with careful absence of mind. The
+eastern horizon was already growing pale and distinct as he found his
+way in-doors through the drawing-room window, the shutter of which had
+been left unhinged for him by Ralph, according to custom when either of
+them was out late. He went noiselessly up to his room, and sat down.
+After a time he started to find himself still sitting there; but he
+remained without stirring, too tired to move, his elbows on the table,
+his chin in his hands. He felt he could not sleep if he were to drag
+himself into bed. He might just as well stay where he was.
+
+And as he sat watching the dawn his mind began to stir, to shake off its
+lethargy and stupor, to struggle into keener and keener consciousness.
+
+There are times, often accompanying great physical prostration, when a
+veil seems to be lifted from our mental vision. As in the Mediterranean
+one may glance down suddenly on a calm day, and see in the blue depths
+with a strange surprise the sea-weed and the rocks and the fretted sands
+below, so also in rare hours we see the hidden depths of the soul, over
+which we have floated in heedless unconsciousness so long, and catch a
+glimpse of the hills and the valleys of those untravelled regions.
+
+Charles sat very still with his chin in his hands. His mind did not
+work. It looked right down to the heart of things.
+
+There is, perhaps, no time when mental vision is so clear, when the mind
+is so sane, as when death has come very near to us. There is a light
+which he brings with him, which he holds before the eyes of the dying,
+the stern light, seldom seen, of reality, before which self-deception
+and meanness, and that which maketh a lie, cower in their native
+deformity and slip away.
+
+And death sheds at times a strange gleam from that same light upon the
+souls of those who stand within his shadow, and watch his kingdom
+coming. In an awful transfiguration all things stand for what they are.
+Evil is seen to be evil, and good to be good. Right and wrong sunder
+more far apart, and we cannot mistake them as we do at other times. The
+debatable land stretching between them--that favorite resort of
+undecided natures--disappears for a season, and offers no longer its
+false refuge. The mind is taken away from all artificial supports, and
+the knowledge comes home to the soul afresh, with strong conviction that
+"truth is our only armor in all passages of life," as with awed hearts
+we see it is the only armor in the hour of death, the only shield that
+we may bear away with us into the unknown country.
+
+Charles shuddered involuntarily. His decision of the afternoon to keep
+secret what Raymond had told him was gradually but surely assuming a
+different aspect. What was it, after all, but a suppression of truth--a
+kind of lie? What was it but doing evil that good might come?
+
+It was no use harping on the old string of consequences. He saw that he
+had resolved to commit a deliberate sin, to be false to that great
+principle of life--right for the sake of right, truth for the love of
+truth--by which of late he had been trying to live. So far it had not
+been difficult, for his nature was not one to do things by halves, but
+now--
+
+Old voices out of the past, which he had thought long dead, rose out of
+forgotten graves to urge him on. What was he that he should stick at
+such a trifle? Why should a man with his past begin to split hairs?
+
+And conscience said nothing, only pointed, only showed, with a clearness
+that allowed of no mistake, that he had come to a place where two roads
+met.
+
+Charles's heart suffered then "the nature of an insurrection." The old
+lawless powers that had once held sway, and had been forced back into
+servitude under the new rule of the last few years of responsibility and
+honor, broke loose, and spread like wildfire throughout the kingdom of
+his heart.
+
+The struggle deepened to a battle fierce and furious. His soul was rent
+with a frenzy of tumult, of victory and defeat ever changing sides, ever
+returning to the attack.
+
+Can a kingdom divided against itself stand?
+
+He sat motionless, gazing with absent eyes in front of him.
+
+And across the shock of battle, and above the turmoil of conflicting
+passions, Ruth's voice came to him. He saw the pale spiritual face, the
+deep eyes so full of love and anguish, and yet so steadfast with a great
+resolve. He heard again her last words, "I cannot do what is wrong, even
+for you."
+
+He stretched out his hands suddenly.
+
+"You would not, Ruth," he said, half aloud; "you would not. Neither will
+I do what I know to be wrong for you, so help me God! not even for you."
+
+The dawn was breaking, was breaking clear and cold, and infinitely far
+away; was coming up through unfathomable depths and distances, through
+gleaming caverns and fastnesses of light, like a new revelation fresh
+from God. But Charles did not see it, for his head was down on the
+table, and he was crying like a child.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+
+Dare was down early the following morning, much too early for the
+convenience of the house-maids, who were dusting the drawing-room when
+he appeared there. He was usually as late as any of the young and gilded
+unemployed who feel it incumbent on themselves to show by these public
+demonstrations their superiority to the rules and fixed hours of the
+working and thinking world, with whom, however, their fear of being
+identified is a groundless apprehension. But to-day Dare experienced a
+mournful satisfaction in being down so early. He felt the underlying
+pathos of such a marked departure from his usual habits. It was obvious
+that nothing but deep affliction or cub-hunting could have been the
+cause, and the cub-hunting was over. The inference was not one that
+could be missed by the meanest capacity.
+
+He took up the newspaper with a sigh, and settled himself in front of
+the blazing fire, which was still young and leaping, with the enthusiasm
+of dry sticks not quite gone out of it.
+
+Charles heard Dare go down just as he finished dressing, for he too was
+early that morning. There was more than half an hour before
+breakfast-time. He considered a moment, and then went down-stairs. Some
+resolutions once made cannot be carried out too quickly.
+
+As he passed through the hall he looked out. The mist of the night
+before had sought out every twig and leaflet, and had silvered it to
+meet the sun. The rime on the grass looked cool and tempting. Charles's
+head ached, and he went out for a moment and stood in the crisp still
+air. The rooks were cawing high up. The face of the earth had not
+altered during the night. It shimmered and was glad, and smiled at his
+grave, care-worn face.
+
+"Hallo!" called a voice; and Ralph's head, with his hair sticking
+straight out on every side, was thrust out of a window. "I say, Charles,
+early bird you are!"
+
+"Yes," said Charles, looking up and leisurely going in-doors again; "you
+are the first worm I have seen."
+
+He found Dare, as he expected, in the drawing-room, and proceeded at
+once to the business he had in hand.
+
+"I am glad you are down early," he said. "You are the very man I want."
+
+"Ah!" replied Dare, shaking his head, "when the heart is troubled there
+is no sleep, none. All the clocks are heard."
+
+"Possibly. I should not wonder if you heard another in the course of
+half an hour, which will mean breakfast. In the mean time----"
+
+"I want no breakfast. A sole cup of----"
+
+"In the mean time," continued Charles, "I have some news for you." And,
+disregarding another interruption, he related as shortly as he could the
+story of Stephens's recognition of him in the door-way, and the
+subsequent revelations in the prison concerning Dare's marriage.
+
+"Where is this man, this Stephens?" said Dare, jumping up. "I will go to
+him. I will hear from his own mouth. Where is he?"
+
+"I don't know," replied Charles, curtly. "It is a matter of opinion. He
+is dead!"
+
+Dare looked bewildered, and then sank back with a gasp of disappointment
+into his chair.
+
+Charles, whose temper was singularly irritable this morning, repeated
+with suppressed annoyance the greater part of what he had just said, and
+proved to Dare that the fact that Stephens was dead would in no way
+prevent the illegality of his marriage being proved.
+
+When Dare had grasped the full significance of that fact he was quite
+overcome.
+
+"Am I, then," he gasped--"is it true?--am I free--to marry?"
+
+"Quite free."
+
+Dare burst into tears, and, partially veiling with one hand the manly
+emotion that had overtaken him, he extended the other to Charles, who
+did not know what to do with it when he had got it, and dropped it as
+soon as he could. But Dare, like many people whose feelings are all on
+the surface, and who are rather proud of displaying them, was slow to
+notice what was passing in the minds of others.
+
+He sprang to his feet, and began to pace rapidly up and down.
+
+"I will go after breakfast--at once--immediately after breakfast, to
+Slumberleigh Rectory."
+
+"I suppose, in that case, Miss Deyncourt is the person whose name you
+would not mention the other day?"
+
+"She is," said Dare. "You are right. It is she. We are betrothed. I will
+fly to her after breakfast."
+
+"You know your own affairs best," said Charles, whose temper had not
+been improved by the free display of Dare's finer feelings; "but I am
+not sure you would not do well to fly to Vandon first. It is best to be
+off with the old love, I believe, before you are on with the new."
+
+"She must at once go away from Vandon," said Dare, stopping short. "She
+is a scandal, the--the old one. But how to make her go away?"
+
+It was in vain for Charles to repeat that Dare must turn her out. Dare
+had premonitory feelings that he was quite unequal to the task.
+
+"I may tell her to go," he said, raising his eyebrows. "I may be firm as
+the rock, but I know her well; she is more obstinate than me. She will
+not go."
+
+"She must," said Charles, with anger. "Her presence compromises Miss
+Deyncourt. Can't you see that?"
+
+Dare raised his eyebrows. A light seemed to break in on him.
+
+"Any fool can see that," said Charles, losing his temper.
+
+Dare saw a great deal--many things besides that. He saw that if a
+friend, a trusted friend, were to manage her dismissal, it would be more
+easy for that friend than for one whose feelings at the moment might
+carry him away. In short, Charles was the friend who was evidently
+pointed out by Providence for that mission.
+
+Charles considered a moment. He began to see that it would not be done
+without further delays and scandal unless he did it.
+
+"She must and shall go at once, even if I have to do it," he said at
+last, looking at Dare with unconcealed contempt. "It is not my affair,
+but I will go, and you will be so good as to put off the flying over to
+Slumberleigh till I come back. I shall not return until she has left the
+house." And Charles marched out of the room, too indignant to trust
+himself a moment longer with the profusely grateful Dare.
+
+"That man must go to-day," said Evelyn, after breakfast, to her husband,
+in the presence of Lady Mary and Charles. "While he was ill I overlooked
+his being in the house; but I will not suffer him to remain now he is
+well."
+
+"You remove him from all chance of improvement," said Charles, "if you
+take him away from Aunt Mary, who can snatch brands from the burning, as
+we all know; but I am going over to Vandon this morning, and if you wish
+it I will ask him if he would like me to order his dog-cart to come for
+him. I don't suppose he is very happy here, without so much as a
+tooth-brush that he can call his own."
+
+"You are going to Vandon?" asked both ladies in one voice.
+
+"Yes. I am going on purpose to dislodge an impostor who has arrived
+there, who is actually believed by some people (who are not such
+exemplary Christians as ourselves, and ready to suppose the worst) to be
+his wife."
+
+Lady Mary and Evelyn looked at each other in consternation, and Charles
+went off to see how Othello was after his night's work, and to order the
+dog-cart, Ralph calling after him, in perfect good-humor, that "a
+fellow's brother got more out of a fellow's horses than a fellow did
+himself."
+
+Dare waylaid Charles on his return from the stables, and linked his arm
+in his. He felt the most enthusiastic admiration for the tall reserved
+Englishman who had done him such signal service. He longed for an
+opportunity of showing his gratitude to him. It was perhaps just as well
+that he was not aware how very differently Charles regarded himself.
+
+"You are just going?" Dare asked.
+
+"In five minutes."
+
+Charles let his arm hang straight down, but Dare kept it.
+
+"Tell me, my friend, one thing." Dare had evidently been turning over
+something in his mind. "This poor unfortunate, this Stephens, why did he
+not tell you all this the _first_ time you went to see him in the
+afternoon?"
+
+"He did."
+
+"What?" said Dare, looking hard at him. "He _did_, and you only tell me
+this morning! You let me go all through the night first. Why was this?"
+
+Charles did not answer.
+
+"I ask one thing more," continued Dare. "Did you divine two nights ago,
+from what I said in a moment of confidence, that Miss Deyncourt was
+the--the--"
+
+"Of course I did," said Charles, sharply. "You made it sufficiently
+obvious."
+
+"Ah!" said Dare. "Ah!" and he shut his eyes and nodded his head several
+times.
+
+"Anything more you would like to know?" asked Charles, inattentive and
+impatient, mainly occupied in trying to hide the nameless exasperation
+which invariably seized him when he looked at Dare, and to stifle the
+contemptuous voice which always whispered as he did so, "And you have
+given up Ruth to him--to _him_!"
+
+"No, no, no!" said Dare, shaking his head gently, and regarding him the
+while with infinite interest through his half-closed eyelids.
+
+The dog-cart was coming round, and Charles hastily turned from him, and,
+getting in, drove quickly away. Whatever Dare said or did seemed to set
+his teeth on edge, and he lashed up the horse till he was out of sight
+of the house.
+
+Dare, with arms picturesquely folded, stood looking after him with mixed
+feelings of emotion and admiration.
+
+"One sees it well," he said to himself. "One sees now the reason of many
+things. He kept silent at first, but he was too good, too noble. In the
+night he considered; in the morning he told all. I wondered that he went
+to Vandon; but he did it not for me. It was for her sake."
+
+Dare's feelings were touched to the quick.
+
+How beautiful! how pathetic was this _denouement_! His former admiration
+for Charles was increased a thousand-fold. _He also loved!_ Ah! (Dare
+felt he was becoming agitated.) How sublime, how touching was his
+self-sacrifice in the cause of honor! He had been gradually working
+himself up to the highest pitch of pleasurable excitement and emotion;
+and now, seeing Ralph the prosaic approaching, he fled precipitately
+into the house, caught up his hat and stick, hardly glancing at himself
+in the hall-glass, and, entirely forgetting his promise to Charles to
+remain at Atherstone till the latter returned from Vandon, followed the
+impulse of the moment, and struck across the fields in the direction of
+Slumberleigh.
+
+Charles, meanwhile, drove on to Vandon. The stable clock, still
+partially paralyzed from long disuse, was laboriously striking eleven as
+he drew up before the door. His resounding peal at the bell startled the
+household, and put the servants into a flutter of anxious expectation,
+while the sound made some one else, breakfasting late in the
+dining-room, pause with her cup midway to her lips and listen.
+
+"There is a train which leaves Slumberleigh station for London a little
+after twelve, is not there?" asked Charles, with great distinctness, of
+the butler as he entered the hall. He had observed as he came in that
+the dining-room door was ajar.
+
+"There is, Sir Charles. Twelve fifteen," replied the man, who recognized
+him instantly, for everybody knew Charles.
+
+"I am here as Mr. Dare's friend, at his wish. Tell Mr. Dare's coachman
+to bring round his dog-cart to the door in good time to catch that
+train. Will it take luggage?"
+
+"Yes, Sir Charles," with respectful alacrity.
+
+"Good! And when the dog-cart appears you will see that the boxes are
+brought down belonging to the person who is staying here, who will leave
+by that train."
+
+"Yes, Sir Charles."
+
+"If the policeman from Slumberleigh should arrive while I am here, ask
+him to wait."
+
+"I will, Sir Charles."
+
+"I don't suppose," thought Charles, "he will arrive, as I have not sent
+for him; but, as the dining-room door happens to be ajar, it is just as
+well to add a few artistic touches."
+
+"Is this person in the drawing-room?" he continued aloud.
+
+The man replied that she was in the dining-room, and Charles walked in
+unannounced, and closed the door behind him.
+
+He had at times, when any action of importance was on hand, a certain
+cool decision of manner that seemed absolutely to ignore the possibility
+of opposition, which formed a curious contrast with his usual careless
+demeanor.
+
+"Good-morning," he said, advancing to the fire. "I have no doubt that my
+appearance at this early hour cannot be a surprise to you. You have, of
+course, anticipated some visit of this kind for the last few days. Pray
+finish your coffee. I am Sir Charles Danvers. I need hardly add that I
+am justice of the peace in this county, and that I am here officially on
+behalf of my friend, Mr. Dare."
+
+The little woman, who had risen, and had then sat down again at his
+entrance, eyed him steadily. There was a look in her dark bead-like eyes
+which showed Charles why Dare had been unable to face her. The look,
+determined, cunning, watchful, put him on his guard, and his manner
+became a shade more unconcerned.
+
+"Any friend of my husband's is welcome," she said.
+
+"There is no question for the moment about your husband, though no doubt
+a subject of peculiar interest to yourself. I was speaking of Mr. Dare."
+
+She rose to her feet, as if unable to sit while he was standing.
+
+"Mr. Dare is my husband," she said, with a little gesture of defiance,
+tapping sharply on the table with a teaspoon she held in her hand.
+
+Charles smiled blandly, and looked out of the window.
+
+"There is evidently some misapprehension on that point," he observed,
+"which I am here to remove. Mr. Dare is at present unmarried."
+
+"I am his wife," reiterated the woman, her color rising under her rouge.
+"I am, and I won't go. He dared not come himself, a poor coward that he
+is, to turn his wife out-of-doors. He sent you; but it's no manner of
+use, so you may as well know it first as last. I tell you nothing shall
+induce me to stir from this house, from my home, and you needn't think
+you can come it over me with fine talk. I don't care a red cent what you
+say. I'll have my rights."
+
+"I am here," said Charles, "to see that you get them, Mrs.--_Carroll_."
+
+There was a pause. He did not look at her. He was occupied in taking a
+white thread off his coat.
+
+"Carroll's dead," she said, sharply.
+
+"He is. And your regret at his loss was no doubt deepened by the unhappy
+circumstances in which it took place. He died in jail."
+
+"Well, and if he did--"
+
+"Died," continued Charles, suddenly fixing his keen glance upon her,
+"nearly a year after your so-called marriage with Mr. Dare."
+
+"It's a lie," she said, faintly; but she had turned very white.
+
+"No, I _think_ not. My information is on reliable authority. A slight
+exertion of memory on your part will no doubt recall the date of your
+bereavement."
+
+"You can't prove it."
+
+"Excuse me. You have yourself kindly furnished us with a copy of the
+marriage register, with the date attached, without which I must own we
+might have been momentarily at a loss. I need now only apply for a copy
+of the register of the decease of Jasper Carroll, who, as you do not
+deny, died under personal restraint in jail; in Baton Rouge Jail in
+Louisiana, I have no doubt you intended to add."
+
+She glared at him in silence.
+
+"Some dates acquire a peculiar interest when compared," continued
+Charles, "but I will not detain you any longer with business details of
+this kind, as I have no doubt that you will wish to superintend your
+packing."
+
+"I won't go."
+
+"On the contrary, you will leave this house in half an hour. The
+dog-cart is ordered to take you to the station."
+
+"What if I refuse to go?"
+
+"Extreme measures are always to be regretted, especially with a lady,"
+said Charles. "Nothing, in short, would be more repugnant to me; but I
+fear, as a magistrate, it would be my duty to--" And he shrugged his
+shoulders, wondering what on earth could be done for the moment if she
+persisted. "But," he continued, "motives of self-interest suggest the
+advisability of withdrawing, even if I were not here to enforce it. When
+I take into consideration the trouble and expense you have incurred in
+coming here, and the subsequent disappointment of the affections, a
+widow's affections, I feel justified in offering, though without my
+friend's permission, to pay your journey back to America, an offer which
+any further unpleasantness or delay would of course oblige me to
+retract."
+
+She hesitated, and he saw his advantage and kept it.
+
+"You have not much time to lose," he said, laying his watch on the
+table, "unless you would prefer the house-keeper to do your packing for
+you. No? I agree with you. On a sea voyage especially, one likes to know
+where one's things are. If I give you a check for your return journey, I
+shall, of course, expect you to sign a paper to the effect that you have
+no claim on Mr. Dare, that you never were his legal wife, and that you
+will not trouble him in future. You would like a few moments for
+reflection? Good! I will write out the form while you consider, as there
+is no time to be lost."
+
+He looked about for writing materials, and, finding only an ancient
+inkstand and pen, took a note from his pocket-book and tore a blank
+half-sheet off it. His quiet deliberate movements awed her as he
+intended they should. She glanced first at him writing, then at the gold
+watch on the table between them, the hours of which were marked on the
+half-hunting face by alternate diamonds and rubies, each stone being the
+memorial of a past success in shooting-matches. The watch impressed her;
+to her practised eye it meant a very large sum of money, and she knew
+the power of money; but the cool, unconcerned manner of this tall,
+keen-eyed Englishman impressed her still more. As she looked at him he
+ceased writing, got out a check, and began to fill it in.
+
+"What Christian name?" he asked, suddenly.
+
+"Ellen," she replied, taken aback.
+
+"Payable to order or bearer?"
+
+"Bearer," she said, confused by the way he took her decision for
+granted.
+
+"Now," he said, authoritatively, "sign your name there;" and he pushed
+the form he had drawn up towards her. "I am sorry I cannot offer you a
+better pen."
+
+She took the pen mechanically and signed her name--_Ellen Carroll_.
+Charles's light eyes gave a flash as she did it.
+
+"Manner is everything," he said to himself. "I believe the mention of
+that imaginary policeman may have helped, but a little stage effect did
+the business."
+
+"Thank you," he said, taking the paper, and, after glancing at the
+signature, putting it in his pocket-book. "Allow me to give you
+this"--handing her the check. "And now I will ring for the house-keeper,
+for you will barely have time to make the arrangements for your journey.
+I can allow you only twenty minutes." He rang the bell as he spoke.
+
+She started up as if unaware how far she had yielded. A rush of angry
+color flooded her face.
+
+"I won't have that impertinent woman touching my things."
+
+"That is as you like," said Charles, shrugging his shoulders; "but she
+will be in the room when you pack. It is my wish that she should be
+present." Then turning to the butler, who had already answered the bell,
+"Desire the house-keeper to go to Mrs. Carroll's rooms at once, and to
+give Mrs. Carroll any help she may require."
+
+Mrs. Carroll looked from the butler to Charles with baffled hatred in
+her eyes. But she knew the game was lost, and she walked out of the room
+and up-stairs without another word, but with a bitter consciousness in
+her heart that she had not played her cards well, that, though her
+downfall was unavoidable, she might have stood out for better terms for
+her departure. She hated Dare, as she threw her clothes together into
+her trunks, and she hated Mrs. Smith, who watched her do so with folded
+hands and with a lofty smile; but most of all she hated Charles, whose
+voice came up to the open window as he talked to Dare's coachman,
+already at the door, about splints and sore backs.
+
+Charles felt a momentary pity for the little woman when she came down at
+last with compressed lips, casting lightning glances at the grinning
+servants in the background, whom she had bullied and hectored over in
+the manner of people unaccustomed to servants, and who were rejoicing in
+the ignominy of her downfall.
+
+Her boxes were put in--not carefully.
+
+Charles came forward and lifted his cap, but she would not look at him.
+Grasping a little hand-bag convulsively, she went down the steps, and
+got up, unassisted, into the dog-cart.
+
+"You have left nothing behind, I hope?" said Charles, civilly, for the
+sake of saying something.
+
+"She have left nothing," said Mrs. Smith, swimming forward with dignity,
+"and she have also took nothing. I have seen to that, Sir Charles."
+
+"Good-bye, then," said Charles. "Right, coachman."
+
+Mrs. Carroll's eyes had been wandering upward to the old house rising
+above her with its sunny windows and its pointed gables. Perhaps, after
+all the sordid shifts and schemes of her previous existence, she had
+imagined she might lead an easier and a more respectable life within
+those walls. Then she looked towards the long green terraces, the
+valley, and the forest beyond. Her lip trembled, and turning suddenly,
+she fixed her eyes with burning hatred on the man who had ousted her
+from this pleasant place.
+
+Then the coachman whipped up his horse, the dog-cart spun over the
+smooth gravel between the lines of stiff, clipped yews, and she was
+gone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+
+Mr. Alwynn had returned from his eventful morning call at Vandon very
+grave and silent. He shook his head when Ruth came to him in the study
+to ask what the result had been, and said Dare would tell her himself on
+his return from London, whither he had gone on business.
+
+Ruth went back to the drawing-room. She had not strength or energy to
+try to escape from Mrs. Alwynn. Indeed it was a relief not to be alone
+with her own thoughts, and to allow her exhausted mind to be towed along
+by Mrs. Alwynn's, the bent of whose mind resembled one of those
+mechanical toy animals which, when wound up, will run very fast in any
+direction, but if adroitly turned, will hurry equally fast the opposite
+way. Ruth turned the toy at intervals, and the morning was dragged
+through, Mrs. Alwynn in the course of it exploring every realm--known to
+her--of human thought, now dipping into the future, and speculating on
+spring fashions, now commenting on the present, now dwelling fondly on
+the past, the gayly dressed, officer-adorned past of her youth.
+
+There was a meal, and after that it was the afternoon. Ruth supposed
+that some time there would be another meal, and then it would be
+evening, but it was no good thinking of what was so far away. She
+brought her mind back to the present. Mrs. Alwynn had just finished a
+detailed account of a difference of opinion between herself and the
+curate's wife on the previous day.
+
+"And she had not a word to say, my dear, not a word--quite _hors de
+combat_--so I let the matter drop. And you remember that beautiful pig
+we killed last week? You should have gone to look at it hanging up,
+Ruth, rolling in fat, it was. Well, it is better to give than to
+receive, so I shall send her one of the pork-pies. And if you will get
+me one of those round baskets which I took the dolls down to the
+school-feast in--they are in the lowest shelf of the oak chest in the
+hall--I'll send it down to her at once."
+
+Ruth fetched the basket and put it down by her aunt. Reminiscences of
+the school-feast still remained in it, in the shape of ends of ribbon
+and lace, and Mrs. Alwynn began to empty them out, talking all the time,
+when she suddenly stopped short, with an exclamation of surprise.
+
+"Goodness! Well, now! I'm sure! Ruth!"
+
+"What is it, Aunt Fanny?"
+
+"Why, my dear, if there isn't a letter for you under the odds and ends,"
+holding it up and gazing resentfully at it; "and now I remember, a
+letter came for you on the morning of the school-feast, and I said to
+John, 'I sha'n't forward it, because I shall see Ruth this afternoon,'
+and, dear me! I just popped it into the basket, for I thought you would
+like to have it, and you know how busy I was, Ruth, that day, first one
+thing and then another, so much to think of--and--_there it is_."
+
+"I dare say it is of no importance," said Ruth, taking it from her,
+while Mrs. Alwynn, repeatedly wondering how such a thing could have
+happened to a person so careful as herself, went off with her basket to
+the cook.
+
+When she returned in a few minutes she found Ruth standing by the
+window, the letter open in her hand, her face without a vestige of
+color.
+
+"Why, Ruth," she said, actually noticing the alteration in her
+appearance, "is your head bad again?"
+
+Ruth started violently.
+
+"Yes--no. I mean--I think I will go out. The fresh air--"
+
+She could not finish the sentence.
+
+"And that tiresome letter--did it want an answer?"
+
+"None," said Ruth, crushing it up unconsciously.
+
+"Well, now," said Mrs. Alwynn, "that's a good thing, for I'm sure I
+shall never forget the way your uncle was in once, when I put a letter
+of his in my pocket to give him (it was a plum-colored silk, Ruth, done
+with gold beads in front), and then I went into mourning for my poor
+dear Uncle James--such an out-of-the-common person he was, Ruth, and
+such a beautiful talker--and it was not till six months later--niece's
+mourning, you know--that I had the dress on again--and a business I had
+to meet it, for all my gowns seem to shrink when they are put by--and I
+put my hand in the pocket, and--"
+
+But Ruth had disappeared.
+
+Mrs. Alwynn was perfectly certain at last that something must be wrong
+with her niece. Earlier in the day she had had a headache. Reasoning by
+analogy, she decided that Ruth must have eaten something at Mrs.
+Thursby's dinner-party which had disagreed with her. If any one was ill,
+she always attributed it to indigestion. If Mr. Alwynn coughed, or if
+she read in the papers that royalty had been unavoidably prevented
+attending some function at which its presence had been expected, she
+instantly put down both mishaps to the same cause; and when Mrs. Alwynn
+had come to a conclusion it was not her habit to keep it to herself.
+
+She told Lady Mary the exact state in which, reasoning always by
+analogy, she knew Ruth's health must be, when that lady drove over that
+afternoon in the hope of seeing Ruth, partly from curiosity, or, rather,
+a Christian anxiety respecting the welfare of others, and partly, too,
+from a real feeling of affection for Ruth herself. Mrs. Alwynn bored her
+intensely; but she sat on and on in the hope of Ruth's return, who had
+gone out, Mrs. Alwynn agreeing with every remark she made, and treating
+her with that pleased deference of manner which some middle-class
+people, not otherwise vulgar, invariably drop into in the presence of
+rank; a Scylla which is only one degree better than the Charybdis of
+would-be ease of manner into which others fall. If ever the enormous
+advantages of noble birth and ancient family, with all their attendant
+heirlooms and hereditary instincts of refinement, chivalrous feeling,
+and honor, become in future years a mark for scorn (as already they are
+a mark for the envy that calls itself scorn), it will be partly the
+fault of the vulgar adoration of the middle classes. Mrs. Alwynn being,
+as may possibly have already transpired in the course of this narrative,
+a middle-class woman herself, stuck to the hereditary instincts of _her_
+class with a vengeance, and when Ruth at last came in Lady Mary was
+thankful.
+
+Her cold, pale eyes lighted up a little as she greeted Ruth, and looked
+searchingly at her. She saw by the colorless lips and nervous
+contraction of the forehead, and by the bright, restless fever of the
+eyes that had formerly been so calm and clear, that something was
+amiss--terribly amiss.
+
+"I've been telling Lady Mary how poorly you've been, Ruth, ever since
+Mrs. Thursby's dinner-party," said Mrs. Alwynn, by way of opening the
+conversation.
+
+But in spite of so auspicious a beginning the conversation flagged. Lady
+Mary made a few conventional remarks to Ruth, which she answered, and
+Mrs. Alwynn also; but there was a constraint which every moment
+threatened a silence. Lady Mary proceeded to comment on the poaching
+affray of the previous night, and the arrest of a man who had been
+seriously injured; but at her mention of the subject Ruth became so
+silent, and Mrs. Alwynn so voluble, that she felt it was useless to stay
+any longer, and had to take her leave without a word with Ruth.
+
+"Something is wrong with that girl," she said to herself, as she drove
+back to Atherstone. "I know what it is. Charles has been behaving in his
+usual manner, and as there is no one else to point out to him how
+infamous such conduct is, I shall have to do it myself. Shameful! That
+charming, interesting girl! And yet, and yet, there was a look in her
+face more like some great anxiety than disappointment. If she had had a
+disappointment, I do not think she would have let any one see it. Those
+Deyncourts are all too proud to show their feelings, though they have
+got them, too, somewhere. Perhaps, on the whole, considering how
+excessively disagreeable and scriptural Charles can be, and what
+unexpected turns he can give to things, I had better say nothing to him
+at present."
+
+The moment Lady Mary had left the house, Ruth hurried to her uncle's
+study. He was not there. He had not yet come in. She gave a gesture of
+despair, and flung herself down in the old leather chair opposite to his
+own, on which many a one had sat who had come to him for help or
+consolation. All the buttons had been gradually worn off that chair by
+restless or heavy visitors. Some had been lost, but others--the greater
+part, I am glad to say--Mr. Alwynn had found and had deposited in a
+Sevres cup on the mantle-piece, till the wet afternoon should come when
+he and his long packing-needle should restore them to their home.
+
+The room was very quiet. On the mantle-piece the little conscientious
+silver clock ticked, orderly, gently (till Ruth could hardly bear the
+sound), then hesitated, and struck a soft, low tone. She started to her
+feet, and paced up and down, up and down. Would he never come in? She
+dared not go out to look for him for fear of missing him. Why did not he
+come back when she wanted him so terribly? She sat down again. She
+tried to be patient. It was no good. Would he never come?
+
+She heard a sound, rushed out to meet him in the passage, and pulled him
+into the study.
+
+"Uncle John," she gasped, holding out a letter in her shaking hand.
+"That man who was taken up last night was--Raymond. He is in prison. He
+is ill. Let us go to him," and she explained as best she could that a
+letter had only just been found written to her by Raymond in July,
+warning her he was in the neighborhood of Arleigh, near the old nurse's
+cottage, and that she might see him at any moment, and must have money
+in readiness. The instant she had read the letter she rushed up to
+Arleigh, to see her old nurse, and met her coming down, in great
+agitation, to tell her that Raymond, whom she had shielded once before
+under promise of secrecy, had been arrested the night before.
+
+In a quarter of an hour Mr. Alwynn and Ruth were driving swiftly through
+the dusk, in a close carriage, in the direction of D----. On their way
+they met a dog-cart driving as quickly in the opposite direction which
+grazed their wheel as it passed; and Ruth, looking out, caught a
+glimpse, by the flash of their lamps, of Charles's face, with a look
+upon it so fierce and haggard that she shivered in nameless foreboding
+of evil, wondering what could have happened to make him look like that.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+
+It was still early on the following morning that Dare, forgetting, as we
+have seen, his promise to Charles, arrived at Slumberleigh Rectory--so
+early that Mrs. Alwynn was still ordering dinner, or, in other words,
+was dashing from larder to scullery, from kitchen to dairy, with her
+usual energy. He was shown into the empty drawing-room, where, after
+pacing up and down, he was reduced to the society of a photograph album,
+which, in his present excited condition, could do little to soothe the
+tumult of his mind. Not that any discredit should be thrown on Mrs.
+Alwynn's album, a gorgeous concern with a golden "Fanny" embossed on it,
+which afforded her infinite satisfaction, inside which her friends'
+portraits appeared to the greatest advantage, surrounded by birds and
+nests and blossoms of the most vivid and life-like coloring. Mr. Alwynn
+was encompassed on every side by kingfishers and elaborate bone nests,
+while Ruth's clear-cut face looked out from among long-tailed tomtits,
+arranged one on each side of a nest crowded with eggs, on which a strong
+light had been thrown.
+
+Dare was still looking at Ruth's photograph, when Mr. Alwynn came in.
+
+"Do you wish to speak to Ruth?" he asked, gravely.
+
+"Now, at once." Dare was surprised that Mr. Alwynn, with whom he had
+been so open, should be so cold and unsympathetic in manner. The
+alteration and alienation of friends is certainly one of the saddest and
+most inexplicable experiences of this vale of tears.
+
+"You will find her in the study," continued Mr. Alwynn. "She is
+expecting you. I have told her nothing, according to your wish. I hope
+you will explain everything to her in full, that you will keep nothing
+back."
+
+"I will explain," said Dare; and he went, trembling with excitement,
+into the study. Fired by Charles's example, he had made a sublime
+resolve as he skimmed across the fields, made it in a hurry, in a moment
+of ecstasy, as all his resolutions were made. He felt he had never acted
+such a noble part before. He only feared the agitation of the moment
+might prevent him doing himself justice.
+
+Ruth rose as he came in, but did not speak. A swift spasm passed over
+her face, leaving it very stern, very fixed, as he had never seen it, as
+he had never thought of seeing it. An overwhelming suspense burned in
+the dark, lustreless eyes which met his own. He felt awed.
+
+"Well?" she said, pressing her hands together, and speaking in a low
+voice.
+
+"Ruth," said Dare, solemnly, laying his outspread hand upon his breast
+and then extending it in the air, "I am free."
+
+Ruth's eyes watched him like one in torture.
+
+"How?" she said, speaking with difficulty. "You said you were free
+before."
+
+"Ah!" replied Dare, raising his forefinger, "I said so, but it was an
+error. I go to Vandon, and she will not go away. I go to London to my
+lawyer, and he says she is my wife."
+
+"You told me she was not."
+
+"It was an error," repeated Dare. "I had formerly been a husband to her,
+but we had been divorced; it was finished, wound up, and I thought she
+was no more my wife. There is in the English law something extraordinary
+which I do not comprehend, which makes an American divorce to remain a
+marriage in England."
+
+"Go on," said Ruth, shading her eyes with her hand.
+
+"I come back to Vandon," continued Dare, in a suppressed voice, "I come
+back overwhelmed, broken down, crushed under feet; and then,"--he was
+becoming dramatic, he felt the fire kindling--"I meet a friend, a noble
+heart, I confide in him. I tell all to Sir Charles Danvers,"--Ruth's
+hand was trembling--"and last night he finds out by a chance that she
+was not a true widow when I marry her, that her first husband was yet
+alive, that I am free. This morning he tells me all, and I am here."
+
+Ruth pressed her hands before her face, and fairly burst into tears.
+
+He looked at her in astonishment. He was surprised that she had any
+feelings. Never having shown them to the public in general, like
+himself, he had supposed she was entirely devoid of them. She now
+appeared quite _emue_. She was sobbing passionately. Tears came into his
+own eyes as he watched her, and then a light dawned upon him for the
+second time that day. Those tears were not for him. He folded his arms
+and waited. How suggestive in itself is a noble attitude!
+
+After a few minutes Ruth overcame her tears with a great effort, and,
+raising her head, looked at him, as if she expected him to speak. The
+suspense was gone out of her dimmed eyes, the tension of her face was
+relaxed.
+
+"I am free," repeated Dare, "and I have your promise that if I am free
+you will still marry me."
+
+Ruth looked up with a pained but resolute expression, and she would have
+spoken if he had not stopped her by a gesture.
+
+"I have your promise," he repeated. "I tell my friend, Sir Charles
+Danvers, I have it. He also loves. He does not tell me so; he is not
+open with me, as I with him, but I see his heart. And yet--figure to
+yourself--he has but to keep silence, and I must go away, I must give up
+all. I am still married--_Ou!_--while he--But he is noble, he is
+sublime. He sacrifices love on the altar of honor, of truth. He tells
+all to me, his rival. He shows me I am free. He thinks I do not know his
+heart. But it is not only he who can be noble." (Dare smote himself upon
+the breast.) "I also can lay my heart upon the altar. Ruth,"--with great
+solemnity--"do you love him even as he loves you?"
+
+There was a moment's pause.
+
+"I do," she said, firmly, "with my whole heart."
+
+"I knew it. I divined it. I sacrifice myself. I give you back your
+promise. I say farewell, and voyage in the distance. I return no more to
+Vandon. There is no longer a home for me in England. I leave only behind
+with you the poor heart you have possessed so long!"
+
+Dare was so much affected by the beauty of this last sentence that he
+could say no more, but even at that moment, as he glanced at Ruth to see
+what effect his eloquence had upon her, she looked so pallid and thin
+(her beauty was so entirely eclipsed) that the sacrifice did not seem
+quite so overwhelming, after all.
+
+She struggled to speak, but words failed her.
+
+He took her hands and kissed them, pressed them to his heart (it was a
+pity there was no one there to see), endeavored to say something more,
+and then rushed out of the room.
+
+She stood like one stunned after he had left her. She saw him a moment
+later cross the garden, and flee away across the fields. She knew she
+had seen that gray figure and jaunty gray hat for the last time; but she
+hardly thought of him. She felt she might be sorry for him presently,
+but not now.
+
+The suspense was over. The sense of relief was too overwhelming to admit
+of any other feeling at first. She dropped on her knees beside the
+writing-table, and locked her hands together.
+
+"_He told_," she whispered to herself. "Thank God! Thank God!"
+
+Two happy tears dropped onto Mr. Alwynn's old leather blotting-book,
+that worn cradle of many sermons.
+
+Was this the same world? Was this the same sun which was shining in upon
+her? What new songs were the birds practising outside? A strange
+wonderful joy seemed to pervade the very air she breathed, to flood her
+inmost soul. She had faced her troubles fairly well, but at this new
+great happiness she did not dare to look; and with a sudden involuntary
+gesture she hid her face in her hands.
+
+It would be rash to speculate too deeply on the nature of Dare's
+reflections as he hurried back to Atherstone; but perhaps, under the
+very real pang of parting with Ruth, he was sustained by a sense of the
+magnanimity of what, had he put it into words, he would have called his
+attitude, and possibly also by a lurking conviction, which had assisted
+his determination to resign her that life at Vandon, after the episode
+of the American wife's arrival, would be a social impossibility,
+especially to one anxious and suited to shine in society. Be that how it
+may, whatever had happened to influence him most of the chance emotion
+of the moment, it would be tolerably certain that in a few hours he
+would be sorry for what he had done. He was still, however, in a state
+of mental exaltation when he reached Atherstone, and began fumbling
+nervously with the garden-gate. Charles, who had been stalking up and
+down the bowling-green, went slowly towards him.
+
+"What on earth do you mean by going off in that way?" he asked, coldly.
+
+"Ah!" said Dare, perceiving him, "and she--the--is she gone?"
+
+"Yes, half an hour ago. Your dog-cart has come back from taking her to
+the station, and is here now."
+
+Dare nodded his head several times, and stood looking at him.
+
+"I have been to Slumberleigh," he said.
+
+"Yes, contrary to agreement."
+
+"My friend," Dare said, seizing the friend's limp, unresponsive hand and
+pressing it, "I know now why you keep silence last night. I reason with
+myself. I see you love her. Do not turn away. I have seen her. I have
+given her back her promise. I give her up to you whom she loves; and
+now--I go away, not to return."
+
+And then, in the full view of the Atherstone windows, of the butler, and
+of the dog-cart at the front door, Dare embraced him, kissing the
+blushing and disconcerted Charles on both cheeks. Then, in a moment,
+before the latter had recovered his self-possession, Dare had darted to
+the dog-cart, and was driving away.
+
+Charles looked after him in mixed annoyance and astonishment, until he
+noticed the butler's eye upon him, when he hastily retreated, with a
+heightened complexion, to the shrubberies.
+
+
+
+
+CONCLUSION.
+
+
+It was the last day of October, about a week after a certain very quiet
+little funeral had taken place in the D---- Cemetery. The death of
+Raymond Deyncourt had appeared in the papers a day or two afterwards,
+without mention of date or place, and it was generally supposed that it
+had taken place some considerable time previously, without the knowledge
+of his friends.
+
+Charles had been sitting for a long time with Mr. Alwynn, and after he
+left the rectory he took the path over the fields in the direction of
+the Slumberleigh woods.
+
+The low sun was shining redly through a golden haze, was sending long
+burning shafts across the glade where Charles was pacing. He sat down at
+last upon a fallen tree to wait for one who should presently come by
+that way.
+
+It was a still, clear afternoon, with a solemn stillness that speaks of
+coming change. Winter was at hand, and the woods were transfigured with
+a passing glory, like the faces of those who depart in peace when death
+draws nigh.
+
+Far and wide in the forest the bracken was all aflame--aflame beneath
+the glowing trees. The great beeches had turned to bronze and ruddy
+gold, and had strewed the path with carpets glorious and rare, which the
+first wind would sweep away. Upon the limes the amber leaves still hung,
+faint yet loath to go, but the horse-chestnut had already dropped its
+garment of green and yellow at its feet.
+
+A young robin was singing at intervals in the silence, telling how the
+secrets of the nests had been laid bare, singing a requiem on the dying
+leaves and the widowed branches, a song new to him, but with the old
+plaintive rapture in it that his fathers had been taught before him
+since the world began.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She came towards him down the yellow glade through the sunshine and the
+shadow, with a spray of briony in her hand. Neither spoke. She put her
+hands into the hands that were held out for them, and their eyes met,
+grave and steadfast, with the light in them of an unalterable love. So
+long they had looked at each other across a gulf. So long they had stood
+apart. And now, at last--at last--they were together. He drew her close
+and closer yet. They had no words. There was no need of words. And in
+the silence of the hushed woods, and in the silence of a joy too deep
+for speech, the robin's song came sweet and sad.
+
+"Charles!"
+
+"Ruth!"
+
+"I should like to tell you something."
+
+"And I should like to hear it."
+
+"I know what Raymond told you to conceal. I went to him just after you
+did. We passed you coming back. He did not know me at first. He thought
+I was you, and he kept repeating that you must keep your own counsel,
+and that, unless you showed Mr. Dare's marriage was illegal, he would
+never find it out. At last, when he suddenly recognized me, he seemed
+horror-struck, and the doctor came in and sent me away."
+
+Charles knew now why Raymond had sent for him the second time.
+
+There was a long pause.
+
+"Ruth, did you think I should tell?"
+
+"I hoped and prayed you would, but I knew it would be hard, because I do
+believe you actually thought at the time I should still consider it my
+duty to marry Mr. Dare. I never should have done such a thing after what
+had happened. I was just going to tell him so when he began to give me
+up, and it evidently gave him so much pleasure to renounce me nobly in
+your favor that I let him have it his own way, as the result was the
+same. My great dread, until he came, was that you had not spoken. I had
+been expecting him all the previous evening. Oh, Charles, Charles! I
+waited and watched for his coming as I had never done before. Your
+silence was the only thing I feared, because it was the only thing that
+could have come between us."
+
+"God forgive me! I meant at first to say nothing."
+
+"Only at first," said Ruth, gently; and they walked on in silence.
+
+The sun had set. A slender moon had climbed unnoticed into the southern
+sky amid the shafts of paling fire which stretched out across the whole
+heaven from the burning fiery furnace in the west. Across the gray dim
+fields voices were calling the cattle home.
+
+Charles spoke again at last in his usual tone.
+
+"You quite understand, Ruth, though I have not mentioned it so far, that
+you are engaged to marry me?"
+
+"I do. I will make a note of it if you wish."
+
+"It is unnecessary. I shall be happy, when I am at leisure to remind you
+myself. Indeed, I may say I shall make a point of doing so. There does
+not happen to be any one else whom you feel it would be your duty to
+marry?"
+
+"I can't think of any one at the moment. Charles, you never _could_ have
+believed I would marry _him_, after all?"
+
+"Indeed, I did believe it. Don't I know the stubbornness of your heart?
+You see, you are but young, and I make excuses for you; but, after you
+have been the object of my special and judicious training for a few
+years, I quite hope your judgment may improve considerably."
+
+"I trust it will, as I see from your remarks--it will certainly be all
+we shall have to guide us both."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+POSTSCRIPT.--Lady Mary would not allow even Providence any of the credit
+of Charles's engagement; she claimed the whole herself. She called
+Evelyn to witness that from the first it had been her work entirely. She
+only allowed Charles himself a very secondary part in the great event,
+to which she was apt to point in later years as the crowning work of a
+life devoted--under Church direction--to the temporal and spiritual
+welfare of her fellow-creatures; and Charles avers that a mention of it
+in the long list of her virtues will some day adorn the tombstone which
+she has long since ordered to be in readiness.
+
+Molly was disconsolate for many days, but work, that panacea of grief,
+came to the rescue, and it was not long before she was secretly and
+busily engaged on a large kettle-holder, with kettle and motto entwined,
+for Charles's exclusive use, without which she had been led to
+understand his establishment would be incomplete. When this work of art
+was finished her feelings had become so far modified towards Ruth that
+she consented to begin another very small and inferior one--merely a
+kettle on a red ground--for that interloper, but whether it was ever
+presented is not on record.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Vandon is to let. The grass has grown up again through the niches of the
+stone steps. The place looks wild and deserted. Mr. Alwynn comes
+sometimes, and looks up at its shuttered windows and trailing, neglected
+ivy, but not often, for it gives him a strange pang at the heart. And as
+he goes home the people come out of the dilapidated cottages, and ask
+wistfully when the new squire is coming back.
+
+But Mr. Alwynn does not know.
+
+
+  THE END.
+
+
+ *       *       *       *       *
+
+TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS CORRECTED
+
+The following typographical errors in the text were corrected as
+detailed here.
+
+In the text: " ... Mrs. Alwynn had the delight of taking her completely
+..." the word "competely" was corrected to "completely."
+
+In the text: "You evidently imagine that I have gone in for the
+fashionable creed of the young man" the word "fashionble" was corrected
+to "fashionable."
+
+In the text: "Molly, tired of her castles, suggested that she might sit
+on his knee," the word "hnee" was corrected to "knee."
+
+In the text: " ... Molly has formed a habit of expressing herself with
+unnecessary freedom." the word "Mary" was changed to "Molly."
+
+In the text: " ... as it reached the steps a shrill voice suddenly
+called" the word "suddedly" was corrected to "suddenly."
+
+In the text: "I considered her to be a pink-and-white nonentity... " the
+word "nonenity" was corrected to "nonentity."
+
+In the text: " ... pressing invitation to to come down... " the word
+"to" is repeated and one instance was removed.
+
+Misspelt proper names were also corrected: "Thurshy" was corrected to
+"Thursby," "Alywnn" was corrected to "Alwynn," and "Eveyln" was
+corrected to "Evelyn."
+
+Some punctuation was also regularized.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+BY LAFCADIO HEARN.
+
+TWO YEARS IN THE FRENCH WEST INDIES. By LAFCADIO HEARN. pp. 517.
+Copiously Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth. $2 00.
+
+THE CRIME OF SYLVESTRE BONNARD. By ANATOLE FRANCE. The Translation and
+Introduction by LAFCADIO HEARN. 8vo, Paper, 50 cents.
+
+CHITA: A Memory of Last Island. By LAFCADIO HEARN. pp. vi., 204. Post
+8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 00.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To such as are unfamiliar with Mr. Hearn's writings, "Chita" will be a
+revelation of how near language can approach the realistic power of
+actual painting. His very words seem to have color--his pages glow--his
+book is a kaleidoscope.--_N.Y. Mail and Express._
+
+A powerful story, rich in descriptive passages.... The tale is a tragic
+one, but it shows remarkable imaginative force, and is one that will not
+soon be forgotten by the reader.--_Saturday Evening Gazette_, Boston.
+
+Lafcadio Hearn's exquisite story.... A tale full of poetry and vivid
+description that nobody will want to miss.--_N.Y. Sun._
+
+A pathetic little tale, simple but deeply touching, and told with the
+beauty of phrasing and the deep and subtle sympathy of the
+poet.--_Chicago Times._
+
+There is no page--no paragraph even--but holds more of vital quality
+than would suffice to set up an ordinary volume.--_The Epoch_, N.Y.
+
+... A wonderfully sustained effort in imaginative prose, full of the
+glamour and opulent color of the tropics and yet strong with the salt
+breath of the sea.--_San Francisco Chronicle._
+
+Mr. Hearn is a poet, and in "Chita" he has produced a prose poem of much
+beauty.... His style is tropical, full of glow and swift movement and
+vivid impressions, reflecting strong love and keen sympathetic
+observation of nature, picturesque and flexible, luxuriant in imagery,
+and marked by a delicate perception of effective values.--_N.Y.
+Tribune._
+
+In the too few pages of this wonderful little book tropical Nature finds
+a living voice and a speech by which she can make herself known. All the
+splendor of her skies and the terrors of her seas make to themselves a
+language. So living a book has scarcely been given to our
+generation.--_Boston Transcript._
+
+
+PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK.
+
+_The above works sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the
+United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price._
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+THE ODD NUMBER.
+
+Thirteen Tales by GUY DE MAUPASSANT. The Translation by JONATHAN
+STURGES. An Introduction by HENRY JAMES. pp. xviii., 226. 16mo, Cloth,
+Ornamental, $1 00.
+
+
+The tales included in "The Odd Number" are little masterpieces, and done
+into very clear, sweet, simple English.--WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS.
+
+There is a charming individuality in each of these fascinating little
+tales; something elusive and subtle in every one, something quaint or
+surprising, which catches the fancy and gives a sense of satisfaction
+like that felt when one discovers a rare flower in an unexpected place.
+I predict that "The Odd Number" will soon be found lying in the corner
+of the sofa or on the table in the drawing-rooms of cultivated women
+everywhere.--MARGARET E. SANGSTER.
+
+Masterpieces.... Nothing can exceed the masculine firmness, the quiet
+force, of his own style, in which every phrase is a close sequence,
+every epithet a paying piece, and the ground is completely cleared of
+the vague, the ready-made, and the second-best. Less than any one to-day
+does he beat the air, more than any one does he hit out from the
+shoulder.... He came into the literary world, as he has himself related,
+under the protection of the great Flaubert. This was but a dozen years
+ago--for Guy de Maupassant belongs, among the distinguished Frenchmen of
+his period, to the new generation.--HENRY JAMES.
+
+As a rule I do not take kindly to translations. They are apt to resemble
+the originals as canned or dried fruits resemble fresh. But Mr. Sturges
+has preserved flavor and juices in this collection. Each story is a
+delight. Some are piquant, some pathetic--all are fascinating.--MARION
+HARLAND.
+
+What pure and powerful outlines, what lightness of stroke, and what
+precision; what relentless truth, and yet what charm! "The Beggar," "La
+Mere Sauvage," "The Wolf," grim as if they had dropped out of the
+mediaeval mind; "The Necklace," with its applied pessimism; the
+tremendous fire and strength of "A Coward"; the miracle of splendor in
+"Moonlight"; the absolute perfection of a short story in
+"Happiness"--how various the view, how daring the touch! What freshness,
+what invention, and what wit! They are beautiful and heart-breaking
+little masterpieces, and "The Odd Number" makes one feel that Guy de
+Maupassant lays his hand upon the sceptre which only Daudet
+holds.--HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD.
+
+
+PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK.
+
+_The above work sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the United
+States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price._
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+MARIA:
+
+A South American Romance. By JORGE ISAACS. Translated by ROLLO OGDEN. An
+Introduction by THOMAS A. JANVIER. pp. xvi., 302. 16mo, Cloth,
+Ornamental, $1 00. (_The Odd Number Series._)
+
+The great forests of cotton-wood, palms, and other tropical plants, the
+almost impassable rivers, the rich flowers which seem to spread their
+fragrance over every page, make a fascinating background to a story of
+tender sentiment.--_Boston Journal._
+
+Jorge Isaacs has given such a picture of home life, and of pure, almost
+ideal love in a Spanish American home, as to prove him a poetical genius
+and certainly a most charming romancer.... Simple and unaffected in
+style, yet with a sublime pathos, it is without doubt worthy to be
+ranked with "Paul and Virginia" among the classics.--_Presbyterian
+Banner_, Pittsburg.
+
+A treasure in romance which should at once take a well-deserved place in
+the front rank of modern fiction.--_North American_, Phila.
+
+It bears all the evidence of truthful portrayal of the Spanish American
+home, and the story is told so pleasingly and ingeniously as to make the
+chapters delightful.--_Chicago Inter-Ocean._
+
+Distinguished by a freshness and simplicity which recall some of the
+French sentimental novelists of the eighteenth century, and especially
+Bernardin St. Pierre.--_N.Y. Tribune._
+
+No novel reader will fail to read this beautiful story, which should
+find its way wherever the beautiful and the pure in literature are
+respected and loved.--_Catholic Review_, N.Y.
+
+The charm of the book is its simplicity and purity.... The author is a
+literary artist; his style is clear and winning, his thought
+stimulating, his purpose healthful. The story of love is told with much
+sweetness and pathos, while the descriptive passages display singular
+strength and sympathy for nature.--_Jewish Messenger_, N.Y.
+
+"Maria" is read and admired through all of South America. It would be
+difficult to find an educated South American who is not familiar with
+this idyllic story.--Judge JOSE ALFONSO, Chilian Delegate to the
+Pan-American Congress.
+
+_Maria: Novela Americana_ is one of the most charming stories I have
+ever read, and worthy the leading author of any country.--W.H. BISHOP,
+in _Scribner's Magazine._
+
+Aside altogether from the broad glimpses it gives of a life whereof we
+Northern Americans know absolutely nothing, it is a beautiful story, sad
+in its ending, but free from any tinge of coarseness or sensationalism,
+pure, sweet, warm with human love and tenderness.--_Chicago Times._
+
+
+PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK.
+
+_The above work will be sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of
+the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price._
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+BY CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER.
+
+
+A LITTLE JOURNEY IN THE WORLD. A Novel. pp. iv., 396. Post 8vo, Half
+Leather, $1 50.
+
+
+STUDIES IN THE SOUTH AND WEST, with Comments on Canada. pp. iv., 484.
+Post 8vo, Half Leather, $1 75.
+
+A witty, instructive book, as brilliant in its pictures as it is warm in
+its kindness; and we feel sure that it is with a patriotic impulse that
+we say that we shall be glad to learn that the number of its readers
+bears some proportion to its merits and its power for good.--_N.Y.
+Commercial Advertiser._
+
+Sketches made from studies of the country and the people upon the
+ground.... They are the opinions of a man and a scholar without
+prejudices, and only anxious to state the facts as they were.... When
+told in the pleasant and instructive way of Mr. Warner the studies are
+as delightful as they are instructive.--_Chicago Inter-Ocean._
+
+Perhaps the most accurate and graphic account of these portions of the
+country that has appeared, taken all in all.... It is a book most
+charming--a book that no American can fail to enjoy, appreciate, and
+highly prize.--_Boston Traveller._
+
+
+THEIR PILGRIMAGE. Richly Illustrated by C.S. REINHART. pp. viii., 364.
+Post 8vo, Half Leather, $2 00.
+
+Mr. Warner's pen-pictures of the characters typical of each resort, of
+the manner of life followed at each, of the humor and absurdities
+peculiar to Saratoga, or Newport, or Bar Harbor, as the case may be, are
+as good-natured as they are clever. The satire, when there is any, is of
+the mildest, and the general tone is that of one glad to look on the
+brightest side of the cheerful, pleasure-seeking world with which he
+mingles.--_Christian Union, N.Y._
+
+Mr. Reinhart's spirited and realistic illustrations are very attractive,
+and contribute to make an unusually handsome book. We have already
+commented upon the earlier chapters of the text; and the happy blending
+of travel and fiction which we looked forward to with confidence did, in
+fact, distinguish this story among the serials of the year.--_N.Y.
+Evening Post._
+
+
+PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK.
+
+_Any of the above works sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of
+the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price._
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+BY W.D. HOWELLS.
+
+A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. Illustrated. 8vo, Paper, 75 cents; 12mo,
+Cloth, 2 vols., $2 00.
+
+MODERN ITALIAN POETS. Essays and Versions. With Portraits. 12mo, Half
+Cloth, $2 00.
+
+A portfolio of delightsome studies among the Italian poets; musings in a
+golden granary full to the brim with good things.... We venture to say
+that no acute and penetrating critic surpasses Mr. Howells in true
+insight, in polished irony, in effective and yet graceful treatment of
+his theme, in that light and indescribable touch that lifts you over a
+whole sea of froth and foam, and fixes your eye, not on the froth and
+foam, but on the solid objects, the true heart and soul of the
+theme.--_Critic_, N.Y.
+
+
+ANNIE KILBURN. 12mo, Cloth, $1 50.
+
+Mr. Howells has certainly never given us in one novel so many portraits
+of intrinsic interest. Annie Kilburn herself is a masterpiece of quietly
+veracious art--the art which depends for its effect on unswerving
+fidelity to the truth of Nature.... It certainly seems to us the very
+best book that Mr. Howells has written.--_Spectator_, London.
+
+
+APRIL HOPES. 12mo, Cloth, $1 50.
+
+Mr. Howells never wrote a more bewitching book. It is useless to deny
+the rarity and worth of the skill that can report so perfectly and with
+such exquisite humor all the fugacious and manifold emotions of the
+modern maiden and her lover.--_Philadelphia Press._
+
+
+THE MOUSE-TRAP, and Other Farces. Post 8vo, Cloth, $1 00.
+
+Mr. Howells's gift of lively appreciation of the humors that lie on the
+surface of conduct and conversation, and his skill in reproducing them
+in literary form, make him peculiarly successful in his attempts at
+graceful, delicately humorous dialogue.... He can make his characters
+talk delightful badinage, or he can make them talk so characteristically
+as to fill the reader with silent laughter over their complete
+unconsciousness of their own absurdity.--_Boston Advertiser._
+
+
+PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK.
+
+_Any of the above works sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of
+the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price._
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+STEPNIAK'S WORKS.
+
+
+THE CAREER OF A NIHILIST. A Novel. 16mo, Cloth, 75 cents.
+
+THE RUSSIAN PEASANTRY: Their Agrarian Condition, Social Life, and
+Religion. 16mo, Cloth, $1 25.
+
+All thinking and disinterested people for whom Russia has an interest
+should read this volume not only for Russia's sake, but for our
+own.--_N.Y. Times._
+
+An absorbingly interesting volume.... Stepniak deserves the gratitude of
+his country and all mankind for painting Russian life as it is, and
+pointing out a practicable solution of its worst distresses.--_Literary
+World_, Boston.
+
+Altogether Stepniak's best book.--_St. James's Gazette_, London.
+
+A deeply interesting study of a subject full of strange new
+elements.--_N.Y. Tribune._
+
+For the student of Russia the book is invaluable. It contains more
+information, and gives us a better insight into the economic and
+domestic conditions of life among the peasants, and in Russia generally,
+than in any other book we know.--_The Academy_, London.
+
+
+RUSSIA UNDER THE TZARS. Illustrated. 4to, Paper, 20 cents.
+
+The book is very bold and very brilliant; it rests very largely on the
+author's personal experience, and no student of Russia should leave it
+unread or unnoticed.--_Boston Beacon._
+
+A graphic and startling picture of the despotism that rules the
+Muscovite nation, drawn by the pen of one of the ablest and most
+pronounced Nihilists of the day.--_Chicago Journal._
+
+
+THE RUSSIAN STORM-CLOUD; or, Russia in Her Relation to Neighboring
+Countries. 4to, Paper, 20 cts.
+
+The author writes with a calmness and precision not generally associated
+with the class of revolutionists to which he belongs.--_N.Y. Sun._
+
+Stepniak gives a comprehensive view of the matter which he discusses,
+and his work is valuable as furnishing "the true inwardness" of affairs
+in the empire of the Tzar.--_Christian Advocate_, Cincinnati.
+
+
+PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK.
+
+_Any of the above works sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of
+the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+SEBASTOPOL.
+
+By Count LEO TOLSTOI. Translated by F.D. MILLET from the French (_Scenes
+du Siege de Sebastopol_). With Introduction by W.D. HOWELLS. With
+Portrait. 16mo, Cloth, 75 cents.
+
+In his Sebastopol sketches Tolstoi is at his best, and perhaps no more
+striking example of his manner and form can be found.--_N.Y. Tribune._
+
+There is much strong writing in the book; indeed, it is strength itself,
+and there is much tenderness as well.--_Boston Traveller._
+
+Its workmanship is superb, and morally its influence should be
+immense.--_Boston Herald._
+
+It carries us from the shams of society to the realities of war, and
+sets before us with a graphic power and minuteness the inner life of
+that great struggle in which Count Tolstoi took part.... A thrilling
+tale of besieged Sebastopol. All is intensely real, intensely life-like,
+and doubly striking from its very simplicity. We have before our eyes
+war as it really is.--_N.Y. Times._
+
+The various incidents of the siege which he selects in order to present
+it in its different aspects form a graphic whole which can never be
+forgotten by any one who has once read it, and it must be read to be
+appreciated.--_Nation_, N.Y.
+
+The descriptions, it is needless to say, are masterly. No novelist has
+ever before succeeded in thus depicting the emotions and utterances of
+the soldier in battle.--_Boston Beacon._
+
+A powerful appeal against warfare, written in that wonderful style which
+lends life and character to the most trivial incidents he describes. It
+is a fascinating book, and one of its chief merits is the introspective
+art and analytical power which every page reveals.... This is the most
+nervous and dramatic production of Tolstoi that has been rendered into
+English.--_N.Y. Sun._
+
+It is, undoubtedly, the most graphic and powerful of Tolstoi's works
+that has been given to the American reading public.... It should be read
+and pondered by Christians, philanthropists, statesmen--by every one who
+can think.--_Chicago Interior._
+
+The profound realism of the book, its native, organic strength, will
+make it one of the great books of the day. Certainly the underlying, the
+ever-present horrors of war have seldom been so strikingly set
+forth.--_St. Louis Republican._
+
+
+PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK.
+
+_The above work sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the United
+States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price._
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+By CAPT. CHARLES KING.
+
+A WAR-TIME WOOING. Illustrated by R.F. ZOGBAUM. pp. iv., 196. Post 8vo,
+Cloth, $1 00.
+
+BETWEEN THE LINES. A Story of the War. Illustrated by GILBERT GAUL. pp.
+iv., 312. Post 8vo, Cloth, $1 25.
+
+In all of Captain King's stories the author holds to lofty ideals of
+manhood and womanhood, and inculcates the lessons of honor, generosity,
+courage, and self-control.--_Literary World_, Boston.
+
+The vivacity and charm which signally distinguish Captain King's pen....
+He occupies a position in American literature entirely his own.... His
+is the literature of honest sentiment, pure and tender.... His heroes
+and his charming heroines are the product of the army, and it is
+pleasant to meet, even in this intangible way, women who can break their
+hearts and men who would die rather than sacrifice their honor.--_N.Y.
+Press._
+
+A romance by Captain King is always a pleasure, because he has so
+complete a mastery of the subjects with which he deals.... Captain King
+has few rivals in his domain.... The general tone of Captain King's
+stories is highly commendable. The heroes are simple, frank, and
+soldierly; the heroines are dignified and maidenly in the most
+unconventional situations.--_Epoch_, N.Y.
+
+All Captain King's stories are full of spirit and with the true ring
+about them.--_Philadelphia Item._
+
+Captain King's stories of army life are so brilliant and intense, they
+have such a ring of true experience, and his characters are so life-like
+and vivid that the announcement of a new one is always received with
+pleasure.--_New Haven Palladium._
+
+Captain King is a delightful story-teller.--_Washington Post._
+
+In the delineation of war scenes Captain King's style is crisp and
+vigorous, inspiring in the breast of the reader a thrill of genuine
+patriotic fervor.--_Boston Commonwealth._
+
+Captain King is almost without a rival in the field he has chosen....
+His style is at once vigorous and sentimental in the best sense of that
+word, so that his novels are pleasing to young men as well as young
+women.--_Pittsburgh Bulletin._
+
+It is good to think that there is at least one man who believes that all
+the spirit of romance and chivalry has not yet died out of the world,
+and that there are as brave and honest hearts to-day as there were in
+the days of knights and paladins.--_Philadelphia Record._
+
+PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK.
+
+_Either of the above works sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of
+the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price._
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+BY THEODORE CHILD.
+
+DELICATE FEASTING. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1 25.
+
+Will be found invaluable in many a household where the mistress (or the
+master himself) takes an interest in preparing the supplies that come to
+the table.--_N.Y. Journal of Commerce._
+
+Recognizing the fact that the wise man does not live to eat, but rather
+eats to live, the author furnishes such rules as will enable cooks to
+make what is eaten palatable and healthful. People that give dinners
+will here find much assistance.--_Troy Press._
+
+The most hard-headed cook will acknowledge the pith, pointedness, and
+lucidity of Mr. Child's chapters on the chemistry of cookery, on the
+methods of preparing meats or vegetables, on acetaria, soups, and
+sauces; while the closing chapters on dining tables, dining-room
+decoration, table service, art in eating and on being invited to dine,
+have, to all who would further the amenities of civilization, a value
+that needs no comment.--_Brooklyn Times._
+
+A more sensible and delightful book of its kind would be difficult to
+name.... We cannot open this entertaining volume at any page without
+finding matter to instruct, or at least to invite reflection. The
+aphorisms on the gastronomic art, original or gathered from the highest
+authorities on the subject, are thoroughly sound.--_N.Y. Sun._
+
+
+
+SUMMER HOLIDAYS. Travelling Notes in Europe. Post 8vo, Cloth,
+Ornamental, $1 25.
+
+A delightful book of notes of European travel.... Mr. Child is an art
+critic, and takes us into the picture-galleries, but we never get any
+large and painful doses of art information from this skilful and
+discriminating guide. There is not a page of his book that approaches to
+dull reading.--_N.Y. Sun._
+
+Mr. Child is a shrewd observer and writer of an engaging style. He
+interests the reader with abundant information, and pleases him by his
+lively manner in communicating it.--_Hartford Courant._
+
+Mr. Child is a very agreeable travelling companion, and his choice of
+places for a summer ramble is excellent.... The French chapters--on
+Limoges, Reims, Aix-les-Bains, and especially the voyage on French
+rivers--are abundant in novelty and odd bits of interest, as well as in
+beauty of scene and sympathy.--_Nation_, N.Y.
+
+A very pleasant volume of sketches by an accomplished traveller, who
+knows how to see and how to describe, and who can give real information
+without wearisome detail.--_Providence Journal._
+
+
+PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK.
+
+_The above works will be sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of
+the United States, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the price._
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+BEN-HUR: A TALE OF THE CHRIST.
+
+By LEW WALLACE. New Edition, pp. 552. 16mo, Cloth, $1 50.
+
+Anything so startling, new, and distinctive as the leading feature of
+this romance does not often appear in works of fiction.... Some of Mr.
+Wallace's writing is remarkable for its pathetic eloquence. The scenes
+described in the New Testament are rewritten with the power and skill of
+an accomplished master of style.--_N.Y. Times._
+
+Its real basis is a description of the life of the Jews and Romans at
+the beginning of the Christian era, and this is both forcible and
+brilliant.... We are carried through a surprising variety of scenes; we
+witness a sea-fight, a chariot-race, the internal economy of a Roman
+galley, domestic interiors at Antioch, at Jerusalem, and among the
+tribes of the desert; palaces, prisons, the haunts of dissipated Roman
+youth, the houses of pious families of Israel. There is plenty of
+exciting incident; everything is animated, vivid, and glowing.--_N.Y.
+Tribune._
+
+From the opening of the volume to the very close the reader's interest
+will be kept at the highest pitch, and the novel will be pronounced by
+all one of the greatest novels of the day.--_Boston Post._
+
+It is full of poetic beauty, as though born of an Eastern sage, and
+there is sufficient of Oriental customs, geography, nomenclature, etc.,
+to greatly strengthen the semblance.--_Boston Commonwealth._
+
+"Ben-Hur" is interesting, and its characterization is fine and strong.
+Meanwhile it evinces careful study of the period in which the scene is
+laid, and will help those who read it with reasonable attention to
+realize the nature and conditions of Hebrew life in Jerusalem and Roman
+life at Antioch at the time of our Saviour's advent.--_Examiner_, N.Y.
+
+It is really Scripture history of Christ's time clothed gracefully and
+delicately in the flowing and loose drapery of modern fiction.... Few
+late works of fiction excel it in genuine ability and interest.--_N.Y.
+Graphic._
+
+One of the most remarkable and delightful books. It is as real and warm
+as life itself, and as attractive as the grandest and most heroic
+chapters of history.--_Indianapolis Journal._
+
+The book is one of unquestionable power, and will be read with unwonted
+interest by many readers who are weary of the conventional novel and
+romance.--_Boston Journal._
+
+
+PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK.
+
+_The above work sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the United
+States or Canada, on receipt of the price._
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles
+Danvers, by Mary Cholmondeley
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DANVERS JEWELS ***
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