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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Mere Chance, Vol. 1 of 3, by Ada Cambridge
+
+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: A Mere Chance, Vol. 1 of 3
+       A Novel
+
+Author: Ada Cambridge
+
+Release Date: November 22, 2011 [EBook #38083]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A MERE CHANCE, VOL. 1 OF 3 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Darleen Dove, Shannon Barker, Matthew Wheaton
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
+generously made available by The Internet Archive/American
+Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+    A MERE CHANCE.
+
+    A NOVEL.
+
+    BY ADA CAMBRIDGE,
+
+
+    AUTHOR OF "IN TWO YEARS TIME," &c.
+
+    IN THREE VOLUMES.
+
+    VOL. I.
+
+
+    LONDON:
+    RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON,
+    Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen,
+    NEW BURLINGTON STREET.
+    1882.
+    _Right of Translation Reserved._
+
+
+
+
+    CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME.
+
+
+    CHAPTER
+
+       I.--A Marshal Neil Rose
+      II.--Family Counsels
+     III.--Mr. Kingston's Question
+      IV.--The Answer
+       V.--So Soon!
+      VI.--A Rash Promise
+     VII.--Two Love Letters
+    VIII.--How Rachel Met "Him"
+      IX.--A Black Sheep
+       X.--Outside the Pale
+      XI.--Mr. Dalrymple has to Consult Gordon
+     XII.--"Oh, if they had!"
+
+
+
+
+A MERE CHANCE.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+A MARSHAL NEIL ROSE.
+
+
+A few years ago there was a young _debutante_ in Melbourne whose name
+was Rachel Fetherstonhaugh. She had risen upon the social horizon
+suddenly, like a new star--or, one might almost say, like a comet, so
+unusually bright was she, and so much talked about; and no one quite
+knew where she had come from. Mrs. Hardy had introduced her as her
+niece--everyone knew that--but there were sceptics who, having never
+heard of female relatives previously (except the three daughters, who
+had married so well), declared that she might be "anybody," picked up
+merely for matchmaking purposes--it being well understood that Mrs.
+Hardy had for an unknown period sustained life, figuratively speaking,
+upon the stimulus of matrimonial intrigues, and had now no more
+daughters to provide for.
+
+That this pretty creature had been unseen and unsuspected until the last
+Miss Hardy, as Mrs. Buxton, was fairly away on her honeymoon, and almost
+immediately after had been introduced to society as Mrs. Buxton's
+successor, was a kind of circumstance that seemed, of course, bound to
+have a mystery at the bottom of it. But, as a matter of fact, there was
+no mystery. Rachel Fetherstonhaugh was a _bona-fide_ niece, and her
+entrance into the Hardy family at a particular juncture could be quite
+easily accounted for.
+
+Her father had been Mrs. Hardy's brother--a good-for-nothing, unlucky
+brother, whose clever brains could do anything but earn money, and whose
+pockets could no more hold it than a sieve could hold water--a brother
+whom, long ago, before she had become rich and fastidious, Mrs. Hardy
+had loved, and served, and worked for, but whom, of late years, she
+had--with some mild self-reproach for doing so--ignored as far as
+possible.
+
+This man had married a girl without a penny, as such a man was certain
+to do; and his wife had left him a widower, with an only child, a few
+years afterwards. Since then, for fifteen years, he had rambled about
+from place to place, seeking his fortune in all kinds of visionary and
+impracticable schemes, whose collapse one after the other, never
+deterred him from fresh enterprises, until a sunstroke closed the list
+of his life's many failures at the early age of forty-five.
+
+A formal little note was sent by his orphan daughter to Mrs. Hardy to
+announce this sad event; and for half an hour after receiving it the
+bereaved sister was inconsolable, tormenting herself with unavailing
+regrets for her neglect of "her own flesh and blood," and with
+harrowing reminiscences of loving early years.
+
+At the end of that time, however, she had made many generous plans for
+her dead brother's child, which cheered and comforted her; and in time
+these gave place to the prudent, unemotional dictates of worldly wisdom.
+Mrs. Hardy dried her tears, bought herself a black bonnet, and stole out
+of town in a surreptitious fashion, to see what manner of niece had been
+thrown upon her hands.
+
+She pictured to herself what the child's life had probably been--the
+motherless child of a vagabond speculator, who had lived very
+indifferently by his wits; and the most she hoped for was to find her a
+raw bush girl, rudimentally educated, and uncontaminated by the low
+society in which she had been brought up. For such a niece she had
+mapped out what seemed to be a suitable career--that of a nursery
+governess in some _distant_ colony; and she had resolved to be a good
+friend to the girl, to set her up in clothes, and to see that she never
+came to want or misfortune if by any reasonable means it could be
+helped.
+
+To her intense surprise her young relative turned out to be a remarkably
+pretty and refined young woman, obviously accustomed to the decorous and
+reticent poverty of people who had "seen better days" and appreciated
+the fact, and not raw in any sort of sense, though diffident and shy;
+the kind of young woman, indeed, who, it was evident at a glance, was
+capable under good management of bringing honour and glory upon the
+family.
+
+The result was as above indicated. Rachel Fetherstonhaugh, instead of
+being sent into obscurity to earn her bread, was adopted in the sight of
+all men as a daughter of the house--that great white house at Toorak,
+which had achieved local fame for its profuse entertainments, its social
+diplomacies, and its three great marriages.
+
+Her father's debts were paid; her wardrobe was supplemented with the
+very best style of new clothes--less expensive, but more becoming, than
+any that Mrs. Buxton and Mrs. Buxton's sisters had worn; and by and bye
+when, having got over the first shock and grief of her father's death,
+she made her appearance in public, and began to take an interest in her
+new life, she found herself, to her great astonishment, a personage--if
+not _the_ personage--in the society around her.
+
+It must be said, and not to her discredit, I hope, that Miss
+Fetherstonhaugh liked being a personage very much indeed. She had grown
+up a sensitive little gentlewoman, full of delicate thoughts and tastes,
+in the midst of dull, uncultured people of sordid cares and occupations,
+and of uncongenial surroundings of all sorts; and the mere physical
+enjoyment of her changed circumstances, in which everything was orderly,
+and dainty, and plenteous, and "nice," was something like the enjoyment
+that a flower must feel when the sun shines.
+
+And the sudden discovery that certain shy conjectures about her
+personal appearance (which she had hardly had leisure or heart to attend
+to) were confirmed by the best authority--to know herself a pretty girl,
+and to see that society paid her homage accordingly--this was an
+experience that no woman born, being in possession of her faculties,
+could help delighting in. And having all the grateful consciousness of
+the value of life and its good things that nature gives to the young and
+healthy, unspoiled by artificial sentiment, her delight was unbounded,
+and consequently unconcealed.
+
+Rachel Fetherstonhaugh was, as her uncle said, "A modest, good girl,
+with no nonsense about her." All the same, she was proud and glad of her
+fair, clear-cut features, and her pensive, large, sweet eyes that were
+full of tender suggestions, for which no authority existed when she
+lifted them meekly to an admirer's face; and that figure which with all
+its slenderness had the curves of beauty everywhere, and those waves of
+ruddy auburn hair.
+
+"I am so glad I am not plain," she once said to her cousin, Mrs.
+Thornley (who strange to say did not repeat the remark to all her
+friends with disparaging comments, but responded confidentially with a
+sympathising kiss, and said she could quite understand it). "I have
+always thought that it must be the most charming thing in the world to
+be a really pretty woman. And now I know it."
+
+On a grey afternoon in the beginning of May this young lady was
+enjoying the luxury of a slow drive up and down Collins Street,
+shopping with her aunt. She nestled in a soft corner of a well-appointed
+Victoria, with a great rug of native bearskins about her knees, showing
+her delicate fresh face, like a well-hung picture, to the crowd of
+passers-by on the pavement, and yet sitting just enough above them to
+see into the shop-windows over their heads; and she felt--though she did
+not formulate the sentiment--perfectly happy and satisfied.
+
+If the truth must be told, she found the sight of more or less
+well-dressed men and women, streaming up and down the busy street, more
+interesting than the most lovely landscape she had ever seen. She took
+as much pleasure in the exquisite fit of her gloves as in the exquisite
+colour and fragrance of a Marshal Neil rose that she wore in her
+button-hole; and she had never seen a moonrise or a sunset that had
+fascinated her _more_ than that sealskin jacket in Alston and Brown's
+window, which she observed was exactly the size for her. It is not,
+therefore, to be supposed that she is a heroine unworthy of the name.
+
+At Alston and Brown's Mrs. Hardy stepped out of her carriage for perhaps
+the fifth time. She was a very large, masculine kind of woman, with a
+remarkably fine Roman nose, of which she was excessively proud, and
+justly, for it had been a valuable weapon to her in the battle of life,
+literally carrying all before it. When he had got over the effect of her
+nose, the beholder of Mrs. Hardy's person, as a rule, was pleasantly
+impressed by it. It had a generous and a regal air.
+
+"My dear," she said to her young companion, "I only want to match some
+lace. Will you go in with me, or will you stay where you are?"
+
+"I think I will stay, if you please, aunt," replied Rachel. "The
+carriage is so comfortable, and I like to look at the street."
+
+"Don't look too much," said Mrs. Hardy, smiling anxiously. "There are
+all kinds of office clerks and people mixed up with the crowd at this
+hour."
+
+"I don't want to look at _men_," said Miss Fetherstonhaugh, with more
+dignity than one would have given her credit for. "It is the ladies'
+dresses I like to see--and the horses."
+
+Mrs. Hardy marched into the shop with that imposing mien which became
+more and more pronounced as she grew older and stouter, and her social
+successes accumulated; and her niece sat still in her corner, and looked
+for a long while at the sealskin jacket.
+
+"All my cousins have sealskin jackets," she mused, "but I don't think
+they had them until they were married. Perhaps I shall have one when I
+am married. I can't expect my aunt to buy me one, of course; she has
+bought me so many pretty things. How lovely and soft that brown fur is!
+How well it would suit my complexion! If my husband is rich, and asks me
+what I should like for my first birthday present, I shall not have any
+difficulty in making up my mind. I wonder _will_ he be rich? like Mr.
+Thornley, and Mr. Buxton, and Mr. Reade. At any rate, he must not be
+poor; if he is, I won't have him. I know enough of poverty"--with a
+little shudder and a sudden solemnity in her face--"and I don't mean to
+run into it again if I can help it."
+
+Here she fell into a rather mournful reverie, thinking of her old life,
+with its shifts and privations--of her poor father, who had been so
+happy through it all, never feeling the weight of the petty debts and
+dishonours that lay like lead on her--of her struggles to keep his
+affairs straight--of her prayers that she might not live to despise and
+desert him, which was a temptation that grew with her growing years--and
+as she thought, she gazed absently, tenderly, pensively, not on the
+sealskin jacket, but on the faces of the passers-by. She had no idea how
+excessively interesting and pretty she looked to those passers-by with
+that expression in her eyes.
+
+However, a gentleman came by presently, a well-preserved young man of
+fifty or sixty, with a waxed moustache, and a slender umbrella carried
+musketwise over his shoulder; and his attention was violently arrested.
+
+"Where _have_ I seen that charming creature?" he asked himself,
+imploring his memory, which had a great store of miscellaneous
+treasures, to be quick and help him. "Surely I have been introduced to
+her somewhere. Oh, of course! it is old Hardy's niece, or ward, or
+whatever she is. Good day, Miss Fetherstonhaugh," turning back when he
+had nearly passed her, and making a profound obeisance with his hat off.
+"Fine afternoon for a drive."
+
+She recognised _him_ immediately. She had danced a quadrille with him at
+her memorable first evening "out," and she had learned a great deal of
+him since from the gossip of her aunt's circle. There was a time, she
+had been told, when he was nearly becoming a member of the family
+himself. He was a great merchant--or an ex-merchant rather--who had
+dealt in some mysterious commodity that had brought enormous profits;
+and he had risen by all kinds of good luck, from no one knew what depth
+of social insignificance to the proud position of a man of fashion
+about town, whom ladies delighted to honour.
+
+"Good day, Mr. Kingston," she responded, looking very pink and bright,
+and a little flurried as she returned his salutation. She had the
+daintiest complexion that ever adorned a youthful face, and whenever she
+was startled or embarrassed, however slightly, she blushed like a rose.
+Mr. Kingston, accustomed to appraise the charms of his female friends
+with an almost brutal impartiality, was unjustifiably touched and
+flattered by this innocent demonstration. He was really very glad he had
+remembered who she was before he had lost so good an opportunity for
+looking at and talking to her.
+
+"I don't think it _is_ a very fine afternoon," she remarked presently,
+as the gentleman seemed to find himself for once a little at a loss for
+a subject; and she smiled at him through her blushes, which went and
+came suddenly and delicately, as if they were breathed over her by the
+air somehow. "It has been looking grey, like rain, ever since we
+started; and it is rather cold, don't you think?"
+
+"Is it? Ah! so it is. But we must expect cold weather in May. I suppose
+it is rather strange to you to be finding winter coming on at this
+season?"
+
+"No. Why should it be strange to me?"
+
+"I thought--I am sure somebody told me--that you were recently out from
+England."
+
+"Oh, dear, no," she replied, frankly. "I was born in this colony, and
+have lived in it all my life."
+
+"In the name of fortune, where?"
+
+"In different places; at Sandhurst, at Ballarat, and on the Upper
+Murray, and in little townships here and there in the bush; and
+sometimes in Melbourne."
+
+"I am sure I never saw you in Melbourne until I met you at that dance
+the other night," he protested earnestly. "I never should have forgotten
+your face if I had once seen it."
+
+"I daresay not," she said, and she was angry to find herself blushing
+again. "I was but a child when I lived in Melbourne before, and--and my
+home was not in Toorak then."
+
+Mr. Kingston understood. She had been a poor relation in those days,
+and the Misses Hardy were unmarried. He had a constitutional antipathy
+to poor relations, and he was a little disappointed. For a few seconds
+he kept silence, while he wondered what her antecedents could have been.
+Then he looked at her again, and she was regarding him with a curious
+gravity of demeanour, almost as if she had divined his thoughts. There
+was a meek majesty about her that commanded his respect, and that he
+considered was excessively becoming.
+
+After all, what did it matter about her antecedents? Did she not look a
+thoroughly well-bred little woman, sitting there in her furs and soft
+cushions, with her head held so straight? Did he not hear other
+men--better men than he from a genealogical point of view--singing her
+praises wherever he went? Whatever she had been, she was a distinguished
+personage now, whose acquaintance it behoved a veteran lady-killer to
+cultivate, and that without delay.
+
+"I am very glad your home is in Toorak now," he said gallantly. "I have
+some land there myself, quite close to your uncle's place."
+
+"Indeed," murmured Rachel.
+
+"Yes, and I am going to build on it soon. I have just got the plans out
+from home--capital plans. I shall bring them in for Mrs. Hardy's
+opinion. When my house is built we shall be neighbours. You will have to
+help me, you and your aunt, with the furnishing and all that sort of
+thing that ladies understand."
+
+"I don't think I understand much about it," she said; "but I shall like
+to see it done. I am very fond of pretty furniture. Will your house be
+very big?"
+
+"Oh, nothing out of the way. I'm not going to spend _more_ than twenty
+thousand pounds on it. My friends tell me I ought to do the thing
+properly when I am about it; but I don't see the fun of locking up a lot
+of money in bricks and mortar. I might want to change my residence any
+day, you see."
+
+Rachel looked at him with awe. There was a flippancy in the way he spoke
+of that twenty thousand pounds which almost shocked her.
+
+"If you are going to build a palace," she said, "don't talk of asking my
+help. I have never had anything to do with that kind of thing."
+
+"Oh, my dear Miss Fetherstonhaugh--really it will be nothing but an
+ordinary good-sized, comfortable house, and I am sure your taste would
+be perfect. At any rate, you will help me with the gardens? I mean to
+have good grounds, whatever else I go without; and ladies always know
+how to lay out beds and things better than we do."
+
+"_I_ shouldn't know," she said, smiling; "but I think my aunt is very
+clever at that. We have beautiful flowers--even so late as this."
+
+"So I see." He glanced admiringly at the rose on her breast, and she
+stuck her pretty chin into her throat and looked at it too. "What a
+lovely bud that is! Marshal Neil, is it not? Oh, don't take it out--the
+black fur on your jacket makes such a charming background for it."
+
+Rachel already had it in her hand, and was stroking the velvety yellow
+petals and the dark green leaves.
+
+"We have plenty of them," she said; "there is a wonderful autumn bloom
+of roses just now. This is a picture, isn't it? with that deep colour
+like an apricot in the heart, and those scarlet stains streaking it
+outside. Would you like to have it?" And she held it out with a frank
+gesture and the most captivating smile; and then, as he took it with a
+low bow and much ostentatious gratitude, she blushed the deepest crimson
+to the roots of her golden hair.
+
+At this moment Mrs. Hardy emerged from the shop, her ounce-weight of
+purchases being carried behind her; and Mr. Kingston turned to receive
+an effusive greeting.
+
+"Oh, my dear Mr. Kingston, is it you?" the stately matron exclaimed.
+"How _glad_ I am to see you--I have not met you for an age! Where _have_
+you been? And when _are_ you coming to call on me again?"
+
+"I will come whenever you will allow me," this illustrious person
+replied, with an alacrity of demeanour that did not escape notice. "I
+thought of coming this afternoon, and on my way I saw your carriage, and
+your niece told me that you were shopping."
+
+"No; I did not tell you that," interposed Rachel gravely.
+
+He looked at her and laughed, and his laugh for some unaccountable
+reason called her retreating blushes back. Mrs. Hardy glanced sharply
+from one to the other, and then she also laughed, in decorous matronly
+fashion.
+
+"Well, come and dine with us to-night," the elder lady said, "and take
+us to the opera. That would be a friendly thing to do, if you are
+disposed to be friendly. Beatrice and Mr. Reade are coming--nobody else;
+and you can take Mr. Hardy's ticket. He is always glad to get off
+going."
+
+"I will indeed--I will with pleasure," was the prompt response; and with
+some further exchange of civilities, the friends separated.
+
+Mr. Kingston walked away to his club, with his flower in his
+button-hole, swinging his umbrella gently, and wondering to what class
+of woman this pretty Miss Fetherstonhaugh belonged.
+
+"Is she a coquette?" he asked himself over and over again; "or is she
+charmingly fresh and simple?"
+
+Mrs. Hardy rolled home in her little Victoria, and she also asked
+herself questions which were by no means easy to answer, as she stole
+furtive glances at the little black figure sitting, watchful and alert,
+beside her.
+
+"My dear," she said presently, breaking a long silence, "where is your
+rosebud gone to?"
+
+"I gave it to Mr. Kingston, aunt."
+
+"You gave it to Mr. Kingston!" Mrs. Hardy almost shouted in the
+vehemence of her surprise. Then, pausing for a moment while she stared,
+not unkindly, at the torrent of blushes that flowed over her pretty
+face, she ejaculated, almost in a tone of awe, "Good gracious!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+FAMILY COUNSELS.
+
+
+The drawing-room of the house in Toorak where our heroine lived, looked
+very cosy and comfortable a few hours later in the ruddy glow of the
+firelight. It was a little before the days of domestic high art in
+Victoria, and it was by no means the charming apartment that it is now.
+There was no dado, no parquetry floor, no tiled hearth, no _etagere_
+mantelpiece--nor Persian rugs under foot, nor Limoges plaques and
+Benares dishes on the walls, nor Japanese screens and jars, nor
+treasures of jade and china, nor anything, in fact, that there ought to
+have been.
+
+The pleasant firelight danced upon a whitewashed ceiling, plentifully
+adorned with plaster-of-Paris mouldings, and upon whitey-grey walls
+sprigged with golden flowers. The floor was completely covered with a
+vivid green carpet, also sprinkled with flowers; and the windows were
+draped with brilliant damask to match, depending from immense gilt
+cornices in festoons looped with cords and tassels. There was a
+cut-glass chandelier hanging down in the middle, and there was a
+gigantic pier-glass reaching from the marble chimney-piece to the
+plaster-of-Paris frieze, with little gold cupids sitting on the top of
+it, tying wreaths of gold flowers into a knot. The chairs and couches
+shone in slippery satin, with wonderful rosewood convolutions wriggling
+out from them, that one could hardly venture to call legs; and there was
+a terrible chiffonniere, full of looking-glasses, with a marble top,
+reflecting all these splendours over and over again--which was quite
+unnecessary.
+
+Nevertheless, though Mrs. Hardy cannot look back upon it without a
+shudder, the old room was a pleasant room. She herself came into it on
+this occasion, having dressed a little earlier than usual, and was
+struck by its air of luxurious warmth and comfort. She saw nothing to
+shock her artistic susceptibilities; she liked the twinkle of her glass
+drops, and the shine of her spacious mirror, and the deep glow of her
+emerald satin and damask--though she would die sooner than own to it
+now.
+
+She went leisurely over to the fire, sank down in a low arm-chair, and
+put up her feet on the fender to warm, with a distinct impression upon
+her mind of congenial surroundings and satisfied aspirations. Long ago
+she had been a poor man's wife--the most estimable and devoted of poor
+men's wives--doing her own housework, making her own bread and butter,
+nursing her own babies, mending her husband's clothes; and in those days
+she had beautified her bush hut with cheap paper and chintz, and thought
+it prettier than a palace.
+
+Later on she had had a smart brick and stucco cottage, and in it a
+drawing-room--her first drawing-room--with a green and scarlet drugget
+on the floor, lace curtains over the window, a centre table (with a
+basket of wax flowers under a shade in the middle), and a "suite" in
+green rep disposed around; and this in its day had seemed to her an
+apartment quite too good for common use. Next she had aspired to a
+Brussels carpet, and by and bye to a pier-glass and a piano. And so she
+had come by degrees to this Toorak splendour, in each stage feeling that
+she had reached the summit of her ambition, and vindicated her claim to
+the most correct taste.
+
+The same process of evolution and development had taken place in
+herself, outwardly and inwardly. She was naturally a kindly, honest,
+good-hearted woman, and she was by birth a lady. But year by year nature
+having much to struggle with had retired, step by step into the
+background of her personality, and she was simply what the education of
+society--her society--made her. Practically, fashion and _les
+convenances_ were her gods. Those men or women who were not what she
+generally termed "well-bred"--who were behind the times in social
+matters, who had no place in her great world, nor any capacity for
+making one--were not people to be received into her house, or to have
+anything to do with. Her demeanour to such unfortunate individuals, when
+she did happen to come into contact with them was, to say the least,
+chilling.
+
+Yet those who knew her best, declared that if any of these ineligibles
+were to fall into great trouble, she would be the first to help and
+befriend them if she could; and that if her husband were to lose his
+fortune and suddenly plunge her into poverty again, she would set to
+work to cook his dinners and mend his clothes with the same cheerful
+willingness as of yore.
+
+She sat in the warm firelight, toasting her feet, and her brain was busy
+with projects. For some weeks past she had been troubled about her young
+niece, on account of her too absurd innocence, and her ignorance of
+social etiquette in many important details. The girl's manner and
+carriage had been particularly easy and graceful, but she had constantly
+counteracted the effect of this by a deplorable want of penetration as
+to who was who, and of reticence concerning her own history and
+experiences, which had been very mortifying to an aunt and _chaperon_
+accustomed to better things; and her efforts to teach and train one who
+seemed so gentle and pliant had been singularly unfruitful. Rachel was a
+sweet child, and she was fond of her, and proud of her beauty;
+nevertheless, she had declared to herself and to Beatrice more than
+once, that she had never known a human creature so hopelessly dense and
+stupid.
+
+To-night, however, she took another view of the case. That rural
+freshness had possibly found favour in the eyes of Mr. Kingston, who had
+been the ideal son-in-law to so many mothers of so many polished
+daughters. She was surprised, but she could understand it. For she knew
+that men had all sorts of queer, independent, unaccountable ways of
+looking at things--at women in particular; and she had already noticed
+that they liked those ridiculous blushes--which to her mind showed a
+painful want of culture and self-possession--in which the girl indulged
+so freely.
+
+What if she should be able to marry her to Mr. Kingston--who had foiled
+the artifices of well-meaning matrons, and resisted the fascinations of
+charming maidens exactly suited for him for so many years--after
+marrying all her own children so well? That was the theme of her
+meditations, and she found it deeply interesting. She longed for the
+arrival of Beatrice, who was her eldest daughter and her chief
+_confidante_ and adviser, to hear what she had to say about it.
+
+She had been by herself about ten minutes, during which time a servant
+had lit up the cut-glass chandelier, when there was a ring at the
+door-bell, and Mr. and Mrs. Reade were ushered in. Mrs. Reade was a tiny
+little dark woman, with a bright and clever, though by no means pretty,
+face, in which no trace of the maternal features was visible.
+
+She was beautifully dressed in palest pink, with crimson roses in her
+hair, and delicate lace of great value about her tight skirt and her
+narrow shoulders; and her distinguished appearance generally rejoiced
+her mother's heart. Behind her towered her enormous husband, in whom
+blue blood declined to manifest itself in the customary way. He was an
+amiable, slow-witted, honest gentleman, with a large, weak face, rather
+coarse and red, particularly towards bedtime, and heavy and awkward
+manners; and he was as wax in the hands of the small person who owned
+him.
+
+"Ned," she said, looking back at him as she swept across the room, "you
+go and find papa, and let mamma and me have a talk until the others come
+in."
+
+Ned obediently went--not to find his host, who was probably in the
+dressing-room, but to read "The Argus" by the dining-room fire, while
+the servants set the table. And the mother and daughter sat down
+together to one of the confidential gossips that they loved. Mrs. Reade
+began to unfold her little budget of news and scandal, but immediately
+laid it by--to be resumed between the acts of the opera presently--while
+she listened to Mrs. Hardy's account of the transactions of the
+afternoon. It did not take that experienced matron long to explain
+herself, and the younger lady was quick to grasp the situation. At first
+she was inclined to scoff.
+
+"Oh, we all know Mr. Kingston, mamma. He dangles after every fresh face,
+but he never means anything. _He_ will never marry--at any rate, not
+until he is too old to flirt any more."
+
+"But, my dear, he is going to build his house."
+
+"I don't believe a word of it," said Mrs. Reade. "He has been going to
+build that house ever since I can remember. It is just one of his artful
+devices. Whenever he wants to make a girl like him he tells her about
+that house--just to set her longing to be the mistress of it. That is
+the only use he will ever put it to. You'll see he will tell Rachel all
+about it to-night. He will beg her to help him with her exquisite taste,
+and so on. Oh, I know his ways. But he means nothing."
+
+"He has already told Rachel," said Mrs. Hardy, laughing. "And, what is
+more, he is going to bring the designs to show her, and he says he is
+really going to put the work in hand at once."
+
+"If so," said Mrs. Reade, gazing into the fire meditatively, "it looks
+as if he had been proposing to settle himself--though I shall not
+believe it till I see it. But then he must have made his plans before he
+ever saw Rachel. It must be Sarah Brownlow he is thinking of, mamma."
+
+"Sarah Brownlow passed him this afternoon, Beatrice, and he hardly
+noticed her. While as for Rachel--well, I only wish you had been there
+to see the way he looked at her, and the way he said good-bye. My
+impression is that he thinks it is time to settle--as indeed it is,
+goodness knows--and so has begun with his house; and that he is looking
+about for a mistress for it, and that something in Rachel has struck
+him. I am certain he is struck with Rachel."
+
+Mrs. Reade gazed into the fire gravely, while she pondered over this
+solemn announcement.
+
+"It is possible," she said presently. "It is quite possible. All the men
+are saying that she is the prettiest girl in Melbourne just now. An
+elderly club man, who has seen much of the world, is very likely to
+admire that kind of childish, simple creature. If it should be so," she
+continued, musingly, "I wonder how Rachel will take it."
+
+"Rachel," said Mrs. Hardy, with sudden energy, "is not so simple as she
+seems. You mark my words, she will be as keen to make a good marriage as
+anybody as soon as she gets the chance."
+
+"Do you think so?" her daughter responded, looking up with her bright,
+quick eyes. "Now that is not at all my notion of her."
+
+"Nor was it mine at first, but I am getting new lights. It never does to
+trust to that demure kind of shy manner. I assure you she made such use
+of her opportunities this afternoon as surprised me, who am not easily
+surprised. In about ten minutes--I could not have been in Alston's more
+than ten minutes--they were on the most frank and friendly terms
+possible, and she had given him a rose to wear in his button-hole."
+
+"Nonsense!"
+
+"I assure you, yes. And I know, by the look of him, that he never saw
+through it. It is wonderful how even the cleverest men can be taken in
+by that _ingenue_ manner. He evidently thought her a sweet and
+unsophisticated child. Sweet she is--the most amiable little creature I
+ever knew; but she knows what she is about perfectly well."
+
+Mrs. Reade gazed into the fire again with thoughtful eyes; then after a
+pause she said:
+
+"I think you don't understand her, mamma. I think she really saw no more
+in Mr. Kingston than she would have seen in any poor young man without a
+penny."
+
+"No, Beatrice. She talked about his new house, and all the money he was
+going to spend on it, in a ridiculous way. She was completely fascinated
+by the subject."
+
+"I can't imagine little Rachel scheming to catch a rich husband," the
+young lady exclaimed, with a mocking, but pleasant laugh.
+
+"You don't see as much of her as I do, my dear Beatrice," her mother
+replied, with dignity. "If you did, you would know that she is as fond
+of money and luxury as any hardened woman of the world could be. She
+quite fondles the ornaments I have put in her room. She goes into
+raptures over the silver and china. A new dress sends her into
+ecstacies. She annoys me sometimes--showing people so plainly that she
+has never been used to anything nice. However, it will make it easier
+for me to settle her than I at first thought it would be. It will be all
+plain sailing with Mr. Kingston, you will see."
+
+"Mother," said Mrs. Reade--she only said "mother" when she was very
+much in earnest--"let me give you a word of advice. If you want to marry
+Rachel to Mr. Kingston--and I hope you will, for it would be a capital
+match--don't let her know anything about it; don't do anything to help
+it on; don't let her see what is coming--leave them both alone. I think
+I know her better than you do, and I have a pretty good idea of Mr.
+Kingston; and any sort of interference with either of them would be most
+injudicious--most dangerous. I shall see to-night--I'm sure I shall see
+in a moment----"
+
+There was a ring at the door-bell, and the stir of an arrival in the
+hall, and the little woman did not finish what she wanted to say. She
+rose from her chair, and shook out her pink train; and the mother to
+whom she had laid down the law rose also, looking very majestic.
+
+"Mr. Kingston," said the servant, throwing the drawing-room door open.
+
+The great man entered with a springing step, bowing elaborately. His
+glossy hair (some people said it was a wig, but it was not) was curled
+to perfection; his moustaches were waxed to the finest needle-points; he
+wore flashing diamond studs on an embroidered shirt front; and there was
+a Marshal Neil rose in his button-hole, not very fresh, and too much
+blown to be any ornament to a fine gentleman's evening toilet, hanging
+its yellow head heavily from a weak and flabby stalk.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+MR. KINGSTON'S QUESTION.
+
+
+While her aunt and cousin were discussing her downstairs, Miss
+Fetherstonhaugh was dressing herself for dinner in her little chamber at
+the top of the house. This was a part of the daily ceremonial of her new
+life, in which she took a deep and delighted interest. The whole thing,
+in fact, was charming to her. To come sweeping down the big staircase in
+dainty raiment, all in the spacious light and warmth--to have the doors
+held open for her as she passed in and out--to go into the dining-room
+on her uncle's arm, and sit at dinner with flowers before her--seeing
+and feeling nothing but softness and colour, and polish and order
+everywhere--was at this time to realise her highest conception of
+earthly enjoyment.
+
+Her bedroom was not magnificent, but it had everything in it that she
+most desired--the whitest linen, the freshest chintz and muslin, a fire
+to dress by, an easy chair, and above all, a cheval glass, in which she
+could survey her pretty figure from head to foot. She stood before this
+cheval glass to-night a thoroughly happy little person. Hitherto, with a
+mirror twelve inches by nine, that had a crack across it, she had seen
+that her face was fair and fresh, and that her hair had a wonderful
+red-gold lustre where the light fell upon it; but she was only now
+coming to understand what perfection of shape and grace had developed
+with her recent growth into womanhood, to make the _tout ensemble_
+charming.
+
+She looked at herself with deep content--no doubt with a stronger
+interest than she would have looked at any other lovely woman, but in
+much the same spirit, enjoying her beauty more for its own sake than for
+what it would do for her--more because it harmonised herself to her
+tastes and circumstances, than because it was a great arsenal of
+ammunition for social warfare and conquest.
+
+She was still in mourning for her father, and had put on a simple black
+evening dress. Her natural sense of the becoming dictated simple
+costumes, but education demanded that they should be made in the latest
+fashion; and she regarded the tightness of her skirt in front, and the
+fan of her train behind, with something more than complacency.
+
+As yet the lust for jewels had not awakened in her, which was very
+fortunate, for she had none. The tender, milky throat and the round
+white arms were bare; and all the ornament that she wore, or wanted, was
+a bouquet of white chrysanthemum and scarlet salvia on her bosom, and
+another in her hair.
+
+Pretty Rachel Fetherstonhaugh! If Roden Dalrymple could have seen her
+that night, only for five minutes, what a deal of trouble she might have
+been spared!
+
+The dinner bell rang, and she blew out her candles hurriedly, and
+flitted downstairs. On the landing below her she joined her uncle--a
+small, thin, sharp-faced person, with wiry grey hair, and "man of
+business" written in every line of his face--as he left his own
+apartment; and they descended in haste together to the drawing-room,
+where four people were solemnly awaiting them.
+
+The first thing that Rachel saw when she entered was her Marshal Neil
+rose. She glanced from that to its wearer's face, eagerly turned to meet
+her, full of admiring interest; and, as a matter of course, she blushed
+to a hue that put her scarlet salvias to shame.
+
+Why she blushed she would have been at a loss to say; certainly not for
+any of the reasons that the assembled spectators supposed. It was merely
+from the vaguest sense of embarrassment at being in a position which she
+had not been trained to understand.
+
+An hour or two before, her aunt had made that rose the text of a
+discourse in which many strange things had been suggested, but nothing
+explained; and now they all looked at her, evidently with reference to
+it, yet with painful ambiguity that perplexed her and made her uneasy;
+and she could only feel, in a general way, that she was young and
+ignorant and not equal to the situation. Much less than that was amply
+sufficient to cover her with a veil of blushes.
+
+At dinner she sat between Mr. Reade and her uncle, and, being on the
+best of terms with both of them, she confined her conversation to her
+own corner of the table, and scarcely lifted her eyes; but when dinner
+was over--dinner and coffee, and the drive to the opera-house--then Mr.
+Kingston, deeply interested in his supposed discovery of a new kind of
+woman, and piqued by her shy reception of his generally much-appreciated
+attentions, set himself to improve his acquaintance with her, and found
+the task easy. They were standing on the pavement, in the glare of the
+gaslight, with a lounging crowd about them.
+
+Mrs. Hardy had dropped a bracelet, for which she and her son-in-law were
+hunting in the bottom of the brougham, and Mrs. Reade was chatting to an
+acquaintance, whose hansom had just deposited him beside her--a bearded
+young squatter, enjoying his season in town after selling his wool high,
+who stared very hard at Rachel through a pair of good glasses, as soon
+as he had a favourable opportunity.
+
+Mr. Kingston stood by the girl's side, staring at her without disguise.
+The shadow of the street fell soft upon her gauzy raiment and her white
+arms and the lustre of her auburn hair, but her face was turned towards
+the gaslight--she was looking wistfully up the long passage which had
+something very like fairy land at the end of it--and he thought he had
+never seen any face so fresh and sweet.
+
+"You like this kind of thing, don't you?" he said, gently, as if
+speaking to a child, when in turning to look for her aunt she caught his
+eye.
+
+"Oh, yes," she replied, promptly, "I do, indeed! I like the whole thing;
+not the singing and the acting only, but the place, and the people, and
+the ladies' dresses, and the noise, and the moving about, and the
+lights--everything. I should like to come to the opera every
+night--except the nights when there are balls."
+
+Mr. Kingston laughed, and said he should never have guessed from what he
+had seen of her that she was such a very gay young lady.
+
+"You don't understand," she responded quickly, looking up at him with
+earnest, candid eyes; "it is not that I am gay--oh, no, I don't think it
+is that! though perhaps I do enjoy a spectacle more than many people.
+But it is all so new and strange. I have never had any sightseeing--any
+pleasure like what I am having now, that is why I find it so
+delightful."
+
+"Come, my dear!" cried Mrs. Hardy sharply (she had found her bracelet
+and overheard a part of this little dialogue), "don't stand about in the
+wind with nothing over you. What have you done with your shawl?"
+
+"It is here, aunt," replied Rachel meekly, lifting it from her arm.
+
+Her cavalier hastened to take it from her and adjust it carefully over
+her shoulders. During this operation Mrs. Hardy swept into the lobby,
+taking the arm of her big son-in-law; and Mrs. Reade, having parted from
+her friend, glanced round quickly, followed her husband, and put herself
+also under his protection. Mr. Kingston, smiling to himself like
+Mephistopheles under his waxed moustache, was left with Rachel in the
+doorway.
+
+"How _does_ it go?" he said, fumbling with a quantity of woolly fringe.
+"All right--there's no hurry. It is not eight o'clock yet. Pray let me
+do it for you."
+
+She stood still, while he dawdled as long as he could over the
+arrangement of her wrap, but she cast anxious looks after the three
+receding figures, and she was the colour of an oleander blossom. He was
+a little disconcerted at her embarrassment; it amused him, but it
+touched him too.
+
+Poor little timid child! Who would be so mean as to take advantage of
+her inexperience? Not he, certainly. He gave her his arm and led her
+into the house, with a deferential attentiveness that did not usually
+mark his deportment towards young girls. On their way they were accosted
+by a boy holding a couple of bouquets in each hand.
+
+"Buy a bouquet for the opera, Sir?" said he, in his sing-song voice.
+
+Mr. Kingston paused and put his glass in his eye. They were bright
+little nosegays, and one of them, much superior to the other, had a
+fringe of maiden hair fern and a rich red rose in the middle of it. He
+took this from the boy's hand, and offered it to Rachel with his
+elaborate bow.
+
+"Permit me," he said, "to make a poor acknowledgment of my deep
+indebtedness to you for _this_."
+
+And he touched the drooping petals of the Marshal Neil bud, and imagined
+he was paying her a delicate sentimental compliment.
+
+If Rachel had been the most finished fine lady she could not have
+undeceived him more gracefully.
+
+"Thank you," she said, simply, and she smiled for half a second.
+
+To be sure her red rose was not redder than she was, but she held her
+head with a gentle air of maidenly dignity that quite counteracted the
+weakness of that blush.
+
+Mr. Kingston began to suspect, with some surprise, that she was not so
+easy to get on with as she appeared. However, that did not lessen his
+interest in her by any means.
+
+"I am afraid you think I have taken a liberty," he suggested presently.
+What had come to him to care what a bread-and-butter miss might think?
+But somehow he did care.
+
+"Oh, no," she said, "it is very kind of you. But you must not talk of
+being indebted to me. Flowers are not--not presents, like other things."
+
+By this time they had reached the top of the stairs, and Mrs. Reade was
+sweeping out of the cloak-room, where she had been "settling" her hair,
+and putting a little powder on her face.
+
+"Mamma is gone in," she said, taking the girl's hand kindly; "there are
+plenty of people here to-night, Rachel. You must look for a lady sitting
+on the right of the Governor's box, in a high velvet dress. She is one
+of our Melbourne beauties."
+
+So they went in and took their seats; and Rachel found herself sitting
+in the front tier, not very much to the left of the viceregal armchairs,
+and her cousin Beatrice was on one side of her and Mr. Kingston on the
+other.
+
+She was perfectly contented now. She smiled at her flowers; she furled
+and unfurled her fan; she looked round and round the house through her
+glasses, whispering questions and comments to Mrs. Reade, who knew
+everybody and everybody's history; and it made Mrs. Hardy quite uneasy
+to see how thoroughly and evidently she enjoyed herself. Mr. Kingston
+recovered his spirits which she had damped a little while ago.
+
+He watched her face from time to time--generally when she was absorbed
+in watching the stage; and the more he looked, the more charming he
+found it. So fresh, so frank, so modest, so sweet, with those delicate
+womanly blushes always coming and going, and that child-like fun and
+brightness in her eyes. He had never been so "fetched," as he expressed
+it, by a pretty face before; that is to say, he did not remember that he
+ever had been.
+
+It was, indeed, very seldom that he regarded a pretty face with such a
+serious kind of admiration. He found himself wondering how it would
+fare, how long it would keep its transparent innocence and candour in
+the atmosphere of this new world--this second-rate Hardy set, which was
+full of meretricious, manoeuvring, gossip-loving women--with a touch of
+anxiety that was quite unselfish. He was sure now that she was not a
+coquette; he was experienced enough to know, also, that, however humble
+her origin and antecedents, she was a girl of thoroughly "good style;"
+and it would be a thousand pities, he thought, if the influence of her
+surroundings should spoil her.
+
+When the curtain fell and the gas was turned up, he noticed that people
+all round the house were turning their glasses upon her. Certainly she
+made a charming study from an artistic point of view. What taste she had
+shown in the grouping of her white chrysanthemums, and the way she had
+mixed in those few velvety horns of red salvia. They were colours proper
+to a brunette, but they seemed to accentuate the delicacy of her milky
+complexion and the fine shade of her red-gold hair.
+
+What a chin and throat she had! and what soft, yet strong, round
+arms!--white, but warm, like blush rose petals that had unfolded in the
+dews of dawn at summer time, against the black background of her dress.
+And her shape and her colour were nothing compared with the expression
+of utter content and happiness that shone out of her face, irradiating
+her youth and beauty with a tender light and sweetness that, like
+sunshine on a sleeping crater, gave no hint of the tragic trouble hidden
+away for future years. No wonder people looked at her. Of course they
+looked.
+
+The glasses that she had been using belonged to Mrs. Reade, and now that
+lady was busy with them, hunting for her numerous acquaintances. Mr.
+Kingston held out his own, curious to see if she would discover what
+attention she was receiving, and what the effect of such a discovery
+would be.
+
+"Thank you," said Rachel gratefully; and she settled herself back in her
+seat, and proceeded to take a thorough survey of all the rank and
+fashion that surrounded her. For a long time she gazed attentively,
+shifting her glasses slowly round from left to right; and Mr. Kingston
+watched her, leaning an elbow on the red ridge between them, and
+twiddling one horn of his moustaches.
+
+He expected to see the familiar blush stealing up over the whiteness of
+her face and neck. But she remained, though deeply interested, quite
+cool and calm. Presently she dropped her hands in her lap and drew a
+long breath.
+
+"There is a lady over there," she said in a whisper, "who has something
+round her arm so bright that I think it must be diamonds. Do you see who
+I mean? When she holds up her glasses again, tell me if they are real
+diamonds in her bracelet."
+
+Much amused, Mr. Kingston did as he was bidden.
+
+"Oh, yes," he said, "they are real diamonds. That lady is particularly
+addicted to precious stones. She walks about the street in broad day
+with a Sunday school in each ear, as that fellow in _Piccadilly_ says.
+Are you like the majority of your sex--a worshipper of diamonds? I
+thought you did not care for jewellery."
+
+"I do," she replied, smiling. "I don't worship jewels, but I should like
+to have some. I should like to have some real diamonds _very_ much."
+
+"I daresay you will have plenty some day, and very becoming they'll be
+to you. Not more so, though, than the flowers you are wearing to-night,"
+he added, looking at them admiringly.
+
+Rachel touched up her ornaments with a thoughtful face.
+
+"There is such a light about diamonds," she said musingly; "no coloured
+stones seem so liquid and twinkling. I don't care in the least about
+coloured stones. If I were very rich I would have one ring full of
+diamonds, to wear every day, and one necklace to wear at night--a
+necklace of diamond stars strung together--and perhaps a diamond
+bracelet. And I wouldn't care for anything else."
+
+"Should you like to be very rich?" asked her companion, smiling to
+himself over these naive confessions. He was gazing, not only into her
+eyes, but at her lovely throat and arms, and imagining how they would
+look with diamonds on them.
+
+"Yes," said Rachel. "But the great thing I wish is not to be poor. I
+hope--oh, I do hope--I shall never be poor any more!"
+
+"I don't think you stand in the least danger of that," said Mr.
+Kingston.
+
+"I know all about it," continued the girl gravely; "and I don't think
+you do, or you could not laugh or make a joke of it. You _cannot_ know
+how much it means. _You_ never have debts, of course."
+
+"Debts? Oh, dear, yes, I do--plenty."
+
+"Yes, but I mean debts that you can't pay--that you have to apologise
+for--that hang and drag about you always. I won't talk about it," she
+added hurriedly, with a little shiver; "it will spoil my pleasure
+to-night."
+
+"_Don't_," said Mr. Kingston. He did not find it a congenial topic
+either. "Tell me what you would do if you were rich."
+
+"What I would do?" she murmured gently, smiling again. "Oh, all kinds of
+things--I would pay ready money for everything, in the first place. Then
+I would have a lovely house, with quantities of pictures. That is one
+great fault in our house at Toorak--we have no nice pictures. And I
+would wear black velvet dresses. And I would have a beautiful sealskin
+jacket. And a thorough-bred horse to ride----"
+
+"Oh, do you ride?" interposed Mr. Kingston, eagerly.
+
+"I used to ride. I like it very much. My father gave me a beautiful mare
+once; but afterwards he rode a steeplechase with her, and she fell and
+broke her back. I can ride very well," she added, smiling and blushing.
+"I can jump fences without being afraid. But Uncle Hardy keeps only
+carriage horses, and none of the family ride."
+
+"But you must have a horse, of course. I must speak to your uncle about
+it," said Mr. Kingston. "Indeed, I think I have one that would suit you
+admirably, and I'll lend him to you to try, with pleasure, if you'll
+allow me."
+
+"Oh, _will_ you? Oh, _how_ delightful! When will you let me try him? But
+I forgot--I have no habit!"
+
+"That is a difficulty soon got over. I'll speak to your aunt," said this
+influential autocrat.
+
+And here a bell rang, and the curtain rose upon a fresh scene. Mrs.
+Reade and her mother had had an absorbing _tete-a-tete_, and now turned
+to see what their charge was doing. Mr. Reade, redolent of something
+that was not eau de cologne, came back to his seat; and Rachel began to
+watch the proceedings of the prima donna, who was solemnly marching
+across the stage. Mr. Kingston was aware, however, that the girl's
+thoughts were not with the spectacle before her. She was evidently
+preoccupied about those promised rides.
+
+"I shall have no one to go with me," she whispered presently, in the
+pauses of a song.
+
+"I shall be proud to be your escort," he whispered back. "And there will
+always be the groom, you know," he added, seeing the colour of the
+oleander blossom suddenly appear. "Do not be anxious. I will manage it
+all for you."
+
+"You are _very_ kind," she said, looking up into his face with that shy
+blush, and a charming friendliness in her eyes, "and I am very grateful
+to you; but please do not try to persuade Aunt Elizabeth against her
+wish." And she did not say much more to him. From this point she became
+silent and thoughtful.
+
+When they reached Toorak, however, Mr. Kingston redeemed his promise
+faithfully in his own way, and at considerable trouble to himself. Mr.
+and Mrs. Hardy both liked to do things, as they called it, "handsomely,"
+but at the same time without any unnecessary expense; and neither of
+them could see his proposal in the light of a paying enterprise.
+
+Rachel was driven out in the carriage daily; she appeared at all places
+of fashionable resort; she took abundant exercise. A riding-horse would
+be expensive, and so would a saddle and habit, not to speak of the
+addition to the stable necessities; and what would there be to show for
+it? But while the uncle, and still more the aunt, were delicately
+fencing with the proposition, Mrs. Reade struck in and swept all
+objections away.
+
+"Of course the child ought to ride if she has been used to riding," said
+this imperious small person. "You send your horse here, Mr. Kingston,
+and Ned shall come round and see what she can do with it." This was in
+the hall, where he was supposed to be saying good-night; and Rachel had
+gone upstairs to bed.
+
+"Thank you, Mrs. Reade--if I may," he said, with an eager gratitude that
+amused himself. "I am sure it would be a great pleasure to her--and it
+would be so good for her health. Why don't _you_ ride too? It is such
+splendid exercise."
+
+"I would in a minute, if I had a figure like hers," laughed Mrs. Reade.
+"Mamma, we must get her a good habit to set off that figure. I'll come
+round in the morning, and go with you to have her measured. Are you
+going, Mr. Kingston, without a cup of hot coffee? Good-night, then; mind
+you send your horse."
+
+The servant shut the door behind him; and he went out into the solemnity
+of the autumn night. The wind was rustling and whispering through the
+shrubberies round the house; it had the scent in it of untimely violets,
+mingled with a faint fragrance of the distant sea.
+
+Above, the stars were shining brilliantly; below, the teeming city lay
+silent in the lap of darkness, with a thousand lamplights sprinkled
+over it. In the foreground he could dimly see the lines of gravelled
+paths and grassy terraces, and the gleam of great bunches of pale
+chrysanthemums swaying to and fro in the cool air.
+
+"It is a splendid site," he said to himself; "but I think, if anything,
+mine is better."
+
+He stood for some time, looking away over the illuminated valley to the
+milky streak on the horizon where in three or four hours the waters of
+Port Philip Bay would shine; and then he sauntered down to the lodge,
+and found his hansom waiting for him.
+
+"Go up to my land there, will you?" said he, pointing his thumb over his
+shoulder as he got in. "I'm going to set the men on soon, and I want to
+have a look at it."
+
+The driver, wondering whether he had had more champagne than usual,
+said, "All right, Sir," and drove him the few dozen yards that
+intervened between Mr. Hardy's gates and the place where his own were
+designed to be.
+
+In the darkness he clambered over the fence, made his way to the highest
+ground in the enclosure, and stood once more to look at the
+lamp-spangled city and the dim and distant bay.
+
+"Yes," he said, "I am higher here. I shall get a better view." And he
+began to build his house in fancy--to see it towering over all his
+neighbours', with great white walls and colonnades, and myriad windows
+full of lights, and lovely gardens full of flowers and fountains. "I
+must begin at once," he said. "I must see the contractors to-morrow. I
+must not put it off any longer, or I shall be an old man before I can
+begin to enjoy it."
+
+And after long musing over the details of his project, he stumbled back,
+through saplings, and tussocks, and broken bottles, to the fence; tore
+his dress-coat on a nail getting over it; and subsiding into his cab,
+lit a cheroot, and stared intently into vacancy all the way to his club.
+
+When he reached this bachelor's home he did not know what to do with
+himself. He thought he would write to a celebrated firm of contractors
+to make an appointment for the morning; but it was past twelve o'clock,
+and the letters had been collected.
+
+Some men called him to come and play loo, but he was not in the mood for
+cards. He tried billiards, and found his hand unsteady; he went into the
+smoking-room, but it was hot and noisy. He had always liked his club,
+and maintained against all comers that it was a glorious institution;
+but now he began to see that after all a middle-aged gentleman of ample
+fortune might find himself pleasanter lodgings. He went out of doors,
+where the air was so sweet and cool, rustling up and down an ivied wall,
+and over a strip of lawn that lay deep in shadow below it; and looking
+at the clear dark sky and the clear pale stars, he put to himself a
+momentous question, for which he had a half-shaped answer ready:
+
+"Who shall I ask to be the mistress of my house?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE ANSWER.
+
+
+A girl of eighteen is popularly supposed to be grown up--to have all
+wisdom and knowledge necessary for her guidance and protection through
+the supreme difficulties of a woman's lot. When one gets ten years
+older, one is apt to think that this is a mistake. Life is not so easy
+to learn. The treasures of love, like visions of the Holy Grail, are not
+revealed to those who have known none of the waiting, and yearning, and
+suffering, and sacrifice that teach their divine nature and their
+immeasurable worth.
+
+And to all the vast meanings and solemn mysteries that surround the
+great question of right and wrong--the great question of human life--the
+spiritual eyesight is blind, or worse than blind, until the experience
+of years of mistakes and disillusions brings, little by little, dim
+apprehensions of light and truth.
+
+Rachel Fetherstonhaugh, with the snare of her beauty and her sensuous
+love of luxurious surroundings newly laid about her feet, entered upon
+her kingdom more than ordinarily unprepared.
+
+Poor little, helpless, foolish child! How was she to know that marriage
+meant something better than a richly-appointed house and a kind
+protector? How could she be held accountable for the commission, or
+contemplation, of a crime against her youth and womanhood of whose
+nature and consequences she was absolutely ignorant?
+
+She was flitting in and out through the French windows of the
+drawing-room one fine morning, with a basket of flowers on her arm,
+busily engaged in rearranging the numerous little bouquets that she made
+it her business to keep in perennial freshness all about the house, when
+Mr. Kingston was announced.
+
+She had seen him several times since the night of the opera; he had left
+his card twice when she had been away from home; and Mrs. Hardy had had
+polite messages respecting the horse, which had been duly sent for her
+approval. He came in now, with his light and jaunty step, bowing low,
+and smiling so that his white teeth shone under his Napoleonic
+moustache, carrying a large roll of paper in his hand.
+
+"Good morning, Miss Fetherstonhaugh," he exclaimed gaily. "I must
+apologise for this early call; but I can never find you at home after
+lunch these fine days."
+
+Rachel, who had not seen his approach nor heard him enter the house,
+whose hall-door was standing open for her convenience, turned round with
+her hands full of flowers. In the sunshine of the morning she looked
+more fair and refined than he had ever seen her, he thought. The
+plainest little black gown showed her graceful shape to perfection; her
+complexion, always so delicate, was flushed and freshened with the wind
+and her embarrassment.
+
+As for her hair, half-covered with a shabby garden hat on the back of
+her head, it was the central patch of light and colour in the
+bright-hued room; he was sure he had never seen hair so silky in texture
+and so rich in tint.
+
+His ideal woman, hitherto, had been highly polished and elaborately
+appointed; she had been a woman of rank and fashion, in Parisian
+clothes, a queen of society, always moving about in state, with her
+crown on. But now, in the autumn of his years, all his theories of life
+were being overturned by an ignorant little country girl, sprung from
+nobody knew where; and a coronet of diamonds would not have had the
+charm of that old straw hat, with a wisp of muslin round it, which
+framed the sweetest face he had ever seen or dreamed of.
+
+"My aunt is in her room," she stammered hastily; "I will send to tell
+her you are here. She will be very glad to see you."
+
+And she called back the servant who had admitted him, and sent a message
+upstairs.
+
+Mrs. Hardy, however, did not hurry herself. She was a thrifty
+housekeeper still, as in her early days, and devoted her forenoons
+religiously to her domestic affairs. Just now she was sorting linen
+that had returned from the wash; and, hearing that her niece was in the
+drawing-room, she had no scruple about remaining to finish her task.
+
+"Say I will be down directly," she said. And she did not go down for
+considerably more than half an hour.
+
+In the meantime Rachel tumbled her flowers into the basket, took off her
+hat, and seated herself demurely in a green satin chair.
+
+"It is a lovely morning," she remarked.
+
+"Oh, a charming morning--perfectly charming! You ought to be having a
+ride, you know. Have you tried Black Agnes yet?"
+
+"No, not yet. My habit has not come home. They promised to send it last
+night, but they did not. I am very anxious to try her. She is the
+prettiest creature I ever saw. I--I," beginning to blush violently,
+"have not half thanked you for your kindness, Mr. Kingston."
+
+"Pray don't mention it," he replied, waving his hand; "I shall be only
+too glad if I am able to give you a little pleasure."
+
+"It is the _greatest_ pleasure," she said, smiling. "But she is so
+good--so much too good--I am half afraid to take her out, for fear
+anything should happen to her. Uncle Hardy says she is a much better
+horse than he wants for me."
+
+"Your uncle had better mind his own business," said Mr. Kingston, with
+sudden irritation. "If you are to have a horse at all, you must have one
+that is fit to ride, of course."
+
+"But I think it is his business," suggested Rachel, laughingly.
+
+"No; just now it is mine. I mean," he added hastily, a little alarmed at
+the expression and colour of her face, "that Black Agnes is mine. And
+while I lend her to you she is yours. And I trust you will use her in
+every way as if she were actually yours."
+
+"Thank you; you are very kind. I hope nothing _will_ happen to her. I
+shall take great care of her, of course. I will not jump fences or
+anything of that sort."
+
+"Oh, pray do," urged Mr. Kingston. "She is trained to jump. She has
+carried a lady over fences scores of times." The fact was he had only
+bought her a few days before, and had selected her from a large and
+miscellaneous assortment on account of this special qualification. "I
+hope you will let me ride out with you, and show you my old
+cross-country hunting leaps. You will not mind jumping fences with her,
+if I am with you, and make you do it?"
+
+"No," she said, "for I shall show you that it is not the fault of my
+riding if accidents happen."
+
+"Exactly. I am sure it will not be your fault. But we will not have any
+accidents--I will take too good care of you. Can't we go out this
+afternoon? Oh, I forgot that habit. I'll call on your tailor, if you'll
+allow me, and 'exhort' him; shall I? I have done it before, on my own
+account, with the most satisfactory results."
+
+"No, thank you," said Rachel, "I would not give you that trouble. He
+will send it home when it is ready, I suppose."
+
+And she rose from her chair and began to move about the room, wondering
+whether her aunt was ever coming downstairs.
+
+Mr. Kingston thought it would be expedient to change the conversation.
+
+"I have brought you the plans of my house," he said, taking up his roll
+of papers, and beginning to spread great sheets on a table near him. "I
+meant to have asked your opinion before I began to build it, but--well,
+I took it for granted that you would like it as it was."
+
+"Ah, yes," responded Rachel brightly, coming to his side. "Uncle Hardy
+said you had begun. And you know I can see all the men and carts from my
+window. Oh! oh!"
+
+This enthusiastic exclamation greeted the unrolling of the "front
+elevation," which, in faint outlines, filled in with pale washes of grey
+and blue and pink, showed her the towers and colonnades of her ideal
+palace. When he heard it, Mr. Kingston's heart swelled. He was more
+charmed with his pretty creature than ever.
+
+"This, you see," said he, "is the main entrance--fifteen steps. But
+won't you sit down? You will see better. And this wing is where the
+drawing-rooms are to be," he added, when she had seated herself, and he
+had taken a chair beside her. "There are three large rooms in a line,
+that can all be thrown together on occasions--when necessary. I have not
+decided about the furniture yet, nor the colours of the walls. You must
+help me with those things presently. The dados, which are being designed
+at home, are to be of carved wood, most of them; mantelpieces to match.
+Some of the dados will be of inlaid stone, tiles, and that sort of
+thing. I suppose you don't know what a dado is, do you?"
+
+"No," said Rachel, meekly. Whereupon he entered into elaborate
+explanations.
+
+"I think I should not like tiles on the wall," she ventured to remark;
+"they would feel very cold, wouldn't they?"
+
+"They tell me tile is the proper thing," he replied; "and of course I
+want to have everything that is proper. But whatever my--my wife wishes
+shall be law, of course. In her own rooms, at any rate, she shall
+consult her own taste entirely."
+
+Rachel stared at him, coloured and laughed. "Oh, you did not tell me
+about your wife before," she said. "I did not know you were engaged to
+be married. That is why you are making haste to build your house? I am
+very glad. I congratulate you."
+
+"Do not; do not," he stammered earnestly. "I speak of a possible wife,
+because I hope to have a wife some day. I am not engaged. I wish I
+were."
+
+"Oh!" she said, looking down bashfully, with oleander blossoms
+everywhere. "I beg your pardon."
+
+"I wish I were," he repeated. "But I am going to get ready for that
+happy time against it does come. See, these are to be her rooms. They
+face the south, and I am going to have a rose garden below them. This is
+to be her boudoir. I thought of having the walls and the ceiling painted
+in coral. I have noticed that pink lights in a room are very becoming to
+a lady's complexion, rather pale on the walls, for the sake of the
+pictures. You said you liked plenty of pictures?"
+
+"I? Oh, yes, I like pictures."
+
+"And I did mean to have a dado of very fine, rich tiles to make a
+foundation of colour, you know; but you don't like tiles?"
+
+"Oh, but _I_ don't know anything about it, Mr. Kingston! You had better
+do what you said--furnish the other rooms, and leave your wife, when you
+get one, to choose the decorations of her own herself."
+
+"She _shall_ choose them herself. But, Miss Fetherstonhaugh--"
+
+"Rachel, my dear, your habit has come," said Mrs. Hardy, appearing at
+this interesting moment. "Oh, how do you do, Mr. Kingston? Pray forgive
+me for leaving you so long. I hope you have come to lunch? Oh, yes, you
+must stay to lunch, of course. We'll take you into town afterwards, when
+we go out to drive."
+
+Mr. Kingston stayed to lunch, and made himself very agreeable. But then
+he went into town by himself, and returned in an incredibly short space
+of time in riding costume, mounted on a powerful brown horse. During his
+absence, Rachel had put on her habit, and found that it fitted her
+beautifully; and Black Agnes had been caparisoned, and was pawing the
+gravel before the hall door. Mrs. Reade, magnificently attired for a
+series of state calls, had appeared upon the scene, and was regulating
+all these pleasant circumstances.
+
+"Now then, Mr. Kingston, you must only take her along quiet roads. And
+she is not to jump any fences when Ned is not with her."
+
+"Why, Ned?" inquired Mr. Kingston. "I am as learned in fences as Ned,
+don't you think?"
+
+"Oh, yes, I know all about that. But it is the look of the thing. You
+remember, Rachel, you are not to jump fences."
+
+"No, Beatrice, I won't."
+
+"Have a good gallop, my dear, and enjoy it," the little woman added.
+"I'll take care of mamma; and when we have done all our calls we will
+come and meet you."
+
+Mr. Kingston stepped jauntily to Black Agnes's side. He was an old
+steeplechase rider before he was a successful city merchant, and he
+looked ten years younger in his riding-dress. Rachel, with a radiant
+face, approached him, and laid her small foot on his proffered palm.
+
+In a moment she was up like a feather, and sitting square and light in
+her saddle like a practised horsewoman as she was; and all her
+attendants, groom included, looked up at her admiringly. Even Mrs. Hardy
+forgot the expense she had been put to.
+
+"The child certainly does look well on horseback," she remarked,
+resignedly, as Black Agnes's shining haunches disappeared round a clump
+of laurels. "What a figure she has, Beatrice!"
+
+"Oh, dear me, yes!" assented the younger matron pettishly. "Why didn't
+_we_ have figures like that!"
+
+Meanwhile, the black mare and the big brown horse paced out into the
+road, and for a little while the riders contented themselves with
+friendly glances at one another. Rachel was crimson with pride and
+bashfulness, looking lovely and riding beautifully, as she could not
+but know she was. Mr. Kingston, sharing some measure of her elation and
+excitement, was absorbed in looking at and admiring her.
+
+By and bye they had a long canter, which carried them well out into the
+country, where there were no houses and no people, and where the shadows
+were beginning to rest on the peaceful autumn landscape. And then Mr.
+Kingston made her draw rein under a clump of trees, while she looked
+back at the city they had left behind, glorified in the light of the
+sinking sun.
+
+"So now there is something else you like besides operas and balls?" he
+said, laying his hand upon the black mare's silky mane.
+
+"Yes," she replied, drawing a long breath, "and I think this is best of
+all! She is like a swallow--she seems to skim the ground! And I--I don't
+know when I have felt so happy!"
+
+All his years and his experience went for nothing under these
+circumstances, when she looked as sweet as she did now.
+
+"You must keep Black Agnes," he said eagerly. "I will speak to your
+uncle. I will not have you riding low-bred brutes. Nothing but the best
+is fit for you; you, who know how to ride so well, and enjoy it so much!
+You will keep her, to please me?"
+
+If she had been sitting in a green satin drawing-room she would
+probably have checked this ardent outburst at an apparently harmless
+stage. She would have blushed, and looked grave and majestic; but now
+she was, in a sense, intoxicated. She lifted a pair of radiant, grateful
+eyes to his face, and she held out her hand impulsively.
+
+"How good you are to me!" she said. "How much pleasure you give me!"
+
+And then, of course, he succumbed altogether.
+
+"That is what I want to do, not now, but always," he said, drawing the
+mare's head to his knee, and the small, weak hand to his lips, which had
+kissed so many hands, though never with quite the same kind of kiss.
+"That is why I am building my house. It is you I wanted to be its
+mistress--didn't you know that?--to do just what you like with it, and
+with me, and with all I have!" And, when once he had fairly set it
+going, the flood of his eloquence, running in a well-channelled groove,
+flowed freely, and overwhelmed the poor little novice, who had never
+been made love to before.
+
+"I--we--we have only seen each other a few times," she ventured to
+suggest at last, but not until her imagination had been captivated by
+the splendid prospect before her. She had the colour of a peony in her
+cheeks, and frightened tears in her soft child's eyes; but her
+experienced lover knew that his cause was gained.
+
+"That has been enough for me," he said. "Once was enough for me." Then,
+after a long pause, "Well? Is it to be 'yes' or 'no?'"
+
+"Oh, I don't know!" she stammered desperately, turning her head from
+side to side. "I have had no time. Let us wait until we know each other
+better."
+
+"_I_ know quite enough," he persisted, "and I am not so young as you are
+that I can afford to wait."
+
+She trembled and panted, gathering up her reins and dropping them in an
+agony of embarrassment.
+
+"Oh," she said at last, "what can I say? Won't you let me speak to Aunt
+Elizabeth?"
+
+"Of course, as soon as you like after you get home. I am not afraid of
+Aunt Elizabeth. I know what _she_ will say. But now, dear--while we are
+here by ourselves--I want you to tell me, of your own self, whether you
+like me--whether you would really like to come and live with me in my
+new house? You don't want anybody to help you to make up your mind about
+that?"
+
+"No," she whispered, hanging her head, feeling at once terrified and
+elated, and wishing to goodness she could see Mrs. Hardy and Beatrice
+driving along the lonely empty road.
+
+"You _would_ like it? Turn your face to me and say 'Yes,' just once, and
+I won't bother you any more."
+
+She turned her face, scarlet all over her ears and all down her throat,
+and she tried to meet his ardent eyes and could not. Her lips shaped
+themselves to say "Yes," but no sound would come. However, sound would
+have been, perhaps, less expressive than the silence which overwhelmed
+her in this proud but dreadful moment. At any rate, Mr. Kingston was
+satisfied.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+SO SOON!
+
+
+They rode home sedately in the cool and quiet evening. Mr. Kingston,
+having accomplished the end for which he had contrived this unchaperoned
+expedition, was content to keep close to his pretty sweetheart's side,
+to look in her face occasionally with significant smiles, and to
+ruminate on his own good fortune.
+
+Rachel, fluttered and dismayed at the situation in which she found
+herself, bestowed a wandering attention on the near-side fields and
+hedges, and discouraged conversation. It is needless to remark that the
+carriage did not come to meet them. The long shadows lengthened, the sun
+sank down below the glowing horizon, the glory of the evening faded away
+into the soft dusk of the autumn night.
+
+Lamps were being lighted when they entered Toorak; the workmen who had
+begun at the foundations of the new house were "knocking off;" the gates
+of Mrs. Hardy's domain were standing open, and the woman at the lodge
+informed them that she had not returned from her drive.
+
+They rode up to the house, and Mr. Kingston got off his horse and lifted
+Rachel down. She disengaged herself from his arms as quickly as
+possible, and then stood on the doorstep, while the groom led both
+horses away, and looked at her _fiance_ anxiously, blushing with all her
+might.
+
+"Won't you let me come in?" he asked smiling. But he did not mean to be
+refused admittance; and he turned the handle of the door and led her
+into the hall and into the drawing-room, as if it had been his own
+house.
+
+The lamps had not been lit in the drawing-room, but a bright fire was
+burning, making a glow of rich and pleasant colour all over its mossy
+carpet and its shining furniture. Rachel's flowers were blooming
+everywhere. Soft armchairs stood seductively round the cheerful hearth.
+An afternoon tea-table was set for four, with everything on it but the
+teapot.
+
+"My aunt is late," said Rachel uneasily. "I wonder what can have kept
+her. I hope there has been no accident."
+
+Mr. Kingston showed all his teeth in a momentary smile, and then
+addressed himself to the opportunity that had so happily offered.
+
+"Oh, no, she is not late; it is the days that are getting so short," he
+said. And as he spoke he unfastened her hat and laid it aside, and then
+drew her burning face to his shoulder and kissed her. She stood still,
+trembling, to let him do it, one tingling blush from head to foot. She
+liked him very much; she was very proud and glad that she was going to
+marry him; she quite understood that it was his right and privilege to
+kiss her, if he felt so disposed. Still her strongest conscious
+sentiment was an ardent longing for her aunt's return--or her uncle's,
+or anybody's. The spiritual woman in her protested against being kissed.
+
+"I want you not to be afraid of me," said Mr. Kingston, half anxious,
+half amused, as he patted her head. "I am not an ogre, nor Bluebeard
+either; you seem to shrink from me almost as if I was. You must not
+shrink from me _now_, you know."
+
+"I will not--by and bye--when I get used to it," she gasped, with a
+touch of hysterical excitement, extricating her pretty head, and
+standing appealingly before him, with her pink palms outwards. "I'm not
+afraid of you, Mr. Kingston, but--but it is very new yet! I shall get
+used to it after a little."
+
+He looked down at her with sudden gravity. She was on the verge of
+tears.
+
+"Oh, yes," he said quietly, almost paternally, "we shall soon get used
+to each other. There is plenty of time. Let me see--how old are you?
+Don't tell me; let me guess. Eighteen?"
+
+She smiled and composed herself. Yes, she was just eighteen. Somebody
+must have told him. No, upon his honour, nobody had; it was his own
+guess entirely. Did he not think he ought to have chosen someone older
+for such a position of importance and responsibility? No; she was
+gallantly assured that she had been an object, not of choice, but of
+necessity. And so on.
+
+When the dialogue had brought itself down to a sufficiently sober level,
+he took her hand, and drawing her into a seat beside him, continued to
+hold it, and to stroke her slight white fingers between his palms.
+
+"They say good blood always shows itself in the fineness of a woman's
+hands," he said; "if so, you ought to be particularly well-born."
+
+"I don't know what your standard is," she answered, smiling. "My father
+came of a border family ages ago, I believe. I never knew anything about
+my mother's parentage; she died when I was a baby."
+
+"I am _sure_ you are well born," he said, looking fondly and proudly at
+her as she sat in the firelight, with her golden hair shining. "I shall
+have not only the finest house, but the most beautiful wife to sit at
+the head of my table. I don't believe there is another woman in
+Melbourne who will compare with you, especially when you get those
+diamonds on."
+
+"Diamonds!" ejaculated Rachel.
+
+"Yes; those diamonds you talked about the other night, don't you
+know?--that you would have if you were very rich. Well, you are going to
+be very rich. And I am going to order you some of them to-morrow. You
+must give me the size of your finger. A 'ring full of diamonds,' didn't
+you say? How full?"
+
+Rachel smiled, blushed, and ceased to feel that strong repugnance to
+the amenities of courtship which had distressed both herself and her
+lover at an earlier stage.
+
+Here a servant came in to light the gas. The man appeared conscious of
+the inopportuneness of his intrusion, and despatched his business in
+nervous haste, clinking the pendants of the cut-glass chandelier in a
+manner that his mistress would have highly disapproved of.
+
+Rachel and her visitor watched him with a sort of silent fascination, as
+if they had never seen gas lighted before. When he was gone, Mr.
+Kingston took out his watch. It was past six o'clock. He had a dinner
+engagement at seven, and had to get into town and change his clothes.
+
+"I'm afraid I dare not wait for Mrs. Hardy," he said, rising. "I hate to
+go, but you know I would not if I could help it. I will see your uncle
+at his office the first thing in the morning, and come to lunch
+afterwards. Shall I?"
+
+"If you like," murmured Rachel, shyly. And then she submitted to be
+kissed again, and being asked to do it, touched her lover's fierce
+moustaches with her own soft lips--not "minding" it nearly so much as
+she did at first. She was beginning to get used to being engaged to him.
+
+When immediately after his departure Mrs. Hardy, having left her
+daughter at her own house, came home, and heard what had been taking
+place, she could hardly believe the evidence of her ears.
+
+"So soon!" she ejaculated, lifting her hands. "Is it credible? My dear,
+are you sure you are not making a mistake?"
+
+Remembering the wear and tear of mind and body that the management of
+these affairs had cost her hitherto--remembering the illusive and
+unsubstantial nature of all Mr. Kingston's previous attentions to the
+most attractive marriageable girls--she found the suddenness of the
+thing confounding.
+
+"Don't you think you may have misunderstood him?" she reiterated,
+anxiously. "I'm afraid he is rather given to say more--or to appear to
+say more--than he means sometimes."
+
+Rachel blushingly testified to the good faith of her _fiance_, by
+references to the ring for which her finger had already been measured,
+and to the impending interview at her uncle's office.
+
+"I should never have thought of it of myself Aunt Elizabeth," she said
+meekly.
+
+Mrs. Hardy sank into an easy chair, and unbuttoned her furs, as if to
+give her bosom room to swell with the pride and satisfaction that
+possessed her. Then, looking up at the slender figure on the hearthrug,
+at the candid innocent face of the child who had been bequeathed to her
+love and care, a maternal instinct asserted itself.
+
+"My dear," she said, "you are very young, and this is a serious step.
+You must take care not to run into it heedlessly. Do you really feel
+that you would be happy with Mr. Kingston? He is much older than you
+are, you know."
+
+Rachel thought of the new house, and of the diamonds, and of all her
+lover's tributes to her worth and beauty.
+
+"Yes, I think so, aunt. He is a very nice man. He is very kind to me."
+
+"He has lived so long as a bachelor, that he has got into bachelor
+ways," Mrs. Hardy reluctantly proceeded. "He has been rather--a--gay, so
+they say. I doubt if you will find him domesticated, my dear."
+
+"I shall not _wish_ him to stay always at home with me," replied the
+girl, with a fine glow of generosity. "And I do not mind tobacco-smoke,
+nor latchkeys, nor things of that sort. And if he is fond of his club,
+I hope he will go there as often as he likes. _I_ shall not try to
+deprive him of his pleasures, when he will give me so many of my own.
+And, you know, dear aunt, I shall be quite close to you; I can never be
+lonely while I am able to run in and out here."
+
+Mrs. Hardy was reassured. This was the pliant, sweet-natured little
+creature who would adapt herself kindly to any husband--who was not, of
+course, an absolutely outrageous brute.
+
+And Mr. Kingston, except that he was a little old, a little of a
+_viveur_, a trifle selfish, and, it was said, rather bad tempered when
+he was put out, was everything that a reasonable girl could desire. She
+smiled, rose from her chair, and kissed her niece's pretty face with
+motherly pride and fondness.
+
+"Well, my love, it is a great match for you," she said, "and I hope it
+will be a happy one as well."
+
+And then, hearing her husband coming downstairs, she left the room
+hurriedly to meet and drive him back again, that she might explain to
+him the interesting state of affairs while she put on her gown for
+dinner.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+A RASH PROMISE.
+
+
+There was of course no opposition to Rachel's engagement. Mr. Hardy,
+away from his office, was simply Mrs. Hardy's husband, not because he
+had no will of his own, but because he acknowledged her superior
+capacity for the management of that complicated business called getting
+on in the world, to which they had both devoted their lives for so many
+years.
+
+Mrs. Reade, who next to her mother was the greatest "power" in the
+family, approved of the match highly, though she had herself proposed to
+be Mrs. Kingston at an earlier stage of her career; but she had a good
+deal to say before she would allow it to be considered a settled thing.
+
+In the first place she had a serious talk with the bridegroom-elect, in
+which she demanded on Rachel's behalf certain guarantees of good
+behaviour when he should have become a married man. She was a clever
+little clear-headed woman, full of active energies, for which the
+minding of her own business did not supply employment; and being blessed
+with plenty of self-confidence and much good sense and tact, she
+contrived to give her friends a great deal of assistance with theirs,
+without giving them offence at the same time.
+
+Occasionally she came across another strong-minded woman who objected to
+interference; but the men never objected. They rather liked it, most of
+them.
+
+Mr. Kingston, at any rate, thought it was very pleasant to be lectured
+in a maternal manner by a woman five feet high, who was just thirty
+years younger than he was; and he made profuse and solemn promises that
+he would be "a good boy," and take the utmost care of the innocent young
+creature who had confided her happiness to his charge. And then she
+fetched Rachel away to spend the day with her, and, over a protracted
+discussion of afternoon tea, gave _her_ some valuable advice as to the
+conduct of her affairs.
+
+"You know," she said, with much gravity and decision, "it is always best
+to look at these things in a practical way. Mr. Kingston is, no doubt, a
+splendid match, and not a bad fellow, as men go; but it is no use
+pretending that he won't be a great handful. He has been a bachelor too
+long. The habit of having his own way in everything will have become his
+second nature. I doubt if anyone could properly break him of it now, and
+I am sure _you_ could not."
+
+"I should not try," said Rachel, smiling. "I should like my husband,
+whoever he was, to have his own way."
+
+Mrs. Reade shook her head.
+
+"It doesn't answer, my dear. What is the use of a man marrying if his
+wife doesn't try to keep him straight? And if you give in to him in
+everything, he only despises you for it."
+
+"But, Beatrice," Rachel protested, "all men don't want keeping straight,
+do they? It seems to me that every case is different from every other
+case. One is no guide for another."
+
+"I know it isn't. I'm only thinking of your case. And I want to make you
+understand it. You don't know him as well as I do, and you don't know
+anything about married life. If you run into it blindfold, and let
+things take their chance, then--why, then it is too late to talk about
+it. Everything depends upon how you begin. You must begin as you mean
+to go on."
+
+"And how ought I to begin?" inquired Rachel, still smiling. She could
+not be brought to regard this momentous subject with that serious
+attention which it demanded.
+
+"Well, _I_ should take a very high hand if it were my case--but you are
+not like me. I should put a stop to a great deal that goes on now at
+_once_, and get it over, while the novelty and pleasure of his marriage
+was fresh and my influence was supreme. I should try to make him as
+happy as possible, of course, for both our sakes. I'd humour him in
+little things. I'd never put him out of temper, if I could help it. But
+I would keep him well in hand, and on no account put up with any
+nonsense. If they see you mean that from the beginning, they generally
+give in; and by and bye they are used to it, and settle down quietly and
+comfortably, and you have no more trouble."
+
+Rachel's smiling face had been growing grave, and her large eyes
+dilating and kindling.
+
+"Oh, Beatrice," she broke out, "that is not marriage--not my idea of
+marriage! How can a husband and wife be happy if they are always
+watching each other like two policemen? And they marry on purpose to be
+happy. I think they should love one another enough to have no fear of
+those treacheries. If they are not alike--if they have different tastes
+and ways--oughtn't they to be companions whenever they _can_ enjoy
+things together, and help each other to get what else they want. Love
+should limit those outside wants--love should make everything safe. If
+that will not, I don't think anything else will. I should never have the
+heart to try anything else, if that failed."
+
+Mrs. Reade gazed with intense curiosity and interest at this girl, with
+her young enthusiasm and her old-world philosophy. She was so surprised
+at the unexpected element introduced into the dialogue, that for a few
+minutes she could not speak. Then she put out her hand impulsively and
+laid it on Rachel's knee.
+
+"Is _that_ how you feel about Mr. Kingston?" she exclaimed, earnestly.
+"My dear, I beg your pardon. I did not know how things were. If you
+think of your marriage in that way, pray forget all I have been saying,
+and act as your own heart dictates. That will be your safest guide."
+
+So Rachel was engaged with satisfaction to all concerned. She
+conscientiously believed that she loved her elderly _fiance_, and that
+she would be very happy with him; and the rest of them thought so
+too--himself of course included.
+
+The winter wore away, full of peace and pleasure. The interesting event
+was public property, and the engaged pair were feted and congratulated
+on all sides, and enjoyed themselves immensely.
+
+Rachel had her diamond ring, and a diamond bracelet into the bargain,
+with a promise of the "necklace of stars, strung together," on her
+wedding day: and her aunt in consideration of her prospective
+importance, bought her the coveted sealskin jacket.
+
+Black Agnes was made over to her entirely, and she rode and jumped
+fences to her heart's content. She went to the opera whenever she liked.
+She was the belle of all the balls; and in the best part of Melbourne
+her splendid home was being prepared for her, where she was to reign as
+a queen of beauty and fashion, with unlimited power to "aggravate other
+women"--which is supposed by some cynics to be the highest object of
+female ambition.
+
+And Mr. Kingston bore with extreme complacency the jokes of his club
+friends on his defection from that faith in the superior advantages of
+celibacy, which he and some of them had held in common; for he knew they
+all admired his lady-love extravagantly, if they did not actually go so
+far as to envy him her possession. And he attended her wherever she went
+with the utmost assiduity.
+
+When the winter was nearly over, an event occurred in the Hardy family
+which made a change in this state of things. Mrs. Thornley, the second
+daughter, who lived in the country, having married a wealthy landowner,
+who preferred all the year round to manage his own property, presented
+Mrs. Hardy with her first grandchild; and being in rather delicate
+health afterwards, wrote to beg her mother to come and stay with her,
+and of course to bring Rachel.
+
+To this invitation Mrs. Hardy responded eagerly by return of post, and
+bade Rachel pack up quickly for an early start. Rachel was delighted
+with the prospect, even though it involved her separation from her
+betrothed; and her preparations were soon completed. Mr. Hardy was
+handed over to his daughter Beatrice, "to be kept till called for;" one
+old servant was placed in charge of the Toorak house, and others on
+board wages; and Mrs. Hardy, paying a round of farewell calls, intimated
+to her friends that she was likely to make a long visit.
+
+Rachel rose early on the day of her departure. It was a very lovely
+morning in the earliest dawn of spring, full of that delicate,
+delicious, champagny freshness which belongs to Australian mornings.
+She opened her window, while yet half dressed, to let in the sweet air
+blowing off the sea.
+
+Far away the luminous blue of the transparent sky met the sparkle of the
+bluer bay, where white sails shone like the wings of a flock of
+sea-birds. Below her, spreading out from under the garden terraces, far
+and wide, lay Melbourne in a thin veil of mist and smoke, beginning to
+flash back the sunshine from its spiky forest of chimney stacks and
+towers. And close by, through an opening in the belt of pinus insignis
+which enclosed Mr. Hardy's domain, and where just now a flock of king
+parrots were noisily congregating after an early breakfast on almond
+blossoms, she could see the dusty mess surrounding the nucleus of her
+future home, and the workmen beginning their day's task of chipping and
+chopping at the stones which were to build it; even they were
+picturesque in this glorifying atmosphere. How bright it all was! Her
+heart swelled with childish exultation at the prospect of a journey on
+such a day.
+
+As for Mr. Kingston, to be left behind to stroll about Collins Street
+disconsolately by himself, just now she did not give him a thought.
+
+Two or three hours later, however, when she and her aunt, accompanied by
+"Ned"--who had no office, unfortunately for him, and was therefore
+driven by his wife to make himself useful when opportunity
+offered--arrived at Spencer Street, there was Mr. Kingston on the
+platform waiting to see the last of her. If she was able to leave him
+without any severe pangs of regret and remorse, he for his part was by
+no means willing to let her go.
+
+"You will write to me often," he pleaded, when, having placed her in a
+corner of the ladies' carriage, he rested his arms on the window for a
+last few words. Mrs. Hardy was leaning out of the opposite window,
+deeply interested in the spectacle of an empty Williamstown train
+patiently waiting for its passengers and its engine.
+
+"Yes," said Rachel slowly; "but you must remember I shall be in the
+country, and shall have no news to make letters of."
+
+"I don't want news," he replied with a shade of darkness in his eager
+face. "Pray don't give me news--that's a kind of letter I detest. I
+want you to write about yourself."
+
+"I--I have never had many friends," she stammered, "and I am not used to
+writing letters. You will be disappointed with mine--and perhaps ashamed
+of me."
+
+"What rubbish! Do you think I shall be critical about the grammar and
+composition? Why, my pet, if you don't spell a single word right I
+shan't care--so long as you tell me you think of me, and miss me, and
+want to come back to me."
+
+"Oh," said Rachel bridling, "I know how to _spell_."
+
+Here a railway official shouldered them apart in order to lock the door,
+and Mr. Kingston demanded of him what he meant by his impudence. Having
+satisfied the claims of outraged dignity, he again leaned into the
+window, and put out his hand for a tender farewell.
+
+"Good-bye, my darling. You _will_ write often, won't you? And mind now,"
+with one of his Mephistophelian smiles, "you are not to go and flirt
+with anybody behind my back."
+
+"I never flirt," said Rachel severely.
+
+"Nor fall in love with handsome young squatters, you know."
+
+"Don't talk nonsense," she retorted, melting into one of her sunny
+smiles. "If you can't trust me, why do you let me go?"
+
+"I would not, if I had the power to stop you--you may be quite sure of
+that. But you will promise me, Rachel?"
+
+"Promise you what?"
+
+"That you will be constant to me while you are away from me, and not
+let other men----"
+
+She lifted her ungloved hand, on which shone that ring "full of
+diamonds" which he had given her, and laid it on his mouth--or rather on
+his moustache.
+
+"Now you'll make me angry if you go on," she said, with a playfully
+dignified and dictatorial air. "No, I won't hear any more--I am ashamed
+of you! after all the long time we have been engaged. As if I was a girl
+of _that_ sort, indeed!"
+
+Here the signal was given for the train to start, and Mrs. Hardy came
+forward to make her own adieux, and to give her last instructions to her
+son-in-law, who had been meekly standing apart.
+
+As they slowly steamed out of the station, Rachel rose and comforted her
+bereaved lover with a last sight of her fair face, full of fun and
+smiles.
+
+"Good-bye," she called gaily; "I promise."
+
+"Thank you," he shouted back.
+
+He lifted his hat, and kissed the tips of his fingers, and stood to
+watch the train disappear into the dismal waste that lay immediately
+beyond the station precincts. Then he walked away dejectedly to find his
+cab. He had grown very fond of his little sweetheart, and he anticipated
+the long, dull days that he would have to spend without her.
+
+He wished Mrs. Hardy had been a little more definite as to the time when
+she meant to bring her home. It was not as if he were a young man, with
+any quantity of time to waste. However, he had her assurance that she
+would be true to him under any temptations that should assail her in his
+absence; and though too experienced to put absolute faith in that, it
+greatly cheered and consoled him. He stepped into his hansom, and told
+the driver to take him to Toorak, that he might see how the house where
+they were going to live together was getting on.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+TWO LOVE LETTERS.
+
+
+MR. KINGSTON _to_ MISS FETHERSTONHAUGH.
+
+     "My dearest love,
+
+     "I had no idea that Melbourne _could_ be such a detestable
+     hole! Why have you gone away, and taken all the life and
+     brightness out of everything?
+
+     "If I had not the house to look after--and there is not much to
+     interest one in that at present--I declare life would not be
+     worth the trouble it entails in the mere matter of dressing and
+     dining, and slating the servants and tradespeople.
+
+     "I went to Mrs. Reade's last night. Everybody was there; but I
+     was bored to that extent that I came home in an hour (and
+     physicked _ennui_ at the card-table, where I lost ten pounds).
+     I could not get up any interest in anybody. Mrs. Reade herself
+     looked remarkably well. She is a very stylish woman, though she
+     is so small. And Miss Brownlow looked handsome, as usual--to
+     those who care for that dark kind of beauty. I confess I don't.
+     I could only long for you, and think what a lily you would have
+     been amongst them all, with your white neck and arms. (Be very
+     careful of your complexion, my darling, while you are in the
+     country; don't let the wind roughen your fine skin, nor sit by
+     the fire without a screen for your face).
+
+     "As usual, poor Reade got a good deal snubbed. I would not be
+     in his place for something. But if a wife of mine told me in
+     the presence of guests that I had had as much wine as was good
+     for me, I'd take care she didn't do it a second time. My little
+     wife, however, will know better than that; _I_ have no fear of
+     being henpecked. It was a kind of musical evening, and Sarah
+     Brownlow sang several new songs. I thought her voice had gone
+     off a great deal.
+
+     "I must say for Mrs. Beatrice, that she is a capital hostess,
+     and manages her parties as well as anybody. But this one was
+     immensely slow. Everything is slow now you are away. Is it
+     necessary for you to remain at Adelonga for the whole time of
+     your aunt's visit? Can't you come back to town soon, and stay
+     with Mrs. Reade? _Do_ try and manage it; I'm sure your aunt
+     would be willing, and it would be a most delightful arrangement
+     all round.
+
+     "You will find Adelonga very dull, I fancy. It used to be a
+     pleasant house in the old days, when Thornley was a bachelor;
+     but two marriages must have altered both it and him, and the
+     second Mrs. Thornley is not lively, even at the best of times,
+     and must be terribly depressing as an invalid. There are a lot
+     of children, too, are there not? If your aunt doesn't let you
+     come back, can't you, when your cousin is well enough,
+     manoeuvre to get me an invitation? I would not mind a country
+     house if you and I were in it together. Nothing could well be
+     drearier than town is without you. And it would be so charming
+     to be both under the same roof!
+
+     "And this reminds me of something I want to speak to you about
+     seriously, so give me your best attention. (I wonder whether,
+     having read so far, you are beginning to cover yourself with
+     blushes in anticipation of what is coming? I am sure you are.)
+
+     "You told me, you know, my darling, that you did not wish to be
+     married for a year or two--not until the house was built and
+     finished, you said--because you were so young. But I have been
+     thinking that that will never do. The house will probably be an
+     immense time in hand; it is not like an ordinary plain house,
+     you see. And _I_ am not young, if you are. I don't say that I
+     am old, but still I have come to that time of life when a man,
+     if he means to marry and settle, should do it as soon as
+     possible. And you are not any younger than your cousin Laura
+     was when she married last year; and her husband, moreover, was
+     a mere boy. I remember when Buxton was born, and he can't be
+     five-and-twenty, nor anything like it. So you see, my pet, your
+     proposal is _quite_ absurd and unreasonable.
+
+     "And now I will tell you what mine is. And I know my little
+     girl's gentle and generous disposition too well to doubt that
+     she will offer any serious opposition to it, or to any of my
+     urgent wishes. I propose that we marry without any delay; that
+     is to say, with no more delay than the preparing of your
+     trousseau necessitates.
+
+     "We have already been engaged some months, and by the time your
+     visit is over and your preparations made, we shall have fully
+     reached the average term of engagements amongst people of our
+     class. I want you to let me write to your aunt (I am sure she
+     would see the matter _quite_ from my point of view), and
+     suggest a day in September, or in October at the latest. That
+     is a lovely time of year, and all my other plans would fit in
+     with such an arrangement beautifully.
+
+     "You have never travelled, nor seen anything of the world yet;
+     and I should like to show you a little before you settle down
+     in your big house to all the cares of state. So I thought we
+     would go for a short honeymoon to Sydney or
+     Tasmania--whichever you like best; then come back for the
+     races, and to see how the house was going on. I think there
+     will be a club ball, too, about that time; if so, I know you
+     would like to go to it _with your diamond necklace on_. Would
+     you not? And then--while the shell of the house is building--I
+     propose we repeat the honeymoon tour on a larger scale, and go
+     to Europe.
+
+     "I know you would like to see all that Laura Buxton is seeing
+     now; and I will take care that you see a great deal besides.
+     You shall make the old grand tour, if you like it; it will be
+     new enough to you.
+
+     "And we will have a good time in Paris; and we will amuse
+     ourselves, wherever we go, collecting furniture and pictures,
+     and ornaments for our house.
+
+     "You shall choose everything for your own rooms--as I told you
+     my wife should--from the best looms and workshops in the world.
+     And then when we come home we will take a house somewhere while
+     we superintend the fitting up of our own.
+
+     "And finally, we will give a brilliant ball or something, by
+     way of housewarming, and settle down to domestic life.
+
+     "Now is not this a charming programme? I am sure you will think
+     so--indeed you _must_, for I have set my heart upon it.
+
+     "Pray write at once, dear love, and give me leave to put
+     matters in train. Do you know you have been away four days and
+     I have only had a post-card to tell me you arrived safely! That
+     is not how you are going to treat me, I hope. I know there is a
+     daily mail from Adelonga, and (though I repudiate post-cards) I
+     don't care what sort of scribble you send so long as you write
+     constantly. Remember what I told you about that. And remember
+     your _promise_.
+
+     "And now, good-night, my sweetest Rachel. Sleep well, darling,
+     and dream of me,
+
+     "Your faithful lover,
+
+     "GRAHAM KINGSTON."
+
+MISS FETHERSTONHAUGH _to_ MR. KINGSTON.
+
+     "My dearest Graham,
+
+     "I am afraid you will think I ought to have written to you
+     before, but I have been so much engaged ever since I arrived
+     that I really have not had an opportunity.
+
+     "Mr. Thornley is always showing me about the place, or the
+     children are wanting me to have a walk with them, or my cousin
+     sends for me to her room to see the baby; so that I may say I
+     have scarcely a moment to call my own until bedtime comes, and
+     then I am much too sleepy to write--the effect of the country
+     air, I suppose. I am enjoying myself excessively.
+
+     "The weather is lovely, and this is certainly the most
+     delightful place. It is a regular old bush house, which has
+     been added to in every direction.
+
+     "The rooms are low, and straggle about anyhow; there is no
+     front door--or, rather, there are several; and it has shingle
+     roofs and weatherboard walls (though all the outhouses are
+     brick and stone, and Mr. Thornley is going to build a new house
+     presently, which I think is _such_ a pity.)
+
+     "My own room has a canvas ceiling, which flaps up and down when
+     the wind is high: and most of the floors are of that dark,
+     rough-sawn native wood of olden times, which makes it necessary
+     that the best carpets should have drugget, or some kind of
+     padding under them. But, oh, how exquisitely the whole house is
+     kept inside and out.
+
+     "The drawing-room is _much_ prettier than ours at Toorak;
+     because Mr. Thornley has travelled a great deal at odd times,
+     and collected beautiful things, and seems to have good taste,
+     as well as plenty of money. There are quantities of pictures
+     everywhere; he is very fond of pictures.
+
+     "And the conservatories are half as big as the house; he is
+     fond of flowers too. Just now they are full of delicious
+     things--cyclamens, and orchids, and primulas, and begonias, and
+     heaths of all sorts, and azaleas, and I don't know what. There
+     are quantities of flowers in the garden too, so early as it is.
+     The great bushes--almost trees--of camellias are simply
+     wonderful; and there is a bed of double hyacinths under my
+     window of all the colours of the rainbow.
+
+     "Then there is a fernery--part of it roofed in, and part
+     running down through the shrubberies on one side. The tree
+     ferns make a matted roof overhead, and other ferns grow
+     between like bushes, and little ferns sprout everywhere
+     underneath amongst stones and things. There are winding paths
+     in and out through it, where it is quite dark at mid-day; and
+     there are little rills and waterfalls trickling there in all
+     directions, carried down in pipes from a dam up amongst the
+     hills behind the house.
+
+     "Don't you think _we_ might have a fern-tree gully? If the
+     water could be got for it, it would run down the side of a
+     terraced garden even better than it does here, where the ground
+     falls very slightly. If you like I will ask Mr. Thornley how he
+     made his, and all about it; he is always delighted if he can
+     give any information. He is such an excessively kind man. I
+     like him _so_ much. How long is it since you saw him? When he
+     was a bachelor, I think you said you stayed at Adelonga. That
+     must have been a long time ago, for his eldest daughter (just
+     now finishing her education in Germany) is older than I am.
+     There is a painting of him in the dining-room as a young man,
+     and one of his first wife. His is not the least like what he is
+     now. But I will tell you what might _really_ be his
+     portrait--Long's old inquisitor in the 'Dancing Girl'
+     picture--I mean that genial old fellow in the arm-chair, who
+     leans his arms on the table and grasps (I am sure without
+     knowing what he is doing) the base of the crucifix, while he
+     enjoys the sight of that pretty creature dancing. If you go and
+     look at him the next time you find yourself near the picture
+     gallery, you will see Mr. Thornley's very image. He is the
+     soul of hospitality; he is so courteous to everybody in the
+     house--even to his children; he is one of the nicest and
+     kindest men I ever met.
+
+     "But I have not said a word about my cousin Lucilla, or the
+     baby, or the other children. The baby is a little _duck_. I am
+     allowed to have him a good deal, because the nurse says I am
+     much 'handier' than most young ladies; and I certainly _have_
+     the knack of making him stop crying and of soothing him off to
+     sleep.
+
+     "The other children--three dear little girls--are in the
+     schoolroom; but Lucilla will not allow their governess to keep
+     them too strictly, because they are not very strong. Lucilla
+     herself I like _excessively_. She is much quieter than
+     Beatrice, and I don't think she is so clever, and she is not at
+     all pretty: but she is very sweet-tempered and kind, and very
+     fond of Mr. Thornley, though he is so much older than she is. I
+     am glad to say she is getting quite strong; so much so indeed
+     that she is going to have a large party next week.
+
+     "There are to be some country races, in which Mr. Thornley is
+     interested, and we are all going, and some people are coming
+     back with us to dine and spend the night. There is some talk of
+     a ball, too, to celebrate the coming of age of young Bruce
+     Thornley, who is now at Oxford--Mr. Thornley's eldest son. That
+     would be the week after. I _hope_ Lucilla will decide to have
+     it; they say Adelonga balls are always charming, and that
+     people come to them from far and near.
+
+     "One enormous room, with two fireplaces, which is gun-room,
+     billiard-room, smoking-room, and gentlemen's sanctum generally
+     (which in the general way is divided by big Japanese screens,
+     and laid down with carpets), was built and floored on purpose
+     for dancing in those old times that you remember. Perhaps you
+     have yourself danced there? Tell me if you have. I can see what
+     a delightful ball-room it would make, with lots of shrubs and
+     flowers. It opens into the conservatory at one end, and a
+     passage leads from the other both into the dining-room and out
+     upon the verandahs, which are wide, and bowered with creepers,
+     and filled with Indian and American lounge chairs.
+
+     "How are you getting on in town? Did you go to Beatrice's
+     party, and was it nice? I hope William will look after my dear
+     Black Agnes properly, and not let her out in the paddock at
+     night. _Would_ you mind sometimes just calling in to see, when
+     you are up that way?
+
+     "The workmen are having fine weather, are they not? Aunt
+     Elizabeth and I have been telling Lucilla all about the house,
+     and she says it will be magnificent. But Mr. Thornley does not
+     like pink for the boudoir. He says if I have pictures, some
+     shade of sage, or grey, or peacock would be better as a ground
+     colour. What do you think? I must say _I_ like the idea of
+     pink.
+
+     "Now I have come to the end of my paper. And have I not
+     written you a long letter? I hope you will not find it very
+     stupid.
+
+     "Aunt Elizabeth and Lucilla send their kindest regards, and
+     with much love, believe me,
+
+    "My dear Graham,
+
+    "Yours most affectionately,
+
+    "RACHEL FETHERSTONHAUGH."
+
+     "P.S.--Just received yours of Tuesday. _Please_ give me a
+     little time to think over your proposal, and do not do anything
+     at present. The tour in Europe would be very delightful, but I
+     think, if you don't mind, I would rather not be married _quite_
+     so soon."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+HOW RACHEL MET "HIM."
+
+
+Adelonga at about nine o'clock on the morning of the race day would have
+presented to the eye of the distinguished traveller--who, however, did
+not happen to be there, though he was a pretty constant visitor--a
+thoroughly typical Australian scene; typical, that is to say, of one
+distinct phase of Australian life. It was the enchanting weather of the
+country to begin with; which, say what grumblers will, is not to be
+matched, one month with another, in all the wide world--clear, fresh and
+sunshiny, with an air at once so delicate and so invigorating that none
+but exceptionally unhappy mortals could help feeling glad to be alive to
+breathe it.
+
+There had been a cold mist overnight, which was now melting away before
+the sun in shining white fleeces that swathed the hollows and shoulders
+of the hills behind the house, long after the upper slopes and peaks had
+stood sharp and clear in their own forest garments against a sky as pure
+as a sapphire and as blue as wild forget-me-nots.
+
+All the shrubberies that hemmed in the great garden--all the
+smooth-shaven wide lawns where croquet hoops still lingered--all the
+lovely waves and festoons of creepers that flowed over and curtained the
+verandah eaves--all the bright box borders, and all the gay
+flowerbeds--glistened with a sort of etherealised hoar-frost, and were
+greener than painter's palette could express in this early spring time.
+
+The rambling, old, one-storied house, with its endless roofs and gables,
+was the very type and pattern of that most charming of all bush houses,
+_the_ bush house _par excellence_; cottage in design, palace in the
+careful finish and elaboration of all its appointments, which, when its
+owner is rich and cultured, marks the latest of many developments--such
+as becomes, unhappily, rarer every year, and will soon have disappeared
+entirely.
+
+Columns of white smoke rose from half a dozen chimneys, testifying to
+the noble logs that blazed away within; while French windows, sash
+windows, lattice casements, and doors of all sorts stood open to the
+morning sun and the delicious morning air. Behind the house rose a
+screen of budding orchard trees, flushed here and there with peach and
+almond blossoms. Before the house, on the wide gravelled drive, where
+never weed presumed to show its head, stood an open break, large, but of
+light American build, round which most of the family and several
+servants were congregated, while four powerful horses fidgetted to be
+starting, the wheelers only being attached at present.
+
+Mr. Thornley stood in the break, superintending the bestowal of luncheon
+hampers, and shouting cheerily, but with that touch of imperiousness
+which indicated a man who had been a master all his life, to the
+servants below him. Mrs. Thornley, looking slight and girlish, stood on
+the steps of one of the numerous front doors, wrapped in a shawl. She
+had wished very much to go to the races too, and to take the nurse and
+baby for the further glorification of the occasion; but her husband had
+forbidden her to think of anything so foolish, and she had ceased to do
+so accordingly, with an abject meekness that would have greatly
+disgusted Mrs. Reade.
+
+Mrs. Hardy stood on the doorstep too, more imposing than ever beside
+this gentlest and most unpretending of her children; and the governess
+came out of the house in festive apparel with her two elder pupils
+dancing after her.
+
+Rachel was already on the box, where she was to sit beside the driver,
+to her great delight. She was in the wildest spirits, and she was
+looking as lovely as everything else looked on that eventful morning.
+She had quite disregarded Mr. Kingston's injunctions to take care of her
+complexion.
+
+A dark-blue felt hat worn rather on the back of her head, left her soft
+face exposed to the sun and wind, as well as to the admiring gaze of all
+men. Nothing could have shown up its texture and colour, nor the
+wonderful burnished richness of her hair, better than that dark-blue
+hat. She wore with it a dark-blue, close-fitting dress, very tight about
+the knees, as was then the newest mode, but setting easily to her figure
+otherwise, and strongly outlining all its perfect curves of girlish
+beauty. She would rather have displayed the sealskin jacket than her own
+lovely shape, if she could have found an excuse for doing so; but the
+day was going to be warm, and her aunt, who was a thrifty soul, would
+not allow the sealskin jacket to be made a mere emergency wrap of--to be
+thrown into the boot with the rugs and waterproofs.
+
+Everything was ready at last, after a great deal of commotion and much
+running to and fro--the bountiful luncheon that was to be available for
+all comers when luncheon time came, the hamper of crockery, the basket
+of fresh-cut salad, the wine, the beer, the soda-water, the spirit stove
+and kettle to make afternoon tea with, &c.--and the ladies took their
+seats.
+
+Mrs. Hardy throned herself in an inside corner, Miss O'Hara, the
+governess in the opposite corner, next the door sat the butler and a
+nursemaid, and the children took up the room of four grown-up people in
+the middle of the vehicle. However, it was expected to have a full
+complement of passengers coming home, which was a great satisfaction to
+everybody.
+
+Mr. Thornley climbed into his seat and began to gather up his reins: the
+two restive leaders where put to; the groom who was to accompany the
+carriage rode off to open gates; and "Steady! steady!" roared the
+driver, letting out his thong with lightning flashes over the four bare
+backs, as the impulsive animals after their immemorial custom, mixed
+themselves all together in promiscuous kickings and buckings prior to
+coming to a clear understanding with themselves and him.
+
+For the few delightful seconds that were occupied in getting off, Rachel
+was deaf to the cries of her terrified aunt, and blind to everything but
+the wild movement beneath her; then, as the horses sprang into their
+collars simultaneously with one great bound, and swept out into the
+paddock, scattering frightened sheep in all directions, she looked back
+at her cousin, standing forlornly alone on the doorstep, and waved her
+hand rapturously.
+
+"Good-bye! good-bye!" she called, in her clear happy voice. "I do wish
+you were coming!" And looking down on Mrs. Hardy before she turned her
+head, she rallied that stately matron in a gay and reckless manner. "It
+is all right, Auntie: there is nothing in the world to be afraid of. We
+made a beautiful start! If the off-leader does get both his traces on
+one side, Mr. Thornley knows how to make him get between them again.
+And, oh, _what_ a day it is!"
+
+It was, indeed, a day--the kind of day I suppose that has made us, young
+and old, the holiday-loving, easy-going, fate-defying people that we
+are, and for ever unfits us, when we have had a few years of them, for
+any more of those stern experiences, social and atmospherical, in which
+the youth of many of us seems to us now to have been so harshly
+disciplined.
+
+Sir Henry Thompson has shown us what a close affinity exists between
+food and virtue; no grown Briton can come out here for ten years and go
+back without learning something of the value of climate as a raw
+material of happiness.
+
+Though every settled township in the colony has its racecourse and its
+yearly meetings, this, the nearest to Adelonga, was a two-hours' drive
+distant, even with four fast horses; and it was nearly the time for the
+first event to come off when our party reached the ground.
+
+The course lay in the ring of a shallow valley, hemmed in with low
+hills on one slope of which the vehicles of the "county families" of
+the neighbourhood were withdrawn a little apart from the space occupied
+by the bulk of the crowd, and such booths, merry-go-rounds, and other
+rural entertainments as the bulk of the crowd affected.
+
+There was no grand stand, no platform even--except the judge's box,
+which was dedicated to-day to Mr. Thornley's use, and a gallery running
+along one side of the saddling-enclosure, where the betting men chiefly
+congregated. But this slope, rising rather steeply immediately behind
+the place where a grand stand _would_ have been, was a favourable
+position, for ladies at any rate, from which to view the main
+proceedings; and here the Adelonga break was brought to anchor.
+
+Two grooms were waiting to take out the horses, which were fed and
+watered on the ground in the prevailing picnic fashion, and "hung up" at
+the boundary fence, where scores of others were tethered.
+
+Mr. Thornley looked about for the people he expected to join his party,
+found they had not arrived, and then set forth to the saddling-enclosure
+to see what horses were going to start and when.
+
+Rachel continued to sit on the box, and thought it was delicious. She
+had a powerful field-glass all to herself, and through this she surveyed
+the units and groups that composed the company--women and children, a
+great many of them, in charge of sporting husbands and fathers of all
+ranks, all perfectly orderly and well-behaved, and all apparently
+enjoying themselves as much as she was.
+
+Some people from a neighbouring buggy came up to speak to Mrs. Hardy,
+and to inquire after Mrs. Thornley's health; and a carriage full of
+young people further down enticed away the Thornley children and Miss
+O'Hara.
+
+Before she was involved in any of these social proceedings, however, Mr.
+Thornley returned, and asked her if she would not like to go with him
+and see what was doing "down there"--pointing over his shoulder in the
+direction from whence he had come.
+
+In a moment she had sprung lightly from her perch and was standing
+beside him, pleading eagerly for her aunt's permission, which was
+graciously given, with certain vague qualifications that she did not
+stop to listen to.
+
+And then she tripped across the green springy grass, shy and fluttered,
+and charmed with her enterprise, blushing vividly under the stares of
+those dreadful men, and feeling in her innocent heart not a little proud
+of the distinguished position in which she found herself.
+
+The bell was ringing for saddling, and Mr. Thornley took her into the
+enclosure to see this operation, which she found deeply interesting.
+Crowds of men--betting men, jockeys, owners, stewards--elbowed one
+another in and out, and the horses paced and pranced amongst them; and
+into the thick of it marched the burly judge to show his young charge
+what there was to be seen.
+
+And what did she see? Jockeys putting on their jackets in semi-private
+corners; owners superintending the adjustment of saddles and riders;
+noisy gamblers rushing hither and thither with book and pencil; graceful
+horses lightly sailing out one after another to try the chance on which
+so much beside money was staked; and--men falling back respectfully to
+make way for her wherever she went, and to gaze with surprised curiosity
+and admiration on the unique spectacle of so fair a creature in so rude
+a place. It was all very delightful.
+
+"And now," said Mr. Thornley, who for his own part was well pleased to
+keep her with him, "now you shall stand in my box and see the race. Come
+along."
+
+And away they went into the outside crowd, and she was escorted up the
+steps and placed like a queen on her royal dais, in sight of all the
+country side assembled. She was inclined to think that--for once in a
+way--it was even better than going to the opera.
+
+Thereafter until the race was over, she watched the proceedings with the
+deepest awe and interest. She was so afraid she should embarrass Mr.
+Thornley in the performance of his professional duty that she got as far
+away from him as possible, and leaning over the side railing enjoyed her
+observations in silence.
+
+The horses came to their starting-place and had their usual differences
+of opinion. Ambitious amateurs offered advice to the starter, who
+recommended them to mind their own business. Two or three jockeys
+careered about wildly, and one was fined; and then the flag dropped, and
+they rushed away; and Rachel lifted her glass with trembling hands and
+gazed at the flying colours, mixing and fading as they passed into the
+sunshiny distance, and held her breath. Round they came presently, and
+past her they flashed, two or three together, two or three straggling
+behind; and the roar of the men beneath and around her made her turn a
+little pale.
+
+No word was uttered that was unfit for her girl's ear to hear, but the
+waves of shouts rolling all about her expressed a fierce eagerness of
+suspense and expectation that made her think of "poor Lorraine Loree,"
+whose husband sacrificed her to the chance of winning a race.
+
+The clamour rose, and lulled, and rose again, as for the second time the
+green circle was traversed and the horses came in sight--some lagging
+far behind, some labouring along under the whip, two keeping to the
+front almost neck and neck, whose names were flung wildly into the air
+from a hundred mouths.
+
+And then Mr. Thornley, standing quietly with his eye upon the little
+slip of wood before him, said, "Bluebeard and Jessica--half a head." And
+it was over.
+
+Rachel drew a long breath. She was not sorry that it was over, though
+she was very glad to have seen it. She shook herself, as if to get rid
+of a painful spell, and felt that she might begin to enjoy herself
+again.
+
+"_Dear_ horses!" she exclaimed, with an almost solemn rapture as she
+watched them straggle away. She would have liked to go up and pat them
+all, and caress their heaving flanks and their poor trembling noses,
+after all they had gone through. And then her face brightened as the
+winner came pacing back, dropping and lifting his beautiful head as he
+filled his lungs again; and when his jockey saluted the judge, she
+leaned forward over the railing and smiled a smile in acknowledgement of
+his prowess, which made that jockey think himself a hero for the rest of
+the day.
+
+"And now," said Mr. Thornley, "there is nothing more at present: so
+we'll see how your aunt is getting on, and look for the Digbys." The
+Digbys were the people they expected to take back with them to Adelonga.
+
+But even as he spoke he was arrested in his place by some of his many
+friends, who crowded the steps below him, wanting to have a few minutes'
+gossip about the race, or perhaps wanting to have a nearer view of her
+own pretty person, never seen in those parts before.
+
+And while she waited she turned aside to have another amused look at the
+children in their merry-go-rounds, and the lads playing Aunt Sally, and
+all the simple festivities of the holiday-makers, whose proceedings she
+could so well survey from her present commanding position; and it was
+then that she saw for the first time a remarkable-looking horseman
+riding slowly through the crowd.
+
+Her attention was attracted in the first place by the beauty of his
+horse--for in a small way she was a good judge of horses: and then she
+noticed that the equipment of that noble animal was slightly different
+from what she was accustomed to see.
+
+She supposed it was an English saddle in which that tall man sat so
+square and straight; then she wondered why he wore his stirrup leathers
+so excessively long; and then lifted her glass and stared intently at
+his face. There was not much of this to see just now, even through a
+strong glass; for he wore a small, soft cap with a peak to it, low over
+his eyes, in which the sun was shining, and though his jaws were shaven
+and his brown throat bare, he had a heavy, drooping, reddish moustache,
+which was the largest she had ever seen.
+
+He was riding in the direction of the judge's box, and as he came near
+she dropped her glass, and shrinking back shyly touched that potentate's
+arm. Mr. Thornley turned round, and the horseman took off his cap with a
+stately sort of careless courtesy, and revealed a clear-cut, keen-eyed,
+powerful, proud face, neither young nor old, rather thin and worn, and
+tanned and dried to leather-colour, which Rachel felt at once to be the
+most _impressive_ face she had ever looked upon.
+
+"Hullo!" cried Mr. Thornley, in an accent of profound amazement. "Why,
+I thought you were gone to Queensland!"
+
+"I ought to have gone," the stranger replied. He had a quiet, cool
+voice, that nevertheless rang clear through all the noise about them. "I
+duly started yesterday, but we broke a trace, and I lost my train by two
+minutes."
+
+"Two minutes! Well, that was hard lines. Are the Digbys here?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You are not going to make another start immediately, I suppose?"
+
+"Not till next week, I think."
+
+"Then you'll come back with us to-night?"
+
+"Thanks."
+
+Here he reined up his horse just beside Rachel's railing, and sent a
+furtive but searching glance up into her pretty blushing face.
+
+"Allow me to introduce my wife's cousin, Miss Fetherstonhaugh," said Mr.
+Thornley, laying his hand on her shoulder with a paternal gesture.
+"Rachel, my dear--Mr. Roden Dalrymple."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+A BLACK SHEEP.
+
+
+"Who is Mr. Roden Dalrymple?" asked Rachel presently. Mr. Thornley was
+escorting her back to her aunt, and the person in question was riding
+across the ground--slowly, as he had come--in search of one of the
+grooms of his party, to whom he might deliver his horse to be stabled in
+the township until the return from Adelonga.
+
+"Who is he?" repeated Mr. Thornley. "He is Mrs. Digby's brother. Nice
+little woman, Mrs. Digby. You will like her I know. I am very glad she
+has come."
+
+"But what is he?" persisted Rachel, so absorbed in watching the tall
+rider swinging along at that stately, easy pace, with his long stirrups
+and his dangling rein, that she nearly tumbled over a couple of children
+who crossed her path. "Is he a Queensland squatter?"
+
+"That is what he thinks of being," laughed Mr. Thornley, with an amused,
+half-mocking laugh. "He has taken up a big run with Jim Gordon, and they
+are going to live there and manage for themselves. A nice mess they'll
+make of it, I expect."
+
+"Why?" inquired Rachel.
+
+"Why? They know no more about it than you do. How should they? Oh, by
+the bye, yes; I suppose Dalrymple has dabbled in cattle a little--in
+that South American venture of his. But that experience won't benefit
+him much. He lost every penny he put into that business."
+
+"Has he lived in South America?" asked Rachel.
+
+"He has lived all over the world, I think. He's a rolling stone, my
+dear, that's what he is--with the proverbial consequences."
+
+"Is he poor, then?"
+
+"Poor as a church mouse. That is to say, he has got a bit of an estate
+somewhere in Scotland or Ireland--I really forget which--an old ruin of
+a house mortgaged to the chimney-pots, and a few starved farms, that
+bring him in a few odd hundreds now and again. He tries all sorts of
+queer schemes for mending his fortunes, but they never come to
+anything."
+
+"Perhaps he is one of the unlucky ones--like my poor father," suggested
+Rachel.
+
+"I don't know. I'm afraid he's a ne'er-do-weel. Judging from his past
+history--Jim Gordon knows all about him--he has no worse enemy than
+himself."
+
+"What is his history?" Rachel asked the question with a vague sense of
+resentment against her prosperous host, who had probably never known
+misfortunes.
+
+"Well, he was an only son, and I suppose spoilt--to begin with. He was
+brought up for the army--simply, as far as I can make out, from force of
+habit, because his father and no end of grandfathers had been soldiers
+before him--instead of being taught how to manage and improve that
+ramshackle old property of his.
+
+"He was in a crack cavalry regiment; one of the worst of them--I mean
+for folly and extravagance; and he went no end of a pace, as if he had
+the Bank of England at his back, and got all his affairs into a mess;
+and then he got gambling at Newmarket. The story goes that he played a
+brother-officer for some woman that they were both in love with; and he
+staked everything he had in the world that he could lay his hands on,
+except that old land and house, which the law kept for his children.
+Fortunately, he is not married, nor ever likely to be."
+
+"And he lost her?" said Rachel, in an awed whisper, with something very
+like tears in her eyes.
+
+"Her? He lost more than ever she was worth, I'll be bound. He lost to
+that extent that he had to sell his commission to pay. The young fool!
+he must have been a raving lunatic."
+
+"And what did he do then?" asked Rachel, taking out her handkerchief and
+blowing her nose ostentatiously.
+
+"No one quite knows what he did for the first few years after he sold
+out. He lived in Paris most of his time, and knocked about on the
+continent, at Baden and those places--up to no good, you may be sure.
+Then he went to the Cape, hunting and amusing himself; and then to
+California, gold-digging; and then all about South America, trying
+farming or cattle-raising, or something of that sort; and then Digby
+went home and married his sister, and she persuaded him to come here."
+
+"Has he been here long?"
+
+"A year or two. He has lived with them most of the time--learning
+colonial experience of Digby, I suppose. She is awfully fond of him,
+that little woman. And Digby never says a word against him--for her
+sake, I suppose."
+
+"Why should he say anything against him?" asked Rachel rather warmly.
+"He is doing nothing wrong now, is he?"
+
+"Oh, no. He is older and wiser now, I daresay. Still--still--" and Mr.
+Thornley looked askance at the pretty young creature who was about to
+make this reprobate's acquaintance under his roof, and bethought him
+that he ought to secure her against temptation and danger--"still
+there's no doubt that he is rather a bad lot--what you would call a
+black sheep, you know, my dear--not the sort of man that it is desirable
+to be very intimate with."
+
+Rachel blushed one of her ready blushes, and with such suddenness and
+vigour that Mr. Thornley feared he had accidentally made equivocal
+suggestions.
+
+"I don't mean that he is not a gentleman--a thoroughly honourable
+gentleman," he explained hastily. "I don't know the rights of that
+Newmarket business, but in everything else, as far as I am aware, his
+moral character is as good as mine is; otherwise I should not ask him to
+Adelonga. I am only speaking of him as a man who has lived a sort of
+loose, extravagant, Bohemian kind of life, you know."
+
+"I know," assented Rachel absently. Already his prudent tactics were
+having their natural effect. She was ready to champion the cause of this
+apparently friendless, as well as unfortunate man; in whom, had he been
+recommended to her favour, she might--I do not say she _would_, but she
+might--have felt only an ordinary unemotional interest; and she did not
+want to hear any more to his disparagement.
+
+"Is that their buggy?" she asked, nodding in the direction of a covered
+waggonette which was now drawn up alongside the break--in which three
+ladies sat with Mrs. Hardy, while three gentlemen leaned in and talked
+to them.
+
+"Yes," he replied, "and that is Mrs. Digby--that little woman in a brown
+hat. The one next her is Mrs. Hale, a neighbour of theirs--cousin of
+Digby's. The girl is Miss Hale. That's Digby with the big light beard.
+The little man is Hale. The man with a brown beard is Lessel--engaged to
+Miss Hale."
+
+"Are they all coming to Adelonga?"
+
+"They are. And I am wondering how we are going to stow them all. We can
+pack ten inside, with a little squeezing, but there is Dalrymple
+extra."
+
+"I'll sit in the boot with the children."
+
+"And all the portmanteaus? Indeed you won't. I must take two on the box.
+How do you do, Mrs. Digby? How do, Mrs. Hale? How do, Miss Hale? I am
+delighted to see you all."
+
+Here ensued many complicated greetings, and protracted inquiries and
+explanations as to everybody's health and welfare; and then Rachel found
+herself absorbed in the group, and the business of making all these new
+people's acquaintance. She was a shy, but an eminently adaptable, little
+person, ready to melt like snow before a smiling face and a kindly
+manner; and as she naturally received a great deal of attention, she was
+soon at her ease amongst them.
+
+Mrs. Digby was a graceful and distinguished-looking woman, fair and
+pale, with a soft voice and refined and gentle manners, and her she
+admired excessively, with the reverent enthusiasm of eighteen for a
+sister beauty of eight-and-twenty.
+
+Mrs. Hale was less attractive. She was rather pompous and imperious,
+rather noisy and bustling, anxious to lead the conversation, and
+generally to dominate the company; and withal she had no pretensions to
+good looks, except in respect of her very handsome costume, and not a
+great deal to good breeding; she was large and strong; she was rich and
+prosperous; she had a small, meek husband. Such as she was, she
+monopolised the largest share of Mrs. Hardy's attention.
+
+Miss Hale was a comfortable, round-faced, wholesome-looking girl,
+pleasant to talk to, but not intellectually, or indeed in any way
+remarkable. She devoted herself to Rachel ardently, with the air of
+taking friendly relations as a matter of course, under the interesting
+circumstances; glancing archly at Rachel's diamond ring, and displaying
+the less magnificent symbol of her own betrothal; and otherwise,
+whenever opportunity offered, suggesting the sentimental situation with
+more or less directness.
+
+Rachel, however, did not find her engagement a matter of absorbing
+interest; she preferred to talk to Mrs. Digby about the little Digbys
+left at home, or to muse in silent intervals--which, to be sure, came
+few and far between--of that sad and tragic story of which a glimpse
+had just been given her.
+
+The men of the waggonette party were pleasant, ordinary men; all of them
+Australians born, and two of them--Mr. Digby and Mr. Lessel--fine,
+handsome specimens of our promising colonial race. They were assiduous
+in their attentions to the youngest and prettiest lady of the company,
+who, as a matter of course, liked their attentions; but she could not
+help feeling a certain restless desire for the return of Mr. Roden
+Dalrymple, whose absence seemed to make the circle strangely incomplete.
+
+He was a long time coming back. They went down to witness the second
+race; they wandered for half-an-hour amongst the booths and
+merry-go-rounds to amuse themselves with any rustic fun that was going
+on; they congregated under the shelter of the judge's box--Mrs. Digby
+and Miss Hale standing in it on this occasion--to see yet another
+"event" disposed of; and then the butler and the nursemaid with profuse
+amateur assistance began to spread the tablecloth for lunch on a bit of
+grassy level, pleasantly shadowed in the now brilliant noontide by the
+big body of the break.
+
+All the portmanteaus had been placed in the boot of this capacious
+vehicle, and the Digbys' waggonette and horses had been sent to the
+hotel to await their return from Adelonga; and still there was no sign
+of Mr. Dalrymple.
+
+"Where can the fellow be?" inquired Mr. Digby of the general public,
+looking up for a moment from his interesting occupation of brewing
+"cup," in which Rachel was helping him. "He is the most unsociable brute
+I ever came across--always loafing away by himself. It isn't safe to
+take your eye off him for a moment."
+
+"How well Queensland will suit him!" laughed Mrs. Hale.
+
+"No doubt he rode down to the township to give his own orders about
+Lucifer," said his sister, lifting her gentle face. "You know he never
+cares to trust him to a groom."
+
+"He could have done that and been back again an hour ago," rejoined her
+husband. "However, pray don't wait for him when lunch is ready, Mrs.
+Hardy; he will turn up some time."
+
+Rachel had an indignant opinion, to which she longed to give
+expression, that they would all be most grossly rude if they did
+anything of the sort. She resented this too ready inclination to slight
+a man who in her estimation was dignified by his heroic experiences so
+much above them all; and as far as in her lay she did what she could to
+counteract it.
+
+She took a napkin and polished all the wine-bottles, and peeled the foil
+from all the champagne corks; she mixed and tossed the salad in a slow
+and cautious manner; she garnished the numerous meats with unnecessary
+elaboration; she would not allow luncheon to be ready, in short, until
+either one o'clock or the missing guest arrived.
+
+She was standing on the step of the break, helping to hand down rugs
+and cushions for the ladies to sit upon--which was not her business, as
+her aunt's disapproving eye suggested--when at last she discerned him
+far away on the outskirts of the crowd.
+
+"It wants ten minutes to one, Mr. Thornley, and I see Mr. Dalrymple
+coming," she called out in her fresh, clear voice.
+
+"Where do you see him?" asked Mr. Digby, who was standing in the break,
+hugging an armful of opossum rugs. "_I_ don't see him."
+
+She pointed silently, and for some minutes Mr. Digby looked in vain for
+his brother-in-law, knitting his brows, and shading his eyes from the
+sunlight. At last he saw him.
+
+"All that way off!" he exclaimed. "You must have very good sight, Miss
+Fetherstonhaugh, to recognise him at such a distance."
+
+"He is easy to recognise," said Rachel, simply.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+OUTSIDE THE PALE.
+
+
+The races were over at four o'clock, with the exception of the
+"Consolation Stakes," and a few other informal affairs, upon which Mr.
+Thornley did not condescend to adjudicate; and the Adelonga party,
+swelled to fifteen, set off on their long drive home.
+
+It was a time of year when the twilight fell early and it was dark
+between six and seven; but to-night there was a moon, and there was no
+need to hurry; all that was necessary was to get back in comfortable
+time to dress for an eight o'clock dinner.
+
+There was a great deal of conversation, but Rachel had not much share in
+it. The break was crowded, of course.
+
+The two servants sat on the box with Mr. Thornley; the boot was
+full of portmanteaus. There was no room for the children inside, except
+on the knees of their elders; and one of them Rachel insisted on nursing
+(and she went fast asleep), while Miss O'Hara sat beside her with the
+other. Buxom Miss Hale was wedged opposite, with (Rachel was sure, and
+it offended her sense of propriety deeply) her lover's arm round her
+waist. Mr. Dalrymple sat by the door, almost out of sight and sound.
+
+Rachel had scarcely spoken to him all day; the profuse attentions of the
+other gentlemen to her had interposed between them, and perhaps, though
+she was not aware of it, her aunt's little manoeuvres also. But her
+thoughts were full of him, as she sat, tired and silent, in her corner,
+with the sleeping child in her arms.
+
+Her imagination was fascinated by the story of his life, which, given to
+her in so brief an outline, she filled in for herself elaborately,
+dwelling most of course upon the dramatic Newmarket episode, and
+wondering whether that woman was worthy or unworthy of the sacrifice of
+fame and fortune that he had made for her.
+
+"What a lovely night!" remarked Miss Hale, breaking in upon her reverie.
+
+Rachel looked up, with an absent smile. The moon was beginning to
+outshine the fading after-glow of a gorgeous sunset; stars were stealing
+out, few and pale, in a clear, pale sky; the distant ranges were growing
+sharp and dark, with that velvety sort of bloom on them, like the bloom
+of ripe plums, which is the effect of the density of their forest
+clothing, seen through the luminous transparency of their native air.
+
+There was a sound of curlews far away, making their melancholy
+wail--broken now and then by the screaming of cockatoos, or the
+delirious mirth of laughing jackasses, or the faint "cluck, cluck" of
+native companions sailing at an immense distance overhead. The frogs
+were serenading the coming night in every pool and watercourse; the cold
+night wind made a sound like the sea in the gums and sheoaks under which
+they swept along, crashing and jingling, at the rate of ten miles an
+hour. The lonely bush was full of its own weird twilight beauty.
+
+"It is a very lovely night," assented Rachel; and she sighed, and laid
+her cheek on Dolly Thornley's head. She was a little tired, a little
+sad, and she did not want to talk just now. Seeing which, Miss Hale gave
+herself with an easy mind to her lover's entertainment.
+
+However, when the four horses drew up at the most central of the
+Adelonga front doors, panting and steaming, with their exuberance all
+evaporated, the naturally light heart became light and gay again. It was
+such a cheery arrival too. The charming old house was lit up from end to
+end; blazing logs on bedroom hearths sent ruddy gleams through a dozen
+windows; doors stood wide like open arms ready to receive all comers.
+
+Mr. Thornley handed his guests out of the break with profuse gestures of
+welcome, shouting to his servants, who were trained as he was himself,
+to all hospitable observances, and hurried to take traps and bags.
+
+Mrs. Thornley, looking girlish and pretty in a pale blue evening dress,
+stood on the doorstep, eager and smiling, scattering her graceful and
+cordial salutations all around her.
+
+"Oh, Lucilla," exclaimed Rachel, when she had given her charge to a
+nursemaid, running up to kiss her cousin, between whom and herself very
+tender relations--based on the baby--existed, "we have had such a
+_lovely_ day. I am sorry you were not with us."
+
+"I am glad you enjoyed yourself," responded Mrs. Thornley
+affectionately. "You have had splendid weather. Run and see if the fire
+is burning nicely in Mrs. Digby's room, there's a dear child."
+
+It took some time to get all the guests collected in the house, and then
+to disperse them, with their wraps and portmanteaus, to their respective
+rooms. Rachel assisted her cousin in this pleasant business, trotting
+about to carry shawls, and poke up fires, and get cups of tea and cans
+of hot water. It was the kind of service that she delighted in.
+
+When everybody was disposed of, and she went to her own room, she found
+she had barely half-an-hour in which to dress herself. What, she
+wondered, should she put on to make herself look very, very nice. With
+all these strangers in the house it behoved her to sustain the credit of
+the family, as far as in her lay. She set about her toilet with a flush
+of hurry and excitement in her face.
+
+All her weariness was gone now; she was looking as bright and lovely as
+it was possible for her to look. Discarding the black dress that was her
+ordinary dinner costume, she arrayed herself all in white--the fine
+white Indian muslin which had been brought to Adelonga for possible
+state occasions, and which was, therefore, made to leave her milky
+throat and arms uncovered. She put on her diamond bracelet, but she took
+it off again. She fastened a pearl necklace--another of her lover's
+presents--round her soft neck, but she unfastened it, and laid it back
+in its velvet case.
+
+She went into the drawing-room at last with her beauty unadorned, save
+only by a bit of pink heath in her bosom--without a single spark of that
+newly-acquired jewellery that her soul loved--lest she should help, ever
+so infinitesimally, to flaunt the wealth and prosperity of the family in
+the eyes of impecunious gentlemen. And it is needless to inform the
+experienced reader that Mr. Dalrymple, turning to look at her as she
+entered, thought she was one of the loveliest girls he had ever seen.
+
+He was far away on the other side of the room, and she did not go near
+him. The ladies were rustling about in their long trains and tinkling
+ornaments; the men were trooping in, white-tied and swallow-tailed,
+rubbing their hands and sniffing the grateful aroma of dinner.
+
+Then the gong began to clang and vibrate through the house, and the
+company, who were getting hungry, paired themselves to order, and set
+forth through sinuous passages to the dining-room. Rachel being,
+conventionally, the lady of least consequence, was left without a
+gentleman to go in with; and she sat at the long table on the same side
+with Mr. Dalrymple, too far off to see or speak to him.
+
+When dinner was over and the ladies rose, she took advantage of a good
+opportunity to pay a visit to the baby, whom she had not seen all day--a
+terrible deprivation.
+
+She whispered her proposed errand to Lucilla, who gratefully sent her
+off; and the baby being discovered awake and amiable, she spent nearly
+an hour in his apartment, nursing and fondling him in her warm, white
+arms. It was her favourite occupation, from which she never could tear
+herself voluntarily.
+
+By and bye the baby dropped asleep, and was tenderly lowered into his
+cradle; and then having nothing more to do for him, she tucked him up,
+kissed him, and went back to her social duties.
+
+When she entered the drawing-room she found the whole party assembled,
+and some exciting discussion was going on. Mrs. Hale sitting square on a
+central sofa was evidently the leading spirit; and Mrs. Hardy sitting
+beside her, indicated to the girl's experienced eye, by the expression
+of her face and the elevation of her powerful Roman nose, that she was
+supporting her neighbour's views--whatever they were--in a determined
+and defiant manner. Miss Hale and Mr. Lessel had retired to a distant
+alcove, but they had suspended their whispered confidences to listen to
+the public debate. Mr. Thornley and Mr. Hale were trying to play chess,
+but were also distracted. Mr. Digby lounged against a side table
+pretending to be absorbed in _The Argus_, but peeping furtively at
+intervals over the top of the sheet. Miss O'Hara sat apart knitting,
+with an expression of rigid disapproval.
+
+Mrs. Digby, in a very central position, full in the light, lay back in a
+low easy chair, and fanned herself with gentle, measured movements. Her
+eyes were fixed on a picture in front of her, her soft mouth was set,
+her face was pale, proud, and grave; very different from Mrs. Thornley's
+beside her, which was disturbed and downcast, as that of a hostess whose
+affairs were not going well. Rachel saw in Mrs. Digby for the first time
+a strong resemblance to her brother.
+
+Mr. Roden Dalrymple stood alone on the hearthrug with his back against
+the wall, and his elbows on a corner of the mantelpiece. His face was
+hard and cold, yet not without signs of strong emotion.
+
+It was evidently between him and Mrs. Hale that the discussion lay, and
+it was equally evident that the "feeling of the meeting" was against
+him. Rachel, taking in the situation at a glance, longed to walk over to
+the hearthrug and publicly espouse her hero's cause, whatever it might
+happen to be. What she did instead was to glide noiselessly to the back
+of her cousin's chair, and leaning her arms upon it, to "watch the case"
+on his behalf. They were all too preoccupied to notice her.
+
+"It is all very well," Mrs. Hale was saying in an aggressive manner,
+"but it was nothing short of murder in cold blood. And if you had been
+in any other quarter of the globe when you did it, you would not have
+escaped to tell the tale to us here."
+
+"My dear Mrs. Hale--excuse me--I am not telling the tale to you here. I
+have not the slightest intention of doing so."
+
+"But everybody knows it, of course."
+
+"I think not," said Mr. Dalrymple.
+
+"That you had a quarrel with a man who had once been your friend,"
+proceeded Mrs. Hale, with a vulgar woman's unscrupulousness about
+trespassing on sacred ground; "and that you hunted him round the world,
+and then, when you met him in that Californian diggings place, shot him
+across a billiard-table where he stood, without a moment's warning."
+
+"Oh, yes," said Mr. Dalrymple, calmly; "he had plenty of warning--five
+years at least."
+
+"Not five minutes after you met him. Mr. Gordon was there, and said that
+he was a dead man five minutes after you came into the room and
+recognised him."
+
+"Gordon can tell you, then, that I satisfied all the laws of honour. The
+meeting had been arranged and expected; there were no preliminaries to
+go through--except to borrow a couple of revolvers and get somebody to
+see fair play. There were at least a dozen to do that; Gordon was one."
+
+"Poor fellow," ejaculated Mrs. Hardy with solemn indignation. "And _he_
+fired in the air, I suppose?"
+
+"He would have fired in the air, I daresay, if he had any hope that I
+would do so," replied Mr. Dalrymple, with a face as hard as flint, and a
+deep blaze of passion in his eyes. "But he well knew that there was no
+chance of that. He was obliged to shoot his best in self-defence."
+
+"Then you might have been killed yourself!--and what then?"
+
+"That was a contingency I was quite prepared for, of course. What
+then?--I should have done my duty."
+
+"Don't say 'duty,' Roden," interposed Mrs. Digby, very gently and
+gravely.
+
+"My dear Lily, the word has no arbitrary sense; we all interpret it to
+suit our own views. It was my idea of duty."
+
+"Poor fellow!" exclaimed Mrs. Hardy again. "It is a dreadful story. And
+did he leave any family?"
+
+"I would rather not pursue the subject, Mrs. Hardy--if you have no
+objection."
+
+"I wonder you are not afraid to go to bed," Mrs. Hale persisted,
+undeterred by the darkness of his face. "The ghost of that poor wretch
+would haunt _me_ night and day. I should never know what it was to sleep
+in peace."
+
+Rachel listened to this fragment of a conversation, which had evidently
+been going on for some time; and her heart grew cold within her. Mr.
+Dalrymple happened to turn his head, and saw her looking at him with her
+innocent young face scared and pale; and he was almost as much shocked
+as she. A swift change in himself--a straightening of his powerful,
+tall frame, and a flash of angry surprise and pain in his imperious
+eyes--aroused a general attention to her presence.
+
+"You here, my dear?" exclaimed Mrs. Hardy, much discomposed by the
+circumstance. "That is the worst of these irregular shaped rooms--with
+so many doors and corners, one never sees people go out and come in."
+
+"How is baby?" inquired Mrs. Thornley eagerly, thankful for the
+diversion. "Is he sleeping nicely?"
+
+Mr. Dalrymple strode across the room and wheeled up a chair. "Won't you
+sit down, Miss Fetherstonhaugh?" he said, looking at her with a little
+appeal in his still stern face. "You must be tired after your long day."
+
+"Thank you," said she; and she sat down. But she felt incapable of
+talking--incapable of sitting still, with her hands before her. General
+conversation of a more comfortable and conventional kind than that which
+she had interrupted was set going all around her.
+
+The lovers resumed their _tete-a-tete_ in the corner; the chess-players
+continued their game; Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Hardy, suffering from a very
+justifiable suspicion that they had been a trifle rude, endeavoured to
+make themselves particularly entertaining. But she sat silent and
+miserable with downcast eyes, picking at the embroidery on her dress,
+and wishing the evening over--this disappointing evening which had
+counteracted all the brightness and pleasure of the day--so that she
+could slip away to bed.
+
+"You have had no tea," said Mr. Dalrymple presently, when all the
+married ladies were absorbed in discussing the merits of their
+respective cooks. "It came in while you were out of the room. Won't you
+have some now?"
+
+Grateful for any interruption of the spell of embarrassment which was
+holding her painfully under his watchful eyes, she thanked him, and
+rising hastily went over to one of the numerous recesses of that
+charmingly arranged room, where the evening tea-table usually stood
+between a curtained archway and a glass door that led into the
+conservatory.
+
+Of course he followed her. The curtains were looped back so as to permit
+the glow of lamps and firelight to stream in from the room, and on the
+other side a full moon shone palely down through a network of flowering
+shrubs and fern trees. They could hear the conversation of the rest
+distinctly--particularly Mrs. Hale's share of it. But it was a very
+retired place.
+
+"You had better sit down," said Mr. Dalrymple, "and let me pour it out
+for you. Yes--I do it every night for my sister. She, too, likes to have
+the teapot brought in. But I doubt if it is fit to drink; it has been in
+half an hour. I thought you were tired and had gone to bed."
+
+"Did you?"
+
+"Yes; I am afraid you _are_ very tired. You ought not to have come
+back."
+
+"I--I wish I had not," she said, hardly above a whisper, as she took the
+cup from his hands. She looked into his face for a moment with her
+timid, troubled eyes, and then looked down hastily and blushed her
+brightest scarlet.
+
+"I know, I know," he replied, in a low tone of emotion that had a touch
+of fierceness in it. "I saw how shocked you were, and I could have
+bitten my tongue out. But I should never have spoken of _that_ if Mrs.
+Hale had not badgered me into it. If it had been one of the men--but
+they know better! A woman, though she may be the most prodigious fool,
+is privileged. I am very sorry. I can't tell you how sorry I am."
+
+"It is not _hearing_ it that matters," stammered Rachel, stirring her
+tea with wild and tremulous splashes; "it is knowing--it is thinking--of
+its being true."
+
+He paused for a moment, and looked at her with a look that she was
+afraid to meet, but which she _felt_ through all her shrinking
+consciousness: and then he said quietly. "Drink your tea, and let us go
+into the conservatory for five minutes."
+
+It was a bold proposal under the circumstances; but it did not occur to
+her to question it. She drank her tea hastily, and put down her cup; and
+Mr. Dalrymple opened the glass door, which swung on noiseless hinges,
+and passing out after her, coolly closed it behind them both. It was
+very dim and still out there. The steam of the warm air, full of strong
+earthy and piney odours, clung to the glass roofs through which the moon
+was shining, and made the light vague and misty. The immense brown
+stems of the tree ferns, barnacled with stag horns, and the great green
+feathers spreading and drooping above them, took all kinds of phantom
+shapes.
+
+Rachel herself looked like a ghost in her white dress, as she flitted
+down the dim alleys by that tall man's side, tapping the tiled floor
+with her slippered feet with no more noise than a woodpecker.
+
+"Is that the lapageria?" asked Mr. Dalrymple, when he thought they had
+gone far enough for privacy, pausing beside a comfortable seat, and
+pointing upward to a lattice-work of dark leaved shoots, from which hung
+clusters of dusky flower bells. "How well it grows here, to be sure!"
+
+"Everything grows well here," responded Rachel, relieved from some
+restraint by this harmless opening of their clandestine _tete-a-tete_;
+"and that creeper is Mr. Thornley's favourite. The flowers are the
+loveliest red in daylight."
+
+"Now I want to tell you a little about that story you heard just now,"
+he proceeded gravely. "Sit down; it won't take long."
+
+"You said you would rather not talk about it," murmured Rachel.
+
+"I would much rather not. There is nothing I would not sooner do--except
+let you go away thinking so badly of me as you do now. I don't usually
+care what people think of me," he added; "I am sure I don't know why I
+should care now. But you looked so terribly shocked! It hurts me to see
+you looking at me in that way. And I should like to try if I could to
+make you believe that I am not necessarily a bad man, more than other
+men, though bad enough, because I fought a duel once and killed my
+adversary."
+
+"_Meaning_ to kill him," interposed Rachel. "That is the dreadful part
+of it!"
+
+"Yes; I meant to kill him. I staked my own life on the same chance, if
+that is any justification, but--oh, yes, I meant to kill him, if I
+could. I had a reason for that, Miss Fetherstonhaugh. Shall I tell you
+what it was?"
+
+"Yes," whispered Rachel. "But how _could_ there be any sufficient reason
+for such a terrible crime?"
+
+"Don't call it a crime," he protested. "That is how they speak of it
+who know nothing about it--that is how they will represent all my life,
+which has been different from theirs--to make you shun and shrink from
+me as if I had the small-pox. Wait till you know a little more."
+
+He was leaning forward with an elbow on his knee, and looking into her
+face. She met his eyes now in the uncertain moonlight, which was shining
+on her and not on him; and he saw no sign of shrinking yet.
+
+"Why did you do it?" she asked sorrowfully.
+
+"Long ago," he said, after a pause, "he and I fell in love with--some
+one; and she loved him best. At least I think she did--I don't know.
+Sometimes I fancy she would have cared most for me, if we had had our
+chances. But we had no chances; I had to give my word of honour not to
+stand between her and him--not to try to win her, unless she distinctly
+showed a preference for me."
+
+"I understand," whispered Rachel. She knew this part of the story
+already.
+
+"At any rate," he continued, "she made choice of him. He sold out of the
+service, and they went away together. I had sold out myself not long
+before, and went away too--travelling about the world. I was very lonely
+at that time; I didn't much care where I went or what became of me. It
+was several years before I saw or heard of her again."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"And one night, when I had come back home to look after my property, I
+met her in London streets. It was the middle of winter--it was
+raining--she was all alone--she was almost in rags--"
+
+"Don't tell me any more!" implored Rachel, beginning to tremble and cry.
+
+"No," he said, and he drew a deep long breath, "I _can't_ tell you any
+more. Only this--she died. I did all I could to save her, but it was too
+late. She died of consumption--brought on by exposure and want, and
+misery of all sorts--a week or two after I found her. And now you know
+why I killed him. _That_ was why!"
+
+There was a long pause, broken once or twice by Rachel's audible
+emotion. She had still her own views as to the right and justice of
+what he had done; but she did not dream of the presumption of giving
+them now.
+
+This tremendous tragedy of love and revenge dwarfed all her theories of
+life to the merest trivialities. She could only wonder, and tremble, and
+cry.
+
+"It is an old story now," said Mr. Dalrymple, more gently. "And I try
+not to think too much of it. It was all fair, thank Heaven!--I comfort
+myself with that. I could have shot him once before in Canada; but he
+was unprepared then. He did not see me, and I would not take him at a
+disadvantage. I try not to think of it now. I don't want you to think of
+it either--after to-night. Will you try not to? And try not to let them
+persuade you that I am quite a fiend in human shape?"
+
+Rachel blew her nose for the last time, put her handkerchief in her
+pocket, and smiled a tearful smile.
+
+"I am afraid you are not very good," she said, shaking her head, "but I
+know you can't be a really wicked man."
+
+"How do you know it?" he asked eagerly.
+
+"How? I'm sure I don't know--I feel it."
+
+"Thank you, thank you," he said, in a low, rapid under tone. "You don't
+know how I thank you for saying that. At any rate, I have _some_
+rudimental morality. I am honest, to the best of my power. I tell no
+lies to myself, or to any man--or woman. What I say I mean, and what I
+do I own to--if called upon, that is. You may trust me that far. And I
+_hope_ you will."
+
+"I will," said Rachel, without a moment's hesitation.
+
+How often they thought afterwards of their first strange talk, all alone
+in that shadowy place. It was as if they had known one another in some
+other world, and had met after long absence; they felt--widely unlike as
+they were--so little as strangers usually do beginning a conventional
+acquaintance in the conventional way. However, it did occur to both of
+them that it would be as well to go back to the drawing-room before they
+should be missed.
+
+"I am glad to have had this opportunity," said Mr. Dalrymple, who rose
+first. "I shall hope--I shall feel sure--that you will not let yourself
+be prejudiced unfairly by anything you may hear. For the rest, I hope
+you will try not to think of this painful story again."
+
+And he began to saunter back, and she to saunter beside him.
+
+As they entered the drawing-room by the glass door, they heard Mrs.
+Hardy calling:
+
+"Rachel! Rachel! Why, where is Rachel gone to?"
+
+The girl glided into the broad, warm light, a little confused and
+dazzled, and, of course, dyed in blushes, which deepened to the deepest
+pink of oleanders--nay, to the still richer red of that lapageria which
+had attracted Mr. Dalrymple's attention just now--as she became
+conscious of the curious observation of the assembled guests, who, she
+well knew, would not regard this characteristic demonstration as lightly
+as those did who knew her.
+
+"I am here, Aunt Elizabeth," she replied, in an abject voice, as if she
+had been caught in something very disgraceful.
+
+"Oh!" responded Mrs. Hardy, "I thought you were gone to bed." She looked
+sharply at the girl's downcast face, and then more sharply at Mr.
+Dalrymple, who met her eyes with a stately and distant air of not
+putting himself to the trouble of remembering who she was that she found
+very offensive and aggravating. "You had better go, my dear," she said
+peremptorily. "It is late, and you have had a tiring day. I shall be
+having Mr. Kingston complaining if I let you knock yourself up."
+
+Rachel was only too glad to say good night and go. The other ladies
+began to rise and stir about, gathering up fans and fancy work, but she
+left the room before they had come to any unanimous decision about
+separating. Mr. Dalrymple held open the door for her. "Good night," she
+whispered hurriedly, not looking at him. He answered by a strong
+pressure of her hand in silence. She did not understand it then, but
+looking back afterwards she knew that that first brief hand-clasp
+stirred her erstwhile latent woman's soul to life. She was never the
+same afterwards.
+
+Half an hour later, when she was sitting by her own fireside, dreamily
+brushing her long auburn hair over a blue dressing-gown (blue was her
+specially becoming colour), Mrs. Hardy tapped at her door, and entered.
+
+"I have brought you a little wine and water, dear," said she, looking
+very friendly and amiable. "I know you seldom take it, but to-night it
+will do you good. And Lucilla says you are to be sure not to get up to
+breakfast if you feel tired in the morning."
+
+"Oh, thank you, auntie, but you know I _never_ lie in bed! And I am not
+in the very _least_ tired. I have had a delightful day."
+
+"Yes; it has been a pleasant day. I am glad you have enjoyed it so
+much. I am only sorry we had to bring that Mr. Dalrymple back with us.
+I consider him a most objectionable, a most disreputable, young man--not
+so very young either; he will never see forty again, unless I am much
+mistaken. But Lucilla and Mr. Thornley are both so much attached to Mrs.
+Digby; for her sake they are obliged to be civil to him."
+
+Rachel was silent.
+
+"You will, however, be careful, dear, I know, not to get more intimate
+with him than necessary," Mrs. Hardy continued. "Mr. Kingston would
+dislike it very much. He is a very wild young man--he has not at all a
+good character."
+
+"You said Mr. Kingston was wild, auntie," the girl suggested timidly.
+It was her sole feeble effort in defence of her absent friend.
+
+"Nonsense! I'm sure I said nothing of the kind. He is a man whom
+everybody looks up to. There is no question of comparison between them.
+At any rate," she added, with solemn severity, "Mr. Kingston has not
+taken a fellow-creature's life, as this man has. _That_ is reason enough
+why we must none of us have more to do with him than is absolutely
+necessary. You will remember that, Rachel? Be civil to him, my dear, of
+course, but no more. I should not have allowed you to come into contact
+with such a man if I could have helped it, and we had no idea of seeing
+him to-day. However, they will all be gone after to-morrow, and you need
+not recognise him again. The Digbys are coming to the dance next week,
+but Mrs. Hale says he means to start again for Queensland on Monday. Let
+us hope they won't break their traces a second time. Good night, my
+dear; you will remember what I say? It is what Mr. Kingston would wish
+if he were here, I know."
+
+And Mrs. Hardy kissed her niece affectionately and went away to bed,
+with a sense of having done her duty, and without the least suspicion
+that as a domestic diplomatist, she had covered herself with disgrace.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+MR. DALRYMPLE HAS TO CONSULT GORDON.
+
+
+Of course it is well understood, without further explanation, that Mr.
+Dalrymple and Rachel were in the position of the Sleeping Beauty and her
+prince when the spell that held life in abeyance was--or was about to
+be--broken. At the same time it is not to be inferred that the man, with
+his years and experience, fell in love at first sight with a merely
+pretty face, nor that the girl was more than ordinarily impressionable
+and inconstant, or had any constitutional weakness for wild young men.
+
+Perhaps it is not necessary to essay the difficult task of finding a
+theory to account for it. Everybody knows that if there is a law of
+nature that will not lend itself to system, it is that which governs
+these affairs.
+
+The greatest force and factor in human life comes to birth by a mere
+chance--in Roden Dalrymple's case by the breaking of a trace, which was
+in itself the result of a whole series of trivial and quite avoidable
+circumstances; and then it thrives or languishes by the favour of petty
+accidents--until time and sanctifying associations put it beyond the
+reach of accident. That is its superficial history, taking a general
+average.
+
+Quality and potency are questions of temperament; vigour of growth
+depends in great measure on what may be called climatic influences. But,
+as with some other great mysteries of this world, human understanding
+can make very little of it.
+
+At the same time people do not fall in love with each other absolutely
+without rhyme or reason. And these two did not. Of course personal
+appearance had, in the first instance, something to do with it.
+
+To a girl of Rachel's disposition (or, indeed, of any other
+disposition), nothing in the whole catalogue of manly graces could have
+been more captivating than that quiet air of power and dignity which
+was the chief characteristic of her hero's person and bearing.
+
+And Mr. Dalrymple, who was not the kind of man to be at any time
+insensible to the charm of a sweet face, had had sufficient experience
+to understand and appreciate the peculiar charm of this one--its
+unaffected modesty and candour; and he had had, moreover, little of
+anything to charm him in his later wandering years.
+
+And Rachel was not merely a pretty girl, by any means. Being of a most
+unselfish, unassuming, kindly nature, and having a subtle apprehension
+of the general fitness of things, her manners were exceedingly gracious
+and winning--not always conventional, perhaps, but always refined and
+modest; and that honest youthful enthusiasm for life and its good
+things, which more or less flavoured all she said and did, though
+inimical to the prejudices of the British matron, was a charming thing
+to men.
+
+Then Mr. Dalrymple had the faculty to perceive what made her look at him
+with so peculiarly wistful and earnest a look; he recognised his friend,
+if not his love and mate, in the earliest hours of their acquaintance. A
+friend in so fair a shape was doubly a friend naturally; and the strong
+appetite that he had for friendship, as a rudimental phase of passion,
+had had little to feed on but bitter memories for more than a dozen
+years.
+
+As for Rachel, it was almost inevitable that she should lose her heart
+to this hero of romance--this Paladin with a touch of the demon in
+him--whom circumstances combined to present to her under such singularly
+impressive auspices. If the truth must be told, she fell in love much
+more suddenly and hopelessly than he did; and the fates--incarnate in
+the persons of his enemies--did their best to precipitate the
+catastrophe.
+
+On the morning following their strange interview in the conservatory--of
+which she had been dreaming all night--she awoke with a dim sense of
+something being wrong. It was so very dim a sense that she did not
+consciously apprehend it, and therefore made no investigation into its
+origin. But instead of jumping out of bed as usual, eager to plunge at
+once into the unknown joys of a new day, she lay still until obliged to
+get up to receive her tea, and gazed pensively into vacancy.
+
+It was just such a morning as yesterday--the sun shining in through the
+white blind, the fresh wind rustling along the leafy verandahs, the
+magpies gossiping cheerily in great flocks about the garden; and there
+was that sweetest baby cooing like a little wood pigeon as he was
+carried past her door in his nurse's arms. But she was deaf to these
+erewhile potent influences.
+
+"Your hot water, miss," quoth a housemaid in the passage.
+
+"Thank you, Susan," she responded absently, and continued to gaze into
+vacancy.
+
+"Your tea, miss," came, with another tap, presently.
+
+And then it was she had to get out of bed. She took in her tea, set it
+down on a chair and forgot it; she put on her slippers and
+dressing-gown, and armed herself with towel and sponge, but had to make
+three visits to the bath-room before she could get in.
+
+Then she woke up to the fact that she was late, and scampered excitedly
+about the room in her anxiety to make a becoming toilet in the shortest
+possible space of time. Finally, she went to breakfast five minutes
+after the gong was supposed to have assembled the family, and found that
+the gentlemen had all gone out early on a shooting expedition.
+
+"Isn't it too bad?" exclaimed Miss Hale. "They arranged it in the
+smoking-room last night, after we were gone to bed; and Harold _knew_
+that we wanted to play croquet."
+
+Croquet, it may be remarked, had not yet "gone out," and Harold was Mr.
+Lessel.
+
+"They had their breakfast at six o'clock," said Mrs. Thornley, smiling.
+"And you know, dear Miss Hale, it is nearly the last day of the open
+season, and my husband has been trying to preserve those lagoons in the
+forest on purpose. There were a great many ducks there last week, and
+they will have good sport and enjoy themselves, I hope. They said they
+would be back to luncheon."
+
+"Oh, don't you believe it!" snorted Mrs. Hale, who, having given her
+lord orders to stay at home, which had been grossly violated, was in an
+aggrieved and aggressive mood. "_I_ know them!--never a thought will
+they give to luncheon, or to us either, until they are tired of their
+sport. If they are in time for dinner, that's quite as much as you can
+expect."
+
+Rachel sat down, feeling fully as much as anybody the blank that the
+five gentlemen had left behind them. She did not exactly say to herself
+that it had been waste of time and trouble to put fresh frills into her
+dress, but that was the nature of her sentiments.
+
+It was not a lively morning. None of them expected it would be, so they
+were not disappointed. The matrons beguiled the dull hours with
+sympathetic gossip on domestic themes.
+
+Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Hardy had a banquet of Melbourne news and scandal, in
+the discussion of which they incidentally glorified their respective
+connections, each for the other's edification, until a suggestion of
+Mrs. Hale's (to the effect that Mr. Kingston was not much better than he
+should be, in spite of his wealth) caused a slight coolness to arise
+between them.
+
+Mrs. Thornley and Mrs. Digby, both young wives and mothers, with many
+tender interests in common, whispered pleasantly over their needlework,
+chiefly of their nursery affairs.
+
+The two girls had no resource but to keep each other company. They went
+first to see the baby; but Miss Hale was not an enthusiast in babies.
+Then they had a little music; and here Rachel did not greatly
+distinguish herself.
+
+After that they walked about the garden and talked. Rachel was told all
+about Mr. Lessel--how charming and how good he was--what his father
+meant to settle on him when he married--when the wedding was to be, and
+what the bridesmaids were to wear. Then she was enticed into a few
+reluctant confidences about her own engagement, which led to a detailed
+description of the new house, and an invitation to Miss Hale, when she
+should be Mrs. Lessel, to pay a visit there some day with her husband.
+And so the morning wore away, and luncheon-time came.
+
+They waited luncheon until past two o'clock, and, to the sombre
+satisfaction of Mrs. Hale, the sportsmen did not return, and the made
+dishes were spoiled.
+
+Then the mail arrived, and there was a letter for Rachel from her
+_fiance_, begging her to write at once to relieve his mind of a fear
+that she was ill, and to tell him at the same time that she acquiesced
+in the arrangements he had proposed for their early marriage, and
+whether she preferred Sydney or Tasmania for the introductory wedding
+trip.
+
+He particularly wanted her to settle these little matters without
+further delay, as the spring was so much the pleasantest time for
+travelling, and he had had the offer of a charming house in Sydney, on
+the shores of the bay, for the first two or three weeks in October,
+which would only be open for a few days.
+
+When she had read this letter, she was in a frantic hurry to answer it.
+Holding it in her hand, she excused herself to her companions, who were
+all setting forth for a gentle walk; begging to be allowed to stay at
+home with an anxious eagerness that provoked significant and indulgent
+smiles, which said, "Oh, pray don't mind us," as plainly as smiles could
+speak.
+
+So when they were gone, she made herself comfortable in the
+smoking-room, in one of the screened compartments of which there was a
+sort of public writing-table, supplied with great bowls of ink, and
+sheafs of pens, and reams of paper, on which "Adelonga" was printed--as
+if Adelonga had been a club--for the use of all-comers; and where there
+was always a glorious fire of big logs whenever there was the least
+excuse for a fire.
+
+Here she began her second letter to Mr. Kingston--with effusive
+conciliatory excuses for having been such a very bad correspondent. She
+had really been so much engaged--time had slipped away, she didn't know
+how--the post had gone once or twice without her knowing it--yesterday
+they had been away from home; altogether, fate had been against her
+writing as often as she had intended, but she would promise him to be
+more regular in future.
+
+Then followed a description of the races, and an enumeration of the
+guests they had brought back with them--who they all were, what they
+were like, and her estimation of them respectively. One was dismissed
+without comment--"and a Mr. Dalrymple, Mrs. Digby's brother" (and of
+course her dearest Graham remarked the extreme simplicity of this
+phrase, and was curious about the interesting details that were
+conspicuous by their absence). And then, after a few inquiries about the
+progress of the house, she plunged into the really important matter.
+
+"I have been thinking about your proposal a _great_ deal, and I want
+you, _please_, not to be angry with me if I cannot accede to it," she
+began in an abject and deprecating manner that was significant of her
+state of mind. "I want to stay a little longer with my dear aunt, to
+whom I have had so little opportunity as yet of making what return is in
+my power for all her kindness to me; and I want a little time to
+improve myself, too, for my future position as your wife, dear Graham.
+Lucilla is a beautiful housekeeper and is teaching me lots of things;
+and I am brushing up my French and German with Miss O'Hara, who said my
+accent (but it is much better now) was enough to set one's teeth on
+edge. Moreover, I am _really_ too young to be married just yet. I am
+hardly nineteen, and Laura Buxton was nineteen and a half. Perhaps next
+year----"
+
+At this point she was interrupted by the arrival of the sportsmen. They
+had been to the drawing-room, apparently, for they came in by way of the
+conservatory, through a door just opposite the writing-table. She put
+down her pen and rose in haste.
+
+"Hullo, Rachel! Good-morning, my dear. Don't get up--we won't disturb
+you," shouted Mr. Thornley, cheerily. "Come in, Lessel--come in,
+Dalrymple. Here's where the guns go."
+
+"What sport have you had? And are you not very hungry?" she asked,
+moving away from her chair and standing on the hearthrug. According to
+her primitive ideas of propriety, she was bound to stay a little while
+and see to their hospitable entertainment, there being no proper hostess
+available.
+
+"Hungry? I should think so. And we had very good sport, though not much
+to show for it," responded Mr. Thornley. "Only five ducks to five guns,
+and Dalrymple shot four of them. They are wild enough at the best of
+times; but at the end of the season there is no getting near them."
+
+"You must be a very good shot," she said, lifting her eyes meekly to Mr.
+Dalrymple's face. And then, the moment the words were spoken, she would
+have given worlds to recall them, and looked at him again with a dumb
+entreaty to be forgiven.
+
+He smiled gently, reading her like a book.
+
+"Oh, no," he said; "I was only lucky in having the birds."
+
+They all came round her as she stood on the hearthrug, except Mr.
+Thornley, who had gone to order some bread and cheese and beer; and they
+looked pleased with the situation.
+
+Mr. Digby began to tell her what a lovely day it was, and to ask her
+why she had not gone out for a walk, too; and then, when she explained
+that she had had letters to write, and found herself, unfortunately,
+unable to do so without blushing over it (blushing because she feared
+she was _going_ to blush), Mr. Hale broke in; and Mr. Hale in
+conversation was, in his very different way, worse than Mrs. Hale.
+
+"To Melbourne, I presume?" insinuated this little monster, with an arch
+smile. Rachel, the colour of a peony, lifted her head an inch nearer to
+the ceiling.
+
+"I only heard last night," he continued, rubbing his hands, and looking
+a whole volume of vulgar pleasantries, "that the redoubtable Kingston
+has been vanquished at last, and that it is to your bow and spear that
+he has fallen. Allow me to congratulate you, Miss Fetherstonhaugh."
+
+"To congratulate _him_, I should think you mean," broke in Mr.
+Dalrymple, who was studying the effect of sunset on a picture of the
+Adelonga homestead and pulling his moustaches violently. "Hadn't we
+better go and wash our hands, Digby, and make ourselves more fit for
+ladies' company?"
+
+"To congratulate him, too, certainly," said Mr. Hale; "very much so, of
+course. But still it is a great conquest on the part of Miss
+Fetherstonhaugh. Perhaps you don't know Kingston?"
+
+"I have not that honour," replied Mr. Dalrymple stiffly; and the tone of
+his voice strongly implied that he did not in the least degree desire
+it.
+
+"Well, I do; and I know that he has openly defied the combined powers
+of her charming sex for--I am afraid to say how many years--as long as I
+can remember."
+
+"I daresay that has not distressed them," said Mr. Dalrymple.
+
+"Come, come, Hale," said Mr. Digby, who thought his kinsman's allusion
+to Mr. Kingston's age a terrible slip of the tongue; "let us go and wash
+our hands. Come along, Lessel."
+
+"And my wife tells me," continued the irrepressible little man, "that
+the--a--the interesting event is to take place very shortly!"
+
+Rachel came out of her majestic reticence with a rush that astonished
+everybody.
+
+"Oh, _no_, Mr. Hale--not for a _long_ time--not for a year, at the very
+least! Who _could_ have told Mrs. Hale such a thing? I assure you it is
+quite, quite wrong! _Do_ you know who told her? Was it my aunt?"
+
+She looked at him with an earnest, imploring look that aroused Mr.
+Dalrymple to regard her with considerably sharpened interest. The
+alarming thought had struck her that her lover might have privately
+enlisted Mrs. Hardy's support for his new scheme; and if so, how should
+she be able to resist so formidable a pressure?
+
+"I think it was Mrs. Thornley told Mrs. Hale. She had a letter from her
+sister, Mrs. Reade, yesterday; and Mrs. Reade had mentioned it. Ladies'
+gossip, Miss Fetherstonhaugh!--ladies never can keep secrets, you know.
+They tell everything to one another, and then to us. And we--we tell
+them nothing. We know better, eh, Digby?"
+
+"Come along," said Digby, who was getting a little savage, "and don't
+talk like a fool."
+
+At this critical juncture Mr. Thornley appeared to announce that there
+was bread and cheese in the dining-room for anybody who was hungry.
+Whereupon the men trooped out--all but Mr. Dalrymple, who apparently was
+not hungry. He was lounging at Rachel's side, with an elbow on the
+mantelpiece, pulling his moustache meditatively; and he did not move.
+
+Rachel was fluttered and excited.
+
+"How _do_ people get hold of those things?" she exclaimed, with a vexed,
+embarrassed laugh. "It is very true that everybody knows one's business
+better than one does one's self. I _hate_ that kind of impertinent
+gossip. No one has the _least_ ground for supposing that I am going to
+be married shortly. I have no intention of being married for ever so
+long."
+
+"Why do you care what people say?" said Mr. Dalrymple. "I never care. It
+is much the best plan."
+
+"I would not, if I could help it; but I can't," she responded, turning
+round and mechanically spreading her pink palms to the fire.
+
+"And, after all," he continued, slowly, "all the talking in the world
+can't make you marry if you don't want to."
+
+She did not look up, but the blood flew over her face.
+
+"I did not say I didn't want to," she murmured. "Of course I want
+to--not yet, for a long time, but some day--or I should not be engaged."
+
+"I don't think that _always_ follows, Miss Fetherstonhaugh. I think many
+people engage themselves, and live to think better of it. And then, if
+they don't refuse to consummate an admitted mistake, they--well, they
+ought to, that's all. Forgive me, I am speaking in the abstract of
+course. I have had a great deal of experience, you know."
+
+"Of broken engagements?" queried Rachel, smiling faintly at the fire.
+
+"No, not of them--not personally. The curse of my life was an engagement
+that was kept. And I have seen so much misery, such everlasting wreck
+and ruin, come upon people I have known and cared for--people who kept
+the letter of the law of honour and disregarded the spirit--who
+preferred sacrificing all that made life worth having, for certainly two
+people, and probably four, to breaking an engagement that had no longer
+any sense or reason in it."
+
+"But surely an engagement--it is the initial marriage ceremony--should
+be kept sacred," protested Rachel, daring at last to look up, in defence
+of pious principles.
+
+"Yes," he said, "certainly--when it is _really_ the initial marriage
+ceremony."
+
+"And how--what--what is the proof of that?"
+
+"Shall I tell you what I think it is? When the people who are engaged
+long and weary for the consummation--for the time to be over which
+keeps them from one another."
+
+There was a dead silence. Rachel continued to gaze into the fire, but
+her eyes were dim, and all her pretty colour sank out of her face. He
+had given her a great shock, and she had to take a little time to
+recover. Presently she looked up, pale and grave, with a fuller and more
+open look than she had ever given him.
+
+"You should not have told me," she said gently; "you should not talk to
+me so."
+
+"No--you are right--I should not--forgive me," he replied, speaking low
+and hurriedly, with something new and strange in his voice. And then
+they became simultaneously aware of the dangerous ways into which their
+discussion had led them, and, by tacit consent, turned back. Rachel
+moved away to the writing-table, and began to gather her papers
+together; Mr. Dalrymple brought his arm down from the chimney-piece and
+looked at his watch.
+
+"It is five o'clock," he said; "the ladies are having a long walk, are
+they not?"
+
+"No; it was nearly four when they started. They will be in directly for
+their tea."
+
+Then, without looking to right or left, Rachel hurried out of the room;
+and Mr. Dalrymple, after silently holding the door for her, strode away
+to the dining-room, where he was still in time for some bread and
+cheese.
+
+The first thing Rachel did on reaching her room, was to sit down and
+cry--why or wherefore she never asked herself. She had not yet learned
+the art of analysing her emotions.
+
+She felt vaguely perplexed and hurt, and ashamed and indignant; and a
+few tears were necessary to put her to rights. They were very few, and
+soon over.
+
+In less than ten minutes she had again addressed herself to Mr.
+Kingston's letter, which she finished up with the suggestion that their
+marriage should take place "next year," and a profusion of unwonted
+endearments.
+
+At dusk she went to the drawing-room, where the reunited guests were
+having tea in the pleasant firelight, the gentlemen lounging about in
+their knickerbockers and leggings, the ladies sitting with hats tilted
+on the back of their heads, Mrs. Hale victorious over her subdued
+husband. Miss Hale happy with her recovered beau. She sat a little
+outside the circle and talked in under-tones to Lucilla; Mr. Dalrymple
+stood far away on the other side of the room, and talked to nobody.
+
+That night Rachel was the first to go to dress; she was the last to come
+back when the gong announced dinner. And when she came she was arrayed
+in all her glory--pearl necklace, diamond pendant, diamond bracelet,
+jewelled fan--all her absent lover's love-gifts that good taste
+permitted her to wear, and a few more. And there was no repetition of
+the conservatory scene.
+
+Mrs. Hardy was perfectly satisfied with the result of her diplomatic
+measures. Rachel sat by her aunt's side, and sewed industriously all the
+evening at a pinafore for her precious baby, who was about to be
+short-coated. Mr. Dalrymple sat rather apart, gnawing his moustache,
+apparently absorbed in a photographic album of Lucilla's, which he had
+discovered in a cabinet near him.
+
+Two or three times, when Rachel stole a look across the room, unable to
+repress her restless curiosity to know what he was doing, she saw him
+gazing meditatively at this open book, and always on the first page of
+it. She wondered whose photographs they were that interested him so
+much, and she felt that she could not go to bed without satisfying her
+anxiety on this point.
+
+When after tea, music and cards and other gentle entertainments were set
+going, and Mr. Dalrymple was at last enticed by his host from his corner
+and his album to make a fourth at the whist-table, she watched her
+opportunity and stole round to the chair on which he had been sitting.
+He had his back to her, but he was facing a mirror in which he could see
+her distinctly; and while he watched her movements, he trumped his
+partner's trick for the first time in his life, and otherwise disgraced
+a notorious reputation.
+
+"I suppose," said Mrs. Hale, who was his partner, with considerable
+asperity, "that you don't trouble to play well if you haven't some
+great stake to play for."
+
+"I beg your pardon," he replied, gravely bending his head. Rachel was
+stealing back to her aunt's side and her baby's pinafore, and he left
+off looking into the mirror and making mistakes.
+
+Meanwhile Rachel had satisfied her curiosity. When she opened the album
+on the first page she saw two familiar faces--one of a young, bright
+girl, with pensive eyes, conspicuous for "that royalty which subjects
+kings;" the other angular, aquiline, hollow, full of the lines of age,
+and smirking with the sprightliness of youth--herself and Mr. Kingston,
+to whom, unknown to her, Lucilia had lately given this place of honour.
+
+She stood still for a few minutes, looking down on them, with the colour
+deepening in her cheeks. She seemed to see for the first time how
+incongruous a pair they made, and how mean a presence her lover really
+bore.
+
+It was a bad likeness of him, she said to herself; but in point of fact
+she was shocked by a faithful representation of his meagre features and
+his peculiar smile--which after all was too frivolous and artificial to
+be worthy of comparison with the smile of Mephistopheles.
+
+She did not consciously judge his by the standard of that other face,
+which was so impressively dignified and resolute; but she had looked at
+this same photograph two days ago, and then it had not struck her
+unpleasantly, as it did now.
+
+Without thinking what she was doing, she tore out her own likeness, and
+also the last photograph in the book, which was an old one of her Cousin
+Lucilla as a child, and she made them change places. Having effected
+which--surreptitiously, as she thought--she closed the album softly,
+laid it away in the cabinet, and returned to her seat by her aunt's
+side.
+
+When the ladies were gone to bed, the first thing Mr. Dalrymple did was
+to get out that album again and look at it; and he had some very serious
+thoughts when he found out what she had done.
+
+In the morning all the visitors left early, for they had a long distance
+to travel. Mr. Thornley was to take them part of the way home, and the
+break and the four horses were brought round at eight o'clock. Rachel
+came out to the verandah with her aunt and cousin to see them start.
+
+"Good-bye, dear Mrs. Digby," said Lucilla, affectionately kissing her
+particular friend. "Good-bye, Mrs. Hale. Good-bye, Miss Hale. I am so
+sorry you could not stay longer, but we shall expect you back next week.
+Good-bye, Mr. Dalrymple, I hear you are off to Queensland again on
+Monday?"
+
+Mr. Dalrymple shook hands and lifted his hat, and then said very
+quietly, but with great distinctness, "Not quite so soon as that, I
+think, Mrs. Thornley. I shall consult Gordon before I make another
+start."
+
+"Oh, well, in that case we shall hope to see you again, too. Of course
+you'll come with your sister next week, if you _should_ be still with
+her?"
+
+"Thank you," said Mr. Dalrymple. "I shall be most happy."
+
+Rachel was not looking at anybody in particular; and nobody was looking
+at her. But her rather pale and pensive face suddenly became of a colour
+that might have put even the lapageria rosea to shame.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+"OH, IF THEY HAD!"
+
+
+Wandering about that afternoon in an aimless and restless manner, Rachel
+entered the drawing-room through the conservatory door, and found her
+cousin sitting there alone, at her own little davenport, writing
+letters. Lucilla looked up with a smile of cordial welcome.
+
+"Do you know what I am doing?" she exclaimed brightly. "Come here, and
+say thank you. I am writing to ask Mr. Kingston to come."
+
+"To ask Mr. Kingston to come?" the girl repeated blankly. "What for,
+Lucilla?"
+
+Mrs. Thornley was not like Mrs. Reade; she was amiable and sweet, but a
+little dull of apprehension. She did not grasp the obvious significance
+of this reply. Still it struck her as inadequate.
+
+"Why, my dear child, what a question! Because you are here, of course,
+and because he is moping about town, Beatrice says, and doesn't know
+what to do with himself."
+
+"Does Beatrice say that?" inquired Rachel, with a little pang of
+self-reproach. This man, who had done her the greatest honour, who had
+paid her the highest compliment that any man could bestow on any
+woman--she was conscious of requiting him with ingratitude at this
+moment. "He is very, very--kind," she faltered. "I am afraid he thinks
+too much about me. When have you asked him to come, Lucilla?"
+
+"In time for the dance next week, and as much sooner as he likes. I have
+told him to send word what day will suit him, if he can come, and that
+we will send to the station. Of course we could not allow _him_ to come
+up by coach. I am very glad we have that dance in prospect; it will be
+something to amuse him. I should have been half afraid to ask him into
+the country if there had been nothing going on. He used to hate the
+bush. However," looking up archly, "Beatrice says I need not be afraid
+of his feeling dull on this occasion."
+
+"Did Beatrice tell you to ask him? I mean did she suggest it to you?"
+
+"Yes, dear--to tell the truth. I should not have asked him, simply
+because I knew he didn't like the bush. It did not occur to me that he
+would be fretting after you--Mr. Kingston fretting after anybody is such
+a very novel idea! Oh, my dear Rachel"--and here she drew the girl close
+and kissed her--"you are luckier than ever I thought you were!"
+
+"Yes," sighed Rachel; "I know I am very lucky."
+
+"And Beatrice says," continued Mrs. Thornley, with her arm round her
+cousin's waist, "that we shall be having everything settled soon, and
+that you are to have a delightful tour in Europe. How you will enjoy
+that! It was the one thing I wished for when I was married that I did
+not get. Not but what," the gentle woman added quickly, "I am very glad
+I did not get it now. I could not have been happier than I have been at
+Adelonga, and it must be very inconvenient to have a baby when one is
+travelling about. You must tell me, darling, what you would like for a
+present. John and I were talking about it last night--John thinks a
+great deal of you, you must know, which is a thing you ought to be proud
+of, for he is very particular and critical about girls--and he says he
+would like to give you something worth having. But I told him you and I
+would talk it over before we decided what it should be."
+
+"How good you are! How good everybody is!" exclaimed Rachel, folding the
+girlish matron in a rather hysterical embrace. "But I don't think I
+shall be married just yet, Lucilla--wait till we hear what Mr. Kingston
+says."
+
+"Oh, we know already what _he_ is going to say."
+
+"There is the party to be thought of first," proceeded Rachel,
+determined, now that Mr. Kingston was coming, not to dissipate in
+fruitless skirmishes the strength that she would require to fight the
+inevitable battle with him. "You have only a week before you, and you
+have not sent out your invitations, have you?"
+
+"Yes, I have. I did that the day you were at the races, and have had
+answers to some of them. We shall get about thirty or forty people
+together, I hope--perhaps more. I wonder, by the way, whether Mr.
+Dalrymple could bring that friend of his, Mr. Jim Gordon--I _wish_ I had
+thought to ask him. We have too large a proportion of married people,
+unfortunately." Lucilla had become thoughtful and business-like. "Seven
+bachelors altogether," she remarked musingly, after a pause; "that is
+not nearly enough. Does Mr. Kingston dance now, Rachel?"
+
+"Yes, but not a great deal--mostly quadrilles. I think," she added,
+reflectively, "he is rather troubled with gout in one of his knees."
+
+"Poor fellow! He waltzed with me I remember when I first came out, and
+that's not very long ago. Surely _he_ can't have gout--a man who walks
+with such a peculiarly light and airy tread! Though, to be sure, I knew
+a man of twenty-five--or was it thirty-five?--who had gout badly."
+
+"Perhaps it is rheumatism," suggested Rachel; "or lumbago."
+
+"Nonsense. Lumbago, indeed! One would think he was a patriarch. But if
+he doesn't waltz----"
+
+Lucilla paused in perplexity.
+
+"Does Mr. Gordon waltz?" Rachel meekly inquired.
+
+"Oh, no doubt--sure to. I have never seen him, but all those old army
+men dance well."
+
+"Then I suppose Mr. Dalrymple dances well?"
+
+"Of course he does. Poor fellow, he excels in everything that is of no
+consequence. Oh, yes, Mr. Dalrymple is decidedly an acquisition in a
+ball-room, whatever he may be elsewhere."
+
+"Lucilla!"
+
+"What, dear?"
+
+"Why do you all speak of him in that hard way? You are so kind to
+everybody else, but for him nobody seems to have a good word. I think it
+is so cruel!" she broke out with sudden passion. "The way Mrs. Hale
+insulted him the other night--a man like that, whom she was not fit to
+associate with--and all of you sitting round and letting her do it--I
+think it is dreadful!"
+
+"Oh, my dear," responded Mrs. Thornley, with tremulous earnestness, a
+little frightened at the vehemence that she was too dull to understand,
+and deeply shocked by the implied reflection on her hospitality, "you
+don't suppose we encouraged or defended Mrs. Hale? We were as vexed as
+you were at her gross want of taste--of common courtesy, one might say.
+John was excessively angry--with dear Mrs. Digby sitting by to hear it
+all; he said at first that he would never have her in his house again."
+
+"But he is going to have her?"
+
+"Yes. Well, they are old neighbours you see, and related to the Digbys.
+And I daresay she knows no better."
+
+"She is a horrid woman," said Rachel, viciously; "and so is her
+husband."
+
+"A horrid woman?" laughed Lucilla. "Oh, no, dear, be just--he is not so
+bad as that. And you know, Rachel"--becoming gently argumentative--"it
+is not surprising that people object to a man who has had such a career
+as Mr. Dalrymple's. You know what he has done?"
+
+"Only fought a duel," said Rachel. "No, I am not defending him, Lucilla,
+but how many men have done the same in old days, without being objected
+to?"
+
+"It was a very _bad_ duel," said Lucilla gravely. "There were
+circumstances connected with it that were very disreputable--so they
+say."
+
+"You shouldn't trust to hearsay," protested the girl eagerly. "Why don't
+you go by the evidence of your own senses? Does he look like the man to
+do disreputable things?"
+
+"He looks like a man who could never do anything mean or underhand,"
+said Mrs. Thornley; "I admit that. He has a noble face; and he has
+perfect manners; and he is clever. But, oh! Rachel, when a man has been
+in the dock, and for such a crime as that--"
+
+"Do you mean he has been in prison?"
+
+"Of course. He was arrested and put on his trial for murder, or
+manslaughter--I forget which it was called. He was acquitted we know,
+but by the merest accident. Popular feeling was with him, strange to
+say, and Mr. Gordon fought hard for him. They were not over particular
+in California, I suppose, and there was a flaw somewhere. But he _might_
+have been hung, Rachel! That is where it is--he was tried for murder,
+and he _might_ have been hung!"
+
+Rachel was leaning against the wall, and looking into the recess that
+made a passage to the conservatory. She was calling up a vision of that
+memorable night, which was the birthnight of her womanhood, so recently
+come and gone--the fern-tree canopy, letting the moonlight through, the
+little bench, set in a bower of cork and maidenhair, where she sat alone
+with him in a world of brooding shadows--the strong, proud face,
+bending forward to look at her, darkly distinct in the soft, green
+gloom.
+
+And she heard his voice again, incisive, imperious, yet melting her very
+heart within her as he told her the simple history of this terrible
+episode in his life. He might have been hung!--he did not tell her that.
+She stole away from her cousin, and walked up and down the long alleys
+of the conservatory, pale and passionate with her fierce indignation.
+Would they indeed have dared to hang him? And if they had--oh, if they
+had!
+
+Some thirty miles away Mr. Dalrymple was riding by his own short cuts
+through the bush, with his peaked cap drawn over his eyes. His
+beautiful horse, tall and stately like himself, with glossy dark coat,
+and a white star on his forehead, paced with long strides through
+saplings and brushwood, swinging his head slowly up and down on the
+loose rein with a rhythmical movement that betokened ease of body and
+content of mind.
+
+His master gazed heedfully at the brilliant parrots flashing about with
+long, rushing darts over his head, and at the myriads of wild flowers
+crushed and trampled under foot. He wore a sprig of epacris in his
+button-hole, and carried a sheaf of delicate orchids with their stalks
+tucked under the saddle in front of him.
+
+He hummed a Strauss waltz as he went along through the sunshine and
+shadows of the waning day, and thought of the time when he would go
+back to Adelonga and carry that girl with the sweet eyes away in his
+arms, on the wings of just such a dreamy measure, into the only
+realisable Utopia of this world.
+
+And perhaps he was more glad of his life than he had ever been since the
+day when he so nearly lost it--caring not much whether he did so or not.
+
+
+END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.
+
+
+London: Printed by A. Schulze, 13, Poland Street. (S. & H.)
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's A Mere Chance, Vol. 1 of 3, by Ada Cambridge
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