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diff --git a/38085-h/38085-h.htm b/38085-h/38085-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4587bfd --- /dev/null +++ b/38085-h/38085-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,6145 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> + +<head> + + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Mere Chance Vol 3, by Ada Cambridge. + </title> + + <style type="text/css"> + + body { + margin-left:10%; + margin-right:10%; + } + + .booktitle { + letter-spacing:3px; + } + + .center { + text-align:center; + font-weight:bold; + } + + div.center { + text-align:center; + } + + div.center table { + margin-left:auto; + margin-right:auto; + text-align:left; + } + + .dropimg { + float:left; + margin-right:.5em; + margin-bottom:0; + } + + .figcenter { + padding:1em; + text-align:center; + font-size:0.8em; + border:none; + margin:auto; + text-indent:1em; + } + + .h1 { + font-size:2em; + margin:.67em 0; + } + + .h1, .h2, .h3, .h4, .h5 { + font-weight:bolder; + text-align:center; + text-indent:0; + } + + h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 { + text-align:center; + } + + .h2 { + font-size:1.5em; + margin:.75em 0; + } + + .h3 { + font-size:1.17em; + margin:.83em 0; + } + + .h4 { + margin:1.12em 0 ; + } + + .h5 { + font-size:.83em; + margin:1.5em 0 ; + } + + hr.chap { + margin-top:6em; + margin-bottom:4em; + } + + hr.tb { + margin:2em 25%; + width:50%; + } + + p { + text-align:justify; + margin-top:.75em; + margin-bottom:.75em; + text-indent:0; + } + + p.quote { + float:left; + margin-right:.2em; + margin-top:-.1em; + } + + p.spacer { + margin-top:2em; + margin-bottom:3em; + } + + .pagenum { +/* visibility:hidden; remove comment out to hide page numbers */ + position:absolute; + right:2%; + font-size:75%; + color:gray; + background-color:inherit; + text-align:right; + text-indent:0; + font-style:normal; + font-weight:normal; + font-variant:normal; + } + + .poem { + margin-left:10%; + margin-right:10%; + margin-bottom:1em; + text-align:left; + } + + .poem .stanza { + margin:1em 0em 1em 0em; + } + + .poem p { + margin:0; + padding-left:3em; + text-indent:-3em; + } + + .poem span.i0 { + display:block; + margin-left:0em; + padding-left:3em; + text-indent:-3em; + } + + span.hide { + display:none + } + + .tdl { + text-align:left; + } + + .tdr { + text-align:right; + padding-right:1em; + } + + .tdrfirst { + text-align:right; + padding-right:1em; + font-size:60%; + } + + </style> + +</head> + +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Mere Chance, Vol. 3 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. 3 of 3 + A Novel + +Author: Ada Cambridge + +Release Date: November 22, 2011 [EBook #38085] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A MERE CHANCE, VOL. 3 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.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<h1 class="booktitle">A MERE CHANCE.</h1> + +<p class="h3">A NOVEL.</p> + +<p class="h4">BY</p> + +<p class="h3">ADA CAMBRIDGE,</p> + +<p class="h4">AUTHOR OF "IN TWO YEARS TIME," &c.</p> + +<p class="h3">IN THREE VOLUMES.<br /> +VOL. III.<br /></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/logo.jpg" width="140" height="160" alt="" /> +</div> + +<p class="h3">LONDON:<br /> +RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON,</p> + +<p class="h5">Publishers in Ordinary to Her Majesty the Queen,<br /> +NEW BURLINGTON STREET.<br /> +1882.<br /><br /> +<i>Right of Translation Reserved.</i></p> + +<p class="spacer"> </p> + +<p class="h3">CONTENTS OF THE THIRD VOLUME.</p> + +<div class="center"> +<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> + <tr> + <td class="tdrfirst">CHAPTER</td> + <td class="tdl"> </td> + <td class="tdrfirst">PAGE</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">I</a>.</td> + <td class="tdl">A Parable</td> + <td class="tdr">1</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">II</a>.</td> + <td class="tdl">"When Yule is Cold."</td> + <td class="tdr">17</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">III</a>.</td> + <td class="tdl">A Discovery</td> + <td class="tdr">40</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">IV</a>.</td> + <td class="tdl">"To Meet Mr. and Mrs. Kingston."</td> + <td class="tdr">58</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">V</a>.</td> + <td class="tdl">A Crisis</td> + <td class="tdr">95</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">VI</a>.</td> + <td class="tdl">Mrs. Reade meets her Match</td> + <td class="tdr">113</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">VII</a>.</td> + <td class="tdl">Good-bye</td> + <td class="tdr">131</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">VIII</a>.</td> + <td class="tdl">Consolation</td> + <td class="tdr">166</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">IX</a>.</td> + <td class="tdl">Reparation</td> + <td class="tdr">189</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">X</a>.</td> + <td class="tdl">Fulfilment</td> + <td class="tdr">209</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">XI</a>.</td> + <td class="tdl">Conclusion</td> + <td class="tdr">230</td> + </tr> +</table></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<h2>A MERE CHANCE.</h2> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[1]</span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/c01.jpg" width="600" height="136" alt="" /> +</div> + +<h2 id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I.</h2> + +<p class="h3">A PARABLE.</p> + +<p><img class="dropimg" src="images/d-i.jpg" alt="I" height="96" width="80" /> + <span class="hide">I</span>T was about a month after the +foregoing conversation took +place, that Melbourne society +was fluttered by a rumour that the +engagement between Mr. Kingston and +Miss Fetherstonhaugh, which had been +unaccountably broken off, was "on" +again, and that the long-delayed wedding +was to take place immediately. Rumour<span class="pagenum">[2]</span> +for once in the way, was perfectly +correct.</p> + +<p>People went to call at Toorak, and +found the aunt serene and radiant, and +the bride-elect wearing all the honours +of her position—not shyly as of yore, +but with a quiet candour and dignified +self-possession that was not generally considered +becoming under the circumstances.</p> + +<p>It was thought that a little humility +would be proper in a young person who +was going to enjoy such altogether undeserved +good fortune.</p> + +<p>It happened while she was staying at +South Yarra. <i>How</i> it happened nobody +quite knew. Gossip attributed it to +Mrs. Reade's manœuvres; but Mrs. +Reade, far from encouraging anything +of the sort, set herself steadily against +it, and warned Mr. Kingston of probable<span class="pagenum">[3]</span> +consequences in the most terse and +trenchant manner (she had taken a very +different view of the situation since her +return from Adelonga).</p> + +<p>Gossip likewise attributed it to the +seductions of the new house, which was +beginning to shadow forth in Palladio-gingerbread +of the most ambitious +pattern, the magnificence of the establishment +that was to be; but gossip +was equally misinformed in this respect.</p> + +<p>Rachel was as ready as ever to admire +the house, and the beautiful tiles, and +carvings, and hangings, and upholstery, +that were constantly being designed and +produced for its adornment; she fully +understood how much they represented +for whoever was to possess and enjoy +them. But they had not a featherweight +of value in her eyes as compared<span class="pagenum">[4]</span> +with the happiness she had hoped for +and lost; they did not suggest the idea +of compensation or consolation in even +a slight degree. The fact was that +Mr. Kingston was determined to have her.</p> + +<p>Of late he had seemed—not to Rachel, +but to Mrs. Reade—to have a sort of +half-sullen doggedness in his determination, +indicating that he was as much bent +upon winning the game as upon winning +the stakes—that he meant, before all +things, not to be beaten in the enterprise +upon which he had set his heart.</p> + +<p>And in this frame of mind he waited +upon opportunity; and in the end, opportunity, +as so often happens in such +cases, served him.</p> + +<p>One day Beatrice and her husband +went out of town to lunch, and Rachel +had a long, lonely afternoon. It came<span class="pagenum">[5]</span> +on to rain, and it was grey and chilly. +Dull weather always sent her spirits +down several degrees below the normal +temperature, and just now she was +morbidly sensitive to its influence.</p> + +<p>If Beatrice had been at home there +would have been a fire in no time, +summer though it was; in her absence +Rachel did not like to take upon herself +to order one. She lay on a sofa +with a shawl over her feet, and listened +to the rain pattering on the window, +and felt cold, and dismal, and deserted.</p> + +<p>At five o'clock she was pining for +her tea, and thinking it had been forgotten, +rang for it; and the smart young +parlour-maid, interrupted in an interesting +<i>tête-à-tête</i> with the next door coachman, +and blessed with few opportunities for +the indulgence of a naturally restive<span class="pagenum">[6]</span> +temper, brought it in with a protesting +<i>nonchalance</i>, a teapotful of nasty liquid, +made with water that had not boiled, +and a couple of slices of bread and +butter that would have charmed a +hungry schoolboy—such as would never +have been presented to the mistress +of the house, as Rachel well knew.</p> + +<p>This small indignity, so very small as it +was, greatly aggravated the vague sense of +desolation and orphanhood—the feeling +that she was a person of no consequence +to anybody—which possessed her just +now. And while she was in the lowest +depths of despondency, in the deepest +indigo of blues, Mr. Kingston calling, +discovered her solitude and came in, +tenderly deferential, full of solicitude +for her health and comfort, stooping +from his higher sphere of social importance<span class="pagenum">[7]</span> +to pay homage to her still in +her forlorn insignificance.</p> + +<p>For the space of half-an-hour perhaps +she felt that it would be good to be +married to somebody—to anybody—who +would love and take care of her, and +make the servants treat her with proper +respect; and a mere chance enabled Mr. +Kingston to take advantage of that accident.</p> + +<p>Looking back afterwards she never +could understand how it was that she +had felt disposed to re-accept him; but +the causes were as distinct as causes +usually are. Badly-made tea, and the +want of a fire in dull weather are, +amongst the multifarious factors of +human destiny, greatly underrated.</p> + +<p>Having said the fatal "yes"—or, +rather, having failed at the proper +moment to say "no," which Mr. Kingston<span class="pagenum">[8]</span> +justly took to mean the same thing—Rachel +was allowed no more opportunities +for what her aunt called "shilly-shallying."</p> + +<p>The day of the marriage was fixed +at once, and the preparations for her +trousseau simultaneously set on foot.</p> + +<p>The girl had hardly come to realise +the extraordinary thing that she had +done when she found herself being +measured for all sorts of wearing apparel, +and consulted about the arrangements +for her honeymoon tour. Then she set +herself to do her duty in the state of life +to which she imagined herself "called," +with a kind of hopeless resignation. She +recognised the fact that this second +mistake was not revocable like the first; +and therefore she understood that it was +not to be considered a mistake.</p> + +<p>All her life and energy now had to<span class="pagenum">[9]</span> +be dedicated to the task of making it +justifiable to her own conscience and in +the eyes of all men.</p> + +<p>And so she was sweet and gentle to +her affianced husband, promising him +that, though she could not love him +first and best, if he was content to have +her as she was (and he assured her he +was quite content), she would do all +in her power to prove herself a good +and true wife to him; and she was +tractable and obedient in the hands of +her aunt, and ready to fall in with all +the arrangements that were made for her.</p> + +<p>But, as the wedding-day drew near, +the dread of it showed itself to Mrs. +Reade, if to no one else, in the dumb +eloquence of the sensitive, truth-telling +face. That little person who had such +a talent for managing, stood aside at<span class="pagenum">[10]</span> +this crisis, and did not intermeddle with +the strange course of events.</p> + +<p>In none of the affairs that she had +promoted and directed and brought to +successful terminations, had she taken +such a deep and painful interest as +she now felt in this, which she had been +powerless to control; but, for the first +time in her life, she was afraid to speak +to her young cousin of the thoughts +that both their minds were full of, +lest she might be called upon to advise +where she found it was impossible to +decide what was for the best, and only +waited helplessly upon Fate, like an +ordinary incapable woman.</p> + +<p>On the night before the wedding—a +soft, bright, early autumn night—Rachel +gave her a distinct intimation +if she had wanted it, that the marriage<span class="pagenum">[11]</span> +however it might turn out eventually, +was by no means undertaken as marriages +should be.</p> + +<p>The girl stole away from the drawing-room +while the others were temporarily +absorbed in the preparations that were +going on for the great ceremonial, and +Mrs. Reade, hunting for her anxiously, +found her standing in the moonlight +by the kitchen-garden gate.</p> + +<p>"Looking at that house again!" the +little woman exclaimed. "Why, you +must know every stick and stone by +heart. I never miss you that I don't +find you here."</p> + +<p>"I am like our poor Jenny and the +tank," said Rachel, gazing still at the +imposing pile before her, sharply black +and white against the soft light of the sky.</p> + +<p>"Who is Jenny, may I ask?"</p><p><span class="pagenum">[12]</span></p> + +<p>"A dear cat we used to have. She +fell into a deep tank one day when +father and I were not at home, and +for two days she was struggling at +the edge of the water clinging to a bit +of brickwork, and no one came to help +her. Some men heard her cries, but +did not know where she was. As soon +as we came home, of course I found it +all out; and I got a large bough of +wattle and lowered it down, and so she +was saved when she was very nearly +gone. Oh, poor thing, what a state +she was in! I sat up with her all night. +But she never got over it. She was +not exactly mad, but she was never in +her right mind afterwards."</p> + +<p>"Well?" said Mrs. Reade who was +greatly mystified. "I can't see the +drift of your allegory so far."</p><p><span class="pagenum">[13]</span></p> + +<p>"No; I was going to tell you. Ever +after this happened, we had to keep a +constant watch upon her to prevent her +from throwing herself into the tank +again. If she heard the sound of the +lid being moved, she would rush to it +in a sort of frenzy. A bricklayer was +doing something to it one day, and we +had to lock her up, she was in such a +frantic state. She would be gentle and +quiet at other times, but as soon as +she thought the lid was being opened, +she got quite mad to go to it. And +at last a new servant, who did not know +of this, left the lid off one day, and +poor Jenny seized her chance, and +jumped in and drowned herself."</p> + +<p>"And that is your well, you mean?" +said Mrs. Reade, pointing to the house. +"And you are immolating yourself, like<span class="pagenum">[14]</span> +Jenny? Oh, Rachel, what are you talking +about!"</p> + +<p>"I am talking nonsense, I know," +said Rachel, with an impressive air of +artificial composure; "but somehow +Jenny happened to come into my head. +Beatrice, do you know I have been +thinking of something."</p> + +<p>"Of what? Oh, dear me, I wish to +goodness you would think like a sensible +girl, who knew her own mind sometimes."</p> + +<p>"I have been thinking what I ought +to do. I ought to just put on my hat +and jacket and run away. I could go +to a friend, a poor widow, who used to +be very kind to me in the old days, and +she would let me stay with her until I +could get a situation. No, don't scold +me—it is ten o'clock, isn't it? It is<span class="pagenum">[15]</span> +too late for a girl to be out at night +alone. I <i>can't</i> do it, if I would."</p> + +<p>"And would you, indeed if you could?" +demanded Mrs. Reade, holding her by +her wrists and looking imploringly into +her face. "Do you really mean that +you have a mind to do such a thing, +Rachel?"</p> + +<p>Rachel was silent for a few seconds +and then she began to cry bitterly.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't know—I don't know!" +she said, turning her head wildly from +side to side. "Sometimes I feel one +way and sometimes another. I want +somebody—somebody strong, like Roden—to +tell me what it is right to do!"</p> + +<p>For a moment Mrs. Reade weighed +the merits of the proposition, and all +that lay against it, with as near an approach +to impartial judgment as true<span class="pagenum">[16]</span> +friendship and human fallibility allowed. +And the thought of Rachel's weakness +of purpose and inability to take care of +herself, and of Mr. Dalrymple's traditional +character, turned the scale.</p> + +<p>"You cannot go back <i>now</i>," she said. +"My darling, you have doubly given +yourself to Mr. Kingston, and you must +try to make yourself happy with him—much +can be done by trying, if you will +only make up your mind!"</p> + +<p>It was the last chance that Rachel +had, and she accepted the fate that +deprived her of it with characteristic +meekness.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I will try," she said, wiping +her eyes. "It is too late to go back now."</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/c01e.jpg" width="150" height="55" alt="" /> +</div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[17]</span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/c02.jpg" width="600" height="130" alt="" /> +</div> + +<h2 id="CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II.</h2> + +<p class="h3">"WHEN YULE IS COLD."</p> + +<p><img class="dropimg" src="images/d-r.jpg" alt="R" height="96" width="80" /> + <span class="hide">R</span>ACHEL, when she did at last +get married, had a very +stately wedding, if that was +any comfort to her. The weather +was beautiful, to begin with; a lovelier +autumn morning even Australia +could not have furnished, to be an +omen of good luck for the future +years.</p> + +<p>Each of the eight young Melbourne<span class="pagenum">[18]</span> +belles who had been invited to assist +at the interesting ceremony took +care to point out the significance +of sunshine and a cloudless sky +when offering their congratulations +to the bride and to the bridegroom +also.</p> + +<p>The bridegroom on this occasion +by no means filled the humble office +which tradition and custom assigned +to him. There was not a bridesmaid +of them all who did not feel that she +was much more Mr. Kingston's bridesmaid +than Mrs. Kingston's.</p> + +<p>Not only were they better acquainted +and on more friendly terms generally +with him than with her, but he had +far more to say to them, and practically +far more to do with them, +in the course of the day and in the<span class="pagenum">[19]</span> +discharge of his and their official +duties.</p> + +<p>He was the prince of bridegrooms, +indeed. He had made magnificent +settlements upon his wife (though the +credit of that really belonged to Mr. +Hardy, who, for once in a way, had +to be reckoned with in the progress of +these arrangements); and his wedding +presents were on an equally noble +scale.</p> + +<p>The bridesmaids' bracelets were solid +evidences of his worth in every sense +of the term, and inasmuch as each +bracelet slightly differed from the rest, +though all were equally costly, of the +excellence of his taste and tact. They +were valued thereafter by their respective +recipients rather as parting +keepsakes from their bachelor friend<span class="pagenum">[20]</span> +than as mementoes of his auspicious +marriage.</p> + +<p>And the diamond necklace that was +his special wedding-day gift to his +bride, and which lay just under the +ruffled lace encircling her white throat—a +dazzling ring of shifting lights +and colours—a magnet to the eyes +of all spectators—was worthy to have +been a gift from Solomon to the Queen +of Sheba.</p> + +<p>There was not a servant in the +house, nor near it, who did not receive +some token of the princely fashion in +which he improved this great occasion, +and who did not participate in the +general impression that he more than +rivalled, in popularity and importance, +the beautiful young lady whom he had +won.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[21]</span></p> + +<p>Of the company, all were charmed +with his gaiety, his affability, and his +delightful <i>sang-froid</i>. He was never +for a moment embarrassed. He overflowed +with airy courtesies, not only +to his bride, but to all her maids and +friends.</p> + +<p>He made a brilliant speech, that +exactly hit the happy medium between +tearful pathos and unfeeling jocularity, +and that was full of well-bred witticisms, +provocative of gentle, well-bred +laughter. He was, in short, all +that a bridegroom ought to be, and +so very seldom is. He covered himself +with honour.</p> + +<p>Rachel, on the contrary, seemed to +have been mesmerised into temporary +lifelessness. It was expected that she +would be shy and fluttered, and bathed<span class="pagenum">[22]</span> +in blushes; but she was not agitated +at all, and she did not blush at all. +She bore herself generally with a +statuesque composure that was thought +by some to be very dignified, and by +others very wooden and stupid, and +that was a little depressing to witness +from either point of view. From the +beginning of the day she wore this +unnatural calmness.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Reade had been in terror lest +she should give way to unbecoming +excitement at some stage of the ceremonies, +and was prepared to combat +the first symptoms of hysteria with such +material and moral remedies as were +most likely to be efficacious.</p> + +<p>She had strictly enjoined Lucilla, +who had brought the baby to the +wedding, not to let that irresistible<span class="pagenum">[23]</span> +child appear upon any account, and +bidden her restrict herself to the most +perfunctory caresses until the public +ordeal was over. But long ere this +point was reached the little woman +was longing to see some signs of the +emotional weakness that she had deprecated, +and there were none.</p> + +<p>The bride was as beautiful as a +sculptor's ideal, but as cold as the +marble which dimly embodies it. She +had apparently nerved herself for a +sacrificial rite, or else the greatness +of her suffering had numbed her; +or she was calm with resignation and +despair.</p> + +<p>"I wish," said Mrs. Reade to herself, +in the middle of the marriage service, +"I wish I had stopped it last night. I +have made a mistake."</p><p><span class="pagenum">[24]</span></p> + +<p>But as this thought occurred to +her, she was standing—a splendid little +figure in ruby velvet and antique lace—in +the midst of scores of other +splendid figures, a helpless witness to +the irrevocable consummation of her +mistake, which after all was less hers +than anybody's.</p> + +<p>Rachel had given her "troth" to her +husband, and he was putting the ring +that was the sign and seal of it—the +token and pledge of the solemn vow +and covenant betwixt them made—upon +her finger.</p> + +<p>When the breakfast was over, that +domestic pendant to the religious +ceremony having "gone off" with +great success, Mrs. Kingston, in due +course, retired to put on her travelling +dress.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[25]</span></p> + +<p>The bridesmaids proper were dispensed +with at this stage, and the two +married cousins went upstairs with the +bride.</p> + +<p>It was Beatrice now who was tender +and caressing; Lucilla, who did not +see very far below the surface of anything, +and was delighted with the +pomp and circumstance of this new +alliance in the family, and charmed, like +all happy matrons, to welcome a new +comer into the matrimonial ranks, overflowed +with unwonted gaiety.</p> + +<p>"Now we are <i>all</i> married!" she +exclaimed, sinking upon a sofa in +Rachel's room, and looking very fair and +young—as if marriage had thoroughly +agreed with her—in a pale blue French +dress of the highest fashion. "And +we have all married so well, haven't<span class="pagenum">[26]</span> +we? And we have all got such good +husbands. Oh, how nice it will be +when Rachel and Laura come back +and begin housekeeping! John is going +to let me have a house in town, too, +as soon as Isabel and Bruce come +home, so that we shall be down for +part of the year; and then what a +cosy little family circle we shall make! +But Rachel will be at the head of us +all. Ah, dear child, you will know now +how nice it is to be a married woman—to +have your own husband with you +always—such a delightful, attentive +husband, too, as I know he will be—and +your own home—such a beautiful +home——"</p> + +<p>"You lock up her diamonds, Lucilla," +Mrs. Reade interrupted, handing the +starry necklace to her sister. "And,<span class="pagenum">[27]</span> +Rachel, dear, don't stand and tire +yourself. Sit down, and let me dress +you."</p> + +<p>Rachel, when her bridal lace and +satin had been taken off, sat down to +be sponged and brushed, and to have +her travelling boots laced up.</p> + +<p>Beatrice performed her lady's-maid +offices in silence, while Lucilla handed +her what she wanted, and pleasantly +chatted on; and when all was done, +and the bride, in russet homespun, was +ready for her departure, there were a +few words whispered that Mrs. Thornley +did not hear.</p> + +<p>"My darling, you <i>said</i> you would try."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Beatrice, dear; yes, I am +trying."</p> + +<p>"You are not finding it very hard—too +hard—are you?"</p><p><span class="pagenum">[28]</span></p> + +<p>"It will be easier in a little +while."</p> + +<p>"If you make an effort, Rachel—if +you make up your mind—if you are +kind and good to your husband, and +try to keep him straight, and to make +his home happy——"</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear; yes. I am going to +do all I can. But to-day I can only +feel that I have lost—<i>quite</i> lost—Roden. +I feel now as if he were dead. Even +the memory of him I must not comfort +myself with any more. That is what +I feel hard. But I am trying to get +over it. I have promised Mr. Kingston—Graham—all +those solemn promises, +and I <i>must</i> keep them—I will. It is +only at first that I don't know how +to bear it; but it will be easier by-and-bye. +We must not talk about it,<span class="pagenum">[29]</span> +Beatrice; it is wrong to talk about it +now. And, oh! I do so dread that I +shall break down."</p> + +<p>She did break down at last. When +she descended the staircase into the +hall she found all the company awaiting +her, the front door open, and the carriage +that was to take her away being packed +with her travelling bags and wraps.</p> + +<p>She shook hands with all the guests, +and smiled a gentle response to their +congratulatory farewells; she shook +hands with John and his fellow-servants; +she kissed her uncle and +thanked him for all his kindness to +her; she embraced Lucilla and Beatrice +with silent fervour, and then her stately +aunt, to whom she repeated her grateful +acknowledgements for the home and care +that had been given her.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[30]</span></p> + +<p>"I am afraid I have not made much +return to you for your goodness to me, +dear Aunt Elizabeth," she said, with +pathetic earnestness, but with no agitation +of voice or manner.</p> + +<p>To her intense surprise the majestic +woman suddenly burst into tears.</p> + +<p>"Oh, my child!" she said, tenderly, +"I hope I have been as good an aunt +to you as you have been a good niece +to me. I hope you will be very, very +happy, my darling. If you are not, I +shall never forgive myself."</p> + +<p>Mr. Kingston, of course, was standing +by, and a frown fell like a cloud +over his face. Mrs. Reade was also +standing by, and she looked at him +steadily for a few seconds with clear, +bright eyes.</p> + +<p>"Come, Rachel," he said, and he only<span class="pagenum">[31]</span> +looked at his wife; "we shall lose our +train if we don't make haste."</p> + +<p>Rachel withdrew herself from her +aunt's arms, and Mr. Kingston took +her by the hand and led her away, +followed from the house to her carriage +by all her train. She was a good deal +shaken by the little incident that had +so unexpectedly occurred.</p> + +<p>There was no mystery to her in +what Mrs. Hardy had said, but the +thing she had done was very strange +and very touching. It invested the +Toorak House and all its belongings +with a new charm that the orphan girl +had never felt before with all the kindness +that she had enjoyed there.</p> + +<p>At no time in the fourteen or fifteen +months that she had lived in it had +it seemed so much her "home" as at<span class="pagenum">[32]</span> +this moment, when her aunt cried like +a mother at parting from her—so desirable +a place to stay in now that she +had to go.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Mr. Kingston, when the +carriage was fairly out of the Hardy +grounds, and he had waved a gracious +adieu with the tips of his fingers to +the woman at the lodge, who stood in +her Sunday best and white satin cap-ribbons, +smiling and curtseying, to see +them pass; "well, that is a good thing +over, isn't it? Of all the senseless institutions +of this world, a wedding <i>à la +mode</i> is about the most preposterous. +You look knocked up already, when +you ought to be fresh for your +travels."</p> + +<p>He spoke with a little nervous irritation, +and Rachel did not answer<span class="pagenum">[33]</span> +him. Her heart was beating very fast, +beating in her ears and in her +throat, as well as in the place where +its active operations were usually carried +on.</p> + +<p>All her powers were concentrated +upon a desperate effort to postpone that +breaking-down which she had dreaded, +and which she felt was inevitable, until +she could shut herself within four +walls again. But she could not postpone +it.</p> + +<p>Her husband took her hand and +asked her what was the matter with +her—whether she felt ill, or whether +she was regretting after all that she +had married him; whether she was +going to make him happy, as she had +promised, or to curse his life with its +bitterest disappointment—speaking half<span class="pagenum">[34]</span> +in love, half in anger, with a sudden +outburst of protesting entreaty provoked +by her irresponsive silence. And +she began to cry—almost to scream—in +the most violent and alarming +manner.</p> + +<p>"My dear love! my sweet child!" +cried the bridegroom, aghast. "I did +not mean to vex you, Rachel. I did not +mean to blame you, my pet. Rachel, +Rachel, hush! do hush! Don't let that +confounded coachman go back and say—Rachel, +do you hear?"—giving +her a little shake—"there are people +passing. For Heaven's sake don't make +a scene in the street, whatever you +do!"</p> + +<p>Rachel was almost beside herself with +excitement, but she was awake to the +indecency of betraying her emotion to<span class="pagenum">[35]</span> +the servants and the passers-by. Moreover, +something in her husband's voice +steadied her.</p> + +<p>By a strong effort she checked the +headlong impulse to rave and scream +that for a few seconds was almost +overpowering, and held herself in with +shut teeth and tight-locked hands, wildly +sobbing under her breath, and by-and-bye, +when the first rush of passion had +spent itself, she became quiet and tractable, +fortunately, before they reached the +railway-station.</p> + +<p>Mr. Kingston was terribly shocked +and outraged by this behaviour. He +would have given anything to be able +to scold her—in a gentle and judicious +manner, of course—but he was afraid +to attempt such a thing, or even to +speak of the probable causes that<span class="pagenum">[36]</span> +had led to such deplorable impropriety.</p> + +<p>He rummaged for his spirit-flask, and +made her drink a few drops of brandy, +which nearly choked her; he found +some eau-de-Cologne and bathed her +face; he got her to put on a thicker +veil, which happened to be amongst +the luxuries that her aunt and cousins +had stuffed into her travelling-bag; +and he kissed her and petted her, and +when she attempted to explain and +excuse herself, bade her "Hush! till +another time," and would not listen to her.</p> + +<p>His immediate anxiety was to restore +her personal appearance and her powers +of self-command. The more important +matters could wait. And he succeeded +in his efforts; she did not break down +any more.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[37]</span></p> + +<p>Their journey that day was not very +far. An hour or two in the train, and +then half a dozen miles in a comfortable +covered buggy, and they reached +the country house which had been +placed at their disposal—the best substitute +to be had for that charming +residence on the shores of the bay at +Sydney—where they were to spend two +or three weeks in their own society +before starting by the next mail to +Europe.</p> + +<p>As they were driving through the +silent bush, in the dusk of that +autumn day, and the bridegroom, +wrapped in his fur-collared overcoat, +was musing not very happily upon +the success that had crowned his long-cherished +hopes and plans, his young +wife slipped her hand under his arm,<span class="pagenum">[38]</span> +and laid her cheek upon his coat-sleeve.</p> + +<p>"Graham," she whispered softly.</p> + +<p>He turned round quickly, and took +her in his arms. It was the first time +she had spoken his name and offered +him a caress voluntarily, and he was +greatly touched and cheered.</p> + +<p>"Will you forgive me?" she said, +not shrinking away from his embrace, +but creeping into it as she had never +done before. "And, oh, will you love +me, in spite of it all?"</p> + +<p>"Love you!" he echoed, tenderly. +"My sweet, I have always loved you +more than anybody in the world, and I +always shall. It will not be on <i>my</i> side +that love will be wanting."</p> + +<p>She said no more, but she lay still, +with her head in its soft little sealskin<span class="pagenum">[39]</span> +cap on his breast, as if she liked to feel +his arms about her.</p> + +<p>It was so new to him, and so immeasurably +delightful. He had never +expected to feel happier (even on his +wedding day) than he felt now, with +his best beloved, who had been so impracticable, +his own at last, giving herself +up to him in this way.</p> + +<p>Poor, parasitic little heart, full of +spreading tendrils! It was essential to +its very existence that it should have +<i>something</i> to cling to—which was a view +of the case, that happily did not chance +to strike him.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/c02e.jpg" width="150" height="62" alt="" /> +</div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[40]</span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/c03.jpg" width="600" height="114" alt="" /> +</div> + +<h2 id="CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III.</h2> + +<p class="h3">A DISCOVERY.</p> + +<p><img class="dropimg" src="images/d-t.jpg" alt="T" height="97" width="80" /> + <span class="hide">T</span>HERE was a great ball at +Toorak on the night of the +wedding, and like all the +nuptial ceremonies, it went off with +great <i>éclat</i>.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Hardy recovered her serenity +very quickly after the bride's departure, +and appeared in the evening, clothed in +smiles and sapphire velvet, looking the +proud woman that it was generally conceded +she had a right to be. Lucilla,<span class="pagenum">[41]</span> +at home for the first time since her +sister Laura's wedding, and since her +accession to the dignities of maternity, +and carrying herself very prettily as a +personage of consequence amongst the +unmarried friends of her girlhood, looked +extremely well and very happy, and +reflected great honour upon her family +in a variety of ways. Beatrice also +was unusually brilliant, not only in her +personal appearance, but in her mode of +discharging the duties of the occasion—a +little too much so, indeed, if anything.</p> + +<p>Some elderly ladies, and a very few +young men, were subsequently heard to +express an opinion that she carried that +sharp and satirical manner of hers to +an excess that was unbecoming in a +person of her sex and years, even if she<span class="pagenum">[42]</span> +had married money and become a leader +of fashion.</p> + +<p>A little after midnight, these two +young women, the one for the sake of +her baby, and the other on account of +her husband, excused themselves from +further attendance on Mrs. Hardy, and +drove back to South Yarra, where the +Thornleys were staying, carrying their +willing lords along with them.</p> + +<p>When they reached home, where of +course they found bright fires ready +for them, the men retired to the smoking-room, +Mrs. Reade having laid upon her +brother-in-law the responsibility of keeping +his host from getting "any worse +than he was already;" and the ladies +went upstairs to Lucilla's apartment.</p> + +<p>Lucilla having only arrived in town +the day before, she and her sister had<span class="pagenum">[43]</span> +had no opportunity for what they called +a good talk; and now the baby being +found asleep and in his nurse's charge +for the night, they sat down to begin +it, having previously got rid of ball-room +finery and made themselves comfortable +in their dressing-gowns.</p> + +<p>"Does Ned often get—a—like this?" +Mrs. Thornley began, with a compassionate +inflection in her soft voice. She +knew of course that one couldn't expect +everything, but still she was sorry that +her sister's excellent marriage should +have this particular drawback, than +which she could hardly imagine one +more unpleasant and embarrassing, and +that a nice fellow like Ned, with a +noble pedigree and the sweetest temper in +the world, should take his social pleasures +as a shearer would celebrate pay-day.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[44]</span></p> + +<p>Mrs. Reade was thinking, at the same +moment, that John was ageing very fast +and getting immensely stout, and that +his manner of addressing his wife, and +his bearing towards her generally, +was more peremptory and dictatorial +than <i>she</i> would feel inclined to put +up with if she were in Lucilla's +place.</p> + +<p>"Oh, no," said the little woman, +sharply; "it is only on these festive +occasions, when I am not able to look +after him properly. And at the worst +he is not very bad. He never gets +obstinate and quarrelsome, as some men +do—only vaguely argumentative and subsequently +sleepy. I should think no +husband, with so pronounced a tendency +that way could be easier to manage—if +one knows how to manage."</p><p><span class="pagenum">[45]</span></p> + +<p>"You were always a splendid manager, +Beatrice."</p> + +<p>"Well, I just hold him well in hand—that's +all. I know he can't help it, +to a certain extent, so I don't keep +always worrying at him about it. It +is only now and then that I give him +a real good talking to—to prevent his +thinking I might grow indifferent, as +much as anything."</p> + +<p>"He is such a dear, good fellow," +said Lucilla, "but for that."</p> + +<p>"He is a dear, good fellow, in spite +of that," replied Beatrice, who allowed +no one but herself to disparage her +husband. "He is better worth having, +with all his faults—and that is about +the only one he has—than most of your +brilliant society men. I only hope Mr. +Kingston will be as little trouble to<span class="pagenum">[46]</span> +Rachel as Ned has been to me—and +half as good and kind to her."</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear. I didn't mean to say +that he wasn't the best of husbands—far +from it. Indeed, we may both be +thankful for our good luck in that respect—all +of us, I should say. I should +think no four girls in one family are +more happily situated than we are."</p> + +<p>"I hope so," sighed Mrs. Reade. "I +hope we are all as happy as—as we +are well off otherwise."</p> + +<p>"Dear little Rachel!" said Mrs. +Thornley, musingly. "I don't think +there is any doubt about her being +happy. It is quite extraordinary to see +how fond of her Mr. Kingston is—<i>really</i> +fond of her, I mean. Did you think he +would ever marry such a young girl, +Beatrice? and be so terribly anxious to<span class="pagenum">[47]</span> +do it, too? I didn't. I suppose it was +her beauty captivated him."</p> + +<p>"No," said Beatrice; "it was the +fact that she didn't want to captivate +him. That has been her charm all along—he +has felt that his honour was concerned +in making her, and it has been +a difficult task."</p> + +<p>"Oh, but I know he thinks a great +deal about beauty, and she is really the +prettiest girl in Melbourne, I do think, +though she does belong to us. She did +not look so pretty to-day though, as +I expected she would. That dead-white +in the morning that brides have to wear +does spoil even the best complexion. I +thought hers could stand anything, but +it can't stand that. When she wears +it in the evening, now—not dead-white, +but transparent white—she is a perfect<span class="pagenum">[48]</span> +picture. At that ball of ours last +year everybody was talking of her. +She was in Indian muslin. John +said she was like a wood anemone."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Reade was gazing thoughtfully +into the fire. The mention of the +ball at Adelonga stirred many troubled +thoughts. The real importance of +that event, in its effect upon Rachel, +had never been known to Mrs. +Thornley, who was led to suppose +that the suspension of Mr. Kingston's +engagement in October was solely +due to certain laxities on his part, +which the girl would not condone.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Hardy's terror lest "people" +should get to know that a member +of her family had had any dealings +of a compromising nature with<span class="pagenum">[49]</span> +such a person as she considered +Mr. Dalrymple to be had been +the cause of this extreme reticence.</p> + +<p>A general impression prevailed amongst +the guests who had attended the +ball, that the handsome ex-hussar +had admired the belle of the evening +to an extent that had roused +the wrath of her <i>fiancé</i> against him; +but no one, strange to say, had +been able to discover more than +that.</p> + +<p>Mr. Dalrymple himself never had +confidantes in these matters; and +Mr. Kingston, when he was enlightened +at Christmas, was as little +desirous as Mrs. Hardy that the +facts of the case should be published. +Beatrice and Rachel, who alone discussed<span class="pagenum">[50]</span> +them freely, did so with the +strictest secresy.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Reade had no confidential +intercourse with her mother, as of +yore, on the subject of her cousin's +welfare. They had jointly resolved, +just before the younger lady set out +for her summer visit to Adelonga, +that it would be safer to exclude +Lucilla (as a married woman who +told her husband everything) from +any participation in the knowledge of +the mischief that Mr. Dalrymple had +done, and of Rachel's unfortunate infatuation +for him—which did not +seem so very serious at that time; +and since then his name had scarcely +been mentioned between them.</p> + +<p>Now, however, the anxious little +woman, with a load of care that she<span class="pagenum">[51]</span> +was by no means used to weighing +on her heart, was impelled to take +advantage of the opportunity offered +by Lucilla's reference to that momentous +ball to put a question that +had suddenly become to herself, +tormentingly importunate.</p> + +<p>"Has anything been heard of that +Mr. Dalrymple lately?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," said Lucilla; "he is +gradually getting better."</p> + +<p>"Getting better!" echoed Beatrice, +sharply. "Why, what is the matter with +him? Is he ill?"</p> + +<p>"Didn't you hear? He had a +dreadful accident. He was breaking-in +a young horse that was very wild, +and it bucked him off, or did something, +and he fell on his head. It is +a wonder he didn't break his neck.<span class="pagenum">[52]</span> +No one saw it happen, for he was +away on the plains by himself, and +it was only when he did not come +home at night that Mr. Gordon went +to look for him. They were a long +time finding him, and he had been +there for hours, and he was quite +insensible. There were some wild dogs +sniffing at him, as if he were really +dead. Indeed, Mr. Gordon said, if +they hadn't found him when they +did, the dingoes would probably have +made an end of him. Was it not +dreadful?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Reade was staring at the fire, +not displaying that interest in the +narrative that its tragic details demanded, +apparently.</p> + +<p>"When did it happen?" she asked +quietly, without lifting her eyes.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[53]</span></p> + +<p>"Oh, some time ago—in December. +We did not hear of it until January. +But he is only now able to get out +of bed and crawl about, poor fellow. +He was dreadfully hurt. His brain +was affected, and the summer weather +in that hot place was so much +against him. And, of course, he +couldn't have what he wanted up +there, and was too bad to be moved. +Mrs. Digby went there to nurse him—the +Hales took the children for her. +It was enough to kill her, so delicate +as she is; but she would go. She +idolises him almost. Mr. Digby went +with her, and stayed till the worst +was over. And Mr. Gordon was most +devoted—he went all the way to +Melbourne to consult the doctors +there about him, travelling night and day."</p><p><span class="pagenum">[54]</span></p> + +<p>"Were there no doctors nearer than +Melbourne?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, of course; they had two. +But he wanted the best opinions. +He is Mr. Dalrymple's partner, you +know, and they were old friends +before they came out here."</p> + +<p>"And did Mr. Dalrymple seem to +be any better after he got the Melbourne +prescriptions?"</p> + +<p>"No; it was not a case where +doctors could do much. He seemed +to rally a little while Mr. Gordon +was away, but he had a bad relapse +afterwards. The weather became frightfully +hot, and the fever of course +got worse. He was delirious for a +whole fortnight, and then he was so +low that he just seemed sinking. However, +he must be an amazingly strong<span class="pagenum">[55]</span> +man naturally. He managed to struggle +through it, and now he is getting +about, and all danger is over, though +Mrs. Digby says he is like a walking +skeleton. I expect she will have +brought him home with her by the +time we go back; he will soon get +well when she has him in her own +house. I shall go over and see him," +added Lucilla, compassionately; "and +I shall ask him to come to Adelonga, +as soon as he is strong enough, +and let <i>me</i> nurse him for a few +weeks."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Reade had before her mind's +eye that photograph which her sister +had shown her in Mrs. Digby's +house. She saw every lineament of +the powerful, impressive face distinctly—even +in a photograph it was not<span class="pagenum">[56]</span> +a face that once looked at, could +be forgotten; and she pictured to +herself the changes that months +of wasting illness would have made +in it.</p> + +<p>A warm rush of indignant pity, +mingled with something near akin to +admiration, filled her heart, which was +wont to indulge itself in womanly +weaknesses—an impulse to champion +and befriend this man of so kingly +a presence, whose sins, whatever they +were, were balanced with so many +misfortunes. And yet for a moment +she could not help regretting that his +fall from his horse had not broken +his neck.</p> + +<p>Ned, guiltily creeping into his dressing-room +about half an hour later, +never had the fumes of superfluous<span class="pagenum">[57]</span> +champagne dispersed from his brain +so quickly. He saw his wife sitting +by her own fireside, with her feet on +the fender and her face in her hands, +crying—actually crying—like any +common woman.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/c03e.jpg" width="150" height="167" alt="" /> +</div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[58]</span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/c04.jpg" width="600" height="133" alt="" /> +</div> + +<h2 id="CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV.</h2> + +<p class="h3">"TO MEET MR. AND MRS. KINGSTON."</p> + +<p><img class="dropimg" src="images/d-r.jpg" alt="R" height="96" width="80" /> + <span class="hide">R</span>ACHEL was away for nearly a +year and a half, seeing all the +kingdoms of the earth and the +glory of them in the most luxurious +modern fashion. It was such a tour +as a romantic and imaginative woman +born to a humdrum life would feel to +be the one thing to "do" and die; and +according to her account, she enjoyed +it extremely. She came home very<span class="pagenum">[59]</span> +much improved by it in the opinion of +her aunt and other good judges.</p> + +<p>"Certainly," they said, "travel is the +very best education: there is nothing +like it for enlarging the mind, and +for giving polish and repose to the +manners."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Kingston, indeed, when she took +her place in the society of which her +husband had long been so distinguished an +ornament, was a very interesting study, +as exemplifying this soundest of popular +theories. She was greatly altered in all +sorts of ways. She had quite lost +that bashful rusticity which had been +Mrs. Hardy's despair, and in her unpretentious +fashion, was really very dignified.</p> + +<p>There was no hurry and flutter about +her now as there used to be; none of<span class="pagenum">[60]</span> +that indiscriminate enthusiasm, which in +her aunt's eyes branded her as a poor +relation who "had never been used to +anything nice." She expressed her appreciation +of things smilingly and +sweetly, with more or less of her natural +bright frankness, but with a well-bred +moderation and serenity that might +have become a duchess. To please her +husband she wore rich raiment, "composed" +by the most distinguished +Parisian artists, and it symbolised the +change that all her individuality seemed +to have undergone.</p> + +<p>She was no longer a girl, an <i>ingénue</i>, +a bread-and-butter miss, a pretty little +nobody; she was an experienced and +cultured woman, a leader of society, +fully equipped for that high position, +with a just appreciation of her own<span class="pagenum">[61]</span> +importance, and relatively to that of +other people's.</p> + +<p>Indeed, there seemed to certain persons—Miss +Brownlow amongst others—indications +in her reticent and reposeful +manner of a tendency to be exclusive, +and to think a great deal too much of +herself.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Hardy, who was immensely interested +in the unforeseen development, +was beyond measure gratified by it—more +especially as the young wife was +evidently on the best of terms with +her husband, though she had the good +taste to refrain from drawing public +attention to the fact.</p> + +<p>Many apprehensions were set at rest +by the sight of her entering a room +on his arm, carefully and beautifully +dressed, as if she had enjoyed dressing<span class="pagenum">[62]</span> +herself, and twinkling with diamonds +everywhere, responding to respectful +greetings with quiet grace, moving in +her comparatively higher sphere as if +she felt thoroughly at home in it. It +seemed to the anxious matron that an +end had been reached which justified +all the means that had been taken to +compass it.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Reade was not so satisfied. She +looked at the change in Rachel from +another point of view. She did not +like to see a girl who had been +exceptionally girlish, turned into a +sober woman with such unnatural +rapidity.</p> + +<p>Her sister Laura had come home, and +was now settled at Kew, giving entertainments +in a severely-appointed high-art +house; she had had quite as much<span class="pagenum">[63]</span> +of the education of travel as Rachel—perhaps +more, inasmuch as her young +husband was a dabbler in <i>bric-à-bric</i>, +and had a taste for old churches, and +palaces, and pictures; whereas Mr. +Kingston's interest in foreign cities, +however famous, had chiefly concerned +itself with the quality of the society +and the cuisine of the hotels.</p> + +<p>But Laura, though stored with information +and experience, and lately +the happy mother of twin daughters, +was much the same as she had been +in her maiden days—cheerful, enterprising, +a rider of harmless hobbies, a +great believer in herself, and in the +force and variety of her fascinations.</p> + +<p>She had improved and developed, of +course, but the experiences of travel<span class="pagenum">[64]</span> +had not changed her as Rachel was +changed.</p> + +<p>The acute little woman who practically +had never solved the meaning of +love and marriage, and quite understood +her disqualifications in this respect, +yet had glimmerings of the state of +things that existed in Rachel's heart. +She knew—though she had come to +the knowledge by slow degrees—that +the girl was not weak all through, but +only weak as the water-lily is,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Whose root is fix'd in stable earth, whose head<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Floats on the tossing waves."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And that just as she had been tenacious +of certain principles in her earlier life, +when living with her father in an +atmosphere which she had only her +own instinct to teach her was tainted<span class="pagenum">[65]</span> +with dishonour, so she would hold fast +to some other things, if they had taken +root, with a secret, blind integrity in +spite of her emotional fluctuations in the +winds and waves of circumstance.</p> + +<p>She had adapted herself to the conditions +of her marriage with the pliant +submissiveness of her disposition; but +there was a part of her that refused +to be reconciled to all the degradation +that was involved, and it was a tough +and vital part of her.</p> + +<p>Since this was violently repressed, +comprehending as it did all those +aspiring ideals which had had so much +poetry and promise, and which represented +for her, in their loss as in +their possession, the meaning of human +happiness and the diviner aspect of +human life, there was naturally a great<span class="pagenum">[66]</span> +vacuum somewhere—a great emptiness +for which no compensating interests were +available. Hence that serene inexpressiveness +of mien and manner which +had so mature and distinguished an +air.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Reade's own marriage was very +much of the same pattern in one +respect—it was but an outward and +visible sign of marriage that had no +inward and spiritual grace; but then +she did not know what it was that she +missed, and Rachel did. And the difference +between the two cases was +perfectly obvious to that intelligent +woman.</p> + +<p>On the return of Mr. and Mrs. +Kingston to Melbourne, a number of +fashionable parties were of course given +in their honour. At the chief of these,<span class="pagenum">[67]</span> +a great ball in the Town-hall, the +dramatic action of this story, temporarily +suspended by our heroine's +absence from the country which held +all its elements in solution, so to speak, +was suddenly set going again.</p> + +<p>It was towards the end of October, +just when the gay season of the races +was about to set in, and when the +spring was in its glory. It strangely +happened to be also the anniversary of +the night of her clandestine betrothal +to Roden Dalrymple, which was the +memorable last time—two whole years +ago—that she had seen or heard of +him.</p> + +<p>Nowadays she never mentioned Roden +Dalrymple's name. She had never +mentioned it to her husband since he +and she came to a certain understanding<span class="pagenum">[68]</span> +on their wedding-day, and her +husband had scrupulously avoided mentioning +it to her; which reticence on +his part was odd and uncomfortable +rather than considerate and delicate, inasmuch +as she was intensely anxious to +pursue the line of conduct that she had +laid down for herself in her relations +with him—to have no secrets and to +tell the truth—and to bring their companionship +into such harmony and +sympathy as the nature of things made +possible.</p> + +<p>And since her return she had never +even suggested the existence of her +lost lover to any of those who might +have given her information about him—not +even to Beatrice. She "would +not recognise that she felt" any interest +in his existence.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[69]</span></p> + +<p>Nevertheless, she lived in a perpetual, +absorbing, all-pervading consciousness +that he and she were "in the world +together," and that the key to the +whole system of the universe lay somehow +in that fact.</p> + +<p>And the years and months, and days +and hours were all dates in the first +place, and periods of time in the +second; and every date was a +register of ineffaceable memories of +him, which she <i>could</i> not destroy or +ignore.</p> + +<p>So on this great anniversary, as the +hour approached which witnessed their +last interview in the solitude of the +half-built house (the boudoir was in +the hands of the decorators now, and +the sacred spot of floor was covered +over with inlaid woodwork), she tried<span class="pagenum">[70]</span> +to put the thought of it out of her +mind—tried to shut her eyes to the +inevitable agonising and tantalising +perception of what <i>might</i> have been—and +yet was acutely responsive to +every tick of the clock on her mantelpiece, +checking off the reminiscent +moments one by one. She followed +the events of that long-ago happy +night perforce as an unquiet spirit +"raised" against its will.</p> + +<p>"Now we were sitting together," +she remembered, as the little clock +struck nine silvery notes. "We were +looking at the moonlight on the bay. +Ah, me, how lovely that moonlight +was!"</p> + +<p>"Rachel," called her husband from +his dressing-room within, whither he +had just arrived from a dinner at the<span class="pagenum">[71]</span> +club, "aren't you dressed yet? I met +that young woman of yours on the +stairs; she seems to have more time +on her hands than she knows +what to do with. Why don't you +make her wait on you better? She +ought to be getting you ready by this +time."</p> + +<p>Rachel jumped up hastily and +rang for her maid, whose ministrations, +essential to the dignity of her +present position, she certainly did not +appreciate.</p> + +<p>"I shall not be long dressing," +she replied; "and it is early +yet."</p> + +<p>And then she went into his room +to ask him if he had had a pleasant +party at dinner, and whether he had +enjoyed it, anxious to show him some<span class="pagenum">[72]</span> +special tenderness on this special night—anxious +to find some shelter in his +affection from the reminiscences that +beset her.</p> + +<p>He was a little irritable, for his gout +was troubling him, and he did not +respond to her advances. He patted +the hand that she laid on his arm in +a perfunctory manner, and sent her +back to begin her preparations for +the ball. He did not wish her to +dress herself quickly; he wanted her +to make the most of her beauty and +her supplementary resources on such a +great occasion.</p> + +<p>He was very fond of his wife still, +and proud of her, and good to her +in his own rather tyrannical way; but +his marriage with her, after a year +and a half of it, had become to himself—as<span class="pagenum">[73]</span> +under the circumstances was +inevitable—a very unromantic and +commonplace affair.</p> + +<p>They had lived together in tolerable +peace and comfort; they had never +quarrelled, simply because it was +Rachel's habit to efface herself at +the first symptoms of rising temper; +but neither had they been companions, +in any proper sense of the +term.</p> + +<p>As yet he had no active sense of +injury and injustice, in that the possession +of his treasure gave him such +meagre compensation for all that he +had paid for it, but he did feel, in a +general way, that matrimony was—as +he confessed he had been well warned +that it would be—very tame and dull, +and uninteresting, and that it would<span class="pagenum">[74]</span> +be too unreasonable altogether to +expect a man to devote himself +exclusively to its demands. Even +little Rachel herself, he was quite sure, +would not wish him to be bored to +death.</p> + +<p>And so he fell back insensibly into +many of his old self-indulgent habits, +and the pleasures of his bachelor life +grew more than ever pleasant. This +was particularly the case after his +return to Melbourne, where his face +became as familiar to club men as in +the ante-nuptial days. Some excuse +for this independence was supposed +to lie in the fact that he and his +wife had not yet settled down to +housekeeping.</p> + +<p>The Toorak mansion was being furnished +and decorated with the treasures<span class="pagenum">[75]</span> +of art and upholstery that they had +brought out with them; and until +everything was completed, and the +entire establishment was in proper order +for their reception, and for the giving +of that magnificent house-warming to +which the world of Melbourne fashion +was looking forward, they were inhabiting +a suite of rooms in an hotel, +and domestic life, consequently, was to +a certain extent disorganised.</p> + +<p>On this night of which we are speaking, +Rachel thought it was very kind and +attentive of him to come home to her a +full hour before he needed to have done. +It never occurred to her, any more than +to him, that he neglected her.</p> + +<p>The servants of the hotel, who were on +the watch for a sight of her as she went +to her carriage, thought her not only one<span class="pagenum">[76]</span> +of the most lovely, but one of the most +fortunate of women; and so did the +majority of the gay company at the Town +Hall, when she made her appearance +amongst them.</p> + +<p>She had come back from Europe and all +her sea-voyaging, in excellent physical +health, and the last year or two of her +life, in spite of sorrowful vicissitudes, had +ripened and developed her beauty in a +very marked degree.</p> + +<p>She was dressed in white, but with +great richness, of course—her husband +had seen to that; covered with precious +lace, that was as attractive to the eyes of +the Melbourne ladies as the delicacy of her +pure complexion was to those of the men. +And she wore her necklace of diamond +stars, and diamonds on her arms, and on +her bosom, and in her hair; and she was<span class="pagenum">[77]</span> +altogether very magnificent, and made a +great sensation.</p> + +<p>Amongst her many admirers she noticed, +when she had been in the room a little +while, a short, stout man, of about forty +or fifty years of age, apparently, who was +a stranger to her, regarding her with +much attention.</p> + +<p>He had rather an air of distinction +about him in spite of his low stature, and +a noticeable absence of beauty; and she +had a dim—very dim—impression that she +had seen him, or someone like him, +before.</p> + +<p>He wore a fair moustache but no beard +or whiskers, and his florid face was +marked down one side with the puckered +white scar of an old wound.</p> + +<p>His eyes were quick and bright, and +the keen observation that he brought to<span class="pagenum">[78]</span> +bear upon her through an eyeglass that he +put into one of them whenever she came +near, obviously with the intention of +studying her to the best advantage, was a +little disconcerting even to an acknowledged +beauty.</p> + +<p>She was waltzing with Mr. Buxton—it +was her second waltz, and he danced very +well—when suddenly, high in the air over +her head, the great clock chimed eleven, +and all the associations of that sacred hour +gathered like ghosts around her, Roden +Dalrymple holding the lighted match to +his watch, while she sheltered the little +flame from the wind—her head touching +his cheek and his huge moustache as they +looked down together to see the time—the +mystic light and stillness of the peaceful +night, through which the sound of the city +bells came up to them, to warn them that<span class="pagenum">[79]</span> +their happiness was a thing too good to +last.</p> + +<p>"Eleven p.m.," he had called it; and +"you must go home, little one," he had +said. Could it have been at <i>that</i> moment +that he meant to send her away so far, +and never to take her back to his +arms and his heart again?</p> + +<p>"Aw—what's the matter? Are you +dizzy?" asked her partner, feeling a +break and a jar in the rhythm of the +measure that had been flowing so very +harmoniously.</p> + +<p>"A little," she whispered. "I should +like to sit down for a few minutes—we'll +go on again, if you like, presently."</p> + +<p>He led her to a retired bench, and +while she rested stood beside her, +silently watching the people who continued<span class="pagenum">[80]</span> +to revolve before them. She had +hardly sat down, and was beginning +mechanically to fan herself, when the +stranger with the eyeglass came up, +with a lady, who was also unknown to +her, on his arm.</p> + +<p>"Here's a seat," said the little stout +man; and his partner, an elderly and +amiable matron, sat down, bestowing +the deprecatory smile of old-fashioned +courtesy upon the two already in possession.</p> + +<p>He took the end of the bench +himself, and chatted away to her—she +was his aunt, apparently—leaning a little +forward, with an elbow on his knee; +and Rachel, dreamily occupied as she +was, was quite conscious that his keen +eyes dwelt persistently, not upon his +neighbour's face, but upon her own.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[81]</span></p> + +<p>"Why don't you go and get a partner, +James?" said the elderly matron. "You +don't want to dance attendance upon +me, my dear—I shall do very well here +until Lucy wants me. Go and find +some pretty young lady, and enjoy yourself +like the rest of them."</p> + +<p>"I don't believe in pretty young +ladies," replied the little man, rather +bluntly. "Except Lucy—and she is +engaged for the whole night, as far as +I can make out."</p> + +<p>Here ensued some comments upon +Lucy, who appeared to be the lady's +daughter, generally favourable to that +young person. And the little man then +began to inveigh against the abstract +girl of the period with trenchant +vigour—obviously to the great embarrassment +of his companion, who tried her<span class="pagenum">[82]</span> +best, but vainly, to divert him to other +topics.</p> + +<p>"In fact, there are no girls nowadays," +he remarked coolly; "they are +all calculating, selfish, heartless, worldly +women—always excepting Lucy, of +course—as soon as they cease to be +children. They have only one object in +life, and that is to marry a man—no, +not a man necessarily, a forked stick +will do—who has plenty of money."</p> + +<p>"My dear, that is a popular sentiment, +I know, and supposed to be full +of wit and wisdom, but it always seems +to me that it is just a little vulgar," +replied his companion, frowning surreptitiously, +and giving uneasy sidelong +glances at Rachel. "There are girls +and girls, of course, just as there are +men and men; we see bad and good<span class="pagenum">[83]</span> +in every class. How beautifully this +place lights up, to be sure!"</p> + +<p>"They like a fellow to dance with +them and dangle after them, and make +love to them, and break his heart for +them—nothing pleases them better—when +they have no serious business on +hand," the little man proceeded, with +unabashed composure, and still gazing +steadily at Rachel; "but when it comes +to marriage—"</p> + +<p>"My dear James, I am <i>not</i> recommending +marriage to you—only a +harmless waltz."</p> + +<p>"Then they are for sale to the +highest bidder, whoever he may happen +to be. The poor, impecunious lover—be +he ever so much a lover, and +the best fellow that walks the earth +into the bargain—must take himself off<span class="pagenum">[84]</span>—and +cut his throat for all she +cares."</p> + +<p>At this sudden change from the plural +to the singular, and at something personal +and impertinent that she recognised in the +tone and look of the speaker, a deep blush +flooded Rachel's face, and she rose from +her seat with dignity, but trembling in +all her limbs.</p> + +<p>"Aw—who the dickens is that fellow?" +Mr. Buxton whispered, with a scowl—supposing, +however, that he could only be a +disappointed aspirant for Rachel's hand. +"He's an impudent brute, whoever he is, +and I have a good mind to tell him so. +What's his name, eh?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," said Rachel. But as +she spoke, and was about to move away, +the stranger rose and stood with an air of +courteous deference to let her pass him<span class="pagenum">[85]</span>—an +air that somehow indicated the breeding +and manners of a gentleman; and all at +once it flashed across her where and when +she had seen him before. He was the man +who had called at Toorak and been closeted +with her aunt at the time when Roden +Dalrymple had promised to come for her, +nearly two years ago. She had gone out +into the garden, thinking he might possibly +have been Roden, to intercept him as he +was going away. She had had only a +distant glimpse of him—of his short, +square figure, and the lower part of his +face—but she recognised now that this +was the same man. She had not gone +many steps into the room, feeling strangely +overwhelmed by her discovery, when a +pair of exhausted waltzers went trailing +by, and one of them said to the other, +"Didn't somebody say Jim Gordon was<span class="pagenum">[86]</span> +here to-night? Where is the old fellow +hiding himself? I should like to see him +again."</p> + +<p>The little man with the eyeglass was—of +course he was—Roden Dalrymple's +friend and partner.</p> + +<p>She drew her hand from her cousin's +arm, turned round, and walked deliberately +back to the seat she had just +quitted.</p> + +<p>"No," she said to her pursuing cavalier, +"do not come. Go and dance with somebody, +and fetch me presently."</p> + +<p>"My dear Rachel, you must allow me—aw, +I couldn't really—"</p> + +<p>"I want to speak to Mr. Gordon," she +said, pausing in front of that gentleman. +"Mr. Gordon, I want to ask you something. +Will you kindly take me out to +the lobbies—somewhere where it is quiet<span class="pagenum">[87]</span>—if +this lady will excuse you for a few +minutes?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Buxton was utterly bewildered, as +well he might be. He stared, stiffened +himself, and then went off to find Laura, +and to tell her of the extraordinary proceedings +of her cousin "with some insolent +beggar whose name she said she didn't know, +though she addressed him by it almost in +the same breath," and to intimate (merely +by way of soothing his own injured dignity) +that there seemed to him something +"rather fishy" going on.</p> + +<p>And Mr. Gordon, after losing his presence +of mind for about half a minute, and then +only partially recovering it, silently offered +his arm to the lady who had made that +strange appeal to him. He had never seen +her until to-night; he had hoped he never +should see her, or have anything to do with<span class="pagenum">[88]</span> +her. She had been, in his imagination of +her, the embodiment of all that was detestable +in woman. But now something in +the candid young face, unnaturally set and +pale, and in the suppressed passion and +purpose of her manner, gave him compunctious +misgivings, and a vague but +alarming impression that there had been +some blundering somewhere.</p> + +<p>"You are Mr. Gordon, are you not?" +she began hurriedly, as soon as they +were out of the crowd and glare of the +ball-room. "Yes, I thought so; but I +did not recognise you at first. I should +have waited for an introduction, but I +was afraid you might go away. I think +you know who I am. What you were +saying just now—had it not some reference +to me?"</p> + +<p>The little man began to stammer incoherently.<span class="pagenum">[89]</span> +He was completely overbalanced +by the shock of this unexpected +attack. Rachel, on the contrary, usually +so fluttered by an emergency, had a +sort of fierce, collected calm about her.</p> + +<p>"I am sure it had," she said. "And +I want to know what you meant?"</p> + +<p>"I—a—perhaps you are aware that +I am Mr. Dalrymple's friend, Mrs. +Kingston. I am therefore, perhaps, +something of a partisan—forgive me, +if I forgot myself for the moment—"</p> + +<p>"Ah," she broke out sharply, "there +has been some great mistake! Tell +me—quickly—before anyone is here to +interrupt us—did you come to see my +aunt that Christmas—the Christmas +before last?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly I came to see her and you," +he replied.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[90]</span></p> + +<p>"Did he send you?"</p> + +<p>"Of course he did."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"Why!" he echoed angrily. "Do +you mean to say you don't know +why?"</p> + +<p>"I know <i>nothing</i>," said Rachel. She +stood before him shining in her satin +and diamonds, without a trace of colour +in her face; and the anguish of her beseeching +eyes told him plainly that she +spoke the truth.</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear me, this is terrible!" he exclaimed, +in a flurry of dismay and consternation. +"Do you mean to say that +you didn't know that he was ill?—that +you didn't tell Mrs. Hardy to write that +letter?—that it was all done without your +knowing anything about it? Good +Heavens! would anybody believe there<span class="pagenum">[91]</span> +were such malignant fiends in existence—and +such fools!" he added bitterly.</p> + +<p>Then he told her the whole story—how +her lover had got hurt, and had lain +insensible for many days, between life +and death—how his first anxiety upon +recovering consciousness was about his +appointment with her—how he had deputed +his friend to go to Melbourne and +explain his inability to keep it; and +how he (Mr. Gordon) had seen Mrs. +Hardy and afterwards Mr. Kingston, and +been led by them to an apparently unavoidable +conclusion.</p> + +<p>"She said you were not willing to see +me, but that she would give you my +messages and explanations," said the +little man, thinking it would be best for +his friend (and not much caring what it +would be for other people) to have it all<span class="pagenum">[92]</span> +out at once, while he was as about it; +"and that she would send me a note to the +club, where I was staying, in the evening, +or instruct you to do so. She had +already told me that you were re-engaged +to—a—your present husband. At night +I got the letter, in which she repeated +this assertion, stating that you had empowered +her to do so."</p> + +<p>"And you went and told him that?"</p> + +<p>"I did not go and tell him that—for +I did not want to kill him—until I had +taken every possible precaution to get +it corroborated."</p> + +<p>"Yes?" ejaculated Rachel, breathlessly.</p> + +<p>"I obtained an introduction to Mr. +Kingston at the club, and I asked him +on his honour to tell me if what Mrs. +Hardy had said was true."</p><p><span class="pagenum">[93]</span></p> + +<p>"You told him why you wanted to +know?"</p> + +<p>"I did."</p> + +<p>She stood still for a few seconds to +collect her strength; whole years of effort +and agony were concentrated in that +little interval.</p> + +<p>"Shall you be going back to Queensland +soon?" she asked quietly.</p> + +<p>"I am going back to-morrow," he +said—though he had not previously +thought of doing so.</p> + +<p>"Tell him when you see him—tell +him from me—that I never +knew <i>anything</i>—never, never, from +the day I saw him last until to-night."</p> + +<p>"It will break his heart to hear it, +Mrs. Kingston."</p> + +<p>"No—he will be glad to know that<span class="pagenum">[94]</span> +I was not utterly base. And I—I want +him to know it."</p> + +<p>"And shall I—<i>can</i> I—tell him that +you were really not engaged when they +said you were—when he thought you +were waiting for him?"</p> + +<p>She flushed deeply and drew herself +up with a little stately gesture.</p> + +<p>"He will not wish you to go into +those particulars, Mr. Gordon. If +you will give him my message simply, +that is all I want you to do. He will +understand it. Will you take me back +to the ball-room now? I should like to +find my cousin, Mrs. Reade."</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/c04e.jpg" width="150" height="59" alt="" /> +</div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[95]</span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/c05.jpg" width="600" height="114" alt="" /> +</div> + +<h2 id="CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V.</h2> + +<p class="h3">A CRISIS.</p> + +<p><img class="dropimg" src="images/d-a.jpg" alt="A" height="96" width="80" /> + <span class="hide">A</span>S nature makes us, so to a great +extent, the most of us remain, +when education has done its +very best, or its very worst, to modify +the great mother's handiwork. Her +patterns, of which no one ever saw the +original designs, and that have been +unknown centuries a-weaving, cannot be +sensibly altered in the infinitesimal fragment +that one human lifetime represents, +though every thread of circumstance, in<span class="pagenum">[96]</span> +its right or wrong adjustment, must +have its value in the ultimate product, +whatever that unimaginable thing may +be.</p> + +<p>Still, in the individual man or woman, +here and there, the type that he or she +belongs to is temporarily obscured by +accidental causes; the lines of character, +laid down by many forefathers, are +twisted or straightened by violent +wrenchings of irresponsible fate—as in +less important branches of nature's business +her processes are interrupted by +lightning and earthquakes, and other +rebellious forces.</p> + +<p>Rachel, from the hour when she discovered +how it was that she and Roden +Dalrymple had been defrauded of their +"rights," was apparently quite changed +(though—as she is still a very young<span class="pagenum">[97]</span> +woman—we are not prepared to suppose +that she will never be her old weak and +timid and clinging self again). She was +turned, from a soft and shrinking girl, +into a hard and fearless, if not a +defiant, woman.</p> + +<p>The immense strength of her love—always +an incalculable "unknown quantity" +in the elements of human character +and the factors of human destiny—had +already given force and point, and meaning +and dignity, to her whole personality +and her relations with life; but now the +magnitude of her wrongs and misfortunes, +and still more of <i>his</i>, seemed to +dwarf and crush every feeble trait and +sentiment in her.</p> + +<p>She went back to the ball-room, +very white and silent, on Mr. Gordon's +arm; and the first person of her own<span class="pagenum">[98]</span> +party whom she met there was Mr. +Reade, under whose protection she +placed herself, dismissing her late escort +with a quiet "good-night."</p> + +<p>She asked to be taken to Beatrice; and +Ned, who never knew from whom he had +received her, piloted her through the +crowd until he found his small wife, +whose bright eyes no sooner rested on +Rachel's face than they recognised a +new calamity.</p> + +<p>"Has she heard anything, I +wonder?" she asked herself in +dismay. "Are you ill?" she inquired +aloud.</p> + +<p>"I want to go home," said +Rachel.</p> + +<p>The little woman did not waste +time asking useless questions. She +took her cousin to the cloak-room,<span class="pagenum">[99]</span> +sent Ned for a cab, and in a few +minutes the three were driving to the +Kingstons' hotel.</p> + +<p>When they reached Rachel's drawing-room, +and Ned had been sent +downstairs to see if her maid was +on the premises, Mrs. Reade put her +arms round her tenderly, and begged +to know what was the matter with +her.</p> + +<p>But Rachel, singularly unresponsive +to the rare caress, would not tell—would +not talk at all. She would +not betray the mother's crime to the +daughter, and she would not mention +the name of her beloved, even to +her dearest friend, in these married +days.</p> + +<p>"I am not well," she said, gently +but with an odd harshness in her<span class="pagenum">[100]</span> +face and voice. "I could not dance—I +could not stay in that place. I +shall be better here. Go back, Beatrice, +and make excuses for me. Say I was +not well."</p> + +<p>"I shall do no such thing," said +Beatrice bluntly. "I shall not leave +you until Graham comes home."</p> + +<p>Rachel begged and protested with +a sharp peremptoriness that was very +unusual to her. Beatrice, full of +anxiety and consternation, was obdurate.</p> + +<p>In the midst of their discussion, +they heard Mr. Kingston coming upstairs, +bustling along in great haste. +He flung open the door, with an air +of angry irritation.</p> + +<p>"Oh, here you are!" he exclaimed +loudly. "What on earth are you<span class="pagenum">[101]</span> +doing? Everybody is inquiring for +you, Rachel. Aren't you well? Why +didn't you tell me, and let me +bring you home, if you wanted to +come? You have set all the room +talking and gossiping, slinking off +before midnight in this way—as if +you were a mere nobody, who +would not be missed—and not letting +me know. What's the matter, +eh?"</p> + +<p>Rachel, without changing her position +by a hair's breadth, lifted her eyes +steadily and looked at him, but she +did not speak.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Reade saw the look, and +she needed no words to tell her +that some crisis in the conjugal +relations of this pair had come, +which no outsider had any business<span class="pagenum">[102]</span> +to see or meddle with; and she +guessed correctly what it was.</p> + +<p>"I will go back, and make what +explanations are necessary," said she; +"and I will come round in the morning, +Rachel."</p> + +<p>And she went out quickly, and closed +the door behind her. On the stairs she +met Rachel's maid going up, and told +her her mistress would ring when she +wanted her; and in the lobby of the +hotel she replied to her husband's anxious +inquiries by declaring irrelevantly that +she wished Mr. Kingston, and his house +and his money, were all at the bottom of +the sea.</p> + +<p>That gentleman, meanwhile, after following +her out upon the landing, and +looking over the stairs to see that her +natural protector was in attendance,<span class="pagenum">[103]</span> +returned to his wife with a vague presentiment +of unpleasantness in some +shape or other.</p> + +<p>He, too, had been struck with the +peculiar expression of Rachel's face, and +a guilty conscience intimated at once +that she had "found out something," +though it did not suggest any catastrophe +in particular. There were so +many things that, by unlucky accident, +she might find out.</p> + +<p>"However, I am not going to be +called to account by her," he said to himself, +in that spirit of swagger which she +had herself nursed and nourished by +her excess of wifely meekness. "<i>I</i> +am not Ned Reade, to submit to +be dictated to and sat upon by +my own wife—so she needn't begin +it."</p><p><span class="pagenum">[104]</span></p> + +<p>And he walked into the drawing-room +in a lordly manner.</p> + +<p>The reception that he met with +staggered him considerably.</p> + +<p>"Graham," said Rachel, in a very +quiet voice, "did you send word to Mr. +Roden Dalrymple that I was engaged to +you that Christmas—you know when I +mean—two years ago, when I was ill? +Did you tell that lie to Mr. Gordon +deliberately, when you knew how things +were with us?"</p> + +<p>He was silent—intensely silent—for a +few minutes, amazed, ashamed, embarrassed, +and savage. He did not know +how to answer her. Then he gave a little +short surly laugh.</p> + +<p>"What about it? Who has been talking +to you of those things? What is Mr. Dalrymple +to you <i>now</i>, I should like to know?"</p><p><span class="pagenum">[105]</span></p> + +<p>"Did you?" she persisted.</p> + +<p>"And what if I did?" he retorted +roughly, but still making a ghastly +attempt at badinage. "All's fair in love +and war, you know, my dear; and it was +that aunt of yours who told the lie, as you +elegantly term it—if it was a lie—not I; +I merely did not contradict her."</p> + +<p>She looked at him steadily, with that +implacable hardness in her once soft +eyes.</p> + +<p>"I will never forgive you," she +said; "I will never, never forgive +you."</p> + +<p>"I am sure I am very sorry to +hear it; but I suppose I can manage +to get on without your forgiveness," +he began. And then he gave up +trying to make a joke of it, and +turned upon her savagely. "Have you<span class="pagenum">[106]</span> +been seeing that fellow, Rachel? Tell +me this instant; I insist upon knowing."</p> + +<p>"I have seen his friend," she said, +quietly.</p> + +<p>"And did he send his friend to +make those explanations to you—to +<i>you</i>?"</p> + +<p>"No; he did not send him. It was +by accident that I met Mr. Gordon to-night!"</p> + +<p>"And what business had you to talk +to Mr. Gordon—to talk to anybody—about +your old love affairs? Do you +forget that you are a married woman—that +you are my wife? It was bad +enough when you were single to be +mixing yourself up with a disreputable +scoundrel like that——"</p> + +<p>"He is not a disreputable scoundrel,"<span class="pagenum">[107]</span> +she interposed sternly. "He is the most +upright gentleman—he is the most noble +man—in the wide world. I might have +known," she added, drawing herself up +proudly, "that he would never have forsaken +me! I might have been sure that +he would never break his word; that +whoever was to blame for what happened +to me that time, <i>he</i> was not! But +I let myself be twisted round anybody's +fingers rather than trust in him. It serves +me right, it serves me right! I was not +worthy of him."</p> + +<p>"Well—upon my word!"</p> + +<p>"You need not look at me so, Graham. +I have never deceived <i>you</i>. I told you +before I married you exactly how it was +with me. I have never had any secrets +from you, and I never will have any. You +<i>know</i> as well as I do that I loved him<span class="pagenum">[108]</span>—ah! +I did not love him enough, that is +what has ruined us!—and so I shall while +I live, if I live to be a hundred."</p> + +<p>"You mean to say you can sit there and +tell me that to my face?"</p> + +<p>"I can only tell the truth," she replied, +with the same hard deliberation. "I +could no more help loving him, especially +now I understand how things have been +with us—no one will know it, but it will +be in my heart—than I could help +breathing. When I leave off breathing, +then I shall forget him perhaps, not +before."</p> + +<p>Mr. Kingston was beside himself with +passion—as, indeed, so was she.</p> + +<p>"Forewarned is forearmed," he said, +with a sort of sardonic snarl; "I shall +know now what steps to take to protect +my honour."</p><p><span class="pagenum">[109]</span></p> + +<p>"You know perfectly well that your +honour—what <i>you</i> call your honour—is +safe," she replied proudly. "If I am not +to be trusted, <i>he</i> is. Do not insult us any +more. We have had enough cruelty; we +shall have quite enough to bear—he +and I."</p> + +<p>And so they went on with these bitter +and defiant recriminations—Mr. Kingston, +of course, insisting upon giving due prominence +to his own wrongs, which were +very real ones in their way, and both of +them making reckless proposals with +respect to their domestic arrangements—until +suddenly, without any apparent +warning, Rachel went off into wild +hysterics, and the doctor had to be sent +for.</p> + +<p>Perhaps it was the best thing that could +have happened under all the circumstances.<span class="pagenum">[110]</span> +She was very ill for several +hours; and in the morning, when passion +was spent, and she was lying in her bed +still and quiet, with her head swathed in +wet bandages, her husband knelt down +beside her and asked her to forgive him.</p> + +<p>"It was for love of you that I did it," +he said; "and <i>I</i> am punished, too. We +can't undo it now, Rachel, if we would, +and there's no good in making a public +talk and scandal. Let bygones be bygones, +won't you, dear?"</p> + +<p>She lifted her heavy eyes to his face. +They were cold and hard no longer, but +unutterably dull and sad.</p> + +<p>"Yes," she said wearily; "we have +both been wrong; we have injured one +another. We must try to make the best +of it; it is the only thing we can do +now."</p><p><span class="pagenum">[111]</span></p> + +<p>He kissed her and stroked her face, and +adjusted the wet bandages.</p> + +<p>"There, there," he said soothingly, +"we both forgot ourselves a little. We +said a great deal more than we meant, I +daresay. People do when they are out of +temper."</p> + +<p>And he bade her go to sleep, told her +he would take her for a drive in the +afternoon if she felt well enough, and +went forth with the sense that he was +treating her magnanimously to receive +and reply to inquiries after her health in +person.</p> + +<p>By noon, "all Melbourne," according +to Mrs. Hardy's calculation, was aware +that Mr. and Mrs. Kingston had had a +quarrel (though there was every variety +of conjecture as to the cause of it, and a +division of opinion as to which was the<span class="pagenum">[112]</span> +most to blame); but it was not Mr. +Kingston's fault if all Melbourne was not +satisfied by nightfall that the quarrel had +been made up.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/c05e.jpg" width="150" height="147" alt="" /> +</div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[113]</span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/c06.jpg" width="600" height="133" alt="" /> +</div> + +<h2 id="CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI.</h2> + +<p class="h3">MRS. READE MEETS HER MATCH.</p> + +<p class="quote">"</p> + +<p><img class="dropimg" src="images/d-w.jpg" alt="W" height="96" width="80" /> + <span class="hide">W</span>ILL Mr. Roden Dalrymple do +Mrs. Edward Reade the great +favour to call upon her to-morrow +(Thursday) morning, if convenient +to him, between ten and twelve +o'clock? She is particularly anxious to +see him upon a matter of private business."</p> + +<p>This note was despatched from South +Yarra to Menzies on a certain night in the +early part of December, a few weeks after<span class="pagenum">[114]</span> +the Town Hall ball. Mr. Dalrymple had +just come to Melbourne, and Mrs. Reade, +through the gossip of afternoon visitors, +had heard of it.</p> + +<p>She had heard of a great deal more +besides—from Laura's husband chiefly; +and the critical nature of the situation, +and her anxious solicitude for Rachel's +welfare in the midst of the perils and +temptations to which, while a meeting +with her old lover was possible, she would +be exposed, made it seem absolutely necessary +that the person who was most capable +of doing so effectually should interfere +once more.</p> + +<p>The course she adopted in undertaking +this delicate and difficult enterprise was +worthy alike of her courage and her good +sense. She had never met Mr. Dalrymple, +and she had no definite knowledge of his<span class="pagenum">[115]</span> +character, only an impression that he was +"wild"—a man of the world, with a +touch of the libertine and the vagabond +about him—and that he was also undoubtedly +a gentleman, with some of the +finer qualities that are the heritage of +good blood.</p> + +<p>Yet she determined that she would +abjure all schemes and artifices, and see +him herself before there was time for anything +to happen, and appeal to his honour +and generosity on behalf of the woman +he loved—upon whose peace it seemed +evident to her he had some selfish if not +distinctly evil designs.</p> + +<p>"He has come to town in consequence +of Mr. Gordon's representations, of +course, for no other purpose than to +see her," the little woman said to +herself the moment she heard of his<span class="pagenum">[116]</span> +arrival; "and if he does see her, +nothing but trouble can possibly come +of it."</p> + +<p>So she determined to prevent trouble +if possible, and this seemed to her the +proper way.</p> + +<p>She prepared herself for the interview +on the Thursday morning, without any +sense of having undertaken a difficult +task.</p> + +<p>When he arrived she was discussing +dinner with her cook, and she walked +from the larder to the drawing-room +with a very grave and thoughtful face, +but feeling perfectly serene and self-possessed.</p> + +<p>He was standing in the middle of +the room, facing the door, with his hat +in his hand when she entered. He +looked immensely tall, and stiff, and<span class="pagenum">[117]</span> +stately. There was an air of impracticable +independence in his attitude, +and in the distant dignity of his salutation +that disconcerted her a little. He +was wonderfully like his photograph she +thought, and yet he was a much more +imposing personage than she had bargained +for.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mr. Dalrymple—it was so kind +of you to come," she said, in her quick, +easy way. "I must apologise for summoning +you in such a very informal +manner, but—a—won't you sit down?"</p> + +<p>She dropped into one of her soft, low +chairs; and her visitor seated himself at +a little distance from her, not hesitatingly, +but with just so much deliberation as +indicated a protest against the prolongation +of the interview.</p> + +<p>"I understood from your note that you<span class="pagenum">[118]</span> +wished to see me upon some business," +he suggested gravely.</p> + +<p>"I did," she replied, feeling unaccountably +flustered. "Perhaps you will think +it rather impertinent of me—perhaps it is +a liberty for me to take—but the fact is I +have so deep an interest in my cousin's +welfare—she is so very dear to me—I +must plead that as my excuse——"</p> + +<p>"You are speaking of Mrs. Kingston?" +he interposed in the same cool and distant +manner, "I hope she is quite well? I +have not had the pleasure of seeing her +since her marriage."</p> + +<p>"She is quite well, thank you. I trust +she will keep so, but I am afraid she is +not very strong. Mr. Dalrymple, I ought +perhaps to tell you that I—that Rachel +told me—that I am aware of the relationship +that has existed between you."</p><p><span class="pagenum">[119]</span></p> + +<p>"We will not speak of that, if you +please, Mrs. Reade."</p> + +<p>"But I sent for you on purpose to +speak of it."</p> + +<p>"Then I must ask you to excuse me," +he said, rising haughtily. "I cannot +discuss those matters with strangers—still +less with a member of Miss Fetherstonhaugh's +family."</p> + +<p>"But, Mr. Dalrymple, <i>I</i> am not to +blame for anything that has happened—for +any mistakes that have been made—I +assure you I am not. I never +knew of your accident—I never knew +that Mr. Gordon came down—I +never knew anything more than +Rachel did, until it was too late. +And I was her intimate friend all +that time, and she made me her +<i>confidante</i>. I served her interests as far<span class="pagenum">[120]</span> +as a friend who loved her could, to the +best of my power."</p> + +<p>"If that is so, I am very grateful to +you," he said gently, "though I am afraid +you failed to see what her interests were. +May I ask if you are acting under her +instructions now? Did she authorise you +to make this appointment for the purpose +of speaking of these things?"</p> + +<p>"Of course she did not."</p> + +<p>"Then we will not speak of them. +There would be very grave impropriety in +doing so. You must see, Mrs. Reade, +that nothing you can say will in the least +degree affect the case for anyone. I +think we all know the truth of the story +now. It is too late to take any action +one way or the other. For Mrs. Kingston's +sake, the fewer reminiscences we +allow the better. Our business is to<span class="pagenum">[121]</span> +reconcile ourselves to circumstances, since +they are irrevocable, and to let the past +alone. If it was your intention to explain +to me that you were guiltless of active +participation in the crime which parted +us, believe me, I appreciate the kind +motive, and I thank you from my heart. +But it is much better not to say any more +about it."</p> + +<p>He was still standing with his hat in +his hand, and that peculiar distant look +in his sad and haughty face. Mrs. Reade +sat before him in her low chair silent, +with her eyes cast down.</p> + +<p>Not one of the numerous gentlemen in +whose affairs she had condescended to +take an interest had ever treated her like +this, and she felt inexpressibly humiliated. +Yet she had no sense of resentment, +strange to say, against the individual<span class="pagenum">[122]</span> +who dominated her, and the position +generally, in such an unexampled +manner.</p> + +<p>"Did I understand you to say that Mrs. +Kingston was not strong?" he inquired +after a short pause.</p> + +<p>"I think she is very well," Mrs. Reade +meekly responded. "Her constitution is +quite sound; but her nervous system is +delicate. She cannot stand worry, or +shocks, or any great excitement or fatigue—any +of those things upset her."</p> + +<p>"I should imagine so. But it is always +possible to keep her free of those things, +is it not?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Reade replied, not so much to +the letter as to the spirit of the +question.</p> + +<p>"Her husband takes good care of her," +she said. "He is very thoughtful for her<span class="pagenum">[123]</span> +comfort. She does not run any risk of +harm that he can spare her. If we are +all as careful of her welfare as he is, Mr. +Dalrymple—if we are as scrupulous to +protect her peace now she is at peace——"</p> + +<p>She broke off, and lifted her eyes wistfully.</p> + +<p>Mr. Dalrymple looked down upon her +with stately and impenetrable composure.</p> + +<p>"I am deeply thankful to know that +her marriage has so far been satisfactory," +he said. "I suppose the house in Toorak +is nearly finished, is it not?"</p> + +<p>"It is quite finished. They went into +it three weeks ago."</p> + +<p>"It promised to be a very good house, +though rather of the <i>nouveaux riches</i> order +of architecture," he proceeded coolly; "and +unfortunately it is impossible to manufacture<span class="pagenum">[124]</span> +trees, without which the best +house looks bald and naked. But it stands +well. It must be a very healthy situation; +and that, after all, is the principal consideration."</p> + +<p>"I hope she will be happy in it," said +Mrs. Reade. Her soul rebelled against +this mode of treating the question, and +yet her efforts to divert the discussion +into the channels that she had +designed for it were absurdly feeble and +futile.</p> + +<p>"I hope so, indeed," he replied gravely. +"I suppose you see a great deal of her, +do you not?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I seldom miss a day without +seeing her. Either I go to Toorak, or +she comes here, or we meet somewhere +about town. <i>I</i> do whatever is in my +power to help to make her happy."</p><p><span class="pagenum">[125]</span></p> + +<p>"It must be a happiness to you, too, +to have her friendship and confidence in +such a marked degree."</p> + +<p>"It is," said Mrs. Reade.</p> + +<p>"I—if you will excuse me—I will say +good morning. Allow me to thank you +very much for permitting me to call, +and for your kind interest in my misfortunes—and +in Mrs. Kingston's welfare. +But the greatest service you can do +her, Mrs. Reade, is to be silent yourself, +and to discourage gossip in others, +about anything that occurred either +before or since her marriage in connection +with me. I hope I do not seem +discourteous in saying this—if so, pray +forgive me. I speak to you frankly, +because you are her friend. I am +afraid she has not had many friends—there +is the more reason that we who<span class="pagenum">[126]</span> +desire her welfare and happiness, should +take every precaution against imperilling +it by allowing any hint of these +private matters to reach the ears of +vulgar scandalmongers. A great crime +has been done, for which if there +is anything in the theory of retribution, +some one will have to answer +some day; but in the meantime our +part is to take care that <i>she</i> is spared +as much difficulty and suffering as +possible."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Mr. Dalrymple. That is what +I think—that is what I was going to +say."</p> + +<p>"I am sure you think so. I am sure +you see that that is all we can do for +her now. Good morning. I am much +obliged to you for your kindness. It +looks rather as if we were going to<span class="pagenum">[127]</span> +have a storm, does it not? The air is +close and sultry, and the glass is falling +very fast."</p> + +<p>He turned from looking out of the +window and made a stately bow; she +laid her hand upon the bell mechanically—she +had no arts wherewith to keep +him; and in another minute he had +passed out of the house, and the door +was shut upon him. The interview which +was to have had such great results was +over.</p> + +<p>We have heard it said of a pioneer +colonist, lessee of a Crown-land principality, +that, after bearing the reverses of fortune +which, with the advent of free selectors, +overwhelmed him, the loss of land and +stock and the accumulated treasure of +toilsome and prosperous years, with the +fortitude and equanimity of a gentleman,<span class="pagenum">[128]</span> +he was broken down at last by the unspeakable +humiliation of the circumstance +that he had "lived to hear himself called +a boss-cocky."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Reade had not only been defied +and defeated, and made to feel small and +ridiculous in her own drawing-room, where +never man or woman—man, especially—had +never dared dispute her supremacy; +but she had lived to hear herself called, +or at any rate to find herself considered, +a <i>gossip</i>—a common tattler and busybody, +who intrigued in other people's private +affairs from the vulgar feminine love of +meddling—and the blow was equally +bitter.</p> + +<p>She stood in the bow window of her +drawing-room, and watched the tall figure +leisurely striding through the garden as if +South Yarra and the adjacent suburbs<span class="pagenum">[129]</span> +were but a small part of his possessions; +taking in all the details of his strong majestic +figure, his thin, dark, proud face, +with its immense moustache, the perfection +of his quiet dress, and the repose +and dignity of his bearing generally, +and of every distinct movement that he +made—even when trying to open a +gate with a mysterious fastening, at +which most people fumbled and bungled +awkwardly.</p> + +<p>But she was <i>not</i> consumed with a +passion of angry resentment against him +for the indignities and humiliations that +he had heaped upon her. No, she was +filled with a vague but intense respect +and admiration for him, a feeling that +she had never before entertained for any +individual of his sex.</p> + +<p>She did not say it to herself in so many<span class="pagenum">[130]</span> +words, but the thought of her heart undoubtedly +was that here was the man, +who as a husband, would just have suited +her.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/c06e.jpg" width="150" height="161" alt="" /> +</div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[131]</span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/c07.jpg" width="600" height="125" alt="" /> +</div> + +<h2 id="CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII.</h2> + +<p class="h3">GOOD-BYE.</p> + +<p><img class="dropimg" src="images/d-o.jpg" alt="O" height="94" width="80" /> + <span class="hide">O</span>N that same day, at a little after +four o'clock in the afternoon, +Mrs. Kingston might have been +seen—she <i>was</i> seen, in fact—going into +the Town Hall by herself, having left her +carriage in the street below. She mounted +the stone steps lightly, with the train of +her dress held up in her hand, looking +exquisitely fresh and dainty in the dusty +sultriness that everywhere prevailed; and +she glided through the vestibule as if time<span class="pagenum">[132]</span> +were precious, paid her sixpence, and +entered the hall, where she took a solitary +seat under the shadow of the gallery at +the lower end.</p> + +<p>The organist was interpreting Mozart +to some hundreds of receptive citizens, +making the great organ sing like a choir +of angels in the "Gloria" of the Twelfth +Mass, "<i>et in terra pax, pax, pax hominibus; +bonæ, bonæ voluntatis</i>." All the spacious +place was flooded with the impassioned +harmonies of that inspired theme.</p> + +<p>Rachel was not what is popularly +called musical, but in the dulness of +her empty life her soul slacked its thirst +in this way, as a soul of a lower order, +which had been denied its natural +nourishment, might have found comfort +in the emotional stimulus of champagne +or brandy.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[133]</span></p> + +<p>She could not play well herself, but +she was like a fine instrument to be +played upon; not one sweet phrase of +melody passed from her listening ear +to her sensitive heart without wakening +an echo that had the very divine afflatus +in it in response. And in this resonance +of enthusiasms and aspirations, dumb and +suffocated in the bondage of her artificial +life—in the sense of breathing spiritual +air, and freedom, though with a passion +of enjoyment that filled her with far +more pain than peace—she found the +one true luxury of her much-envied +lot.</p> + +<p>Long ago—oh, so long ago!—the music +of a violin had led her into enchantment, +as the Pied Piper of Hamelin led away the +children. To-day the music of the Town +Hall organ, speaking now in Mozart's<span class="pagenum">[134]</span> +dramatic choruses, and again in Baptiste's +Andante in G, was a similar but a sadder +incantation.</p> + +<p>She sat solitary in her far-away chair, +with her feet on the rung of the one in +front of her, her hands, gloved to perfection, +folded in her lap, her delicate, +neat dress daintily adjusted, much as she +might have sat in the pew at church, +a model of matronly grace and propriety.</p> + +<p>But who could tell, from the expression +of her quiet <i>pose</i> and her dreamy eyes, +what ineffable raptures and fancies, what +infinite longings and yearnings—nameless, +even to her own consciousness, but all +reminiscent of the blessed past—soared +out of captivity on the wings of those +alluring harmonies!</p> + +<p>Who could see that in her heart she<span class="pagenum">[135]</span> +was crying—crying bitterly—for the +poetry and the beauty that were lost out +of her life!</p> + +<p>There was an interval of silence, during +which she sat quite still, looking at the +great organ-pipes, and seeing nothing; +and then there grew out of the hush the +delicious rhythm of the "Faust" waltz, +beating like a soft pulse through the +summer air.</p> + +<p>What spell is there in the "Faust" +waltz, or in any waltz, for one whose heart +is capable of receiving and responding to +the inspired message of Mozart?</p> + +<p>How can we tell? But this we know, +that those whose hearts are warm and +young—who understand how to love and +how to dance, and have done the two +things at the self-same moment—have +seldom any more power than they have<span class="pagenum">[136]</span> +honest inclination to resist the subtle wiles +of this simple measure.</p> + +<p>There is a vox humana stop out in +whatever organ plays it, magnetic to the +human passions that memory and imagination +keep. Rachel did not ask why it +was, but she felt, as soon as the air began +to unwind itself from a confusion of sweet +sounds, and she heard the slow time +throbbing softly in her ears, that she did +not know how to bear it.</p> + +<p>It filled her soul with a great wave of +suffocating emotion—it ran like an electric +current over all her sensitive nerves—it +contracted her white throat with a choking +pain that was like incipient hysteria—it +set abnormal pulses bounding in her brain. +She did not think of Adelonga, and the +hour when she and her true love had their +first and last waltz together.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[137]</span></p> + +<p>No definite picture of the past arose at +the magician's bidding, or if it did, she +shut her eyes to it. But she could not +help the forlorn rapture of longing for +that nameless something that was the +most precious of her woman's rights, +which fate and fraud had taken from +her, when the notes of this dreamy waltz +measure, so charged with passionate and +poetic associations, pulsed from the +heart of the organ into her warm young +blood.</p> + +<p>"Oh, my love! my love!"—that was +the burden of the music which was not +set to words.</p> + +<p>And she turned her face a little, and +saw Roden Dalrymple standing in the +doorway. He had come in quietly, and +was waiting, with his hat in his hand, +apparently for a pause in the performance,<span class="pagenum">[138]</span> +which he did not wish to interrupt, but +really until he could find where some +one whom he was looking for was +sitting.</p> + +<p>It was the first time she had seen him +since that October night when they had +parted in the moonlight under the walls +of the house that was now her home; but +she had been, unknown to herself, expecting +him, and there was no shock in her +surprise.</p> + +<p>She knew that he was looking for her, +when she saw his eyes travelling over the +rows of occupied chairs in the upper +division of the hall, and she longed to call +out to him,</p> + +<p>"Roden, Roden, here I am!"</p> + +<p>But not a dozen seconds passed before +he saw her far away from him in her +shadowy corner; and when he saw her,<span class="pagenum">[139]</span> +with that solemn eagerness in her face, he +knew—but he said to himself he had +already known—that, though she had +forsaken him, she had never done him +wrong.</p> + +<p>Of course before the day was over +it was reported in various circles, +more or less select, that pretty Mrs. +Kingston, who had married an old +fogey for his money, was in the habit +of coming to the organ recitals alone +and unbeknown to her husband, in +order to enjoy clandestine flirtations +with younger and more fascinating +men.</p> + +<p>It was also darkly whispered that the +favoured individual was a person who +made it his constant practice to run away +with married women, and to murder +their lawful spouses in sham duels<span class="pagenum">[140]</span> +afterwards if they ventured to make any +objections.</p> + +<p>But of all the human beings collected +in the Town Hall that afternoon, +perhaps no two were less capable of +violating the spirit of the moral and +social law whereof the letter is so +sacred to the ubiquitous and lynx-eyed +Mrs. Grundy, who persists in suspecting +everyone of a desire to evade or +infringe it, simply for the sake of doing +so, whenever he or she is presented with +an opportunity.</p> + +<p>That they loved one another as +much as it was possible for sympathetic +hearts to love, and that they seized one +brief half-hour out of a lifetime of +separation in which to say farewell, +might have been reprehensible from the +conventional point of view; but then<span class="pagenum">[141]</span> +the conventional point of view does not +embrace the universe, by a very long +way.</p> + +<p>He came down the hall, and round +to her chair, and she drew her dress +close that he might sit down beside her. +She was too innately pure to make any +mere outward and artificial demonstrations +of modesty in such a moment +as this; and she trusted him too well to +be afraid of him.</p> + +<p>She put out her hand, and he took it +in a long, close clasp; and they looked +at one another the while with loving, +despairing eyes, which said, "Oh, Rachel, +why <i>did</i> you?" and "Oh, Roden, forgive +me!" and bridged the only gulf that +could be bridged between them, without +any help of words.</p> + +<p>And then, though the organ began to<span class="pagenum">[142]</span> +fill the air with the sonorous crash and +thunder of Bach's great pedal fugue in +D, they heard nothing but the beating +of their hearts, and the memories that +called to them from their brief past, +vibrating through the void and silence +of a world in which they were alone +together.</p> + +<p>When the music ceased for an interval, +Mr. Dalrymple rested his arm on the +back of the chair which had served +Rachel for a footstool, and looking into +her face, said under his breath,</p> + +<p>"Gordon gave me your message—I +came down to thank you—and I +thought we should get on better if +we could see each other just once. +Dear, we must try and comfort ourselves +with knowing that neither of us +played the other false."</p><p><span class="pagenum">[143]</span></p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> did—<i>I</i> did," she whispered +hurriedly. "I ought to have trusted +you, Roden."</p> + +<p>"Yes—that was a mistake. But you +did not know any better, poor child. +And they were too many for you, +those people. Gordon ought to have +insisted on seeing you, himself, or +getting some message to you, and not +have left you in their hands. But he +did his best, he says. He was too +anxious to get back to me to have +much patience over it, and he didn't +bargain for being told lies of that +magnitude in cold blood. However,—however——"</p> + +<p>He broke off and looked at her with +a passion of love and grief in his eyes +that he dared not trust to speech. And +she looked back at him, with her<span class="pagenum">[144]</span> +simple soul laid bare—longing to make +him know, if they were never to be +together like this again, how absolutely +in her heart she had been true to him. +<i>She</i> would not tell him a lie, at any rate.</p> + +<p>"Oh," he said in a sort of groaning +whisper, drawing a long hard breath, +"oh, my little one, isn't it hard +lines!"</p> + +<p>"Don't," she gasped, feeling that +clutch on her throat tighten with a +sudden spasm; "oh, Roden, don't!"</p> + +<p>And he straightened himself quickly, +and sat back in his chair. And the +organ began to play again—a stately +march of Schubert's, which acted like +a tonic on her disordered nerves, and +as a sedative to the hysterical excitement +that for a moment had threatened to +overmaster her.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[145]</span></p> + +<p>The echoes of that march rang in her +ears, when Roden was gone back to +Queensland and this chapter of her +life was finished, for many a long +day.</p> + +<p>And then at last the thunders of the +National Anthem brought the performance +to a close, and the audience +trooped out, casting curious glances as +they went at the distinguished-looking +couple standing conspicuously apart—the +tall stranger with the peculiar +moustache, who had soldier and gentleman +written on him from head to +foot, and the graceful young lady with +the lovely complexion and the irreproachable +French dress, whom nobody "who +was anybody" failed to recognise.</p> + +<p>The two were left together amongst +all the empty chairs, in a silence that<span class="pagenum">[146]</span> +was hardly broken by the organist's +movements at the far end of the hall, +closing the stops and keys of his +enormous instrument.</p> + +<p>"Well," said Mr. Dalrymple, looking +down upon his companion, who lifted +to his sombre eyes a pale but +solemn face, "well—so this is all, I +suppose!"</p> + +<p>Her lips twitched a little; she could +not answer him.</p> + +<p>"You are not sorry that I came, are +you, Rachel? It will not make it harder +for you, will it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>no</i>, Roden! But it is <i>you</i> on +whom it is so hard—you will be so +lonely without me! I can't bear to +think what I have brought on you—and +you had so many troubles +already!"</p><p><span class="pagenum">[147]</span></p> + +<p>"Not you, dear—not you. And I can +bear all my part of it, if only things go +well with you."</p> + +<p>"Why did you break that trace?" +she exclaimed, with a touch of bitter +passion. "But for that—but for two +minutes lost—you would never have +seen me, and then I should never +have spoiled your life like this."</p> + +<p>"But, dear, we are not going to +regret <i>that</i>, I hope. We have got something +'saved from chance and change,' +if not much, that to me at any rate—yes +and to you too, I know—is worth even +this heavy price that we are paying for +it now. It need not spoil our lives, +Rachel, to know—what we know. It +is an agonising thing to see how +blessed it <i>might</i> have been for us, and to +be obliged to give it all up; but I shall<span class="pagenum">[148]</span> +never think of those two hours, when +we belonged entirely to each other—only +two hours, Rachel, out of our whole +lives!—without being thankful for the +chance which gave them to us. Yes, and +I think we shall be the better for them—I +don't say happier, because I really +don't know what that word means—but +I think life will somehow have +a finer quality henceforth, whatever +happens, on account of those two hours. +Dear, I am forcing myself to give in +to the hard fate that has done us out +of our inheritance; but there is one +thing that I don't think I <i>could</i> get +reconciled to—and that is to thinking +that you would ever live to wish +that we had never known each +other."</p> + +<p>"I could not wish it," she whispered;<span class="pagenum">[149]</span> +"I could only try to persuade myself that +I did."</p> + +<p>"Do not try. You are under no +obligation of duty to do that. Try to +be happy with your husband—try not to +fret over what is irrevocable, and not +to hanker after what is hopeless. But +don't try to turn me out of the only +place in your life where I have a corner +of my own. Let me keep the little of +you that I have got—it is little enough! +Do you remember what you said to me +that night?—you said you had no rights +in my past. <i>He</i> has no rights in our +past. Keep it sacred, Rachel, for my +sake. That will not hurt anybody. You +are not afraid that such remembrances, +if you shut them away in your heart, +will militate against your efforts to do +what is right by him? And you are not<span class="pagenum">[150]</span> +afraid that <i>I</i> will ever tempt or trouble +you?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Roden, I am not afraid of you—you +well know that!"</p> + +<p>"Treat me as if I were dead," he +said gently. "If I had been killed that +time when I was thrown—if I were in +my grave now—I know how you would +think of me. You would not wish you +had never seen me then. That is how +I <i>want</i> you to think of me, Rachel."</p> + +<p>"I know," she said, drawing a deep +breath. "But to me—even if you <i>had</i> +killed yourself—to me you could never +be dead."</p> + +<p>By this time they had sauntered slowly +out of the deserted hall and through the +empty vestibules, and were standing in +the doorway, looking out upon the street +below them.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[151]</span></p> + +<p>The storm that had threatened in the +morning was gathering up. Heavy +clouds weighed upon the sultry air, and +gusts of wind were beginning to blow +the dust about ominously. Pedestrians +were hurrying to gain shelter before the +rain came on, but, as they passed, they +took note of the lingering pair, who were +apparently heedless of the warnings of +the elements, with more or less curious +eyes. Neither of them, it is needless to +say, minded in the least who saw them. +They had no desire to take even this last +good-bye clandestinely.</p> + +<p>And when Rachel, to whom it had not +occurred to wonder why her carriage +was not in attendance, saw it thundering +along the street towards her, it +was with as much relief as surprise +that she recognised her husband in it,<span class="pagenum">[152]</span> +looking out of the window for +her.</p> + +<p>"We have said nothing," said Mr. +Dalrymple, who perceived the approach +of his old rival and enemy; "and we +had so much to say."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps it is better not to say +much," said Rachel.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps so. But one thing you +must not mind my asking you—and I +know you will tell me truly—are you +getting along pretty well? Do you +think you will be able to make anything +of a happy life out of it? +That is my great anxiety."</p> + +<p>"Do not be anxious about me," she +replied. "I shall get along. I know +that you forgive me—that will help me +more than anything."</p> + +<p>"Don't talk about forgiveness, child<span class="pagenum">[153]</span>—it +implies a wider separation than I +think has ever been between us. +There can be no forgiveness in the +case of people who never knowingly +do one another wrong."</p> + +<p>The carriage, with its high stepping, +showy horses, began to slacken speed, +and they descended the long flight of +steps quietly, side by side.</p> + +<p>"Is he good to you?" inquired +Roden, quickly.</p> + +<p>"Very," she replied; "very, indeed."</p> + +<p>And then they reached the pavement, +and the person referred to got out of +the carriage and came to meet +them.</p> + +<p>It must be recorded, to Mr. Kingston's +credit, that he behaved like a +gentleman on this occasion. He was +a little acid and supercilious, and not<span class="pagenum">[154]</span> +as composed as he assumed to be; but +otherwise he conducted himself with +propriety. "I took the carriage for +half an hour," said he loudly. "I hope +I haven't kept you waiting, my dear. +Ah, Mr. Dalrymple, how do you do? +I did not know you were in town. +I hope you are quite well. Making a +long stay?"</p> + +<p>"A day or two only," said Roden, +who stiffened in spite of himself, but +spoke with studied courtesy. "I shall +be starting back to Queensland to-night. +I am glad to have had the opportunity +of meeting Mrs. Kingston, and to see +her looking well."</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, she is very well, I hope. +Travelling did her good—it does everybody +good. I felt quite set up by it +myself. Dear me, was that a drop of<span class="pagenum">[155]</span> +rain? I think you had better be getting +home, Rachel. There is a heavy storm +coming directly. Good day, Mr. Dalrymple, +good day. We can't set you +down anywhere, I suppose?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Dalrymple declined a seat in the +carriage with thanks, and he held out +his hand to Rachel.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye," he said quietly.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye," she replied, with an ash-white +face. They looked at one another +for a second; and then, lifting his hat +gravely, Mr. Dalrymple turned and +walked away down the street, and +Mr. Kingston gave his arm to his +wife, and led her to her carriage. Poor +Rachel! she did not ask herself what +would happen next—she did not wonder +nor care whether she was to be +scolded or not. For a few bitter, lonely<span class="pagenum">[156]</span> +moments, she had no recognisable +future.</p> + +<p>Then she turned to her husband, who +was fanning the fuel of his wrath in +silence, laid her hand on his arm, and +said softly, "Graham?"</p> + +<p>"Well—what?" he inquired, roughly.</p> + +<p>"Do not be angry. I am never going +to see him again."</p> + +<p>"It's to be hoped not," he snarled, +"if you have any regard for your reputation. +Standing up there with him, in +that public way, for all Melbourne to +see!"</p> + +<p>"You would not have wished me to +meet Mr. Dalrymple in any way that +was <i>not</i> public," she said, drawing herself +up. "And I should be very sorry +to do anything that all Melbourne might +not see."</p><p><span class="pagenum">[157]</span></p> + +<p>The rain began to sweep down heavily, +and he turned to put up the window +nearest him with an energy that threatened +destruction to the glass.</p> + +<p>And he said no more about Mr. Dalrymple.</p> + +<p>Disturbed as he was, he was greatly +relieved that the meeting he had always +dreaded was over, and had taken place +so quietly; and poor as was his estimation +of the abstract woman, he had +the most implicit faith in his wife's +sincerity.</p> + +<p>When she told him that she had bidden +her old lover a final farewell, he believed +her; and, though the sight and thought +of the man made him ferocious, he was +quite aware that difficulties were adjusting +themselves more satisfactorily than +he could have expected.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[158]</span></p> + +<p>He did not feel that he had any +excuse for upbraiding Rachel now, and +he did not do it. But he had to put +great restraint upon himself not to do +it.</p> + +<p>He got out of the carriage at his club, +shutting the door with a bang behind +him, and while his wife drove home by +herself in a state of semi-consciousness, +he went in to quarrel with some of his +old friends who chanced to require his +opinion upon the political situation. +Politics, he promptly gave them to understand, +were beneath his notice, +likewise the people who concerned themselves +therein. He wouldn't touch one +of them with a pair of tongs. It +wasn't for gentlemen and clubmen to +mix themselves up with a lot of rogues +and vagabonds. Let them alone and be<span class="pagenum">[159]</span> +hanged to them. That was what +respectable people did in America. If +Americans didn't care what riff-raff +represented them, why should they?</p> + +<p>As for the colony, if it liked to be +dragged in the dirt—if it preferred, of +its own free will, to go to the devil—let +it, for all to him.</p> + +<p>And so he worked off his savage temper +harmlessly, and appeared in his own +drawing-room at seven o'clock, irreproachably +spruce, and with a flower in his +button-hole, looking jaunty and amiable, +as if nothing had happened.</p> + +<p>Rachel, when he arrived, was sitting +alone in the midst of her wealth and +splendour, waiting for him.</p> + +<p>She rose as he entered and went to +meet him, looking lovely in her favourite +black velvet, with red geraniums in her<span class="pagenum">[160]</span> +hair; and she laid her hand on his +sleeve, and lifted a sad but peaceful +face. "Kiss me, Graham," she said +gently.</p> + +<p>He put his arms round her at once.</p> + +<p>"Dear little woman!" he responded. +"I understand. I am not angry with +you. It's all right. We won't say any +more about it."</p> + +<p>And he led her to the dining-room +and placed her "at the head of the +table," which was her social throne; +and he plied her with dainty viands +and rare wines with a fussy solicitude +that was highly edifying to the +servants who waited upon them, by +way of showing her that he forgave +her.</p> + +<p>He was much impressed by his own +large magnanimity; and what was more<span class="pagenum">[161]</span> +to the purpose, so in her unselfish heart, +was she. They spent the evening together, +<i>tête-à-tête</i> by the fireside (for it was cold +when the storm was over), in the most +domestic manner, planning new schemes +for the garden and for the arrangement +of a pet cabinet of blue china; and +when Rachel went to bed, lighting her +way about the great corridors and staircases +with a candle that her husband +had lit for her, she felt that he was +helping her to make a fair start upon +the weary road which stretched, plain +and straight—but, oh, so flat and bare!—before +her.</p> + +<p>And she was very grateful to him.</p> + +<p>Mr. Dalrymple, meanwhile left town by +an evening train, and travelled night and +day until he reached his home in the +Queensland wilderness, where, being<span class="pagenum">[162]</span> +human—and very much so, too—he unloosed +his heart from the restraints that +he had put upon it, and railed at ease over +the injustices of fate in the very strongest +language.</p> + +<p>"Why should I have done it?" he demanded +of his ancient friend and comrade +as they lounged in restful attitudes under +the grass-thatched verandah of their +humble little house, smoking the pipe of +peace in the cool of the summer day. +"Why should I have given her up to him? +What right has he to keep her, while I am +lonely for the rest of my days? He has not +the shadow of a right. She doesn't belong +to him, and she never will. There is no +binding force in any other contract that is +entered into by fraud and false pretences; +why should there be in this which she +has been dragged into, and which deprives<span class="pagenum">[163]</span> +her as well as me, of all the flower +and sweetness of her life? It is a +monstrous sacrifice—and as immoral as +it is monstrous.</p> + +<p>"It isn't as if we had no end of years, +no end of lives to throw away. Suppose, +ages hence, if we should survive, with +our human nature, and I, for one, don't +want to survive without it—and we look +back upon this precious bit of certain happiness +that we <i>might</i> have had, and see +that we voluntarily gave up the whole of +it merely because of a wretched little +paper law—a miserable little conventional +prejudice—what shall we think of ourselves +then? We shall say that we did not +deserve a gift that we did not know how +to value."</p> + +<p>"Rave away," said Mr. Gordon. "It +will do you good. All the same, you<span class="pagenum">[164]</span> +know, as well as I do, that it would be +impossible for you to do less or more than +you have done."</p> + +<p>Of course it was impossible. Few +people are better than they profess to be, +but he was one of those few. And if he +had had the happiness of twenty lives to +lose, he would have lost it all twice over +rather than have kept it at any cost of +peace or honour to the woman he loved. +He allowed himself the right to love her +still, which, as he justly remarked, couldn't +hurt anybody.</p> + +<p>He thought of her as he rode about his +lonely plains, looking after black boys and +cattle, and dreamt of her as he lay out in +the starlight nights, with a saddle for his +pillow, and the red light of the camp-fire +flickering through the darkness upon his +face; and always with a sense that,<span class="pagenum">[165]</span> +spiritually and morally, she belonged, +before all the world to him.</p> + +<p>But he never at heart regretted either +that he had seen her that day at the Town-hall, +or that he had elected to see her no +more. He had done the only thing that +it had been in him to do.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/c07e.jpg" width="150" height="147" alt="" /> +</div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[166]</span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/c08.jpg" width="600" height="132" alt="" /> +</div> + +<h2 id="CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII.</h2> + +<p class="h3">CONSOLATION.</p> + +<p><img class="dropimg" src="images/d-i.jpg" alt="I" height="96" width="80" /> + <span class="hide">I</span>F it is true, as it is said, and +as the observation of most of +us seems to testify, that the +ideal marriage is hardly ever realised, +and then only when the rare and +brief experience has been bought at +untold cost of precious years, it is, +perhaps, equally true that the majority +of marriages wrongly and recklessly +entered into, provided the contracting<span class="pagenum">[167]</span> +parties are honestly disposed, +turn out surprisingly and undeservedly +well.</p> + +<p>Time, which solaces our disappointments +and sanctifies our bereavements, +remedies also in a great +measure even these criminal mistakes.</p> + +<p>As Rachel truly said, there are +"whole worlds of things" besides love—<i>i.e.</i>, +"the love of man and woman +when they love their best"—to knit +husbands and wives together; and, +independently of the ties that children +create, and which, to the mother at +least, are supremely and eternally +sacred, the innumerable soft webs of +habit and association that are woven +in days and years of intimate companionship<span class="pagenum">[168]</span> +grow, like ivy over a fissure +in a wall, so strong as eventually not +only to hide the vacant place, but in +some degree to supply artificially that +element of stability and permanence to +the structure which in its essential +substance it lacked.</p> + +<p>And so it was with Rachel. After +a little time, when she had "settled +down," changed and aged, and sobered +as she was, she really was not +unhappy.</p> + +<p>She was always vastly conscious of +her loss, but she was of too wholesome +a disposition to be embittered +by it; and her simple sense of duty +and her characteristic unselfishness +prompted her from the first to wear +a cheerful face for her husband, and<span class="pagenum">[169]</span> +never by word or deed to reproach +him, which course of conduct had +the natural result of comforting +herself quite as much as it gratified +him.</p> + +<p>He was not a bad man, and in +his easy fashion, he loved her; and +appreciating her gentle and dutiful +behaviour, he put himself out of the +way to be kind to her, though, +with all his attentions, he never +was what one would call a domestic +husband.</p> + +<p>Her demands upon him were not +exorbitant. Indeed, she was true to +her creed in not demanding anything; +but for such evidences of his affection +as he voluntarily bestowed upon her +she showed herself always grateful<span class="pagenum">[170]</span> +in a meek, pleased way that was very +charming to a man vain of his own +importance, and she did not profess +to be more so than, in her soft heart, +she really was.</p> + +<p>She had no vocation for independence, +nor for making herself—still less for +making others—miserable; and if she +had married Bluebeard instead of a +well-intentioned gentleman, she must +have twined herself about him with +her tender, deferential, delicately-caressing +ways—which came as naturally +to her as breathing—and have +found support and rest in doing +it.</p> + +<p>When all signs of storm had cleared +away, the apparently ill-matched husband +and wife settled down to a life<span class="pagenum">[171]</span> +together that, if not rapturously delightful, +was quite as placid and kindly and +peaceful as the married life of most +of us.</p> + +<p>They did not see a great deal of +each other, to be sure; but the hours +that they spent together, being generally +hours when Mr. Kingston was tired +or unwell, and wanted to be nursed +and cheered, and to have the papers +read to him, had a homely sweetness +and solace for Rachel not far removed +from happiness.</p> + +<p>And then I am afraid it must be +confessed that the house, and the +wealth and luxury belonging to it, <i>did</i> +comfort her a little.</p> + +<p>She was excessively unpretentious in +her habits, and pure and simple in her<span class="pagenum">[172]</span> +tastes, but she had an intense appreciation +of all those delicate personal +refinements which womanly women +love, and only those who have money, +and plenty of it, can enjoy—of which +years of sordid poverty had taught her +the grace and value; and it was not +possible to her, with her healthy sense +of life, to refuse, even if she had +wished, to absorb the fragrance and +brightness of her social and material +surroundings.</p> + +<p>She revelled in her beautiful garden +and in her spacious and artistic rooms; +she loved her piano and her books +and pictures, and her innumerable +pretty things; she enjoyed her drives +and her rides, and her visiting and +her parties, and her operas and concerts, +and her shopping expeditions<span class="pagenum">[173]</span>—upon +which no limitations were placed +by her husband, who liked her +to spend his money—with Laura and +Beatrice.</p> + +<p>And, more than all, she delighted +in the power which her position gave +her of doing all kinds of helpful, +unpretentious service to the poor and +miserable, whom she seemed, by a sort +of divining-rod, to discover in the most +unexpected places.</p> + +<p>Her husband would not allow her +to make her large subscriptions to the +public charities anonymously, nor would +he consent to her taking invalids of +the lower orders for drives, except +upon unfrequented roads and in a +generally surreptitious manner; and he +strongly objected to her visiting poor<span class="pagenum">[174]</span> +people's cottages, and running risks of +catching dirt and fever.</p> + +<p>But she might make frocks for +ragged children, and babyclothes for +unprovided mothers, and scrap-books +for the Alfred Hospital; she might +load her carriage with wine and chicken +broth every time she went out; she +might spend a little fortune, as she +did, in helping on benevolent enterprises +of all sorts; and he only laughed +at her for being a soft-hearted little +goose, and triumphed over her when—as +happened in five cases out of +ten—she was proved to have been +more or less flagrantly imposed upon +and taken in.</p> + +<p>Like most people who have badly +known the want of money, she was<span class="pagenum">[175]</span> +decidedly extravagant in spending it +now that she had plenty; and, unlike +most husbands and wives in such +circumstances, she and Mr. Kingston +had no pleasanter episodes in their +domestic life than those which had +reference to her financial embarrassments.</p> + +<p>It was charming to him (since his +banking account was much too solid +to be easily affected by her operations) +to see her come, with her timid and +anxious face, to confess that she had +spent all her money, and to ask him, +with the sweetest wifely meekness, if +he could spare her a little more; and +to her he never showed to better +advantage than when he declared, +so obviously without meaning it,<span class="pagenum">[176]</span> +that she would ruin him, and then +gave her twice as much as she had +asked for.</p> + +<p>She always flushed and glowed with +pleasure at this delicate and generous, +and gentlemanly way of doing things, +and would put her arms round his +neck and kiss him; and, naturally, he +would thereafter set forth to his +club, feeling proud of himself and +pleased with things in general, his +young wife and he being so thoroughly +in their right places in their relation +to one another.</p> + +<p>And then there came to Rachel that +which to every true woman is the +greatest and dearest and best—save +one—of all life's many good things, +and which to her must inevitably have<span class="pagenum">[177]</span> +made even the most loveless marriage +lovely:—</p> + +<p>"On the 17th inst., at Toorak, the +wife of Graham Kingston, Esq., of a +son."</p> + +<p>This little notice appeared in "The +Argus," of the 18th, and caused a flutter +and sensation in all well-regulated +Melbourne households.</p> + +<p>"Dear me, how nice! and a son, +too. How pleased Mr. Kingston will +be! An heir to all that fine property +at last! Dear me, how nice! We must +call and make inquiries."</p> + +<p>And when kind inquiries resulted in +the satisfactory information that both +mother and infant were progressing +favourably, society congratulated Mr. +Kingston with effusive and impressive<span class="pagenum">[178]</span> +cordiality, which that gentleman, deprecating +a fuss with airs of smiling indifference, +felt to be by no means more +than the occasion demanded.</p> + +<p>Of course, the interesting event +made a pleasant commotion in the +great Toorak house and in the Hardy +family.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Hardy assumed the functions of +mother-in-law to Mr. Kingston, and +introduced him to his son and heir +with a genuine maternal pride, that +could not have been more touching +or more complimentary to either of +the delighted parents, had the featureless +little atom been a lineal fifth +grandchild.</p> + +<p>The stately matron, as is the habit +of stately matrons under such circumstances,<span class="pagenum">[179]</span> +put off her conventional armour +and rustled softly about the hushed +rooms, clothed in all the homely womanliness +of her own baby-nursing youth; +and Rachel, watching her from her +tranquil nest of pillows, forgave her—as +she had long ago forgiven her +husband—and wondered that she had +never understood before what a truly +sweet and loveable woman dear Aunt +Elizabeth was.</p> + +<p>And Laura came up to see the +baby, bringing a wonderful high-art +coverlid for the cradle, and all sorts +of wise advice (based upon her exceptional +experience as the mother of twins).</p> + +<p>And Beatrice came—poor Beatrice, +who had no babies!—and held the tiny<span class="pagenum">[180]</span> +creature for a long time in her arms, +looking with silent wistfulness at its +crumpled little face.</p> + +<p>And by-and-bye, when Rachel was +promoted to gorgeous dressing-gowns +and a sofa in her boudoir, Lucilla +came to stay with her, full of importance +and responsibility (as the mother +of the largest family of them all), +to instruct her in the newest and +most improved principles upon which +an infant of quality should be +reared.</p> + +<p>As if Rachel wanted showing how +to manage a baby! Some ladies, as +the nurse sagely remarked, never had +any sense, but if Mrs. Kingston had +been a poor man's wife, which she +hoped she would excuse her taking<span class="pagenum">[181]</span> +the liberty of speaking of such a thing, +she couldn't have took to the child +more naturally.</p> + +<p>It speedily became apparent to others +besides that experienced woman that +maternity was Rachel's vocation, and, +when she found it, it seemed that she +had found a consolation, if not an +actual compensation, at last for the +great want and sorrow of her woman's +life.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Hardy, watching the young +mother's passion of tender solicitude +for the baby that she could hardly bear +to have five minutes out of her sight, +told herself that, after all, the end +<i>had</i> justified the means; and even Mrs. +Reade, who was most interested in this +latest experiment of a benevolent Fate,<span class="pagenum">[182]</span> +came practically to the same conclusion.</p> + +<p>One day she was alone with her +cousin. Rachel had been entertaining +a small and select circle at afternoon +tea in her own pretty room, and the +baby had been present, and she had +been pointing out to its father what +lovely eyes it had, and what small +ears, and what perfectly-shaped hands, +and how charming it was altogether—much +to Mr. Kingston's amusement, and +obviously to his immense satisfaction also; +and now he had kissed her affectionately +and gone out, and the baby was taking +a siesta, and she was resting on her +sofa by the fireside, gazing at the bright +logs meditatively, with a half smile on her +face.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[183]</span></p> + +<p>"Tell me," said Beatrice, suddenly, +crossing the hearth and kneeling down +beside her; "tell me, are you happy now, +Rachel?"</p> + +<p>Rachel lifted her soft eyes, shining with +a sort of vague rapture.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," she said, quickly; "indeed +I am." And then in a moment her face +was overshadowed, and she looked in +the fire again with eyes that shone with +tears. "I am <i>too</i> happy," she said, +under her breath, "while he is alone and +sad."</p> + +<p>"Don't you think he will like you to +be as happy as possible?"</p> + +<p>"I know he will. But it lies on my +heart that he is desolate while I have +so many consolations. Beatrice, I was +reading some verses of Emily Brontë's<span class="pagenum">[184]</span> +the other day, and they seemed to express +exactly how it is with me. Do you remember +them?"</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Sweet love of youth, forgive, if I forget thee,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While the world's tide is bearing me along;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Other desires and other hopes beset me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hopes that obscure, but cannot do thee wrong."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"Oh my love!" she broke out suddenly, +"I do not forget thee! And," she +added, more quietly, "I don't think +my being happy can wrong him, +Beatrice."</p> + +<p>"No, dear child, far from it," said +Mrs. Reade.</p> + +<p>The little woman was not shocked, +nor was she dissatisfied with the +state of things that this naïve revelation +disclosed to her. She was<span class="pagenum">[185]</span> +deeply thankful to know that Rachel, +after all, was happy; but she was not +sorry to know also that she was to this +extent faithful to her true love, who had +dealt so well by her.</p> + +<p>It was at this very hour that the +papers containing the announcement of +the baby's birth arrived at the Queensland +bungalow, and that Roden Dalrymple +learned what a change had +taken place, not only in the life and +welfare of his beloved, but in his own +lonely and empty lot.</p> + +<p>"The wife of Graham Kingston, of +a son." He knew as well as anybody—better +even than Rachel herself—what +that little notice meant. It meant that +the gulf already parting them had all at +once widened to an immeasurable extent.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[186]</span></p> + +<p>He knew how it would be with that +tender and clinging heart—it would be +able to solace itself now, even for the +loss of him.</p> + +<p>Yet he loved her well enough to be +glad and thankful for the comfort that +had come to her, though the coming of +it left him doubly bereaved.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/c08e.jpg" width="150" height="59" alt="" /> +</div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[187]</span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/c09.jpg" width="600" height="114" alt="" /> +</div> + +<h2 id="CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX.</h2> + +<p class="h3">REPARATION.</p> + +<p><img class="dropimg" src="images/d-b.jpg" alt="B" height="96" width="80" /> + <span class="hide">B</span>UT, after all, Fate willed that +this marriage should be but +the chief episode in the story, +and not the story itself, of Rachel's +life.</p> + +<p>One day, when she was flitting about +her great drawing-room, with a basket +of flowers on her arm, singing soft airs +from "Don Giovanni" under her breath +as she busied herself with the arrangement<span class="pagenum">[188]</span> +of little groups of leaves and +flowers in sundry precious receptacles +here and there, a footman entered with a +telegram.</p> + +<p>"That is from your master," said +Rachel, lifting it from the salver and +tearing off the envelope.</p> + +<p>"Wait a moment, James, until I see +if there are any orders for you to take +out."</p> + +<p>She put down her flowers on the +piano, read the brief message tranquilly, +and then lifted her face with a +smile.</p> + +<p>"Ask Wilkinson to have the carriage +ready at three o'clock," she said; "not +the brougham, if it keeps as fine as it +is now, the open carriage. And tell cook +I want to speak to her in half an hour.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[189]</span></p> + +<p>"Your master is coming home to-day +instead of Friday."</p> + +<p>James said "Yes'm" and retired, and +his mistress continued her occupation of +arranging the flowers with more haste +and eagerness than before.</p> + +<p>Mr. Kingston had gone from home +a few days previously to meet some distinguished +foreign visitors at a friend's +house in the country, a thing he did +not often do, and she had stayed behind +because little Alfred seemed to have +symptoms of a bad cold coming on—which, +however, had been happily checked +at that stage.</p> + +<p>She had not expected her lord's return +just yet, but she concluded that he had +not found the party amusing, or had +been bored in some way, and so had<span class="pagenum">[190]</span> +excused himself from prolonging his visit; +and she was glad of the accident, whatever +it was, that was bringing him back +so soon.</p> + +<p>In the afternoon she went upstairs +to get ready to go to the station to +meet him. It was winter, and she +clothed herself in rich furs—sealskin +and sable, with the sealskin cap of old +days on her shining head—against which +the soft roundness of her cheek and +throat, and the blush-rose delicacy of +her complexion was particularly distinct +and striking, and also the evident fact +that, far from pining away, she had +developed in health and strength +quite as much as in beauty during +the five or six years of her married +life.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[191]</span></p> + +<p>When she was dressed she went to +the nursery, where her little boy +ran to meet her, begging her to +take him with her wherever she was +going.</p> + +<p>She caught him up in her arms and +looked irresolutely at the imposing +nurse, who was responding to his +appeal in an official and determined +manner, telling him that he must not +cry to go in the carriage to-day; he +must go for a nice walk with his nursey, +because his dear papa did not like to +be bothered with little boys when he was +driving with his dear mamma (which was +very true).</p> + +<p>"Never mind, Alfy," said Rachel, +hugging him to her maternal bosom, +and covering his fair little face—which<span class="pagenum">[192]</span> +was very like her own—with kisses; +"You shall go with mother next time, +my sweet. Don't cry, dear little man! +Suppose mother brings him home a +pretty new toy? What shall mother +bring Alfy home, nurse, eh?"</p> + +<p>"I don't want toys, I want to go with +you, mother," wailed Alfy.</p> + +<p>"Oh, well, I think he might," said +Rachel, weakly. "It is a fine afternoon, +and he would enjoy it so! And +his father hasn't seen him for four days. +Dress him quickly, nurse, and I'll take +him. You needn't come to-day, I can +look after him quite well by myself for +once."</p> + +<p>Alfy was accordingly dressed, his nurse +performing that operation silently, with +a mien of severe disapproval, and his<span class="pagenum">[193]</span> +mother kneeling on the floor and helping +her.</p> + +<p>When he was ready—looking, Rachel +thought, more nearly like an angel than +ever child looked before—he was carried +downstairs in her own caressing arms, +resting his curly head on her sable collar, +and clasping his mites of hands round +her white throat; and she placed him in +the carriage beside her, and tucked up +his little legs in the soft bearskin, and +they set forth together to Spencer Street +in a state of beatific satisfaction and +enjoyment, slightly qualified by Rachel's +well-founded apprehension that her husband +would scold her for spoiling +the child and making a nursemaid of +herself.</p> + +<p>When Mr. Kingston arrived at the<span class="pagenum">[194]</span> +station, closely muffled in overcoat and +comforters, it was evident to Rachel's +experienced eye—or ear rather, for as she +knew he would object to her waiting +unattended on the platform, she stayed +in the carriage and sent the footman +to meet him at the train and to take +his baggage, and so heard him before +she saw him—that he was in anything +but a good temper.</p> + +<p>He rated an unfortunate porter who +drove a barrow in his way in unnecessarily +violent terms, and then he +demanded angrily of his servant why +the dickens they hadn't brought the +brougham for him on such a bitter day.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Graham," said Rachel, stretching +out her hand, "how do you do, dear? I +am so sorry!—but I thought you would<span class="pagenum">[195]</span> +like the open carriage best. It was beautifully +mild when we started—it has been +quite a warm day. And here is Alfy +come to meet you. He is quite well, +again, you see, and such a good little boy, +aren't you, Alfy? He is taking care of +his mother to-day, and sitting so quietly."</p> + +<p>"Why did you bring him out in the +cold?" responded the father snappishly. +"And where's the nurse? At home? +Upon my word, Rachel, we might as +well be spared the expense of servants +altogether, for all the use you make of +them. No, I won't kiss him—I might +give him a sore throat."</p> + +<p>"Have you a sore throat, dear?" inquired +Rachel meekly, tucking the child +into her own corner of the carriage, and +whispering to him to sit very still.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[196]</span></p> + +<p>"I should rather say so—not so much a +sore throat, perhaps, as a general bad cold—the +most confounded bad cold I ever +had in my life. I'm regularly seedy and +done up," grumbled Mr. Kingston, climbing +into his seat beside her.</p> + +<p>"Oh, dear, I'm so sorry!"</p> + +<p>"That is why I have come home to-day," +he added. "It's the most wretched +thing to be in other people's houses when +you don't feel well."</p> + +<p>"Indeed it is," assented Rachel sympathetically; +"and I am very glad you came +back. How did you catch it, do you +think?"</p> + +<p>"I think I must have got it before I +started. But that idiot Lambert sent +an open trap to meet me—you know +what a pouring wet day it turned out?<span class="pagenum">[197]</span> +—and I had to sit and be soaked for +an hour and a half. Umbrellas were no +good in that rain, and there was a +sharp wind, too, and before we reached +the house—great, cold barrack of a +place, with stingy little coal fires—fancy +<i>coal</i> fires!—shows what an idiot the +fellow is, and she's worse—before we +got there I was thoroughly wet through, +and chilled to the bone. I never was +so cold in my life. I took a hot bath +before I dressed for dinner, and I got +Lambert to send me up some brandy, +but it was no use—it seemed to have +regularly struck into me. I <i>couldn't</i> get +warm—not till about the middle of the +night, and then I felt as if I'd got a +fever. I believe I have too."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Graham, I hope not."</p><p><span class="pagenum">[198]</span></p> + +<p>"It has settled on my chest," he went +on. "I haven't been able to sleep for +coughing—you know I have never had +a cough in my life—and I can't draw +a breath without feeling as if I was +dragging something up by the roots. +Can't you hear how I breathe? You +never heard me breathe like that before +did you?"</p> + +<p>Rachel turned her blooming face, now +grave and anxious, to listen to his respiration, +which certainly was strangely +quick and laboured, and noisy, and she +was struck by a great change in <i>his</i> +since she had seen it four days ago. +It had become all at once wrinkled, +and hollow, and haggard—the face of +an old man.</p> + +<p>"Oh, my dear," she exclaimed, in an<span class="pagenum">[199]</span> +accent of genuine distress, "you <i>have</i> +got a bad cold, indeed! Hadn't you +better call on the doctor at once—it +won't be much out of our way—and +see what he says about it? It may be +nothing, but I think it seems like bronchitis, +and it is best to be on the safe side."</p> + +<p>"I think I will," said Mr. Kingston, +covering his mouth with his wraps +again. "It seems worse than it was +when I started—the cold day, I suppose. +Hang it, I wish you had brought the +brougham—it is colder than ever!"</p> + +<p>And he shivered under an accumulation +of great-coats and furs that one would +have thought sufficient for the temperature +of polar regions.</p> + +<p>The carriage was stopped in Collins +Street, and remained in the doctors'<span class="pagenum">[200]</span> +quarter until little Alfy fell asleep, and +was temporarily put to bed under the +long, soft skirt of his mother's jacket. +Then, as the dusk was falling, Mr. +Kingston came back to his place, and +tremulously commanded the coachman +to drive home as fast as he possibly could.</p> + +<p>"He says it is inflammation of the +lungs, Rachel," he whispered excitedly, +"and that I must go to bed at once. +Only a touch he called it, but he didn't +look as if he thought it a touch. He +is coming up to-night to do something. +He says I ought to have come home +the first day, and not have let it run +on. Inflammation of the lungs—that +is a dreadful thing, isn't it? I have +never had it, but I have heard of it—it's +a most dangerous complaint!"</p><p><span class="pagenum">[201]</span></p> + +<p>"Oh, no, dear, not dangerous, except +when people are careless," said Rachel +soothingly, taking his hand under the +fur rug and clasping it between her +own. "And now you are home, with +me to nurse you, you will soon get +all right. Many people have it slightly—it +is quite a common thing with a +bad cold—but when they are well +nursed and taken care of, they soon get +all right again."</p> + +<p>"Good little woman! you will take +care of me, I know."</p> + +<p>"Indeed I will," she responded, slipping +up one hand under his arm, and +resting her cheek on his coat-sleeve. "I +wish you had come back to me before. +But, once I get you fairly into my hands, +I'll soon nurse you round."</p><p><span class="pagenum">[202]</span></p> + +<p>However, though she did all that a +woman and a wife, and one born to be +the genius of a sick room, could do, +she did not nurse him round. By the +time he reached home, where the household +was thrown into a panic of consternation, +he was very ill indeed—his +fright about himself helping very much +to develop the bad symptoms rapidly; +and the doctor, who next day summoned +other doctors in consultation upon the +case, pronounced him—not in words, +but by unmistakable signs—to be in +a serious and critical condition. The +attack had been severe from the first; +it had been allowed to run on for +several days; and the constitution of +the patient, enervated and shattered by +years of unwholesome indulgence, was<span class="pagenum">[203]</span> +as little fitted to stand an illness as any +constitution could be. The pain in +breathing grew worse and worse, and +the fever hotter and drier; and then +stupor came on, and delirium, and exhaustion, +and by-and-bye a filmy cloud +over the sunken eyes, and a dusky +pallor over the old, old, wrinkled face; +and, in spite of all the doctors, and all +the nurses, and all that money could do—in +spite of the agonised devotion of +his young wife, who never left him for +more than five minutes at a time, +taking snatches of sleep only when he +slept, sitting by the bedside, and resting +her tired head on the same pillow +that she smoothed for his—it was over +in less than a week. And a little +paragraph appeared in "The Argus" one<span class="pagenum">[204]</span> +morning, to shock that small world of +which he had so long been a distinguished +ornament, with the incomprehensible +intelligence that he was "gone," +and would never be seen at a club +mess or in a festive drawing-room +again.</p> + +<p>On the night of his death, when fever +and pain and restlessness were sinking +away with the sinking pulse, and when +Rachel, watching beside him, thought +he was past knowing anyone—even +her—he looked at her with a gleam +of loving recognition. "Good little +woman!" he muttered in a struggling +whisper. "Dear, good little woman!"</p> + +<p>She stooped over him at once with +a yearning passion of pity and vague +remorse, and kissed him, and laid her<span class="pagenum">[205]</span> +white arms about him, raining tears on +his dying face and his cold limp hands.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Graham, Graham, I have not +been good enough to you!" she cried. +"And you have been so good—so +kind—to me!"</p> + +<p>He continued to look at her with dull +wistful, pathetic eyes.</p> + +<p>"Have I?" he gasped, feebly. +"Have I?"</p> + +<p>And then the gleam died out of his +face in the shrouding darkness that +was creeping over him. He was +quiet for several minutes, and Rachel +laid her cheek on the pillow beside +him, and listened to the faint +rattle which now and then told +that the "step or two dubious of +twilight" between sleep and death<span class="pagenum">[206]</span> +was not yet crossed, motioning the +other watchers away from the bedside, +that he and she might be alone +together.</p> + +<p>And suddenly he roused himself, and +said—panting the words out slowly +and huskily, but evidently with +a perfect consciousness of their meaning—"Rachel—you +can—have him—now."</p> + +<p>Her arm was under his pillow, and +she drew it back to her gently until +his head lay next her breast.</p> + +<p>"Hush—hush—hush!" she said, with +choking sobs. But he went on +steadily, as if he had not heard her.</p> + +<p>"Only tell him—not to—not to—lead +little Alfy—into bad ways."</p> + +<p>After a pause, he said,</p> + +<p>"Do you hear!—tell him—"</p><p><span class="pagenum">[207]</span></p> + +<p>"He will not—he could not!" she +broke out eagerly. "He is a good, +good man, though people think he is +not! He will take care of little Alfy, +my darling—do not be afraid—he will +never lead him into bad ways—never +never!"</p> + +<p>Ought she to have said it? Had +she given him—she, who, at this moment, +would have laid down her life to +save his, if that had been possible—the +comfort she had meant to give, or a +most cruel, cruel stab, in his last conscious +hour? She looked at him with +agonised, imploring face, which mutely +prayed him to try and understand her; +and there came slowly into his sunken +eyes a vague intelligence and a dim, +dim smile. He <i>did</i> understand her<span class="pagenum">[208]</span>—better, +perhaps, than he had ever understood +her before.</p> + +<p>"Good little woman!" he murmured, +"Good little girl—to tell the truth."</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/c09e.jpg" width="150" height="185" alt="" /> +</div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[209]</span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/c10.jpg" width="600" height="133" alt="" /> +</div> + +<h2 id="CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X.</h2> + +<p class="h3">FULFILMENT.</p> + +<p><img class="dropimg" src="images/d-r.jpg" alt="R" height="96" width="80" /> + <span class="hide">R</span>ACHEL, who could not have +dissembled if she had tried, +appeared to be overwhelmed +by Mr. Kingston's sudden death.</p> + +<p>She wept herself ill, sitting now in his +library chair, now in his office, now in +his dressing-room, with mementoes of +his domestic occupations and the homely +companionship of nearly half-a-dozen +wedded years around her; missing him<span class="pagenum">[210]</span> +from his accustomed place with a sense +of having lost one of the best and +kindest husbands that ever ungrateful +woman had.</p> + +<p>She allowed no one to touch his clothes +and trinkets, or his books and pipes, or +anything that he had used and cared +for, but herself; and she cried over them, +and kissed them, and laid them away +in sacred drawers, to be treasured relics +and heirlooms for her little Alfy, who +was to be taught to reverence the +memory of the tenderest of fathers, and +to hand down to unborn generations +the name and fame of the most accomplished +and estimable of men.</p> + +<p>She wandered about her great, silent +house, in and out of the spacious rooms, +making loving inventories of all the<span class="pagenum">[211]</span> +rich appointments, which had never +had so much grace and beauty as +now.</p> + +<p>"He built this lovely place for <i>me</i>," +she would say to herself, or perhaps say +aloud to Beatrice, who was her chief +companion at this time, "He had this +carved dado made because <i>I</i> didn't like +tiles; he gave me this Florentine +cabinet on my twentieth birthday; he +chose these hangings himself because he +said they suited my complexion." Every +bit of the house and its furniture was +newly sanctified by some of these reminiscences.</p> + +<p>She gathered together all his letters +reverently—some had been waiting for +his return from Mr. Lambert's, and were +still unopened; and though many of them<span class="pagenum">[212]</span> +were addressed in the kind of handwriting +that was especially calculated +to arouse curiosity, she would not pry +into his correspondence, nor allow anyone +else to do so.</p> + +<p>She would not read what he had +evidently never intended her to read; +she burnt them all without taking +one of them out of its envelope, and +then drove to the cemetery with a wreath +of flowers for his grave.</p> + +<p>"He was the best of husbands," she +said, when to her own people she talked +of him.</p> + +<p>And Mrs. Hardy, who was truly +afflicted by the family bereavement, was +comforted to be able to repeat this +tender formula to all the gossip of her +own circle.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[213]</span></p> + +<p>"He was the best of husbands. So +fond of her to the last! Even when +he was delirious you could see plainly +his distress when she went out of the +room, and his relief when she came +back again. And she was so devoted! +Such a thoroughly suitable marriage in +every way—as if they had been made +for each other! She is broken-hearted +for the loss of him. And how <i>he</i> valued +<i>her</i> he has plainly proved."</p> + +<p>And here the gossips would smile +decorously, and shake their heads, and +say, "Yes, indeed." For they all understood +what this allusion meant. It meant +that Mr. Kingston had left the half of +his great property absolutely at his young +wife's disposal, and that she was the +sole and unrestricted trustee of the rest,<span class="pagenum">[214]</span> +which was settled upon his son; which +certainly <i>did</i> prove that he had valued +her in the most conclusive manner.</p> + +<p>But in a little while—a scandalously +little while—indications that this young +widow of twenty-five was not inconsolable +for the loss of her elderly husband, +became apparent to all but the most +superficial observers.</p> + +<p>It was not that she wore such very +slight mourning—soft black silks and +cashmeres that were the merest apology +for weeds—for everybody knew that +Mr. Kingston had had a horror of crape, +and had been repeatedly heard to declare +that no wife of his should wear it if +he could help it.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Hardy had explained that it was +in deference to his wishes that she had<span class="pagenum">[215]</span> +defied custom in this respect; and, +though there was a strong impression +that she ought to have insisted on paying +proper respect to his memory, in spite +of him—and even that his protests +against conventional suttee were never +intended to include this particular case +(as was very probable), but only indicated +his personal distaste for harsh and unbecoming +materials in ladies' apparel—the +fact that it was growing the fashion +to be lax and independent in these +matters, saved her the verdict of the +majority.</p> + +<p>And it was not that she drove about, +within two months of his death, with +her veil turned back over her bonnet—in +the case of a veil so transparent, +it didn't make much difference whether it<span class="pagenum">[216]</span> +were up or down—leaving her youthful, +lovely, rose-leaf face exposed to public +view as heretofore.</p> + +<p>It was not that she was heartless or +unfeeling, or that she infringed the laws +of good breeding and good taste in any +distinctly and visible manner.</p> + +<p>No one could quite say what it was, +and yet everyone felt that the fact +was sufficiently indicated that she +was recovering from the shock of +her sudden and terrible bereavement +with unexpected, if not unbecoming, +rapidity.</p> + +<p>"You mark my words," somebody +would say to somebody else, when Mrs. +Kingston's carriage went flashing by, and +she turned to bow to them, perhaps with +her serene, sweet, grave smile; "you<span class="pagenum">[217]</span> +mark my words—that woman will be +married again by this time next year. +I don't know what makes me think so, +but I am sure of it. There is a look +in her face as if she were going to make +herself happy."</p> + +<p>The person addressed, being a man, +would probably reply that the odd thing +would be if she <i>did</i> not make herself +happy (and generally he suggested that +by remaining a widow she would be +most likely to secure that object), with +youth and beauty, leisure and liberty, +and ten thousand a year to do what +she liked with; and that he sincerely +hoped she would be.</p> + +<p>Being a woman, she was more likely +than not to look after Rachel and her +carriage with solemn severity, and wonder<span class="pagenum">[218]</span> +how it was that that poor, dear, foolish +man never could see that the girl cared +nothing at all about him, and had only +married him for his money.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Hardy was becoming aware of +this state of public opinion with respect +to her niece's conduct—which had been +so extremely proper hitherto—and was +herself conscious of the subtle change +that had taken place, and was +uneasily wondering what it indicated, +when one day Rachel came to see +her.</p> + +<p>It was eleven o'clock on a warm +summer morning, just before Christmas; +and the young widow walked over +through the gardens and the back gate, +wearing a light, black cambric dress +and a shady straw hat, looking—Mrs.<span class="pagenum">[219]</span> +Hardy thought, glancing up at her from +her writing-table in a cool corner of +the now transformed drawing-room—unusually +well and strikingly young and +girlish.</p> + +<p>"Well, my dear, how are you? And +where's Alfy? Have you not brought +him with you?"</p> + +<p>Rachel put her arm over her aunt's +shoulder, and kissed her affectionately.</p> + +<p>"I haven't brought him to-day, because +I wanted to have a little quiet +talk," she said. "Are you very busy, +auntie?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Hardy <i>was</i> busy—she always was, +from breakfast until lunch time; but +she was impressed by a certain gentle +gravity in Rachel's voice and manner, +and understood that there was something<span class="pagenum">[220]</span> +of importance to be attended to. So she +gathered up her papers, told her visitor +to take off her hat and sit down, +and inquired anxiously what was the +matter.</p> + +<p>"There is nothing the matter," said +Rachel, with a little hesitation. "But, +auntie dear, I am going to—do something, +and I would not do it without +telling you first."</p> + +<p>She sat upon the edge of a chair, and +leaned her arms on a corner of the +writing-table; and she looked into the +elder woman's face with wistful, longing, +pleading eyes.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Hardy had faint, instinctive premonitions.</p> + +<p>"Well, my dear," she replied a little +brusquely, "I shall be glad to advise<span class="pagenum">[221]</span> +you to the best of my power. But you +are your own mistress now, you know." +Then after a little pause, she said +anxiously, "What is it you are going +to do?"</p> + +<p>"Auntie," faltered Rachel, "auntie—you +know all about Mr. Dalrymple?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Rachel</i>—my <i>dear</i>—you <i>don't</i> mean to +say—! And your poor husband not six +months in his grave!"</p> + +<p>"Not yet," said Rachel, suddenly +becoming composed and collected. +"Though I do not believe that I <i>ought</i> +to put it off. But presently, auntie—as +soon as you would think it right—I +want to marry Mr. Dalrymple. And +in the meantime he is waiting for me +to send him a message—he has asked +me to write—we want to have<span class="pagenum">[222]</span> +the comfort of some sort of +recognised engagement, if it is ever so +quiet——"</p> + +<p>"Oh, Rachel, don't ask me to have +anything to do with such a thing! +Only think what poor Graham would +say if he could know! And he left +little Alfy in your hands—and he +left all that money to you—little +thinking what you would do with +it!"</p> + +<p>"He knew—he knew," said Rachel. +"<i>He</i> has already sanctioned it. Dear, +good husband! He left me the money +without any conditions if I married again, +and he <i>knew</i> I should do this. It was +understood between us when he died. +Aunt Elizabeth, I think he wished to +make reparation to Roden and me.<span class="pagenum">[223]</span> +Don't you wish it, too? Only think, +it is six years—six whole years—that +poor Roden has been lonely in Queensland, +without any brightness or comfort +in his life; and, though he has loved +me just the same, he has never +attempted to do—what you would not +have wished him to do—all that time. +It is six years this very week, Aunt +Elizabeth, since he sent Mr. Gordon +down to you."</p> + +<p>"And if he had come himself," said +Mrs. Hardy, passionately, beginning to +break down and cry, "I should not +have let him see you—I would not +have allowed you to have him. Oh, +child, child! when you have grown-up +daughters to look after and manage +for, you will understand that I tried to<span class="pagenum">[224]</span> +do my best for you—you will think less +hardly of me then."</p> + +<p>Rachel jumped up from her chair, +and kneeling down flung her warm +young arms about the sobbing woman.</p> + +<p>"My own auntie," she exclaimed +fondly, "if I could think hardly of +you I should be ashamed to live. I +<i>know</i> you tried to do your best for me—of +course I know it! It is always +a mistake to deceive people, but <i>I</i> +deceived <i>you</i>, too, not telling you all I +had done. I know you were right to +keep me away from him knowing only +what you knew. If he <i>had</i> been wicked, +as you thought, and I had had it all +my own way, what would have become +of me? But now—now that you know +he is good——"</p><p><span class="pagenum">[225]</span></p> + +<p>"Ah, my dear, I don't know it! +Remember that dreadful duel! And how +can you tell that he doesn't want +you now for your money? He has +none of his own, and you have a +great fortune that he could squander +as he liked. Everyone will say +that it was for the sake of your +money."</p> + +<p>"It would sooner have been that +the money would have kept him +from me," said Rachel softly. "Once +I was afraid of <i>that</i>. But afterwards +I was ashamed that I could +have any fears. We understand +each other better. Aunt Elizabeth, +Beatrice knows that he is good—Beatrice +believes in him—and my dear +Graham gave me leave to make him<span class="pagenum">[226]</span> +happy. Won't you consent to it, +too?"</p> + +<p>"Well, if poor Graham gave you leave +it is not for me to interfere, I suppose. +But you <i>won't</i> let anyone know +you are engaged so soon?"</p> + +<p>"It need only be known to ourselves, +auntie."</p> + +<p>"And you'll promise me you won't get +married again <i>under</i> the year, at the very +earliest?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear Aunt Elizabeth, I will +promise you that. If I can go and +stay at Adelonga for a little, and take +Alfy——"</p> + +<p>"Is he down at the Digbys?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, auntie."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps that will be the best +plan," said Mrs. Hardy, sighing. "It<span class="pagenum">[227]</span> +is a quiet place, and out of the +way, if only Lucilla doesn't gossip +about it."</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/c10e.jpg" width="150" height="167" alt="" /> +</div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum">[230]</span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/c11.jpg" width="600" height="114" alt="" /> +</div> + +<h2 id="CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI.</h2> + +<p class="h3">CONCLUSION.</p> + +<p><img class="dropimg" src="images/d-m.jpg" alt="M" height="96" width="80" /> + <span class="hide">M</span>RS. THORNLEY was a little +scandalised like her mother, at +first, not by Rachel's desire to +marry again—for that she should do +so, as a rich young widow of twenty-five, +"left" by a husband just forty +years her senior, was generally anticipated +as a matter of course—but by +the too early announcement of those +wishes and intentions which conventional<span class="pagenum">[231]</span> +decorum forbade a woman to dream of +until "the year" was up.</p> + +<p>Very speedily, however, she forgot to +be shocked by anything of this kind, +and devoted herself ardently to the +furtherance of her cousin's happiness.</p> + +<p>She had had Mr. Dalrymple at +Adelonga after his accident, and had +nursed him for about a month of his +convalescence; and since that time both +she and John had had a strong +feeling of friendship for him, not +much less than that which they +had always had for their favourite, Mrs. +Digby.</p> + +<p>They had condoned all the errors of +his earlier years (even the great duel, +which Mr. Gordon had assured them<span class="pagenum">[232]</span> +was the worst episode in a reckless +but not dishonourable career, and was +in itself unstained by any mean or +vicious motives), and they had proved +the sincerity of their respect and +regard for him by allowing their son +Bruce to "chum" with him in Queensland.</p> + +<p>And now, being put in possession of +all the facts relating to his and Rachel's +love affairs, Lucilla entered eagerly into +the arrangements which Rachel herself, +without a blush of shame, suggested for +bringing the long-parted lovers together +again.</p> + +<p>"Oh, <i>yes</i>, my darling," she wrote hurriedly, +by return of post, "pray <i>do</i> +come and spend all the summer with +us. Mamma says that as it is so <i>very</i>,<span class="pagenum">[233]</span> +<i>very</i> soon we must be careful to keep +it <i>quite</i> quiet, but John wishes me particularly +to tell you that, in <i>his</i> opinion, +you are <i>quite right</i>.</p> + +<p>"We both like Mr. Dalrymple <i>very +much</i>, and we think he has behaved +<i>so very well</i>. And John says he is +not at all a spendthrift <i>now</i>, whatever +he may have been <i>once</i>, and +he thinks <i>really</i> that he will take care +of your money and not squander it +away (only he says you must let him +arrange things for you on your marriage—which +<i>must</i> take place at Adelonga—so +as to be <i>quite</i> on the safe side); for +they have had both floods and droughts +<i>very</i> badly at their place in Queensland, +and yet they have made it pay, +which John says he <i>never</i> expected.<span class="pagenum">[234]</span> +Bruce thinks so much of the property +and the way it has been managed, that +I am sure he will want to go in with +Mr. Gordon if Mr. Dalrymple will let +us buy him out (perhaps he <i>won't</i> now +the meat-freezing is going to do such +great things.) But these are details +to talk of presently. We must get you +here first.</p> + +<p>"If you can come on Tuesday, +<i>do</i>. John will meet you at the +train. I have written to Mr. Dalrymple +to come the <i>next</i> day, for you must +not be excited and upset until you +have had time for a <i>good rest</i> after +your journey. I am having the blue +south room got ready for you—the +one you <i>used</i> to like—and the large +dressing-room next to it for dear<span class="pagenum">[235]</span> +little Alfy. <i>I</i> don't think you ought +to send away your maid. Won't it +<i>look</i> odd after being used to one for +so long? I have <i>plenty</i> of room +for her as well as for the nurse, +&c., &c."</p> + +<p>On the Tuesday, Rachel, with Alfy and +his nurse, arrived, having dismissed +some of her servants and put the rest +on board wages, having packed up her +most precious china and art treasures, +and swathed her splendid upholstery in +sheets of brown holland, prepared +to spend any length of time at +Adelonga that circumstances would +admit of.</p> + +<p>It was a beautiful day in January, +rather too hot for travelling in comfort, +but pleasant and breezy about the<span class="pagenum">[236]</span> +Adelonga-hills and the bosky garden +that sheltered the old house. It was +the same old house still, Rachel was +thankful to see. Mr. Thornley had been +building with brick and stone in town, +and so had been content to leave to his +country seat, the picturesque charm of +its wooden walls and its medley of +low roofs and gables; and now it +stood embowered in cool vine leaves +and sweet-scented creepers, with great +trees of pink oleander, which loved the +sultry midsummer, nestling up against +it, and making broad splashes of sunny +colour amid the sombre richness of evergreen +shrubs—a sort of earthly paradise +in Rachel's eyes. Lucilla was standing +on the verandah, surrounded by all her +family (except her grown-up step daughter,<span class="pagenum">[237]</span> +Isabel, who had been sent on a visit +to an aunt in Sydney to be "out of the +way") waiting to greet her welcome +guest; and Rachel, jumping down from +the buggy, and flinging herself into +those faithful arms, felt that she had +been a wandering prodigal in strange +countries for half a dozen years, +and was on the threshold of home +again.</p> + +<p>"But, oh," she said to herself, when +having seen little Alfy tucked up in +his cot, and having, maidless, with her +own hands, laid away her clothes in +drawers and wardrobes, she began to +dress for dinner, "<i>what</i> could have +made Lucilla imagine that waiting for +him for twenty-four hours would <i>rest</i> +me?"</p><p><span class="pagenum">[238]</span></p> + +<p>The long hours passed, however, as +the longest hours do, and the evening +of Wednesday drew on with a flaming +crimson sunset; and Rachel listened +for the sound of buggy wheels on +distant bush tracks, and was deafened +by the noise of her own loud-beating +heart.</p> + +<p>"They are coming," whispered Lucilla, +creeping with the stealth of a conspirator +into her cool, dim drawing-room, +where the young widow stood, +bright-eyed and pale, in her black +gown, steadying herself with a hand on +the piano.</p> + +<p>"Shall I send him in to you by himself, +dear, or would he think that was +bad taste—a too open and vulgar way +of recognising the state of affairs?"</p><p><span class="pagenum">[239]</span></p> + +<p>"Oh, no, he would think not it vulgar," +replied Rachel, smiling slightly through +her air of solemn and rapt abstraction. +"You must send him by himself, Lucilla, +please—this once."</p> + +<p>The buggy came into the garden and +passed the window. Lucilla, outside on +the verandah, welcomed her guest with +effusive inquiries after Mrs. Digby's health +and welfare, and that of all the little +Digbys' respectively; Mr. Thornley gave +loud directions to the servants about +the portmanteau that was to be carried +to the green gable room. And then the +buggy went to the stable-yard; there +was a few minutes' silence; and the +door of the drawing-room opened +quietly, and Roden Dalrymple came +in.</p><p><span class="pagenum">[240]</span></p> + +<p>He had changed a little in the four +years since she had seen him last; his +ruddy moustache was a little more +grizzled, and the lines in his sun-tanned +forehead were stronger and +deeper.</p> + +<p>She was changed, too; there was a +matronly grace and maturity in the +roundness of her shapely figure and in +the reposeful softness of her face, that +had been wanting in the beauty, fresh +and delicate as he remembered it, of her +earlier girlish years.</p> + +<p>But the only change they recognised +in one another was their deeper capacity +for understanding the worth and the +meaning of such an experience as this, +when, with his back against the closed +door, and her hands about his neck, he<span class="pagenum">[241]</span> +held her in both arms clasped close to +his breast, and they drank together in +one moment of speechless passion the +solace and the sweetness of all the kisses +that they <i>should</i> have had.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>In the evening Lucilla sat down to the +piano, to play some of Beethoven's +sonatas to her husband. It was a lovely +moonshiny summer night, and some of +the windows stood open, letting in the +fragrance of jessamine and tobacco, +and a quantity of tiny moths and +gnats.</p> + +<p>Mr. Thornley, having taken his coffee +and his cigarette upon the verandah, +lying all along on a bamboo easy chair, +stayed there to listen and doze in +obscurity, with his handkerchief thrown<span class="pagenum">[242]</span> +over his bald head to keep off the +mosquitoes.</p> + +<p>For a few minutes Mr. Dalrymple stood +behind his hostess; but, finding that she +played from memory, and therefore did +not want leaves turned over for her, he +left the piano, and crossing the room, +stooped down to Rachel as she sat +in a low chair dreamily fanning +herself.</p> + +<p>"Rachel," he whispered, "is the +lapageria in blossom now?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know, Roden—I don't think +so," she replied.</p> + +<p>"Shall we go and see?"</p> + +<p>She rose at once, and they went +together into the curtained alcove and +through the noiseless swing door.</p> + +<p>"Where is our seat?" he said, taking<span class="pagenum">[243]</span> +her hand as soon as they were alone, +and leading her down the dim alleys, +over-arched with fern trees, and filled +with broken shadows of the gigantic +fronds. "I hope it is in the same +place."</p> + +<p>It was in the same place, but the +place was stiller and darker than it used +to be—built all round and about with +gnarled masses of cork, feathered in +every crevice with maiden hair, and +roofed with drooping leaves.</p> + +<p>There was just moonlight enough to +enable them to find it, and when they +found it they sat down side by side, +and Rachel laid her head on one of +her lover's broad shoulders and her +hand on the other; and they remained +there for several minutes without moving<span class="pagenum">[244]</span> +or speaking, listening to the far-off +sound of the piano, more perfectly at +rest than either of them had ever +imagined it possible to be in this +world.</p> + +<p>Mr. Dalrymple spoke first, drawing a +long breath.</p> + +<p>"<i>Must</i> we be separated any more, +Rachel? Can't we be married now—this +week—to-morrow—and go away from +everybody quietly? It seems like tempting +Providence to lose sight of one +another again—to lose one hour +more than we can help of what +we have been kept out of all this +time."</p> + +<p>"It does—it does," assented Rachel. +"But I promised Aunt Elizabeth that I +would be a widow for a year."</p><p><span class="pagenum">[245]</span></p> + +<p>"You were a widow for me—how many +years?"</p> + +<p>"I know, Roden, I know. I do not +do it willingly. But other people—other +things—have to be considered."</p> + +<p>"Six months more! Child, no one has +any right to demand such an enormous +sacrifice of us. Who knows how long +we may live to be together as we want +to be together? Can we afford to +throw away six months on the top of +six years for the sake of mere sham +propriety, knowing the worth of every +hour as we do?"</p> + +<p>"Roden," said Rachel gently, after a +pause, "it shall be just as you like. If +you think we ought not to wait, +we will not. I can explain to Aunt +Elizabeth."</p><p><span class="pagenum">[246]</span></p> + +<p>And then he recognised his responsibilities.</p> + +<p>"No," he said, "I think perhaps we +had better wait—though there <i>is</i> no +sense or justice in it. We'll pay Mrs. +Grundy the heaviest price that she has +swindled honest people of for many a +day, and then we'll take it out with +interest. But you will do something +for me in the meantime?"</p> + +<p>"There is nothing I could do for you +that I should not want to do for myself, +Roden."</p> + +<p>"You won't go quite away, will you? +You'll stay here till I have to leave, +and then you'll come and stay a long +while with Lily? You'll let me have +sight of you, and keep watch over you, +until the waiting time is up?" There<span class="pagenum">[247]</span> +was no answer required for this question. +What they could do for one another +they would, as both well knew. He +held her tightly in his arms, covering +half her face with his great moustache. +"And when the time is up we will +not wait one hour—not one," he said, +with sudden, strong passion. "That very +day, Rachel, I shall take you away to +Queensland, where nobody can reach +us and nothing can interfere with us. +When at last I <i>do</i> get you, I will +have you—for a little while at all +events—absolutely and wholly to myself."</p> + +<p>And Rachel prayed that she might +be permitted to live until that "little +while" should come.</p> + +<p>It seemed, in this moment of anticipation,<span class="pagenum">[248]</span> +something that it would be +presumptuous for a mortal woman to +hope for, much less to expect.</p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<p>And should Love, when all is said +and done, be the ruler and lord of +all—supreme arbiter of the destinies +of purblind creatures, not one in ten, +perhaps not one in fifty, of whom +have the faculty to see him and know +him as he is?</p> + +<p>Should the passion of wayward girls +defy the wisdom and wishes of parents +and guardians, who have learned in +long years of costly experience something +of the potentialities of this many-sided +life?</p> + +<p>Should all risks of poverty and social +ignominy, with their long train of<span class="pagenum">[249]</span> +trials and temptations, involving the +welfare of innocent relatives and unborn +children, be dared in an irrevocable +moment of enthusiasm for one's +faith in the eternal fidelity of any man +or woman?</p> + +<p>Like many other questions that +trouble us in this world, wherein +nothing seems quite right and nothing +altogether wrong, we are constrained +to leave it for the history of future +ages, that we shall never see, to +answer.</p> + +<p>Knowing only what we know, we +must not say "yes"—we cannot say +"no." We have not sufficient light for +any such generalities.</p> + +<p>But when one finds this unique +treasure of human life, to whom it is,<span class="pagenum">[250]</span> +with respect to his tangible earthly +possessions, what the pearl of great +price was to the merchantman of Scripture, +there seems no better thing for +him to do than to sell all that he has +to buy it, so long as he sells only what +is absolutely his own, and none of the +rights and privileges that belong to +other people.</p> + +<p class="h3">THE END.</p> + +<p class="spacer"> </p> + +<p class="h5">London: Printed by A. Schulze, 13, Poland Street. (S. & H.)</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's A Mere Chance, Vol. 3 of 3, by Ada Cambridge + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A MERE CHANCE, VOL. 3 OF 3 *** + +***** This file should be named 38085-h.htm or 38085-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/0/8/38085/ + +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.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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